Why does Trump want Greenland?

Good morning. It's four minutes after ten, and it goes against my instincts, you know. It goes against my better instincts. And yet, the times when we've done it, which are fairly rare... have it has been indubitably absolutely the correct thing to do when we find ourselves circling back to very similar territory to the territory that we've already explored the previous day or the day before that i mean there were times weren't there during during brexit and i suppose

obviously during covid where it felt as if there was only really one story in town one thing worthy of our attention but i'm just going to run something by you if i may and it only i mean literally occurred to me five and a half minutes ago while I was in the production office just chewing the fat. And it literally occurred to me in that moment that we've entered... Well, no, maybe we haven't, but we could enter...

The don't look up phase. I don't know if you remember the call yesterday. I don't know if you were listening to a caller who brought the five stages of grief. into the conversation um of which of course denial is a crucial part and and it is still there

a denial of the gravity of the situation that we're currently facing as Donald Trump essentially leads America out of the post-world order. It's impossible to exaggerate the significance and the importance of this moment if, as seems... Almost certain the traffic continues to move in that direction. And it's such an enormous thing to contemplate that there is a temptation not to look up.

That's a reference, if you don't know, to a Leonardo DiCaprio film, which is an allegory for climate change and posits the notion of a comet, a meteorite heading towards the earth that will destroy humanity. Evidence of its imminent arrival is pretty much uncontestable. And yet humanity elects or significance, enough of humanity elects to just ignore it and carry on.

as normal until the moment of a potential impact. No spoilers here. And you can see why. It's a beautiful psychological exercise. I got a little bit obsessed with it a couple of years ago because it was the big hit over Christmas, wasn't it? And... It works so perfectly in the context of climate change. But there's a lack of immediacy to climate change that just slightly weakened the allegory. You can see a comet. You can see a meteorite on a screen heading towards you.

and you know that it's going to blow your species to smithereens, would it really kick in psychologically in the same way that imminent climate catastrophe kicks in? I don't know, but it was a powerful and a rather brilliant... rhetorical exercise. And where does the Trump...

Sit between those two poles. So you've got imminent catastrophe that is too complicated, too difficult, and arguably too far off to focus our attention as it should. And that's in the real world. And then you've got the fictional imminent catastrophe.

catastrophe of the of the meteorite hitting the earth and somehow we persuade ourselves that that's too big to worry about it's not complicated it's not difficult and it's not far off but we can still psychologically look the other way we can still psychologically look down not look up pretend that it's not happening and I don't know where this story fits into that scale it's been an incredible three days two and a half days where

I mean, you've gone. Remember, it was only on Monday that people were telling us that Donald Trump is brilliant and the invasion of Venezuela or the annexation of Venezuela is wonderful and you shouldn't worry about international law. And I love him because. upsets all the right people. Admittedly, there aren't many people doing that anymore. Even some of the most knuckle-headed professional commentators and politicians appear to recognise.

to be able finally to read some of the writing on the wall. But it was still going on. If you've got your sort of pro-Trump scarf knotted so tightly around your neck that it's cut off the flow of all oxygen. to your brain, all blood to your brain, then you kind of have to stay on this. You have to stay on this tip of, oh, isn't Trump wonderful? You can't get off it. But anybody vaguely... cognizant and anybody vaguely conscious intellectually is now aware of the fact that this is different.

And the main proof of the difference is not in Venezuela, of course. It's in the words that are coming out with regard to Greenland. Although Venezuela is pretty helpful too. Two or three elements of the Venezuela story that I think should be a little bit more prominent.

would include the fact that if the rationale for getting rid of Maduro was that his regime was so toxic, why on earth have they replaced him with his deputy? Number two, the living conditions and the daily experience of the average Venezuelan has got worse since Maduro went. Number three, the sort of de facto leader of the opposition has been talked about with borderline contempt by Donald Trump and doesn't seem likely to be installed.

anytime soon, which means the argument about being an upholder or a defender of democracy was absolute toot. Number four, the former president of Honduras, of course, was pardoned while serving a 45-year sentence for... trafficking cocaine, which makes a mockery of the claim that it was done in order to punish Maduro for being involved in the trafficking of cocaine. That's just four things. I could go on. So even Venezuela, by Wednesday morning, is none of the things.

The supporters or the admirers or the cheerleaders for Donald Trump. were saying that it was. I mean, that's extraordinary. Two and a half days in which even the people sort of tragically glued to support for Donald Trump, largely, as we know, because he's kind of greenlit racist. in a way that very few world leaders have done since the end of the Second World War. And that's such a powerful drug for Daily Mail columnists and right-wing politicians that they can't quite turn off.

The love of the fact that they're allowed to be racist again for long enough to turn on the fact that he appears to be trashing not only international law, but from a European perspective.

The post-war settlement, the post-1945, the certainly post-1949 settlement. I mean, how would you sell it if we had left-wing media? Not even left-wing. If we had honest... vaguely liberal liberal democrat media in this country with the same power and the same tactics as the right-wing media that brought us admiration for donald trump boris johnson liz truss austerity brexit what would it look like it would be something like donald trump

on Winston Churchill's grave as he sets fire to the NATO settlement. Donald Trump insults our war dead as he undoes the peace that was established through blood and toil. the first half of the 1940s. If you had that kind of tactic, that kind of rhetoric being deployed by people on the right side of history, on the side of decency, democracy, accountability, rules-based institutions, the law, even Margaret Thatcher, of course.

That magnificent quote yesterday about why you can't just pick your support for laws or lawbreakers according to the ones that you like and you don't like. In the absence of objectivity, there is nothing. Nothing is left but anarchy. That's what Donald Trump is doing. It's so Orwellian, you almost wish you'd never used the word Orwellian before. Because it never quite fitted as well as this does. What is it? Oceania? East Asia? What's the other one? Three massive powers.

on the planet of Big Brother on 1984. Three massive powers in a state of perpetual war and undiluted propaganda. And who knew that that was the world that the President of the United States dreamt of? And that is roughly where we are. Roughly where we are. Oceania, Eurasia.

East Asia, the three massive fortresses of untrammeled, unaccountable power presided over by variations of Big Brother while the population just lives in a form of... a combination of torpor and sycophancy and that that is what is happening we are is it runway one what does the united kingdom become where potentially because if he goes into greenland where does he go next anyway all right let's wind it back in again

Wind it back in again. Those five stages of grief, I was thinking about the five stages of reality. It's on Monday, you've still got people. pretending or claiming that what Donald Trump is doing is normal or admirable. You have Dick Littlejohn in the Daily Mail talking about how Starmer should be more like him. What would that involve after Greenland?

Keir Starmer invade Andorra to prove to Dick Littlejohn in the Daily Mail that he's just as ruthless, the word I think he used as Donald Trump, in the space of two days. that pathetic cheerleaders have had their own pants pulled down by the man that they were cheerleading for. It won't change them, of course, any more than it did when they were cheerleading for Boris Johnson or cheerleading for Brexit or cheerleading for austerity or cheerleading for Liz Truss or cheerleading...

for all the rest of it. They stake everything they have upon support for something or someone. The thing they're supporting turns out to be absolutely hideous and the polar opposite of all the things that they claimed that it was. And they just carry on cashing their checks. and writing their bilge. So in two and a half days, support for what Donald Trump has done in Venezuela has been completely destroyed by Donald Trump's explicit ambitions to do something similar.

to greenland and that's where we are again this morning i mean the headlines are i i mean they they are genuinely chilling and this is where don't look up kicks in this is where lots of this is where don't Look Up comes in. President Trump wants to acquire Greenland as a national security priority and the use of military force is always an option, the White House said.

Yesterday. Airstrip one. Thank you. Not runway one. I mean, even that's brilliant, isn't it? Because it wouldn't be the language. It wouldn't be the Anglo-Saxon language. It would be the Americanization. It would be airstrip one. We wouldn't even get to be runway one. We'd be airstrip one. Please don't ring in about my George Orwell comparisons because Eleanor has a very, very busy switchboard to Marshall. She will do in a minute when I actually open up the phone lines. So don't look up.

I mean, the temptation to look away, I don't know what we'd talk about instead today, but the temptation to look away from that single sentence, that paragraph. President Trump wants to acquire Greenland as a national security priority and the use of military forces, quotes, always an option, end quotes. Here it comes. Here comes the kicker. The White House.

said yesterday. The institution, never mind the building from which JFK, FDR, Let's try to think of a president whose initials we don't use, whose name, Bill Clinton, I pick your favourite, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, George W. Bush, Joe Biden, the institution, the administration, the building from which... Protectors of peace throughout the 20th and 21st century have spoken. Protectors of peace in Europe have spoken, is now explicitly and out loud...

positing the notion of using military force to help itself to European soil. That's it. Full stop. I'm going home. That's it. How on earth do we respond? to this reality? How on earth do we respond to this moment? And that, it seems to me, the only question worth asking at the moment. We've got PMQs later today. It's almost as if that involves rearranging the deck chairs on a potential Titanic. Why are we talking about anything other than the fact?

that Trump wants to take over part of Europe within three years and is prepared to use the military to do it. Wow. Genuinely, wow. What question do I ask you today?

What's going on? I mean, there's another element to it that I think is really important. And that is this, the oil in Venezuela. It's not worthless, but it is nowhere near the bounty of riches that Donald Trump, A, claims it is, and B, quite possibly believes it is.

A great piece in The Telegraph today about what it is actually like, what the oil will cost to extract, how much it will be worth when it is extracted, the thickness of it. I'm not, obviously... a physicist or indeed a geologist i'm not an expert on oil but the um the idea that you just turn up with a hose pipe

and a spade and start shipping cash straight out of the ground is just completely wrong. The headline, and this is one of the people on the Telegraph who's not mad, Ambrose Evans Pritchard writes, Trump's Venezuelan plunder is... almost worthless. I really recommend this article. It's extremely strong and very, very heavy on evidence. The hunt for oil is largely pointless.

The stuff that's left, although there is loads of it, is the worst possible oil available. Maduro and Chavez and sundry other cronies have stolen everything worth having from that country. If you were to move the focus to Greenland, as we discovered yesterday from our Icelandic caller, Jón, and I've spent a little bit of time.

digging a little deeper into what he told us, he's absolutely right. The point is now being made elsewhere in the media by people who are paid for their contributions, unlike my callers, who often turn out to have more knowledge and expertise than the kind of people who get paid on. other programs for that too.

But all of the stuff in Greenland is already available to the United States. All of these minerals, these so-called rare earth resources, is available to the United States. They are a NATO member. They historically have good relations with Denmark.

And they are able to apply for the licenses and they are the home to most of the companies that have the capability to get the stuff out of the ground and into the computers, into the chips, into the technology. So the stuff that he thinks he's getting... Venezuela is close to worthless and the stuff that he thinks he needs to invade Greenland to get is available without invading Greenland. These are the two most important elements in many ways.

of where we find ourselves three days into this extraordinary chapter in Western history. The president, the most powerful man on the chessboard, in the context of the West, possibly the world, is... So annexing other countries, he's not replacing the regime in Venezuela. You don't replace a regime by installing the deputy and having no elections and being rude about the person who would by rights be in charge if democracy were to be.

imposed, introduced, returned. The rationale, the public rationale, it's even changed, of course, from drugs to oil. No one's mentioned drugs. Have they? Since Monday morning? It was all about doing down with the drug dealer. And then you realise he pardoned the Honduran equivalent. So you can't really cling to that raft of nonsense for much longer. No one's talking about drugs anymore. Everyone's just talking about oil.

But the oil is almost worthless, according to any expert worth talking to. The amount of money that American companies are going to have to invest to get this almost worthless oil out of the ground is absolutely immense. I doubt they fancy it.

And then you hop over to Greenland, where the rationale for military engagement and invasion is to get our hands on what they've got. At the moment, they're pretending it's about defending us against Russia, as if Donald Trump is fearful of Vladimir Putin, except in the context of compromise. And he doesn't need to do that either.

You can get hold of. They're already a military ally. You don't need to invade your military allies for military reasons. You can stick that on a T-shirt if you want. You do not need to invade military allies for military reasons. Full stop. New paragraph. End of. Press send. So they're doing it for the reasons that everybody is talking about. The rare earth resources, the minerals. And yet...

Anybody who knows anything knows that American companies have almost untrammeled access to those contracts and those rights today already. without the invasion. So that's going to be the question. Given all the things I've just told you, most of which I'm sure you already knew, every single thing we've been told about the reasons behind annexing Venezuela or invading Greenland are not true.

So what is going on? 03456060973. I make no apology to you for reminding you of the foundation stone of George Orwell's 1984 profit. in so many ways, Oceania, East Asia, Eurasia, three massive powers. on the globe, in constant, in perpetual war with each other, and sustained by a diet of undiluted propaganda, propaganda that you challenge on pain of death. Why is...

Trump doing this. Why? I'm not going to take calls with respect from people telling me it's to distract from the Epstein files. Just don't pick up the phone to tell me that.

And I don't want to sound rude, and we will talk about it. In fact, I'll tell you now what we're going to do with the Epstein files. I'm going to play a game. I'm going to ask you what percentage of the available files that should have been released completely 17 days ago, what percentage... of the available Epstein files do you think the Department of Justice in the United States of America has released to date?

