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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Bulwark Takes. I'm Tim Miller. Delighted to have a little convo with a guy that served as a senior aide to Presidents Obama and Biden and Vice President Harris, most importantly for this conversation, from 2013-17, he was the U.S. ambassador to Denmark. And I must mention this because it's such an amazing title. You were awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannenbrog by Her Majesty Queen Margreth, 2nd of Denmark, for your meritorious service. How did I pronounce all those things? Right?
- [00:29]
B
Perfect, Tim, perfect. You're impeccable. Yeah. Yes. It's sort of like the equivalent of being Danish knighted, which is very exciting, actually.
- [00:37]
A
I love that. I would love to be Danish knighted. And just, you know, we are. We're together at a wedding this weekend. And so I feel like I'm just going to call you Rufus rather than the honorable ambassador, if that's okay. And what we were discussing there, that you were in Greenland while my idiot governor was. Was traveling there, a special envoy to Greenland, and just like leaving a reign of terror in his wake. And so he decided rather than hear the whole story on the dance floor, I was like, let's just do a video about this because I want to get a sense for what was happening there. So first explain why you were there, I guess related to your past as an ambassador to Denmark, and then maybe explain, if you can, why the governor of Louisiana was there.
- [01:21]
B
It's actually kind of a hilarious story because I was actually invited. He was not. So there was an investment conference in Greenland. Happens every couple of years. I haven't been back in a few years, so I was thrilled to go. They invited me probably six months ago and then a few weeks before, so say maybe about the end of April, they let me know that Jeff Landry is coming as part of the American delegation uninvited. But he was just going to crash. So, you know, and it was awkward, obviously, when Trump appointed him. Whenever it was in November or December or January, I think it was, it came as a real shock. And frankly, people throughout the Kingdom of Denmark, in Copenhagen and Nuuk and the like, because it's a job that's never existed before. It's not a real job. So. And this was his first trip, so he came uninvited. And the organizers of the event actually had to release a statement saying he was not invited, but he was coming anyway.
- [02:14]
A
And he said on the trip that, or maybe in a post trip interview, you know, the people should have welcomed him because Nobody, you know, none of the Obama administration, the Biden administration, none of them had ever sent anybody to Greenland before. People didn't care about Greenland before Donald Trump, and now Donald Trump cares about them deeply. That's not quite true, I guess. You can testify to that.
- [02:35]
B
No, I mean, it's absurd is the answer. In fact, I think Donald Trump is the only president that's never sent his top diplomat, his Secretary of State, to Greenland. Look, I went. I was ambassador during Kerry's time as Secretary of State. I went to Greenland with John Kerry for a series of meetings. And I think, in some ways, just as importantly, Tony Blinken, Biden's Secretary of State, because of all the drama with Greenland in the first term, actually went to Greenland as one of his first things. I think he went in, like, May of 2021 to try to smooth things over with the Danes and the Greenlanders after Trump threatened to take them over in his first term. So the guy doesn't. The guy is so in over his head on this stuff. Has no relationship with diplomacy, has no relationship with the Nordic countries, has never been to Greenland before, and really stepped in it on this trip. I mean, there were signs that said, Landry go home around Nu. I mean, that's just sort of how bad it was. I'm not some guy who likes to go someplace when you're not invited. And that's how it felt when Jeff Landry was in Greenland.
- [03:36]
A
It feels a little bit like Trump bragged about the way he treats women. It's kind of like, well, if you're a star, they let you do it. We can just grab you by the pussy. And then at least I gave you attention. At least Mr. Trump gave you attention. It does feel like kind of an abuser's behavior towards Greenland a little bit.
- [03:51]
B
Totally. I mean, that's the hilarious thing about this. He was going around telling the Danish and Greenlandic media that they should be grateful that Donald Trump has put them on the global map in this extraordinary way. This is not intention they want. I mean, it's a universal truth in Greenland that they don't want to be acquired in any way, whether by force or through negotiation by the United States. And so this idea that they want to be the global center of attention is not something that any. That the vast majority of Greenlanders want. So the statement is absurd. As far as I'm concerned to that
- [04:25]
A
point, not even the children of Greenland want that. We have a couple of clips from Governor Landry's visit that I want to watch with you. Where he's trying to charm and win over the children of Greenland, you know, with his, I think, slightly exaggerated and fake Cajun accent. Let's watch.
