Washington Week with The Atlantic

I want to pivot now to a new Jeopardy category, Fights with Friends, because that's another area of the Trump administration that we haven't really talked about yet, and we'll get to the tariff aspect of this, which is looming.

But first, Greenland.

Mark?

MARK LEIBOVICH: You look at me.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes, I look at you because you're the only person I know who's ever been to Greenland.

And you're just back from Greenland and from the capital of Nuuk.

And I just -- if you can give us your sense of how seriously in Greenland are they taking Trump's desire to absorb Greenland into the United States.

This isn't that category, also not just fights with friends, but in the category of completely extracurricular activities on the part of the Trump administration that nevertheless create unneeded anxiety when there's so much other going on.

But talk about your experience there.

MARK LEIBOVICH: Yes.

first of all, my boss sent me to Greenland for -- in January.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Your boss must really not like you.

MARK LEIBOVICH: You know, he must.

I've done something wrong at some point.

But, you know, but I figured I'd work in The Atlantic's Nuuk bureau for a few days.

That's no doubt.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It is, by the way, in the Atlantic.

MARK LEIBOVICH: It is.

Like, yes, we're not called The Pacific, right?

Anyway, I went to Nuuk, this is obviously kind of a goofy little story because it involves a place that most people have never been to, present company excluded, and, you know, it's kind of field peripheral at this moment.

But, look, if you live there, it's the only issue in town.

If you live in Denmark, it is like the number one geopolitical issue in that country, in many NATO countries.

I mean, the fact is Donald Trump had this conversation, he wants to buy -- okay, to give a little background, he wants to buy Greenland from Denmark.

Had a conversation, apparently, about a week and a half ago, with the prime minister of Denmark, did not go well at all.

He has not ruled out military intervention, some kind of economic intervention, I mean, it's kind of -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And noting, by the way, that Denmark is a member of NATO.

MARK LEIBOVICH: Correct.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, Denmark, if the -- God forbid that it ever came into some kind of -- PETER BAKER: We have to come to Denmark -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Come to Denmark's aid in the way that Denmark came to our aid after 9/11.

MARK LEIBOVICH: I mean, to give you a little window into this, though, I watched President Trump's inaugural address with a group of parliament members and politico types in the capital of Nuuk.

And they were all kind of ours.

Did he mention us?

We're going to get a line.

We're going to get two lines or something like that.

And then when it was clear where the speech was going and how aggressive it was and how, you know, one woman I was sitting with said, that's very menacing.

I don't want him to mention us now.

They, sort of at the end, like, one of them said, well, can you feel like we've, you know, a sigh of relief in here?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Because he mentioned Panama.

MARK LEIBOVICH: He mentioned Panama.

Everyone thought, okay, we're next.

You know, Gulf of America, we're next.

And usually that segues to Canada.

Often it goes to Nuuk, to Greenland, never got that far.

Look, I mean, it's a -- again, on one hand it's a goofy story, on the other hand it's deathly serious with a very far reaching direction.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Based on your reporting, do you think the Trump administration is serious about trying to find a way to own Greenland?

MARK LEIBOVICH: I think -- look, right now, I mean, traditionally, it belongs to Denmark.

If they want to negotiate some kind of sale or some kind of trade or something, I mean, that's been done in history before.

That could happen.

But as far as any kind of force, again, using military, using economic strength, that hasn't happened.

But, you know, again, no one really knows what they're dealing with here.

PETER BAKER: This is classic Trump, by the way.

So, this is -- everybody took it as a joke, right?

When this first came up in, I think, your paper first reported back in 2019.

And we went back and looked at it for our books, Susan Glasser, my wife, and I, we discovered it wasn't a joke.

It's actually something he had been bringing up for more than 18 months before it became public because his friend, Ron Lauder, put it in his head that this would be a great idea.

And he would bring it up at cabinet meeting after cabinet meeting.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Ron Lauder, the -- PETER BAKER: The billionaire, exactly, yes, the billionaire pal of his, just is randomly a thought that Lauder had.

Now Lauder is no longer on the inside, it's stuck with Trump.

We asked Trump during an interview we did for the book, why Greenland, and he said, I looked at the map, it looked like a great thing.

I mean, he has his real estate view of it.

MARK LEIBOVICH: It's true.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It looks like a great thing.

MARK LEIBOVICH: Well, not only that, I mean, there is actually a geopolitical argument for wanting Greenland.

I mean, like, the climate change, I mean, the trade paths that, you know, the melting ice is creating, there's all kinds of really valuable minerals, possible (INAUDIBLE) deposits.

I mean, there is -- PETER BAKER: Another president wouldn't negotiate maybe more military presence there or, you know, leasing more territory for a base or what have you.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I mean, the United States military can get what it wants out of Greenland without Greenland.

Is that fair?

NANCY YOUSSEF: I don't know.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Basing?

NANCY YOUSSEF: They could get basing, absolutely.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I mean, basing issues and other issues, overflight.

