January 23, 2025 • 22 mins
(January 23, 2025)
Trump says he may withhold federal aid for Los Angeles if California doesn’t change water policies. Pentagon sending up to 1,500 active-duty troops to US-Mexico border. Amid a housing crunch, empty offices in downtown Los Angeles appeal. Trump wants to buy Greenland… why and how?
Trump says he may withhold federal aid for Los Angeles if California doesn’t change water policies. Pentagon sending up to 1,500 active-duty troops to US-Mexico border. Amid a housing crunch, empty offices in downtown Los Angeles appeal. Trump wants to buy Greenland… why and how?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI Handle. Here it is a Thursday morning,
January twenty third. Hey, I don't know if we've gotten
enough phone calls yet because we've been dealing with these
fires but every Friday, and I know we're going to
be able to do it or not because the number
of phone calls may be at a real low level.
(00:25):
And this is the segment we do ask Handle anything.
It's just fun. Someone suggested it and we said, okay, sure,
why not. And this is where you get to ask
me any kind of question you want. You know, been
listening to me for a while and you want to know,
you know whatever, and the stuff that I normally don't
talk about. And I'm very honest, I'll tell you and
I've humiliated myself a bunch of times. So here's what
you do is you go to the iHeart app. It's free,
(00:47):
and then click on the KFI page during the show
and you'll go to Kfi. You'll see a microphone the
upper right hand corner. Click on the microphone. Fifteen seconds
you have to ask a question, whatever question you want
to ask. Don't give me your opinion about politics or
anything you know that I want to hear it, and
we record that and then it's played here tomorrow. And
(01:07):
I answered the question. I hear it for the first time.
So it's totally spontaneous and we're just having fun with it.
So that's hand to ask handle anything. Okay, now here
is what you are going to hear for the next
four years or however long I'm going to be here,
and that is I have told you that we're in
for a wild ride with this president. So while presidents
(01:30):
normally would do this Comma Trump and then we go
on to what normally happens, we're what he does. And
the same thing was happening with this disaster, the wildfire
area and these ravaged areas in southern California. Normally presidents
go and visit natural disaster sites. They just do it.
They're expected to do it, they should do it, and
(01:52):
politics are usually set aside. For example, a hurricane, when
the hurricanes hit in Florida, right, Biden goes down there
and tells DeSantis, whatever you need, I am here setting
politics aside. Well, President Trump is coming out to see
our fire ravaged area, and he's going to do what
(02:14):
presidents do, and he's going to go, Okay, this is horrible.
This is terrible. It's all photo op stuff. And the
difference is you're not hearing we. The Feds are going
to help you politics aside, because that's normally what happens
with federal aid, and most of the money that's going
to help us here south of California is going to
(02:34):
come from the feds. We just, I mean, there's no
way we can afford it locally, and so we're going
to get federal aid. The difference is unless until and
here are the requirements, and here's the problem that we're
going to have straight out. It is Gavin Newsom who
(02:55):
effectively mismanaged and started the fires, not physically, but is
responsible for the fires. The state's fish conservation efforts in
up in the Sacramento Delta. That's why we don't get
enough water down here, and that's why the hydrants weren't
full enough and didn't have enough water pressure. Wait a minute,
(03:17):
you're talking about the Sacramento water coming down the aqueduct.
It's two different supplies completely. One has nothing to do
with the other. Now you can agree or disagree with
the smelt issue, and I think it's stupid, but it
has nothing to do with the water supply. But if
you do what I tell you, then you're going to
get the money. And if you don't, this is really tough,
(03:38):
it really is. And he has argued that FEMA, this
is the president got in the way and the tough one.