Should we do a multiple choice? No, I'm taking up too much time. It's 10.22. Given that all of the reasons given for the annexation of Venezuela and the possible invasion of Greenland have already been rendered ridiculous and or wrong, why is Donald Trump... doing what he's doing. 0345 6060 973. And I'll tell you after this what percentage of the so-called Epstein files have so far been released.

Of all the things we've talked about together, all the stories we've discussed together, all the moments that we've marked together, all the things I've announced to you together... Which one would most deserve to be on a permanent loop for the entire three hours of this programme? Probably, maybe the first lockdown, do you think? I mean, the absolute game-changing nature of that lockdown.

But in terms of the world and the tectonic plates shifting beneath our feet, everything we thought to be true and permanent and inviolable. being shaky and fragile and broken. I wonder whether it is that single line. President Trump wants to acquire Greenland as a national security priority and the use of military force is always an option.

The White House. The White House said yesterday. Not sources close to the White House. Not favoured journalists. Not people who are... seeking the president's ear, not conspiracy theorists, not headbangers on Twitter, not Billy Buncher numbers with the union flag avatar, but the actual White House. The building in which Volodymyr Zelensky was ritually humiliated by Donald Trump, who now claims that he needs to invade Greenland because he's so worried about Vladimir Putin.

Given that all the reasons given so far for doing what he's currently doing have proved already to be either wrong or ridiculous or both, why do you think he is doing it? Marcus is in Islington. Marcus, what would you like to say?

Hi, James. So I'm half Venezuelan. I was born in Caracas. And I bet my mum was English from Yorkshire. And I moved here in the 90s. But I have family in Venezuela. And for the last... few decades. I was there in October, actually, while the Armada, the greatest Armada in history, was amassing in the Caribbean. So...

You know, so I've got first-hand experience, and obviously Saturday morning was horrific. You know, I was shaking watching the images, just thinking, you know, just at that point not knowing how it was going to unfold. A bit of cautious optimism, though, amid the shaking, no, given the toxicity of Maduro's regime? Yes, yes, but I never thought in my life that how many days has it been? Four days? I'm losing track. It's like five, four days since it happened.

You know, I'm calling people every day there. The challenge now, and if anybody reads history or is vaguely aware of what happens when you remove strong men suddenly, whether it's from the ground up or imposed from the above. is that they're not monoliths. So there are factions within that regime that now this is really revealing. And the concern there, and the palpable concern, even only a few days later, is civil war.

The more militarist arm of the regime will fall out with the brother and sister who are running the legislature and the executive now, who are, you know, you know. in contact with washington and the other the other challenge is that there is there is treason it's been spoken about a lot and there are armed militias that have been armed for the last few decades to

you know, be deployed when there's been any kind of unrest and people need to be kind of basically shut down violently. And Machado's been thrown out, and if you took to the streets of Caracas to say half of the things that you've just said to me, you'd get arrested. I would get arrested. Yeah. And I think so, yeah, so much I could say. But the thing I wanted to say, though, was two things in terms of your question. I think I think this was an absolute in theory.

And it turned out to be in practice in terms of the military operation, an easy win. So this has been planned for months and months and months. So one of the big things that people were so concerned when I was there in October, will there be boots on the ground? Will the Americans invade? Will they occupy? Will we see fighting in the street?

So obviously at that point, that was never going to be the plan. The plan was always what happened on Saturday. And therefore, you know, what they've deployed and what they did worked. Imagine if American assets had been destroyed, if 10 American Marines had been killed, if a Maduro had been killed. It would all have been a very different story right now, but it wasn't. So right now, the administration is absolutely high on hubris.

The U.S. administration is completely high because they got their man. They've done their whole, you know, demonstration of power. And I think the whole thing was about demonstration power. My point is, if in God forbid. Honestly, God forbid. Imagine in two months' time there is civil war in Caracas. Will the Americans come in? Will they put brutes on the ground? No, they won't. It doesn't look as if there was a great deal of thought given to what happens next.

And I'm talking about Venezuela in 2026, not talking about Iraq at the time of the second Gulf War. If that scenario plays out, which I underline, God forbid, right? And this one's got a lot of weapons. It hasn't got the factions of Iraq. But if those, you know, no one can really understand how powerful this regime is, how much control, it has control of everything.

I just can't see that the Americans will then, I don't know how they would spin it, but they will play it out. They won't put boots on the ground. They won't commit to that kind of mess.

The second thing I wanted to say was I watched the full interview last night from the weekend with CNN with Steve Miller. And I thought, and I watched the full thing. I didn't listen to the soundbite that you guys played yesterday. I watched the whole thing. And I thought, I get it now. I get it. He's an absolute mad ideologue. And all the Venezuela thing is, to be honest with you, I think, having watched the full press conference on Saturday.

It's a cocktail of competing ideologies. You've got Marco Rubio, who's always had a bone in his mouth for knocking down Cuba and socialism and communism in the Caribbean and Latin America. Job done. You've got Pete, who just wants to kind of, you know, show off American might and power. Job done. You've got Miller, who wants to do this, you know, polar hemisphere power thing. Take over the entire hemisphere, yeah.

And subjugate non-WASPs, really, to have a sort of white supremacist model in place. Exactly. And, you know, I also feel a kind of, I don't know. Slight undertone, well, maybe not slight, but undertone of racism in all of this. Oh, for sure. You know, this, you know... It's colloquial. I get really frustrated, James, as well, because to be honest with you, you know, it's like...

I was listening to some, you know, important Venezuelan commentary last night. It's kind of like, you know, a lot of... A lot of bad things have happened in Venezuela over the years. And the West has never really paid that much attention. Eight million people leave in just over a year and a half. Boris Johnson was there quite recently. I'll triple check the details, but he got paid, I think, 240 grand by...

A bigwig who took him to Venezuela, I think, to meet Maduro. I need to double-check that. But the idea that this was an urgent boil that needed lancing was not necessarily something that many Western leaders subscribed. So there's a bit of that thing where it's kind of like, you know... So it's just stereotyped. So if we had to stick it in a sentence, what I'm hearing from you is that it's a form of publicity stunt from Trump's point of view. And there's no thought as to what happens next.

Which is why in the space of three and a half days, the people who were either compelled or contorted into either pretending or genuinely believing that they admired what he'd done and they supported what he'd done have been rendered completely ridiculous. already, which is why he needs to move the spotlight to Greenland. Yeah, and what power actually the US has over Venezuela in terms of... Well, that's going to be the crucial test, isn't it? That's going to be the test, and I...

And I think there are some mad ideologues in that regime in Venezuela who will want to test that boundary. Including hatred of America. Hatred of America will be a big factor in some of those. sectors, weren't it? That hatred for America has been there from the beginning for that. You know, it's a kind of prophecy that has come true. The prophecy has come true that the imperialists would come in and try and take over. And I often...

I've often tried to kind of be a reasonable voice in that conversation over the last few decades because... my kind of more left-leaning internationalist liberal friends from London will say, oh, well, you know, the Americans want to just take over Venezuela and it's all the Americans for. And I say, you know what?

Actually, a lot of the responsibility lies with the regime in Venezuela with lots going wrong. However, you know, the U.S. has been cutting deals with Venezuela up until last year with regards to bringing people back from the U.S. Chevron's there. There's lots of stuff going on. So, you know, I just watched that press conference on Saturday and my jaw dropped. And I thought, how are you guys going to run this thing?

And what's going to happen if anyone within the Venezuelan regime really wants to test you guys? As your jaw dropped, so did a penny, I sense. The penny dropped as well. Certainly while watching the Stephen Miller interview with Jake Tapper on CNN.

I sense you needed to unburden some of that, Marcus. I'm happy to have provided you an opportunity to do so. You have made us perilously late for the news, though, so I do have to move on. The question remains, why is he doing this? Why is Trump doing this, given that all the reasons offered up so far by him and his supporters have... turned out to be wrong or ridiculous or both. Here's Dominic Ellis with your headlines. There's two questions, isn't there? What has happened and who did it?

So what has happened? They've toppled Maduro, a particularly unpleasant character, a particularly unpleasant political figure, even by the standards of... drug industry or drug trafficking adjacent despotic regimes. But who did it? Donald Trump. Ah, you mean the guy who actually tried to steal an election? Right. So we're supposed to cheer the guy who tried to steal an election for toppling a guy who stole an election. Hmm. I don't know how...

backwards you would have to be to describe that as being morally right, as I think Kemi Badenoch did yesterday. It's morally justified for a bloke who tried to steal an election to use military force and kill 50-odd people in order to get rid of a bloke who did steal an election. yeah alright I don't know what moral compass you're using to arrive at that conclusion

But of course, getting rid of Maduro is objectively, quotes, a good thing, end quote. I think Jeremy Corbyn might be the only public figure who's objected to that simple statement. But that's why the second question is crucial. Who did it? Donald Trump, at which point anybody, anybody vaguely sensible, informed or conscious would go, ah.

As Marcus just did, I think, in spectacularly articulate form. A very big, ah, so what happens next? Thank goodness the United States don't have a history of wading into foreign countries, but perhaps... sit atop rather large oil reserves and toppling a regime without having a particularly detailed plan about what on earth is going to happen next. It would be terrible if the United States had a history of doing that sort of thing.

what has happened and you cautiously answer a good thing and then you ask who did it and you confidently answer a bad person And then you're left with a tension between a bad person has done a good thing.

So what do you look at? You look at the record of the bad person to decide whether or not the good thing is going to stay a good thing or turn into a bad thing. And the only way you can begin to get a handle on an answer to that question is by asking the third question, which is, why did he do it?

We did it for the oil. Hang on a minute. You literally said on Sunday that you did it for the drugs. Yeah, but we pardoned the other guy in Honduras, so we can't really make that one fly except for people... who are so bent and contorted in their support of the regime because they love the racism that they don't care about the hypocrisy or the obvious dishonesty or the fraudulence. So we've abandoned the drug claim. You know the story yesterday? I don't know if you saw this.

Do you know what Cartel de los Soles is? Cartel de los Soles. That is a slang term for drug corruption in the military. So it's a bit like saying the woke mob. It's a loose umbrella term to describe a bunch of people that you've got a problem with. Obviously, being...

Part of the woke mob is a good thing, and being a corrupt military officer allied with the drug industry is a bad thing. But it's a largely meaningless phrase that was coined in Venezuela to describe a loose and unspecified coalition. of army types who had been corrupted by drug corruption. That's the phrase, Cartel de los Soles.

What does that phrase mean in the Trump administration? They literally designated it a terrorist organization and claimed that Maduro led it. So you've got a phrase that is effectively slang. And simply means, go all those soldiers who are in the pocket of the drug cartels. It doesn't mean anything more than that. All those dirty soldiers who are in the pockets of the drug cartels.

Donald Trump and his administration, either because they're stupid or for some other reason I can't currently conceive of, they designated a Venezuelan slang term for drug corruption as a terrorist organisation and claimed that Maduro led it. So what was the first thing that happened in court? When Maduro stood before a trial? Yeah, they backed off. The Justice...

Department backed off the claim that President Maduro had led a drug cartel called Cartel de los Soles, because there is no such thing. That goes back to 2020.

And speaking of the Department of Justice, that figure that I teased you with a moment ago, as many of you realise, as many of you already knew, stands at 1%. So while you're not allowed to ring me to tell me that Trump is doing all of this to distract from the Epstein files, you are allowed to remind me that the figure admitted yesterday by the Department of Justice... stands currently at less than 1%. The US Department of Justice has released less than 1% of the Epstein files. Less than 1%.

17 days since they were legally required to release all of it, and they've so far handed over less than 1%. So... He also, of course, as a few of you are reminding me, killed 52 people without trial. Innocent people. This isn't a war. Innocent people get killed so you can arrest a drug dealer? How's that going to play out across the rest of the Western world?

What if a drug dealer lives in your flat? Are you collateral damage if the authorities decide to arrest him? Absolutely everything is chilling. And relatively unchallenging, except this one question, given that all the reasons given for doing it are either wrong or ridiculous or both, why do you think he's doing it? Andreas is in Calgary in Canada. Andreas, what would you like to say?

I'd like to say I think his reasons for doing it is legacy. He's a failed businessman who's almost 80 years old, clearly failing in health. And so I think he's trying to make himself look like a war hero. The people around him are more than happy to use him to push that agenda and see if Europe, if the rest of the Western world will actually hold on to international rules.

Because it doesn't seem like it. So now they're testing the waters. And yeah, I think Greenland's next. Or Canada, really. And there's two engines there. There's the engine that motivates Trump, which is venal and petty and narcissistic. Ego. Yeah, totally. I mean, that's the classic hubris, really, in the concept of Aristotelian tragedy. But the second engine, the one that motivates Stephen Miller and, you know, Jared Kushner.

Say again. Your previous caller said it, right? Eidelog. There's a mix of racism in there. There's a mix of wanting their fortress. Maybe it's also problems at home. It's easier to unite people if you can go to a war. Domestically, things aren't going very well, so historically when despotic regimes have got troubles at home, they invade. Or they launch campaigns against foreign countries. Putin, most obviously, and most recently. Talk to me a bit about the racism.

