RFK Jr’s ‘Maha’ report found to contain citations to nonexistent studies
Failures uncovered as US health secretary touted ‘gold-standard’ science in health report ordered by Trump team
Robert F Kennedy Jr’s flagship health commission report contains citations to studies that do not exist, according to an investigation by the US publication Notus.
The report exposes glaring scientific failures from a health secretary who earlier this week threatened to ban government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals.
The 73-page “Make America healthy again” report – which was commissioned by the Trump administration to examine the causes of chronic illness, and which Kennedy promoted it as “gold-standard” science backed by more than 500 citations – includes references to seven studies that appear to be entirely invented, and others that the researchers say have been mischaracterized.
Two supposed studies on ADHD medication advertising simply do not exist in the journals where they are claimed to be published. Virginia Commonwealth University confirmed to Notus that researcher Robert L Findling, listed as an author of one paper, never wrote such an article, while another citation leads only to the Kennedy report itself when searched online.
Harold J Farber, a pediatric specialist supposedly behind research on asthma overprescribing, told Notus he never wrote the cited paper and had never worked with the other listed authors.
The US Department of Health and Human Services has not immediately responded to a Guardian request for comment.
The citation failures come as Kennedy, a noted skeptic of vaccines, criticized medical publishing this week, branding top journals the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine and Jama as “corrupt” and alleging they were controlled by pharmaceutical companies. He outlined plans for creating government-run journals instead.
Beyond the phantom studies in Kennedy’s report, Notus found it systematically misrepresented existing research.
For example, one paper was claimed to show that talking therapy was as effective as psychiatric medication, but the statistician Joanne McKenzie said this was impossible, as “we did not include psychotherapy” in the review.
The sleep researcher Mariana G Figueiro also said her study was mischaracterized, with the report incorrectly stating it involved children rather than college students, and citing the wrong journal entirely.
The Trump administration asked Kennedy for the report in order to look at chronic illness causes, from pesticides to mobile phone radiation. Kennedy called it a “milestone” that provides “evidence-based foundation” for sweeping policy changes.
A follow-up “Make our children healthy again strategy” report is due in August, raising concerns about the scientific credibility underpinning the administration’s health agenda.
The Trump administration has “complete confidence” in Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday following a media report revealing that Kennedy’s recent report on childhood disease was riddled with errors.
“I understand there were some formatting issues … but it does not negate the substance of the report,” Leavitt said during a White House briefing.
On the same topic.
Quote:Good catch.RFK Jr’s ‘Maha’ report found to contain citations to nonexistent studies
[ng medical journals.
The 73-page “Make America healthy again” report – which was commissioned by the Trump administration to examine the causes of chronic illness, and which Kennedy promoted it as “gold-standard” science backed by more than 500 citations – includes references to seven studies that appear to be entirely invented, and others that the researchers say have been mischaracterized.
Two supposed studies on ADHD medication advertising simply do not exist in the journals where they are claimed to be published. Virginia Commonwealth University confirmed to Notus that researcher Robert L Findling, listed as an author of one paper, never wrote such an article, while another citation leads only to the Kennedy report itself when searched online.
If that wasn't so depressing, I would be laughing.
I’ve never seen such a governing body of such incompetence, amoral, outright bad, ignorant. I don’t wish them on my worst enemy…if I had one.
When I was a baby pundit, my mentor, Bill Buckley, told me to write about whatever made me angriest that week. I don’t often do that, mostly because I don’t get angry that much — it’s not how I’m wired. But this week I’m going with Bill’s advice.
Last Monday afternoon, I was communing with my phone when I came across a Memorial Day essay that the Notre Dame political scientist Patrick Deneen wrote back in 2009. In that essay, Deneen argued that soldiers aren’t motivated to risk their lives in combat by their ideals. He wrote, “They die not for abstractions — ideas, ideals, natural right, the American way of life, rights, or even their fellow citizens — so much as they are willing to brave all for the men and women of their unit.”
This may seem like a strange thing to get angry about. After all, fighting for your buddies is a noble thing to do. But Deneen is the Lawrence Welk of postliberalism, the popularizer of the closest thing the Trump administration has to a guiding philosophy. He’s a central figure in the national conservatism movement, the place where a lot of Trump acolytes cut their teeth.
In fact, in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, JD Vance used his precious time to make a point similar to Deneen’s. Vance said, “People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home.”
Elite snobbery has a tendency to set me off, and here are two guys with advanced degrees telling us that regular soldiers never fight partly out of some sense of moral purpose, some commitment to a larger cause — the men who froze at Valley Forge, the men who stormed the beaches at Normandy and Guadalcanal.
But that’s not what really made me angry. It was that these little statements point to the moral rot at the core of Trumpism, which every day disgraces our country, which we are proud of and love. Trumpism can be seen as a giant attempt to amputate the highest aspirations of the human spirit and to reduce us to our most primitive, atavistic tendencies.
Before I explain what I mean, let me first make the obvious point that Deneen’s and Vance’s assertions that soldiers never fight for ideals is just plain wrong. Of course warriors fight for their comrades. And of course there are some wars like Vietnam, and Iraq, where Vance served, where the moral causes are unclear or discredited. But when the moral stakes are made clear, most soldiers are absolutely motivated in part by ideals — even in the heat of combat.
For his book “For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War,” the great historian James M. McPherson read about 25,000 letters and 249 diaries from soldiers who fought in that war. Their missives were filled with griping about conditions, about the horrors of war — they had no need in their private writings to sugarcoat things. But of the 1,076 soldiers whose writings form the basis of his book, McPherson found that 68 percent of the Union soldiers and 66 percent of the Confederate soldiers explicitly cited “patriotic motivations” (as they interpreted them) as one reason they went into combat. Other soldiers were probably also motivated by their ideals, but they found it too obvious to mention.
“Sick as I am of this war and bloodshed as much oh how much I want to be home with my dear wife and children,” a Pennsylvania officer wrote, “every day I have a more religious feeling, that this war is a crusade for the good of mankind.” An Indiana man wrote, “This is not a war for dollars and cents, nor is it a war for territory — but it is to decide whether we are to be a free people — and if the Union is dissolved I very much fear that we will not have a republican form of government very long.”
America’s founding fathers and founding documents were very much on the soldiers’ minds. A Union soldier’s wife asked him to leave the army and come home. He responded, “If you esteem me with a true woman’s love you will not ask me to disgrace myself by deserting the flag of our Union.” He added, “Remember that thousands went forth and poured out their life’s blood in the Revolution to establish this government; and twould be a disgrace to the whole American people if she had not noble sons enough who had the spirit of ’76 in their hearts.”