He literally said during his inauguration, his inaugural speech, that
the wildfires in California are at this morning, at this morning,
(03:58):
running wild and the state is doing nothing. There are
no firefighters out there. They're letting them burn uncontrolled. And
we're going to straighten that out. It's politics, And I
tell you, I know what you think. I think about
Donald Trump. We're going to talk about that because there's
a bunch of stuff like, for example, coming up at
(04:20):
seven fifty, the Greenland issue. There's actually a method to
the madness there. I mean, it makes sense on a
different a lot of different levels. But this one, come on, guys,
really really we need the help, and we need the
help unfettered from the FEDS. And that's what happened. Please, now,
(04:41):
this isn't right. You can't put requirements on this. You
can't say here's what you're going to do with your
water supply, here's what you're going to do in terms
of firefighting, here's what we're going to do with you
managing the wildlife. And here's what we're insisting that you
do in terms of fire prevention. You don't do that
with any other state. Why just us? Well, I told
(05:06):
you we're going to go to We Californians are at
war with this administration and it will continue on. War
has been declared by both sides. Newsom has declared war
on Trump. Trump has declared war on California. And that's
what we're going to be seeing. And I hope, I
hope federal money is not withheld when the Feds come
(05:29):
in and say, here's what we want you to do.
This is what we want you to do in terms
of your water supply, here's what we want you to
do about mitigation, and if not, you don't get federal aid. Okay,
here's what's going on. We have something in the United
States called the Passe Comatatas Act, which means that federal
troops cannot or the yes, the army right cannot enforce laws.
(05:57):
That's not what they do. They don't do law enforcement,
not on you soil and so how do you get
federal forces to do that. Well, the Pentagon has been
deploying fifteen hundred active duty troops in the southern border.
Whoa hold on a minute, But the law says that
they can't enforce the laws. And of course it's all
(06:18):
about immigration. Well, the President put into executive orders shortly
after we took office that the troops were going down
to crack down an immigration. Acting Defense Secretary said, the
Pentagon will provide military aircraft to support the Department of
Homeland Security deportation flights. Can that be done yet? Probably
(06:40):
troops will assist in the construction of barriers. Yeah, that
can be done. That's not enforcing the laws. You can
help police do logistics, you can give information, you can
supply equipment, you can supply airplanes and fly agents around.
You're doing all of that perfectly legal, and it's been
(07:02):
done by Democrats as well as Republican presidents. Now. The
acting Defense Secretary of Robert Slissius said, the number of
troops and their mission may soon change. This is just
the beginning. This is where it's going to get kind
of interesting. Now the active duty forces are going to
join the twenty five hundred US National Guard and reserve
(07:26):
forces already there. Right now, no active duty troops are
working along the two thousand mile border, but you'll see
fifteen hundred of them arrive any day. And these have
done similar things and support border patrol agents. Both Trump
and President Biden sent Trump during his first term, and
(07:50):
President Biden sent active duty troops to the border to
help to do logistics. Exactly what's happening now. So troops
are prohibited, as I said, from law enforcement under the
Posse Comitatis Act. Now here is what the President has
done through an executive order. He has asked or he
(08:15):
has he has ordered the incoming the incoming Secretary of
Defense and the Homeland Security chief to report back within
ninety days if they think that an eighteen oh seven
law called the Insurrection Act should be invoked, then that
allows troops to be used in civilian law enforcement on
(08:35):
US soil, the insurrection the Insurrection Act. When basically there
is an invasion or an insurrection where the troops have
to be used to maintain our government, our democracy. Now,
then that get interesting. I love the irony of this one.
(08:58):
And this, by the way, the last time was invoked
during the writing. Remember the Rodney King riots, the Insurrection
Act was invoked and troops, right, federal troops were used.
And one of his first orders that happened on Monday,
Trump directed the Defense Secretary to come up with a
plan to seal the borders and repel an unlawful mass migration.
(09:23):
And here is where the line may be crossed. The
border may be crossed. The president is going to invoke
a lot of powers. He is going to do everything
he can during the course of his term to stop
illegal immigration. He's already basically shut down the borders. Asylum
seekers are not even being allowed to apply anymore. All
(09:45):
of that perfectly legal. Using this power, though, how is
he possibly able to do that in light of the
law that says you can't. Well, he is allowed to
do virtually anything he wants. If the United States is
being invaded, we're talking about are we at war? Have
(10:07):
we been invaded by a foreign power where we're effectively
at war? Pearl Harbor, right, we were attacked. President had
enormous powers, even though he went to Congress to actually
declare war. But the president can do whatever the hell
he wants. And here comes the issue. President Trump is
(10:28):
going to label the migrant issue any one of these
migrants coming across the border as an invading force, as
if we are being invaded by a foreign government, a
foreign power, a foreign army. The problem is that a
foreign army is an army, and it's part of a government,
(10:48):
and there's leadership, and it's an army that has that
we know of. It's not a group of people who
controls the migrants. You know, there is no army here.