Because I think we underestimate this, largely because our media in this country is either far right or far right adjacent and has been for years. But the idea... Most of ours is too. Well, in Canada, really? That surprises me, but... Yeah, I used to look up... Do your own research when you've got time. I will. Look up and see who owns most of our media companies. Yeah, I will.

I mean, we like to think of Canada as right wing. Yeah. OK, well, I'm going a little bit further than right wing when it comes to racism and the media in this country, because it's greenlit and actively encouraged across almost all platforms. I've seen it. Yeah. So. Look at our Conservative Party. I will. Look at our opposition to our current leader. So it is a form of thinking. I suppose we see it on Twitter most obviously. Yeah.

that there is a sort of form of racial hierarchy and you shouldn't have Muslim mayors and you shouldn't have immigrants with equal rights and the Stephen Miller ideology is to push that.

project forward. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's the easiest way to divide people too. Visual differences, right? Yeah, of course it is. Visual and cultural differences are the easiest way to divide people. And the flip side to that is it's the easiest way to... build a power base, is to point out another who you can say is stealing from you or is doing better than you.

And you can usually see it as a protection of inequality or protection of wealth. But in the context of the project 2025 and the national security statement last year. And it's very hard. It's hard to analyse this because it's a feeling, isn't it, rather than a factual... These people feel.

that they should be ruling their world, that they should be able to do whatever they want. It's why, for example, diversity, equality and inclusion have become dirty words in their minds because they hate that idea. It's odd, isn't it, that you have people like... like Marco Rubio, you have someone of Cuban extraction in the regime. You have Jewish people. You have Donald Trump's son-in-law, because historically, these ideas go after everybody who's not...

Aryan, ultimately. And that seems to be where some of these characters are coming from. And they are using Trump to forward their own agendas, the Steve Bannon-type agenda. Also, I... You mentioned wealth inequality as well. I think it's really easy for people to forget that they may agree and they may want the power, but yeah, like you said, Marco Rubio is Cuban, right? Cuban descent. He's not.

To them he is, but you don't see it yet. And then you see the sort of low-level pound-shot British equivalents where you have our politicians of Asian extraction claiming that they can't really be English in the hope of assuaging these. these sort of beasts of bigotry, which you can never do. Thank you, Andreas. Phone lines are open. Question is simple, but the answer is not. 03456060973. Why is Trump really doing this stuff? Because it can't possibly be. It literally can't be for the reasons...

that he claims. And so far, you've got publicity stunt, you've got legacy, you've got the people behind him being embarked upon a sort of white supremacist project where, to paraphrase Orwell, Oceania rises. from the waves and Europe is left in kind of tatters. United Kingdom reduced to being airstrip one. Any other? Any other? offers on why this is really happening, because it can't possibly be happening for the reasons that we're currently being given. It's 10.48.

It is 10.51. You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC. There's another element to the legacy argument that Andreas just made, which is even... simpler and it speaks to the two-dimensional way in which donald trump operates like a kind of six-year-old just i don't know quite what that age is when they develop an ability to um stamp their foot hard enough that they can no longer be ignored by their parents and and then a certain type of parent starts

Dancing to the toddler's tune, the rampaging toddler tantrum becomes the rule by which everybody in the house lives. That's the world. That's the White House. That's the United States of America. But Greenland's just enormous. I don't fully understand. I keep telling you all the things that I'm not. I'm not a geologist. Neither am I a geographer. So I don't really...

get the Mercator projection, the cylindrical, the conformal cylindrical map that Gerardus Mercator drew in 1569. But it shows you how enormous Greenland is. And if Trump, in his own two-dimensional toddler tantrum kind of way, is looking for legacy, as Andreas suggests, then simply co-opting Greenland.

And, you know, at this point, I would say, imagine Greenland with the United States flag superimposed over it. But you don't have to imagine it because I told you on Monday that Stephen Miller's wife... who recently described Stephen Miller as a sexual matador that's how weird these people are a sexual matador who and I don't want to misquote her who gets me going every morning with his speeches about how they're going to destroy the left

Okay, these are all perfectly normal people saying perfectly normal things in a perfectly normal world. But if you simply look at that and you see people like Mrs. Miller... putting tweets of the Greenland landmass covered in the stars and stripes up on social media. Maybe it is just size. That's what I mean by two-dimensional. The United States that Donald Trump would leave behind after invading Greenland or co-opting or annexing Greenland would be measurably bigger than the United States.

He inherited from Joe Biden. I put that on the list of reasons why he's doing it. And speaking of reminders of Monday's show.

I don't want to jinx anything, but yet more proof that we're doing quite a lot right at the minute comes in another newspaper today, on this occasion, the Daily Telegraph, where they finally got around to reporting what Fiona Hill said. Back in 2019 at that impeachment, that congressional hearing into Trump's impeachment, you will remember that she warned.

some weird form of swap between Ukraine and Venezuela and that that's what the Russians were asking for is that if you change your tune change the US tune on Ukraine then we won't make much of a fuss if you set your sights on Venezuela and of course one of the elements of the Delta Force raid on Venezuela was the failure of the Russian supplied air defences to

provide any meaningful resistance whatsoever. It's gone a little further today with a former US ambassador to Ukraine telling the newspaper that Trump's very clear energetic influence in the Western Hemisphere could lead to an understanding. that we get to run things here and they get to run things in their neighbourhood. John Simpson of the BBC described it this morning as backyardism. So why is Trump doing this? Because he wants to treat the Western Hemisphere like his own backyard.

do with it whatever he pleases, or at least the people around him do. And they get Trump to go along with it by promising him baubles, like oil and rare earth minerals and golden telephones. Oh, sorry, that was Batista in The Godfather 2.

So why is he doing it? Ali's in Kilburn. Ali, why do you think? Hi, good morning, James. I'm still smiling at the thought of Stephen Miller as a sexual matador. Olay! I mean, that's a crazy image. Well, who are we to argue with Mrs. Miller? And you know, the thing about Stephen Miller is that there was a recent article about him in The Guardian that...

He models himself on Mussolini. He's a big fan of Mussolini. He even styles his hair to look like Mussolini. That can't be true. You've made that up. I read that somewhere. OK, I don't think we're moving into libelous territory necessarily, but I think we should probably double check it. The stuff about him being a sexual matador is definitely true. I've seen it.

with my own eyes. Not the performance, not the proof, but the claim from the wife. Anyway, back to the question in hand. Why is he doing this, given that the reasons we're being given are so obviously untrue? Well, one of the authorities... authoritarianism and estateship. And if you like, with this administration, the proto-fascism is Hannah Arendt. I'm sure you're familiar with that. The banality of evil.

Yeah, and the thing is that these types of leaders and rulers, if you like, they like gestures. They like big gestures. And one of them is actually demonstrating force and also gestures like monuments. and palaces and things like that. So the two things that have happened in recent times, one is obviously the attack on Venezuela and abduction of Maduro. The other one is...

The White House, that's, you know, he's constructing this thing, this structure, which eventually is going to be actually bigger than the White House itself. And sticking his name on the Kennedy Center would fit into your... thesis yeah as well yeah it's not really my thesis it's um it's in the literature take the win take the win yeah and and i completely agree with your

And I think, you know, this kind of pies in with, then he can, on the back of this, then he can bully countries around the world. The Iranians. at the moment. Which, again, we won't... I mean, I say this cautiously to you, but not many people will be losing sleep over the idea of the Iranian regime being...

being frightened or being fearful. But then the question returns, doesn't it? It's not what is happening. It's who is doing it. So if somebody is putting the frightens on the Iranian regime, most... certainly most Iranians in this country, would initially be delighted, then the question of who is doing it and why kicks in and the delight begins to dilute. Yeah, absolutely.

And also the way Ms Machado had been tweeted, somebody who was hailed as the legitimate leader of the country, who had been... elbowed out of the way by by trump Yeah, and partly we learned because the, well, I guess the first caller today, the Venezuelan caller was on the money there as well, because it will be partly because the CIA is telling Trump. that stability demands the kind of handover that is in place because the prospect of civil war is real. But then, of course, the Washington Post.

was told by two people in the White House at the beginning of this week that Trump's real beef with Machado is the fact that she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize that he thought should really have been his. So we're back to that analysis of it being all about baubles. Massive extension to the White House, sticking his name on the Kennedy Center. Getting peace prizes. I wonder now, having killed...

53 people in the pursuit of arresting a drug dealer, not as an act of war, not in any meaningful legal sense or viable legal sense. Do we think that Donald Trump will have to give back? his FIFA Peace Prize. It is four minutes after 11 and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. Let me just run something by you. I think if you are familiar with this particular territory...

you'll know that it is not fanciful remotely to suggest that in Donald Trump's brain, he appears to have mixed up the concept of asylum, as in asylum seekers, with... the concept of asylum as in what we would once have called lunatic asylums. If you listen to him talk on this subject, he's done it so often that it can't be a coincidence. He seems to believe that people who are seeking asylum are actually seeking...

an asylum because they have been released from asylums in their home countries. So it's why he doesn't seem able to separate the concept of refugee. from the concept of threat or it's one of the reasons why the other of course is racism but if you listen to and talk on the subject it is i think worth putting money on

the conclusion that he honestly believes that people seeking asylum have been released from asylums. People seeking asylum in one country have been released from asylums in other countries. There are clips. We may find a couple of clips to support this for you if we've got time. But I just want to set that as background as I return your attention to this so-called Mercator projection.

which I'm grateful to Mike in Guildford and others for educating me on a bit. The way it works is because it's cylindrical, it... Let me make sure I get this right. It makes the areas closer to the poles look larger than they actually are. So if you took a globe, right, and made it cylindrical, then the bits near the top and the bottom...

would look much bigger than they actually are, right? That makes sense. It's like you're stretching bits out at the poles, at the top and the bottom. So countries on the equator... will be roughly the same size on the Mercator projection as they are on a proper globe. But countries at the top and the bottom of the map or the projection will be considerably bigger. So much so...

And I've checked this, and I'm not joking. Greenland is about the size of Africa. On a Mercator projection, Greenland is about the size of Africa. So this is... 48% in fun, this question. All right, maybe 52% in fun. I'll let you decide. How likely is it that the man who thinks all asylum seekers in his country have been released from actual asylums in other countries has been shown a mercator projection by a close colleague, by an aide? and has been shown that Greenland is as big as Africa.

And therefore, if the United States were to somehow annex it and paint it with the stars and stripes, as Stephen Miller's wife did on social media at the weekend, then the size of the United States of America would dwarf every other... land on the planet. Just a question. If the bloke believes, as he appears to, that everybody seeking asylum in one country has been released from an asylum in another country, is it Mercator? Forgive me.

I pronounced something else wrong yesterday. Gyre, that first line of the WB Yeats poem. It's not gyre. It's circling and circling in the widening gyre. not Gaia, as in gyrate. It makes sense, doesn't it? But Mercator, the Mercator projection makes Greenland roughly the size of Africa. So if someone has said to Donald Trump, hey, Mr. President, look how big Greenland is. We should help ourselves to it.

then a man who thinks in two dimensions could perhaps have been persuaded, perhaps have been persuaded that they need to invade it simply because it's so big. If you don't like that analysis, if you don't like that theory, if you don't like that suggestion, what's yours? 0345 6060973. I'm now being told it's Mercator. This is why I...

Probably should have stayed as a print journalist. Mercator. So not Mercator, not Mercator, but Mercator. Who cares? Who says? Who chairs? Jesper is in Jutland in Denmark, appropriately enough. Jesper, what made you pick up the phone?

Yeah, hi. It was... Yespa. Is it Yespa? Yespa or Jespa? Yespa. Yes, forgive me. Yespa. It's all about pronunciation today, Yespa. Carry on. Yes, yes. Anyway... Your previous callers, you asked the question about, well, what is the deeper reason why he's doing all of this? I think it might be a loyalty test of the U.S. military itself. I don't think the previous perspectives.

of the callers were wrong necessarily. I think there's probably a lot of reasons. The answer ultimately might be all of the things that we've talked about today could be true. Absolutely. You know, small man complex and also the specific reasons for it.

The way it seems and the way that they're acting, especially with Hexeth doing that whole big meeting with all the senior officers, having to come back from active duty places to... be lectured by an alcoholic and servant of an obese man about how they are not looking healthy enough and how you know maybe several of them are

PEI hires and there's too much wokeness and all of this. Madness. So many moments of madness, Jesper, that you remind me of them. You can't keep up, can you, as a normal human being. Your brain can't accommodate all of the examples of all. awfulness and madness. Are you all right? The second I started thinking about it, then the list just comes rattling down. It's like, wait a minute, there was this thing he also did, and this thing he also did. And he said at one point, and this is another...

one of the huge lists, you know, you could make a, make a, write a book of just these crazy things like what people already have done. But, um, But one of the things was that he said that he would like to have generals like Hitler did. He's made, I think it was Comey that he was asked, they made like a... a dramatization of him asking him for complete loyalty. I think it was the FBI director. I can't remember. And just...