NANCY YOUSSEF: Absolutely.

There's no need to invade.

There are all sorts of options.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It's amazing that we're spending this much time.

I bet Greenland has not been discussed this much on -- MARK LEIBOVICH: I could talk about it forever.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Apparently, yes.

But this goes to your theory, by the way, that this is a flood the zone issue.

It's like, well, they're not talking about anything that I'm doing for the last two hours, so I'm going to raise the question of Greenland again, and then everybody jumps because he is the president.

So, what the president says is axiomatically important and it and it matters.

ALI VITALI: But it's also a reminder, right, of the way that policy and ideas get made in Trump world whoever talked to him last, proximity is power, and then you start looking at who's around him, Elon Musk.

Okay, now you're offering potential government buyouts for federal employees.

Where did we see that?

Oh, yes at X, when Elon Musk had last taken over.

There's lots of parallels.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: stay on this dealing with friends question, tariffs.

Why now?

What's going to happen?

ALI VITALI: In theory, they could be coming as soon as this weekend, or even as soon as Saturday.

And the plan at this point is to leverage a 10 percent tariff against China, citing fentanyl flow and trafficking into the U.S. And then the other idea is to put a 25 percent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico.

The Canadians, of course, the Mexican government, all trying to make entreaties to the administration.

Trump said something to the effect today of it's a done deal.

Nothing can be said.

But, of course, nothing can be said until something can be said.

And then we see the art of the deal once again in play.

But this could have and likely will have, if they go forward with it, true economic impacts on Americans, including people in places like Michigan, who has some of the highest percentage of imports in this country.

Many Michigan lawmakers have already been calling me and other reporters just warning about how bad this could be on the Michigan economy and then also for Americans there.

And I think that's really one of the places where you could see the rubber meet the road for Trump voters that might have voted for this theory of getting tough on the world stage and then seeing the way that it hits their pocketbooks.

Price of eggs, by the way, is still not down and this could be a moment where maybe we see a change.

But also NBC News has done interviews with Trump supporters who say, I know he's trying to bring prices down, it's hard though.

So, they're willing to let him off the hook as long as he looks like he's trying.

PETER BAKER: But if you thought 9 percent inflation was tough in one year during the Biden administration, imagine 25 percent higher cost, consumer items and so forth.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Do we get eggs from Canada?

PETER BAKER: We're not getting eggs from anywhere right now.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: We're not getting eggs from anywhere.

In the couple minutes that we have left, I want to talk about something very serious, which is the FBI.

Nancy, we're hearing all kinds of reports over the last day that they're looking for people inside the FBI who are involved in any kind of Trump related investigation, and Kash Patel, who is the nominee to run the FBI, has clearly talked about retribution in the past.

What do you think is coming down the road here?

NANCY YOUSSEF: Well, what they're saying is anyone who is affiliated, which we're talking about hundreds of people, for things like looking at Trump or January 6th investigation, now need to be looked at about whether they have a future in the FBI.

And so we're starting this sort of culture of investigation within the organization.

And remember, these are people who didn't volunteer or ask or seek these jobs out like a military deployment.

They were assigned the jobs and they did those jobs.

And on the week that we heard from Kash Patel, in which he made it very clear despite his best efforts to calm the fears of some senators, that there will be a retribution potentially within the FBI for investigations that go against what the administration wants.

It has the chilling effect, really, when you hear about people who could be pushed out of their jobs, not for doing something political but for doing something that was supposed to be strictly not political, carrying out their jobs.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Peter, is this retribution, potentially retribution, or is this just a way of making sure that everyone gets the message, don't look into the Trump family, don't look into Trump's activities?

PETER BAKER: That certainly will not be happening in the next four years, for sure.

And, look, Kash Patel has said, and he's reflecting Trump's view, that the FBI is a corrupt, politicized swamp monster of an agency, and it deserved to be essentially broken down and rebuilt from scratch.

So, their argument will be, we're getting rid of the politicized people in order to restore its trust and integrity.

Everybody else would look at that, as we just said, Nancy has said as targeting people who just did their job.

They're not political, they were just assigned to do it.

And now the message is very clear.

You know what the consequences are if you cross Donald Trump or his people, they're not -- there is no protection there for you, at least at the moment.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Mark, last 30 seconds, what's the most surprising thing that's happened this week to you?

MARK LEIBOVICH: I would say the most surprising - - well, look, it's just -- I do think that, yes, this is sort of the random haphazard approach that we thought, but this doesn't feel random and haphazard.

This actually feels more organized.

It feels more targeted.

Yes, there is a shock and awe.

Yes, there is a, you know, one thing after another effect, as there was before.

There does feel like more of a method to the madness than there was last time.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: We'll watch next week from our bureau in Greenland, Mark.

MARK LEIBOVICH: I'll be there.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

You should get the summer -- you try to get the summer shift.

MARK LEIBOVICH: There will be direct flights from Newark to Nuuk.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I have no doubt.

But, unfortunately, we need to leave it there for now.