Trump threatens to seize Greenland as Panama rebuffs president-elect’s canal demands

Here’s Morning Joe economic analyst and former Obama administration official with the data:

Norman Eisen, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a CNN legal analyst, had this to say after Donald Trump appealed to the US Supreme Court to halt the sentencing in his criminal hush money trial in New York, currently scheduled for Friday.

“Having lost at every level in his effort to forestall sentencing on his 34 criminal counts, Trump has gone to the one appellate court in the land that is corrupt and complicit enough to give him hope. Unfortunately, it is the United States Supreme Court. They must not yet again, as they did with the immunity decision, aid and abet his evasion of justice. There’s no legal basis for it. Trump’s sentencing on his 34 criminal convictions should proceed as scheduled on Friday.”

The past and future first lady is reportedly one person who is delighted by her husband’s new friendship with billionaire troll Elon Musk – because it takes him off her hands!

Here’s more from Michelle Del Rey.

The US Supreme Court has asked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the hush money case against Donald Trump, to respond to the president-elect’s petition to stay his sentencing by tomorrow — 10 a.m. January 9.

Trump’s sentencing is currently set for 9:30 a.m. on Friday, January 10.

President-elect Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court, on Wednesday, to pause proceedings in his New York criminal trial, including sentencing which is set to take place on Friday.

Ariana Baio has the details.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said yesterday that “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders” and Foreign Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen moved this morning to downplay the tensions with the United States by declaring: “I have no experience that we are in a foreign policy crisis.”

However, Don Jr’s flying visit to Nuuk on Tuesday was not entirely harmonious, with the president’s son rebuking Denmark for refusing to give up the autonomous Arctic territory.

Here’s more from Graig Graziosi.

Panama’s Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha has told the US president-elect in no uncertain terms that his country’s control over the canal is “non-negotiable” in the latest reality check for Trump’s dreams of global expansion.

The American used his news conference at Mar-a-Lago yesterday to threaten military intervention to reclaim the Panama Canal after falsely stating it was being operated by Chinese soldiers.

While the US managed the canal for decades it was signed over to Panama by the late Jimmy Carter in 1977 before the nation took full control in 1999, a move Trump bemoaned as “a big mistake”.

Martinez-Acha has now responded by saying that “the only hands operating the canal are Panamanian and that is how it is going to stay”.

If you don’t speak Spanish, you’ll have to click on the “Translate Post” option for this one.

The president-elect has reached out to the highest court in the land to try to stop New York’s Judge Juan Merchan sentencing him over his hush money conviction at the end of this week after his numerous appeals were rejected.

Joe Biden has said that he still believes he could have beaten Republican rival Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election had he not been persuaded to stand down to make way for Vice President Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket, only for her to lose the vote.

Speaking to USA Today, the outgoing president, 82, was asked whether he believed he could have succeeded where Harris failed had he pressed on, rather than bowing to pressure to step aside in July following his disastrous CNN debate performance.

“It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think yes, based on the polling,” Biden answered, without citing which poll he was referring to and despite his having lagged behind Trump throughout the campaign in both national and battleground state surveys.

Here’s another interesting exchange from yesterday, when the president-elect was angered by a reporter asking him about US military strategy, saying “only a stupid person” would respond to such a question.