President Donald Trump was asked on NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday if he would use military force to acquire Greenland. He said: “I don’t rule it out, I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything, no — not there.” He added, “We need Greenland very badly.”
John Bolton, who served as National Security Advisor during the first Trump administration and as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, responded to the President’s remarks about the possibility of using military force to annex Greenland.
Bolton said on MSNBC: “It’s not going to happen. If it did, it would provoke an impeachment crisis almost immediately. Donald Trump very often gets about 10% of something right and then just makes a mess out of the rest of it.”
Former Trump National Security Advisor, John Bolton on Trump not ruling out taking Greenland with the US Military:
“It’s not going to happen. If it did, it would provoke an impeachment crisis almost immediately. Donald Trump very often gets about 10% of something right and then… pic.twitter.com/JOPyMSpWZq
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) May 5, 2025
Bolton added: “Greenland is of enormous security importance to the United States, both because of potential minerals that might be found as the ice and snow melt and because of the maritime domain around Greenland, and we’ve recognized that since 1868 when Williams Seward tried to buy Greenland from Denmark.”
Note: Seward was President Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of State, who a year earlier had negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, an acquisition which was then publicly mocked in newspapers as “Seward’s Folly.”
Bolton’s assessment of the consequences Trump could face after a Greenland invasion met with mixed reactions on X, where doubts and wishful thinking were expressed even by those on the Left who have seen Trump impeached before with little impact other than seemingly to further empower him.
Replying to Bolton, liberal political pundit “Art Candee” on X replied: “Republicans don’t have a spine to impeach him.” Yet fellow liberal pundit Ed Krassenstein, still laboring under the belief that normal political gravity applies to Trump, replied: “I think if we invaded Greenland many would have no choice.”