Carla Sands began her career as a chiropractor, socialite and actress before succeeding her husband as chief executive of investment firm Vintage Capital Group. In 2016, she met presidential candidate Donald Trump and became a fundraiser for his campaign.
Sands, who went on to become Trump’s ambassador to Denmark during his first term, introduced the businessman to movers and shakers, some of whom she says still work for the President today.
“I remember saying to friends, ‘This Donald Trump, I think he’s got it.’ And people would say, ‘You can’t be serious.’ And I would say, ‘You need to get ready for a Donald Trump presidency,’” she recalls.
The 65-year-old, who donated nearly a quarter of a million dollars to that campaign, says Trump is a great communicator. “Maybe the best communicator our country has ever had. I mean, Abraham Lincoln wrote some beautiful speeches, but President Trump understands communication in the 21st century. He’s really mastered it.
“Plus, he’s a successful businessman, so he understands how to negotiate, [while] most US presidents are political animals.”
And despite Trump’s attacks on his allies raising eyebrows and pulses around the world, Sands insists there is method to his insults.
When earlier this year he disparaged the sacrifice of Nato troops who fought with the US in Afghanistan, Sands admits she felt wounded: “I felt bad for the Danish troops who had a higher per capita loss than the US and the UK troops.”
But she adds: “You have to look at President Trump as a macro guy – he’s looking at the whole world. All he knows are the top-line numbers.”
Last weekend, the Pentagon announced that the US would withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany over the next year, just days after the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said the US was being “humiliated” by Iran. Trump warned this was just the beginning.
Sands, who served on Trump’s transition finance committee and economic advisory council in 2016, became US ambassador to Denmark in 2017 and stayed in the post throughout his first presidency. She says Trump “doesn’t know the details, but he does know the big picture that most Nato allies were not standing with us”.
Right now, Trump’s deal-making abilities are being questioned. He had to retreat from threats and offers to buy Greenland from Denmark last year and his strong-arm attempts to resolve the war he launched against Iran in February have so far come to nothing.
Polls show he is enduring his highest ever disapproval rating, of 62 per cent. When it comes to the war with Iran, 66 per cent of Americans polled say they disapprove.
Even so, unlike former Trump allies and Maga influencers such as Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who have condemned the conflict, Sands continues to back him.
She says it was Iran, not Trump, that started the war when the Islamic Republic overthrew the monarchy in 1979, and that the President is acting consistently with the man she met a decade ago.
“He’s talked about all the issues he’s dealing with today, for decades. He was talking about Kharg Island in 1988,” she said, referring to Iran’s island oil export hub that Trump threatened to seize by force in March.
Sands – who now chairs the Foreign Policy Initiative at Trumpaligned think-tank America First Policy Institute – says he is someone who has “watched these issues, who understands the geopolitics of all these issues and he has a firm grasp on everything”.
Even his social media posts threatening to wipe out the Iranian civilisation fit this brief, according to Sands, who says Trump’s communication style is sometimes intended for a specific audience: “In this case, he’s messaging straight to the despots in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps that are literally mowing down citizens of Iran.”
She remains optimistic that there are “good people” working on the ground in Iran to create a “good and beneficial government”, pointing to a recent meeting she had with the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Europe-based opposition group.
The failure of the US’s Nato allies to back Trump’s war and get involved would not be forgotten, Sands adds. “Two years ago, I would’ve said, ‘Yes, Article Five is ironclad’ [but] they said no when Trump asked them to help open the Strait [of Hormuz].”
When it comes to Denmark, she claims the European country has never been able to defend Greenland and has never attempted to develop it. “Greenland languishes like a welfare state on just enough to keep it going, but not enough to develop economically.
“The EU is now really investing a lot more than they ever have into Greenland. Part of that, I think, is to counter President Trump. But what’s going to happen is Greenland will go independent in this century.”
The businesswoman has also served on boards including the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Ultimately, she believes, Trump is what the planet needs right now.
“The fact is, the world needs a strong, virtuous US president,” she said. “You could say, ‘Well, Donald Trump’s not virtuous.’ His policies are – so I don’t look at the man… We are all flawed, all of us, whether we’re followers or leaders, sinners and saints, but his policies are the best in my country’s history.”