C-SPAN’s Washington Journal (01/21/2026) dissects Trump’s 10% EU tariffs, Greenland acquisition threats, and Supreme Court battle to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook amid $6B reparations-like comparisons. Callers clash—some defend Trump’s "strategic dominance," others call it authoritarian, while Carney warns of a "rupture in the world order" at Davos, sparking market drops (NASDAQ -2.4%). The episode reveals Trump’s gambits risking alliances and economic stability, testing whether his vision of power or independence prevails. [Automatically generated summary]
The former president with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Amy Howe with SCOTUS Blog previews oral argument in the Supreme Court case challenging President Trump's attempt to fire Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook.
We'll also talk about House Democrats' efforts to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam, the role of ICE, Trump foreign policy goals, and other news of the day.
First with Illinois Democratic Congresswoman Robin Kelly, and later with Tennessee Republican Congressman Matt Van Epps.
President Trump has just landed in Switzerland, where he'll take the stage at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos.
We'll bring you live coverage of his speech once that gets underway.
The visit comes amid renewed tensions over President Trump's desire to acquire Greenland from NATO ally Denmark.
The president has not ruled out the use of military force and has announced tariffs of 10% against eight European countries opposing U.S. control of the island.
This morning, we're getting your views on the president's upcoming speech in Davos.
What should his message be to world leaders?
And how do you think the Greenland debate affects America's role in the world?
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Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
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Include your first name and your city-state.
And you can reach us on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
Yesterday, President Trump was asked about the future of the NATO alliance, and this is what he said.
unidentified
Mr. President, are you committed to keeping the U.S. in NATO?
That was yesterday at the White House press briefing.
And this is the Associated Press.
Trump's Greenland threats spark outrage from EU and TESS long-time NATO alliance.
It says that President Trump's pledge to provoke a sweeping tariff fight with Europe to get his way in taking control of Greenland has left many of America's closest allies warning of a rupture with Washington, capable of shattering the NATO alliance that had once seemed unshakable.
It says the European Union's top official on Tuesday called Trump's planned new tariffs on eight of its countries over Greenland a, quote, mistake, and questioned Trump's trustworthiness.
And Governor Gavin Newsom also had a response to that.
He is in Davos, and here's his exchange with Sky News business correspondent in Davos.
We'll see if he is going to be giving, it doesn't look like he's going to be giving any remarks, but that is live.
That's a live look there of Zurich, Switzerland, heading over to the helicopter to take him to Davos.
Tyrone in New York, Line for Democrats.
Good morning, Tyrone.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
This is what happens when you put a bull in the China shop.
We knew that Trump was going to be someone that did not have any respect for the laws of the Constitution of our country.
We already saw it when he generated an attack on our capital.
So for him to do what he's doing now, it should be no surprise to a lot of his supporters, a lot of his non-supporters, and the people that didn't participate in the path that this country takes, the non-voters.
So when we disregard what happens in this country and think that it's not going to affect us and what happens with us, maybe it won't initially, but keep ignoring this man.
And believe me, somebody's out there that's worse than him.
And if we don't decide to get involved with what's going on in this country, which a lot of us do, but why we have to wait till our back is against the wall to say, you know what, let's stand up.
Let's stand up against this authoritarian ideology that is running through this country.
Stand up and getting involved with the voting apparatus of this country, get involved with the path that pay attention to the people that we're putting in this office thinking that they're only going to serve one purpose.
They serve many purposes.
And then when we say that we want to see this government tore down, we want to see this government, because there are people in this country that actually believe that tearing down the government is going to make this country great again.
And when they come up with this ideology, what it does is leave us defenseless against what we need as a growing country.
This country is only 250 years old.
I said only because it's a baby.
We haven't got out of our pull-ups yet.
We don't know what's coming down the road for us and how we can make this country better for all Americans.
That was European Commission President van der Leyen talking about making a proportional response to President Trump and his imposition of tariffs against European countries.
Here is Theodore, Republican in Livonia, Michigan.
You're on the air, Theodore.
unidentified
Good morning.
How are you?
Thank you for taking my call.
I'm just curious: who would the United States of America rather have in office than President Trump?
I'm just calling to say how sad I am what's going on in the world right now and how scary it is too.
And I'm really upset with the Republicans because, especially in the House and the Senate, because if they can't see what is going on and how this particular president is destroying our country, then I'm obviously nothing we say or do can change that.
I don't know that you could work that out in some way.
I'm a longtime viewer of C-SPAN since Brian Lamb era.
I used to watch it religiously.
I can't anymore.
I'm watching, obviously, today.
I do it occasionally, but I hear so much garbage about people.
You could have put what happened in the first term about NATO and living up to 2%.
Run all of those calls, and they would sound exactly like the calls you're getting from the people who have yet to give Donald J. Trump any credit for anything.