There is no invasion. Now, if you add everybody together
that's crossing the border, you can use the word invasion.
I would, But legally, is it an invasion per the law? No.
(11:13):
And this is going to be the stretch that President
Trump is going to use dealing with immigration. By the way,
that's his number one issue, immigration, That's what he ran on.
That's what he believes in a lot of stuff he
doesn't care about. He believes in this, and when questioned
his White Press secretary, as a White House Press secretary
(11:36):
who wants to be white, also said this is something
President Trump campaigned. The American people have been waiting for
such a time as this. She's absolutely right. The Democrats
completely missed the boat on this one, completely misread what
the American people thought of immigration, and Trump hit it
(11:57):
right on the head. The issue of gration is far
greater than the Democrats who were just playing around, pussy
footing around. You had Kamala Harris didn't want to offend
Joe Biden. I mean just that went on and on,
so I will see how far this goes. On Tuesday,
he fired the Coastguard Commander Admiral Linda Fagan. The service.
(12:21):
The Coast Guard announced it was sending more cutter ships,
Coastguard cutterships, aircraft personnel to the Gulf of America. That
was the statement from the White House. We're sending more
people to the Gulf of America. Oh, this is gonna
be so much fun. Yeah, for those of us in
the talk show news talk news talk industry. I went
(12:46):
to formally thank the people of the United States for
giving me all of this fodder to talk about over
the next few years. Thank you. And if I were
really religious, I'd go thank you God. But God is
too busy watching the Ohio Notre Dame game, and so
what can I tell you? All Right, I'm gonna have
fun with this one. And everybody thinks that Trump is
(13:08):
insane on this On the purchase of Greenland. Come on,
how stupid? Can it? Get? Right? Going to tell you?
And not so stupid? Okay, I mean is it practical?
Not particularly? Is it necessary? No, not particularly. But underneath
it all there is a premise to what Trump wants,
and you know what, it makes all the sense in
the world. So first, let's start with a little bit
of handle history. Okay, my god, how do you buy
(13:32):
another country? How does that make any sense? First of all,
Greenland is sort of semi autonomous. It's actually part of Denmark.
It has some sovereign to It used to be just
a straight out territory of Denmark, and now they have
sort of a weird relationship. But Denmark supports Greenland, and
it's four hundred years now Denmark has owned Greenland. So
(13:54):
how is it possible to buy the thing? It's not
for sale, and as a matter of fact, the Danish
government has said there's no way. Here is one snippet
from what a Danish politician said. I think he's Prime.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Minister Trump, listen very carefully. Greenland have been part of
the Danish Kingdom for eight hundred years. It's an interestarated
part of our country. It is not for sale. Let
me put it in words you might understand, mister Trump.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Golf, Yeah, f off, Oh that's okay, fair enough, all right.
So now I mean the thought of buying. I mean,
think about that another country. Hey, I got some news
for you. The United States bought Alaska. Pay for it,
bought Alaska. The Louisiana purchase. We go back to eighteen
(14:44):
oh three, and we had a president that was nicknamed
Thomas Jefferson, remember him. He doubled the size of the
US buying from France the western part of was then
Louisiana and all up and down to the Canadian border.
(15:05):
Double the size of the US Overnight. Where do you
buy it from France? Fifteen million bucks like a cent
or two cents an acre? So was it for sale? Yeah?
It was. Actually Napoleon was the emperor of France. He
(15:25):
was in the middle of a bunch of wars through Europe.
They were doing nothing with that area in Louisiana and north.
They weren't mining it, they didn't have troops there. I mean,
it was nothing. And Napoleon was able to get fifteen
million dollars to help his war efforts. So sure, we
bought that part of the United States. Okay, it's we've
(15:51):
done it before. Can we do it again? Of course
we can, but it has to be for sale. And
where there may be a little problem with President Trump.
He said, or he didn't say, I won't invade if
the sale doesn't go through. I'm not putting on the
table that I won't invade. I mean, that's kind of
(16:11):
a left handed I mean, would he send troops. I
can't imagine that he would. But let's talk about buying Greenland.
