Al Gore Heckles Trump Official in Davos Speech

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick faced a tough crowd at the World Economic Forum in Davos—and was heckled by a surprising, but familiar, former U.S. vice president.

During an official dinner Tuesday night, Lutnick reportedly launched into a tirade criticizing Europe, inviting jeers from the forum’s major members, heads of state, and other dignitaries.

“We are here at Davos to make one thing crystal clear: With President Trump, capitalism has a new sheriff in town,” Lutnick said, according to the Financial Times.

Multiple people reportedly started heckling Lutnick’s speech—including former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who started booing the secretary, two executives told the Times. Amid the chaos, Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, walked out of the dinner.

The hosting WEF chairman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, ended up calling off the event before desserts had been passed out, one source told Reuters.

The U.S. Commerce Department claimed that Gore was the only one who booed.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum Wednesday, Trump continued the American posturing as he tried to take credit for Europe’s existence in a winding, incoherent address.

What are Donald Trump’s goals for 2026? They’re all over the place.

The president was asked about his goals in regard to getting his agenda through Congress ahead of the midterms, and he gave a meandering answer about his own executive orders.  

“We passed so many executive orders. I have great executive orders that are really common sense and good. I mean, like water coming out of a sink. The water wouldn’t come out. They had all sorts of ridiculous restrictions. I took all of that off,” Trump said to Katie Pavlich on NewsNation Tuesday night. “Coming out of the shower head, you’d stand under the shower, there’s no water coming out, so I passed—so many things like that. 

“Straws. They don’t have to be paper anymore. They don’t have to melt in your mouth.… I’d like to have that all confirmed by Congress,” Trump continued, before adding that he got more important things accomplished through executive order, and would like to have all of his executive orders confirmed by Congress, estimating that 35 to 40 percent of his executive orders have already become law. 

“So you want your executive orders codified in law, so to speak,” Pavlich said. 

“Ideally, we get ’em codified and we get ’em codified soon, yes,” Trump replied.

Trump is well known for rambling and meandering around reporter’s questions, even in friendly interviews. But the vagueness indicates he’s either fully checked out or he’s hiding his agenda, as Trump and his inner circle are unlikely to settle for simply turning his many damaging executive orders through Congress. 

Getting Trump’s agenda through Congress will be a tall order. The president could barely get his own budget through Congress last year, and ended up causing a lengthy government shutdown. Trump’s executive orders also would have to survive court challenges, and some of them may not even get through the right-wing Supreme Court. 

America’s presence at the World Economic Forum Wednesday was overshadowed by its leader’s latest obsession: obtaining Greenland—or, maybe, Iceland, depending on Donald Trump’s ability to remember his military aim.

Thousands of influential figures, including prominent CEOs and world leaders, gathered in Davos ahead of the global conference. Trump was asked to deliver opening remarks Wednesday, but his speech went wildly off the rails as he began to hyperfixate on his rationale for staking an American flag in Greenland, a Danish-controlled territory.

But over the course of an hour-long (and counting, at time of publication) speech, Trump repeatedly and erroneously mixed up Greenland with Iceland, a completely separate landmass and independent nation, raising alarm over just how educated Trump is on the focal point of his U.S. expansion.

Before a host of European leaders—including some of America’s longest allies—Trump insisted that “there’s nothing wrong” with the potential acquisition, likening his desired annexation of the region to Europe’s colonial history.

“Just as the European nations have,” Trump said. “All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland.”

Trump reiterated that the U.S. could take Greenland by the use of “excessive force” that would be “practically unstoppable.”

The president has been locked into the idea of obtaining Greenland since at least 2019, when he told reporters that the arrangement could be handled as a “large real estate deal.”

In recent weeks, the president’s threats have escalated in fervor and frequency. Earlier this month, Trump told The Atlantic that the U.S. “needs” Greenland “for defense.” But what exactly the White House stands to gain from controlling Greenland isn’t clear, particularly because myriad existing treaties already give the U.S. unfettered access to Greenland as a military base.

Forcing the issue, however, could irreversibly damage America’s relations with some of its most significant allies. Over the long weekend, Trump announced a new wave of retaliatory tariffs against European countries that oppose his Greenland takeover, cautioning NATO allies against participation in a joint military exercise on the island.

