Anders Vistisen, a member of the European Parliament from Denmark, stepped up to the microphone this past week in the Parliament’s vast chamber, where matters of European statecraft and diplomacy are usually debated in solemn and often dry tones.
“Let me put this in words you might understand, Mr. President,” Vistisen said. “F— off.”
Vistisen’s sharp language reflected a trend that is increasingly noticeable, from the conference rooms of Davos, Switzerland, to the halls of the Federal Reserve to the streets of Minneapolis: President Donald Trump’s adversaries are pushing back against him with renewed force. The change is partly rhetorical and partly substantive, but underlying it is a sense that seeking to placate Trump has proved ineffective in the first year of his second term and that counterpunching is the better option.
That was evident this week in Davos, where the world’s financial and political leaders gathered under the cloud of Trump’s threat to take over Greenland, a Danish territory. European leaders, who have spent a year seeking to appease Trump in ways large and small, this time sharply criticized his Greenland gambit and threatened an array of aggressive trade moves in response. The president backed off his threat of military action and punitive tariffs — at least for now.
The shift has been clear in other venues as well.
When the Justice Department served Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell with subpoenas related to a renovation project, Powell responded with a defiant video emphasizing the importance of “standing firm in the face of threats.” Powell’s tone for much of the past year had been far more accommodating.
On Thursday, former special counsel Jack Smith vigorously defended his efforts to prosecute Trump, telling a congressional committee that the president “willfully broke the very laws that he took an oath to uphold.”
When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth censured Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), a retired Navy officer, for appearing in a video saying service members do not have to obey illegal orders, Kelly hit back with a lawsuit.
When Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), a Trump ally, subpoenaed former president Bill Clinton and his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, in the Jeffrey Epstein case, they refused in a fiery letter, saying: “Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its people and its principles, no matter the consequences. For us, now is that time.”
On Wednesday, Comer’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to hold the Clintons in contempt of Congress, with several Democrats joining the Republican majority.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) said that early in Trump’s term, Republicans feared they would get “squashed” if they opposed Trump, while Democrats were immersed in “self-flagellation” after their election loss. Both sentiments have faded, he said.
Many of Trump’s adversaries also badly misread him initially, Khanna added. “There was a naiveté that he would do things that were politically convenient but wouldn’t exert power in destructive ways, that Trump was all bluster but would not actually follow through in dismantling institutions,” Khanna said. “That has proved to be utterly naive. He is not just a huckster, not just a salesman. He has empowered very, very right-wing ideologues.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement: “President Trump is driven solely by his motivation to do what is in the best interest of the American people. Whether it be growing our economy, securing the border, delivering peace through strength, driving down crime, or any other Administration priority, the President is not distracted by noise from critics, no matter how loud. In the end, they’re not coming after the President; they’re coming after the American people and President Trump is just standing in their way.”
Much of the recent reaction to Trump has been sparked by his double-barreled onslaughts on Greenland and Minneapolis, which have seen the president seek to stretch his authority further than ever before, and by a sense that Trump could continue upping the ante as the November midterm elections approach.
Trump’s critics also fear he has been emboldened by the military’s successful seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, a high-risk operation that opened the new year on an aggressive note. Heightened emotions on both sides were illustrated by an incident on Jan. 14, when a Michigan worker yelled “Pedophile protector!” as Trump was touring an auto factory, and the president responded by giving him the finger and mouthing, “F— you.”
On Greenland, Trump was threatening to seize the territory of a NATO ally regardless of the wishes of its residents, a violation of principles that have long unified the Western alliance. That gambit — as well as Trump’s actions related to Venezuela and Ukraine — prompted three senior Catholic clerics to issue a rare, strongly worded statement on Martin Luther King Jr. Day questioning “the morality of U.S. foreign policy.”
“The building of just and sustainable peace, so crucial to humanity’s well-being now and in the future, is being reduced to partisan categories that encourage polarization and destructive policies,” said the statement by the archbishops of Chicago, Washington and Newark.
Foreign leaders, meanwhile, appeared to conclude they had little to lose from openly accusing Trump of thuggery, something they had been reluctant to do before.
