Secretary of State Marco Rubio‘s Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s confidence betrayed him as he moved through Wednesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
Rubio answered questions with ease and at times breezily but remained unaware that one offhand explanation would reopen an issue the White House, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in particular, appeared to believe had already been put to rest.
The hearing, expected to focus narrowly on U.S. policy toward Venezuela, quickly widened as Democrats pressed Rubio on President Donald Trump’s recent comments abroad, his tone toward NATO allies, and the administration’s increasingly strained messaging on the world stage.
When pressed on Trump’s fixation with Greenland and his repeated references to Greenland as Iceland, Rubio blew a hole right through the administration’s carefully maintained story.
The moment unfolded when Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine pressed Rubio on Trump’s recent speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Trump had talked at length about a place he called Iceland — even though the context made clear he was talking about Greenland.
Kaine laid it out plainly, quoting Trump’s own words back to him: “Here’s what something the president said in Davos: ‘I’m helping NATO until the last few days, when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They’re not here for us on Iceland. That I can tell you. Our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland. So Iceland has already cost us a lot of money.’”
Kaine then asked the obvious follow-up: “The president repeatedly mistook Iceland for Greenland, right? We’re not mad at Iceland. They haven’t cost us any money. The president just mistook the two countries for each other, correct?”
Rubio’s response: “Yeah, he meant to say Greenland, but I think we’re all familiar with presidents that have verbal stumbles. We’ve had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.”
Kaine didn’t let it slide. “Nice try.”
During the exchange, Rubio did something that Leavitt had refused to do: he acknowledged the president’s mistake outright. By saying Trump “meant to say Greenland,” Rubio effectively undercut days of denials from Leavitt — denials that had already triggered ridicule, fact checks and growing distrust.
Online, critics immediately piled on. One commenter pointed out a broader concern: “The next question is ‘if the Press Secretary lies about something as trivial as that, how can we trust what she says about anything?’”
Others mocked Rubio for not getting on script.
“Leavitt and Rubio did not coordinate on their l i e s,” wrote one reader while another added, “That’s not what Karoline said Marco!”
Another asked on X, “But Leavitt said that wasn’t true. Is Marco calling her a liar?”
Online reactions followed Leavitt’s insistence that Trump never confused Iceland and Greenland at all — despite video, transcripts and widespread reporting showing otherwise.
After Trump’s fumble in Davos, NewsNation correspondent Libbey Dean noted on X that “President Trump appeared to mix up Greenland and Iceland around three times.”
Leavitt fired back: “No he didn’t, Libby. His written remarks referred to Greenland as a ‘piece of ice’ because that’s what it is.” She added, “You’re the only one mixing anything up here.”
The problem was that viewers had watched the speech for themselves and unmistakably heard Trump refer to Iceland.
According to the official transcript published by the World Economic Forum, Trump referred to Iceland four times in passages clearly dealing with Greenland. The Associated Press livestream shows the same thing, with the mix-ups occurring at multiple points in the speech.
Commenters reacted sharply to Leavitt’s denial.
“I’m not sure how many people watched Trump’s incoherent speech but I’m sure it’s in the 10s of millions,” Jon Wiltshire wrote on X. “Leavitt just plain lying here as on numerous occasions he referred to Greenland as Iceland. She’s pathetic.”
Another reaction put it even more plainly: “Karoline Leavitt expects us to believe that Trump didn’t say ‘Iceland’ instead of ‘Greenland,’ like we didn’t all watch this video of him saying Iceland. ICELAND. He did not say A PIECE OF ICE. The dork said ICELAND.”
The issue drew enough attention that fact-checkers stepped in. Snopes confirmed that Trump did, in fact, confuse the two places during the speech. Despite that, Leavitt doubled down, pointing only to Trump’s prepared text rather than his spoken words.
Asked later why Leavitt would deny something so easily verified, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers offered a statement that sidestepped the question entirely: “President Trump delivered a historic speech in Davos laying out America’s compelling national security interests involving Greenland. Mere hours afterward, President Trump announced the framework for a future deal with respect to Greenland. President Trump continues to deliver results while the failing, liberal media melts down.”
The statement didn’t explain the motivation behind denying what millions of people saw and heard. It also didn’t address why Rubio, when confronted directly, chose to acknowledge the error instead of sticking to the party line.
