{"id":503032,"date":"2026-01-09T05:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/503032\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T05:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:31:09","slug":"morality-military-might-and-a-sense-of-mischief-key-takeaways-from-trumps-new-york-times-interview-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/503032\/","title":{"rendered":"Morality, military might and a sense of mischief: key takeaways from Trump\u2019s New York Times interview | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"
  • 1. US is in Venezuela for the long haul\n

    When asked how long he would be \u201crunning Venezuela\u201d, Trump said it would be \u201cmuch longer\u201d than a year.<\/p>\n

    After Trump initially claimed that the US was running the South American country<\/a>, in the hours after the operation that seized President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, members of Trump\u2019s cabinet sought to downplay America\u2019s role<\/a> in its governance. Since then however, Trump has continued to assert that he is in fact \u201cin charge\u201d.<\/p>\n

    Saturday\u2019s operation in Caracas has been described by some as a violation of international law, but in his conversation with the Times, Trump said, \u201cI don\u2019t need international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

    When asked if there were any limits on his powers on the world stage, Trump said: \u201cYeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Trump said he was \u201cgetting along very well\u201d with interim president Delcy Rodr\u00edguez<\/a>, adding that the US would be taking the country\u2019s oil and \u201cgiving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • 2. Seize Greenland or preserve the Nato alliance?\n

    Trump has spent the days since the attack on Venezuela renewing his push for the US to acquire Greenland<\/a> and has not ruled out using military force to take it. He has framed the issue as one of national security, but when pushed by White House correspondent David E Sanger on why he hasn\u2019t chosen to simply reopen bases and send troops to Greenland under the terms of a decades-old treaty, Trump insisted the territory must be part of the US.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI think that ownership gives you a thing that you can\u2019t do with \u2026 a lease or a treaty,\u201d the president said, adding \u201cthat\u2019s what I feel is psychologically needed for success.\u201d<\/p>\n

    When asked by the Times whether obtaining Greenland or preserving the Nato alliance was more important, Trump declined to answer. He did however acknowledge that it \u201cmay be a choice\u201d between the two options.<\/p>\n

    Greenland was formerly ruled by Denmark \u2013 which still controls its foreign and security policies \u2013 and both countries are members of Nato. However in his interview on Wednesday, Trump said that alliance was essentially useless without the US.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI think we\u2019ll always get along with Europe, but I want them to shape up \u2026 If you look at Nato, Russia I can tell you is not at all concerned with any other country but us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • 3. Taiwan is safe, for now …\n

    When asked whether his actions in Venezuela may set a precedent for China to invade Taiwan, Trump said he saw no similarities between the two scenarios.<\/p>\n

    \u201cYou didn\u2019t have drugs pouring into China \u2026 You didn\u2019t have the jails of Taiwan opened up and the people pouring into China,\u201d Trump said, describing Venezuela as a \u201creal threat\u201d.<\/p>\n

    In the days after the attack on Venezuela, commentators in China leapt on the operation as an example of how an assault on Taiwan<\/a> could play out. Leaders in the UK and Europe have also suggested China may be emboldened by Trump\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

    The president, however, appeared sanguine about such a threat. He said it was up to Chinese leader Xi Jinping what China does in Taiwan, but added he would be \u201cvery unhappy\u201d with a change in the status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n

    China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own \u2013 despite the rejection of such an idea by most Taiwanese people. Beijing has said it could use military force to take Taiwan, but the US president said he didn\u2019t believe that Xi would make such a move during his term of power.<\/p>\n

    \u201cHe may do it after we have a different president, but I don\u2019t think he\u2019s going to do it with me as president,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • 4. Nuclear arms control treaty with Russia can lapse\n

    Trump indicated he would allow the last US-Russia strategic arms control treaty to expire, and did not say whether he would accept an offer made by Vladimir Putin in September last year for both sides to voluntarily maintain the limits on nuclear weapons deployments, once it ends.<\/p>\n

    \u201cIf it expires, it expires,\u201d Trump said of the 2010 New Start accord, which is set to end in February. \u201cWe\u2019ll just do a better agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Arms control advocates fear the world\u2019s two biggest nuclear powers will begin deploying strategic warheads beyond the pact\u2019s limits after it expires. Thomas Countryman, a former top state department arms control official, said there were \u201cplenty of advocates in the Trump administration \u2026 for doing exactly that.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Trump has however said in the past that he would like to maintain the limits set out in the treaty after it expires. The agreement limits the US and Russia<\/a> to deploying no more than 1,550 warheads on 700 delivery vehicles \u2013 missiles, bombers and submarines.<\/p>\n

    Under its current terms, New Start cannot be extended \u2013 the treaty allowed one extension and Putin and then president Joe Biden agreed to roll it over for five years in 2021.<\/p>\n

    Trump told the Times that China, which has the world\u2019s fastest-growing strategic nuclear force, should be included in a treaty that replaces New Start.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • 5. Trump at his most casual, candid and conspiratorial\n

    The Times reported that throughout the nearly two-hour interview Trump \u201ctried on a full range of the personas<\/a> he has used for decades in public life\u201d, describing him as a \u201ccomplainer\u201d, a \u201cfather figure\u201d and a \u201cgracious host,\u201d dispensing Diet Cokes at the push of a button.<\/p>\n

    Transcripts and clips of the interview <\/a>released by the Times showed a president eager to embrace the freedom he wields as a leader untethered from many of the conventions that kept his predecessors in check.<\/p>\n

    He candidly described his worldview, and when an aide emerged with a note informing him that \u201cColombian President Gustavo Petro is calling for you,\u201d Trump put a \u201cconspiratorial\u201d finger to his lips to silence the group, and began the call in full view of the journalists interviewing him.<\/p>\n

    Even when taking questions on his health, a topic that in the past has angered the president, Trump appeared calm, the Times said. When asked whether he had taken weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, Trump appeared to make joke, saying \u201cI probably should.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1. US is in Venezuela for the long haul When asked how long he would be \u201crunning Venezuela\u201d,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":503033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[50,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-503032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115863505076127302","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}