149. Did Trump Blink on Greenland? | Live From Davos

10:38Katty Kay:No, I wouldn't go that far. I would say that Keir Starmer, and I've said this consistently, has generally handled the president well. But Keir Starmer has a diplomatic softness to his personality. Mark Carney does not. Mark Carney was a hockey player, elbows up. He'll forecheck somebody into the corner. Keir Starmer was a lawyer. He's used to polite negotiation. And he's also, I think the problem that Keir Starmer has, if I'm being brutally honest, this is Donald Trump. This is not an American president. You have to stop thinking about the institution of the American presidency. and what other past presidents were like.

11:18Katty Kay:And you have to treat him for exactly who he is. He's mentally unwell. He's slightly unstable, which is why he calls himself a stable genius. And he is a person that's subject to these ambiguous whims. And you have to get a little firmer with him. That's all I would say to the prime minister. But the president...

11:40Anthony Scaramucci:Is Starmer a little weak at home? Because Starmer's having political problems. It could be that.

11:45Katty Kay:I think that's one of the problems. Look at the UK economy without the EU in its isolation. They're like, well, we really do need the United States. We got a pretty good tariff deal from the United States. Lots of exclusions in the deal. Let's not overly push Trump one way or another. We don't need to ignite a fight with him. But the flip side is you got to stand up for yourself a little bit with Donald Trump, because if you don't do that, you're not going to be respected. I know for a fact that Trump has leaned over in conversation with Carney and said, hey, you're a better negotiator than all of these people in the room.

12:20Katty Kay:Yes. Okay. He's done that. Reports have come out about that. It's just a sign of meet him with a little bit of strength. Cowboy up, to use an American expression. but you see the thing that i didn't like about this week and you could feel this from me when we stopped our recording of our show i looked over at you and said there's going to come a day where this reality television production is going to go awry okay here's the setup conflict conflict beat up on people make yourself a hated antagonist and then have a resolution and so now the viewers have a Stockholm syndrome, but actually feel relieved that you're not doing what you immediately said.

13:03Katty Kay:Classic reality television. Tune in for the next episode. Okay. That's what he's doing.

13:08Anthony Scaramucci:We were all there queuing in the hallways.

13:10Katty Kay:Well, I wasn't because I thought I was going to get hit by one of the ray guns that they used in Venezuela. I don't need to get hit with the sonic boom gun. So I'm going to watch it from my little humble abode here. But here's the point to make it, there's going to come a day where the line gets crossed, okay? And the booby trap bomb is going to go off. And that's going to be very bad for the world. It's going to be very bad for America. Somebody's going to say, you know what? I've had enough. If Mark Carney announced, it's not going to, but I just want to give this example because I want to weigh people up.

13:41Katty Kay:Mark Carney says, hey, in addition to trading with the Chinese and giving them oil, we're giving them three air bases here. I'm going to put their military here. Because you know what? We've looked south and the notion that someone's coming over the border, they've got 10 times the population, they've got 500 times the military budget, and I don't want to leave my country undefended. I'm not saying that's going to happen. But if you keep it up, if you keep up this nonsense, a responsible sovereign leader is going to be like, okay, I got to form alliances. I'm not a American superpower. Right. I thought I was an American friend just north of the border.

14:21Katty Kay:There's no military on that border. Has never been since that border was designated in 1905. But you're now telling me, because you're showing maps where my entire country is flagged with an American flag, and you're showing these maps on memes, I guess, to own the libs or try to embarrass me. It would be irresponsible for someone like Corny not to think about a national security response.

14:44Anthony Scaramucci:Of course. I mean, he's elected. He has to protect his own people, right?

14:47Katty Kay:So this is the problem. The president would obviously not listen to me. His people are over the, they've drank so much Kool-Aid. I mean, it's like the Jonestown Kool-Aid punch, these people. But you got to walk it back, guys. You got to cut it out. Okay. It's not healthy. And you're creating so much world global resentment against the United States that it's just not going to be good for the next leader of the country, whoever that president may be.

15:16Anthony Scaramucci:Okay. We're going to take a quick break and come back with some of your questions.

15:24Anthony Scaramucci:So all of you listening on live stream, thank you for sending your questions in. That's great. Here's one from Lynn in Gary. Could Congress remove him for medical reasons? I think that's super unlikely. Article 25 allows that. The cabinet would vote on that.

15:40Katty Kay:The Congress can remove him for impeachment. They got to impeach him and then they got to convict him in the Senate. But the cabinet could get together and vote and say that he's nuts and he's got to go.

15:50Anthony Scaramucci:But that's very unlikely. This cabinet is in lockstep with Donald Trump and Congress. I mean, would you vote him out, Katty Kay? Would I? I don't have a vote. I'm not an American.

15:59Katty Kay:Would you? Oh, she's too polite. She's too British. I'd vote him out. I'd say, OK, this guy's nuts. Got to go.

