Trail Notes
Trump Show in Davos / Oligarchs target Greenland / Trumps cash in / Not so "Golden Age" / Trump boy's board bonanza / GOP health plan / "Melania" doc already a flop?
The Trump Show goes to Davos
If you, like me, are trying to figure out what’s actually happening with Greenland, imagine being one of those heads of state or CEOs sitting in an auditorium at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos listening to a guy who sounds like he needs to get back to his assisted living facility, then remembering that he’s in charge of the world’s most powerful military. But it helps to keep in mind that Donald Trump is the reality TV president, and that each day is a new episode in which he controls the narrative.
Trump heightened the drama by threatening to send U.S. troops to Greenland and punish our European allies with tariffs. But he made it crystal clear that he wanted to own all of Greenland. None of this leasing BS or just taking over pieces of the country. And then he made a speech Wednesday insulting Europeans in the audience by telling them that they’d be nothing without the United States. He even said they’d probably be speaking German without our help in World War II, which is kinda funny since Davos is in a region of Switzerland where German is the official language.
In the end, he and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said they reached a “framework” of an agreement enabling the United States to gain sovereignty over parts of Greenland where it can build military bases. That sure doesn’t sound like a deal where America would control all of the country, but from a political standpoint, it was a win-win all around.
Trump supporters can boast about their president playing four-dimensional chess, or whatever dimension he’s in now, and they can cite “The Art of the Deal,” the book Trump didn’t actually write. Meanwhile, his critics can frame it as another example of TACO (“Trump always chickens out”).
What it really means is yet to be determined. But that’s another episode. Stay tuned.
Greenland? Iceland? Whatever.
One thing that is clear is the facile shamelessness of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt contorting reality. Four times during his Davos speech, Trump said “Iceland” when he meant “Greenland.” It’s there for all to see. But when a journalist brought that up, Leavitt responded, “No, he didn’t. His written remarks referred to Greenland as a ‘piece of ice,’ because that’s what it is. You’re the only one mixing anything up here.”
Oligarchs target Greenland
In case you missed it, the person to blame for Donald Trump’s obsession with Greenland is Ronald Lauder, heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetic company fortune. Back in the president’s first term, Lauder—one of Trump’s longtime friends—suggested that the United States buy Greenland from Denmark. The idea didn’t go too far then, but Trump revived it with a passion last year, which no doubt pleased Lauder, who has invested in a Greenland company exporting “luxury” spring water and is looking into generating hydroelectric power from the country’s biggest lake for an aluminum smelter.
Other billionaires, including Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, have invested in KoBold Metals, a company that hunts for copper, cobalt, nickel and lithium in Greenland—minerals critical for AI data centers and batteries. And Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal and Palantir, a major federal contractor, has financed a startup called Praxis, which hopes to build a technological wonderland in Greenland known as a “freedom city.” It would be a self-governed place, a “libertarian utopia” with few regulations on AI, technology and energy.
Trumps cash in bigly
According to a recent tally published by The New York Times, the Trump family has made at least $1.4 billion since Donald Trump began his second term. While noting that the actual total is likely much more, the paper reported the following:
The family has made at least $867 million through cryptocurrencies. Details of most of these deals are not public, but one was part of a $2 billion investment from a firm backed by the United Arab Emirates government. Two weeks later, the administration gave the UAE access to advanced computer chips.
Major tech and media companies have paid Trump $90.5 million to settle lawsuits.
Amazon paid the family $28 million to make the “Melania” documentary that premieres at the end of this month.
The Trumps have made at least $23 million from licensing the president’s name overseas.
Overall, the Trump Organization is engaged in more than 20 projects in other countries, which often involve working closely with foreign governments.
Not so “Golden Age”
When Donald Trump raves about what he calls America’s “Golden Age,” he invariably cites the performance of the stock market. But the truth is that the market actually performed better in the first year of Trump’s first term than it did this past year: +24.1 percent versus +15.7 percent. And both Barack Obama (+35.3 percent) and Joe Biden (+19.3 percent) had better first-year market performances than Trump in 2025. Rave on, Donald.