If he can own it, sure, if they're willing, but I don't think they're going to be willing, but that's not his ultimate goal.
Pay attention to what he has done in his six-plus years as president.
Let's not, doesn't anybody, if somebody is mostly successful, wouldn't you, the next time that person does something, give that person the benefit of the doubt?
I have been doing everything possible to support some of the big initiatives that came from the Trump administration.
And I have been debating myself mostly for many months and have come to the final conclusion that I have to skip ship with President Trump and encourage the conservative independents that we need to make efforts to move in the direction of asking our vice president to step up and Mike Johnson,
who is from my hometown right here, that we've got to control and do whatever necessary to seek Trump's removal from power as he has effectively demonstrated without any doubt that he has lost his ability health-wise to lead the country.
It's accumulated efforts on my part to make sense that he was doing some good and that good needed to be done at this point in the history of our country.
And the border, the LGBT movement, the DEI, those things had to be corrected.
They had gone way too far.
And so his work, I do appreciate to address those things.
At this point, yes, just because he is our vice president, duly elected, and there is a responsibility there that can be followed through the Constitution.
And this is the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
It says, tariff turmoil returns, rattling the markets.
Greenland dispute president's warning sends stocks, bonds, and the dollar down.
It says trade turmoil is back on Wall Street.
Stocks slumped on Tuesday after President Trump stepped up his campaign to take over Greenland and threatened new restrictions on trade with Europe.
He said that he threatened that new restrictions on trade with Europe should he not get his way.
The NASDAQ composite slid 2.4% in its worst day since October.
The U.S. dollar retreated.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury's key gauge of borrowing costs climbed to its highest level since August.
Gold, seen as a haven asset during times of geopolitical or economic uncertainty, soared to records.
That's at the Wall Street Journal.
And we'll talk to Caleb next in Silver Spring, Maryland, Republican line.
Hi, Caleb.
unidentified
Good morning.
Good morning.
I'm just sometimes I'm out of words with this administration.
As a Republican, it's very disheartening to see all establishments in this government in this country being destroyed and dismantled.
And I think a lot of it is because of the Epstein files.
This coming midterms, I will be voting Democrat because I'm just sick and tired of it.
Greenland matters to NATO because of the strategic location, not ownership.
We already have many, many bases in Greenland.
And to say we need to acquire the country is ludicrous because Greenland gets free health care and education from Denmark.
If the U.S. buys it, Greenland will no longer have that because the United States government can't even do that for its own citizens here.
And so how are we promising to do more and better for other people that we're not even doing for our own people now?
So it just doesn't make sense.
I think all of this is just a hoax and a distraction from the Epstein files.
I say, whether it be Democrat, Republican, Independent, whoever is on the Epstein file, release it and let them be exposed and let the country move forward.
And Caleb, when you said you're going to be voting Democrat in the next election, had you voted Republican in this past election?
unidentified
Yes.
And, you know, a lot of the things I thought was going to be good for the country based on the promises and everything that was said during the election.
But words and action are two different things.
You know, when somebody promises you something but does something different, that is when you need to start thinking for your own self and say, you know what, next time, rather than the words, I'm going to look at the action.
And this administration, in terms of action, keeps on giving each and every day what this country doesn't need, what this country doesn't want.
I know they say they have a mandate from the voters.
We voted for the country to be more prosperous, not for the country to be turned into a Gustavo.
So in case you're wondering about that, here is history.com.
The Cold War agreement that opened Greenland to the U.S. military in 1951.
The U.S. and Denmark signed a mutual defense pact directed by NATO that remains in effect.
And it says this, in 1951, the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement granted the U.S. the right to expand its military presence in Greenland far beyond World War II levels.
The largest addition was the construction of Thule Air Base.
It's now called Pacific Space Base in Greenland's frozen north, which was manned by more than 10,000 U.S. troops at the height of the Cold War.
So that base is still there in existence.
And this is Steve, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Republican.
I just wanted to say that, you know, there's still so much division here, but the Greenland, the Greenland offer or whatever, you know, I don't know what that entails.
But if you look through the history of it, how many times different presidents have offered to buy that thing or tried to purchase it?
And it is national defense and it is Western Hemisphere priorities that Mr. Trump is trying to put across.
And, you know, I'm prior military, military strong, inflation's down.
And, Steve, you mentioned Greenland for national security.
And since you're former military, you might have an opinion on this.
Do we have enough presence in Greenland, do you think, to address those national security concerns, or is there a reason in your mind to acquire Greenland?
Well, I think there's besides the defense advantage we have there at Greenland and being able to maximize it, build it up even more, the minerals and the different things that we need to stay competitive with the Chinese, right?
With the rare minerals and all that other stuff.