Deneen and Vance stain the memory of the men who fought in that war, especially the men who fought to preserve the Union. Perhaps they are simply extrapolating from their own natures, rather than acknowledging that there are people who put ideals over self.
Deneen’s and Vance’s comments about men in combat are part of a larger project at the core of Trumpism. It is to rebut the notion that America is not only a homeland, though it is that, but it is also an idea and a moral cause — that America stands for a set of universal principles: the principle that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with inalienable rights, that democracy is the form of government that best recognizes human dignity and best honors beings who are made in the image of God.
There are two forms of nationalism. There is the aspirational nationalism of people, ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, who emphasize that America is not only a land but was founded to embody and spread the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. Then there is the ancestors and homeland nationalism, traditionally more common in Europe, of Donald Trump and Vance, the belief that America is just another collection of people whose job is to take care of our own. In his Republican National Convention acceptance speech Vance did acknowledge that America is partly a set of ideas (though he talked about religious liberty and pointedly not the Declaration). But then when it came time to define America, he talked about a cemetery in Kentucky where his ancestors have been buried for generations. That invocation is the dictionary definition of ancestors and homeland nationalism.
Trump and Vance have to rebut the idea that America is the embodiment of universal ideals. If America is an idea, then Black and brown people from all over the world can become Americans by coming here and believing that idea. If America is an idea, then Americans have a responsibility to promote democracy. We can’t betray democratic Ukraine in order to kowtow to a dictator like Vladimir Putin. If America is an idea, we have to care about human dignity and human rights. You can’t have a president go to Saudi Arabia, as Trump did this month, and effectively tell them we don’t care how you treat your people. If you want to dismember journalists you don’t like, we’re not going to worry about it.
There are also two conceptions of society. One is what we’ll call the universalist conception — that our love of family and our love of neighborhood are the first links in a series of affections that lead to our love of city, love of nation and love of all humankind. The other is the identity politics conception of society — that life is a zero-sum struggle between racial, national, partisan and ethnic groups.
If America is built around a universalist ideal, then there is no room for the kind of white identity politics that Trump and Stephen Miller practice every day. There is no room for the othering, zero-sum, us/them thinking, which is the only kind of thinking Trump is capable of. There’s no room for Trump’s immigration policy, which is hostile to Latin Americans but hospitable to the Afrikaners whose ancestors invented apartheid. There’s no room for Tucker Carlson’s replacement theory. There’s no room for the kind of racialized obsessions harbored, for example, by the paleoconservative writer Paul Gottfried in an essay called “America Is Not an ‘Idea,’” in Chronicles magazine: “Segregation was also an unjust arrangement, and I don’t regret seeing that go either. But what has taken its place is infinitely more frightening: the systematic degradation of white Americans.”
Last, there are at least two kinds of morality. There is a kind of morality based on universal moral ideals, and then there is tribal morality. Deneen and Vance say they don’t think people are motivated by abstractions. They might try reading the Bible. The Bible is built on abstractions: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Sermon on the Mount contains a bunch of abstractions: blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the merciful. Believe it or not, down through the centuries, billions of people have dedicated their lives to these abstractions.
What Deneen and Vance said about men in combat is a manifestation of tribal morality. They take a sentiment that is noble in time of war — we take care of our own — and apply it in general to mean that we don’t have to take care of the starving children in Africa; we can be cruel to those we don’t like. Trumpism is a giant effort to narrow the circle of concern to people just like us.
Trump’s own message on Truth Social commemorating Memorial Day is a manifestation of political tribalism. Here’s how it opened: “Happy Memorial Day to all, including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country.”
The use of the word “scum” in that context is called dehumanization. It is a short step from dehumanization to all sorts of horrors. Somebody should remind Trump that you don’t love your country if you hate half its members.
People who are more theologically advanced than I have a name for that kind of dehumanization: spiritual warfare. All of us humans have within us a capacity for selfishness and a capacity for generosity. Spiritual warfare is an attempt to unleash the forces of darkness and to simultaneously extinguish the better angels of our nature. Trump and Vance aren’t just promoting policies; they’re trying to degrade America’s moral character to a level more closely resembling their own.
Years ago, I used to slightly know both Deneen and Vance. JD has been in my home. We’ve gone out for drinks and coffee. Until Inauguration Day, I harbored him no ill will. Even today, I’ve found I have no trouble simultaneously opposing Trump policies and maintaining friendship and love for friends and family who are Trump supporters. In my experience, a vast majority of people who support Trump do so for legitimate or at least defensible reasons.
But over the past four months, a small cabal at the top of the administration — including Trump, Vance, Miller and the O.M.B. director, Russell Vought — have brought a series of moral degradations to the nation those Union soldiers fought and died for: the betrayal of Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine, the cruel destruction of so many scientists’ life projects, the ruination of PEPFAR. According to the H.I.V. Modeling Consortium’s PEPFAR Impact Tracker, the cuts to that program alone have already resulted in nearly 55,000 adult deaths and nearly 6,000 dead children. We’re only four months in.
Moral contempt is an unattractive emotion, which can slide into arrogance and pride, which I will try to struggle against. In the meantime, it provoked this column from a mild-mannered guy on a beautiful spring day.
I’m Normally a Mild Guy. Here’s What’s Pushed Me Over the Edge.
In July 2024, according to an article published today by Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey in the New York Times, billionaire Elon Musk texted privately about his concerns that government investigations into his businesses would “take me down.” “I can’t be president,” he wrote, “but I can help Trump defeat Biden and I will.”
After appearing on stage with Trump on October 5, Musk texted a person close to him: “I’m feeling more optimistic after tonight. Tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix.” About an hour later, he added: “This is not something on the chessboard, so they will be quite surprised. “‘Lasers’ from space.”
Musk invested about $290 million in the 2024 election and, when Trump took office, became a fixture in the White House, heading the “Department of Government Efficiency.” It set out to kill government programs by withholding congressionally approved funds, a practice that courts have ruled unconstitutional and Congress expressly prohibited with the 1974 Impoundment Control Act.
Musk vowed that his “Department of Government Efficiency” would cut $2 trillion from the U.S. budget, but he quickly backed off on those numbers. In the end, DOGE claimed savings of $175 billion, but that claim is unverifiable and CNN’s Casey Tolan says it’s probably wrong: less than half of it is backed up with any documentation.
Instead, as CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf reported today, since DOGE cut staffing at the enforcement wing of the Internal Revenue Service, for example, and cut employees at national parks, which also generate revenue, its cuts may well end up costing money. Max Stier, who heads the Partnership for Public Service, suggests DOGE cuts could cost U.S. taxpayers $135 billion because agencies will need to train and hire replacements for the workers DOGE fired. Stier called DOGE’s actions “arson of a public asset.”
