Title: Congress Responds to Trump's Foreign Aggression & ICE Shooting

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Amina Srna: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Amina Srna, a producer here on the show, filling in for Brian today. Good morning, everyone. Coming up on today's show, WNYC and Gothamist transit reporter Stephen Nessen will join us to talk about all the news from his beat, including what Mayor Mamdani has done so far on bike lanes and street safety, how one year of congestion pricing has changed traffic patterns, and how the OMNY rollout is going since you can no longer buy or refill your MetroCard. Plus, later in the show, how to spot AI-generated content that I'm sure is now populating your social media feeds.

My guest is an expert in so-called digital deception, media literacy in the age of AI. Coming up later in the show. We'll wrap today's show with a conversation that I think was made for radio, all about the disappearing Southern drawl. No, I won't attempt to do it myself. There are issues of class, race, discrimination, and of course, what we lose when accents fade away, and everyone sounds starts to sound the same.

First, lawmakers are disputing the federal account of the fatal shooting of an American woman by US immigration and Customs Enforcement, which occurred yesterday in Minnesota. News outlets have identified the woman shot dead by a federal immigration agent as Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three. According to several state lawmakers, Good was at the scene of an ICE raid as a legal observer. Both President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called the shooting an act of self-defense on the part of the ICE agent.

At a press conference yesterday, Noem claimed that Good "weaponized her vehicle before being shot." Video of the shooting widely circulated on social media yesterday evening disputes that narrative. According to Democratic lawmakers, they're responding with outrage over what they believe is ICE's unchecked power to raid, detain, and use deadly force against immigrants, and now an American citizen.

In other news, Republican lawmakers are struggling to find a common messaging on President Trump's recent actions in Venezuela, days after the administration overthrew the leadership of former President Nicolás Maduro and arrested the former leader and his wife. President Trump is saying a core group of his advisors will run the country in the interim. That leadership, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are trying to soften that language.

On the other side of the aisle, Democratic lawmakers led by Virginia Senator Tim Kaine have scheduled a vote blocking further military action in Venezuela. Meanwhile, President Trump has turned his attention to Greenland, a territory of Denmark that the president wants the US to own, either through military force or by buying the country. Some Republican lawmakers are viewing those remarks as an aggression against NATO. Joining us now to break down all of this and more is Burgess Everett, Congressional Bureau Chief at Semafor. Burgess, welcome back to WNYC.

Burgess Everett: Hey, thank you. Good morning.

Amina Srna: Listeners, as we work through some of the national headlines of this morning, we can take a few of your comments or questions for Burgess Everett, what actions on ICE or Venezuela or Greenland would you like for your lawmakers to take? Is anyone actively contacting their local elected officials on these issues or anything else you want to ask or share? 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also text that number.

Burgess, let's start on the news from Minnesota. Democratic lawmakers are responding with outrage to the Trump administration's claims that an ICE agent responded in self defense when he shot and killed an American citizen yesterday. At the core of this is a very graphic video of the shooting which is being widely circulated on the news and online. For listeners who may not be familiar, can you just briefly describe what it shows?

Burgess Everett: Yes. I've watched the video a few times from different angles. It shows the woman, the driver in a car, blocking traffic and then being asked to get out of her car. She drives away, and the agent closest to her car shoots her as she drives away. She definitely drives near him. She doesn't appear to knock him over as the president and some other Republicans have said, and then she crashes her car. Pretty hard to watch, honestly.

Amina Srna: As you were just getting into their federal leadership, President Trump and Secretary Noem are doubling down on the narrative that the ICE agent acted in self-defense. What are they saying?

Burgess Everett: They're saying she weaponized her vehicle. I think there's going to be a lot of breakdown of this video frame by frame and all the different angles of what it shows because she definitely does drive towards one of the agents, but there's definitely some gray area in terms of what her intent was, and what the agents were asking her to do, and how she was responding to it. I expect this is going to be one of the most broken-down slow-mo videos of the year just to determine exactly what happened.

Amina Srna: Early reactions to the video are coming down really along party lines so far. Here is Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, speaking with CNN's Jake Tapper last night.

Speaker 3: We've all seen the video. We've seen it on multiple angles. You can see no ICE agent falls to the ground. No one is run over. To rewrite something that is still so visibly available everywhere that people can see just shows how disturbingly delusional our president has become. The people have their own eyes. They can make their own judgment.