Trump boys’ board bonanza
Since the 2024 election, Trump sons Donald Jr. and Eric have been invited to serve on 10 different corporate boards, according to a new Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) investigation.
Eric joined the advisory boards of Dominari Holdings and New America Acquisition I Corp. and became a “strategic board advisor” for Japanese Bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet.
Don Jr. has been named to the boards of four companies—PublicSquare, GrabAGun, BlinkRx and Colombier Acquisition Corp. III—and has joined the advisory boards of four others—Unusual Machines, Polymarket, Dominari Holdings and New America.
Don Jr. joined the advisory board of drone maker Unusual Machines for just one year and was compensated with 200,000 shares of the company’s stock. In October, the company received an order from the U.S. Army for 3,500 drone motors and components. This year, Unusual Machines will deliver 20,000 more components to the Army.
The e-commerce company PublicSquare, meanwhile, gave Don Jr. more than $3 million to join its board, and it apparently paid off. Last August, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau closed down a years-long investigation of a PublicSquare subsidiary, Credova Financial, for violating state consumer protection laws, claiming it was a victim of the Biden administration’s weaponization of the bureau. But where is Hunter Biden’s laptop?
Another pretend GOP health care plan
Trump’s latest affordability bauble is what’s been titled the “Great Healthcare Plan,” and, as with many things Trumpian, it’s more pitch than policy. It’s a one-page smattering of ideas that Congress would have to shape into an actual plan—no small challenge. It does recommend legislation codifying the administration’s negotiations to reduce drug prices, and it promotes the notion of giving people money so they can buy their own insurance through health savings accounts. But 70 percent of the experts surveyed by the Cornell Health Policy Center said that approach, as opposed to restoring the now expired Affordable Care Act tax credits, could actually worsen healthcare affordability. The Great Healthcare Plan also makes no mention of how people with preexisting conditions would be affected.
Passing out pardons
The president has been keeping busy passing out pardons. Among the latest recipients was California businesswoman Adriana Camberos, a convicted fraudster who Trump had already freed from prison in early 2021. Convicted of fraud again after she got out, Trump freed her again, along with her brother.
Also on the president’s pardon list were Wanda Vazquez, a former governor of Puerto Rico; Mark Rossini, a former FBI agent; and banker Julio Herrera Velutini, all of whom were found guilty of bribery. It probably didn’t hurt that Velutini’s daughter donated $2.5 million to MAGA Inc., Trump’s super PAC, last May and two months later kicked in another $1 million. (For an overview of Trump’s pardonmania, check out Jonathan King’s recent essay “All the President’s Pardons.”)
“Melania” doc already a flop?
When asked about “Melania,” the $40 million Amazon-MGM documentary about the First Lady that opens in theaters on January 30, Donald Trump described it as a “hard ticket” that “everybody wants,” adding that his “close friends” Wayne Gretzky and his wife, Janet, plan to attend the premiere at the Kennedy Center. But it’s apparently not setting the box office on fire. According to Hollywood insiders, only “a handful” of advance tickets have been sold in New York, which probably isn’t surprising. And ticket sales in the Trump stronghold of Palm Beach are reportedly “no better.”
Credit where it’s not due
Eric Trump was bursting with pride when he posted on X a graph showing a dramatic drop in fentanyl overdose deaths. “No statistic has ever made me more proud. Well done,” he said last weekend. “Keep blowing the shit out of those boats.”
As it turns out, the chart he shared had been doctored to remove the end date of September 2024. In other words, the truly impressive decrease in fentanyl deaths that so moved Eric occurred during Joe Biden’s presidency—and fentanyl doesn’t come from Venezuela, anyway. (The post, for some reason, is now “unavailable.”)
Randy Rieland is a former columnist at Smithsonian magazine, website director at the Discovery Channel, and senior writer at Washingtonian magazine.
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This piece really made me think. Your insight into this chaos is so importnat.