Next Up with Mark Halperin
Trump’s Greenland End Game and His Showdown with Europe and NATO, Plus Iran’s Next Chapter Revealed, with Ben Ferguson, Yemisi Egbewole, and Morton Halperin
15 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: Why is Donald Trump's interest in Greenland significant?
nexters welcome to next up with me mark calperin thank you for watching i'm editor-in-chief of the live interactive video platform two-way and the host here to bring you a preview of everything that's coming next up grateful to you for tuning in hope you're glad you want to spend the time together because there's lots of stuff going on here at home but also no shortage of consequential foreign policy news overseas uh greenland iran venezuela russia
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So in my reported monologue today, I'm super excited about this. We've all been talking about Greenland for a while. I did some reporting with folks in the administration on Capitol Hill and some foreign policy analysts. But a lot of my reporting today is more like my research monologue. I decided I need to know more about Greenland than I did two days ago.
So I'm going to have some great stuff to share with you that I learned about Greenland and some analysis about where this whole thing is going. A very uniquely Trump story. We'll walk through it and why it matters.
Chapter 2: What are the implications of Greenland's geopolitical importance?
And again, hopefully get to what's coming next up. Why is the United States interested in Greenland? After that, three great guests to talk about Greenland and more. My dad, Morton H. Halpern. longtime foreign policy and will be here to walk through what Donald Trump's doing with Greenland and how the whole thing could be resolved. Ben Ferguson will be here, a great talker, a conservative.
And then Yemesi Agbiwale will be here as well. The two of them will talk a little foreign, but also some domestic. And I'm looking forward to getting their thoughts on everything. Before that, though, here is my reported monologue on Greenland. This is such an interesting story to me. It's a huge story.
And we saw this week in Washington at the senior most levels, the foreign ministers of both Denmark and Greenland coming to the United States, meeting with the vice president of the United States, J.D. Vance, with Marco Rubio, the president, talking about this topic on social media, in White House photo opportunities. It's a huge question. And the president's made it clear
he's in conflict not just with denmark and greenland but with all of europe basically over this question of who will control greenland and the president has said no compromise no kind of halfway measure he wants it all he wants the united states to control it and he said uh with an emphasis on national security that the united states needs to control greenland to make sure that russia and china do not
Europe is not pleased. They've sent their own military forces to Greenland and some more coming. Symbolic show of force.
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Chapter 3: How does the U.S. strategy towards Iran evolve?
I don't think anybody thinks they're there to actually deter a United States invasion. And no one I talk to expects a United States invasion. What they do expect, though,
is for this story to percolate for quite some time as the united states for economic geopolitical sphere of influence economic uh military reasons looks to play a different role in greenland okay so i'm going to walk you through a little bit of uh of what's of what the the history of all this is and then talk about um where it might go Okay.
Now, this has been a topic not just on cable news, but you know a story has hit at least some cultural vein when it makes it to the late-night comedy shows. That is still a great use for them because the folks in those writer rooms are reading all the headlines, and they've got lots of stuff to joke about. Here's Jimmy Fallon on Greenland. S10, please.
Yeah, Trump is still talking about taking over Greenland, and he said that if we invaded, their only defense would be two dog sleds. Kristi Noem was like, I can take care of those. It's interesting because dog sled drivers and Trump's brain doctor both say the same thing. Mush, mush.
All right. So Greenland is this big island, right?
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Chapter 4: What challenges does the U.S. face in dealing with Iran?
And it's got its own government. It's got its own leadership. But it's very connected to Denmark. And it has been now for three centuries. It's been different, has a different relationship over the years. It's been a colony back when colonies were allowed. Today, Greenland largely governs itself, but they're dependent on Denmark for a lot of economic aid, for national security protection.
uh and uh economic subsidies uh there's always been talk uh last decades about eventually there being a path towards independence but as we'll discuss here in a minute greenland really couldn't be an independent country it's too reliant on the current relationship with denmark to survive on its own it's got 56 000 people okay 56 000 people to put that in context that's how many people live in burlington vermont
That's how many people fit in Dodger Stadium. It is a tiny population. It's the size of people you'd see at a Dodger game, the whole country. And they're spread out. Some of them live in a few more urban-y areas, but a lot of them live in very rural areas where –
if you want to take a bath uh you melt a block of ice literally uh to take your bath uh how big is it it's it's it's gigantic if you look at it on a map uh it seems pretty big but the maps sort of lie greenland is huge it's it's five times the size of california okay so imagine the number of people who live in burlington vermont living in the largest island in the world five times the size of california uh just imagine replacing all the strip malls and and replacing them with
glaciers.