Amina Srna: Burgess, Congresswoman Omar, they're making her case that she's seeing very different evidence in that video. How are Democrats pushing back against the Trump administration's narrative?

Burgess Everett: You have folks in Minnesota basically just telling ICE to get out of their state. They're saying it's creating unrest in their state, and obviously, someone died as a result of an interaction with an ICE officer. Minnesota Democrats are saying that, and then national Democrats are basically saying, this could be a murder and they're looking for accountability. I would say across the aisle, I think most Republicans are not necessarily echoing what Kristi Noem and Donald Trump have been saying word for word.

What they are saying is she should have complied with a federal agent and that there are consequences when you do not do that. It's pretty interesting to have this video here that we can all see and have these two very different reactions to the exact same video.

Amina Srna: On the other side of the aisle, Republican Congresswoman Lisa McClain of Minnesota stood with GOP leadership. In a series of posts on X, she blamed Democrats for ICE's actions, writing, "This is what happens when Democrats continue to demonize law enforcement, praying for all of our brave ICE agents who are working to keep us safe." Burgess, what are you hearing from Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill?

Burgess Everett: They aren't necessarily saying the ICE agent acted 100% in accordance with the law or what he should have been doing. What they are saying is that the woman who was killed should have complied, essentially, and that ICE is trying to make the country safer. There's a definite split just over the existence of ICE in these cities to begin with. We've seen that play out in other states, but this is obviously the most stark example of ICE's presence and the political reaction to them being there and the fallout from it.

It's been a little head-spinning, just zooming out a little bit because of Minnesota being a ground zero for politics just right now, with the governor leaving over this fraud scandal. He's not running for reelection and some interesting congressional races. I'm going to be watching closely how all these events affect the politics of it as well.

Amina Srna: One early text from a listener, they write, "I've called all my lawmakers this morning. ICE DHS and Secretary Noem must be called to account." With Democrats and Republicans at odds over the fatal shooting in Minnesota, what sort of power do congressional Democrats have to demand any accountability here?

Burgess Everett: Not a ton. We saw their lack of power a little bit in the fall when they shut the government down over the healthcare subsidies. That's again, an option. Senate Democrats could block a funding bill over this or any other issue. That's one piece of leverage. They've lost much leverage over the president's nominees. I would be looking, they need to take back the House and possibly the Senate to really have much leverage at all, and be able to counteract and fight the Trump administration.

The story of this Congress is Democratic voters wanting their members to fight back, but there are just limits exactly to what they can do. We have this January 30th government funding deadline for a big chunk of the government, and that would be the place, perhaps, where some Democrats could make a point. I think you'll see a lot of progressives probably saying we should not be funding ICE if this is the way it's going to happen.

Amina Srna: Before we move on to some other topics in national news, let's take a caller on this. Jim in Ocean County, you're on WMYC. Hi, Jim.

Jim: Oh, hi. This has been on the BBC. I hope that the country responds. It was literally within blocks of where George Floyd was strangled to death. The woman posed no threat to them. I would only correct the narrator that they physically tried to open her door. They didn't just demand that she step out. She did not imperil-- Kristi Noem ought to be not only resigned, but be indicted for spouting lies. I'm trying to not use profanity like the mayor of Minneapolis said, get the f out.

They've targeted that because of the Somalis in childcare, which is a separate issue. Kristi Noem stands there with a big hat in Texas, saying that they ran over one of the ICE agents. A flat-out lie. Just that she would make any statements so quickly after as an apologist for this. These people are hired. They signed up. They got a $50,000 sign-up. They're neither police. They don't have any law enforcement training. They're not military. They're just washouts with a gun license.

Amina Srna: Jim, thank you so much for your call there. For just several points that Jim brings up in his call. One, Minneapolis is also the location of the murder of George Floyd five years ago. Again, bringing this national picture, Minnesota being in the news for very sad reasons today. Also, where do you want to pick up on that? Minnesota also being in the crosshairs of the Trump administration about false rumors of fraud among the Somali immigration population. What do you have your eye on?

Burgess Everett: This is an example of a democratically run state that's really at odds with the Trump administration from top to bottom. There is, I would say, asterisk on that. It's one of the most powerful House Republicans, Tom Emmer represents Minnesota, but he's pretty on board with the way that the president and his administration has been dealing with the state. If you zoom out a little bit, you're totally right. This is where George Floyd was killed.