Grind and Twohey reported that Musk’s drug consumption during the campaign—they could not speak to his habits in the White House, although he appeared high today at a White House press conference—was “more intense than previously known.” He was a chronic user of ketamine, took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, and traveled with a box that held about 20 pills for daily use. Those in frequent contact with him worried about his frequent drug use, erratic behavior, and mood swings. As a government contractor, Musk should receive random drug tests, but Grind and Twohey say he received advance warning of those tests.
It was never clear that Musk’s role at DOGE was legal, and the White House has tried to maintain that he was only an advisor, despite Trump’s February 19 statement, “I signed an order creating [DOGE] and put a man named Elon Musk in charge.” On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that 14 states can proceed with their lawsuit against billionaire Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency,” saying the states had adequately supported their argument that “Musk and DOGE’s conduct is ‘unauthorized by any law.’”
Trump posted today on social media: “This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way. Elon is terrific!” In a press conference today, Trump reiterated that Musk “is not really leaving.”
Musk’s time at the helm of DOGE might not have saved taxpayer money, but it has changed the world in other ways. Musk has used his time in the government to end investigations into his companies, score government contracts, and get the government to press countries to accept his Starlink communications network as a condition of tariff negotiations. According to John Hyatt of Forbes, Musk’s association with Trump has made him an estimated $170 billion richer.
The implications of DOGE’s actions for Americans are huge. DOGE operatives are now embedded in the U.S. government, where they are mining Americans’ data to create a master database that can sort and find individuals. Former Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper called it “a full-scale redirection of the government’s digital nervous system into the hands of an unelected billionaire.”
Today, Sheera Frenkel and Aaron Krolik of the New York Times reported that Musk put billionaire Peter Thiel’s Palantir data analysis firm into place across the government, where it launched its product Foundry to organize, analyze, and merge data. Thiel provided the money behind Vice President J.D. Vance’s political career. Wired and CNN had previously reported how the administration was using this merged data to target undocumented immigrants, and now employees are detailing their concerns with how the administration could use their newly merged information against Americans more generally.
Internationally, Musk’s destruction of the United States Agency for International Development, slashing about 80% of its grants, is killing about 103 people an hour, most of them children. The total so far is about 300,000 people, according to Boston University infectious disease mathematical modeller Dr. Brooke Nichols. Ryan Cooper of The American Prospect reported today that about 1,500 babies a day are born HIV-positive because Musk’s cuts stopped their mothers’ medication.
In the New York Times today, Michelle Goldberg recalls how Musk appeared uninterested in learning what USAID actually did—prevent starvation and provide basic healthcare—and instead called it a “radical-left political psy-op,” and reposted a smear from right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos calling USAID “the most gigantic global terror organization in history.” Goldberg also recalls Musk’s tendency to call people he disdains “NPCs,” or non-player characters, which are characters in role-playing games whose only role is to advance the storyline for the real players.
Aside from DOGE, the focus of Trump’s administration—other than his own cashing in on the presidency—has been on tariffs and immigration. Like the efforts of DOGE, those show a disdain for the law in favor of concentrating power in the executive branch.
During the campaign, Trump fantasized that constructing a high tariff wall around the U.S. would force other countries to fund the national deficit, enabling a Republican Congress to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. In fact, domestic industries and consumers bear the costs of tariffs. Trump’s high tariffs, many of which he imposed by declaring an economic emergency and then using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), created such havoc in the stock and bond markets that he backed off.
Yesterday, Sayantani Ghosh, David Gaffen, and Arpan Varghese of Reuters reported that although most of the highest tariffs have yet to go into effect, Trump’s trade war has cost companies more than $34 billion in lost sales and higher costs.
Trump has changed tariff policies at least 50 times since he took office, and traders have figured out they can buy stocks cheaply when markets plummet after a dramatic tariff announcement, and sell when Trump changes his mind. This has recently given rise to Trump’s nickname “TACO,” for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
This moniker has apparently irritated Trump so much he has taken to social media to defend his abrupt dropping of tariffs on China, saying he did it to “save them” from “grave economic danger,” although in fact, China turned to other trading partners to cushion the blow of U.S. tariffs. Trump went on to suggest China did not live up to what he considered its part of the bargain, and he would no longer be “Mr. NICE GUY!”
On Wednesday a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that President Donald J. Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs based on the IEEPA are illegal. The Constitution gives to Congress, not to the president, the power to levy tariffs. Trump launched a social media rant in which he attacked the judges, insisted that “it is only because of my successful use of Tariffs that many Trillions of Dollars have already begun pouring into the U.S.A. from other Countries,” and said that he could not wait for Congress to handle tariffs because it would take too long—in fact, most of Congress does not approve of the tariffs—and that following the Constitution “would completely destroy Presidential Power.” “The President of the United States must be allowed to protect America against those that are doing it Economic and Financial harm.”
Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit paused that ruling until at least June 9, when both parties will have submitted legal arguments about whether the stay should remain in place as the government appeals the ruling that the tariffs are illegal. White House senior counsel for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro, the key proponent of Trump’s trade war, said: “Even if we lose, we’ll do it another way.”
Today Trump said he will double the tariff on steel imports from 25% to 50%.
The other major focus of the administration has been expelling undocumented immigrants from the U.S. During the 2024 campaign, Trump whipped up support by insisting that former President Joe Biden had permitted criminals to walk into the U.S. and terrorize American citizens. Trump vowed to launch the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history” and often talked of deporting the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., although his numbers have ranged as high as 21 million without explanation.
The administration has hammered on immigration to promote the idea that it is keeping Americans safe. But its first target of arresting at least 1,200 individuals a day has fallen far short. In Trump’s first 100 days, Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it arrested an average of about 660 people a day.
On Wednesday, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who along with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is the face of the administration’s immigration policy, told the Fox News Channel that the administration is now aiming for “a minimum of 3,000 arrests…every day.” Administration officials hope to deport a million people in Trump’s first year in office.
CNN reported yesterday that those officials are putting intense pressure on law enforcement agencies to meet that goal. This means that hundreds of FBI agents have been taken off terror threats and espionage cases involving China and Russia to be reassigned to immigration duties. Some FBI offices are offering overtime pay if agents help with “enforcement and removal operations.” Officers from other agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) have also been deployed against immigrants in place of their regular duties.