16:08Anthony Scaramucci:Actually, you know what you were just saying before the break? I do think this agent of chaos theory is an interesting one because that's what he's doing. But the trouble with being an agent of chaos, and I think we said this on the podcast this week, earlier this week, is that it's the law of unintended consequences. Exactly. You know, whether there is things that he is doing that are already producing results that I don't know that he anticipated. He's bringing the center and the right together in Europe with this kind of Greenland shenanigans.

16:36Katty Kay:Well, you're going to get Carney reelected. Okay, this guy probably. By the way, I texted you.

16:40Anthony Scaramucci:I was in the room texting you. He said, okay, that's it. If you're thinking of running against Mark Carney, save your money. Don't bother running. Of course, he's going to get donations from the right.

16:48Katty Kay:That is all he needs is like, you know, actual reelection bit.

16:51Anthony Scaramucci:So he does have unintended consequences. And I think that at one point there is a serious, we've got another three years. We've talked about him being a lame duck. He's going to be more of a lame duck domestically than he is internationally. He's still as president of the United States. There is a lot that he can do internationally without Congress, whatever happens in Congress. we're one literally one year and one day in he can do a lot more in three years or he can try a lot more and so the the risk of those unintended consequences that's my that's my fear katie it's

17:20Katty Kay:going to get exponentially worse by the way after the midterms when he's in full lame duck status he's going to go crazy it's going to get exponentially worse okay we're one year and one day into this man's second term of the presidency okay it's going to get on it's going to be exponentially worse unless somebody checks them.

17:41Anthony Scaramucci:Okay, another question. Rachel Thomas, 321. What will happen to all the US bases in Europe if NATO breaks up? It would take years to wind them down. I'm a British ex-US service spouse. Congratulations. Thank you for service. So have some sense of how hard that would be. Here's my theory. If he takes Greenland by force or by massive coercion, you may get the Danes leaving NATO for a while. The rest of Europe is so desperate to have the American security umbrella, even if it's a diminished security umbrella, even if it's a security umbrella that comes with a certain amount of kind of strong arming from the United States.

18:18Anthony Scaramucci:Until Europe has its own security defense mechanisms in place, it needs the NATO and it needs the American security umbrella. And they really do not want to shut the US bases. That would be a last resort.

18:30Katty Kay:Again, I want to take things to the extreme so people can see how crazy this would all be. Shut down Rammstein. Shut down all the bases. Don't let them use the UK military airports to grab the oil tankers from Venezuela. You're going to create a nightmare. They talk about, you know, Bessette said, oh, they have$100 billion of treasuries. They got$40 trillion of data outstanding. what's the big deal if Denmark sells our treasuries. No, you're right, Scott. It's not a big deal, but the domino is a big deal. If you get$15 trillion of treasury sales, do you know how sensitive those interest rates markets are?

19:11Katty Kay:And do you know how high interest rates will skyrocket in the United States? And do you know how impossible it will be to pay off the debt or to use, you'll be borrowing money. You want to talk about a debt super cycle, Cady? You'll be borrowing money to pay the interest on the money that you borrowed. This is something that the billionaire Ray Dalio has talked about ad nauseum, and he's here in Davos talking about it. The United States is in danger of tripping over a wire where people pull themselves away from the US dollar. If that happens to the United States - They do that already, Anthony.

19:48Katty Kay:They are on the margin, but not enough. I mean, it's not substantial. I'm just saying if you said no more NATO, all the sovereigns sell their sovereign debt that they hold in the United States, no more military presence in Europe, America is now going to be America alone. You're going to collapse the dollar. The dollar has lost 30 % of its value since January of 2026. Guys, you've got to wake up. the nonsense that he is spewing is not helping the country. Even if he makes a point here or there about affordability or makes a point here or there about deregulation or some of the successes he has, this type of nonsense is hurting the country.

20:31Anthony Scaramucci:You spoke about Howard Lucknick coming in as the kind of defender in chief of the Trump administration. Scott Bessent, who was seen as the person who was going to actually defend the system by many people in the finance world. And I remember you and I talking about this when he was chosen to be Treasury Secretary. He's actually come to Davos sounding pretty tough too, but he's been saying stuff about affordability. What was it? He gave a speech here at Davos. I'm going to read this because it's pretty jaw-dropping, where he said, so maybe your parents in their retirement have five, 10, 12 homes.

20:59Anthony Scaramucci:That's the Treasury Secretary. Who is the White House talking to? They're trying to talk to the American working class. 63 % of Americans own one home, 2 % of Americans own a second home and there is scott besant who is of course himself super wealthy saying so maybe your parents in their retirement have five ten twelve homes and he's talking about this about how they don't want to drive out the little landlords how out of touch is he you know all right so you're

21:26Katty Kay:probably going to find me a little contrarian here i i think what he was trying to say and because this is the not the top one percent that's sitting in this town it's the zero zero zero one percent I think he was addressing the people. Now, that's a political mistake because everything that he's saying up here is getting broadcast to the general public. But I think what he was trying to say when you're talking to a Larry Fink or you're talking to a Ray Dalio, he was trying to make a statement about their families.

21:56Anthony Scaramucci:I don't think so.

21:56Katty Kay:OK, so you don't think so. All right.

