“The New Yorker” columnist Susan Glasser, in an interview with MS NOW’s Katy Tur, warned that “we’ve come so far in normalizing Donald Trump that we need to take a step back and say, this is extraordinary what happened this week.”

KATY TUR, MS NOW: New Yorker Susan Glasser. So, Susan, this is interesting because when you went down to Mar-a-Lago many years ago to interview President Trump alongside Peter Baker for your book, you talk about one last question dashed off at the very end of the interview as you were being ushered out. What was that question? SUSAN GLASSER, THE NEW YORKER: Yeah, we asked him a number of years ago when Greenland was certainly not headline news, what is it about your interest in purchasing Greenland, why? And I think Trump gave a revealing answer that says a lot both about his specific interest in this territory and more broadly why we’re seeing him make so many destabilizing moves on the world stage. And what he said at the time, Katie, and this was late November 2021 when he was in his very unhappy exile in Florida, he said, well, I want Greenland because I looked at a map. I’m a real estate guy. And to me, this is a real estate deal. I looked at it.It’s really big. It’s a missing piece. It’s massive and it should belong to us. And I think it’s this notion that he is a man with such unlimited power that he can look at territory on a map and decide, I want it, is something really breathtaking. And for me, the difference between Trump’s first administration and this second administration is the response of those around him. We spoke with cabinet members literally who thought Donald Trump was delusional that he kept bringing this up again and again in his first term. And what a leap it is from that when he was simply talking about, could we maybe purchase this to here we are, not even eight years later, and J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio are facilitating this. Donald Trump issued an official statement from the White House threatening military action against Denmark if it didn’t hand it over. This is a NATO treaty ally of ours. And I think, again, we’ve come so far in normalizing Donald Trump that we need to take a step back and say, this is extraordinary what happened this week. The president of the United States threatened military action against our NATO ally. Arguably, this is a key step that’s happened this week in the unraveling of this military alliance. TUR: He had a really interesting answer about this to The Daily or to The New York Times, which was played on The Daily today, and asked why he couldn’t just work with our allies. And it’s been said that, you know, if the United States wants another base or wants to do anything in Greenland, all they have to do is ask. It’s not going to be an issue. They are a NATO ally. They’re run by by Denmark. And he said that it’s psychological why he wants to have it, that that owning is different from leasing, different from renting, putting it in the terms of the real estate business, which I know you referenced a moment ago, this idea that when you own something, you have a more psychological control over it. What did you make of that answer in particular? GLASSER: I thought it was a grotesque answer for the president of the United States. We exist in a rule of law society, you know, with a constitution, with a government that doesn’t depend, is not supposed to depend on the psychology of a single man. And so I thought it was remarkably revealing answer. And I’m appreciative of our colleagues at The Times for eliciting, you know, this this incredibly illuminating answer. But, Katie, I think this is something that, you know, you should really be and we all should be having flashing red lights at a statement like this from the president of the United States. First of all, there are tens of thousands of inhabitants of Greenland. There’s a sovereignty both of Greenland and the right of self-determination, as well as that of Denmark. I would point out that the Danish claim to Denmark extends back to the Norse in the year 1000. The United States foreign policy predating both world wars of the previous century was a rejection of European style colonialism and imperialism. And this notion that a president can demand that a military ally hand over its territory because he saw it on a map. You know, again, I just I find it remarkable that we are still to this day underplaying the extent to which to what’s happening right now in the world. TUR: He fundamentally doesn’t trust allies, doesn’t trust treaties, doesn’t trust deals. Susan Glasser, thanks so much for joining us, especially on this topic today. Appreciate it.

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