‘What He Wants Is Conquest’: Maggie Haberman Puts Trump’s Greenland Ambitions in Blunt Terms

CNN’s Maggie Haberman offered a stark assessment of President Donald Trump’s aims for Greenland.

The president will address the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday as he continues sabre-rattling over the Danish territory of 56,000. Trump has insisted that acquiring Greenland is necessary for “national security,” even though a 1951 treaty allows the U.S. president to expand its military footprint on the island. Additionally, he has said taking the territory is “what I feel is psychologically needed for success.”

Haberman appeared on Tuesday’s edition of The Source, hours after Trump held a marathon press conference in which he again refused to rule out taking Greenland by force.

Guest host Kasie Hunt asked Haberman, “Can you help us understand exactly what is driving the president when it comes to Greenland, and how far he’s prepared to take it?”

Haberman replied that Trump himself may not know how far he is willing to push the Greenland issue, but said that the president wants “conquest”:

I can’t help you understand how far he’s prepared to take it, Kasie, because I’m not sure he knows himself, and not all of his aides and advisers and members of his administration are happy with how far he is going right now in his rhetoric. Others are quite happy, but he leaves himself many different doors to push through.

But what he wants is conquest. I mean, it’s really not much more complicated. He sees it as territory that he should be able to have. He’s been talking about this since his first term. He treated it as something of a joke, frankly, in his first term, and climbed down from it. But there was an effort put in to looking at whether some kind of an acquisition was possible on a strategic basis.

That’s very different than what he’s talking about right now, which is “I want it. I should have it. I’m going to tariff countries that don’t support this”

Haberman went on to say that Trump is not likely to be “as confrontational” with European leaders at Davos as he has been outside of their presence.

Nevertheless, she added, “Trump has made no bones about not really caring for NATO over the past 10-plus years, so it really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

Watch above via CNN.

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