Trump Announces “Board of Peace” as Biggest Allies Snub His Dumb Idea

President Trump announced his “Board of Peace” on Thursday, but his invitations were snubbed by the U.S.’s traditional European allies, with right-wing, autocratic leaders like Argentina’s Javier Milei, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and Saudi Arabia’s Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud joining instead.

France and Germany outright declined the invitation, while the United Kingdom cited the presumed involvement of Russian President Vladimir Putin as their dealbreaker.

“We do also have concerns about Putin being part of something which is talking about peace, when we have still not seen any signs from Putin that there will be a commitment to peace in Ukraine,” British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said to the BBC on Thursday.

Sweden, Slovenia, Norway, and Belgium have also all denied Trump’s invitation to the board.

“Belgium has NOT signed the Charter of the Board of Peace,” Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prévot wrote Thursday on X, after the White House announced that they had joined. “We wish for a common and coordinated European response. As many European countries, we have reservations to the proposal.”

Countries that have agreed to join the board instead include Argentina, Belarus, Egypt, Jordan, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.

The “Board of Peace” idea emerged from the Gaza “ceasefire”—an agreement that has been broken countless times, as at least 11 Palestinians, including two children and three journalists, were killed in Israeli attacks the day before Trump’s announcement.

Trump sees this board as a potential rival to the United Nations, a “peacekeeping” group of countries that are all loyal to him. He is selling permanent membership on the board for $1 billion. If an individual or a country doesn’t buy permanent membership, they only have a three-year window to stay on the board.

Executive members include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Apollo Global Management CEO Mark Rowan, World Bank president Ajay Banga, and Deputy National Security Advisor Robert Gabriel Jr.

This entire “Board of Peace” concept feels haphazard and strange, especially given the presence of autocrats like Orban and Milei—and our current antagonistic relationship with Greenland and NATO.

Donald Trump isn’t en route to an amenable acquisition of Greenland—but he doesn’t seem to be aware of that.

Mere hours after the president declared to the world Wednesday that he had discussed a “framework” for obtaining Greenland with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the man on the other end of the line revealed that no such deal had been discussed.

The cold water did not wake Trump up from his dream of northern expansion, however. In an interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo early Thursday morning, Trump insisted that the “details” of the monumental land grab were still being “negotiated.”

“What are we talking about? An acquisition of Greenland? Are you going to pay for it?” asked Bartiromo.

“We’re talking about it—it’s really being negotiated now, the details of it, but essentially it’s total access,” Trump said. “There’s no end, no time limit.”

The president then said that “it’s possible” the U.S. could acquire Greenland, and claimed that his wildly aggressive negotiating tactics had added to America’s military access to the icy island, despite myriad existing treaties that already give the U.S. unfettered access to Greenland as a military base.

Greenland is a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark and has repeatedly rejected Trump’s attempts to stake a claim to their land.

Rutte told Fox News Wednesday evening that he had not discussed the issue of whether or not Greenland will remain under the Danish flag during his meeting with Trump.

“What I don’t hear is Greenland—is it still under the Kingdom of Denmark in this framework deal?” asked host Bret Baier.

“That issue did not come up any more in my conversations tonight with the president,” Rutte said. “He’s very much focused on what do we need to do to make sure that that huge Arctic region—where change is taking place at the moment, where the Chinese and the Russians are more and more active—how we can protect it.”

The vast majority of the American public opposes Trump’s attempts to obtain Greenland. A YouGov survey published Tuesday found that 72 percent of polled voters do not support a military takeover of Greenland. Even Republicans were far less likely to support the measure, with 52 percent opposed compared to 22 percent in favor.

Federal immigration agents reportedly used a 5-year-old boy in Minnesota to lure his family members out of their home in order to detain and deport them. Then they sent him away.

Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was returning home from school Tuesday with his father when masked immigration agents approached them in their driveway.

The Department of Homeland Security claimed Thursday that officers were only targeting Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, Liam’s father, who “fled on foot—abandoning his child.”

However: “Another adult living in the home was outside and begged the agents to let him take care of the small child, and was refused,” said Zena Stenvik, a Columbia Heights Public School superintendent who recounted the story to MPR News.

“Instead the agent took the child out of the still-running car, led him to the door and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in in order to see if anyone else was home, essentially using a 5-year-old as bait.”

Stenvik said that the Ramos family had an “active asylum case” and no deportation order. “I have viewed the legal paperwork with my own eyes,” she said.

“Why detain a 5-year-old? You can’t tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal,” Stenvik said.

Family members said they didn’t know where the child was for nearly 24 hours.

Marc Prokosch, the family’s lawyer, said that based on his experience, he believed Liam and his father were sent out of state. “I’m exploring whether we file a habeas corpus petition to get him out; we’d have to actually file that down in Texas now,” he told MPR News.