I think one thing that we're all watching is what happens today. Are there large protests, and where does this go? Does this become a nationalized protest movement against ICE? There's a lot of different ways this can play out. I can tell you, just in doing my job, which is often about these wonky policy issues or these internal fights in Congress, it definitely felt like a little bit of a record scratch moment yesterday after this video came out, because everybody dropped what they were doing to watch it.

Amina Srna: Let's take a few more calls. Let's go to Michael in Scarborough, Maine. Hi, Michael. You're on WNYC.

Michael: Hi. I agree with the previous caller about everything. I just want to say I'm the son of German immigrants who lived almost 15 years under Hitler's rule. Unfortunately, obviously, they got out. What is the difference between these thugs who come into communities with the masks and all the armament to arrest people who basically have immigration issues? This was inevitable, as the governor said, when they come in like this, full of guns.

I'm outraged, and to expect these feckless Republicans to do anything. There's maybe one Tom Massie who had the guts to stand against Trump. It's not even worth talking about the Republicans. We just need to solidify our reactions against Trump, his administration, and his policies, including this ICE, which is just outrageous.

Amina Srna: Michael, thank you so much for your call. Burgess, we're getting several calls and texters along these same lines, really venting their frustration with what has culminated in a death of an American citizen yesterday in Minnesota. Let's take one more call on this. Kylie in Northern Virginia wants to push back a little bit thinking in saying I think that Democrats can do something. Kylie, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Kylie: Hi. Good morning. This notion that Democratic leadership can't do anything, I think we have to stop saying that. I told the screener when the government shut down President Trump on every federal website had a count up clock. The Democrats have shut down the government with a clock running. I just drove past the Kennedy Center two weeks ago. It almost crushed my spirit to see the Trump Kennedy Center written up there. I didn't see a band of Democratic leaders. This is in Washington, DC.

I didn't see anybody there trying to block him from doing that. This notion of like we can't do anything to bring public attention to the craziness that's happening that is a misnomer, and we have to stop saying that because there are things that the Democratic leaders can be doing. I don't know why everybody's not walking around with placards on or big poster boards talking about these atrocities. I want us to stop saying that there's nothing or the Democrats, they don't know what they could be doing. Literally, they could meet President Trump's pettiness, and that would be enough for me. There is stuff that we can do to bring public attention to this nonsense that's happening.

Amina Srna: Thank you so much for your call, Kylie. I think Kylie making a point there that there's more of a protest stand that Democrats could be making more symbolic, which we'll get into a little bit later in covering the national news. Burgess, do you have a response to that?

Burgess Everett: Yes. I think she's totally right that there's two buckets of what the opposition party can do. I'm in the Capitol every day, and my focus is always on how the government is being run. I'm focused on what levers of power they have, which have been reduced even in the past year, and they're in the minority in both chambers. To me, for them structurally to change and fight the Trump administration more effectively, I think it's about winning the midterm elections.

She is also right that there's also a public opinion is important. There's certainly a lot of folks in the party that think Democratic leaders could fight them harder rhetorically and do more around the country and in DC to show that they're fighting. That's certainly a valid point.

Amina Srna: For those of you just joining us, this is The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Amina Srna, normally a producer on the show, filling in for Brian today. Moving on to Venezuela, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat, has introduced a war powers resolution limiting military actions in Venezuela. Here is Senator Kaine on NPR's Morning Edition earlier today.

Senator Tim Kaine: It directs the president to cease the use of US military and hostilities against Venezuela, and it has a specific exception where the US always has the ability to defend itself from attack or imminent attack. It would direct the president to cease military operations. It would have to be passed by the House and go to the president's desk. The president would likely veto it. I've been down this path before, and what I found is when Congress passes a resolution like this, it's an effective message to the president that the American public is tired of war, and it's time to back off.

Amina Srna: Burgess, as the senator said in that clip and as you report, he's been down this path before. Back in November, he put forward a similar resolution in the Senate, which failed 49 to 51. Can you refresh our memories what happened in November?

Burgess Everett: Yes. This was when the boat strikes were occurring on a fairly regular basis. I actually talked to Senator Kaine this week as well, and he said Republicans told him then they didn't really think that Trump was going to take action inside the country. Obviously, the capture of Maduro has changed that calculus. I spoke to the handful of the undecided Republicans, or those who wouldn't say how they're going to vote, yesterday, and this is going to come to the Senate floor this morning.