Steven Monacelli of The Barbed Wire noted today that local law enforcement and state troopers have also been diverted to immigration, using a national network of cameras that read license plates. Joseph Cox and Jason Keobler of 404 Media reported yesterday that a Texas sheriff used the same system over the course of a month to look for a woman whom he said had a self-administered abortion, saying her family was worried about her safety.
Their attempt to appear effective has led to very visible arrests and renditions of undocumented migrants to prisons in third countries, especially the notorious CECOT terrorist prison in El Salvador. The administration has deliberately flouted the right of persons in the United States to due process as guaranteed by the Constitution. The administration has met court orders with delay and obfuscation, as well as by attacking judges and the rule of law.
The administration continues to insist those it has arrested are dangerous criminals who must be deported without delay, but more and more reporting says that many of those expelled from the country had no criminal convictions. Today, ProPublica reported that the Trump administration’s own data shows that officials knew that “the vast majority” of the 238 Venezuelans it sent to CECOT had not been convicted of crimes in the U.S. even as it deported them and called them “rapists,” “savages,” “monsters,” and “the worst of the worst.”
ICE has increasingly met quotas by arresting immigrants outside of immigration check-ins and courtrooms: yesterday Dina Arévalo of My San Antonio reported that ICE arrested five immigrants, including three children, outside of an immigration court after a judge had said they were no longer subject to removal proceedings. The officers used zip ties on all five individuals.
At stake is the turn of the United States away from democracy and toward the international right wing. Yesterday the U.S. State Department notified Congress that it intends to use the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor to promote “Democracy and Western Values.” On Tuesday a senior advisor for that bureau, Samuel Samson, who graduated from college in 2021, explained that the State Department intends to ally with the European far right to protect “Western civilization” from current democratic governments.
It also plans to turn the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, which manages the flow of people into the U.S., into an “Office of Remigration” to “actively facilitate” the “voluntary return of migrants” to other countries and “advance the president’s immigration agenda.”
“Remigration” is a term from the global far right. As Isabela Dias of Mother Jones notes, its proponents call for the “mass expulsion of non–ethnically European immigrants and their descendants, regardless of immigration status or citizenship, and an end to multiculturalism.” Of the congressional report, a person who works closely with the State Department told Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket: “All of it is pretty awful with some pieces that definitely violate existing law and treaties. But institutionalizing neo-Nazi theory as an office in the State Department is the most blatantly horrifying.”
This concept is behind not only the expulsion of undocumented immigrants, but also the purge of foreign scholars and lawful residents. The Supreme Court blessed this purge today when, during the period that litigation is underway, it allowed the administration to end immigration paroles for about 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela admitted under a Biden-era program, instantly making them undocumented and subject to deportation.
The court decided the case on the shadow docket, without briefings or explanation. In a dissent joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote: “[S]omehow, the Court has now apparently determined…that it is in the public’s interest to have the lives of half a million migrants unravel all around us before the courts decide their legal claims.”
Jackson added a crucial observation. The court, she wrote, “allows the Government to do what it wants to do regardless [of the consequences], rendering constraints of law irrelevant and unleashing devastation in the process.”
“I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition,” Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine told her colleagues on June 1, 1950. “It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear…. I speak as a Republican, I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States senator. I speak as an American.”
“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism,” she pointed out. Americans have the right to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs, to protest, and to think for themselves. But attacks that cost people their reputations and jobs were stifling these basic American principles, and the ones making those attacks were in her own party.
Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy, who was sitting two rows behind her, led a faction that had cowed almost all of the Republican Party into silence by accusing their opponents of “communism.” Smith recognized the damage McCarthy and his ilk were doing to the nation. She had seen the effects of his behavior up close in Maine, where the faction of the Republican Party that supported McCarthy had supported the state’s Ku Klux Klan.
“Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America,” Senator Smith said. “It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others.”
Senator Smith wanted a Republican administration, she explained, but to replace President Harry Truman’s Democratic administration—for which she had plenty of harsh words—with a Republican regime “that lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally disastrous to this nation.”
“I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.”
“I doubt if the Republican party could do so,” she added, “simply because I do not believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely we Republicans are not that desperate for victory.”
“I do not want to see the Republican party win that way,” she said. “While it might be a fleeting victory for the Republican party, it would be a more lasting defeat for the American people. Surely it would ultimately be suicide for the Republican party and the two-party system that has protected our American liberties from the dictatorship of a one-party system.”
“As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist,” she said. “They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.”
Smith presented a “Declaration of Conscience,” listing five principles she hoped her party would adopt. It ended with a warning: “It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”
In 1950, six other Republican senators signed onto Senator Smith’s declaration, leading McCarthy to sneer at “Snow White and the Six Dwarves.” Other Republicans quietly applauded Smith’s courage but refused to show similar courage themselves with public support.
In a statement in honor of the 75th anniversary of Smith’s Declaration of Conscience, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) noted that our time resembles hers, and decried the “character assassination, baldfaced lies, petty insults, and round-the-clock disinformation” of MAGA Republicans.
“[T]he hollowing out of American political language…tracks the corruption of American government and the disappearance of serious policy debate,” he wrote. “These movements of thought are not just part of one politician’s campaign for power. They are in service of a ruling public philosophy, which treats the government as an instrument for class plunder and private self-enrichment, a get-even-filthier-rich-quick scheme for the president and his family and friends.”
But for those who believe “that the government should be an instrument for the common good of all and the defense of our freedoms and civil rights, the state of politics in the country is a…serious threat to the survival of democratic institutions and the possibility of democratic progress.”
“The essential work of democracy is being trashed by the rule-or-ruin politics of the MAGA party,” Raskin wrote. “This is not a partisan exercise we are engaged in today to save and strengthen democracy in America…. MAGA and [the Department of Government Efficiency] are engaged in a hostile takeover of all the political institutions and programmatic achievements of American democracy.”
“Here in America we have a supreme Constitution, not a supreme leader,” Raskin wrote. “Democracy is not just a static collection of rules and practices. It is an unfinished project in motion, a constant work in progress. And we must never forget that democracy is the political system in service of human freedom.”
A month ago, another Maine senator, Independent Angus King, recalled Smith’s Declaration of Conscience in a speech to his colleagues in the Senate. “I fear that we are at a similar moment in history,” he said. “And…today’s ‘serious national condition’ [involves] the President of the United States. Echoing Senator Smith, today’s crisis should not be viewed as a partisan issue; this is not about Democrats or Republicans, or immigration or tax policy, or even the next set of elections; today’s crisis threatens the idea of America and the system of government that has sustained us for more than two centuries.”