And loyalty to him, not to the law or to the truth, but to him. Because they take an oath to the Constitution, the American military, not the president, not to a man. And I can't help but think that that might be the one thing that Trump and his goons still don't know entirely if they can like – could they actually order the military? Would the military obey an order?

to go and annex Greenland or do actions that would in some way, you know, whether it's locating or whether it's just doing some small action there to sort of... uh marketer so we're coming for you or whatever yeah and you remind me of another moment that we just can't keep up with or we can't hold all of them in our head at the same time because there are too many and this goes back i think to october

when there was a bizarre interview, again on CNN, when Stephen Miller, I don't know if it was ever established if it was for technological reasons or whether or not it was him suddenly editing himself, but he used the phrase plenary authority. which would involve Trump having absolute...

power, total power over the decision to deploy the National Guard in states where the governors didn't want it. Plenary authority, I think, means just untrammeled dictatorial powers. And Miller said it out loud on CNN. And then... appeared to just sort of stop himself and stop speaking, almost as if he was trying to swallow the words...

back down again. And of course, that would depend upon the loyalty that you describe. You know, you can have all the plenary authority in the world. But if the military have got the guts to turn around and say no. then it's worthless. And, of course, haven't they just punished a military guy who... I'm going to get the details. The husband of Gabrielle Gifford?

Oh, I don't know. There might be several. I'll tell you what, we're proving. We're proving you can't keep it all in your head at the same time, aren't we, Jesper? But I think they've just reduced the pension. of that guy who's got four generations of military service. I'll get the details on that. And was an astronaut, Mark Kelly. Yeah, that's the fella. Yeah, that's the guy. And there's a genuine military hero.

And they punish him and they don't because he's not loyal to the lies. He's not loyal to the lies.

I mean, how does that shake down, though? Would it be individual troops? Would it be Congress? Somebody says, you're not allowed to do this. You can't do this. Yes, because if they do as they have done, which is just override Congress, I think it was true that they didn't inform anyone before or after, really. Not until it was way too late and over.

So I would think that it would have to be, it is the question of, and they had, I think, I can't remember his rank, but the leader or commander of Southcom. stepped down. I think it was shortly after the alleged, but I think we're going to be pretty sure it was a double tab of the survivors who were shot in the boat.

were clinging on to wreckage. That's what people are saying. And again, killed with no proof at all that they were doing anything wrong, just killed on the say-so of Hexner. The first step was that. Yes. Second tap, probably not better. And that's plenary authority. That is simply we can do whatever we want. And that leads us to the other theory, of course. Why are they doing this? Answer, to prove that they can.

which becomes itself a deterrent against dissent and a deterrent against defense and a deterrent against resistance. Just to clarify that other point I made, yes, but thank you so much. The Pentagon has said it's taking steps to demote. the former Navy Captain Mark Kelly, also, of course, a Democratic senator, and reduce his pension because, well, he made a video.

which Pete Hegseth has decided to describe as seditious. It simply urged members of the military to refuse unlawful orders. So if you, as a Democratic senator, a Navy captain, uh four generation military family if you tell some of your comrades in arms not to obey illegal orders then in donald trump's america you are a traitor you are guilty of sedition And I don't know what laws they invoke to do this, but they're trying to take away elements of his military pension.

And Mark Kelly is one of those people who is cometh the hour, cometh the man. If Pete Hegseth, he wrote, the most unqualified secretary of defense in our country's history, thinks he can intimidate me with a censure or threats to demote me or prosecute me, he still doesn't get it. How controversial is it to say to soldiers, don't obey illegal orders, refuse illegal orders? If your commander tells you to kill innocent people, please don't kill innocent people. Who are you going to punish in that?

The person telling soldiers not to kill innocent people or the person telling soldiers to kill innocent people. In Donald Trump's Pentagon, the person telling soldiers not to kill innocent people gets punished. And the person telling soldiers to kill innocent people does not. I wonder what Daily Mail columns we can look forward to tomorrow, explaining why Keir Starmer should be more like that.

In fact, speaking of support for Trump, is it time? I mean, I'm not short of calls, and I'm still fascinated by your answers to the questions that we're asking. But does anyone want to have a go? I mean, is it simply racism?

Donald Trump is so vile about foreigners, immigrants in general, asylum seekers in particular, refugees, Muslims, Haitians. Is it simply that people who like Trump... just love the is there anything else going on there whether you're writing columns for the daily mail or presenting programs on gbb's or um describing his decision is there anything else is there any other reason to like what he is doing in Venezuela or what he plans to do in...

In Greenland? I don't know. Maybe that'll be later in the week. I can't find, to go back to an earlier caller, I can't find anything about Stephen Miller explicitly and deliberately modelling himself on Mussolini just for the avoidance of doubt. Although plenty of people have... made comparisons. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that it is a deliberate modelling on his part. But I have, thank goodness, found the story I alluded to earlier about Boris Johnson being paid £240,000.

after a meeting with you guessed it the deposed Venezuelan leader in 2024 it was part of some marvelous investigations by the Guardian newspaper and saw Boris Johnson sit down with the Venezuelan leader in... 2024. And shortly afterwards, trouser a £240,000 payment from the other participant in the meeting, a hedge fund manager called Martin Peterman.

double checking on the dates paid oh yeah last year 2024 240 000 pounds Three people at the meeting, or three key players at the meeting, one of whom was Boris Johnson, one of whom was the leader of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and one of whom paid Boris Johnson £240,000 shortly after. the meeting. And of course, in typical Boris Johnson fashion, he told UK government officials, it is not true to say that I was paid for any meetings in Venezuela. But he had a meeting, and the other person there...

Paid him £240,000. Maker, that could just be a coincidence. Maybe he was skint. It's 11.18.

It is 20 minutes after 11. You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC. Speaking of cometh the hour, cometh the man in the context of Mark Kelly. the former Navy captain who urged members of the military, the US military, being given illegal orders not to obey them and faces punishment for doing so. Why is Ed Davey in my thoughts? this morning. So Trump has embarked upon an obscene course at the moment, a truly obscene course at the moment, morally obscene, politically obscene.

obscene in the context of security and that is pretty clear. And then UK politicians break down into two or three camps. If you are in power, the argument that you have to keep him sweet is... strong. It's not irresistible. But you can see why with, you know, tariffs on the table and money being rather tight and Brexit having rendered us much weaker on the international stage and economically than we would otherwise be.

could easily argue that he has little choice but to keep Donald Trump sweet. Ergo, Yvette Cooper refuses to be drawn on the question of international law in the context of the... abduction of Nicolas Maduro and the extrajudicial killing of 50-odd people in Venezuela, most of whom were Cuban, actually. Trump was boasting about that yesterday. And...

That's the defense that Starmer would offer up. I mean, technically, there's no chance of Donald Trump being president of the United States by the time we have a new prime minister in this country. If the electoral cycles in both countries unspool on schedule, you don't need to worry if you're in opposition about keeping Donald Trump sweet. Unfortunately, we have opposition parties. that are almost competing with each other to be furthest away from morality and reality.

You would ordinarily at this time expect one of the opposition parties to be giving Starmer a hard time about not being robust enough with regard to Trump. But is Nigel Farage going to do that? Kemi Badenoch still might. I don't quite know what it would sound like, but Kemi Badenoch isn't bound by the same parameters of common sense that the rest of us are. She can literally say it in one breath.

the polar opposite of what she says in the next breath. So she could say, I think she may already have said, oh, what he's done in Venezuela is morally right, but goodness me, he shouldn't do the same in Greenland, Greenland, something, something, morally, something. So Ed Davey at PMQs later today will be the person most likely to lay out the genuine moral interest that the United Kingdom could...

and arguably should be pursuing. It will fall to Ed Davey to offer up opposition. Farage probably won't even be there. So no danger of him saying boo to a Trumpian goose. Bad or not will be interesting. I can't quite see what else they're going to talk about. But I'm constantly surprised.

by the imagination and contortion of people who allied themselves to Donald Trump very early doors, very early days. And what do they do now? I don't know. Do they just pretend? Do they do it like Brexit? Will we be a month from now looking at commentary that claims there is an excellent Donald Trump, he just goes to a different school? It wasn't wrong of me to...

big up and praise Donald Trump. What did Jacob Rees-Mogg say about him? It could be the best thing that ever happens to Britain or the best thing that ever happens to Brexit. They'll never be held to account for any of this. But will it go the way of Brexit? Will Donald Trump still be in the White House?

becoming increasingly dictatorial and fascistic. And the people who told you he was going to be brilliant and none of the things that everybody paying attention knew he was going to be, all of those people will just sort of pretend it never happened. I'd know. It'd be like the opposite of Woodstock.

You know, no, it'd be like Brexit. Give it a few years. No one will admit publicly to having voted for Brexit. No one in the UK media or political establishment will admit to having been shilling for Donald Trump. Almost all of them were. You can't separate Trump from Brexit. Almost all of them were. I haven't heard the phrase Trump derangement syndrome yet this year. I'm sure I will. But that was a phrase used by people who...

couldn't see what was blindingly obvious to everybody with a functioning brain. Donald Trump is disgusting, depraved, politically, morally, whatever you want to call it. And here we are, people who were cool with him, boasting about... being a sexual predator people who were cool with him trying to steal an election people who were cool with him trying to incite an insurrection against his own seat of government

Oh, that's Trump derangement syndrome. How can you care about things like that? How can you care about a bloke who boasts about grabbing women by their... Genitalia. How can you... Oh, God, these woolly liberals, they're so soft, aren't they? These woke snowflakes who think something's bad about trying to steal elections. Woke snowflakes.

Woke snowflakes complaining about Big Don, Big DJT, sending a baying mob of potential murderers to the actual capital, screaming for the blood of his own vice president. Oh, you're such a snowflake. I don't know how much of the anniversary stuff of January the 6th you saw yesterday, but talk about rewriting history. Of course, in the digital age, you can't rewrite history because the front pages of newspapers that have gone back to...

weakness and cowardice in the face of Trump's threat are there for time immemorial. The front page is describing an insurrection, describing an incitement, describing the murderous mob whipped up. into ever higher levels of hatred by Donald Trump. It's all there in black and white. It's on the record. However hard they tried to pretend it never happened or to insist upon the lie that the election was stolen. All of the people sitting there now, today.

January 2026, going, oh, crikey, I didn't see this coming. Greenland, you say? Oh, gosh, he seemed like such a nice person when he was boasting about grabbing women by the genitals, trying to steal election and inciting insurrections against his own. colleagues. He seemed so nice when he was doing all those things. I can't believe he's got designs on Greenland. So you could argue, probably should argue that Starmer can't go where he would want to go.

in terms of criticism and condemnation. But opposition leaders can. Opposition leaders could. Nigel Farage won't. probably won't and if she does she automatically becomes a hypocrite because she's already praised the actions in Venezuela even as everything gets measurably and visibly worse for Venezuelans and then You're left with Ed Davey. So for not the first time ever, but I really can't wait to see what Ed Davey has to say at PMQs today. And we will find out shortly.

before quarter past 12. Back to the question of why Trump is doing what he's doing, because, spoiler alert, it can't. It simply can't be. for the reasons that he is offering. And if you're not spooked enough yet by the state of play on the global stage, try this headline on for size. Let me get it absolutely right. Russia sends Navy to guard oil tanker being pursued by US forces. Russia has deployed Navy vessels to escort an oil tanker, also being pursued by US forces across the Atlantic.

The ship, which has historically transported Venezuelan crude oil, but is reporting that it is not carrying any at the moment, is currently between, wait for it, yep, Iceland and the British Isles. Go on, pick a side. Nigel? Pick a side. Trump versus Putin with Britain in the sidelines. Who are you going to back? Which one of your heroes, Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin, would Nigel Farage be backing? No wonder he won't be anywhere to be seen near the House of Commons later today.

It's coming up to half past 11. I wasn't expecting to kick in in a monologue on the second quarter of the show, but it is a rather different prospect that we face. So I'll come to Becky first in Potter's Bar after the latest news headlines. In the meantime, still time for you to answer these questions.

Why is he really doing it? Answers currently include publicity stunt, legacy. I'm going, at the moment, pick a favourite. Should we take text votes on the favourite? I think someone has shown him the Mercator. Mercator. mercator going to say it right finally someone has shown him the mercator projection

A map rendered cylindrical which makes Greenland look as big as Africa. Someone has shown him that and he's decided, I want that massive place there. What's it called again? Greenland. Why isn't it green? Why isn't it green if it's called green? I said to them, a lot of people want to know, why is it not green? I'm not...

I grant you. After PMQs, we'll be joined by a former bigwig at Twitter to talk about the disgusting things currently going on on that platform. And if you're not across the story, you're not going to believe me when I tell you how disgusting they are. And then something that a lot of you have been calling for, and I have been calling for as well, off air.

A Greenland expert, someone who can just tell us, give us a crash course on Greenland. What's it like and who is there and how do they feel about what? So just that is something I think that we need to get in our... pencil case before we start doing our homework in the meantime here's dominic ellis with your headlines 33 minutes after 11 is the time i mean i thank you for all the kind words coming in about the

quality of the radio that we are making together at the moment. I'm as nothing, frankly, without contributors and without your calls. But you do indulge me a little bit in letting me think out loud sometimes.

It's interesting, isn't it, how many of the dogs we've set running have come back round again. So we talked with shock about Fiona Hill's testimony. the 2019 impeachment hearing into Donald Trump and the way that it explained how Russia had made it clear they saw links between Ukraine. and Venezuela. So allowing America a free reign with regard to Venezuela would be the reward for America softening its opposition to Russia's actions in...

