Helle Thorning-Schmidt on Greenland, Zuckerberg and Brexit
The News Agents
Global
4.2 • 4.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a time of rising populism, a raging debate around free speech online, and with Donald Trump fixating upon Greenland, Helle Thorning-Schmidt sits in a unique vantage point.
Denmark's first female Prime Minister remains one of the most influential social democrats in Europe. And her experiences grappling with the migrant crisis have equipped her with some big ideas on how the left should combat the radical right.
She's also now one of the few people with Mark Zuckerberg's ear. Thorning-Schmidt co-chairs Meta's oversight board - a body which checks the tech giant on content moderation and rules on what can and cannot be posted on Facebook and Instagram. With Donald Trump effectively seeking to scrap restrictions on online expression, and eyeing up Greenland, a territory she once governed, Lewis sat down with her to discuss some of the big - potentially defining - issues of our time.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.2 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:11.7 | People feel very uncomfortable about this. And there is a reason why the Danish Prime Minister |
| 0:16.7 | is travelling to European capitals and also asking the European leaders to back Denmark in this difficult situation. |
| 0:24.7 | Of the many subplots of the new Trump presidency, Denmark becoming central to world events, seemed on the unlikely aside. |
| 0:32.7 | But with Trump threatening to invade Danish territory, i.e. Greenland. Denmark finds itself in a very central, |
| 0:40.0 | but very uncomfortable spot. And that was the voice of perhaps the best known of any of the |
| 0:45.6 | Scandinavian leaders in recent years. Heller Thorning-Schmidt, the former Prime Minister of Denmark, |
| 0:50.2 | speaking to me for the news agents, and who just so happens to be married to Labour Party |
| 0:55.1 | royalty, the wife of Stephen Kinnick, who is now a Labour minister and of course son of the former |
| 1:00.3 | Labour leader Neil. And the thing is, she's done so much more than even be Prime Minister |
| 1:05.8 | of her country, the real Begita Neuborg from Borgen. She's been chief executive of Save |
| 1:10.8 | the Children. She's been chief executive of Save the Children. |
| 1:11.4 | She's been a senior figure in European politics and now has the ear of Mark Zuckerberg |
| 1:16.7 | as the chair of Metta's independent oversight board. It's corporate watchdog. So at a time when |
| 1:22.8 | the progressive left is in retreat around the world and the radical right on the rise |
| 1:27.4 | and Silicon Valley is in the White House, and the radical right on the rise and silicon valley is in the |
| 1:29.0 | White House. What better moment to catch up with the woman herself on her remarkable political life. |
| 1:35.0 | Welcome to the newsagents. Well, we're joined now by Helethorning Schmidt, the former |
| 1:42.6 | stats minister and herself. Stats minister, excellent. Well done. |
| 1:46.0 | Thank you very much. Yeah. No, no. I've been taking some Danish instructions from my Norwegian wife, so we're all ready to go. |
| 1:51.0 | Yes. |
... |
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