- [04:43]
B
He wanted to know if you were famous.
- [04:46]
A
I said, well, I don't know if he's famous, but he's the governor of Louisiana.
- [04:49]
C
Y' all want to take a picture?
- [04:51]
A
No. He's like, I'm good. If you come to Louisiana and you come to the governor's mansion, all the
- [05:01]
B
chocolate chip cookies you can eat.
- [05:05]
A
Ooh, I want the young, you young children, please come to my house, and I will give you all a lot of cookies. That's a little creepy.
- [05:13]
B
I was going to use the word creepy, too. The whole thing was extremely awkward. Again, like, he wasn't invited, so he had nothing to do. So he was walking around the Capitol nuke trying to hand out MAGA hats. Some point to people who have no interest. I mean, in fact, their version of MAGA in Greenland stands for Make America Go Away. So, I mean, which is. Which is just, again, it's just misreading the situation in such a crazy way. And honestly, as someone who actually really does, and I agree very much that the United States needs a closer relationship with all of our allies, including Greenland. But you do it with the good, hard work of diplomacy by sitting across the table from some of your best friends in the world, not threatening them or intimidating them, which is the policy of. Of the Trump administration. And this trip was so counterproductive in that way. So they were thrilled. And, you know, he came by military jet. And this is like, I get upset about this as an American taxpayer. What special envoy, which isn't a real job, gets to charter an enormous Air Force jet from God knows where to fly him round trip from the United States? I have never heard of that before. I have never heard of that before, folks.
- [06:22]
C
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- [07:27]
A
Yes. You say he was there on the military jet. He was also being made fun of on social media. Like he changed, I guess from his dorky Louisiana governor outfit into like military fatigues at one point, which was kind of unclear. Why would you be wearing fatigues unless you're trying to signal some tough guy war thing? I don't know. Did they notice that on their.
- [07:49]
B
With that I look, everything he did I think was noticed by them. It is. I mean, again, it felt like
- [07:59]
A
the
- [07:59]
B
whole visit felt out of place. It felt like he was a fish out of water. He was uncomfortable everywhere he went. His interviews were awkward. He didn't really understand the climate that he was in. He had a contentious meeting, as I understand it, with the political leaders in Greenland and left with having really accomplished nothing other than I think, hearing from a lot of Danes and Greenlanders that their tactics here were completely counterproductive. So I think that's really what the ultimate takeaway is I had from the time we were there together.
- [08:32]
A
What do you think about, is it fixable, you know, in the future? Like, what is the degree to their alarm? Like, tell me a little bit more about what you're hearing from people on the ground in Greenland or from your time as ambassador and people in Denmark.
- [08:45]
B
Well, I think it's, you know, Tim, this is a much larger issue. I think that, you know, my favorite word in the English language is trust. And it's the most important element of diplomacy. The idea that we've spent the last 80 years since the end of World War II, building trust with our best allies in the world. And this has been broken, I mean, legitimately, trust has been annihilated, in particular our European partners. When you look at the Canadians, the Danes, the Greenlanders, whatever we're talking about, and that doesn't just grow back. I mean, trust takes decades to earn and can be broken with a snap of a finger. And that's what we've seen here. We're going to have to use real good, smart diplomats with a new administration to help try to build some of these relationships back because it will. It is unprecedented in every way what has happened the last year and a half. And I sure as hell hope we have some real talented people who take office in 2029 and are committed to that project.
- [09:39]
A
As is often the case, you know, some of the pencil headed like policy wonks on the right, like tried to spin Trump's Greenland KN sense as, you know, like there is some strategic legitimacy to this. Like they're very good at sane washing him and some of them made compelling arguments about the ways in which we should be doing more with Greenland for security reasons or potentially economic reasons or how waterways work given climate change and the Chinese and the Russians. What's your sense for that? Are there constructive things we should have been doing?