Ukraine. And, you know, if you struggle to make sense of that hideous spectacle in the Oval Office of Donald Trump and his cronies brutalizing, bullying and humiliating Volodymyr Zelensky. A man whose boots no one in that room was fit to lace, least of all the so-called journalists asking him about why he wasn't wearing a suit. If you struggled to make sense of that at the time, arguably the most significant... non-life and death matter of last year, then now you know. Perhaps.

Occam's razor anybody? Why on earth did they do that? Because the Russians had said that if they change their tone on Ukraine, then they can do what they want in Venezuela, which Russia ostensibly defends and protects. So that has... come back round again. And so have the other things that we mentioned on Monday that nobody else was really mentioning at the time.

The pardon for the ex-president of Honduras, who was serving 45 years for, wait for it, trafficking cocaine. So lo and behold, they're not really talking about drugs anymore. They're talking about oil. And they're talking about Greenland. They're talking a lot about Greenland. If you were really doing a lap of honour with regard to the abduction of Nicolas Maduro, whose case in New York, by the way, is...

Far from copper-bottomed, but if you were really doing a lap of honour on that, why would you want the conversation to have moved on to Greenland quite so quickly? All of which, all of these are variations on the question of why is he doing what he's doing? Because it isn't for the oil. The oil is largely worthless. It isn't for the... protection of the West from America, because that's what NATO is for. You don't need to invade NATO allies to enforce NATO ambition or to enforce NATO's mission.

And it isn't for the rare earth minerals, the resources that lie beneath the ice across Greenland, because that is up for grabs, as Jón, our Icelandic caller, and others subsequently have explained quite perfectly. It's all there. You just get the rights, get the exploration rights. It's all there for US companies already. He doesn't need to do any of the things that he's doing to achieve the things that he claims he's trying to achieve. So why is he doing them?

11.36 is the time. Becky's in Potter's Bar. Becky, what would you like to say? Hi, James. Excuse me, I'm a little nervous. It's only me. I know, that's one. Before I make my point, actually, I just wanted to... Also mentioned when you were talking about Mark Kelly, that Trump also called for him to be executed for what he said. Of course he did. As well. And I think there were four other Democrats in that video.

all of whom he called for that execution. So the bloke who is telling soldiers not to obey illegal orders should be executed in Donald Trump's. I mean, probably it was rhetoric. It was probably hyperbole, but I think he's called for them to be hanged. knee was that the thing is but anyway on we go yes on we go so um the reason i think he's doing this really

And I'm not as well informed on this as I should be before I picked up the phone. That's why you're listening to this programme. I'm not either, but I usually am. I'm more informed by one o'clock than I was at ten o'clock. Exactly. I think he's basically trying to line his own pockets. and his billionaire buddies. And there was just, I was watching last night, it was a video of Jon Stewart, you know, the daily show in America. His fantastic monologue.

And he showed a clip because, again, I'm not sure, but am I right in assuming that Donald Trump, before he did what he did in Venezuela, was supposed to have informed Congress? Yes, of course. the leader of the opposition as well the democrats and he didn't do that but what he did do and they showed a clip of him um on air force one talking to the press about it he informed all the big oil companies

before he did what he did. He didn't inform Congress or the Democrats like he was legally supposed to, but the oil companies had the heads up. So this is why I think I'm sure he'll make a killing out of it. They've already given him, I think they already gave him a billion dollars for his last campaign, the oil companies. And he said at the time that, you know, they were going to get...

They would receive good news in return. And the oil, most experts attest, is not very valuable. High density or thick crude oil, whatever the correct word is. I mean, it may not be the Venezuelan oil that will provide Trump with the reward. It may just be something else in the gift of the oil companies.

Yeah. I mean, he's already made a fortune, hasn't he, since taking office. I think of Jimmy Carter's peanut farm, Becky, more often than he's healthy. I know I really do, because if you want to sort of map... the disappearance of normality, if you want to map the surrender of decency, then you look at the amount of money that him and his friends and his... family are making as a consequence of, by dint of the presidency. They don't even hide it.

You know, it may well have been that previous presidents were less than transparent about how close allies were benefiting financially from some of the decisions being made in the White House. But they had at least, I don't know what you describe it as. the wisdom to hide it literally sending his own son-in-law around the world to do property deals on the government dime it's extraordinary truly extraordinary and yet it isn't

Not remotely. A lot of competition this week for Best Caller, but I think Michael in Greenwich on Monday was certainly up there, and he joins me again now. I'm going to unmask you, if I may, Michael, because... it was suggested to me after your call to the program on Monday that you were in fact Michael Macy, former US diplomat and cultural attache right across the world. So I'm going to put that to you before I find out about why you've rung in today.

That's true, though I wouldn't say across the world, but yeah, more than a few places. More than a few places will do. What is Trump really up to, Michael? Well, I think, again, people... You've got to recognize how narcissistic he is and how much he needs to be seen as the greatest of American presidents. So he's got to overcome everybody's legacy. The first term, he fixated on Andrew.

Johnson from the 1830s, who was one of the most racist, put up his picture in the Oval Office. Now it's William McKinley. William McKinley was famous for expanding the American empire. He took the Philippines, Puerto Rico. And he also was famous for imposing some of the highest tariffs America has ever seen.

So he's got a sort of, I don't know if you have this in the States, Lady Bird books are like really simplistic primary school guides to history. He's got a kind of Lady Bird books grasp of previous presidents. Yeah, Andrew Jackson was one of those violent... Yeah, Andrew Jackson. And then he was responsible for the genocide against the indigenous nations, moving them from...

to west of the Mississippi. It's more detail you need to know, but that's the kind of person. Now it's William McKinley. And again, it's just this very simplistic idea. I need to add more. He wants to be seen as greater than Washington. which is why he's not only building this ballroom, which will be larger than the White House, he wants to put up a memorial arch. Yes, I thought that was a joke when I first saw it. No, no, the victory arch. Well, to put up a victory arch...

You need to have a victory. Yeah. And also, you know, you commented on his treatment of Zelensky in the Oval Office. This is a man who, again, refused. service in Vietnam, one doesn't really want to question his bravery too much. But again, he's going to try to demean anyone who has shown any real courage, which is why I'll go after Mark Kelly. These are people who really...

have done heroic things and faced great danger. He's never done anything. I hadn't thought of that. So we should see, in a sense, Zelensky and Mark Kelly in the same frame, because they both represent the things he knows he isn't. Yeah. Of course. So he has to destroy them. Again, yeah, obviously he wants money. He's making money on all of these deals or his family is or people close to him.

But underlying all of this is this insatiable need to be seen as the greatest, the best. By whom, Michael? By whom? by himself. That's it, isn't it? That's the bit that's really hard to understand if you are not narcissistic, is that it's your self-image. not how you are treated by the world. That's a side order or a byproduct of that. He's trying to persuade himself that he's the best president ever, and he's never going to be able to do that. Yeah, you can't do that. Now, he is...

susceptible to public opinion, that does affect him. But ultimately, I think, which is my opinion, he needs to see himself and be seen as. And so much of it's... So people always think, oh, there's a deeper underlying sort of strategic thinking to much of what he does. I'm not sure there is. It's pretty simplistic. It's venal and capricious and simple and straightforward. But the people around him are not those things. The people around him do have...

plans and projects and missions, I think. Yeah, it's a real mix. And I think... You and your other callers have noted there's a difference. You know, they all have their own agendas and it all feeds in. You know, they're all able to use Trump and his power to accomplish what it is they're trying to do. And again, underlying all of this, though, I think, and you've mentioned it, your callers have mentioned it, is a deep racism. Yeah. You know, this is, he needs to obliterate Obama's legacy.

Obama was seen in the Situation Room watching the takedown of Osama bin Laden. He needs to be seen in the Situation Room taking down Maduro. He has to be better, greater. He's willing, I think, to even... sacrifice many Americans' health care just to destroy that element of Obama's legacy. And again, it almost puts people...

like us out of business if it's too simple, doesn't it? Because you're not going to get 2,000 words or a diplomatic briefing out of words like venal or greedy or narcissistic, but in him personally. It's Occam's Razor territory. It really does boil down to the most base of impulses. Well, I think that's why people keep misreading them. Yeah. Or they want to read more into it than there might be there.

And often it's the wrong response because they're not really seeing him as he sees himself. Exactly that. Anyway.

No, not anyway. There was one thing yesterday, I'm sure you noticed it, when he mentioned overnight, the day before, the prospect of impeachment, saying we've got to win the midterms, because if we don't win the midterms, they're going to impeach me. I found that quite interesting. Well, again, I think he's afraid of that happening again. It's happened twice. Third time might actually stick. He might actually be convicted in the Senate, depending upon...

how the midterms go. So the question is, will there be midterms? Yeah. What's your answer to that question? I go back and forth. Today I'm thinking it's probably... More likely, since you're beginning to see some dissension among Republicans, they also want to be reelected. They also don't want to see the system which has rewarded them destroyed.

So, but it's still an open question. You know, again, you go back to January 6th, he's willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power. And also, there will be a play, I expect, for a third term. Now, I don't think that has much chance of success. But again, too often people have underestimated.

what's possible. I was going to say, how many times have you thought that in the last 10 years? There's not much chance of that happening. And then it does, doesn't it? But he's flirting with it, isn't he? He's inflating the balloon. of a possible is there a little something i think he said is there maybe a little i'm not allowed to do it but is there a little something that maybe and you know that's when alarm bells should start ringing it should start ringing

Well, it's a weird logic that he has saying that I actually won the second term. So this is actually my third term. So it's already the precedents already established. I'm not sure anybody would buy that. But given this Supreme Court, it's hard to tell what they'll come up with. Yeah.

And I mean, that is the question that we're not having yet or the conversation we're not having yet because it feels a bit too luxurious about why people go along with it or what it is that they are in their own minds going along with. Michael, thank you. Brilliant stuff. Really helpful. And not exactly uplifting, but the idea that, well, it's Wednesday, so I reckon the midterms are going to go ahead. Ask me again on Friday, and I might well do.

It is 11.51. You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. I am fascinated by that, but I don't know whether you are. I mean, it's partly because of the world I work in, I think. But people who are still clinging to the carcass of Trump's, whatever you want to call it, decency. You know, the idea that he is anything other than hideous.

If you didn't see it during his first time, that's just about forgivable. But when January the 6th happened, I honestly, I've told you this before, I honestly thought that, how naive is this? I was well into, you know. Late 40s? And I honestly thought that all of the people who do what I do for a living but get everything wrong.

would actually, for once, have to put their hands on it. Because you can pretend Brexit wasn't a disaster. You can pretend there's an excellent Brexit, it goes to a different school. They've even started pretending that Liz Truss was a woman. Well, Liz Truss has started pretending that she was a woman more sinned against than sinning.

You can pretend, of course you can, that all of the problems, many of the problems that the country is facing now are not traceable directly back to austerity, to Cameron Osborne's ideological mission. to take social capital away from the people who had the least actual capital in the country and, of course, the mothership of wrongness.

All of the journalists who told you that Boris Johnson was a genius or that he was a stand-up guy or that he was going to be a great prime minister. So all of those things, I can see how you can cling desperately and pathetically to the notion of rightness. And continue to pretend or to even believe, to delude yourself into believing that you didn't make an enormous nation-damaging mistake in all four of those cases. But when Trump's mob...

started baying for the blood of Mike Pence live on national television after he had essentially locked and loaded them and sent them into battle. I honestly thought, I honestly thought that that would mark a moment. in our sort of, in transatlantic history, where everybody in this country, whether they were writing columns for the Daily Mail or presenting radio programs, I thought everybody would just have to go. Sheesh! Sorry about that.

Not quite sure what happened. Got a bit caught up in the event. Probably should have spotted it when he started boasting about sexually assaulting women. But that is the deal breaker. And I mean, the depth, the strength, the level of my naivety, because I was just confining my thoughts to fans and cheerleaders in the UK media and political orbit.

Not Farage, of course, but anybody with a shred, with a single scintilla of integrity, decency, honesty, had to come out of January the 6th saying Trump is absolutely awful. He is all of the things his critics said and worse. really sorry for arguing otherwise. I honestly thought that would happen. Didn't cross my mind they'd re-elect him.

Oh, dear. And they pay me for my insights. It's extraordinary, isn't it? But here we are again in that moment. And I am fascinated by that question of how you can sustain support for somebody if it's not just racism. You know how they took down displays honouring black soldiers at World War II cemeteries in the Netherlands last year? You may have missed it. It happened late last year as a direct consequence of Trump policies.

taking down memorials. About 1,700 officially counted as missing. This is according to the American Battle Monuments Commission. But the Dutch Cemetery, the Dutch War Cemetery, took down displays showing black US soldiers. But hey, maybe there is nothing more than the racism. Javier, I hope I've pronounced that correctly, is in Deptford. Javier, what would you like to say? Hi. Hi, James. I'm a bit nervous. He was fine. Thank you.

Don't be nervous. Seriously, you've got all the time and space that you need, I promise. Well, I'm a Venezuelan living in the UK for the last 50 years. All things happening from a much wider perspective. The situation in Venezuela has started long, long before Trump came to power. So we Venezuelans are not naive. We know that we are coins in the political landscape as well, inside the U.S. and globally. And our suffering becomes a leverage in global geopolitics.