Is it's this thing out there, I mean interesting enough.
Iceland is green, Greenland is ice. The total of sixty
thousand people live in this largest island in the world.
(16:33):
So why is Greenland so valuable? All right, let's talk
about the politics of Greenland. It is right out there
in the Atlantic midway between New York and Europe. It
is so strategic to the United States. We have a
missile warning system there, we have an air force base there.
(16:56):
It is pretty important stuff to us strategically speaking. It's
the joke. We rely on Greenland. Europe relies on Greenland
as a bastion force against Russia. And by the way,
for a time ago. Come on, we really have to
do all this anti Russia stuff. We're back to that
(17:16):
again for sure. By the way, the first US president
to float the idea of buying Greenland again Andrew Johnson,
who bought Alaska eighteen sixty seven. He said, let's buy Greenland.
And I didn't come to fruition. And how about this
a little bit more recent history. At the end of
World War two, Harry Truman offered Denmark one hundred million
(17:39):
dollars for Greenland. We'd like to buy it, not for sale.
Well that's where it stopped. Today it may be a
different deal. So what happened with Greenland? Well, as I said,
there's a military base there. In nineteen fifty one, a
treaty was signed and put an airbase now called the
(17:59):
Pitafley Space Base. It is the most northern outposts of
the US Armed Forces with the missile warning system. So
why is it so appealing to Trump? Well, one is
the national security aspect of it, because it is genuinely
a national security area. It's a strategic point for the
(18:20):
United States in terms of defending US, particularly against coming
in like Norrad. We have stuff in Alaska that is
will give us warning about the ballistic missiles and nuclear
missiles coming in from Russia through the Alaska side, which
so we have early warning. So it gives us a
full eighteen minutes before we get bombed. The crap out
(18:43):
of and the west part of the iatis appears Greenland's
on the other side if the missiles come in from there.
Oh that was nineteen fifty one, we had that treaty. Now,
how about the national resources natural resources? Greenland has oil
and gas, rare earth metals, rare earth minerals, which are critical,
(19:06):
by the way, in terms of electric cars, wind turbines, computers,
military equipment. You know who controls eighty or ninety percent
of rare earth metals in the entire world. China. China
controls that market. And man, we are let me tell you,
they have us by the Nards on that one. They
(19:27):
have the whole world by the Nards. At this point
they haven't cut it off because I mean that puts
the world into economic war. It would be World War
IIE economically. But they have it and it's very very dicey.
So what ends up happening is Greenland is where these
metals are. It opens up Also shipping routes very important
(19:52):
because now shipping routes have opened up through the north
and that is critical for international shipping and trade. Why
is that important, Well, because you think ships going back
and forth across the waters of the world are important.
And the closer you get to the north, the better
(20:13):
the shipping is. I mean, just look at the way
the world works, right, it's really a long distance place
to place on the equator, it's very short distance. You know,
they have trips to go Just a quick aside here,
you have trips to go to the North Pole and
you can actually stand on the pole and you can
look east, west, north, south. Standing in one place, take
(20:37):
one foot into one hemisphere, one foot into the other hemisphere,
one foot in the other one, and you are literally
I'm trying to imagine this because I just saw an
ad for this where you literally can go around the
world by walking around a point and you walk three
feet and you've just gone around the world. So it
(21:01):
makes sense in terms of shipping. All the reasons in
the world why we should have greenland, well, you can't
buy it. You're not gonna invade it. And here's where
I think Trump misses it. Why don't we just what
we're doing now? We have an alliance, and we lease Greenland.
Greenland's an ally of ours, they will gladly say, and
(21:22):
we have it now we pay for the base. It's
like Germany. Germany is an ally. We're not buying Germany,
but we have a treaty that puts all these military forces.
Same thing with Japan, same thing with Taiwan. We're not
buying those countries, but we have very very strong treaties.
And doesn't that do the same thing. I don't know.
(21:45):
I think it does. So buying Greenland it's not as
dumb as it sounds. It's not as ludicrous as it sounds.
There are some very good reasons why we should or could,
or maybe it would be nice to own it, but
we can't. So let's get practical. Now, let's move on
to the next phase. How do we maintain our alliance?
