Old clip of Danish parliament session misrepresented as lawmakers laughing at Trump's Greenland claim
- Published on January 30, 2026 at 11:02
- 3 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
Donald Trump questioned Denmark's right to Greenland and said he is no longer interested in peace in January 2026 after he was snubbed for a Nobel prize, but a video circulating on social media does not show the Danish prime minister and lawmakers ridiculing the US president's remarks. The clip is in fact from 2019 and shows them laughing about the state's purchase of circus animals.
"The reaction of the Danish parliament when Trump threatened to take over Greenland because he didn't receive the Nobel Peace Prize," reads Indonesian-language text overlaid on an Instagram video shared on January 25.
The short clip shows the prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, laughing on a podium along with dozens of people in the parliament chamber.
The video's caption details Trump's text message to Norway's Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Store, where he questioned Denmark's control over Greenland (archived link).
The US president also said in the message -- made public on January 19 -- that he no longer feels obliged to think "purely of peace" after being snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize as he ramps up his campaign to take over the autonomous territory.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that he "deserves" the Nobel prize for his role in resolving numerous conflicts -- a claim experts say is broadly exaggerated (archived link).
The Nobel committee gave the prize in 2025 to Venezuela's opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who later presented it to Trump during a visit to the White House in January 2026 (archived here and here).
Trump has pushed to gain control of Greenland, arguing it is critical to US national security (archived link). The unpredictable US leader backed off after saying he had struck a "framework" deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater American influence (archived link).
The false claim has spread in other languages, including English, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and German.
But the video was from 2019 and is not related to Trump's exchange with Norway's prime minister.
A combination of reverse image searches using keyframes from the falsely shared video and keyword searches on Google led to a similar clip uploaded on the official Facebook page of the Embassy of Denmark in Poland on October 11, 2019 (archived link).
"Mette Frederiksen talks about the state purchase of circus elephants," text on the video says.
A Danish-speaking AFP journalist said the video shows Frederiksen talking about how the state ended up purchasing a camel alongside four elephants it initially planned to buy. She did not mention Trump in her remarks.
The video also contains English-language subtitles, which translate her remarks as saying the government purchased the camel after finding it was the "best friend" of one of the elephants.
Euronews, a pan-European television news network, published a video report about the giggly meeting on October 10, 2019 (archived link).
"Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen roared with laughter when giving a speech during the parliament session on October 3," the headline says.
US broadcaster NBC News World also reported on the footage, while Danish Broadcasting Corporation said the government had bought the animals from a circus after it was no longer allowed to keep them (archived here and here).
The same footage has been used in social media posts debunked by AFP that falsely claim it showed the Danish leader mocking Taiwan and China's failure to qualify for the 2026 World Cup.
AFP has previously debunked misinformation about Trump's push to take over Greenland.
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