U.S., Greenland Officials Meet As Trump Threatens Military Action (Copy) (Copy)
Plus: Joe Rogan Compares ICE To ‘The Gestapo’; NASA Wants To Go Back To The Moon
America’s going back to the moon…even if astronauts aren’t landing on it again just yet. 🚀
READY TO LAUNCH: The upcoming Artemis II mission includes four astronauts who will fly around the moon on a 10-day mission to test out the Orion spacecraft’s capabilities in deep space. It sets up a mission to land on the moon again in the next couple years.
This lunar mission will be the first to carry a Canadian astronaut and carry a woman into deep space.
LUNAR AMBITIONS: NASA also announced, alongside the Department of Energy, plans to develop a nuclear reactor on the moon to power a sustained human presence on the lunar surface. President Trump said in December that he wants to install a lunar surface reactor on the moon by 2030.
MOONWALKERS: NASA has sent 24 Americans to the moon and 12 to the moon’s surface over the years, with Apollo 17 astronauts being the last people to set foot on the moon in 1972.
The official launch may be as soon as February, which gives us just enough time to brush up on some Sinatra. 🌝🎶
Mo News Team
🚨 ONE IMPORTANT THING
Denmark Rejects Trump’s Greenland Push, Vows Continued Talks
President Trump is once again escalating his push for the U.S. to acquire Greenland, insisting the island is vital to U.S. national security and refusing to rule out taking it by military force. But Greenland’s government and Denmark, which oversees the territory, say they’re not on board.
WHITE HOUSE MEETING: After weeks of social media posts and tit-for-tat public statements, on Wednesday officials from Greenland and Denmark met in-person with U.S. officials, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, at the White House.
The outcome: no deal. Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said there remains a “fundamental disagreement” with the Trump administration— but they “agree to disagree.”
Greenland is self-governing and has consistently said it is not for sale.
INSIDE THE MEETING
Denmark and the U.S. agreed to keep talking and to form a high-level “working group” focused on Arctic security concerns.
Rasmussen said any ideas that violate Denmark’s territorial integrity or Greenland’s right to self-determination are “totally unacceptable.”
He added that Denmark believes that Greenland's long-term security "can be ensured inside the current framework" through the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement between the U.S. and Denmark and the NATO treaty.
Meanwhile, the president says the U.S. “can’t rely on Denmark being able to defend itself on its own.”
Trump accused Denmark of putting “an extra dog sled” as protection.
WHY GREENLAND?
Trump says Greenland is strategically essential — especially as Arctic ice melts and new shipping lanes open. The island, three times the size of Texas, sits at a crossroads of U.S., Russian, and Chinese military interests and is rich in natural resources.
What about NATO? Because Denmark is a NATO member, any U.S. military move against Greenland would effectively pit the alliance against itself — a scenario experts say could mean the end of NATO.
Several allies, including Germany, Norway, and Sweden, have already signaled they may send additional forces to Greenland amid Trump’s threats.
How do Americans feel? New Reuters/Ipsos polling shows Americans oppose acquiring Greenland: 47% to 17%, and just 4% support using military force. More broadly, 56% of Americans say Trump has “gone too far” with overseas military actions. His foreign policy approval stands at 37%.
And 85% of Greenlanders also are against a U.S. purchase.
Fun historical fact: The last time the U.S. formally offered to buy Greenland was in 1946, when President Harry Truman proposed paying $100 million in gold. Denmark also said no back then.
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🚨 ONE THING WE’RE FOLLOWING
Anti-ICE Sentiment Grows As Feds Double Down
A majority of Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical of striking down state bans on transgender athletes competing in girls’ sports on Tuesday during oral arguments.
REWIND: The cases from Idaho and West Virginia. Idaho became the first state to enact a ban on athletes who are designated boys at birth from competing in girls sports in 2020, followed by West Virginia in 2021. Now, 27 states have similar bans.
Lower courts sided with the transgender athletes challenging the bans.
On Tuesday, at least five of the Supreme Court’s six conservative justices signaled they may uphold the state bans — signaling they do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which requires states to provide “equal protection of the laws,” or Title IX, the landmark civil rights law from 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination in education, which helped fuel the growth of girls’ and women’s sports.