(22:09):
How do we in fact expand our alliance? You do
that through diplomacy, do that with money? But lease see property,
paying a government we do all the time. OK. I
am six point forty. You've been listening to the Bill
Handle Show. Catch My show Monday through Friday six am
to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI Handle. Here it is a Thursday morning,
January twenty third. Hey, I don't know if we've gotten
enough phone calls yet because we've been dealing with these
fires but every Friday, and I know we're going to
be able to do it or not because the number
of phone calls may be at a real low level.
(00:25):
And this is the segment we do ask Handle anything.
It's just fun. Someone suggested it and we said, okay, sure,
why not. And this is where you get to ask
me any kind of question you want. You know, been
listening to me for a while and you want to know,
you know whatever, and the stuff that I normally don't
talk about. And I'm very honest, I'll tell you and
I've humiliated myself a bunch of times. So here's what
you do is you go to the iHeart app. It's free,
(00:47):
and then click on the KFI page during the show
and you'll go to Kfi. You'll see a microphone the
upper right hand corner. Click on the microphone. Fifteen seconds
you have to ask a question, whatever question you want
to ask. Don't give me your opinion about politics or
anything you know that I want to hear it, and
we record that and then it's played here tomorrow. And
(01:07):
I answered the question. I hear it for the first time.
So it's totally spontaneous and we're just having fun with it.
So that's hand to ask handle anything. Okay, now here
is what you are going to hear for the next
four years or however long I'm going to be here,
and that is I have told you that we're in
for a wild ride with this president. So while presidents
(01:30):
normally would do this Comma Trump and then we go
on to what normally happens, we're what he does. And
the same thing was happening with this disaster, the wildfire
area and these ravaged areas in southern California. Normally presidents
go and visit natural disaster sites. They just do it.
They're expected to do it, they should do it, and
(01:52):
politics are usually set aside. For example, a hurricane, when
the hurricanes hit in Florida, right, Biden goes down there
and tells DeSantis, whatever you need, I am here setting
politics aside. Well, President Trump is coming out to see
our fire ravaged area, and he's going to do what
(02:14):
presidents do, and he's going to go, Okay, this is horrible.
This is terrible. It's all photo op stuff. And the
difference is you're not hearing we. The Feds are going
to help you politics aside, because that's normally what happens
with federal aid, and most of the money that's going
to help us here south of California is going to
(02:34):
come from the feds. We just, I mean, there's no
way we can afford it locally, and so we're going
to get federal aid. The difference is unless until and
here are the requirements, and here's the problem that we're
going to have straight out. It is Gavin Newsom who
(02:55):
effectively mismanaged and started the fires, not physically, but is
responsible for the fires. The state's fish conservation efforts in
up in the Sacramento Delta. That's why we don't get
enough water down here, and that's why the hydrants weren't
full enough and didn't have enough water pressure. Wait a minute,
(03:17):
you're talking about the Sacramento water coming down the aqueduct.
It's two different supplies completely. One has nothing to do
with the other. Now you can agree or disagree with
the smelt issue, and I think it's stupid, but it
has nothing to do with the water supply. But if
you do what I tell you, then you're going to
get the money. And if you don't, this is really tough,
(03:38):
it really is. And he has argued that FEMA, this
is the president got in the way and the tough one.
He literally said during his inauguration, his inaugural speech, that
the wildfires in California are at this morning, at this morning,
(03:58):
running wild and the state is doing nothing. There are
no firefighters out there. They're letting them burn uncontrolled. And
we're going to straighten that out. It's politics, And I
tell you, I know what you think. I think about
Donald Trump. We're going to talk about that because there's
a bunch of stuff like, for example, coming up at
(04:20):
seven fifty, the Greenland issue. There's actually a method to
the madness there. I mean, it makes sense on a
different a lot of different levels. But this one, come on, guys,
really really we need the help, and we need the
help unfettered from the FEDS. And that's what happened. Please, now,
(04:41):
this isn't right. You can't put requirements on this. You
can't say here's what you're going to do with your
water supply, here's what you're going to do in terms
of firefighting, here's what we're going to do with you
managing the wildlife. And here's what we're insisting that you
do in terms of fire prevention. You don't do that
with any other state. Why just us? Well, I told
(05:06):
you we're going to go to We Californians are at
war with this administration and it will continue on. War
has been declared by both sides. Newsom has declared war
on Trump. Trump has declared war on California. And that's
what we're going to be seeing. And I hope, I
hope federal money is not withheld when the Feds come
(05:29):
in and say, here's what we want you to do.