21:58Anthony Scaramucci:Well, then he was talking to American audiences. And he needs life.

22:01Katty Kay:He needs life coaching.

22:03Anthony Scaramucci:And he needs.

22:03Katty Kay:OK, he needs life coaching. and maybe electroshock therapy because that is so far out of the realm of reality. And again, I'm trying to be somewhat helpful to him or at least somewhat of an advocate for him because he's our last hope in that administration. Ludnik, forget about it. Bondi, forget about it also. She may be on the outs. Hegseth is a slave to Trump. He seems to be the only one that has some shreds of credibility left.

22:33Anthony Scaramucci:We're being asked a couple more questions before we wrap this up. Is he still putting on extra tariffs at the end of the month? I'd say no. I think by launching this negotiation process, this can be stonewall. Yeah, that's why the markets rally. It's going to take a while.

22:47Katty Kay:That's why the markets rally.

22:49Anthony Scaramucci:So it's not going to be a tariff war.

22:50Katty Kay:We agree.

22:51Anthony Scaramucci:Hello from Hong Kong. Jane is texting us. What was the reaction in the room to Trump's rambling speech? Jane, I was in the room having queued to get in there. It was absolutely packed. I mean, it's funny because there was a little bit of laughter when he makes jokes, and Trump can make jokes. He can be funny, right? We know that. Especially when he goes off script, he can be funny. There was a kind of audible intake of breath when he made the threat to Mark Carney about watch your kind of slightly mafioso, watch what you say next time. But otherwise, I'm going to say people felt, I think people felt it was long.

23:26Anthony Scaramucci:I saw quite a lot of people after about 20 minutes were just on there. everyone listened for the greenland section because they were waiting to see if america's going to invade greenland but apart from that they were just kind of on their phones for the

23:37Katty Kay:second half of it so so funny because i wasn't in the room uh i was bored out of my mind i could

23:43Anthony Scaramucci:not believe how bad the speech was and i were texting each other okay and and i was like okay

23:47Katty Kay:this is unbelievable somebody get me like a butter knife and so i can stab my temple try to stay awake uh but he did say something funny about macron he did that yeah that was funny because Oh, your sunglasses were beautiful, which is, of course, you're laughing.

24:01Anthony Scaramucci:He's talking about it. Okay. Everyone's wearing his aviator sunglasses.

24:05Katty Kay:But does he have something going on with his eyes?

24:07Anthony Scaramucci:He's going on with his eye. Yeah. Okay.

24:08Katty Kay:All right. So he had the sunglasses on. I thought that was funny, too. You know the other thing he did? He can be funny.

24:13Anthony Scaramucci:He did a couple of times. And this is why, I mean, it was, he dumped on the Swiss as well. He talked a lot about his process. And you and I have spoken about this. And he literally laid it out before these world leaders. I ask for 100 % and I settle at 60%. He talked about how the Swiss president, he thought she was the prime minister, but anyway, she came to see him. And it was a fascinating recounting. And he says, she came in and she just kept repeating herself and telling me why she couldn't do this. And she really rubbed me up the wrong way. And she just annoyed me. And so I put 39 % tariffs on them.

24:49Anthony Scaramucci:And then of course, he rose back on the 39 % tariffs. But I thought it was actually you're kind of, because he doesn't have much filter, he gave us this great insight into how he operates. Yeah. They say no to me. I get pissed off. I put a maximalist position and then I wrote back.

25:06Katty Kay:Well, that's exactly his personality. And that's exactly what he does, which makes it very easy to predict if you're working in an intelligence agency in China or Russia, because that's exactly his personality. But there's something else that he said that I find also interesting. interesting because he was zigging and zagging with the tariffs at a moment in time, Caddy, where the Supreme Court was supposed to render a decision. And I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I guarantee you that the court looked around and said, he's outside the United States. He's threatening Greenland. We're about to rule against him with the tariffs because that's where the poly market is.

25:47Katty Kay:So that's where I am. They did not want to drop a bomb on him while he was here in davos do you agree with that or do you think that this is just process because they've they said four times to the journalists the case is coming we delayed the case is coming next week

26:01Anthony Scaramucci:we delayed the case it's coming tomorrow and i was told that they had an empty slot on the docket today and there was speculation that it might come today but it has but it didn't come today

26:11Katty Kay:and i'm not surprised from so so this the court i believe breathing room and i believe they're intimidated by him and i also believe that they're they've he's politicized the court well let's hope

26:23Anthony Scaramucci:he's politicized the federal reserve of the u.s that they they are not intimidated by the president so because that would not be a very good situation okay um we are going to wrap it up stay tuned everybody because over the next couple of days we have an interview with democratic senator chris coons who led the delegation to copenhagen um to reassure the people of denmark and try and figure all of this out. We're going to play that. Also, we have an interview with the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who was Barack Obama's trade representative. So he's very good on the tariffs. That's going to come up as well.

26:55Anthony Scaramucci:Also super interesting. All of you have tuned in live. Thank you very much for tuning in live.

26:59Katty Kay:It's always entertaining here at The Rest is Politics U.S. Thanks for tuning in.

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