Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that President Donald Trump misspoke while referring to Greenland as Iceland multiple times during remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this month.
“He meant to say Greenland,” Rubio told lawmakers while testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday regarding the Trump administration’s operations in Venezuela. “But I think we’re familiar with presidents that have verbal stumbles. We’ve had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.”
Trump appeared to confuse the two locations multiple times while speaking with world leaders about his desire to acquire Greenland.
“Until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me daddy, right? Last time,” Trump said referencing a previous nickname from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. “They are not there for us on Iceland, that I can tell you.”
The president continued, “I mean, our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland. So Iceland’s already cost us a lot of money.”
Soon after Trump’s speech, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt denied that Trump mixed up the countries.
“His written remarks referred to Greenland as a ‘piece of ice’ because that’s what it is,” she said while responding to a reporter who pointed out the inaccuracy on X. “You’re the only one mixing anything up here.”
Users then added a community note on Leavitt’s post, stating that “on several occasions [Trump] said ‘Iceland’ when it would be factually incorrect and make no sense whereas saying ‘Greenland’ would have made sense and been factually correct.”
People criticized the press secretary in the post’s comment section.
“This is incredibly pathetic, even for you,” one person wrote.
“Shameless liar,” another X user said.
According to The Hill, Trump said in Davos that the U.S. would not use military force to take Greenland, which is a complete U-turn from his previous threats.
The president also gave up on a 10% tariff on eight European countries for their opposition to his plans for annexing the autonomous territory of Denmark.