U.S. President Donald Trump addresses House Republicans at their annual issues conference retreat, at the Kennedy Center, renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center by the Trump-appointed board of directors, in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 6, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin LamarquePreviewDownload PreviewXML
President Donald Trump sent shockwaves across the globe Monday morning after the text of a letter he’d sent Norway’s prime minister was made public, leading historian Anne Applebaum to conclude that the president “genuinely lives in a different reality” — and demanding GOP lawmakers step in before it’s too late.
Described by Applebaum as being filled with “childish grammar, strange capitalizations" and a “loose grasp of history,” the letter includes an open threat from Trump that his administration would continue to pursue acquiring Greenland, a goal that the president suggested was motivated, in part, by not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
“Yet what matters isn’t the specific phrases, but the overall message: Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him,” Applebaum wrote in a column published Monday in The Atlantic.
“Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government and certainly not the Danish government, determines the winner of that prize. Yet Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him, but is using it as a justification for an invasion of Greenland.”
Applebaum urged her readers to consider where Trump’s latest threat may lead: a “damaging trade war,” or potentially a full-scale U.S. invasion of Greenland that could result in the deaths of some of the Danish citizens living there. The gravity of Trump’s latest threat, coupled with his bizarre ramblings over a perceived award snub, should be “the last straw,” Applebaum argued.
“The people around Trump could find ways to stop him, as some did in his first term, but they seem too corrupt or too power-hungry to try,” Applebaum wrote.
“That leaves Republicans in Congress as the last barrier. They owe it to the American people, and to the world, to stop Trump from acting out his fantasy in Greenland and doing permanent damage to American interests.”