Prokosch confirmed that the family had been following the legal asylum process. “Every step of their immigration process has been doing what they’ve been asked to do, and so this is just … cruelty,” he said.

According to Columbia Heights school district officials, three other students have been detained by federal agents in recent weeks, including a 10-year-old who was detained with her mother on her way to school, another student who was taken on the way to school, and a 17-year-old who was detained when ICE agents stormed into their home.

In December, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wouldn’t deny that the Trump administration was illegally deporting people with ongoing asylum cases. ICE attorneys at immigration hearings are increasingly asking immigration judges to dismiss asylum cases, and the Trump administration has instructed judges to grant quick dismissals. At the same time, the Trump administration has purged dozens of immigration judges and sought to recruit so-called “deportation judges” to help ramp up the government’s soft ethnic cleansing.

This story has been updated.

The Department of Homeland Security is crudely referring to its newest immigration crackdown in Maine as “Operation Catch of the Day,” as it prepares to hunt and catch immigrants like lobsters.

“These masked men with no regard for the rule of law are causing long-term damage to our state and to our country,” Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline said on Wednesday. “Lewiston stands for the dignity of all people who call Maine home.”

Maine’s two biggest cities, Portland and Lewiston, have large Somali populations, and were already on edge as the Trump administration continued its racist targeting of the group. The operation’s very name speaks to the inhumanity with which these agents treat people.

DHS announced the operation began with a series of arrests on Tuesday. It’s not clear how long ICE agents will be stationed in Maine, or if Border Patrol agents currently in Minneapolis will head to Maine next.

“ICE has been operating in Maine for a while. But now they’re threatening to step up their brutality, and bring what we saw in Minneapolis to our state,” Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner said on X last week, before offering strategies for community members to combat aggressive immigration agents. “We will not let masked agents come to Maine and terrorize our communities. We will not be intimidated. This is our home.”

Border Patrol is not welcome in Minneapolis’s streets, its schools, or its gas stations.

A crowd of anti-ICE protesters stormed federal agents at a Speedway gas station on Nicollet Avenue Wednesday, throwing out Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino alongside his masked subordinates.

Videos captured by independent local journalist Amanda Moore showed dozens of Minneapolitans photographing and chanting at the agents, yelling at them to “get out.”

“Get in your fucking car and go,” one woman can be heard screaming in Moore’s footage. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“This isn’t Christian, this isn’t American. This is fascism,” another man shouts.

In another clip captured by Moore, Bovino appeared to be icily booted from the Speedway’s convenience store, with a man following steps behind him.

“ICE does not belong on this property at all, we do not support ICE,” the man said. “Get off our property. Bye, bye, bye.”

Bovino then walked into a huddle of people—several of which appeared to be Border Patrol agents—behind a gas pump and a large, tan SUV. The crowd seemingly trapped a sedan at the private establishment, forcing the driver to step out of his vehicle to demand they “get the fuck out of my way.”

After the driver repeated himself several times, an agent took it upon himself to shuffle his confederates away from the gas station’s thruway.

“Get out of my city,” the driver said as he drove off.

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 an attempt to defend their own city from the state-sponsored violence, some residents 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. The movement has extended beyond picketed marches and morphed into something far more direct—apparently capable of hunting down Bovino and his underlings before forcing them out of the area.

Local politicians—including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—have advised ICE and Border Patrol to exit their cities and state, arguing that the federal agents have done more harm than good. In 2025, before Good’s death, the agency killed 32 people—it’s 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. The Minnesota National Guard has already advised its members to wear hi-vis reflective vests—rather than military camouflage—in order to keep them safe from the fury of local residents who could mistake them for federal agents.

Donald Trump is now claiming that the “framework of a future deal” has been reached on Greenland and “the entire Arctic region.”

The president posted on Truth Social Wednesday afternoon that he had a very productive meeting with the secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. As a result, he wrote, a possible “solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations. Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st.”

Last week, Trump had threatened to impose tariffs against European countries that opposed his plan to annex Greenland. He may have been persuaded otherwise after European pension funds began divesting from U.S. Treasuries and the European Parliament suspended a possible trade deal with the U.S. Wednesday over his threats.

Despite Trump’s post Wednesday, his dream of annexing Greenland still seems unlikely, given that Rutte and NATO do not control the territory, Denmark does. Both the elected leadership of Denmark and Greenland have said any discussions about Greenland’s future is up to them, not the United States, and that the island is not for sale.

Trump also wrote that “Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and various others, as needed, will be responsible for the negotiations—They will report directly to me.” It’s a rather large question mark as to what will actually be the subject of the negotiations.

Vance is not well thought of by European leaders, and has insulted them on several occasions. A meeting between Vance, Rubio, and the foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark in the White House last week was over very quickly, giving the impression that it didn’t go well, especially considering NATO countries deployed troops to Greenland the next day. That does not bode well for these new negotiations.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wants to pretend that Donald Trump didn’t mix up Greenland and Iceland—but he did. Multiple times.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos Wednesday, Trump repeatedly and erroneously mixed up Greenland with Iceland, a completely separate landmass and independent nation. The gaffe sparked concern that Trump, who has been showing increasing signs of cognitive decline, had no idea what country he was even demanding to own.

Once again demonstrating her fierce commitment to truth-telling, Leavitt tried to defend the president by lying about something that everyone heard.

“President Trump appeared to mix up Greenland and Iceland around three times,” NewsNation’s Libbey Dean wrote on X after the speech.

“No he didn’t, Libby,” Leavitt responded. “His written remarks referred to Greenland as a ‘piece of ice’ because that’s what it is. You’re the only one mixing anything up here.”

She included an image of Greenland, which appeared to be a large mass of ice. Regardless of what was written in Trump’s prepared remarks, the president claimed the territory was “Iceland” multiple times—another place entirely.

Watch what Trump said for yourself:

Senator Ted Cruz appears to be leaving Texas yet again ahead of another major winter storm.

The third-term lawmaker was photographed boarding a flight to Laguna Beach, California, Tuesday, sparking concerns online that the lawmaker’s controversial history of ditching his constituents (and dog) amid bad weather was morphing into an inevitable bad habit.

Cruz’s office told Houston Public Media Wednesday, when the photo took off on social media, that he left on a work trip planned several weeks ago, and that he would be back in Texas before the storm arrived.

“Senator Cruz is currently on pre-planned work travel that was scheduled weeks in advance,” a spokesperson for Cruz said. “He will be back in Texas before the storm is projected to hit.”

Texas is gearing up for another potentially disastrous ice storm this week that is expected to batter the north and central regions of the state. Governor Greg Abbott preemptively declared a state of emergency to handle the imminent freeze, prompting state agencies to actively monitor Texas’s electrical grid and oil supplies.

When asked to confirm if Cruz had left for Laguna Beach, his spokesperson said: “You have the tweet with the pic.”

The scene is remarkably reminiscent of one of Cruz’s worst moments in 2021, when he bailed on his community—and his dog—to fly to Cancun during a historic winter storm that crashed Texas’s power grid, leaving millions without heat or electricity for several days.

But that wasn’t the only time Cruz was missing in action during a Lone Star State emergency. Last July, when floods killed at least 135 people in central Texas, Cruz was busy vacationing in Greece. He caught a flight back two days later, in what his office said was the “first flight home.”

The Trump administration is ordering active-duty military police soldiers to be ready to deploy to Minneapolis.

MS NOW, citing three unnamed sources, reports that an Army military police brigade unit stationed in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was issued “prepare to deploy” orders Tuesday. At least a few hundred soldiers are now getting ready to potentially go to the city, which has been rocked by violence from federal agents following the killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer.

“We have nothing to announce at this time, and any tip about this is pre-decisional,” a Department of Defense official told MS NOW.

This latest order comes after news of another deployment from Friday. Two battalions of the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, stationed in Alaska and specially trained to operate in winter weather, were also issued orders to be ready to deploy. There are at least 500 soldiers in a battalion.

Last summer, the Trump administration deployed 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles, where they mostly guarded federal buildings, including an immigration detention center. That deployment was found to be illegal in federal court. If soldiers are deployed to Minneapolis, they would have to refrain from enforcing the law against civilians, otherwise they would be violating the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, as Trump was found to have done in Los Angeles.

President Trump has been simultaneously threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and claiming that he doesn’t need to do so in order to use federal troops to put down what he sees as a “rebellion.” Either way, not only is he threatening the Constitution and the stability of the U.S., but he would also be following the example of a dictator, which, oddly enough, he just said he wants to be.

President Trump, who has a lengthy résumé of authoritarian tendencies, thinks that sometimes “you need a dictator.”

“We had a good speech, we got great reviews. I can’t believe it, we got good reviews on that speech,” Trump said on Wednesday, speaking of the long-winded, indignant, and incredibly boring address he gave earlier that day at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“Usually they say, ‘He’s a horrible dictator-type person,’ I’m a dictator,” Trump continued. “But sometimes you need a dictator! But they didn’t say that in this case.… It’s all based on common sense, it’s not conservative or liberal, or anything else.”

This kind of talk—which Trump has all but normalized—sheds further light on his aggressive, antagonistic approach to diplomacy, especially after he spent the morning threatening Europe, Canada, Greenland, and, bizarrely, Iceland.

“As I [have] always said, he is at his most honest when he is at his most malevolent and depraved,” George Conway commented on X.