1 week ago
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“The thing to remember, always, with Trump is that everything is about the psychodrama,” the Guardian investigations correspondent Tom Burgis tells Helen Pidd. “Everything is who’s in his ear, what bit of his vanity or insecurity has been activated.”
In this episode, Tom explains the backstory to the US president’s interest in Greenland. According to John Bolton, the former national security adviser, the story began in 2018 with a conversation between Trump and the billionaire Ronald Lauder.
“He said a prominent businessman had just suggested the US buy Greenland,” Bolton told the Guardian.
Lauder, heir to the global cosmetics brand Estée Lauder, has known Trump for more than 60 years. When he suggested the proposal, Trump listened. And now, the threat from the US is real.
But what interest does Lauder have in the country?
Ronald Lauder declined to comment.
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