Greenland, Iceland, land of ice….whatever Trump thinks the country’s name is, has been spared from U.S. invasion — at least for now. What hasn’t been spared, however, is our deteriorating relationships with our NATO allies. As we drift away from our longtime European friends, Russia inches closer to the very nation Trump swears he will protect from the Kremlin.
If it sounds concerning and confusing, you’re not alone. That is why Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is here with Jen to lay it all out for us — the status of NATO, Trump’s pathetic submissiveness towards Russia and the winners and losers of a Greenland invasion. That’s not all — Senator Whitehouse and Jen also tackle the rampant corruption of Trump’s White House, America’s frightening energy crisis, and the Democrats’ dilemma over the impending DHS appropriations bill.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse represents Rhode Island in the U.S. Senate, where he champions policies to uphold American leadership in the world, protect our planet in a changing climate, and hold the powerful accountable.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. We’re delighted to have back a good friend of The Contrarian, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island. Welcome, Senator!
Sheldon Whitehouse
Thank you, Jen. Wonderful to be back with you.
Jen Rubin
It is great. We were just talking before we went on. Iceland, Greenland, not clear what Trump thinks, you know, all the same for him. He seems to have spared the invasion for now, and come up with some framework for a plan of an idea. How…
Sheldon Whitehouse
Concept of a plan. Concept of a plan.
Jen Rubin
How deep do you think the damage is to the NATO alliance, and what can senators and congressmen do to try to ameliorate this, real damage he has done?
Sheldon Whitehouse
I think the damage is very real. I think that, once you put… Into the minds of our allies. The concept that the United States is not a reliable friend to NATO, and is willing to publicly contemplate invading a fellow NATO ally. They’re gonna have to take steps In that vein. And the fact that it’s insane doesn’t make it better. I mean, the notion… just think this through. The notion was, we need to go in and occupy Greenland to keep the Russians from doing that. Because the Danes… Denmark’s not doing enough. Well, Denmark was a founding member of NATO, and the thing that is absolutely, positively keeping the Russians the hell out of Greenland is NATO, is Article 5, is, like, we go to war, you cannot do that. So, when you make these threats, like Trump did, and damage NATO, you’re making it more likely that Russia has a chance to try to play some games in Greenland. So his argument is exactly opposite to his supposed solution. It just doesn’t make any sense. But NATO loses from this conflict. Denmark and Greenland lose, other than being united in opposition to Trump and America now, thanks a bunch, and the United States of America. loses. In fact, all of Europe loses as well. There’s one winner. from this whole episode, and once again, it’s Vladimir Putin. So, I think we just gotta continually keep our eye on what the hell Trump-Russia really is. Why is it… That Trump, who insists on being dominant in every relationship, is the submissive. In his relationship with Putin.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. You know, the former Senate Majority Leader, now in the minority and without a leadership position, Mitch McConnell, took to the floor last week and gave a very impassioned speech about how terrible it was that Trump was undermining NATO. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Why don’t the Republicans do something about it? They could pass, for example. For powers resolutions, they could use the power of the purse. What is wrong with doing something as opposed to a hand-wringing?
Sheldon Whitehouse
Nothing, but it spines of foam.
Jen Rubin
over on the Republican side.
Sheldon Whitehouse
And, like… many people in an abusive relationship, they’ve normalized and gotten used to, and now even have justified, the fact that they have no spines and aren’t willing to step up. I think… In the inevitable arc of politics. As we get closer to the November election. And Trump remains underwater on every issue that’s polled. Nearly 60% of Americans call his term a failure. And on the most important and salient issue for American families, the economy, he’s miles! underwater.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Sheldon Whitehouse
They’ll begin to, you know, what did they say in blazing saddles? We gotta look out for our own phony baloney jobs? They’re gonna have to start looking out for their own phony baloney job once Trump becomes an anchor around their necks. He still controls the base so much that it’s dangerous to mess with him, but that balance is starting to… Shift.
Jen Rubin
Yes. The New York Times has discovered Trump’s corruption, something you have been looking at for quite some time, and they tallied up their total as $1.5 billion, that he’s taken in. Others have different calculations. He’s now going around charging a Star Wars bar of characters a billion dollars to enter his peace Board, which is distinguished by the person who just invaded Venezuela. Again, this is just obscene, and the Peace Board is the definition of emoluments. He’s charging other countries money. Is there some… place that is a bridge too far for Republicans? And what should Democrats be doing about it now, even if you don’t have the votes?
Sheldon Whitehouse
see what could be a bridge too far. When, on the one hand, he undertakes a raid of a sovereign country to kidnap its president and bring him home to the United States on grounds That he was using his government position to facilitate the tracking of… trafficking of drugs into the United States. And at the same time, You’re issuing a pardon to a government leader from South America, Central America. Who was convicted, and about to serve 40 years. for the crime of using his government position to facilitate the trafficking of drugs into the United States. When those two things are happening at the same time. And the Republicans can’t even call out the… improper.
Jen Rubin
Pardon?
Sheldon Whitehouse
then… I don’t know that there’s any bottom to that well. I think that just… there… immune. to concerns about his corruption. So that means the public is the place we have to go, because the public is not immune to these concerns. And, I think there are two ways that we can do this very effectively. There are a lot of states in which the top economic issue for people is their homeowner’s insurance. In Florida, the issue is explosive. In Texas, it pulls ahead of mortgage, healthcare, and groceries. And it’s because it’s a big number to begin with, and when it doubles, say, that’s a real big whack to a family. And then behind that comes Not only is your home uninsurable now, You can’t get a… buyer who can get a mortgage on your property. It’s now unmortgageable, so it’s worth less. So you look at Florida, the insurance market has collapsed. propped up by the Florida government. The mortgage market is collapsing. And Florida’s the leading state for reduction in property value in the country, and, you know, the elements of this cascade is happening. And it’s because Trump is so corrupted by the fossil fuel industry that none of them can talk about the climate change stuff that is causing this risk. flip to the electric bill, and electric bills are going up because Trump is corruptly blocking clean energy, which is demonstrably cheaper than fossil fuel energy. He’s got Burgum and Wright, his two cabinet goons, out there lying that clean energy is more expensive. It is demonstrably not. Every grid that dispatches units based on cost, dispatches solar and wind first, because it’s cheaper. And Revolution Wind, our one offshore, brings 9 cent per kilowatt hour power to an 18 cent per kilowatt hour grid, and they pretend it’s more expensive. That’s a scam. to keep the clean energy off the grid, so ratepayers pay more, and that money goes to fossil fuel units that otherwise wouldn’t be running. It’s a direct transfer from consumers’ pockets to his big donors’ pockets. And that’s just two of the examples in the energy space that we can bring to bear to show Americans how Trump’s corruption is directly affecting their pocketbook. It’s not out there, it’s not some remote thing, it is driving their homeowners insurance and electric utility bills higher. Absolutely, and that seems like it should be front and center in the Texas and Florida races for…
Jen Rubin
And it will be. You know. The Supreme Court argument yesterday was interesting. I don’t know if you were there personally or got a chance to listen to it, but… The Supreme Court seems to be between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they are facilitators of Trump. On the other hand, the one thing they seem to care about more than Donald Trump is the central bank, and their business friends, the Koch brothers and the rest. So they might carve out some little exception in the executive unitary, steamroller, to protect the Fed. How… How much do you think, they are cognizant of, the political climate, frankly? Trump’s reign of chaos? How much do you think they will begin to, just like the Congress, pull back the reins just a tad to keep themselves from going over the cliff with him?
Sheldon Whitehouse
I think they’re certainly cognizant of their political climate.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Sheldon Whitehouse
Which is a political climate in which billionaires run a very elaborate gifts program to the justices that play along, in which, many of them got escorted onto the Supreme Court by this billionaire dark money political operation, and that should they ever leave, they expect to go to highly remunerative positions funded by the same billionaires and front groups and fossil fuel interests that are behind this whole scheme. So I think they’re very watchful of that. One of the most interesting things in Supreme Court land is that now, for the second time, Donald Trump has taken a shot at Leonard Leo. So, you have a war going on between the Koch brothers’ political operation. for which Leonard Leo was the flunky. Who, along with Don McGahn, picked Trump’s three Supreme Court justices. As you know, I believe there was a deal cut when the Kochs hated Trump and were doing everything they could to stop him, and there was a swap. We’ll give you our Supreme Court judges. And you lay off. And Trump and McGahn were the two that honored that deal by letting the Koch brothers pick Trump’s first three nominees. So, you know, from that backdrop, I think Trump is mad because he’s figured out that he got played in all of this. It was the Kochs who picked his three Supreme Court justices, and they’re not ruling his way on everything, and he’s gonna be even madder if they don’t rule his way on tariffs. And on the Fed. So there’s Coke, old-fashioned fossil fuel political corruption world, versus MAGA, insane, you know. I don’t know quite how to describe it further.
Jen Rubin
Authoritarian state.
Sheldon Whitehouse
corruption world, and so the decision on the Fed also plays out in that context where the Koch brothers and the big business interests very much want a stable economy to operate in, and the wild men and pirates from the MAGA ship couldn’t care less. They just want to loot the place and do everything that they possibly can to keep the crazy captain in charge.
Jen Rubin
This is like the Iran-Iraq war. We don’t know who we want to win, but the fact that they’re fighting is very, very good.
Sheldon Whitehouse
Very entertaining.