This is what we want you to do in terms
of your water supply, here's what we want you to
do about mitigation, and if not, you don't get federal aid. Okay,
here's what's going on. We have something in the United
States called the Passe Comatatas Act, which means that federal
troops cannot or the yes, the army right cannot enforce laws.
(05:57):
That's not what they do. They don't do law enforcement,
not on you soil and so how do you get
federal forces to do that. Well, the Pentagon has been
deploying fifteen hundred active duty troops in the southern border.
Whoa hold on a minute, But the law says that
they can't enforce the laws. And of course it's all
(06:18):
about immigration. Well, the President put into executive orders shortly
after we took office that the troops were going down
to crack down an immigration. Acting Defense Secretary said, the
Pentagon will provide military aircraft to support the Department of
Homeland Security deportation flights. Can that be done yet? Probably
(06:40):
troops will assist in the construction of barriers. Yeah, that
can be done. That's not enforcing the laws. You can
help police do logistics, you can give information, you can
supply equipment, you can supply airplanes and fly agents around.
You're doing all of that perfectly legal, and it's been
(07:02):
done by Democrats as well as Republican presidents. Now. The
acting Defense Secretary of Robert Slissius said, the number of
troops and their mission may soon change. This is just
the beginning. This is where it's going to get kind
of interesting. Now the active duty forces are going to
join the twenty five hundred US National Guard and reserve
(07:26):
forces already there. Right now, no active duty troops are
working along the two thousand mile border, but you'll see
fifteen hundred of them arrive any day. And these have
done similar things and support border patrol agents. Both Trump
and President Biden sent Trump during his first term, and
(07:50):
President Biden sent active duty troops to the border to
help to do logistics. Exactly what's happening now. So troops
are prohibited, as I said, from law enforcement under the
Posse Comitatis Act. Now here is what the President has
done through an executive order. He has asked or he
(08:15):
has he has ordered the incoming the incoming Secretary of
Defense and the Homeland Security chief to report back within
ninety days if they think that an eighteen oh seven
law called the Insurrection Act should be invoked, then that
allows troops to be used in civilian law enforcement on
(08:35):
US soil, the insurrection the Insurrection Act. When basically there
is an invasion or an insurrection where the troops have
to be used to maintain our government, our democracy. Now,
then that get interesting. I love the irony of this one.
(08:58):
And this, by the way, the last time was invoked
during the writing. Remember the Rodney King riots, the Insurrection
Act was invoked and troops, right, federal troops were used.
And one of his first orders that happened on Monday,
Trump directed the Defense Secretary to come up with a
plan to seal the borders and repel an unlawful mass migration.
(09:23):
And here is where the line may be crossed. The
border may be crossed. The president is going to invoke
a lot of powers. He is going to do everything
he can during the course of his term to stop
illegal immigration. He's already basically shut down the borders. Asylum
seekers are not even being allowed to apply anymore. All
(09:45):
of that perfectly legal. Using this power, though, how is
he possibly able to do that in light of the
law that says you can't. Well, he is allowed to
do virtually anything he wants. If the United States is
being invaded, we're talking about are we at war? Have
(10:07):
we been invaded by a foreign power where we're effectively
at war? Pearl Harbor, right, we were attacked. President had
enormous powers, even though he went to Congress to actually
declare war. But the president can do whatever the hell
he wants. And here comes the issue. President Trump is
(10:28):
going to label the migrant issue any one of these
migrants coming across the border as an invading force, as
if we are being invaded by a foreign government, a
foreign power, a foreign army. The problem is that a
foreign army is an army, and it's part of a government,
(10:48):
and there's leadership, and it's an army that has that
we know of. It's not a group of people who
controls the migrants. You know, there is no army here.
There is no invasion. Now, if you add everybody together
that's crossing the border, you can use the word invasion.