Of course, ordinary Venezuelans get squeezed in the middle, you know. So this situation in Venezuela starts a long way, way before we even thought about Trump becoming president. So Obama. Even during Obama administration, he framed Venezuela as a threat to impose sanctions on officials under Chavez and then Maduro, you know, tightening the pressure and cutting diplomatic ties, you know.

All that happened while Obama was president. And then under Biden, the U.S. kept much of that hard-line policy towards Maduro and while at times exploring. limited engagement and trying to get some sort of negotiation under the table with him. Obviously, the promises that were made of Maduro didn't materialize. And then... Trump came into power. And I think for his political gain and his legacy, he's trying to claim a win where Biden, Obama, and even Bush couldn't get anything done.

But we need to remember, like I was saying, we need to remember that the situation inside the country is really, really hard. And we've been suffering for a long time. of the state repression and political violence and the collapse of our economy and one of the largest migration crises in the hemisphere. And this was...

Way, way before. Indeed, this started way before the US intervention. So my own father died in 2014, you know, because there were no medicines in the country. There were no medicines in the country because... They basically stole everything. Everything that wasn't nailed down. I just remembered that PMQs is on the way, which is the only...

12 o'clock junction of the week that we can't really ignore so i'm going to have to nudge you slightly if i may javier towards the because i think what you've explained to us is why the euphoria greeted the toppling of maduro but i wonder whether as the dust settles over the removal and the new reality begins to become clear, whether you, as a Venezuelan patriot, feel that you're still a pawn in Donald Trump's game.

Of course. Absolutely. We are not naive. We know, but for us to be 100%, we support what has happened with Maduro. Of course. Just to put it lightly. As clear as I can, it's a neighbor that has been beating his wife and children and nobody has done anything. But someone got rid of him, entered the house.

grabbed him and took him out and finally that people that have been fighting for help feel like there's some hope we know who he is we know who donald trump is but whatever happens in venezuela it cannot get worse It's absolutely valuable. Thank you for your time. And you know, when I say I hope you're right, I really hope you're right. And I think that'd be absolutely...

no shying away from reporting whatever that reality turns out to be in the coming weeks. I think it has got a little tiny bit worse in the immediate aftermath, but you're talking about a bigger picture than that.

Thank you, Javier. I can hear the sadness in your voice. I don't know whether you were euphoric at the weekend, but as the dust settles... and the new reality emerges it is going to be harder and harder to cling i think to that or to feel that initial celebratory joy albeit as you say it is it is like having um a particularly vile piece taken off the chessboard.

That's no way to introduce Natasha Clarke, LBC's political editor, who is here to cast her eye over the first PMQs of the year. Tricky or obvious? Because, I mean, I would say, how can they talk about anything other than Donald Trump? But can we better not just sometimes take me by surprise? Yeah. He's the elephant in the room, isn't he? Donald Trump really dominating.

Foreign affairs all over the world, really. And obviously, Starmer would love to have started the year talking about the cost of living and all of his things that he thinks that we want to focus on ahead of those really crucial local elections in May, which after which many people...

still think there's a possibility he might face a leadership challenge. But you are right. There could be anything of Kimmy Baden-Ock really to bring up. A couple of ideas. The farming tax U-turn, which we had just before Christmas. Yeah, that got buried, didn't it? By sort of crackers and Christmas.

Exactly. Everybody was totally cocked off by that. Do we know exactly what... I mean, has it gone completely? Has it been watered down? Yeah, it's been watered... down very much they've changed the thresholds that farmers will have to pay that inheritance tax that they've raised it from i think one million to two and a half okay so it's a really big uh climb down it's not going to affect many family farms anymore at all um kemi badenock's been campaigning on

So she might mention that. Another thing she might want to then allude to is business rates and the growing Labour rebellion around this. The business rates are meant to be re-evalued in a couple of months time. In April, that will kick in and that's going to really hit a lot of firms. She's been banging the drum on that one. But of course, Donald Trump, World Affairs, Greenland, Venezuela. It's the elephant in the room, isn't it? It's completely dominating.

all of Keir Starmer's attempts to try to get on the domestic front foot. He's been in Paris, obviously. Yesterday, talking about Ukraine, we had the announcement of them putting troops on the ground. And Fred Davey, I'm sure he's going to mention Donald Trump, isn't he? He's called him a bully earlier today. keeps pressuring the Prime Minister to do more. You said Fred Davey there, but you said Sered Davey. Sered Davey. Yeah, I think he's going to obviously push him on why we are still...

trying so hard to appease this guy. And if we are going to get a peace deal in Ukraine, can we really trust that Donald Trump in America, as you can say, for so long? I didn't point that out today. I haven't even got onto Ukraine. But that's why France and the UK have to make the announcement that they've made. because the role of the United States is no longer the role of the United States. I don't know.

Will it be fractious? I mean, it used to be at times of international peril. The whole house would sort of come together, but those days seem to be behind us. Yeah, Kemi Badenot doesn't tend to lean into that, into party unity.

aspect does it she doesn't really do that and we did see a lot of that over Ukraine I think instead I think what her strategy might be would be to ask the Prime Minister well how are these troops going to go to Ukraine how many will there be where will they go sort of the logistics questions that you might sort of expect opposition leaders to sort of press on but you're right I imagine she probably won't welcome anything that the Prime Minister is doing she seems to find that

incredibly hard to do so. Yeah, it's footballification, I suppose. If he announced that he was going to beatify Margaret Thatcher, I suspect Cammie Badenet would find something to complain about. She doesn't like agreeing with him at all. But he doesn't like agreeing with anything that she does either, so it's to be fair. That's probably true.

Three minutes after 12, and we will cross immediately to the House of Commons as soon as the leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, gets to it. In fact, we could do it now, you see. I wasn't joking. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

And Mr Speaker, may I welcome the Prime Minister's efforts to advance peace in Ukraine and his joint statement on Greenland. The last few days have seen significant international events. the US operation in Venezuela, threats towards Greenland, and an agreement to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine. So it is frankly astonishing.

that the Prime Minister is not making a full statement to Parliament today. No Prime Minister, Labour or Conservative, has failed to make a statement to the House in person after... to the deployment of British troops. His comments about making a statement in due course, quite frankly, are not good enough. It shows a fundamental lack of respect for all of us here and the people we represent. Mr Speaker.

The US is Britain's closest military ally. However, we are clear that the sovereignty of Greenland is sacrosanct. So can the Prime Minister tell us? What influence is he bringing to bear with the US administration to ensure that is respected? Prime Minister. Mr Speaker, let me be...

very clear about what was agreed yesterday because military plans were drawn up some months ago and i've updated the house in relation to that yesterday was a political declaration that sits under those military plans if there were to be if there were to be deployment There would have to be a legal instrument. Mr Speaker, deployment would only be after a ceasefire to support Ukraine's capabilities, to conduct deterrent operations and to construct and protect military hubs.

Mr Speaker there will be a statement to the House at the earliest opportunity. It could hardly be an opportunity. They claim they want to know about this, and they are trying to shout me down. If there were a decision to deploy under the agreement that was signed yesterday, then I would put that matter to this House for a debate beforehand and for a vote on that deployment. That is consistent with recent practice. and I will adhere to that. Why is today not the earliest opportunity?

The truth is the Prime Minister does not want everybody in this House to be able to ask him questions. So he leaves at just two Prime Minister's questions half an hour on Monday. On Monday, at least his foreign secretary stood up for two hours and 15 minutes. It was a non-event, but at least she did that. He is scared of us being able to ask him questions. Six questions, yes he's here. Please.

I've also requested that we do need an early statement. This House should always be informed first. So I don't like the chanting. Let the questions continue. One of them asked that he is here. He's got no choice but to be here for Prime Minister's questions. That's why he's here. If he could skip this, we know he would do. But back to the matter at hand, Mr Speaker. We all agree. We all agree. All of us here agree. Most of us here agree that NATO is the bedrock of our security.

The future of Greenland is of fundamental importance to the future of the Alliance. And I am sure that the Prime Minister agrees that it is essential for NATO leaders, including and especially the US, to meet. Will the Prime Minister call for an urgent meeting of NATO leaders? Can I help the Prime Minister? You do not need to worry about the responsibility of the questions of the Opposition.

NATO is the single most important and effective military alliance the world has ever seen. In the 18 months we have been in power, I have done everything within my ability to strengthen NATO. We had one of the strongest NATO meetings last year, the summit, where we had more members of NATO and more unity. When I arrived back to the House to make a statement, which of course she asked for,

Her position was, I should not have missed PMQs, I should have empty-chaired the NATO summit. That is how serious she is about NATO, Mr Speaker.

You didn't answer the question, Mr Speaker. I asked him if he would call for an urgent meeting of NATO leaders. We can all see that the situation is moving rapidly. I also note that he has still not had a call with President Trump. That is concerning four days after the events in Venezuela. But yesterday he announced that Britain and France had signed, he says, a political agreement to put troops on the ground in the event of a peace deal in Ukraine.

So given the Prime Minister is not making a statement about that deployment of British troops abroad, one of the most serious decisions a government and a parliament can take, irrespective of what he says, can he at least confirm... Can he at least confirm how many troops would be sent to Ukraine and whether they would be in a combat role? Prime Minister. Mr Speaker, I was with NATO allies yesterday.

all day, in which we were discussing security in Europe, and particularly security guarantees for Ukraine. And we made significant progress. And I'm glad that she has welcomed that. Of course I will speak to President Trump. I spoke to his senior advisers yesterday. We were with them all day.

she asked me about the deployment we released the statement yesterday it's clear from that but I will be clear with the house that there would only be deployment after a ceasefire it would be to support Ukraine's capabilities, it would be to conduct deterrence operations and to construct and protect military hubs.

The number will be determined in accordance with our military plans, which we are drawing up and looking to other members to support. So the number I will put before the House before we were to deploy. But I'll do more than that. If we went as far as a legal instrument.

to deploy, which would be necessary. I would then have a debate in this House so all members could know exactly what we're doing, make their points of view, and then we would have a vote in this House on the issue, which to my mind is the proper procedure. in a situation such as this Mr Speaker it is clear that the Prime Minister either does not have the detail or does not want to give us the detail

But this is important. He should be calling, he should be calling an urgent meeting of NATO leaders. He should have spoken to President Trump by now. This is important because if any such peace deal is breached... we would be in direct conflict with Russia. If the Prime Minister is committing troops, he must give more detail on how he intends to ensure our armed forces are fully resourced.

Before the budget, the Prime Minister said it was his ambition to spend 3% on defence in the next Parliament. That could be as late as 2034. It is time to move from ambition... commitment we have now had the budget so can the Prime Minister now tell us in what year Will the UK spend 3% of GDP on defence?

in relation to security guarantees and the American role and our dialogue with the Americans. I can assure the House I spoke to President Trump twice over the Christmas period in relation to this specific issue, along with members of the E3.

along with European allies. That has been a constant course of our discussion. There's no question of acting on this without full discussion with the Americans. And their senior negotiators were there at President Trump's request yesterday and on his instructions.

and they were talking to him during the course of yesterday as we negotiated. So to assure the House, because it is a serious position she's putting to me, on the question of security guarantees, there is nothing between the UK and the US and we've been constantly discussing this.

this over many, many weeks and months. We've made huge progress. I have personally spoken to President Trump about it on two occasions since we were last in this House. I do want to reassure her and the House in relation to that really important issue. In relation to defence spend, I am proud that we are investing to keep our country safe. We have increased the defence spend that is provided for in the budget. It is the biggest sustained increase in defence spending.

the Cold War, and that means, Mr Speaker, better kit, better housing for our forces, and better defence as an engine for growth. Mr Speaker, that does compare to their...

record. Ben Wallace, who was on the radio this morning, the longest-server Conservative Defence Secretary, admitted that, on their watch, the armed services had been, in his words, hollowed out. Miss Carthage, you expect a lot, I expect something back, and that's silence. Prime Minister. Mr Speaker, they shout shame. I'll pass that on to Ben Wallace.

Mr Speaker, the defence spending that we've put in place is three years earlier than the unfounded plan that they left behind at the last election. Mr Speaker, I had what? Oh, wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it. What Ben Wallace said, what Ben Wallace said was that spending had fallen under all governments. 3% the last time... The last time spending was at 3% was under a Conservative government.

While we welcome the increase, something that we supported... Can I remind the House that this is a man who sat in the shadow cabinet and tried to make Prime Minister a man who said we shouldn't even be in NATO at all. So I don't need to take any lectures from him. The world is changing. We need to speak. more on defence he did not answer the question about whether when we would get to 3% yet

He knows up until 2031 how much he's going to be spending on welfare. He doesn't know. That's in the Red Book. The Red Book has no money allocated for defence. We need to move from ambition to commitment. And, Mr Speaker, this is important because this isn't just about it. money. If the Prime Minister is deploying troops to Ukraine, those troops need to know that we have their backs.

Former SAS commanders warned that Labour's Northern Ireland Troubles Bill will wreck our special forces. Not me, that's the SAS. In November. Nine retired four-star generals warned that his bill was a direct threat to national security. And even his own Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner has said our veterans are being treated worse than terrorists.