- [10:16]
B
Oh, for sure. This is the thing, and I think this is true in some ways with Trump, generally speaking. I don't necessarily think the policy that he's trying to achieve is on paper all that wrong. It's the tactics that are a complete disaster. Meaning we do have to take Arctic national security more seriously. We do. We've taken the NATO allies in particular, I think as Russia has built up their military presence in the Arctic, have taken their eye off the or we have taken our eye off the ball here. And every administration, including Trump, won since the end of the Cold War, scaled down our military presence in Greenland. So it's just, it's. But I, so I do think we need to build it back up. And from an economic standpoint, there are great opportunities in Greenland. And I just like I did as ambassador and so many other appointees, Republican and Democrat, have worked to try to build our economic relationships up. But again, the moment you say we are going, we need you, we want to acquire you, we want to take you by military force or otherwise. All of those goals fall out the window because you've broken trust. There's no way to get it done. And so there's the whole idea, the argument that they make that we need Greenland for national security doesn't hold, doesn't make any sense as long as NATO is in place. I mean, NATO was set up in part to ensure that allies don't have to take other allies in order to protect themselves. That is what Article 5 is all about. So this whole thing is crazy as far as I'm concerned. And they make the argument on conservative media, but they know they can't back it up because, you know, smart people would just say what I say.
- [11:55]
A
Speaking of which, Landry said on Fox that Greenland could be exporting 2 million barrels of oil a day, right? Now, if we had encouraged them to, he said, they could be doing that within 10 months. But I don't think Greenland has any oil exploration.
- [12:11]
B
So one of the things people need to understand. Look, I would take with. I mean, maybe it's too kind to say with a grain of salt, everything great. Landry said post his trip. Before, after or during? During. There is an opportunity for oil exploration, and I. I would embrace that enormously. I used to bring oil executives to Greenland so that they would look at drilling opportunities there. One of the problems with Greenland is it's extremely difficult terrain. It's very expensive place to do business because it's. It's too cold to operate certain months of the year, depending on what part. So there are lots of consideration. The way that Trump talks about how easy this is going to be. None of it is easy. There's nothing easy about Greenland, but it shouldn't be. Our diplomacy is not easy. And it's just those kind of platitudes meant to score political points don't make any sense in the real world. And I think anyone who knows anything does know that.
- [13:03]
A
Well, there you go. We brought in your expertise for Greenland. Mine is on Louisiana, and things are not going well here. And so that's the thing that annoys me the most about Jeff Landry. Annoys me the most about some of my neighbors here that are for him that, like, why aren't they more mad at him? Like, it's crazy. You have the governor of Louisiana, like, traipsing around the ice and nuke in a ridiculous outfit. Like, when. Meanwhile, there are, like, tons of problems here, like economic, education, security. Otherwise, it's extremely clownish.
- [13:34]
B
Well, that's the thing. It's our special envoys, historically in American history, history have been experts in the territory or the country in which they're serving or appointed or the issue, whatever it may be. Landry is none of those things. This reeks of just sort of a political appointment that's a throwaway to me that doesn't have any connection to his skill, his expertise.
- [13:58]
A
Does he have skill?
- [14:00]
B
You know that better than I do. I do.
- [14:02]
A
He's sucking up the good old boys. He's good at sucking up to good old boys. Yeah, that's about it.
- [14:09]
B
Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. All I know is that the entire. The entire country of Greenland, the entire place breathed a sigh of relief when he got on his military plane and headed back to the United States.
- [14:20]
A
On the other hand, we kind of wish you would have stayed there. All right, that's Ambassador Fitz. Gifford, thanks so much for doing this. Let's see, you're also out there supporting Democratic Senate campaigns. Is there anybody you want to shout out anything you're impressed with right now?
- [14:33]
B
Look, you know, I mean, this is. This is crazy times we're in. Yeah. My volunteer work right now is doing everything I possibly can to elect them senators. I'm actually hosting Talarico here in Boston in a couple of days. I did an event for Sherrod Brown. I did an event for Graham Platner. We're doing. We'll do more and more and more of these, and we'll hopefully run through the finish line in November.
- [14:56]
A
I appreciate it, brother. We'll talk to you soon. That's Rufus Gifford. Everybody else, subscribe to the feed. Mazel tov to Teddy and Toph, who prompted this here by giving us something to talk about at the dinner table on Saturday. I appreciate everybody. We'll see you all soon.