Look, I know we’ve all gotten somewhat numb to the constant stream of unhinged pronouncements from the White House. At some point, the brain develops defense mechanisms. But every now and then, something comes along that is so transparently, obviously, undeniably insane that it demands we stop and actually process what is happening.

This weekend was one of those moments.

President Trump sent a text message to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre that was subsequently leaked to PBS and reported on by the New York Times. And I genuinely need you to read this, because summarizing it doesn’t do justice to how absolutely deranged it is:

Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT

Let me be absolutely clear about what you just read: The President of the United States is explicitly stating that because he didn’t receive an award he wanted, he “no longer feel[s] an obligation to think purely of Peace” and is therefore justified in threatening to forcibly take territory from a NATO ally.

This is the stated reasoning. From the President. In writing. To a foreign head of state.

And this only came after Trump first announced illegal and unnecessary tariffs on products from Europe for not just handing him Greenland (which is actually a tax on Americans, since that’s who pays the tariffs). Støre’s initial text message to Trump was an attempt to get him to calm down and to stop doing ridiculously antagonistic shit like taxing Americans because foreign countries won’t just hand Trump an entire territory he’s unhealthily obsessed with.

I want to focus on a few layers of insanity here, because they compound on each other in ways that should be making every American deeply uncomfortable.

First: Trump is yelling at the wrong country about the wrong thing.

The Nobel Peace Prize is not awarded by the Norwegian government. It is awarded by an independent five-member committee chosen by Norway’s parliament. Prime Minister Støre had to patiently explain this (again) in response:

As regards the Nobel Peace Prize, I have on several occasions clearly explained to Trump what is well known, namely that it is an independent Nobel Committee, and not the Norwegian government, that awards the prize

This is not obscure information. This is how the Nobel Prize has worked since 1901. The fact that the President either doesn’t know this or doesn’t care is already disqualifying. But we’re just getting started.

Also, Greenland is a territory of Denmark. Denmark, notably, is not Norway. Norway is not Denmark. Greenland is not controlled by Norway, just like Norway’s government doesn’t determine who gets the Nobel Peace Prize and… why are we even talking about this?

Second: He’s openly admitting his Greenland obsession has nothing to do with national security.

For months, the official line has been that acquiring Greenland is somehow essential for American national security. But here’s Trump, in his own words, saying the quiet part extremely loud: the real reason is that his feelings got hurt over a prize. The “national security” framing was always pretextual nonsense, and now we have the President himself confirming it. Beyond the fact that the threat to take Greenland has, itself, done a tremendous amount of damage to US national security, Trump’s linking it to the prize undermines every other claim.

If Greenland were actually critical to American security interests, the Nobel Committee’s decisions would be completely irrelevant. The fact that Trump is explicitly linking the two reveals the entire enterprise as what it always was: the wounded ego of a man who desperately wants validation and will threaten sovereign nations to get it.

Third: “There are no written documents” is weapons-grade historical illiteracy.

Denmark’s connection to Greenland stretches back over 300 years. There are, in fact, extensive written documents, including treaties that the United States itself has signed recognizing Danish sovereignty over Greenland. A 2004 defense pact between the U.S. and Denmark—which already grants the US tremendous rights to make use of Greenland for the US military—explicitly recognizes Greenland as “an equal part of the Kingdom of Denmark.” In 1916, when Denmark sold what are now the U.S. Virgin Islands to the United States, the treaty included an explicit clause where the U.S. agreed not to object to Danish interests in Greenland.

But sure, “there are no written documents” and “boats landing” is apparently the level of historical analysis we’re working with now. (We won’t even get into the question of what it means for the United States that “boats landing here hundreds of years ago” gives you no rights to the land).

Fourth: He’s threatening to invade a country because he didn’t get a Peace Prize.

Like, what the fuck are we even doing here?

Also, no, he didn’t stop “8 wars PLUS.” Stop letting him get away with lying about this. He’s taking credit for a ton of other things that weren’t wars, that aren’t over, or that he had nothing to do with.

Fifth: This is 25th Amendment territory, and everyone knows it.

The 25th Amendment exists precisely for situations where a President is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” When the President openly states that his bellicose foreign policy is being driven by a grudge over not receiving a peace prize—and that this grudge means he no longer feels obligated to pursue peace—we are describing someone whose judgment is fundamentally compromised.

Some people are actually (finally!) saying this out loud. Senator Ed Markey tweeted simply: “Invoke the 25th Amendment.” Rep. Eric Swalwell tweeted just “25” with a copy of the letter. The Daily Beast ran a piece with the headline “Trump’s Insane New Threat Leaves No Doubt: It’s Time for the 25th Amendment.“

As the Daily Beast put it:

It is clearly not rational to start a war because your feelings got hurt by not winning a prize that you were not even eligible for. It is certainly not rational to sabotage the country’s national security—emboldening Russia and China—over those hurt feelings.

