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The Daily Beast Podcast

The Real Reason Trump Backed Off Greenland: Wolff

The Daily Beast Podcast

The Daily Beast

News

4.6 • 8.4K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2026

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to unpack why Trump’s latest global theatrics—from the Greenland takeover threat to the billion-dollar “peace board”—were never meant to happen at all. Drawing on Davos, disastrous polling, Minneapolis blowback, and Trump’s endless talent for distraction, Wolff explains how bluster without cost is the core of Trumpism: set fires, bask in the sirens, then walk away before consequences arrive. The question lingering after Greenland fades: Is this the moment the world finally stops chasing the fire engines, or is Trump already lighting the next match? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

We should revisit this. This Greenland thing, he posted at night, everybody gets up in the morning, the world goes into a paroxysm of everything. The world is ending.

0:10.0

We are some of the few people who said from the beginning, this means nothing. He is not going to take Greenland. This is meaningless.

0:20.0

One of his aides said to me, you know, he sets these fires constantly, but it's really not going to take Greenland. This is meaningless. One of his aides said to me, you know, he sets

0:22.3

these fires constantly, but it's really not the fire that he focuses on. What he focuses on is

0:29.5

the fire engines rushing to put the fire out. Michael.

0:37.9

Joanna.

0:38.7

I feel like it's only, what is it, 10 hours since we were last together, at the 92nd Street.

0:44.1

Why?

0:45.0

And it was a good evening.

0:47.1

Well, do it sound so surprised?

0:48.6

Well, I'm always surprised.

0:50.4

I'm surprised when anything works out.

0:52.7

But that certainly did. And now I feel disappointed that we're not on stage all the time. All the time. I know all the time. It was so much fun to meet so many viewers and listeners. We really appreciate all your questions. We got over 50 questions from people and we only got to five. So I thought

1:12.0

we could get to some today. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it was a really good, a good crowd, a nice

1:18.3

evening. You look very smart. You were not wearing, Michael, you can't see this, but Michael is

1:24.4

wearing maroon cords. Are those moleskin? I would say burgundy, but...

1:31.3

Well, I would say maroon. And you were wearing a suit? I was. You look very smart.

1:38.5

Thank you. You think I should wear a suit for the podcast? No, but the thing about cardigans, one

1:43.3

forgets, is that cardigans give you

1:45.4

extra pounds. And when you were wearing the suit, I was like, oh, he's really spelt.

1:49.9

You think I look at chubster? No, but I just think they're kind of slumpy cardigans. They're

1:55.4

fantastic and I love wearing them, but they are slumpy. No, but it's become your thing. It has. It has. It's become your thing.

...

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