I would, But legally, is it an invasion per the law? No.
(11:13):
And this is going to be the stretch that President
Trump is going to use dealing with immigration. By the way,
that's his number one issue, immigration, That's what he ran on.
That's what he believes in a lot of stuff he
doesn't care about. He believes in this, and when questioned
his White Press secretary, as a White House Press secretary
(11:36):
who wants to be white, also said this is something
President Trump campaigned. The American people have been waiting for
such a time as this. She's absolutely right. The Democrats
completely missed the boat on this one, completely misread what
the American people thought of immigration, and Trump hit it
(11:57):
right on the head. The issue of gration is far
greater than the Democrats who were just playing around, pussy
footing around. You had Kamala Harris didn't want to offend
Joe Biden. I mean just that went on and on,
so I will see how far this goes. On Tuesday,
he fired the Coastguard Commander Admiral Linda Fagan. The service.
(12:21):
The Coast Guard announced it was sending more cutter ships,
Coastguard cutterships, aircraft personnel to the Gulf of America. That
was the statement from the White House. We're sending more
people to the Gulf of America. Oh, this is gonna
be so much fun. Yeah, for those of us in
the talk show news talk news talk industry. I went
(12:46):
to formally thank the people of the United States for
giving me all of this fodder to talk about over
the next few years. Thank you. And if I were
really religious, I'd go thank you God. But God is
too busy watching the Ohio Notre Dame game, and so
what can I tell you? All Right, I'm gonna have
fun with this one. And everybody thinks that Trump is
(13:08):
insane on this On the purchase of Greenland. Come on,
how stupid? Can it? Get? Right? Going to tell you?
And not so stupid? Okay, I mean is it practical?
Not particularly? Is it necessary? No, not particularly. But underneath
it all there is a premise to what Trump wants,
and you know what, it makes all the sense in
the world. So first, let's start with a little bit
of handle history. Okay, my god, how do you buy
(13:32):
another country? How does that make any sense? First of all,
Greenland is sort of semi autonomous. It's actually part of Denmark.
It has some sovereign to It used to be just
a straight out territory of Denmark, and now they have
sort of a weird relationship. But Denmark supports Greenland, and
it's four hundred years now Denmark has owned Greenland. So
(13:54):
how is it possible to buy the thing? It's not
for sale, and as a matter of fact, the Danish
government has said there's no way. Here is one snippet
from what a Danish politician said. I think he's Prime.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Minister Trump, listen very carefully. Greenland have been part of
the Danish Kingdom for eight hundred years. It's an interestarated
part of our country. It is not for sale. Let
me put it in words you might understand, mister Trump.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Golf, Yeah, f off, Oh that's okay, fair enough, all right.
So now I mean the thought of buying. I mean,
think about that another country. Hey, I got some news
for you. The United States bought Alaska. Pay for it,
bought Alaska. The Louisiana purchase. We go back to eighteen
(14:44):
oh three, and we had a president that was nicknamed
Thomas Jefferson, remember him. He doubled the size of the
US buying from France the western part of was then
Louisiana and all up and down to the Canadian border.
(15:05):
Double the size of the US Overnight. Where do you
buy it from France? Fifteen million bucks like a cent
or two cents an acre? So was it for sale? Yeah?
It was. Actually Napoleon was the emperor of France. He
(15:25):
was in the middle of a bunch of wars through Europe.
They were doing nothing with that area in Louisiana and north.
They weren't mining it, they didn't have troops there. I mean,
it was nothing. And Napoleon was able to get fifteen
million dollars to help his war efforts. So sure, we
bought that part of the United States. Okay, it's we've
(15:51):
done it before. Can we do it again? Of course
we can, but it has to be for sale. And
where there may be a little problem with President Trump.
He said, or he didn't say, I won't invade if
the sale doesn't go through. I'm not putting on the
table that I won't invade. I mean, that's kind of
(16:11):
a left handed I mean, would he send troops. I
can't imagine that he would. But let's talk about buying Greenland.
Is it's this thing out there, I mean interesting enough.
Iceland is green, Greenland is ice. The total of sixty
thousand people live in this largest island in the world.
