Fox News Host’s Take On Europe’s Reaction To Trump Is Just Bonkers
Laura Ingraham gave a master class in goofy geopolitical spin on Wednesday.
She accused European leaders of throwing a hissy over President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland while not ruling out force. (Watch the video below.)
Trump eventually caved to reason in Davos, Switzerland, by retreating on his military and tariff threats. But the Fox News host had some misplaced scolding to do.
To a graphic that read, “Dad sets the rules, kids learn to obey,” Ingraham said at the start of her show:
“Europe’s pointless temper tantrum. ... Once again, Donald Trump and his team remind the world that the United States is the only power capable of holding the West together by protecting Europe from its own stupidity and weakness.”
She said later of the US and other members of Nato as she interspersed clips of Trump’s comments in Davos, “For most of its history, the relationship has been lopsided. Now, that was great for the other Nato countries, but it was a lousy deal for the United States, our taxpayers. Other presidents, of course they just let the imbalance slide, but not Trump.”
If not letting it slide meant menacing Nato allies to overtake a semiautonomous Arctic island owned by Denmark, then Ingraham is absolutely right. (Yet Trump already has the right to expand its military defence there through a 1951 treaty if he’s so hell-bent on backing up his claim that Greenland needs protection from Russia and China.)
Ingraham accused European leaders of being “elites so snooty, they have to put on a show of defiance to save face.”
Airing an interview with Swedish Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson, however, actually blew up Ingraham’s point. Svantesson neatly summarised Europe’s stance without a meltdown in sight.
“I think it’s sad and totally absurd to have an American president who is blackmailing the rest of us, trying to get a piece of land or buy it and, through threats,” she said. “It’s a new low, so to speak. We will never back down.”
Trump announced on Truth Social that he had reached the “framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland.” That may have eased the anxiety of the stock market for a bit, but probably not of the allies he tried to intimidate.