Jen Rubin
adults. Let me switch, to DHS, and the monstrous operation that is going on. We now have the partial autopsy report from Renee Goode. It was the third shot, totally unnecessary, that murdered her. We have kids separated from parents, we have warrantless searches, in writing now, saying that they recognize that’s not the law, but do it anyway. They are utterly, utterly out of control, and now they’re asking for funding. I don’t understand how any Democrat could support this, and Republicans, of course, don’t want to do anything. So what happens next? Where do you go?
Sheldon Whitehouse
Well, you remember that game show where they had 3 doors, and you had to pick from door number 1? Door number 3. So, the problem for Democrats is that we face 3 doors, and there is no other. Door 1… is that we support the appropriations bill, which Patty Murray negotiated, which creates some real restrictions on the way that these ICE agents have to behave, limits their funding. no increase, and reduces some of the detention funding. So we don’t get anywhere near anything we want, because we don’t control either House of Congress, but we do get something. That’s… that game. The second door is continuing resolution. We can’t agree on that, so a CR goes through. The CR will contain no constraints. on ICE, and so that’s actually a worse outcome than the appropriations bill. The third is we don’t even agree to a CR as to Homeland Security. And therefore, there’s a mini-shutdown of Homeland Security. And that would seem like an attractive option, until you realize that the beautiful for Billionaires bill Loaded up ice. and DHS with immigration money. So, if we were to shut… and it’s outside of the appropriations process, it’s already… it’s a slush fund. So if we shut down funding to HHS, DHS right now, Homeland Security. we shut down the Coast Guard. We shut down TSA. We interfere with airline travel. We do all of those things. In the meantime, ICE just has buckets of money. They’ve got their own account. So every single one of those doors sucks for us. I think of those three, the appropriations bill is by far the best. Of the three options. But I think fundamentally what we need to do is be, you know, witnesses and spokespersons to call out what is happening there, because I think that it is really starting to piss off Americans. I just know that, you know, having been U.S. Attorney and Attorney General on Rhode Island, I have a lot of colleagues and friends in law enforcement. Rhode Island law enforcement is horrified with the behavior on the streets that they’re seeing from these ICE agents. It is unprofessional, it is unnecessarily violent, it is very often incompetent. And… if that is, you know, if that shifts law enforcement votes away from Trump, because they’re seeing this stuff and realizing, geez, this is a bunch of uniformed hooligans, these aren’t professionals, you know, all of that stuff piles up. So, I just think we’ve got to keep the spotlight on that, and keep making those comparisons with what the law is, what the Constitution says, what proper police and law enforcement practice is, and what these bozos are doing.
Jen Rubin
And to that end, perhaps the most significant part of this is not the actual vote, but the lead-up to the vote, and whether Democrats are prepared to hold the floor, to use this as an opportunity to teach the American people, to explain to the American people, what they already know in their guts, that something is really wrong. Do you imagine that that’s gonna happen? We’re gonna have a lot of conversation about this next week?
Sheldon Whitehouse
I would expect so. I don’t set the Senate floor schedule, the Republicans do, but… There are a number of requirements for the procedure of getting to a bill that are facilitated with unanimous consent, and I’m confident that Schumer’s going to deny unanimous consent until we have a… Floor vote time schedule that permits robust debate.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely, absolutely. Backing up a minute, we’ve just gone through the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump. And on one hand, things are… worse faster than many of us suspected. On the other hand, he’s terribly unpopular and has suffered a series of losses, not the least of which was his taco maneuver on Greenland. So… Are we winning? Are we losing? Are we holding our own? How do you measure where we are on the… train of democracy. Are we headed the right way? Have we stalled the train? Where are we?
Sheldon Whitehouse
I would say that we’re in a race Between two trains. One is the train of governance destruction. that is run by Trump, And his doggy boys. And that maniac, Russell Vogt at OMB, and Trump’s crew of incompetent flunkies in the cabinet, who will do whatever Steve Miller tells them, because they know that they have no business in those jobs. So the only way they get to continue to be called Mr. Secretary is by continuing to suck up to Trump and do what Steve Miller says. So, that is a race… in which real destruction, and very often lasting destruction, is being done to institutions of government, none worse, frankly, than the Department of Justice. And the other track in that race is public opinion getting more and more fed up with the antics and the craziness, and the chaos, and the corruption and the failure to pay attention to the cost of living issues that we’re seeing out of the Trump administration. I happen to believe that we are winning The public opinion race fast enough. that… If we win the House, and potentially also the Senate now.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Sheldon Whitehouse
We can curb the destruction of American government. And it’s turned into an oligarchic, autocratic, corrupt regime, so that we do end up winning. But you cannot… underestimate that destruction train that Trump and his people, for a whole bunch of different motives, are… involved with. Some just hate government generally, some just hate anything that might check Trump, like an inspector General or Honest Department of Justice. Some hate all regulation, they’re big polluters, and they don’t want to have you know, regulators telling them that their pollution kills people. So, there goes EPA saying that We’re not gonna count loss of life or health damage any longer.
