Opinion: An entirely plausible but clearly fake internal White House memo about buying Greenland

Attn: President Trump

From: (redacted)

Re: Thoughts on Greenland real estate deal

Dear Boss:

Once again you have hit upon the smartest, most intuitive idea of the modern age: buying Greenland. Nobody has your brains or vision, nobody. Everybody says so. Genius, sheer genius. But it’s going to take some selling to get this deal done. Below please find some possible talking/marketing points for your consideration as this moves forward:

• Greenland — Who named it anyway? It’s covered with ice! Ice is white! (This is why Steve Miller is on board). But this administration has a secret deal to make Greenland green again! Details TBA.
• Vikings were the first European settlers of Greenland, and some of them came from Norway, and we like Norwegians because they don’t come from (expletive deleted) hole countries. And if we buy Greenland, all those Vikings will become Americans without actually immigrating. Win-win!
• This country has been stalled at 50 states for more than a half-century. Others have tried to make it bigger, but they couldn’t do it. Obama couldn’t do it (and people are saying that he might actually have been born there). We can! The Trump administration can make Greenland the 51^st state — and will! #MakeAmericaBiggerAgain!
• Greenland has been treating the U.S. so unfairly for so long, and no one’s done anything about it. Obama? Nothing. We have a trade deficit of a kazillion dollars (Note: $6.5 million last year but say “kazillion” loudly and shake your head and Sean Hannity will run with it). It’s about time we stood up to them!
• As this administration’s energy policies* increase the pace of global warming, the ice sheets covering Greenland will disappear, giving us more space there to make asylum seekers wait while we slow-walk their applications. (*This will take some finessing since our position is that global warming isn’t happening. We recommend you say that it is becoming more likely as a result of Obama’s energy policies.)
• People say it might be expensive. Maybe, but here’s the beauty — Greenland will pay for it! If they don’t, we’ll hit them with tariffs like they’ve never seen before. (Again, this might take some massaging, since by then Greenland will be part of the U.S. and so we’d be paying for it.)
• Finally, if we can’t get a deal, we’ll claim that the idea came from Anthony Scaramucci, we never seriously looked at it, and that’s why you fired him.