“We will not let ourselves be blackmailed,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on X. French President Emmanuel Macron added that “no intimidation nor threat will influence us.” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, one of America’s closest allies, declared that “the use of tariffs against allies is completely wrong.”
Mike Madrid, a longtime Republican strategist who is critical of Trump, said the change in atmosphere is undeniable.
“I don’t think there is any question. It’s the prime minister of Canada. It’s the pope,” Madrid said. “There is this new energy when our allies are rattling the saber back, and that is in turn emboldening folks at home.”
Madrid was referring to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s hard-hitting speech in Davos, in which Carney decried Trump’s recent actions, although without naming him, and added, “We are in the midst of a rupture.” Pope Leo XIV has also signaled discomfort with Trump’s policies, urging the president last month not to “break apart” the transatlantic alliance.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, widely considered a Democratic presidential prospect, goaded the European leaders in Davos to stand up to Trump. “Trump is a T-Rex,” he told reporters. “You mate with him or he devours you — one or the other — and you need to stand up to it.” Yet Newsom himself began the Trump era on a far more conciliatory note, including, for example, by inviting high-profile Trump supporters on his podcast.
Trump’s deployment of federal immigration agents in Minnesota has also prompted a fierce reaction, especially after an ICE officer killed activist Renée Good, firing three shots into her car. Videos from the scene appear to show that Good was trying to leave the scene of a raid and protest.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told a press briefing after Good’s death that Trump officials’ account of what happened, which put the blame on Good, was “bulls—.” He added, “To ICE, get the f— out of Minneapolis,” and he followed that up with a New York Times op-ed headlined, “Trump Is Lying to You.”
Minnesota and Minneapolis sued federal immigration authorities Jan. 12, contending that what state Attorney General Keith Ellison has called a “federal invasion” violates the U.S. Constitution.
Until recently, the standoff in Minneapolis showed signs of escalating. Trump warned that he might invoke the Insurrection Act, allowing him to send active U.S. military troops into the city. And an ICE memo emerged this week, written in May, appearing to show a high-ranking ICE official telling agents they could enter a person’s home to arrest them without a judicial warrant, an apparent violation of the Fourth Amendment.
But on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance, visiting Minneapolis, changed his tone and delivered a more conciliatory message, saying Trump’s directive on the protesters was to “meet these guys halfway.”
Matt Bennett, executive vice president of Third Way, a centrist Democratic group, said it was natural that those opposed to Trump would start by trying to placate him. “He is enormously powerful, and he was wielding those powers in ways that were scary for all these people,” Bennett said. “Their first instinct, to try to mitigate the damage, was probably right. But they have realized that is not going to work.”
Trump’s strategy, Bennett said, is to continually raise the stakes until the costs to him outweigh the benefits. “He pushes, pushes, pushes — then when he meets resistance, resistance that he cares about, he will step back,” Bennett said.
That resistance is also playing out on Capitol Hill. Khanna said the dynamic began to shift in November, when the House passed a law 427-1 directing the Justice Department to release all files related to Epstein, the deceased sex offender, something Trump had strongly opposed before ultimately relenting. Khanna’s co-sponsor on the measure was Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who has become a regular Trump critic.
“Tom Massie and I showed you could be a Republican in Congress, you could be part of MAGA, and you could stand up to Donald Trump and win,” Khanna said. “We showed you don’t have to be afraid of Trump ending your career.”
Still, the vast majority of Republicans have continued to show a reluctance to challenge Trump, even when he takes actions that violate their long-standing principles, such as imposing global tariffs or threatening to seize Greenland. But there are exceptions, such as Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) recently telling CNN that Trump’s actions on Greenland were “shameful.”
Madrid said that it is notable that Republicans like Massie and former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia have broken openly with Trump, and that more GOP defections may follow, especially if Democrats do well in November’s midterm elections.
“In the past six months, everything has changed,” Madrid said. “The fever swamp is still full force, but there is no question there are breaks. The question is, can [Trump] hold it together? And if this is happening before the midterms, imagine what happens if the Democrats take one or both houses.”
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