Mr Speaker, is it not madness to be putting veterans in the dark for serving their country at the same time he is deploying today's soldiers into Ukraine?

Mr Speaker, that was embarrassing. She said that Ben Wallace was talking about all government. They were in power for 14 years and they hollowed out our... armed forces copyright Ben Wallace secondly she talks about the shadow cabinet she has in her shadow cabinet a shadow attorney general who is advising Abramovich at the same time as we are imposing sanctions on Russia and trying to use that money to support Ukraine.

How can someone sit in her shadow cabinet advising someone trying to escape sanctions and pretend that their policy is to support us on sanctions? when it comes to Northern Ireland. They are the party that gave immunity to IRA terrorists, terrorists who killed British soldiers. Their flawed act was struck down by the courts, which left our veterans with no legal protection whatsoever.

We are introducing a fair and transparent process with a package of rights and protections for our veterans. Mr Speaker, there is no equivalence between our armed forces who fought bravely in Northern Ireland and terrorist groups. wants to go back to their old flawed legislation and give immunity to the IRA, she should stand up now and say so.

Let me start by talking about the Shadow Attorney General. Do they know what the Shadow Attorney General is doing? He is defending veterans pro bono against the actions of this government. On this side of the House, Mr. Speaker, we will defend those who defended us. But why don't we talk about the actual Attorney General who is sitting in Cabinet, the man who defended Gerry Adams, the man who's trying to bring Shamima Begum...

back into the country, the man who is helping to surrender the Chagos Islands. I will take our shadow Attorney General every day of the week against his Attorney General. protect our veterans i want the prime minister to know we protect our veterans what he is doing to veterans is disgraceful but this is serious mr speaker i don't want the house to be under any illusions i do not want the house to be under any illusion

The Prime Minister should know that we will absolutely support any efforts to help bring peace to Ukraine. We will work with him to ensure NATO remains the bedrock of our security. We cannot write a blank cheque when he is also surrendering the Chagos Islands, surrendering our veterans to lawfare. and surrendering to his backbenchers by prioritising welfare handouts over defence spending as if the world has not become more dangerous. So, Mr Speaker...

Isn't it time the Prime Minister changed course and for once put the British national interest first? Mr Speaker, she talks about the shadow attorney general. Of course I accept.

that lawyers have to represent all sorts of clients. Of course I accept that, President. The question is whether the shadow Attorney-General can sit in the shadow Cabinet When the party opposite says it supports us on sanctions, we want the money from Chelsea Football Club to go to Ukraine.

i'm not sure whether that's her position if it is her position presumably it's something they discuss in the shadow cabinet advised by a shadow attorney general who is representing the very man who's money we want to say to Ukraine if she can't see if she can't see she can't see the conflict of interest in that then she shows no judgment and no leadership

It's a new year, but the Leader of the Opposition has got absolutely nothing to offer the country. She is totally irrelevant. Nobody is listening to her. Mr Speaker, this is the year when, on this side, we turn a corner. People benefit from the decisions we have made, £150 off energy bills, freezing railfares and lifting half a million children out of poverty. We are turning the corner and there is much more to come.

Well, the Prime Minister can keep the good news going because he's rightly made house building an economic growth key priority for his government. By giving the go-ahead today to the Chesterfield-Staveley regeneration route, he'll help us to deliver 1,500 houses and 5,700 jobs on land that was previously coal mining and brown...

industrial land. It's not just a road, it is a growth project. So will the Prime Minister keep the good news coming and tell us that he'll support the Chesterfield Slavery Regeneration Room? Can I thank him for that question? I know that he's working hard on this scheme. As he knows, land investigation works are currently taking place to help establish the final costs. The Road Minister is looking closely at the scheme.

alongside about 40 others. We will prioritise schemes that deliver faster journeys and unlock new homes and jobs.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I wish you a Happy New Year and everyone in this house? And can I welcome the progress made on security guarantees for Ukraine yesterday? Mr Speaker, Geoffrey Robertson. KC is a respected authority on international law. He's also the head of the Prime Minister's Barrister Chambers. And he couldn't be clearer. President Trump's actions in Venezuela are...

illegal. He says the United States, and I quote, is in breach of the United Nations Charter and has committed the crime of aggression which the court at Nuremberg described as the supreme crime. Does the Prime Minister agree with his old mentor, or has he got it wrong?

that Munduro was not a legitimate president in Venezuela. And so nobody, I think, sheds any tears at his removal. And what we need, what we were saying before the weekend, and we say again, is there needs to be a peaceful transition to democracy in Venezuela. Now, the benchmark of all actions, of all countries, is, of course, international law. And it is for the US to justify its actions accordingly. My focus is on the defence and security of the United Kingdom. And yesterday...

we were working with NATO allies, including the US, on security guarantees for Ukraine. And it's only with security guarantees that we'll have a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, which is vitally important for Ukraine. for Europe and for the United Kingdom. Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister just looks ridiculous when he won't tell the truth that Trump has broken international law.

But turning to Donald Trump's next target. The Prime Minister was right to give the Danish Prime Minister his backing over Trump's threats. to annex Greenland, and I welcome his joint statement with other European leaders. But does he also agree that if Trump does attack Greenland, it will be the end of NATO? And given that frightening possibility, does he accept that the UK needs to increase defence spending more quickly than currently planned and build new alliances?

with reliable nations. The Greenland issue is obviously very important. I thank him for raising it. The future of Greenland is for Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark. and for Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark alone. And yesterday he will have seen that I put out a statement to that effect, along with fellow allies in Europe.

NATO is hugely important, the single most effective and important military alliance the world has ever known. He keeps encouraging me to sort of tug away at parts of NATO and to choose between Europe and the US. mistake for our country. Yesterday we were working with our NATO allies, including the US, our NATO ally. on a just and lasting peace in Ukraine. That will not happen without security guarantees from the Coalition of the Willing backed

by the United States. That's a vitally important issue, and we made progress on that. There won't be a just and lasting peace in Ukraine without those security guarantees, and not achieving a just and lasting peace in Ukraine is not... in our national interest and that's why I'm applying so much time and energy to seeking to get that outcome.

Prime Minister, even its strongest advocates acknowledge that Northern Ireland is... Good Lord, that was a long one. And as a consequence of the length of PMQs this week, we will dispense with the advert break for now. Headlines on the way at half.

passed natasha clark is with me um i don't quite understand what happened there was she demanding that he make a statement to the house about what would be when it finally happened quite important military detail but it hasn't happened yet in the event of a ceasefire we will deploy troops to ukraine

Can you tell us exactly what that will mean and involve, even though none of it has actually happened? I genuinely didn't understand what she was going on about. And rather more worrying, I'm not sure she did. No, I think that was actually, I don't think it quite worked as a tactic for her to go on today.

obviously there were questions and right questions to be asked. The military spending question was good. I'd have opened with that if that was the road that you were determined to go down. There were some good questions. I don't feel like she maybe deployed them in the right way. But what did she want?

Did she want him to provide... Yeah, detail of how many troops, where would they be, what would that look like? Is that how we normally operate as a country? We tell our potential enemies exactly what we're doing, when and how and why, like months if not years before it actually...

actually happens in a theoretical universe? Totally. And it's obviously a totally hypothetical situation at the moment because, as you point out, we haven't got a peace deal yet in order to do so. But, you know, on the other hand...

It was something that was announced by the UK and the French government. They are wanting to say, we will put boots on the ground. It's fair enough for her to ask, what does that actually look like in practice? But it is exceedingly difficult for Keir Starmer to give any answers on something that's not happening.

And what he did say, though, which was interesting, was that Parliament will get a vote if and when that does happen. That will be something which obviously previous prime ministers and leaders of parties have really struggled with holding their parties together on the issue of...

whether we deploy troops or whether we do military strikes in other countries. That has been something which every prime minister has really struggled with making that case for. The benefit of a massive majority, perhaps, because you're not vulnerable to...

Rebellion or quibble. I say that. Well, you do say that. And equally, with a massive Labour majority, it's rarely the Conservatives that are opposed to military action. It's more likely to be the other way around. Yes, but it will probably, if and when it happens, expose.

some splits within the Labour Party, which is completely, we're getting completely used to it now, aren't we? Those splits in the Labour Party, despite Keir Starmer having such a strong majority, it's clear there are lots of different wings in that Labour Party which are starting to emerge. So it's a bit of a...

risky strategy but I think for Keir Starmer he will probably think there is no option but to hold such a vote to get the mandate for that military action if indeed it happens. And then again on the issue of whether or not she actually understands what's going on even the words she's...

that are coming out of her own mouth. For the shadow attorney general to be acting for a sanctioned Russian oligarch as the UK government, the UK state pursues... money from him that would they want to redirect towards the ukrainian war effort and sitting in the shadow cabinet i mean you could tell sometimes from keir starmer's tone when he goes full detail

DPP and it's an absolute no-brainer this is completely indefensible Bill Browder very strong on this subject over the Christmas period the least partisan man I know because his mission in life is of course simply to achieve justice for his

lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who was essentially killed by Putin's cronies. And he will break bread with anybody in pursuit of that. But for the shadow attorney general to sit in shadow cabinet and act for a sanctioned Russian oligarch, even if it is romantic, Abramovich, who of course many Londoners still feel fondness for.

is unbelievable. And she genuinely doesn't seem to understand that. No, she swerved that one by hitting it right back to the Tories' favourite topic of talking about Lord Homer, the current Shadow Attorney General, and talking about the cases that he defends.

When he wasn't Attorney General. True, absolutely true. It was kind of crucial that point. And exactly. And the question that Keir Starmer asked was, is it, you know, conceptual that you should be able to stand within the shadow cabinet at the same time as you are doing this? And you're totally right. I think many people will say...

Absolutely not. Those are two interests that do not go together, just as the interests of, you know, representing Shamima Begum and Gerry Adams potentially didn't go against the interests of Lord Hammer as well. But you are right. He wasn't in the government at that time. So a really difficult way. for them but you think she understood that do you think she understood that i mean the fact that she's talking about jobs that helma did before he was attorney general

suggests she's completely missed this rather important and enormous point about the difference between what you can do when you're a member of a government or a shadow cabinet and what you can do when you're not. Or as Keir Starmer says, is she just irrelevant and no one's listening to her and she's totally irrelevant?

relevant no one's listening to you know basically a pointless party can you have it both is Keir Starmer able to make that argument that the Tories are totally irrelevant but also that you should be behaving like the government he could say I've got no choice but to talk to her but I'd rather and then as if any proof were needed that that wasn't the finest performance we've ever seen from coming back. In case of emergency, break the Jeremy Corbyn glass, and she did.

Yes, that was. So she was talking about, yeah, he sat and tried to make him prime minister. She loves rolling out that line, doesn't she? There were some good questions from Kemi Badeknot there, but I think her delivery was poor and I didn't think that she did them in the right order. When she was saying, we will support you in what you want to do in Ukraine, that was the sort of...

sort of collegiate party politics working together that we might have expected under previous governments, right? And if she'd said that at the top, I think Keir Starmer would have reacted in a much better tone. But instead, she went in for the attack from the very sort of word go. Nadia puts it well. On international issues, when in opposition, Starmer always made Britain.

look united by backing the government does better not think here doesn't recognize the importance of NATO of course he does she's sniping about things that aren't hers to know in opposition and if Nadia in Hastings can work that out you have to wonder why the leader of his majesty's opposition opposition apparently struggles to do so. Yeah.

There are some questions, you know, should he have spoken to Trump by now about Venezuela? It is fair to say that in the last four days he's only managed to speak to an advisor of President Trump, as he just said. Not a great look. I don't know how...

which well, as President Trump has spoken to in comparison, some of those questions about defence spending, as you said, were good. You know, when will the UK spend 3% on defence? But I thought that the way Davey said it was much better. We need to increase our defence.

spending now and should we not be working to speed that up? In light of what America has done in Venezuela, I thought his way of arguing it was much, much better and much stronger. I wonder whether the difference was that Ed Davey sounded like he really... was concerned about the military spending and the military, whereas Cami Badenoch sounded like she was concerned about scoring points or Keir Starmer, just in terms of tone and style. I don't know. I know Davey also...

Probably being a little bit disingenuous because he knows that the Prime Minister at this point can't really publicly accuse. the President of the United States, of having broken international law. Of course not. But he is perfectly entitled to ask the question. That's it. We're very late. Here is the news with Amelia Cox. 12.35 is the time.

You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. The bane of my life. I mean, it doesn't really apply yet this week because international news is so...

important and so arresting and also, as we've discovered, so fertile when it comes to our conversations. But the bane of my professional life... involves stories that I find absolutely fascinating, but I can't for the life of me work out how we could possibly have a phone-in about them, how we could have a conversation together about them because they're too complex or they...

are too one sided or they are just too weird, too out there to properly make sense of. So the first thing we have to do, of course, is begin to make sense of them. X, as Twitter is now known, is, and there's no easy way of phrasing this, allowing users to digitally undress children and then use the resulting images, which are, I think, the... only word I can think of to use, incredibly realistic to potentially harass and abuse those children. It can also and is also happening to adults.