INSIDE THE COURTROOM
In the case of Becky Pepper-Jackson, a West Virginia student, she socially transitioned in third grade and began puberty blockers before male puberty. She later started estrogen in sixth grade, meaning — according to her legal brief — she never underwent male puberty. Science supports that puberty catapults boys far ahead of girls in physical performance.
Here’s some from three of the courts’ conservative majority:
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a longtime girls’ basketball coach, pressed lawyers on the real-world impacts of transgender participation in sports, arguing that many teams are “zero-sum” — where an athlete’s opportunity can come at another’s expense.
Joshua Block, arguing for the American Civil Liberties Union, countered that West Virginia's ban denies equal opportunity — even in cases where there is no competitive advantage.
During arguments, Kavanaugh praised Title IX for helping “make girls’ and women’s sports equal,” and noted that he sees the law in effect “every night when I walk into my house as my daughters are getting back from lacrosse or basketball or hockey practice.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, the 2020 decision that protects transgender workers under Title VII. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's four liberal justices at the time. On Tuesday, Roberts indicated that Bostock may not apply in these cases: “The question here is whether a sex-based classification is necessarily a transgender classification.”
Roberts also cautioned that allowing challenges from a very small group “would have to apply across board and not simply to the area of athletics.”
Gorsuch was the only conservative justice who seemed open to the arguments of the student plaintiffs. He noted that transgender people have a documented history of discrimination in the U.S.
The three liberal justices suggested that even if the transgender sports bans are generally constitutional, the plaintiffs could still challenge them by showing they personally do not pose an unfair advantage.
TRUMP LOSING SUPPORT
Polling shows public support for the immigration crackdown has waned since Trump returned to office. A YouGov poll released Tuesday found the president’s net approval on immigration has fallen from +14 shortly after his inauguration to –9 today.
Podcaster Joe Rogan — who formally endorsed Trump in 2024 — has expressed concern in recent months about ICE tactics. This week, he compared ICE agents to “the Gestapo.”
“Are we really going to be the Gestapo? ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?" Rogan said on his podcast, calling recent anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis — and the fatal shooting of Renee Good — “complicated.”
⏳ THE SPEED READ
🚨NATION
US freezes all visa processing for 75 countries, including Somalia, Russia, Iran (FOX)
A Ford worker called out Trump. The president flipped him off. Now, he’s been suspended (YAHOO NEWS)
Democrat Elissa Slotkin says she is under investigation for video on illegal orders (NPR)
House Homeland Democrats launch investigation into Noem with eyes on impeachment (THE HILL)
🌎 AROUND THE WORLD
US military action in Iran appears increasingly likely, report says (GUARDIAN)
Costa Rica’s security director says plot to assassinate president uncovered (AP)
Construction crane falls on a passenger train in Thailand, killing at least 30 people (NBC)
Ukraine’s new defense chief reveals 200,000 soldiers have gone AWOL and 2 million are dodging draft (CNN)
📱BUSINESS, SCIENCE & TECH
Massive Verizon network outage across U.S; users stuck in SOS mode (MO NEWS)
California to investigate Elon Musk’s Grok over sexualized images (POLITICO)
NASA astronauts prepare to leave the space station due to a medical issue (NBC)
RFK Jr. selects new members, including self-described ‘anti-vaxxer,’ for advisory panel (THE HILL)
🎬 SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT
‘West Wing’ actor Timothy Busfield due in court on child sex abuse charges in New Mexico (AP)
‘Euphoria’ sets return date, drops high-octane trailer for season 3 (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER)
Ranger Suarez agrees to 5-year, $130M deal with Red Sox (ESPN)
Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey to star in ‘Sunday in the Park With George’ revival in London (VARIETY)
ICYMI FROM THE 📲
In case you missed it… Rock on, international diplomacy style. 🤘🥁
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung ended their countries’ two-day summit with an impromptu drum session in matching jumpsuits. 🇰🇷🇯🇵
The world leaders played along to global hits, including “Golden” from Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters.