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January 9, 2026

By Stephen Collinson

President Donald Trump speaks during the House Republican Party member retreat at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2026. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

Donald might be a duck, but he's not lame

Before Christmas, the Washington pundits were mocking President Donald Trump as a lame duck.

Some duck.

This week we saw the president unleashed.

He ordered a daring special forces raid that extracted Venezuela’s ruthless dictator, Nicolás Maduro, and awarded himself the spoils — control of the country’s oil reserves.

As hubris blossomed, Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller then made clear the US is the biggest, baddest guy on the Western Hemisphere block and plans to do exactly what it wants.

“We live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Miller said. “We’re a superpower. And under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower.”

Trump is now eyeing Greenland again. The White House won’t rule out the use of force against the Danish autonomous territory unless it agrees to join — or be bought by — the United States. No one ever thought that NATO could end up being attacked by one of its own. Perhaps the outraged European leaders who previously flattered Trump with state dinners, gifts and VIP treatment now finally get it.

At home, the relentless compulsion to show unapologetic power is intensifying. Tragically.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis shot dead a 37-year-old American mother in her car on Wednesday. Cellphone video undermined claims by the administration that she was a far-left radical domestic terrorist.

Renee Good was killed on the first day of a surge of 2,000 ICE agents to the Democratic-run city to round up undocumented migrants. No one is surprised. Her killing is exactly the type of tragedy many feared would happen amid the administration's immigration and crime crackdowns.

Arguments that Trump, like most second-term presidents, is sliding into irrelevancy were fueled by a revolt by Republicans in Congress last year that forced the Justice Department to (sort of) release the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Indiana state lawmakers ended his bid to cook the Hoosier State’s electoral map; the president's approval rating dipped below 40%; Americans have lost confidence in his economic management; and Republicans fear a rout in November's midterm elections. Splits in the MAGA movement have further tarnished Trump’s aura of control.

But anyone who’s watched Trump over the last turbulent decade knew he’d respond aggressively to suggestions his star was fading. He believes he has unchecked power at home and abroad. Unlike most presidents, he doesn’t care who he upsets. He’s certain to use his three years left in office to shatter remaining legal, constitutional and moral limits on the presidency. 

The result is that millions of people in Venezuela, Greenland, Minnesota, Democratic US cities, Europe, Ukraine and Gaza have one thing in common. At any moment, their lives can be upended by the whims of the world’s most volatile and powerful man, who’s refusing to ride off quietly into the sunset.

How Trump plans to one-up Jefferson and McKinley 

It would be the largest real estate deal in history. 

This may be a simplistic explanation for Trump’s interest in Greenland. But it’s probably not wrong.

He’s correct that Greenland is strategically vital and getting more so.

It’s always been an important mid-Atlantic bridgehead. In World War II, it gave its name to the feared Greenland Air Gap ocean tract, out of range of land-based aircraft, that Nazi U-boats turned into a killing ground for Allied convoys. Who controls Greenland now can oversee vital Atlantic sea lanes. The US also has an early-warning missile detection system there. 

Greenland is becoming a hotter spot literally and geopolitically as melting ice opens navigation on the roof of the world. And it has critical rare earth deposits that are vital to the tech and military industries and are becoming the focus of a new global great diplomatic game.

But the flaw in Trump’s argument is that there’s nothing stopping him from reinforcing Greenland if he believes US national security is at risk.

Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of a NATO member. Its vast empty spaces could easy accommodate a new base and thousands of military personnel. Despite offensive jokes by administration leaders that Denmark is only defending the island with dogsleds, the US has a treaty with Copenhagen that permits huge latitude for US landings and takeoffs; anchorages; harbors; living facilities; and other basing needs.

Denmark says Greenland isn’t for sale. And Greenlanders won’t want to be part of the United States. But they’ve both said they’d be willing to work with Washington to tighten the relationship on defense and exploiting its natural resources. 

This is why Trump’s strategic arguments don’t really add up. 

He sees something he wants: to go down in history like President Thomas Jefferson, who presided over the Louisiana Purchase, or President William McKinley, who annexed Hawaii. 

Who needs a measly Nobel Peace Prize? Or the memorial in Washington named for Jefferson, or the mountain that honors McKinley?

This president could have “Trumpland” instead.

'Weapons-grade stupid'

Sen John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, is known for his colorful turns of phrase. He once said that his mother “did not raise a fool, and if she did it was one of my brothers.”

Some people think that Kennedy overdoes the folksy rube act, considering he went to law school at the University of Virginia and has a first-class degree from Oxford University.

But he never commits the greatest sin of Washington politicians — being boring.

Here’s what Kennedy told CNN’s Kasie Hunt about Trump’s designs on Greenland. If you listen to what he says, rather than how he says it, you get a pretty good idea of how the Trump administration might plan to proceed.

“Let me give you my perspective,” Kennedy said. “Even a modestly intelligent ninth-grader knows that to invade Greenland would be weapons-grade stupid.

“Now, President Trump is not weapons-grade stupid, nor is (Secretary of State) Marco Rubio. They do not plan to invade Greenland. That doesn't mean they're not going to seek a legal formal partnership with Greenland as to their and our national defense.

“That doesn't mean … the president is not going to try to buy Greenland.

“There are 41,000 people, electors eligible to vote in Greenland. If everybody votes, 20,501 Greenlanders can vote to join America. I'm not saying that will or won't happen, but I think that's really what the president is up to.”