Trump’s Greenland Rantings Put World on Edge

A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is the TPM Morning Memo.

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The Mad King

President Trump is roaming the Arctic, NATO and basic common sense in a manner so uninhibited and so public that it is giving rise to renewed calls to invoke the 25th Amendment. This is not the case, but its brutal grip on reality is already causing serious damage to the North Atlantic alliance.

The most egregious concoction of Trump’s fevered mind was the missive to the Norwegian president, irrationally linking his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize to his threats against Greenland: “I no longer feel compelled to think only about peace. » Here is the full text:

NEW: @potus letter to @jonasgahrstore links @NobelPrix in Greenland, reiterates its threats and is transmitted by NSC staff to several European ambassadors in Washington. I obtained the text from several officials:

Dear Ambassador:

President Trump has requested that the…

– Nick Schifrin (@nickschifrin) January 19, 2026

Since these absurdities, Trump has published on social networks his private texts with European leaders, not only alarmed but also mystified by the ramblings of the American president. “I don’t know what you are doing in Greenland,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote to Trump in a text.

Trump’s threat this weekend to impose punitive tariffs on Europe if it does not bend to his will on Greenland has transformed Davos from a convention on the lifestyles of the rich and famous into an emergency summit on the future of transatlantic relations. And Trump won’t arrive until tomorrow.

Among the latest developments:

• Denmark has deployed a small contingent of combat troops to Greenland, including the head of the Danish army.

• “We live in uncharted territories. We have never seen this before. An ally, a friend for 250 years, is planning to use tariffs… as a geopolitical weapon,” French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said.
• “A line has been crossed… You will understand that today I am not saying exactly what will happen. But one thing must be clear: Europe must be prepared,” declared German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil.
• The three highest-ranking Catholic cardinals in the United States have issued a joint statement condemning US policies towards Greenland, Venezuela and Ukraine – and warning that America’s “moral role in fighting evil in the world” is now in question.

Feds Not Investigating Good Shooting

Since yesterday was a federal holiday, I want to make sure you’re aware of the important news that the Justice Department has ended its investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Good by ICE, even though the FBI’s initial review “determined that sufficient grounds existed to initiate a civil rights investigation.”

Although this is a complete abdication of the DOJ’s role, the level of confidence was already extremely low in any federal investigation controlled directly by the Trump White House. What I’m interested in is whether – since there is no ongoing federal investigation – this clears the way for state investigators to access all the evidence they need to continue their investigation. And if not, on what basis is the federal government moving forward to thwart the state investigation?

Investigate the property instead of ICE

The WaPo updated its article later yesterday with this additional nugget, suggesting that instead of using its powers under the Civil Rights Act to investigate ICE, it instead turned them against Good:

[S]Shortly after the shooting, law enforcement sought a warrant to search Good’s car under a civil rights law, according to an FBI official familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The official said a magistrate judge approved that warrant, although officers did not execute it after it was granted.

Instead, the FBI official said that as new facts emerged in the case, law enforcement sought an arrest warrant under an assault statute. A magistrate judge threw out that warrant, the FBI official said, ruling that it was not appropriate law because Good was dead and could not be charged with assault.

It’s unclear why the FBI didn’t execute the search warrant, but you’ll recall that a half-dozen top lawyers in the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota resigned rather than comply with an order to investigate the political activities of Good’s widow.

More impact from a good shot

• Michael Feinberg, former FBI agent: “[W]What much of the nation has seen today is law enforcement that is not professionalized or responsive to the situation. It was a series of incredibly bad choices leading to an unnecessary death.
• The far right demonizes Good and his widow with the acronym “AWFUL.”
• Since the Civil War, the federal government has provided a safety net for enforcing civil rights laws when state and local governments fail to do so, but former DOJ Jonathan Wroblewski argues that the roles were reversed in Trump II and that district attorneys and state attorneys general must step in to investigate ICE abuses.

Monitoring mass deportations

• Marisa Kabas: Behind the disturbing image of ICE kidnapping an elderly, half-naked Hmong American from his home in St. Paul
• WaPo: Family of man shot by ICE in Minneapolis disputes key aspects of DHS account
• Judd Legum: ICE stopped paying for detainees’ medical care
• Valerie Smith attended a Customs and Border Patrol recruiting event in Florida that touted qualified immunity and early retirement: “By never saying ‘no,’ I was kept from standing near the recruiting table to have a completed application submitted on my behalf, and told to expect a tentative job offer within a few weeks.”

The FBI-MAGA Disinformation Pipeline

The New York Times took an extensive look over the weekend at how the FBI has become the wellhead of a pipeline of disinformation flowing to Republicans on the Hill and to the broader MAGA universe:

[U]Under the leadership of its current head, Kash Patel, the office has added returns to its portfolio. Agents are now scouring the FBI’s vast holdings to root out negative information about those who investigated President Trump, according to current and former officials, lawmakers and lawyers representing some of those targeted. …

The documents, once assembled, were generally distributed through various channels to Trump-allied media outlets and Republicans on Capitol Hill, including to Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

This is particularly relevant as former special counsel Jack Smith approaches his upcoming public testimony on the Hill on Thursday.

A symbolic appearance

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell plans to attend in person Supreme Court arguments tomorrow on whether President Trump can fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook under the flimsy pretext of false claims of mortgage fraud.

One year down, three years to go

On the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Thomas Zimmer argues, perhaps counterintuitively, that the past year has not been an inexorable slide from democracy toward inevitable authoritarianism:

Repeatedly over the past twelve months, the regime has pushed the country to the brink of some sort of authoritarian escalation that would have taken America across the border into full-fledged autocratic territory…but then failed and/or proved unwilling to go there. Repeatedly, the Trumpists appeared ready to defeat Democratic opposition, break down the obstacles that the constitutional order still put in their way, and completely obliterate the system — but then they could not or did not dare to enforce that next step.

Zimmer, who is quick to say he is not making predictions or downplaying current dangers, focuses on three moments when Trump’s forces encountered retaliation they could not overcome.

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