“What’s at stake,” he said, is “the driving force behind the basic design of our Constitution—the grave danger to any society is the concentration of power in one set of hands.” King quoted framer of the Constitution James Madison, who warned: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
And yet, King said, “this ‘accumulation of all powers’ is exactly what is happening today, before our very eyes. Although many in this body unfortunately seem determined to ignore it, deliberately ignore it, the evidence is everywhere: from the elimination of Congressionally-established agencies to the withholding of appropriated funds…to issuing executive orders purporting to be law in place of legislation to sidestepping if not ignoring court orders: This President is engaged in the most direct assault on the Constitution in our history, and we in this body, at least thus far, are inert—and therefore complicit…. [T]his President is attempting to govern as a monarch, unbound by law or Constitutional restraint, not as a President subject to the constraints of the Constitution and the rule of law.”
King implored his colleagues to “reclaim our power…. You know, do our job.” He reminded them: “Each of us swore—swore, mind you—to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic’; [and that we would] ‘bear true faith and allegiance to [the Constitution].’ Clearly,” he said, “the Framers knew there might someday be ‘domestic’ enemies of the Constitution and made it our sacred obligation to defend the Constitution from them,” and he called for his colleagues to stand alongside him to do so.
Last night, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) told host Jimmy Kimmel that Republican senators are indeed unnerved by Trump’s behavior and the actions of the administration. The problem, Booker said, is what Thomas Jefferson said: “‘When the public fears their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears its people, there is liberty.’”
Republicans in office “are so afraid of Donald Trump that they are letting things go,” Booker said “We the people have to make our politicians fear the consequences of…doing wrong more than the year that Donald Trump will run a primary against them, or put $100 million, or troll them on the internet. This is…one of those moments when we are not going to see change in Washington unless more of us have said enough.”
Recalling the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Booker said that “the problem today we have to repent for is not just the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people, but also the appalling silence and inaction of the good people. This is the time Americans have to step up and let their voices be heard.”
Seventy-five years ago, Senator Smith’s voice was largely ignored in the public arena. But she was right. Four years later, the Senate condemned McCarthy, and after his death in 1957, Wisconsin voters elected Democrat William Proxmire, who held the seat for the next 32 years. And while Senator Smith was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, McCarthy has gone down in history as a disgrace to his state and to the United States of America.
President Trump has long called for escalating the U.S. drug war against Mexican cartels and wants tougher penalties for dealers selling fentanyl and other street drugs in American communities. "I am ready for it, the death penalty, if you deal drugs," Trump said during a meeting with state governors in February, where he said dealers are too often treated with a "slap on the wrist."
But despite his tough rhetoric, Trump has sparked controversy by pardoning a growing number of convicted drug dealers, including this week's move to grant clemency to Larry Hoover, 74, who was serving multiple life sentences in federal prison for crimes linked to his role leading the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples.
Already during the early months of his second term, Trump has granted clemency to at least eight individuals convicted on federal drug charges. Some, including Hoover, have extensive criminal records involving violence and gun charges.
"There's a lot of mixed messages and mixed signals [from the White House] which creates sort of chaos and uncertainty," said Jeffrey Singer, a drug policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank. "On the one hand you're threatening even tougher penalties on people who deal in drugs, while on the other hand you're releasing drug dealers from prisons."
The case of Larry Hoover and the Gangster Disciples
Ron Safer, a former U.S. attorney in Chicago who helped prosecute members of the Gangster Disciples during the 1990s, said he was shocked and dismayed by Trump's decision to commute Hoover's sentence.
He pointed out that Hoover's gang was one of the largest and most violent drug syndicates in the U.S., operating in 35 states according to the U.S Justice Department. Hoover himself was convicted of state and federal charges including murder and use of a firearm while trafficking drugs.
"Larry Hoover was the head of perhaps the most pernicious, efficient drug operation in the United States," Safer said. "They sold over $100 million of drugs a year in the city of Chicago alone. They were responsible for countless murders. They supported their drug territories with ruthless violence."
Hoover was first incarcerated in 1973 after being convicted of murder. In the 1990s, he was convicted of federal charges linked to his role directing the Gangster Disciples.
Hoover is now expected to be transferred from a federal supermax prison to a state correctional facility in Illinois, where he'll remain behind bars, for now, because of the state-level murder conviction. Hoover has sought clemency from Illinois officials before, though his latest bid for parole was rejected overwhelmingly by a state review board in December 2022.
But a White House spokesman, commenting on background because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly, told NPR the Trump administration expects Illinois officials to follow the federal government's lead by freeing Hoover.
"There have been many advocates saying the time [Hoover] served in prison was adequate," the spokesman said.
Amid calls for tough punishments, clemency for high-level drug traffickers
Trump's clemency for Hoover and other drug offenders follows a pattern that began during his first term in the White House. While promising tough action against drug dealers, Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of at least 13 people convicted of federal drug crimes between 2017 and 2021, including high-level dealers linked to violence or convicted of operating major trafficking rings.
In 2020, Trump's administration also freed a senior Mexican military official arrested by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Los Angeles on charges he helped cartels traffic drugs into the U.S. Under pressure from Mexico's government, officials in Trump's Justice Department dropped prosecution of General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda.
In the first month of his second term, Trump also pardoned Ross Ulbricht, a former tech entrepreneur serving a life term in federal prison for creating Silk Road, a dark web internet site that became a major conduit for drug traffickers.
"Ulbricht also demonstrated a willingness to use violence to protect his criminal enterprise and the anonymity of its users, soliciting six murders-for-hire in connection with operating the site, although there is no evidence that these murders were actually carried out," federal prosecutors said in a statement after Ulbricht was sentenced in 2015.
Commenting on background, the White House spokesman said there is no contradiction between Trump's tough-on-dealers rhetoric and his decisions to free some individuals involved in drug trafficking.
"The punishment does not always fit the crime," the spokesman said. "The president is open to seeing if these people are worthy of redemption."
Some critics of the U.S. drug war offered cautious praise of Trump's use of presidential authority to free drug offenders.
"President Trump's potential decision to grant clemency to people with drug convictions offers a crucial lifeline to those affected and affirms what communities have long known: Criminalization of drugs is ineffective and harmful," said Kassandra Frederique, head of the Drug Policy Alliance, in a statement sent to NPR.
But Frederique is critical of Trump's wider stance on drug policy. "These individual acts of clemency starkly contrast with the administration's broader tough-on-crime rhetoric and its ongoing efforts to dismantle lifesaving health services," Frederique said.
Some view Trump's pardons as "transactional"
During his final days in office, President Joe Biden pardoned thousands of offenders, many of them incarcerated on federal drug charges. Biden said the move reflected his growing unease with the drug war.
"This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities, and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars," Biden said.
Drug policy experts interviewed by NPR said it's difficult to find a coherent philosophy behind Trump's use of clemency. According to the Cato Institute's Singer, Trump's pardons often appear "transactional" and often reflect the influence of powerful individuals.
"He actually promised in front of the Libertarian Party convention that if he was elected he would pardon Ross Ulbricht. That was a promise he made hoping to get support from Libertarians," Singer said. "It's not like there's an ideological thread running through [Trump's] decisions."
During that campaign appearance in 2024, Trump openly linked his plan to commute Ulbricht's sentence to his bid for the White House. "If you vote for me, on day one I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served," Trump said, sparking applause from Ulbricht's supporters.
The release of Larry Hoover, meanwhile, was championed by the artist Ye — formerly known as Kanye West — who thanked Trump this week on the social media platform X. "WORDS CAN'T EXPRESS MY GRATITUDE FOR OUR DEVOTED ENDURING PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP FOR FREEING LARRY HOOVER," Ye wrote.
During his first term, Trump pardoned and freed Alice Marie Johnson after the reality TV star Kim Kardashian called for her release. Johnson was convicted in 1996 and sentenced to life behind bars for her nonviolent role as part of a Memphis, Tenn., cocaine trafficking ring. Earlier this year, Trump appointed her to serve as his "pardon czar."
In a social media post, Johnson, too, praised the president's latest round of pardons.
"Today 26 deserving individuals were granted clemencies and pardons. Each one represents a story of redemption, rehabilitation, and resilience," Johnson said on the platform X. "Their second chance is a second shot at life."
Even as government agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramp up their arrests and confrontations, the lug nuts on the wheels of the White House bus continue to loosen.
On Wednesday, officers from the Federal Protective Service, which is part of DHS, handcuffed an aide in the Manhattan office of Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY). Someone sitting in the office captured the confrontation on video.
Federal agents are trying to meet the quotas the administration has set for arrests by detaining individuals outside immigration courtrooms after they show up for their scheduled hearings. According to Christopher Maag of the New York Times, peaceful protestors gathered on Wednesday outside the Manhattan federal building that holds an immigration court and immigration advocates gathered outside the courtroom. As officers detained immigrants outside the courtroom, advocates reminded the immigrants they had a right to remain silent. Officers threatened to arrest the advocates for loitering, and a member of Nadler’s staff invited some of the advocates to Nadler’s office a floor above the court to defuse the situation.
The video shows a federal agent demanding access to a private area of Nadler’s office, saying “You’re harboring rioters in the office.” When an aide tried to stop them, agents handcuffed the aide. When another aide asked for a search warrant, an agent said they didn’t need one and pushed past her.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that its officers entered Nadler’s office because they were concerned about the safety of his staff members and that the agents detained the aide so they could complete their safety check.
Nadler, who is the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, identified the invasion of his office as an attempt to intimidate a member of Congress. “The Trump administration is really using totalitarian or even authoritarian practices,” he said. “We have to fight them. We don’t want to be a fascist country.”
Late Friday afternoon, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided a popular San Diego restaurant, Buona Forchetta, just before it was supposed to open in what immigration advocate Aaron Reichlin-Melnick identified as an attempt to get local governments to work with them.
J.W. August of the Times of San Diego reported that, according to the restaurant’s manager, twenty to twenty-five ICE officers “surrounded the building and then came inside,” pushed him against a wall and handcuffed him and the staff, many of whom are students. The agents looked at a computer and at employees and, apparently not finding what they were searching for, arrested two employees because “they didn’t have a physical ID.” When an angry crowd tried to stop them from taking the two workers, the officers threw two flash-bang grenades to push the crowd back.
After the Department of Homeland Security published a list of sheriffs it claimed were noncompliant in working with DHS, the National Sheriffs’ Association issued a statement yesterday saying the publication of the list “has not only violated the core principles of trust, cooperation, and partnership with fellow law enforcement, but it also has the potential to strain the relationship between Sheriffs and the White House administration” and “could create a vacuum of trust that may take years to overcome.”
The organization, many of whose members are Trump loyalists, tried to distance DHS from the president, saying that “DHS has done a terrible disservice to President Trump and the Sheriffs of this country,” and demanded DHS apologize “to the Sheriffs and the American people.”
While apparently using its immigration policies to tighten its grip on the country, the administration itself appears to be in disarray. The acknowledgement in the New York Times that billionaire Elon Musk frequently used drugs during the 2024 campaign was only one weak spot in the administration.
Musk had fought with other administration officials, leading to rumors about the black eye he was sporting in Friday’s press conference. Recently, he had spoken out against the Republicans’ omnibus bill, and after reports that his Department of Government Efficiency had actually cost the government money, President Donald J. Trump reportedly asked his aides, “Was it all bullsh*t?”
After the press conference in which Trump thanked him for his service, the White House withdrew the nomination of Musk’s ally Jared Isaacman to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
On Thursday, Emily Kennard and Margaret Manto of NOTUS, the digital publication that covers U.S. politics, noted that the report of the “Make America Healthy Again” Commission, released a week earlier, is full of errors, including misrepresentation of experiments and nonexistent studies.
Margaret Manto of NOTUS wrote that the report appeared to confirm exactly what Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expected it would: that the primary drivers of chronic disease in children are “ultra-processed foods, environmental toxins, technology and medications, including vaccines.” It calls for a “coordinated national lifestyle-medicine initiative” to improve health with “movement, diet, light exposure, and sleep timing.”
It also calls for the government to apply artificial intelligence to “federal health and nutrition datasets” to “detect harmful exposures and childhood chronic disease trends.”
After news broke of the errors in the report, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the problems “formatting issues.” But AI experts told Lauren Weber and Caitlin Gilbert of the Washington Post that it appears the report’s authors relied heavily on AI. Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told Weber and Gilbert, “This is not an evidence-based report, and for all practical purposes, it should be junked at this point. It cannot be used for any policymaking. It cannot even be used for any serious discussion, because you can’t believe what’s in it.”
Trump also appears to be having trouble with the demands of governance. Yesterday, Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee, Gordon Lubold, Dan De Luce, and Elyse Perlmutter-Gumbiner of NBC News reported that the director of national intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, is trying to figure out how to change Trump’s intelligence briefings to hold his attention. She is apparently considering creating a video of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) that’s made to look like a broadcast on the Fox News Channel. “The problem with Trump is that he doesn’t read,” one person with direct knowledge of the discussions told the reporters. “He’s on broadcast all the time.”
Since he took office on January 20, 2025, Trump has taken just 14 PDBs, or fewer than one a week on average. In the same period, President Barack Obama took 63, and President Joe Biden took 90.