Late into Monday evening, Trump continued to provoke America’s allies by releasing private messages sent to him by French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. He also taunted world leaders by sharing images on Truth Social that included a photo of himself in the Oval Office beside a posterboard of the Western hemisphere—with Canada, Greenland, and Venezuela colored in with the American flag.

“This would not be a threat to NATO,” Trump claimed before the global conference Wednesday, patting himself on the back for his lackluster support for the U.S.-backed military alliance. “This would greatly enhance the security of the whole alliance. The United States is treated very unfairly by NATO. When you think about it, nobody can dispute it.

“You have a choice. You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember.”

President Trump delivered yet another rambling, long-winded speech Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, using the massive world stage to rail against windmills, complain for the umpteenth time about how the 2020 election was rigged, reaffirm his desire to seize Greenland from Denmark, and take credit for every good thing in the world.

The room was dead silent virtually the entire time.

“Certain places in Europe are not even recognizable frankly, anymore. They’re not recognizable. And we can argue about it, but there’s no argument,” Trump said early in his speech to the room full of Europeans. “Friends come back from different places—I don’t wanna insult anybody—and say ‘I don’t recognize it.’ And that’s not in a positive way.… It’s not heading in the right direction.”

The rhetoric aligned seamlessly with the deeply racist, anti-immigrant sentiments that the European right is pushing with his support.

Trump also took the time to hit on one of his favorite punching bags: windmills.

“There are windmills all over Europe. There are windmills all over the place. And they are losers,” Trump said, seemingly talking about the windmills personally. “One thing I’ve noticed is that the more windmills a country has, the more money that country loses, and the worse that country is doing. China makes almost all of the windmills, and yet I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China.”

This is not true, China has multiple windmill farms.

“Did you ever think of that? They put up a couple big wind farms, but they don’t use them, they just put them up to show people what they could look like,” he continued. “They don’t spin, they don’t do anything.”

Trump then of course got to Greenland, accidentally mixing it up with Iceland for nearly the entire time he spoke about it.

“Until the last few days, when I told them about Iceland, they loved me,” Trump said, meaning to say Greenland. “They called me daddy … very smart man said, ‘He’s our daddy.’”

“So we want a piece of ice for world protection. And they won’t give it,” Trump continued. “We’ve never asked for anything else, and we could have kept that piece of land. And we didn’t. They have a choice. You can say yes and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no and we will remember.”

It’s been a rough 36-ish hours for our fearless leader. On Tuesday, he made a guest appearance at White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s briefing only to read names and show pictures to the press corp for over an hour. And now, after his plane was initially diverted on its way to Davos last night, he’s doing more useless ranting.

President Donald Trump appeared to have never heard of an American held captive by the Taliban for almost a year. 

During an exclusive interview Tuesday with News Nation, host Katie Pavlich touted Trump’s previous efforts to liberate hostages and asked the president about Dennis Coyle, a U.S. citizen who was reportedly kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan last January.  

“What is your administration doing to get him home?” Pavlich asked. 

“Well, if you give me the name,” Trump said, even though Pavlich had just told him.

“Dennis Coyle,” she repeated. 

“Well, if you give me some information, I’ll take care of that,” Trump continued. 

“I know that your administration is working on it—” Pavlich said.

“I know they are,” Trump said quickly. “But I could do some things on the internet that are pretty impactful.”

Pavlich asked if Trump had a message for the Taliban, who had held Coyle “for no crime.”

“Well I’m not happy about them holding anybody. And especially if he’s not guilty of anything. And it sounds—from what I’ve heard, and again I’m not that familiar with it like you are, but I will certainly take a very strong position on it,” Trump said.

But Trump’s remarks made it seem that he’d had never even heard of Coyle at all, and the president’s brilliant plan to free him seemed simply to involve posting a “very strong position” he’d made up on the spot.

A former White House attorney is ringing alarm bells over Donald Trump’s declining mental health.

Ty Cobb, an employee of the first Trump administration and a now outspoken critic of the president, told The Beat on MS NOW Tuesday that the recent shift in Trump’s psychological condition was “palpable.”

That day alone, Trump spent a 90-minute press briefing mumbling to himself over a stack of papers, alleging that “pirating ships” is the only thing that Somalis succeed at, claiming that “God is very proud” of his first year back in office, and alleging that a witness to Renee Nicole Good’s death in Minneapolis earlier this month was a “paid agitator.” Outside the press conference, he continued to damage relations with Europe over his obsession with acquiring Greenland.

“Those are not the comments of a rational human being and certainly not presidential at all,” Cobb told MS NOW’s Ari Melber. “Likewise, yesterday you had the clear, deranged, demented, and insane note that he sent to the leaders of Norway, saying that because Norway, which has no control over the Nobel Peace Prize, hadn’t given it to him, that he was free to disregard peace and very interested in Greenland. I don’t think there’s anybody outside of the United States who believes that Trump is sane.”

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told The Wall Street Journal Monday that he had attempted to negotiate with Trump against a new wave of tariffs on European countries after the U.S. leader suddenly turned sour on NATO countries participating in a joint military exercise in Greenland. Trump, according to Støre, responded that the world would not be safe until America had “Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”

“Since you’ve worked for him in the White House, when you make that reference to ‘sane,’ do you mean problems with how he approaches things that have long been there, or are you referring to some decline?” Melber asked.

“No, I think there’s been a significant decline,” Cobb said. “He’s always been driven by narcissism. But I think the dementia and the cognitive decline are palpable, as do many experts, including many physicians.”

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has stopped paying for immigrant detainees to receive health care—and isn’t planning on paying for months, independent journalist Judd Legum reported Tuesday.  

ICE Health Service Corps, the entity that provides immigrants in detention with health care, quietly posted last week that Acentra, the agency’s new third-party administrator for medical claims, would not begin processing claims until at least April 30. “Please continue to hold all claim submissions while IHSC works to bring the new system online in the interim,” the post read. 

ICE had previously paid the Veterans Association Financial Services Center to process claims for reimbursement—but abruptly ended that contract on October 3, 2025. According to government documents reviewed by Legum, ICE was left with “no mechanism to provide prescribed medication” and no way to “pay for medically necessary off-site care.” Immigrants in detention could no longer receive dialysis, prenatal care, oncology, or chemotherapy.

To be clear, ICE is not simply not paying for detainees’ medical treatment: Multiple reports suggest they are not providing it at all, even though federal law requires them to do so. Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff released a report in October documenting at least “85 credible reports of medical neglect” at U.S. detention centers. 

Internal administration data obtained by Legum suggested that ICE has potentially accrued hundreds of millions of dollars of unpaid medical claims. In 2024, the VA processed $246.42 million in medical claims, but despite a significant increase in the detainee population, the VA processed only $157.2 million in claims in 2025.   

“Assuming the medical needs of a typical ICE detainee remain constant, the data suggests nearly a $300 million gap between needed care from third-party providers and what ICE paid,” Legum wrote. “This gap is a combination of unpaid bills since October 3 and ICE detainees who are simply being denied necessary medical treatment.”

As ICE has upended health care access for immigrants in detention, national detentions have hit record levels, and the numbers of people dying in ICE custody have risen with them. 

Seven immigrants died in ICE custody in December, making it the deadliest month since Donald Trump returned to the White House. And 2025 was the deadliest year for immigrants in detention since 2004. 

So far, January is on track to be even worse: At least six people have already died in ICE custody this year, including one man who reportedly was choked to death by an ICE agent. 

At a Tuesday afternoon press conference, President Trump was asked just how far he’d be willing to go to acquire Greenland. His response: “You’ll find out.”

His apparent threat only further reinforces what has been feared for weeks—that Trump will completely fracture U.S. diplomacy with the European Union, or worse, try to take over Greenland regardless of the risk or respect for sovereignty.

“If a consequence of your determination to take control of Greenland is the ultimate breakup of the NATO alliance, is that a price you’re willing to pay?” a reporter followed up later in the press conference.

“I think something’s gonna happen that’s gonna be very good for everybody. Nobody’s done more for NATO than I have.... Getting them to go up to 5 percent of GDP was something that nobody thought was possible,” Trump replied. “I think that we will work something out where NATO’s gonna be very happy and we’re gonna be very happy. But we need it for security purposes.”

That notion of happiness was quickly questioned, as well.

“Mr. President, you said you’re confident something’s gonna get worked out in Greenland, but Greenlanders have made it clear they don’t wanna be part of the U.S. What gives the U.S. the right to take away that self determination—”

“When I speak to them, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled.”

While Democrats and even some Republicans are perplexed and alarmed by Trump’s imperialistic goals, others have thrown their full weight behind them. As Trump himself promised, it seems like only a matter of time before this situation escalates further.

Two employees of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency may have been misusing Social Security data.

The Social Security Administration referred two DOGE employees to the Justice Department for being in contact with an advocacy group that hopes to “overturn election results in certain states,” Politico reports, citing court documents. One of them allegedly signed an agreement that could have involved using Social Security data to match with state voter rolls.

The SSA referred the two employees for violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from using their jobs for political purposes, according to DOJ official Elizabeth Shapiro. The court filings, disclosed Friday, were part of a list of “corrections” on testimony from SSA officials in the legal fight over DOGE gaining access to Social Security data.

The disclosures also show that DOGE team members shared information on unauthorized third-party servers and could have accessed data prohibited by court orders at the time. Shapiro said that two employees referred to the DOJ were the only known members involved with the political group, which wasn’t identified in court papers.

“At this time, there is no evidence that SSA employees outside of the involved members of the DOGE Team were aware of the communications with the advocacy group. Nor were they aware of the ‘Voter Data Agreement,’” Shapiro wrote, noting that it’s unclear whether the two DOGE employees actually shared data with the group.

However, Shapiro said emails “suggest that DOGE Team members could have been asked to assist the advocacy group by accessing SSA data to match to the voter rolls.”

The news seems to confirm some of the fears surrounding DOGE’s access to sensitive government information: that the data could be used for illegal and nefarious purposes. DOGE’s access went far beyond the SSA to different government agencies including the Department of Education, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Treasury Department. Who knows if Musk and DOGE are also using that information illegally?

It’s been exactly one year since Donald Trump returned to the nation’s highest office. To mark the occasion, the president secured quality time in front of some of America’s top journalists Tuesday to, apparently, do little other than to talk to himself.

Trump joined the White House press briefing, sidling up alongside press secretary Karoline Leavitt with a large stack of papers that turned out to be more prop than speech. But it was the content of Trump’s remarks—or rather, lack thereof—that caused some onlookers to question whether the president was in a healthy state of mind.

“Hm, I’m just looking at these charges, it’s just pretty incredible,” Trump said, rifling through the stack of papers, intermittently pausing to hold a page up to the camera. “Many murderers. Many, many murderers. People that murdered.”

The president did not stop to name names, or to clarify which people he was targeting in his scrambled monologue, but the entries followed a general template that read at the top: “Minnesota: worst of worst.”

Trump continued to read names and lists of charges, sometimes without even looking at the camera. Instead, it appeared he was simply reading brand-new information aloud to himself.

Mass protests have kicked off in Minnesota since ICE agents shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen, on January 7. Since then, federal officers have ripped people from their homes and families, pulled over school buses, attacked teachers and students at a Minneapolis high school, and even clashed with local law enforcement.

In response, some protesters have opted to openly carry their firearms through the city, brandishing their Second Amendment right to bear arms. Locals have formed neighborhood watches to follow ICE vehicles, banging pots and pans and screaming to alert others when agents enter their residential neighborhoods.

Local politicians—including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—have advised the federal agency to exit their cities and state, arguing that ICE and Border Patrol agents have done more harm than good. In 2025, before Good’s death, the agency killed 32 people—its deadliest year in more than two decades.

But rather than heed the warning, the Trump administration has opted to up the ante, issuing grand jury subpoenas to Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, while placing 1,500 active-duty troops on standby for a potential invasion of Minnesota.

“I’m going through this because I think we have plenty of time. I’m going to a place—beautiful place—in Switzerland, where I’m sure I’m very happily waited for,” Trump rambled. “In Switzerland they don’t know about this. They have other problems, but they don’t have this problem.”

“Look,” Trump said, holding up another page. “Killed someone.”