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Chapter 5: How might the Greenland conflict affect Trump's legacy?
That's how big it is. Okay. Slightly bigger than Mexico and yet extremely rural. 80% of it covered with ice. They have fewer than a hundred miles of paved roads. Okay. So this is a weird place. I'm not saying there's nowhere like it on earth, but again, 56,000 people living in a country five times the size of California with a hundred miles of paved roads.
most people if you want to get around you do it by air you do it by plane or some other aircraft um it's a beautiful place and a bunch of news organizations because it's such an irresistible story have sent reporters and photographers there i want to show you a couple pictures i i want to buy one of these houses i'm not sure how much they cost here's a6 this is a picture of greenland uh and they have these very colorful houses at least in parts of the country this is like an irresistible shot for a photographer
So there you see these colorful houses. If you're not listening to the podcast, you're watching on YouTube, you can see it. This is like a painting. It's beautiful, snow-covered houses nestled on a hill overlooking the water. Here's the same type of shot. This is the summer, though, A7.
Chapter 6: What are the political ramifications for both parties leading up to the midterms?
This is... This is, again, beautiful, just a picture book kind of images, okay? Now, what kind of place is this? When people think about every country in the world, what do they got? Most every country's got Starbucks, got McDonald's, got Walmart's. So I looked it up. Guess how many they have on each of those three. Combined total, Starbucks, McDonald's, and Walmart's on Greenland, zero.
They've got other stores, but they don't have those great American brands. they're not even a member of FIFA. They've tried to get into FIFA for soccer. They're not even in. So... Part of why this story is so interesting and so complicated is you've got the relationship between Greenland and Denmark. Then you've got NATO hovering over the whole thing.
Chapter 7: How do the guests perceive the future of U.S.-Greenland relations?
And then you've got the people of Greenland. And every reporter who goes there finds the same thing. There's some public opinion polling that finds the same thing. There are some amongst the 56,000 who would like a closer relationship with the United States. But Every reporter who goes finds roughly the same thing, A13.
People there are not super excited to be part of the United States in any way. Here's the headline from The New York Times, quote, We're not stupid. What Greenlanders would say to Trump, a visit to Greenland reveals a swirl of feelings. as people nervously await talks with the Trump administration about the island's future.
The New York Times characterizes how people in Greenland feel about Donald Trump's toying with them. It's a word the Times use. And they say, there's a kaleidoscope of feelings that swirl in Greenland itself. People are shocked, angry, confused, humiliated, insulted, and most of all, scared. None of that sounds happy, right?
Chapter 8: What lessons can be learned from the discussions about Greenland and Iran?
I read the list when I was reading the story, and I thought, well, maybe they'll throw in hopeful or curious. No. Shocked, angry, confused, humiliated, insulted, and most of all, scared. Here's a quote from a guy named Canuck Abelson who says, I hunt whales and seals. In the United States, they think whales and seals are cute and shouldn't be hunted. That's what I'm afraid of.
So that's a particular complaint. Here is from the BBC a number of sound bites from people. We used to call them man on the street. Now we call them people on the streets, the snowy streets, from Greenland, talking about how they feel about the prospects of an affiliation with the United States or an invasion. S7, please.
I don't want to be a part of U.S. and they should leave us alone.
We cannot take our country. It's ours. We need to get and stand together and fight for it. I'd like to encourage to use your both ears.
wisely and speak this we are not for sale all right you can cut out of this one because people in the podcast won't hear it uh here's uh more of the same uh this is from the telegraph uh same thing they went and surveyed what people in the streets said and i don't have any reason to believe these are misleading they seem by by all the reporting to be pretty representative of what people in greenland think which is no enthusiasm for this project s12 please
A tweet about Greenland was the next target. So that was scary. I try to be pragmatic. I think there's a big loss of control in a sense of what's happening with your country. And that's...
That's scary. So you think Trump is bluffing when he's saying that, you know, he won't rule out using force to take Greenland?
Well, I'm saying that it's just a very unrealistic scenario and that there would be no need for it. So I don't see it as something that we should take as seriously as a lot of different actors right now are taking it.
In our home, my teenage daughter came to me and said, maybe we should, now it's time to move outside of Greenland because she was scared of what's happening here. I never heard her say that before, so it was a bit scary to have this responsibility as a mother, try and be calm and say everything will be fine, even though we don't know what's going to happen.
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