I'm Mario Glass. On This American Life, we tell real life stories, really good ones.

My mother said, I'm sorry that you weren't here because Father Sager was here visiting,

and he found a very nice orphanage for you. And I said, but I'm not an orphan.

Surprising stories in your podcast feed, not an orphan. Surprising stories.

In your podcast feed, This American Live.

This is Christina from Glen Ellen, Illinois.

We are in the middle of false spring here in the Midwest.

Yesterday, I was in a T-shirt, and today, it's snowing.

This podcast was recorded at 12.20 p.m. on Wednesday, March 27th.

Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I am really hoping we get back to warmer weather by the end of this podcast.

My heart goes out to you. I hate that fall spring, but you get all the the promise in the sunshine and then you've got to get out the winter jacket again. The spring of deception. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Deepa Shiverom. I cover the White House. And I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security. And today on the show, a look at why President Trump is so interested in annexing Greenland.

This is not a new idea. Trump floated it during his first term.

But what's different this time is just how seriously the Trump administration is talking about such a move.

The vice president, second lady, and other administration officials are headed to Greenland

to visit a U.S. military base in the northern part of the country. Greg, let's start with the big

picture here. Why is the U.S. so interested in acquiring Greenland? Well, I think we could point to

three reasons. One is minerals. Greenland has a lot of them. It's the biggest island in the world. It's got a lot of stuff that has not been mined. Things like cobalt, nickel, lithium. Now, these are things we use in batteries, cell phones, electric vehicles. So civilian and military uses. This is the thing that seems to animate Trump the most. He does bring this up

when he talks about Greenland. The second thing would be Arctic seaways. Climate change means

there's less ice in the Arctic. Some of the previously unnavigable sea lanes are now opening up.

Russia is considered the real leader in this, so the U.S.

is somewhat concerned for security reasons. Number three is the military presence. Really interesting

history here. The U.S. has had a military base in Greenland since World War II after the Nazis seized Denmark, Greenland, which was a colony

...