Well that's it. That's the background to the story. That's why I'm joined now by Eddie Perez who's a former director. at Twitter until shortly before Elon Musk took over, where he worked as a director of a product team dealing with social issues such as elections, public health and violent extremism. He's now on the board.

of directors at the OSET Institute working to support public confidence in elections. And I'm afraid, Eddie, I'm going to have to drag you down to my level when it comes to understanding and knowledge and begin by asking you how this happens. Sure. First of all, thanks for having me, James. And I'm glad you're reporting on this important topic. The most immediate way to describe why we are now hearing these very, very troubling stories about how

XAI and X's AI chatbot Grok is allowing these non-consensual sexualized images. A lot of it is stemming. particularly from a recent release of Grok. And I think one of the most important things that has happened, this was as recent as late December, is that now... Because of new features, Grok will allow any user with a prompt to tag Grok and to modify someone else's photo, including public figures.

celebrities, influencers, private people, any photo that's out there, somebody has the ability. Now, when we talk about entering a prompt, just imagine having a little window on your computer and. It's as if you are giving commands to this little AI engine. So I might be looking at a photograph of a particular individual and all that a user would have to do is after tagging the chat bot.

is say, I'd like you to remove the blouse on this person. Wow. Or even worse, they could say something like, and you can do this successively. Maybe, and in fact, recently there was a very, very troubling... It was a video where somebody could see scrolling in real time someone's efforts to sexualize, to degrade, and to humiliate a woman of great power. It's the Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden. And so, for example, imagine looking at a photo and saying, remove the blouse.

Now dress this person in lingerie now pose this person in this particular way You get the idea and I don't want to be too salacious about it And then and then of course once those images have been generated they are available to be publicly posted on the X platform, which of course can cause them to spread tremendously. How?

Easy would it be, in the context of X, I appreciate the images that have already been established are there now. That's a done deal. And there's a conversation to be had about what legislation could be used to suppress them. How easy would it be to undo the technology that has facilitated this behavior? It would be as straightforward as...

Elon Musk and his engineers making the decision that we are no longer going to provide access to the Grok chat bot for as long as it's going to take for us to assess the risks here. I mean, if you. Think about any technology platform that on any given day is going to choose to roll out a product. Well, precisely the reverse can happen. We are going to temporarily or permanently shut this down the end and and in a normal world.

Someone like Elon Musk and a company as important as X with global reach would recognize this for the scandal and the crisis that it is. And they would say, we are deeply, deeply concerned. We are going to stop users from being able to use X. We're deeply sorry that these outputs have been possible. And then you need to go back to the drawing board and demonstrate a real commitment.

to deploying such a thing safely. What has actually happened? Well, sadly, Elon Musk has been quite dismissive about the whole issue. I think that overall. Notwithstanding a tremendous international backlash across Europe, India, many other countries. Notwithstanding all of that. The main thrust of Elon Musk's response has been to treat it all as if it's a big joke. He has responded to criticisms of all of this with little emojis of people laughing.

He has made fun of it by posing a picture of himself in a bikini and saying things like, this chatbot can put anything in a bikini. Suffice to say, it has not demonstrated... a seriousness of purpose or a level of responsibility that's appropriate for what's going on here. There was one very, very half-hearted post that he made in response to somebody else where he, the gist of his message was to say,

Anybody who uses Grok to post illegal content will be subject to the consequences of posting illegal content. But that's it. Pretty tepid overall, I would say.

I guess. I'm sure everyone listening would agree. And then we come to the question of our age, really, which is in the absence of any, what would you describe it as, autonomous decision to do what is... right or legal or correct what pressure can be brought to bear upon musk in person or x in particular to to do what you have described as being very very easy to do he's not going to do it

out of conscience or out of the goodness of his heart or out of any sense of decency or integrity or protection of women, protection of humans. So what... Is there anything, because I could ask this about some of the freedom of speech issues on there and some of the lies and other deep fakes and propaganda. Is there anything that could force his hand? Well, as somebody, and I'll mention James, I...

Before I got into this, my background was in political science, and I'm always going to be the sort of person that's going to say. i believe there's always something that can be done we always have to have some agency we can't throw up our hands and say boy it's too bad the richest most powerful man in the world is doing awful things and to that end we are gladly seeing and what i think both the uk

and the European Union are demonstrating leadership on is to raise very strong, very unequivocal condemnations and public pronouncements of this and specifically to Make it clear to Mr. Musk that these sovereign nations and the EU... are going to look at the framework of their legal regulations to bring whatever sanctions are going to be appropriate and possible for illegal activity, whether it's the Online Safety Act in the UK, the Digital Services Act in the European Union.

It is, you know, this is a classic situation where you can say glass half full, glass half empty. And I should say, I am not an attorney. There are plenty of people that are far, far more knowledgeable about technology law and so forth. However, I think it can still be said that it's troubling that there are as many gray areas currently as there are, not simply in terms of the DSA.

or the Online Safety Act or in the United States, the Take It Down Act, it can't be denied that both the way that the laws are written and yes, most importantly, it's going to take political will. and risk-taking and authority to hold somebody as powerful as Elon Musk to account. But that is currently what's going on. And those are the legal frameworks that will be looked at. And of course, you mentioned...

Musk's unprecedented wealth, because of course it means, and his personal relationship with the company, which means that it's hard to imagine financial sanction making much of a dent in his, well, the combination of wealth and ego. It's hard to imagine financial penalties making much of a dent in him. So you're looking at the possibility.

It's that age-old, the greyest area of all is whether or not these platforms should be treated as publishers in the traditional sense and therefore be responsible legally, not morally, but legally for every single thing that is published. on those platforms. On a personal level, Eddie, what do you think Musk is up to in allowing this to happen and responding to it so childishly? You know, I don't mean to sound glib about what I'm going to say.

James, but I've been an observer of Musk for many years. Needless to say, I took great interest from the moment that he made his successful bid for Twitter when I was still there. I left from a principled standpoint. I did not have confidence in the sort of company he was going to run and I wouldn't want to be part of it. I bet you're feeling pretty stupid now, Eddie, aren't you, eh? I have quite seriously always thought...

It frankly surprises me how much Musk at his age truly does appear to be driven by a lot of impulses that I can only characterize as... a desire to be a chaos agent a provocateur to be the center of attention um and i don't say this lightly there there is a tremendous amount of frankly rather immature kind of male psychology going on here. And so other people might give very different answers. But but I would sum it up by saying what I think Elon Musk is doing here is he is enjoying.

being in a position of power where he's getting a lot of attention and reinforcing the very, very troubling values that he seems to be doing on multiple fronts. And what I mean by that is when we look at what elon musk does with his platform and when we talk about so-called issues of so-called free speech usually what he's doing is punching down yeah he's punching down on those people and and segments of society

that actually have less power whether it's due to race or whether it's uh jewish history or in this case women and and i'll say and then i'll pause i i do think that This particular episode is especially troubling, and I don't think we can talk about it without pointing out that this is what is being shrugged off and what is being treated as a big joke.

is a really, really systemic form of misogyny that's happening on a very large scale. This is 50% of the, at least of the population of the planet.

that the most powerful man in the world is happily allowing his technology to sexualize and to degrade and to humiliate and that needs to be part of the conversation why why would this even in some circles be laughed off as if this is just boys being boys that's very very helpfully put um thank you i i i well speaking only for myself i don't know about anybody else listening but i'm a lot clearer now on what is going on and just how

How profound this is. What we don't have in conclusion is much idea of what will happen next. But as you say, it's going to involve concerted and unified action by lawmakers, by government. It is. And the one thing I'll note quickly, James, that also is a piece of the puzzle and again, very worrisome. You know, I noted earlier how strong the international backlash is, everything that UK, EU and others are doing.

One country that in terms of the government has been largely conspicuously silent on all of this is the United States of America and Frankly the US is engaged in and you know transatlantic sort of push and pull on these issues of technology.

Well, Eddie Perez, thank you. Former director at Twitter, now on the board of directors at the OSET Institute, working to support public confidence in elections, making the point, of course, that one of the only leaders you might expect to have spoken about this and to have condemned.

this is the leader who has routinely and infamously boasted of course about grabbing women by the dot dot dot it's 12 49 It is 12.52 and we continue our Idiot's Guide to Important Matters, moving from the filth that is currently populating Twitter, or X as it's now known, on to...

Greenland and just for the avoidance of doubt I'm the idiot And Patrick Schroeder is the person who's going to provide the idiot's guide. He's the senior research fellow at the Chatham House Environment and Society Centre. And probably too modest to describe himself as such, but I will describe him as a Greenland expert.

I mean, I'm tempted just to say, Patrick, what's going on? But that might be a little bit too broad an opening question. Yeah. Hi, James. Yeah. Thanks for having me on the show. And it's a good question. Yeah, there's lots to talk about. And... Yeah, I've had the chance to visit Greenland last year in November. That was my first time to be in Nuuk, the capital city, which is a small place. It's a town, really, about 20,000 people.

Overall Greenland has a population of only 58,000 and I was mostly interested in Greenland because my work on climate and environment because the impacts. climate change on Greenland are quite, quite significant. So people, one of the things people mentioned how warm it was for the time of the year. But then during the conference that I attended, there was also a lot of discussion around the politics, which we now also see in the news, and the relationship between Greenland and Europe, etc.

Is it possible to speak of Greenland public opinion? I'm always wary of public opinion because it's always fractured and often sometimes polarised. But is there a sort of Greenlandish attitude to Donald Trump's? posturing Donald Trump's ambitions. I think it's fair to say that the majority of Greenlanders basically say we're not for sale. They're not.

I'm very keen to hear the news coming from the US and the claims. The government is feeling a lot of pressure and actually one of the more general sentiments around Greenland is actually that Greenland people have a strong national identity and they want to be an independent country. So at the moment, Greenland is part of Denmark in a way.

that gives Greenland some autonomy. So there's a parliament, there's a government that's elected. The government has basically the say of the most domestic policies, but issues related to...

foreign policy, diplomacy, international affairs, all of that sits with Denmark. They'd be very, very wealthy if they were independent, if these critical minerals, and I know this is particularly in your purview, are as... as valuable as everybody keeps claiming and keeps explaining. Just tell us what they are. why they are so valuable and whether or not Donald Trump does need to invoke any form of annexation or invasion in order to enable American companies to exploit the resources.

Yes, there are minerals in Greenland, especially in the southern part of Greenland. At the moment there's not actually that much mining. going on. So there's some gold mining, but there are some deposits of rare elements. So these are not actually rare. at the moment those wealth elements uh the the supply chains are dominated by china um which has created a lot of the geopolitical issues around it there were the exports controls last year he said um so actually

Greenland depends a lot economically on Denmark at the moment. About half of the annual budget is provided by Denmark. That's about £450 million. um and so there's actually uh greenlanders are keen to tap that mineral wealth but to in order to do that there needs to be investments um and so that's where Greenland is also in discussion with various companies. And we actually, in our event, we had the mayor of South Greenland on our panel and she was negotiating.

with three mining companies about the extraction rights so that's already happening so there's actually no need for annexation annexing greenland because you could have kind of like business deals. With American companies, I mean, simple economies of scale and experience would suggest that American companies would be at the front of any queue for exploration rights and mining rights anyway.

Yeah, I think they're discussing with US companies. So there's one company that's listed on the New York Stock Exchange. They're quite advanced in those discussions.

The minerals is one part, but just over the last few days, the geopolitical aspect has come in. So Trump is saying we need it for security. Yeah. Because Greenland's situated between the US and Russia. If there were nuclear missiles, they would probably fly over Greenland. But again... That is not necessarily a reason why Greenland needs to be annexed, because during the Cold War, the US already had military.

presence in greenland that's six thousand troops on the ground if only there was some sort of i don't know i can't think of what we might call it like a sort of north atlantic treaty organization that might be quite helpful in this kind of circumstance that could be helpful yeah i think that organization It does exist. I think, yeah, they need to get their act together to find a solution. And, I mean, the average Greenlander will be worried about this or thinking that it's being...

The conversation is about us but without us, as we often hear about the Baltic states in the context of Russian aggression. Would the average Greenlander feel part of the conversation or that they're being discussed? above their own heads? Yeah, I think mostly above their own heads. And that's generally the sentiment that they want to have more say in the future of their country. So it's like...

The long-term plan is to become independent. And I don't see from my discussions or conversations I had that Greenland wants to swap dependency towards the US to change from... not being part of the Kingdom of Denmark towards becoming the 53rd state of the US or something like that. I don't think that's reliable.

scenario. Not unless it happens against their will. Thank you, Patrick. That was perfect. Patrick Schroeder, the Senior Research Fellow at the Chatham House Environment and Society Centre, bringing us... Up to speed, all of those who have been furiously Googling Greenland over the course of the last few days will have benefited from Patrick's insights. If you missed any of today's show, you can listen back on our free Global Player app or the LBC app, where you can stay up to date.

the top stories and opinions you can put your news categories in the order you want you can pause and rewind live radio and listen to a range of podcasts including james o'brien daily the best bits of this show every day and there have been a heck of a lot of best bits over the course of the last three So do download the official LBC app for free from your app store now. Tom Swarbrick will be with you at four on LBC if he's not in the pub. But now it's time for Sheila Fogarty.