Is Trump’s fixation on symbolism—like the Nobel Peace Prize—shaping real geopolitical decisions, from Greenland pressure to immigration policy?

In this wide-ranging conversation, Scott Douglas Jacobsen speaks with Rick Rosner about Donald Trump’s second term, focusing on Greenland, tariffs, immigration, and foreign policy symbolism. Rosner argues that Trump’s fixation on status—particularly the Nobel Peace Prize—helps explain erratic pressure campaigns and strained alliances. They examine the limits of U.S. leverage in Greenland, Cold War legacies, and the realities of mining and military presence. Rosner credits Trump with few tangible accomplishments beyond immigration restrictions and past prison reform, criticizing the administration’s lack of follow-through and warning that symbolic politics carry real economic and geopolitical costs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Is there anything you want to start off with, real quick?

Rick Rosner: No, go ahead.

Jacobsen: So, there’s been a lot of noise around Norway, Denmark, and Greenland—diplomats, representatives, the whole cast—and reports of heightened emotion in the room. Separately, what seems to have fueled part of the story is that Trump has been publicly fixated on the Nobel Peace Prize and, according to reporting, sent a barbed message to Norway’s prime minister after not receiving it, implying he would no longer think “purely of peace.”

There’s also reporting that María Corina Machado presented Trump with the Nobel Peace Prize medal she received—symbolic, not official recognition of him winning anything—but clearly something he treated as meaningful.

And then the Greenland angle escalated with tariff threats aimed at European countries in connection with his Greenland pressure campaign. Coverage varies on the exact schedule and framing, but the thrust is economic coercion tied to Greenland.

Rosner: That still does not make him a Nobel laureate, but Trump’s psychology is its own weather system.

Jacobsen: To him, symbolic “counts.” So maybe that translates into being softer toward Venezuela and tougher toward Greenland.

Rosner: At this point, it’s hard to separate incompetence, impulse, and strategy—sometimes he acts erratic as a negotiating posture.

But the “we need Greenland” framing is still strange, because the U.S. already has a long-standing defense relationship there. The U.S. military presence is anchored by what is now called Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule), built under the postwar defense framework. Historically, the U.S. had a much larger footprint than it does today.

As for minerals, Greenland does have serious resource potential, but mining there is brutally difficult due to ice, infrastructure, cost, and workforce constraints. That is why, despite years of interest, only a small number of mines have been operating at any given time.

And the Cold War imagery is not invented. There is even a 1950s film, Strategic Air Command, in which a B-36 flight goes to Thule and ends up forced down on the Greenland ice cap.

So, I do not know. In terms of “keeping it away from Russia or China,” Greenland is already embedded in Western security architecture, and the missile-doom scenario is mostly rhetorical. The whole thing feels senseless—and politically costly—because it alienates allies and invites retaliation and real economic consequences.

Jacobsen: What has Trump done right in his first year of his second term?

Rosner: He did a couple of things. He said a few things in the past couple of weeks that would be good if they happened, but he does not really have the power to do them. They are more like suggestions.

One is that credit card interest rates should be capped at 10%. There is no reason credit card companies should be allowed to charge 24% annual interest. He also said that large investment and venture capital firms should not be allowed to buy hundreds or thousands of homes as investments. That practice drives up prices and freezes families out of buying homes, condos, and apartments.

So yes, finding a way to limit mass home purchases would be a good thing—if he can do it. I do not know if he can, and he does not seem to know either. He lacks follow-through on a lot of this.

He did shut down immigration across the southern border. Of all the things he said he would do, that is the one thing he actually did. He has not followed through on much else.

You can disagree with him on whether immigration should be restricted that severely, but it is one of the things people voted for him to do, and it is the one thing he delivered on.

So it is kind of a good thing—but not really, because it is steeped in racism, cruelty, and distraction, including trying to divert attention from his other failures and the Epstein files by being cruel to Brown people.

That is basically it. He made a couple of suggestions, and he limited immigration. Everything else has been shitty.

Jacobsen: What are you still on the fence about with him?

Rosner: Mostly what I just said about immigration. You could argue it is a possible good, though I lean toward it not being a good at all.

In his first term, he did some prison reform. That was good.

He claims he lowered gasoline prices. That was not him—that was OPEC—so I am not on the fence about that at all.

I guess I could be slightly on the fence about getting rid of Maduro, though I strongly disagree with how it was done. It could still go badly. As we were talking about last night, the U.S. removed Saddam Hussein and that led to a civil war that killed around a million people, destabilized the Middle East, and helped give rise to ISIS.

Venezuela probably would not go that badly, but it could still turn out poorly—or it could end up with Maduro’s vice president still in charge and conditions remaining terrible.

Overall, I am not really on the fence. It feels like an exercise in bullshit that he was not elected to do.

There is also the Presidential Historian Survey of Presidential Greatness, where hundreds of historians rank presidents from worst to best. I assume Trump will come in last again. He has been worse in this second term than he was in his first, and the last survey was done in 2024 when he was not president.

Almost everything he does is shitty.

Jacobsen: What do you and Lance agree on?

Rosner: We agree that Iran is a threat. The ayatollahs are brutal to their people. It is a repressive regime, and it finances a lot of the worst actors in the Middle East.

Where we disagree is deeper. Lance thinks Islam is inherently evil. I do not believe that at all. With 1.4 to 1.6 billion adherents, there will obviously be extremists, but I believe the vast majority of Muslims are decent people. That is a major disagreement. Lance is very anti-Muslim.

I am not sure what else we agree on. Lance is quick to call me stupid for my liberal beliefs, and I am quick to say Lance is probably permanently brainwashed.

Jacobsen: All right. Let’s call it a night.

Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.

Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Unsplash

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