UPDATE: Donald Trump Takes Office as the 47th US President
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Trump lays out a vision of power restrained only by ‘my own morality’
The U.S. leader brushed aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world.
Trump lays out a vision of power restrained only by ‘my own morality’
U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during an interview with The New York Times in the Oval Office on Wednesday. | Doug Mills / The New York Times
By David E. Sanger, Tyler Pager, Katie Rogers and Zolan Kanno-Youngs
The New York Times
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Jan 9, 2026
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WASHINGTON –
U.S. President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by his "own morality,” brushing aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world.
Asked in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times if there were any limits on his global powers, Trump said: "Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
"I don’t need international law,” he added. "I’m not looking to hurt people.”
When pressed further about whether his administration needed to abide by international law, Trump said, "I do.” But he made clear he would be the arbiter when such constraints applied to the United States.
"It depends what your definition of international law is,” he said.
Trump’s assessment of his own freedom to use any instrument of military, economic or political power to cement U.S. supremacy was the most blunt acknowledgment yet of his worldview. At its core is the concept that national strength, rather than laws, treaties and conventions, should be the deciding factor as powers collide.
He did acknowledge some constraints at home, even as he has pursued a maximalist strategy of punishing institutions he dislikes, exacting retribution against political opponents and deploying the national guard to cities over the objections of state and local officials.
He made clear that he uses his reputation for unpredictability and a willingness to resort quickly to military action, often in service of coercing other nations. During his interview, he took a lengthy call from President Gustavo Petro of Colombia, who was clearly concerned after repeated threats that Trump was thinking of an attack on the country similar to the one on Venezuela.
"Well, we are in danger,” Petro said in an interview just before the call. "Because the threat is real. It was made by Trump.”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/japantimes/uploads/images/2026/01/09/516110.JPG
The remote town of Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland. On topic after topic, Trump made clear that he would be the arbiter of any limits to his authorities, not international law or treaties. | Esther Horvath / The New York Times
The call between the two leaders, the contents of which were off the record, was an example of coercive diplomacy in action. And it came just hours after Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had extracted the United States from dozens of international organizations intended to foster multinational cooperation.
In his conversation with the Times, Trump sounded more emboldened than ever. He cited the success of his strike on Iran’s nuclear program — he keeps a model of the B-2 bombers used in the mission on his desk; the speed with which he decapitated the Venezuelan government last weekend; and his designs on Greenland, which is controlled by Denmark, a NATO ally.
When asked what was his higher priority, obtaining Greenland or preserving NATO, Trump declined to answer directly, but acknowledged "it may be a choice.” He made clear that the trans-Atlantic alliance was essentially useless without the United States at its core.
Even as he characterized the norms of the post-World War II order as unnecessary burdens on a superpower, Trump was dismissive of the idea that Chinese leader Xi Jinping or Russian President Vladimir Putin could use similar logic to the detriment of the United States. On topic after topic, he made clear that in his mind, U.S. power is the determining factor — and that previous presidents have been too cautious to make use of it for political supremacy or national profit.
The president’s insistence that Greenland must become part of the United States was a prime example of his worldview. It was not enough to exercise the U.S. right, under a 1951 treaty, to reopen long-closed military bases on the huge landmass, which is a strategically important crossroads for U.S., European, Chinese and Russian naval operations.
"Ownership is very important,” Trump said as he discussed, with a real estate mogul’s eye, the landmass of Greenland — three times the size of Texas but with a population of less than 60,000. He seemed to dismiss the value of having Greenland under the control of a close NATO ally.
When asked why he needed to possess the territory, he said: "Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do with, you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”
The conversation made clear that in Trump’s view, sovereignty and national borders are less important than the singular role the United States plays as the protector of the West.