In a statement, DNI press secretary Olivia Coleman called the NBC story “laughable, absurd, and flat-out false.” But there is no doubt people from within the administration are talking to reporters and the administration is fixated on leaks: Today, Adam Goldman of the New York Times reported that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Kash Patel is forcing employees to take polygraph tests to find leakers.
Goldman’s story was informed by insiders, though, who told him that Patel has fired so many people that he and his deputy, former political commentator Dan Bongino, have, as Goldman wrote, “obliterated decades of experience in national security and criminal matters at the FBI.” Goldman also reported that the top female agents at the FBI were told to take different jobs in the agency or retire.
There is also no doubt Trump continues to demonstrate that he is more committed to fantasy than reality.
Last night, he reposted a longstanding conspiracy theory that former president Joe Biden was executed in 2020 and that “Biden clones doubles & robotic engineered soulless mindless entities are what you see…. Democrats don’t know the difference.” The post was followed by MAGA and MAHA hashtags.
DER SPIEGEL: Ms. Prime Minister, it has been about five months since U.S. President Donald Trump again declared that he was interested in buying Greenland. At what point did you realize that he wasn’t joking?
Frederiksen: I was convinced early on that Trump was serious. But we are serious, too. For me, it is clear – and this is enshrined in our laws – that the future of Greenland will be decided by the people there. It is their land. According to the UN Charter, international law, and everything upon which we have built our world order since the end of World War II, you cannot simply claim part of another country or take it by force. Our Kingdom of Denmark is a community, and it includes Greenland. That is the reality.
DER SPIEGEL: Trump seems not much to care.
Frederiksen: Many people around the world are wondering whether we are entering a new era. The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes to me that we are. I was born in 1977. My political awakening began with Nelson Mandela and his fight for freedom. At the age of 12, I was a member of the African National Congress (ANC) youth group that supported him. Looking back, the three-and-a-half decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall were almost a golden era – despite the wars in Yugoslavia, terrorism, and all the other crises. That era is over. We are at the beginning of a new age, one that is more uncertain and, therefore, more dangerous.
DER SPIEGEL: What other factors make you believe this?
Frederiksen: Russia is very aggressive. I am convinced that Vladimir Putin and his allies want to continue what we have been witnessing in Ukraine since 2022. They have restructured their economy for a prolonged war and are being supported by North Korea, Iran and, unfortunately, also by China.
DER SPIEGEL: In April, during a visit to Greenland, you said that the Danes have always regarded the United States as a partner. How do you view the U.S. today? As an ally or as an adversary?
Frederiksen: I hold on to my values. Even if things are changing in the U.S., that does not alter my view of trans-Atlantic relations. Without NATO, we would not be able to protect our population. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the collective defense clause, is our most important insurance policy.
DER SPIEGEL: It is questionable how long the mutual defense clause will remain valid.
Frederiksen: You can accuse me of many things, but not of being naïve. I see our weaknesses. It was a historic mistake for Germany and Europe to buy gas from Russia and make itself dependent. We Europeans have paid a price for that. Today, we must clearly recognize the new reality. We will have to reconsider our decisions. I hope that everyone remains committed to NATO. But Europe must become capable of fully defending itself.
DER SPIEGEL: It has been reported that the Americans have already begun calculating internally how much it would cost each year to take over Greenland. Denmark currently supports the island with the equivalent of $650 million per year. The U.S. might be willing to spend significantly more. According to reports in the American media, they are apparently looking for potential informants among the local population. What preparations are you making?
Frederiksen: I can imagine many things, but I prefer not to share scenarios with you. The people of Greenland and their government have made their position clear: Greenland’s future can only be decided in Nuuk, the capital. I expect everyone to respect that – including us.
DER SPIEGEL: The people of Nuuk are deeply concerned. One parliamentarian, for example, said she is worried that U.S. soldiers might land at night by plane, patrol the streets in military vehicles and dissolve the parliament.
Frederiksen: I generally do not engage in speculation. Instead, I focus on what is actually happening.
DER SPIEGEL: Your tone has become more urgent in recent months. During your last visit to Greenland, you addressed the American public directly in English.
Frederiksen: I always say clearly what I think and what I want. We must try to de-escalate the situation. Conflicts between allies are not a good idea. What are we witnessing globally? An aggressive Russia that not only attacks Ukraine but also confronts us with hybrid attacks, cyberattacks, and disinformation. Then there is the situation in the Middle East, the ongoing threat of terrorism, and climate change. At such a time, we should not have conflicts between Europe and the U.S.
DER SPIEGEL: You recently delivered an historic keynote speech on Europe’s future in Danish parliament. You referred to former French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, who supposedly rewrote his speech on the founding of the European Community nine times to find the right tone. How often do you adjust your messages?
Frederiksen: Not often. I do not believe in constant strategy changes. Ten years ago, when I became chair of my party, I resolved never to change a plan spontaneously. Otherwise, you get overwhelmed – especially in today’s world. Things change so quickly. You have to stick to your own strategy and believe in it.
DER SPIEGEL: What can Denmark do to stand up to a global power whose leader some observers describe as a tyrant?
Frederiksen: When I talk about rearmament, I think in European terms. It was a grave mistake to cut our budgets so drastically after the end of the Cold War. As Europeans, we must ask ourselves: If we are not willing to fight for ourselves now, who are we? To me, Europe is not just a spot on the map. Europe represents our values, our ideas, our worldview, our way of living and building societies. If we lose the willingness to fight for that, we lose ourselves.
DER SPIEGEL: U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening Europe with new tariffs. The former U.S. Ambassador to Copenhagen, Rufus Gifford, suggested that Denmark should stop exporting the weight-loss drug Ozempic to the U.S. as a symbolic countermeasure. Would you be prepared to fight fire with fire if necessary?
Frederiksen: We are against any form of trade conflict. The consequences affect not only our companies but also the U.S. We have no intention of being divided. Tariffs are set jointly in Europe. But it’s clear that we have various means of defending ourselves. If Trump wants a trade war with us, we will respond.
DER SPIEGEL: Some military officials and experts have suggested that European countries should support you and send a message by stationing troops in Greenland. What do you expect of your European allies?
Frederiksen: The European heads of state and government already took a clear position in February. The European Council issued a joint statement supporting the Kingdom of Denmark. We are members of the European Union and NATO, and in the case of the latter, this includes Greenland. Regarding security in the Arctic region, all allies in the area need to do more, because the situation there is changing. But we need to do it together.
DER SPIEGEL: Are you planning an increased presence in the region?