It's a fast-moving story, and I'll be watching it closely. Some of the folks that not 100% sure how they're going to vote, Senator Collins from Maine, Senator Moran from Kansas, and Senator Young from Indiana. I would say, and I know we'll transition a little bit to Greenland probably in a little bit, but I feel like there's been these briefings on Capitol Hill. I don't sense a ton of outrage from Republicans over the Trump administration's handling of this Maduro raid, which I think is the main thing that they will be having in their mind as they vote on this.

Now, that isn't to say this won't change two months, six months, a year from now, depending on how entangled or not the United States gets in Venezuela. Definitely, I don't sense this, 20 Republican defections on this Venezuela vote. It's going to be close. Even if it passes, the Senate probably wouldn't pass the House, and as Senator Kaine said, the president would veto it. What I do think is interesting is Senator Kaine has been pretty consistent on this issue. He actually took on President Obama over authorizing military force for conflicts back in the day. He's one of these few members who's relatively consistent on an issue like this.

Amina Srna: Senator Kaine told Semafor that Republicans thought the president was bluffing on Venezuela back in November. Do the administration's recent actions in Venezuela sway Republicans to stand with Democrats this time around?

Burgess Everett: It doesn't feel like that to me, but I do think that there is a small chance that a couple of Republicans could change their mind. This is a weird vote because you just need a majority to get this thing to advance. 49 to 51 was the November vote. You had Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul in favor of that. Lisa Murkowski has not said explicitly she's going to vote for it, but if you count her in the yes column, you just need to flip two more.

It's definitely possible, and I would think even more likely perhaps later in the year if things go south a bit in Venezuela. I will say right now a lot of Republicans were pretty happy with the way the Trump administration conducted the capture of Maduro. The briefings this week seem to validate their support for it.

Amina Srna: Let's go to a call. Lauren in the Bronx. You're on WNYC.

Lauren: Thank you for taking my call. I'm calling to ask his opinion on having impeachment hearings, even though we know that it's going to fail, for the purpose of having these issues, the boats, Maduro, Minneapolis in the public space on primetime television and radio night after night after night, so that there's a full chance to make the argument in the strongest possible terms and to have that these impeachment hearings supervised by professional media, like they did with January 6th.

I believe it was ABC that came in and formatted it so it would appeal to the public. I think Congress desperately needs that because it has to appeal to the viewing public. I think that would also make Liz Cheney's prediction that there will come a time when Donald Trump is no longer here, but your dishonor will remain. I want to make sure that happens. I think making Republicans go on the record saying nay makes it much harder for them in 2028 to say, "Well, I was always against Trump. I was always the one saying no."

There'll be a record. I think that they need to have that. Then, just as a related digression, with Steve Miller saying might makes right, didn't King Arthur take care of that sometime in medieval times by inventing civil law? Are we back to suits of armor and kerns on the battlefield? I think there's that as a historical aside.

Amina Srna: Lauren, thank you so much for your call. Burgess, I'll just add before I get your take, President Trump recently told House Republicans at a party retreat that they must retain control of the chamber in the midterm elections. New York Times reports he said that he is expecting to face a third impeachment if Democrats retake the majority. Where do you want to come in on Lauren's call?

Burgess Everett: Sure. In the next year, obviously, from the minority, unless something crazy happens with the House, which is very narrow right now, you can't really install an official impeachment hearing as a Democrat. You would need Republican support right now from the leadership. That's obviously fairly hard to imagine at this point. Democrats could hold shadow hearings. I'm not sure they would get the same level of attention as what she was referring to on the January 6th committee back in 2020 and 2022.

Again, options are limited. However, there's a big debate in the Democratic Party about whether to talk about impeaching President Trump if they do win the House majority. I think you're going to see a split where folks in progressive districts. For example, I talked to George Conway, who's running in the New York's 12th district to replace Jerry Nadler. He's running on an impeachment and removal platform. Then I'm not sure, you will see that same rhetoric from most of the folks who are running in these purple battleground seats, which are the ones that will actually decide the majority. A little bit of a strategic split there in the Democratic Party about how to talk about this.

Amina Srna: As Senator Kaine notes in that clip that we just played, the president is likely to veto the limit on his own powers put forward by Congress, whether this resolution passes or fails today. Burgess, what's the point?

Burgess Everett: I think Tim Kaine's honestly done an interesting job over the past year using these privileged resolutions to force Republicans to take votes. We've seen that on the war powers, and we've also seen it on Trump's tariffs. One of those Trump tariff resolutions did pass. That's interesting. We're talking a lot about what can Democrats do? What can Democrats do? Here's a senator who's found a creative way to get Republicans to vote on stuff that Democrats want.

