Video of Danish parliament laughing at Trump's Greenland comments isn't real

In late March 2025, a video began to circulate supposedly showing the Danish parliament and Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen laughing while listening to a recording of U.S. President Donald Trump talking about acquiring Greenland. 

"You can't make this s**t up!," the video's caption read. "This is how Denmark reacted when Trump said he wanted to buy Greenland." 

The original video, posted on TikTok, shows members of parliament and Frederiksen laughing (archived) as an audio clip of Trump plays:

I also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland. We strongly support your right to determine your own future 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.

The audio was authentic. Trump made the comments while addressing a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025.

The video combining the sound clip with footage of Danish leaders laughing had gained 3.4 million views and nearly 421,000 likes as of this writing. People seemed to take it at face value, with one person commenting, "Trump making America the laughing stock of the world" and another saying, "thank you Denmark. i needed this laugh!"

But while Frederiksen and the Danish parliament did once erupt in laughter — that is, the footage was authentic — their hilarity had nothing to do with Trump and Greenland. The video of the Danish politicians was from October 2019 and had been edited to add the audio recording of Trump's statement on Greenland.

The TikTok account that created the video posted a version with the caption, "Content Warning: Satire. Viewer discretion advised," and "Apparently I need to label jokes now—some folks think irony is fake news."  

The footage showed a moment from an October 2019 hearing when Frederiksen talked about Denmark rescuing four circus elephants to offer them a safe retirement. While listing the elephants' names — Ramboline, Lara, Djunga and Jenny — Frederiksen burst out laughing while pronouncing "Ramboline," and the rest of the assembly laughed, too. Shortly afterward, the news outlet Euronews posted a video of the moment on Dailymotion: