'But Greenland has a government': CNN host confronts conservative about J.D. Vance visit
CNN's Audie Cornish redirected a conservative blogger after he justified vice president J.D. Vance's visit to Greenland.
The vice president will join his wife Usha Vance in a drastically scaled-back unsolicited visit as Greenland officials and citizens make clear they're not welcome amid president Donald Trump's threats to take control of the autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark, but Vance tried to put a happy spin on the backlash.
"There was so much excitement around his visit to Greenland this Friday that I decided that I didn't want her to have all that fun by herself," the vice president said, "and so I'm going to join her."
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The second lady had planned on attending a dogsled race with one of the couple's young sons, but they'll instead visit the remote, ice-locked Pituffik Space Base, which caused Daily Signal executive editor Rob Bluey and other panelists on "CNN This Morning" to chuckle.
"I'm not going to front, I want to see a Space Force outpost, too," said host Audie Cornish. "That sounds good, but Rob, I heard you laughing a bit when you heard [Vance] explain this, that he wanted to join the fun. So is this a person who needs to get out of town because of the Signal chat fubar? Or is this going over there to do his tough talk with our friends and allies? What are you looking at?"
Vance was among the participants in a group chat on the Signal app where defense secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed top-secret military plans despite a journalist's unnoticed presence, but Bluey said the vice president was advancing U.S. strategic interests by visiting the world's largest island.
"Well, Donald Trump has talked about Greenland now for months, so I don't think this has just popped up out of the blue," Bluey said. "I think it's clearly a strategic interest of his because he's worried about the influence of Russia and China in that that region, particularly for the shipping lanes in the Arctic, but also for the minerals and the natural resources in Greenland. He does not want those adversaries to necessarily take advantage of Greenland at the expense of the United States."
Cornish looked askance at her conservative panelist.
"All those things sound good," she interjected, "but Greenland has a government. Like, we're talking about it like it doesn't."
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