But here’s what’s actually happening: basically everyone in a position to do something about this is pretending everything is fine.

The normalization machine is working overtime.

The same people who would be absolutely losing their minds if any Democratic president sent a message like this to a foreign leader are now either silent or actively running interference. A decade ago, as a political rival, Ted Cruz once warned that we’d wake up one day to find a President Trump had nuked Denmark. And yet now he’s actively supporting Trump’s lunacy.

Or take Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt. In December of 2024 after Trump was re-elected, but before he took office, the Senator went on TV to talk up how Trump was the non-interventionist President who would keep the US out of foreign wars.

Well, I think that’s a longer discussion and a discussion that President Trump had in his first term. I do think we’re entering a new phase, though, of realism in this country. President Trump will be less interventionist*, and we get back to our core national interests. Principally defending the homeland, the Indo-Pacific, and China, and so I think that’s a longer term conversation.*

We’ll make sure everybody is safe over there. That’s the first order of business, but, again, I think people have had enough of these forever wars all across the world*. We can’t be everywhere all at once all the time. That’s just not our capability, so I think that I’m welcoming President Trump coming with this agenda.*

Yet, over the weekend he tweeted out a long thread arguing that “territorial expansion is a time-honored American tradition” and that it’s “in our blood” to acquire Greenland (leaving out that the examples he gave of the Louisiana Purchase and Alaska did not come with a mad President demanding we get the land or we’d attack).

And the most galling part? Everyone knows. Everyone knows this is insane. The Republicans know it. The Democrats know it. Foreign leaders definitely know it. The Norwegian Prime Minister had to respond to an unhinged text message from the leader of the free world as if it were a normal diplomatic communication. Denmark’s foreign minister had to issue statements about how “you can’t threaten your way to ownership of Greenland” as if that’s a thing that should ever need to be said to an American president.

Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska who is not seeking reelection (funny how that works), actually said what everyone is thinking. When he saw the letter, he simply tweeted: “Very embarrassing conduct.”

That’s the most honest assessment you’ll get from a sitting Republican member of Congress. And notice he’s only willing to say it because he’s on his way out.

What are the actual consequences here?

Trump has now announced 10% tariffs on goods from the UK, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Finland—all NATO allies—as punishment for not supporting his acquisition of Greenland. When asked if he’ll follow through, he said “100%.” It’s a silly question all around, but to date, much of the media had treated Trump’s weird infatuation with Greenland as if it were a joke, rather than deadly serious.

When asked if he would use military force to seize Greenland, the President of the United States responded: “No comment.”

The President won’t rule out military action against NATO allies because he didn’t get a peace prize.

Because he didn’t get a peace prize. Peace. Prize.

The EU is holding an emergency summit. Denmark has said that U.S. military action in Greenland would spell the end of NATO. European allies are deploying troops—symbolic numbers, but troops nonetheless—to Greenland. We are watching in real-time as the post-World War II international order that the United States built and led for 80 years crumbles because one man’s ego couldn’t handle not getting an award.

And Russian state media? They’re gloating. As the BBC reported, pro-Kremlin outlets are full of praise for Trump’s Greenland push, which kinda highlights that Trump’s claim that we need Greenland to protect us from Russia is bullshit. Russia is loving this mess. Putin couldn’t have designed a more effective way to fracture NATO if he’d tried. And he tried.

“Standing in the way of the US president’s historic breakthrough is the stubbornness of Copenhagen and the mock solidarity of intransigent European countries, including so-called friends of America, Britain and France,” writes Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

“Europe does not need the American greatness that Trump is promoting. Brussels is counting on ‘drowning’ the US president in the midterm congressional elections, on preventing him from concluding the greatest deal of his life.”

This is not normal. Stop pretending it is.

I’ve written before about how Techdirt has become something of a democracy blog, because when the fundamental institutions that allow for things like innovation and free speech are under attack, everything else becomes secondary. This is one of those moments.

A President who openly admits his foreign policy is driven by personal grievances over awards he didn’t receive is not fit for office. A President who threatens to invade NATO allies and won’t rule out military force against them is a danger to global stability. A President who doesn’t understand (or doesn’t care) that the Nobel Committee is independent from the Norwegian government has no business conducting diplomacy.

These aren’t controversial statements. They’re obvious. Everyone knows it.

But none of the political elite want to act. For nearly a decade now there’s been this weird paralysis where opposing Trumpian nonsense is treated as simply not allowed. Why? Because his most vocal supporters might get upset? So fucking what. He’s ripping apart the global order over a personal grievance. He’s already destroyed so much goodwill and soft power that it will take decades to recover—if recovery is even possible.

The fact that it’s taken until now to even begin discussing the 25th Amendment is already a travesty. That no one with actual power will do anything about it is the real indictment.

We’re protecting a mad king because those who could stop it are too scared of random troll accounts on X (not to mention the world’s richest man) possibly mocking them for not being loyal enough to the mad king.

From Techdirt via this RSS feed