Frederiksen: We are already working on that. I am primarily thinking of drones and frigates, and certainly more fighter jets. There is a lot of critical infrastructure in the region. Recently, we had a meeting in Oslo of the Joint Expeditionary Force, the UK-led military cooperation of northern European countries, where we discussed the High North. Greenland and the Faroe Islands were part of that discussion.
DER SPIEGEL: The fact is, the GIUK Gap – the gap between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom – could allow Russian nuclear submarines to move undetected towards North America.
Frederiksen: We are in intensive discussions with the UK on this.
DER SPIEGEL: Recently, you announced plans for four new ships for the Arctic. The old ones have been operating for years without functioning weapons systems. Why did you wait so long?
Frederiksen: If you look at the map, you can see that the area is vast. Everyone needs to do more. When I became prime minister, we were spending the equivalent of 1.3 percent of GDP on defense. Now it’s more than 3 percent.
DER SPIEGEL: You once studied African studies and have likely spent more time considering colonial legacies than most world leaders. Can you understand why some Greenlanders saw an opportunity earlier this year in aligning themselves with the United States?
Frederiksen: I don’t know if my perspective has anything to do with my studies. But Greenland’s future belongs to the people of Greenland. I advocate for Greenland more strongly than almost any other Danish politician before me. I respect that Greenland wants to work globally with various partners.
DER SPIEGEL: It doesn’t worry you?
Frederiksen: The prime minister of Greenland has made it clear that his people do not want to become part of the U.S. but are open to business. I understand that.
DER SPIEGEL: During your visit to Greenland, you spoke about "modernizing” your relationship. What did you mean by that?
Frederiksen: There are dark chapters in our shared history, and if we don’t openly address them, it will be difficult to shape a common future. Greenlandic children were once forced to move to Denmark, losing their families and their language. I have officially apologized for that.
DER SPIEGEL: Earlier this year, a televised debate took place between politicians from Denmark and Greenland. A woman from Greenland was present who had been forcibly fitted with an IUD – a fate that befell half the women of Greenland in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These women have yet to receive an apology from Denmark.
Frederiksen: We have found out that these things happened under Danish responsibility. But we also learned that this practice continued even after it was no longer our responsibility. It is primarily a Danish problem, but not exclusively. So we decided to establish a commission to examine the matter together with Greenland. Once the commission has completed its work, we will have a political discussion and find a way to address the issue.
DER SPIEGEL: The women may not want to wait for a commission to complete its report. Their pain is acute.
Frederiksen: I take this seriously and have spoken with several of these women. I acknowledge their pain and am not afraid to apologize officially. But I will wait for the results in coordination with the Greenlandic government.
DER SPIEGEL: We have heard from people in your circle that you have great confidence in Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz. What do you expect from him?
Frederiksen: Leadership. I know him well and I like him. He has a clear vision for Europe. A strong Germany means a stronger Europe. We work closely together in supporting Ukraine, as we do on security, defense and migration issues. I hope this strong cooperation will also be expanded further in the fight against climate change. We share the same sea and have interesting opportunities regarding renewable energy.
ER SPIEGEL: You recently said that Denmark also needs new ships for the Baltic Sea. Would you be open to having them built in Germany?
Frederiksen: I’ve told my military experts: buy, buy, buy! We must be able to defend ourselves in the short and medium term. Of course, we also want to increase our own capacities for strategic reasons. I visited one of your major companies, Rheinmetall. Cooperation with Germany is a given for us.
DER SPIEGEL: Party allies in other countries praise you in conversations for your clarity. However, there is recurring discontent about how you speak about migrants – saying, for example, that mass migration is one of Europe’s most pressing problems or that living according to the Koran is incompatible with being a democrat. Do you still see yourself as being on the left of the political spectrum?
Frederiksen: I am a Social Democrat. That shapes my stance, including on migration. And I suspect that the majority of Germans would agree with me.
DER SPIEGEL: On what?
Frederiksen: That mass migration to Germany and Denmark has destroyed parts of our everyday lives.
DER SPIEGEL: What makes you think that?
Frederiksen: I read German newspapers and see what is happening in your country as well, especially regarding crime. I don’t think people flee for fun. Those who are persecuted must be protected. But I am convinced that we cannot take in and protect everyone. I disagreed with German policy in 2015 and think it was a big mistake. The consequences are so enormous that we cannot simply continue as before.
DER SPIEGEL: Is it possible that you speak about migration in this way because you speculate that your stance might appeal to, say, U.S. Vice President JD Vance?
The prime minister’s face grows serious. She leans forward over the table and maintains eye contact as she searches in Danish for the right English word. It is clear that the issue is an important one for her. Her adviser takes a deep breath and says: "She feels offended.”
Frederiksen: Whoever says such a thing insults me. I’ve been saying the same thing about migration for more than years. People need to feel safe when taking the bus at night, going to work early in the morning, or at school. With the current level of crime in Europe, there are areas where people no longer feel safe.
DER SPIEGEL: You recently published an open letter with Giorgia Meloni. In it, you sharply criticize the European Court of Human Rights. Its judges have repeatedly criticized your handling of migrants and demanded changes – for example, after the deportation of a mentally ill man. How much of the European idea remains when Social Democrats and post-fascists jointly question a pillar of European order?
Frederiksen: We believe in the rule of law and in the idea of human rights. But if someone comes from the Middle East into our society and wants to destroy it, we must be able to defend ourselves.
DER SPIEGEL: You wrote that the court has "gone too far.” How so?
Frederiksen: As far as I can tell, the Human Rights Convention was originally created to protect minorities, particularly after World War II. Today, however, we must protect the majority. It cannot be a human right to come to us from Afghanistan and rape a young woman or murder someone. If someone does that, we have a right to say: You must leave. If someone kills my partner, do I allow them to sit at my table? No.
DER SPIEGEL: So far, only countries governed by conservative or right-wing parties have joined your letter, along with Estonia, which borders Russia. Sweden and Finland are not on board. What do you hope to achieve with this course?
Frederiksen: My goal is for us to have control over our external borders. I want Europe to remain a safe place in the future.
DER SPIEGEL: Donald Trump's place in the history books seems to be already predetermined. He is the U.S. president who possibly destroyed the Western world as we knew it. How would you like to be seen in 10 years?
Frederiksen: I doubt that people will talk much about me in 10 years. But if they do, I hope they will say that I contributed to striking a balance between the hopes and aspirations of the ordinary people and the continued strengthening of Europe. And that I was among the leading voices in support of the defense of our continent in the face of Russian aggression against Ukraine.
DER SPIEGEL: Ms. Prime Minister, thank you for this interview.