Jen Rubin
You’re worth zero.
Sheldon Whitehouse
Zero. Zero. That’s our new number. So, you know, that is a very, very powerful force driven by very rich, very misguided people with terrible motives, and much harder to rebuild a house than to tear it down.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Let me close with this. We obviously were not successful in holding Trump accountable in a criminal fashion for the insurrection. The House is now flailing away at Jack Smith, generally punching themselves in the face during that hearing, as he keeps repeating that, yes, there was proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he instituted an insurrection. But… many Americans get the sense there could never be any accountability for anyone, and I’m wondering if now is the time for Democrats to begin outlining some of the accountability steps that could be taken if they are in control of the House and or Senate, which might be Civil liability, which might be impeachment, which might be all sorts of things. You… At least, in general, describe what accountability might look like for the people who have tried to steal us blind and make off with our democracy?
Sheldon Whitehouse
I think that, let’s just posit one scenario. Which is that we win the House. Set aside the Senate.
Jen Rubin
Yep.
Sheldon Whitehouse
If we win the House, we have very active Chairman. of major committees. Jamie Raskin, for instance, in Judiciary. I will likely be the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee in the Senate. He will likely be the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee in the House. In that position, he not only has the authority to direct investigations, he has authority to issue subpoenas. And unlike the Senate. House subpoenas can’t be filibustered on the Senate floor. They can be enforced, and you can send your lawyers out to enforce them and to demand records, and very often, even if the corrupt target of your investigation doesn’t want to cooperate and throws up lawyers and obstacles, they’ve still had to work through banks and phone services and other things where they don’t want any part of being in that fight. If they’ve got a lawful subpoena, they’ll produce the records. So you can build quite a good case, even with a very, obstructive. target. So… rather than get ahead of our skis, I think the important thing is to know that the corruption that is endemic within the Trump administration It’s gonna be brought to light. and exposed. And when that happens, we will be a better country, because they won’t be able to get away with so much of this. And then I think that cascades into the 2028 election, because now, when the public sees all the mischief that the Trumpsters have been up to, and the huge price that they have had to pay. for Trump’s corruption, I think it’s a very powerful pivot, and I wouldn’t want to get into too much more than that, because…
Jen Rubin
Rough.
Sheldon Whitehouse
What we do as Democrats, very often, is to propose a solution. Rather than just assign the blame. It’s our nature. The problem is that if you’re the Republican, the first thing you do is you change the topic to the Democrats’ proposed solution. And we need to dwell on the miscreant, corrupt behavior of the Trump administration, and not get too much into the details of A solution that then allows the corrupt ones to change the topic and attack our solution.
Jen Rubin
I could not agree more. The fight is the point, the exposure is the point. And I must say, I wrote a piece today suggesting some pro-democracy tactics that might be adopted by, the 28 nominee, and prominent on the list was revival of Bivens. And for those of you out there who do not know what Bivens is, Bivens, would reestablish the principle that when federal officials are acting clearly, illegally, and outside their purview, that they can be held accountable. And people like, ICE, who go ahead and murder American citizens, might then think twice if they had to look in the face and see liability down the road. So that’s my… That is my personal favorite going forward. A little obscure, I grant you, a little nerdy, but nevertheless, you never miss these things until, they’re gone.
Sheldon Whitehouse
So they’re gone.
Jen Rubin
lack of accountability. So…
Sheldon Whitehouse
there’s a statute, Section 1983, that allows civil liability for the deliberate denial of a constitutional right if it’s done by state, county, or municipal.
Jen Rubin
Exactly.
Sheldon Whitehouse
And so, when the feds can get away with this stuff, but every state cop, every county sheriff, every municipal police officer knows that they have to play by different rules than the feds? That puts us, I think, in a pretty good position on all of that, because even law enforcement people don’t like either how the ICE folks are behaving, because they know it’s unprofessional, or the fact that if they did that. They’d be subject to litigation. It’s only these guys, because they’re federal, that lets them get away with it. It’s not fair.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from the great state of Rhode Island. I always love chatting with you, and if there’s one takeaway, it’s Democrats dwell on it. Dwell on.
Sheldon Whitehouse
Well, on it, yeah.
Jen Rubin
well on it, and we’ll be a lot better. But I, for one, can’t wait until we have a new I think… Majority Leader, Chair, not just ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, that will be a treat. So we’ll look forward to speaking with you again soon. Take care. Bye-bye.
Sheldon Whitehouse
Thank you.