(16:33):
So why is Greenland so valuable? All right, let's talk
about the politics of Greenland. It is right out there
in the Atlantic midway between New York and Europe. It
is so strategic to the United States. We have a
missile warning system there, we have an air force base there.
(16:56):
It is pretty important stuff to us strategically speaking. It's
the joke. We rely on Greenland. Europe relies on Greenland
as a bastion force against Russia. And by the way,
for a time ago. Come on, we really have to
do all this anti Russia stuff. We're back to that
(17:16):
again for sure. By the way, the first US president
to float the idea of buying Greenland again Andrew Johnson,
who bought Alaska eighteen sixty seven. He said, let's buy Greenland.
And I didn't come to fruition. And how about this
a little bit more recent history. At the end of
World War two, Harry Truman offered Denmark one hundred million
(17:39):
dollars for Greenland. We'd like to buy it, not for sale.
Well that's where it stopped. Today it may be a
different deal. So what happened with Greenland? Well, as I said,
there's a military base there. In nineteen fifty one, a
treaty was signed and put an airbase now called the
(17:59):
Pitafley Space Base. It is the most northern outposts of
the US Armed Forces with the missile warning system. So
why is it so appealing to Trump? Well, one is
the national security aspect of it, because it is genuinely
a national security area. It's a strategic point for the
(18:20):
United States in terms of defending US, particularly against coming
in like Norrad. We have stuff in Alaska that is
will give us warning about the ballistic missiles and nuclear
missiles coming in from Russia through the Alaska side, which
so we have early warning. So it gives us a
full eighteen minutes before we get bombed. The crap out
(18:43):
of and the west part of the iatis appears Greenland's
on the other side if the missiles come in from there.
Oh that was nineteen fifty one, we had that treaty. Now,
how about the national resources natural resources? Greenland has oil
and gas, rare earth metals, rare earth minerals, which are critical,
(19:06):
by the way, in terms of electric cars, wind turbines, computers,
military equipment. You know who controls eighty or ninety percent
of rare earth metals in the entire world. China. China
controls that market. And man, we are let me tell you,
they have us by the Nards on that one. They
(19:27):
have the whole world by the Nards. At this point
they haven't cut it off because I mean that puts
the world into economic war. It would be World War
IIE economically. But they have it and it's very very dicey.
So what ends up happening is Greenland is where these
metals are. It opens up Also shipping routes very important
(19:52):
because now shipping routes have opened up through the north
and that is critical for international shipping and trade. Why
is that important, Well, because you think ships going back
and forth across the waters of the world are important.
And the closer you get to the north, the better
(20:13):
the shipping is. I mean, just look at the way
the world works, right, it's really a long distance place
to place on the equator, it's very short distance. You know,
they have trips to go Just a quick aside here,
you have trips to go to the North Pole and
you can actually stand on the pole and you can
look east, west, north, south. Standing in one place, take
(20:37):
one foot into one hemisphere, one foot into the other hemisphere,
one foot in the other one, and you are literally
I'm trying to imagine this because I just saw an
ad for this where you literally can go around the
world by walking around a point and you walk three
feet and you've just gone around the world. So it
(21:01):
makes sense in terms of shipping. All the reasons in
the world why we should have greenland, well, you can't
buy it. You're not gonna invade it. And here's where
I think Trump misses it. Why don't we just what
we're doing now? We have an alliance, and we lease Greenland.
Greenland's an ally of ours, they will gladly say, and
(21:22):
we have it now we pay for the base. It's
like Germany. Germany is an ally. We're not buying Germany,
but we have a treaty that puts all these military forces.
Same thing with Japan, same thing with Taiwan. We're not
buying those countries, but we have very very strong treaties.
And doesn't that do the same thing. I don't know.
(21:45):
I think it does. So buying Greenland it's not as
dumb as it sounds. It's not as ludicrous as it sounds.
There are some very good reasons why we should or could,
or maybe it would be nice to own it, but
we can't. So let's get practical. Now, let's move on
to the next phase. How do we maintain our alliance?
(22:09):
How do we in fact expand our alliance? You do
that through diplomacy, do that with money? But lease see property,
paying a government we do all the time. OK. I
am six point forty. You've been listening to the Bill
Handle Show. Catch My show Monday through Friday six am
to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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