Video shows Danish lawmakers laughing at prime minister, not at Trump’s Greenland remarks

During President Donald Trump’s March 4 address to a joint session of Congress, he addressed “the incredible people of Greenland.” 

“We strongly support your right to determine your own future,” he said. “And if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America. We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it. But we need it really for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

Audio of this part of his speech can be heard in a video that at the same time also shows Danish lawmakers laughing. 

Denmark controls Greenland, a semi-autonomous island.

“You can’t make this s— up,” text over a March 29 Facebook video says. “This is how Denmark reacted when Trump said he wanted to buy Greenland.”

The post sharing the video said: “This is how Denmark reacted to Trump wanting to buy Greenalnd. The entire democratic free world views the psychotic shitstain as nothing but a clown.” 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

The footage of the lawmakers laughing is authentic, but they weren’t laughing at Trump. The recording of his speech was added to this video. 

In the original video, from October 2019, the lawmakers are laughing at Denmark Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. 

“Frederiksen started to laugh as she was telling a story of four circus elephants bought by the Danish government in September to provide them with a decent retirement,” Euronews reported Oct. 10, 2019.

NBC News World, which also posted footage in 2019 of the lawmakers laughing, said in a Facebook post that “Frederiksen had lawmakers in stitches when she could not stop herself from giggling” as she discussed the animals.

We rate claims the lawmakers were laughing at Trump’s remarks about Greenland as False.