I can't even say it this morning.
But yeah, we got to stay competitive.
And, you know, everybody talks about progressive people.
But then you turn around and elect Trump, who puts on a tariff on everything under the sun, taxes us all.
Those are taxes, man.
Don't you get it?
I'm, you know, host, I'm struck here because we've had, what, five, six, seven Republicans in a row all calling in, most of which are acting like they're surprised that any of this is happening.
And we have some guy from the military in here calling and telling me about division when he's going in and stomping over, you know, everything my ancestors fought for in World War II to secure our world dominance.
unidentified
It's like we have a bunch of idiots running around who are captivated by the internet and can't even discern their own news, can't discern their own information.
In a sane world, we'd have allies and we'd rest upon our laurels of winning World War II and dominating the world to provide us with the lives that we've had so these freaking morons can call in and tell us about division and taxes and then turn around and do the same thing.
Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality where geopolitics, where the large main power geopolitics is submitted to no limits, no constraints.
On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless.
They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of the various states.
It seems that every day we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.
And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself.
And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.
But before that, we'll chat with two members of Congress, and we'll get an update on the Supreme Court.
And we'll take your calls for Open Forum.
The numbers are on your screen.
Democrats are on 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And Independents, 202-748-8002.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series.
Sunday with our guest, Christopher Buckley, best-selling satirical author and son of conservative writer William F. Buckley.
He has written more than a dozen books, including The White House Mess, Thank You for Not Smoking, Florence of Arabia, and The Deeply Personal, Losing Mum and Pup.
He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
If you watch on C-SPAN, you're going to see me physically across the aisle every day, just trying to build relationships and try to understand their perspective and find common ground.
So this is a case involving President Trump's effort to fire Lisa Cook, who's a member of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors, for allegations of mortgage fraud.
Cook went to federal court in Washington, D.C. to challenge his effort to fire her, and the lower courts ruled in her favor.
So President Trump, the Trump administration, came to the Supreme Court asking the justices to pause the lower court's orders and allow him effectively to fire Cook while her challenge to her firing proceeds through the court system.
The Supreme Court said, well, actually, we're not going to do that right now.
Instead, we're going to hear argument on your request to be able to fire Cook and to put the lower court's order on hold.
So it's a little bit of an unusual procedural posture.
Usually the Supreme Court is hearing what we call the merits of the case, whether the lower court decision was right or wrong.
But instead, this comes to the court on its, what we call its emergency docket or its interim docket.
And so technically, the only question before the court is whether or not to pause the lower court's order by U.S. District Judge Gia Cobb in Washington, D.C.
But the merits of the firing are sort of inextricably bound up with that.
You mentioned it was an allegation of mortgage fraud, which means in this case that she was claiming two primary residences, which obviously you can't have.
Is that true?
I mean, did she claim two residences as her primary residents?
It's really not before the Supreme Court, and there have been news reports that would really undermine those allegations.
And so part of what is before the court is whether or not she is entitled to what's known as due process notice and a hearing before Trump could fire her.
And yeah, that he can fire them for cause and he says federal courts shouldn't be able to weigh in on a president's determination that he has cause to fire a member of the Fed's board of governors.
And Lisa Cook says, well, you know, that would effectively, you know, drive a loophole through the exception to the idea that they can only be removed for cause because the president could just say, I'm removing you for cause, and no one could review it.
Yes, so since the Trump administration started just the second term, just about a year ago, on its emergency docket, the Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to fire the heads of other independent multi-member agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board.
The President argues that a federal law that only allows him to remove members of the Federal Trade Commission effectively for cause violates the constitutional separation of powers.
The Supreme Court hasn't issued its decision in that case yet, but it seemed after the oral argument that they were likely to rule that that law does violate the separation of powers.
But in an earlier decision when it allowed the Trump administration to fire some of these heads of independent agencies on its emergency docket, it suggested that the Fed is different, that it's unique and that it might be different in terms of the president's ability to fire members of the Fed without cause.
And if this were to go through, if President Trump was allowed to remove Lisa Cook, does that mean that he now has carte blanche to remove any of the Fed governors as long as there's any kind of allegation?
I think that's really one of the interesting questions that's before the court today because obviously he is arguing that he has cause to remove her, but what the court says about whether or not courts can review this president's efforts to remove someone for cause will sort of say a lot about what it means to be for cause.
It's really interesting because certainly members of the Trump administration were at the Supreme Court argument in November involving the tariffs.
But this is really, I think, sort of a show of support for Lisa Cook in a way that the presence of, say, the Commerce Secretary and the Secretary of the Treasury necessarily wasn't quite as personal in the tariffs argument.
But there's no way to know until the Supreme Court is actually handing out the opinion that says the tariffs case, when the opinion is actually coming out.