The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal says President Donald Trump “may be flirting with cognitive decline” as he pushes to seize Greenland.
Editorial Board member Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. has written that at 79, Trump “needs therapy more than the United States needs to own the island to ensure its defense.”
“Mr. Trump’s preoccupation with owning Greenland, like his Nobel Prize obsession, would be best addressed elsewhere: in therapy,” Jenkins wrote. “I’m perfectly serious. Once he started unburdening himself of his insecurities and traumas, he probably wouldn’t stop for a week. The world, and the U.S., would be better for it.”
Jenkins, who has written for the conservative paper for 34 years, noted that Congress made it illegal for the U.S. to issue a “threat or use of force against the territorial integrity” of a nonoffending member of the United Nations, which Greenland’s protectorate, Denmark, is.
“This isn’t international law, MAGA types, it’s U.S. law,” writes Jenkins. “A Trump order to occupy an otherwise peaceful and unthreatened Greenland would likely be illegal six ways from Sunday. The U.S. military wouldn’t obey it. The Supreme Court would enjoin it.”
Jenkins added that Trump using force to seize Greenland will likely lead to a third impeachment.
“These realities, widely unmentioned in the current moment, probably aren’t lost on Mr. Trump,” he continues. “The whole kerfuffle fits better under the heading: Why is he throwing his presidency away? Look at his tariff and immigration overkill, his sagging approval ratings, likely GOP defeat in the House midterms, his probable impeachment soon after.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Despite European leaders’ warnings that seizing Greenland will blow up NATO, Trump has not relented on the United States’ sudden need to not only have access to Greenland for defense purposes, which the country already enjoys, but to control the island and its 57,000 residents outright.
Trump arrived in Switzerland on Wednesday morning for an abnormally tense appearance at this year’s World Economic Forum.
The president looked like a bear dragged from hibernation as he sauntered forward on a tarmac in Switzerland, breathing heavily and struggling to walk in a straight line.
Trump appeared equally disheveled once he made it on stage, repeatedly referring to Greenland as “Iceland,” a completely different country.
“I know we’d be there for them. I don’t know that they’d be there for us with all of the money we expend, with all of the blood, sweat, and tears,” Trump said. “They’re not there for us on Iceland, I can tell you.”
He continued, “Their stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland.”
Trump mixed up the Atlantic islands again later in his speech.
“Iceland, they love me,” he said, referring to Greenland. “They called me ‘Daddy’ last time. A very smart man said, ‘He’s our daddy. He’s running it.’”
The Daily Beast has led the way in reporting on Trump’s deteriorating health and obvious signs of cognitive decline dating back to early last year.
The president has sported bruised hands, swollen ankles, and developed an alarming habit of dozing off during high-stakes meetings with news cameras on him.
When speaking to the press, he now frequently makes mistakes—as he did in Davos—and rambles “incoherently,” as he did during a bizarre, marathon news conference on Tuesday.
Polls from Greenland dating back to January 2025 show that more than 85 percent of its residents oppose being taken over by the United States. Even Fox News experienced the island’s disdain for Trump firsthand when it sent a correspondent there last year.
The MAGA-hat-wearing Greenland man touted as a Trump fan by Fox and right-wing influencers online, Timmy Zeeb, is alleged to be a serial criminal on the island.
Conservative outlets have been hard-pressed to find others in Greenland willing to speak fondly of Trump.
