With his perpetual smile and a jawline carved with Hollywood precision, Rufus Gifford became something close to the Danes’ favorite American during the Obama years. He was not just the U.S. ambassador to Denmark but also a heartthrob, with a popularity that neither predecessors nor successors have come close to.
DR followed him closely in a TV series that painted the portrait of the broad-shouldered celebrity diplomat, who was just as comfortable in conversations with actors as he was in meetings with ministers.
He was married at Copenhagen City Hall to his longtime partner, veterinarian Stephen DeVincent – the same city hall that made world history when the first same-sex couple was married there in 1989.
And on his last working day, he received the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Dannebrog from Queen Margrethe.
In his three and a half years as ambassador, he helped sell the image of a U.S. that appeared open and progressive – a country many Danes were seduced by.
It was also the U.S. he himself believed in.
»I feel guilty. I wasn’t lying. I believed it, you know? I never believed we could elect Donald Trump in 2016. And when we did, it was a complete shock to me«, says Rufus Gifford.
»It breaks my heart, of course«.
We sit in a quiet corner of an otherwise busy hotel near Copenhagen Central Station.
It has been nearly a decade since Rufus Gifford left his post as the U.S. ambassador to Denmark and returned home in the wake of Donald Trump’s first election victory.
Four years later, he returned to the top of American politics, this time as deputy campaign manager in Joe Biden’s election campaign, responsible for fundraising – the same job he had in Obama’s presidential campaign.
When Biden won, Gifford was appointed Chief of Protocol at the White House, responsible for state visits among other things. And when Biden later decided to run for re-election, Gifford was again in the inner circle as a key advisor and financial manager. Even when the baton was passed to Kamala Harris, he continued in the same role.
Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, even after inciting his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol, is described by Gifford as »devastating«.
»I still try to understand what my responsibility is«.
For many ambassadors, the post is a defined role: You represent a government, the government changes, and then the task is completed.
»No, that’s not how I feel«.
Rufus Gifford leans forward. His gaze is steady.
I was too invested in Denmark. Too invested in the Danish people. To not keep coming back.
That’s also why he’s in Copenhagen.
The occasion is the release of ‘Across the Atlantic’, which comes out amid the deepest crisis in the 225-year-long relationship between the U.S. and Denmark. A relationship that for generations has rested on trust, shared values, and security-political bonds, but which today is strained by a U.S. that for many Danes no longer resembles the country they thought they knew.
»A lot of people listened to me then. And it’s hard«, says Rufus Gifford.
»Everything I try to do. The book, these events that I do around the country. I just try to speak with as much honesty and sincerity as I can, while acknowledging that I’ve made mistakes along the way from time to time. Or I’ve misjudged where we were going as a country and the world«.
They don’t deserve it
One of the first things Rufus Gifford did when he set foot on Danish soil again was to seek out veteran Henrik Bager.
In January, Bager wrote a letter to Gifford about how it feels – as someone who has fought alongside American soldiers five times – to suddenly hear Denmark referred to as a bad ally by U.S. Vice President JD Vance.
With Bager’s permission, Gifford shared the letter on social media, and it quickly spread.
»I think it had summed up what I had been trying to say to Americans over the course of 2025. But I couldn’t put it into words the way he did«, says Rufus Gifford.
As ambassador, the conditions of veterans were one of his constant benchmarks. He talks about meetings with Danish veterans who had lost limbs in Afghanistan and Iraq – concrete reminders that American foreign policy always has a human cost.
»Considering the sacrifice, you deserve so much better«.
Rufus Gifford has repeatedly supported Greenland and Denmark on social media, in American media, and in public debate.
For Greenland was not a peripheral issue during Gifford’s time as ambassador. It was a country he returned to again and again – nine times in total – and a place where he already saw the contours of what he today describes as a key region in a security-political sense.
At the same time, he acknowledges that the U.S. has failed its responsibility in the region across changing governments.
»They (Russia, ed.) have an advantage, militarily, in the Arctic. The Chinese, of course, are investing in an enormous way, largely from an economic standpoint, in that part of the world as well, because they see opportunities. And we need to match them.«, says Rufus Gifford.
According to Gifford, the Arctic circle in NATO – Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Canada, and the U.S. – constitutes the strongest possible counterweight to Russia and China. That’s precisely why he sees it as deeply problematic that Donald Trump, according to him, has undermined the alliance and in a short time squandered decades of trust.
»I believe it will strengthen Russia, I believe it will strengthen China, and all of us become less safe«.
To the European leaders who are tearing their hair out over Trump’s repeated threats against Greenland, he has one piece of advice:
»The best way to counter it is with strength, is to push back, is to harness the power that you do have — and you do have a lot«.
When Americans re-elected Trump
In his book, Rufus Gifford writes from the innermost engine room of the Biden years and his central role in Kamala Harris’s campaign, which ended in defeat.
»It’s hard to divorce for me like the personal feelings of having been through the 2024 campaign which was just so exhausting. And unprecedented in American history. That was devastating«.
According to Gifford, the Biden administration’s poor handling of immigration contributed to the defeat in 2024. But it was the cost of living that truly sealed the judgment among voters and decided the election.
»It has a lot to do with cost of living and Democrats being out of touch with the kind of, or at least being able to communicate with the average American. Especially on cost of living«.
In this context, Gifford reluctantly but clearly points to the contrast with Donald Trump.
»I have nothing nice to say about Donald Trump, but damn, is he a good messenger. Because he sticks to his message. He drills it, drills it, drills it, drills it, until it’s essentially the only thing that people have heard«.
Previous Democratic presidents mastered precisely that discipline. Barack Obama did it during the financial crisis, Franklin D. Roosevelt in the midst of the depression.
»I love Joe Biden, but he has a much harder time communicating effectively. Always has. But even now, as he’s gotten older, much worse«.
Nevertheless, Gifford rejects the more far-reaching narrative that Biden’s age in itself made him unfit for the presidency.
»It’s a narrative not grounded in reality«, says Gifford.
On the contrary, he points out that Biden managed to translate a slim majority in Congress into concrete and far-reaching political results.
»He was definitely an older man who wasn’t as sharp as he had always been. I mean, today I would take that in a freaking second over what we have. Joe Biden today would be 8,000 times a better president than Donald Trump is. And I will go to my grave believing that«.
When Kamala Harris took over the baton late in the campaign, the course towards the iceberg was already set. Although Rufus Gifford acknowledges that Harris made mistakes, he explains the defeat with voter fatigue towards the sitting administration – a pattern that has also been evident in several other Western democracies.
»I love Kamala. I’m obviously a huge believer in her, a huge believer in her, but it’s hard for me to say that she would have won had she had another year«.
What remains is a personal aftermath.
»There’s zero doubt that you can’t help but feel a degree of guilt for being wrong. And making people feel hope that we can do this when it doesn’t happen. There’s a real culpability associated with that. Now, some people can wash that off and just move on to the next. It’s harder for me to do that«.
He pauses briefly.
»It still feels like a punch in the gut to everything that I’ve stood for«.
Now Gifford’s gaze is fixed on the midterm elections in November. This is where Democrats see an opportunity to translate the growing opposition to Donald Trump and thereby break the Republican majority in Congress.
Republicans have, according to Gifford, practically handed over power to the president.
»That is a constitutional crisis«, he says.
»That is something that a new Congress can work quickly to undo«.