In some ways that is about all they can do, at least in the halls of Congress. He doesn't force this vote. We're not talking about how Republicans are going to vote on Venezuela. We're talking about it in a more theoretical sense, and just what they're saying. It's always more interesting in Congress when you actually have to take a roll call vote on it. Look at the health care three-year ACA subsidies extension that got a first vote in the House yesterday. It got nine Republicans. You never would have known that. You never would have had that information had they not forced the discharge petition and forced to vote on it in the House.

Amina Srna: Burgess, moving on to Greenland. The Trump administration has previously said it would take Greenland, a territory of Denmark by military force. Now that talking point has shifted. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers Trump's latest plan is to buy the country. Remind us again, why does the Trump administration want Greenland?

Burgess Everett: They want it for two reasons. It's a strategic asset, basically as a bulwark to Russia, and it's a big territory that they see as part of their Western hemisphere strategy. Then they also have these rare earth minerals and perhaps other resources that the administration seems to covet. Pretty straightforward, they think it'd be better for the United States to have Greenland. They are basically saying they don't understand why Denmark is controlling it.

Amina Srna: We have a listener on Greenland calling in. Gary from Sunnyside, you're on WNYC.

Gary: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. The citizens of Greenland have free universal health care. Now, if the US were actually to take Greenland, it seems to me there's two possibilities. They would do away with the free health care, which I think would cause some serious unrest among the citizens of Greenland but if they decided to keep the free health care in place, how would they justify that to all of the millions of Americans who have no health care at all? I'll take the response off the air.

Amina Srna: Gary, thanks so much for your call. Burgess, I'm not sure if the administration has-- We'll talk about what Secretary of State Rubio has said so far on what the US actually plans on doing in Greenland, but we haven't gotten so far as to think about health care or anything like that, right?

Burgess Everett: No, we haven't. I would just add Amina as we're talking about it, like Marco Rubio saying that, but the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, has put out statements refusing to take military action off the table. That's something that I'm sure we'll get into, but has caused a little bit of a disconnect and has a lot of people scratching their heads.

Amina Srna: Let's talk about what Secretary Rubio has said. While the Trump administration indicates that US will run Venezuela for a time, you write that Secretary Rubio has spoken in more traditional diplomatic terms, previewing a quarantine of oil exports designed to cajole its new leadership into falling in line with Washington's demands. As we hear, as you just previewed, Karoline Leavitt disagreeing and saying military forces on the table for Greenland, Secretary Rubio saying not, and the Trump administration saying it's running Venezuela for a time, Secretary Rubio saying previewing a quarantine of oil exports. Can you tell us a bit more about Rubio's role as Secretary of State here? You refer to him as Rubio, the careful in your recent reporting.

Burgess Everett: He's got to take a lot of these bombastic statements from the president and transform them into being a traditional diplomat. I think the best example probably of that is we will run Venezuela, which is what Trump says and Rubio says, well, we will run the policy. He's basically saying we are going to use leverage to get Venezuela to behave the way we want them to, and then, in theory, transition to a free and fair election where they can govern themselves.

That sounds pretty hard, but that's closer to the vision that Rubio is projecting. However, Trump's commander-in-chief, Rubio's job is to implement what he says. I'm guessing that the truth is a little bit in between those two things.

Amina Srna: A listener asks, "May I ask what money or how are we going to buy Greenland with the trillions of dollars in debt the US is in?" Has there been a concrete proposal or negotiation on what sort of money is on the table here?

Burgess Everett: Denmark says Greenland's not for sale. We can start there, but it's a great question. I think Congress would probably have to authorize the amount of money it would take, even if Denmark were to sell Greenland. It's really hard to see that happening. That sounds really complicated to me. No, we haven't really gotten to the nuts and bolts about what the asking price or the mortgage payment would be on Greenland.

Amina Srna: We're getting a text that is pushing back on the way that Greenland is being discussed. Listener texts, "Why are you discussing Greenland as if it were an idea made by a sane person? You're covering it like a 'normal' news story, and I think pretty interesting critique." I'll leave it at that. Burgess, as you mentioned, the commander-in-chief is talking about military action here, so worth taking that prospect pretty seriously, I believe.