He argued that only he — and not two predecessors on whom he heaped scorn, Joe Biden and Barack Obama — had proved capable of persuading NATO nations to spend 5% of the gross domestic product on defense. (About 1.5% of that is actually for domestic infrastructure — from power grids to cybersecurity — that can support defense. The target does not kick in until 2035, six years after Trump leaves office.)
"I want them to shape up,” he said. "I think we’ll always get along with Europe, but I want them to shape up. I’m the one that got them to spend more on the, you know, more GDP on NATO. But if you look at NATO, Russia I can tell you is not at all concerned with any other country but us.”
The president added: "I’ve been very loyal to Europe. I’ve done a good job. If it weren’t for me, Russia would have all of Ukraine right now.”
He seemed unconcerned that the last major nuclear arms control agreement with Russia was set to expire in four weeks, leaving the world’s two largest nuclear powers free to expand their arsenals without limit, for the first time in half a century.
"If it expires, it expires,” he said. "We’ll just do a better agreement,” he added, insisting that China, which has the fastest-growing arsenal in the world, should be incorporated in any future agreement.
"You probably want to get a couple of other players involved also,” Trump said.
The president seemed equally sanguine about whether his decision to send Special Operations forces into Caracas to remove Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela would be exploited by China or Russia. In the days since the action in Venezuela, there have been arguments that the U.S. precedent would help justify a Chinese effort to take Taiwan, or a Russian attempt to seize Ukraine, which Putin has described as a historical part of the Russian empire, dating back more than a dozen centuries.
Asked whether he had created a precedent that he may later regret, Trump argued that his view of the threat posed by Maduro’s Venezuela was quite different from Xi’s view of Taiwan.
"This was a real threat,” he said of Venezuela. "You didn’t have people pouring into China,” he argued, repeating his oft-made claim that Maduro dumped gang members into the United States.
Trump added: "You didn’t have drugs pouring into China. You didn’t have all of the bad things that we’ve had. You didn’t have the jails of Taiwan opened up and the people pouring into China,” or, he said later, criminals and others "pouring into Russia.”
When a reporter noted that Xi regarded Taiwan as a separatist threat to China, Trump said: "That’s up to him, what he’s going to be doing. But, you know, I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t.”
Then, asked whether Xi might seize on recent events to attack or choke off Taiwan, he suggested that the Chinese leader would not dare to take that step while Trump was in office. "He may do it after we have a different president, but I don’t think he’s going to do it with me as president,” he said.
On Thursday, in a rare assertion of congressional authority over the president’s war powers, the Senate agreed to debate a resolution aimed at curbing Trump’s use of military force in Venezuela. Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said one factor that may have tipped the vote was the president’s comment during Wednesday’s interview that the United States might remain involved in Venezuela for years.
On the domestic front, Trump suggested that judges only have power to restrict his domestic policy agenda — from the deployment of the national guard to the imposition of tariffs — "under certain circumstances.”
But he was already considering workarounds. He raised the possibility that if his tariffs issued under emergency authorities were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, he could repackage them as licensing fees. And Trump, who said he was elected to restore law and order, reiterated that he was willing to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military inside the United States and federalize some national guard units if he felt it was important to do so.
So far, he said, "I haven’t really felt the need to do it.”
Exclusive: Trump administration mulls payments to sway Greenlanders to join US
By Gram SlatteryJanuary 8, 20267:55 PM EST Updated 28 mins ago
- Summary
- Greenland, Denmark say they're not for sale; European leaders stand behind Copenhagen, Nuuk
- Greenland talks in White House have intensified in recent days
While the exact dollar figure and logistics of any payment are unclear, U.S. officials, including White House aides, have discussed figures ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 per person, said two of the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The idea of directly paying residents of Greenland, an overseas territory of Denmark, offers one explanation of how the U.S. might attempt to "buy" the island of 57,000 people, despite authorities' insistence in Copenhagen and Nuuk that Greenland is not for sale.
The tactic is among various plans being discussed by the White House for acquiring Greenland, including potential use of the U.S. military. But it risks coming off as overly transactional and even degrading to a population that has long debated its own independence and its economic dependence on Denmark.
"Enough is enough ... No more fantasies about annexation," Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday after U.S. President Donald Trump again told reporters the U.S. needed to acquire the island.
I watched this PBS Frontline episode this morning at home recorded on my DVR.
It’s pretty informative on what Trump is up to and how it all got started after the events of President Nixon/Watergate.
Trump's Power & The Rule of Law
PBS Frontline
July 15, 2025
The high stakes showdown between President Donald Trump and the courts over presidential power; insight from Trump allies, opponents and experts on how he tests the extent of his power, the legal pushback and impact on the rule of law.
It’s pretty informative on what Trump is up to and how it all got started after the events of President Nixon/Watergate.
Trump's Power & The Rule of Law
PBS Frontline
July 15, 2025
The high stakes showdown between President Donald Trump and the courts over presidential power; insight from Trump allies, opponents and experts on how he tests the extent of his power, the legal pushback and impact on the rule of law.
His reckoning needs to come.
Sidebar: notice espn supposedly no politics from its talent rule has disappeared
Good
They know history despite how they try to rewrite it? Is going to damn them all.
Man, ya'll just quote anyone and then don't even watch the shit
That quote is misleading.
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Trump Says US Will Start ‘Hitting Land’, Targeting Cartels ‘Running Mexico’
Published
Jan 08, 2026 at 10:16 PM EST
updated
Jan 08, 2026 at 11:01 PM EST
By Simon Crerar
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
President Donald Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night that the United States is “going to start now hitting land” in its fight against drug cartels—framing the move as a response to what he claimed is cartel control of Mexico and a U.S. death toll in the “250,000–300,000” range every year.
President Trump on Hannity, Fox News. January 8, 2026. | Fox News
Why It Matters
Trump’s “hitting land” remark signals a possible escalation from the administration’s maritime-focused counter-narcotics campaign into operations that could potentially touch Mexican territory or cartel-linked infrastructure—an outcome that would raise major questions about sovereignty, congressional authority, and blowback along the U.S.-Mexico border.Experts have warned potential military action against cartels inside Mexico could be viewed as an act of aggression and trigger dangerous unintended consequences, including displacement and migration pressure.
The comment also lands amid an ongoing debate over how the U.S. should measure—and respond to—the harms of fentanyl and other illicit drugs. Public health data does not support the scale of fatalities Trump cited; preliminary CDC data cited by the Associated Press put U.S. overdose deaths at about 76,516 in the 12-month period ending April 2025 (down nearly 25 percent from the prior 12-month period).
What To Know
In the Hannity interview, Trump said: “We are going to start now hitting land with regard to the cartels. The cartels are running Mexico, it's very sad to watch, to see what's happening to that country. They’re killing 250,000–300,000 people in our country every single year. It’s horrible.”Read More
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The “land” language is not entirely new in Trump-world. In November that Trump said the U.S. would “very soon” begin stopping suspected drug traffickers “by land,” after strikes on alleged drug boats. In August Trump signed a directive ordering the U.S. military to target drug cartels and other groups designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, a move that raised concerns about diplomacy and presidential overreach.
Even the designation strategy could have sweeping ripple effects—potentially including immigration consequences for asylum seekers who were forced to pay cartels, which can be treated as “material support.”
What Happens Next
The immediate question is what Trump’s “hitting land” line means in practice—whether it signals an imminent shift in military posture, an expansion of covert or intelligence-led operations, or intensified coordination pressure on Mexico rather than unilateral action.What’s clearer is that the administration has already been laying political and operational predicates for escalation.
The directive tied to targeting cartels and FTOs, and the broader argument inside Trump’s orbit for treating cartel-linked trafficking as a national security threat could, if pursued on Mexican soil, ignite a major diplomatic confrontation.
This is a breaking news story that will be updated with additional information.
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