Stephen Colbert didn’t hold back when responding to how the White House defended yet another Donald Trump slip-up.
On The Late Show’s January 21 opening monologue, Colbert took aim at White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt after she attempted to dismiss Trump’s repeated confusion between Greenland and Iceland during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Colbert highlighted reporting from journalist Libbey Dean, who attended Trump’s 70-minute address and noted on social media that the former president mixed up Greenland and Iceland three separate times. Rather than acknowledge the error, Leavitt pushed back publicly, writing that Trump hadn’t made a mistake at all. She claimed his prepared remarks referred to Greenland as “a piece of ice,” insisting that the confusion was on the reporter’s end, not the president’s.
That response didn’t sit well with Colbert or his audience. The studio crowd audibly reacted as Colbert read her statement aloud, before he delivered his verdict: calling the explanation “grade-A Big Brother propaganda.” He then jokingly referenced George Orwell’s 1984, quipping that slogans like “War is peace” and “Freedom is slavery” fit right in with the administration’s attempt to rewrite reality. His punchline about Leavitt was censored for broadcast.
Leavitt later doubled down on social media by posting a Google image search of Greenland showing its icy landscape, apparently to support her claim.
However, Trump’s full Davos appearance available online shows that the mix-up wasn’t a one-off. He repeatedly substituted “Iceland” while clearly discussing Greenland, which has been a major focus of his recent rhetoric. Trump has not shown any similar public obsession with Iceland, making the confusion even more noticeable.
The issue matters because Greenland has become a serious geopolitical flashpoint. Just days earlier, on January 17, Trump threatened to slap tariffs on multiple European countries unless they agreed to a deal allowing the United States to acquire Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory governed by Denmark. European leaders sharply criticized the threat, and markets reacted negatively, with stocks suffering their worst day since October.
Despite that backdrop, Trump continued pressing the Greenland idea during his Davos speech while repeatedly naming the wrong country. At one point, he claimed European leaders had turned against him after he brought up “Iceland,” saying they once praised him and now blamed him for economic fallout. In another moment, he suggested that “Iceland” had already cost the U.S. money by triggering market losses.
Given the context, it was clear he meant Greenland each time. The confusion wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t isolated. What stood out most to critics wasn’t just the mistake itself, but the administration’s refusal to acknowledge something plainly visible on video choosing spin over straightforward correction.
For Colbert, that refusal was the real punchline.
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