FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump gestures in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 6, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
Donald Trump remains as committed as ever to his obsession with annexing Greenland, but during an MS NOW appearance Thursday, one senator involved in the fight to stop him warned that this "dumb" idea would "economically destroy" the United States.
Trump has expressed a desire to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, since his first term in the White House, but the idea has built up considerable urgency and hostility during his second term, with the president refusing to rule out the use of military force and dismissing any compromises. Such an attack, leaders and experts warn, could spell the end of NATO, the military alliance that has helped avert another world war for a century.
The reasons Trump has given for wanting Greenland have shifted over the years, but more recently, he has claimed that the island is needed for "national security" reasons. Appearing on MS NOW to discuss the situation, Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, dismissed that concern as illegitimate and argued that the reasons are much more simple-minded.
"This has nothing to do with actual security concerns," Gallego said. "This is the president being an idiot, and he is really excited about the idea of taking this big piece of land that's on a map, and he's using any excuse to actually cover up his idiotic idea."
Gallego noted that the U.S. already has access to the waters around Greenland for military purposes, and Denmark has offered to let the military expand the bases it already has there. The country has also offered expanded access to mineral deposits as part of a compromise, but Trump has not budged from what the senator decried as "a fit of fancy."
Beyond the thin rationales Trump has put forward, Gallego warned that the U.S. using military force to take control of Greenland would not just cause NATO to implode, it would also wreck the American economy by tarnishing our relationship with important allies.
"This will economically destroy the United States. It will make us severely less secure because NATO will no longer be aligned with us. They will be aligned with themselves. And you'd see our economy just really drop into, you know, some really scary levels because the European Union, Canada, all the free countries of the world would decide that we are no longer a safe haven. We are not a country to be trusted, and they would no longer invest in our country."
He continued: "That would be a terrible, terrible thing to do. And right now it is hard out there. Everything is hard. It's hard to find a job. It's hard to pay for anything. And this president is going to make it worse by going after something that he only wants for his legacy project, [that is] not in the best interest of Americans, the American working class or our national security."