The Greenland-Iceland kerfuffle was only the — pardon the pun — tip of the iceberg when it came to Trump’s speech.
Fact-checkers had to work furiously just to keep up with everything Trump said.
Poynter’s PolitiFact has “Fact-checking Donald Trump's Davos speech on Greenland, US economy.”
Meanwhile, MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” went beyond their normal four-hour timeslot to carry Trump’s remarks, and co-host Joe Scarborough was masterful in pointing out the lies, misleading statements and bizarre comments made by Trump.
One remark that stood out was Trump saying, “I did more for NATO than any other person, alive or dead.” He then questioned if NATO would support the U.S. the way the U.S. supports NATO.
Scarborough said, “Has he driven down to the 9/11 memorial and museum? That’s in New York City, by the way. Because that points out that on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the 9/11 attacks on America, NATO met in an emergency session — now listen to this — for the first and only time in NATO’s history, for the first and only time in NATO’s history, NATO invoked Article 5. That’s a century. Invoked Article 5. All 18 of the United States allies in NATO stated they would support America’s response to the attacks. … One NATO country after another … sent troops to fight alongside the United States.”
“Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski said the speech was a “litany of factually incorrect statements.”
Her view
Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of ABC’s “The View,” pointed to Trump’s latest gaffes mixing up Greenland and Iceland as further proof that his mental fitness is in question.
“25th Amendment, it’s time!” Goldberg said to cheers from the live audience.
Goldberg said she is “uncomfortable” with Trump being the leader of the free world.
“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin asked Goldberg, “You believe at this point that the president of the United States may not have his full faculty?"
Goldberg said, “I felt that before now.”
Post pushes back
A federal judge in Virginia ruled Wednesday that the U.S. government cannot look at the electronic devices recently seized from a Washington Post reporter until the courts first decide that the search was legal.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Post filed a motion arguing that the seizures violated the First Amendment.
On Jan. 14, the FBI used a search warrant to enter the Virginia home of Post reporter Hannah Natanson. They seized her phone and two laptops — one of which was issued by the Post and another that was her own personal computer. They also took her Garmin watch. Natanson and the Post are not the target of the FBI’s investigation. The warrant said law enforcement is investigating Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator who has a top-secret security clearance and has been accused of accessing and taking home classified intelligence reports.
In their filing Wednesday, the Post wrote, “The outrageous seizure of our reporter’s confidential newsgathering materials chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm every day the government keeps its hands on these materials. We have asked the court to order the immediate return of all seized materials and prevent their use. Anything less would license future newsroom raids and normalize censorship by search warrant.”
In his ruling, Magistrate Judge William B. Porter wrote that the Post and Natanson had shown “good cause” to maintain the “status quo” while the case was sorted out in court.
The Post’s Perry Stein wrote, “It is exceptionally rare for law enforcement officials to conduct searches at reporters’ homes. The law allows such searches, but federal regulations intended to protect a free press are designed to make it more difficult to use aggressive law enforcement tactics against reporters to obtain the identities of their sources. The search marked the first time the government has raided a journalist’s home as part of a national security leak investigation, First Amendment advocacy groups have noted.”
Scheduling conflicts
Last Sunday, CBS’s “60 Minutes” finally ran that story on the notorious prison in El Salvador where the U.S. was sending some deported men. New CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss had initially pulled the story a day before it was set to air. Weiss’ decision set off a firestorm inside and outside of CBS News, including “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi calling the decision “political.”
After nearly a month on hold, the segment aired Sunday, but as I mentioned earlier this week, a lot of people would likely miss it. That’s because it was up against the NFL playoff game between the Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Bears (two huge markets). That game figured to draw a huge audience.
Well, no surprise, but the viewership for last Sunday’s “60 Minutes” was way down. According to Nielsen, Sunday’s program drew 4.9 million total viewers. The Guardian’s Jeremy Barr noted that the show averaged 8.32 million viewers in the 2024-2025 season.
Meanwhile, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter tweeted, “CBS also knew Sunday's episode would be low rated, so for Nielsen measurement purposes CBS called the show ‘60 Minutes Presents’ so that Sunday's ratings won't weigh down the season average for ‘60 Minutes.’ This is a labeling trick all the networks use at various times.”
Getting political
