President Donald Trump is undermining his own agenda with his obsession to have the U.S. acquire Greenland, MS NOW's Chris Hayes argued on Wednesday night — something that he never actually campaigned on, and that is overwhelmingly opposed by Americans.
That stands in stark contrast to the extreme immigration raids, Hayes said, which, although they have become broadly unpopular, were at least something a number of voters had in mind when they went to the polls in 2024.
"What's happening in Minnesota is horrifying and it's morally debased, it's an offense to our most basic American liberties. But it's also not exactly unexpected," said Hayes. "I mean, Donald Trump ran on mass deportation. The Republican Party, the MAGA movement, have spent the last decade using incredibly vile and racist propaganda, trying to get people to hate immigrants enough to round them up and ship them out, and to support them when they do. It's a project that people in this country are now rebelling against on the streets every day."
"But the thing about the grab for Greenland is that it's none of those things, okay?" said Hayes. "It is not something that Donald Trump campaigned on. It is not a central part of conservative thought or MAGA ideology. The idea that the U.S. should take over Greenland is a position born in the head of a crazy person. It has been invented by Donald Trump in the last few months and entered into American discourse."
"So it's not too surprising to see polling that shows everyone in the country thinks it's nuts," he added. "86 percent of Americans — again, we don't get a lot of 86 numbers that we get to put up on that screen — 86 percent of Americans oppose the idea of the United States trying to take Greenland by military force."
Earlier in the day, Trump proclaimed that military force to take Greenland is off the table, thanks to a nebulous and ill-defined "deal" he had brokered with some other countries to supposedly ensure U.S. military access to the island, something the U.S. already had through the NATO alliance.