Burgess Everett: For sure. I think the other element of this, which I discovered really yesterday, is that even just talking about that, even just keeping it on the table, it makes a lot of Republicans super uneasy. Right now, as we're talking, the Danish ambassador is meeting with a bipartisan group of senators, and it's being hosted by Senator Roger Wicker, who's the Armed Services Committee chairman, and he's a Republican from Mississippi.

We have a bunch of quotes in the story yesterday from Republicans who want Trump to stop talking about the military action in Greenland and take it off the table, because simply just talking about it rattles our NATO alliance. Rhetoric is very important, and I think there's a lot of people in the Republican Party on Capitol Hill who are uneasy with the administration's rhetoric.

Amina Srna: Let's take a call. Alan in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Alan.

Alan: Good morning, and thank you. Let me get off speaker here. There's a big inconsistency in Trump's positions, surprise, surprise, about the necessity to have Greenland to guard against an assumed long-term Russian threat at the same time that he's a man that will often prefer to believe Russian intelligence over our own and to credit Russian intentions on Ukraine over Zelensky's.

Either we're trusting Russia, in which case there is no per se Russian threat across the Arctic that needs to give title to Greenland to the United States, or if they are a big threat, then he shouldn't be trusting them in public statements at microphones year after year.

Amina Srna: Alan, thank you so much for your call. Burgess, the US already has one military base in Greenland. I saw in your reporting you mentioning the New York Times reports that under a little-known Cold War agreement, the United States already enjoys sweeping military access in Greenland. You touched on this briefly in some of your reporting. What's happening there? What military access does the US enjoy in Greenland?

Burgess Everett: I think that the traditional diplomatic channel that most Republicans prefer that the president use is negotiate with Denmark to increase that military presence, and do it in a way that both countries agree upon. That's very different from taking Greenland and making it a part of the United States. I view those two things as pretty incompatible. I think a lot of people are laughing off what Trump says, saying we would never take military action in Greenland.

That's perhaps true, but it does seem like he has serious designs on taking the territory. How do you do that if it's not for sale? It's difficult to reconcile because it doesn't seem like the president's goal is merely to just increase the US presence there. It seems more like he wants the country.

Amina Srna: A listener also notes we already have a base in Greenland, as we mentioned, and could easily negotiate for minerals and anything else that Trump wants for US Defense. Before I let you go, Burgess, I want to take one last caller here with some really interesting historical context for the conversation that we're having today, which might seem a little bit squishy. Can the US buy another country? Apparently, it's not the first time the US has tried. George in Manhattan, you're on WNYC.

George: Indeed, President Truman tried to buy Greenland in 1946 for $100 million in gold, and Denmark said no. This is not unprecedented. It is extremely heart-wrenching that this present so-called president had the audacity and the nerve to do what President Truman tried to do and was rebuffed by Denmark. That's all I have to say. I'm extremely upset about the notion, the idea that they tried to do it again.

Amina Srna: George, thank you so much for your call. Burgess, I will add in one more listener who furthers that narrative that George was talking about 1946. Then, a little bit more context, the US signed an agreement with Greenland in '52, which gives us the ability to add US military to our US base there. Pretty interesting. We also get some pushback, as has been the case throughout all of this segment and all the national news that we have covered so far.

Mordecai from Jersey writes, "While I don't agree with the methods or threats, it is imperative for US military control of the sea lanes across the Arctic." Anything you want to add to this moment in time, and why Trump administration is so focused on Greenland?

Burgess Everett: I would say it's not necessarily a new focus. We were talking about this about a year ago, and there was some serious talk about it. I think what has changed and why people are taking this more seriously is because of what happened in Venezuela. There does seem a direct connection there because of Trump has followed through on some of the things that people doubted that he would do, including bombing Iran and then ousting Maduro. I think that's made this a bit more serious conversation, and frankly, made it a little bit more difficult for me to hear people just laugh it off as Trump's just talking. You got to take it a little bit more seriously now.

Amina Srna: On your reporting, a listener text, "I wonder if Putin gave Trump the idea of 'taking' Greenland because Putin's dream is to break up NATO." You have reported that there are actually within Congress Republican members who are pretty hard-line NATO supporters. Can you just talk to us about how this is playing out in Congress on both sides of the aisle?

Burgess Everett: Yes. This is a rare issue, I think, where Republicans are willing to challenge the president because of the importance of NATO. My focus is on the Senate, and this has been the NATO engine more so than the House recently on the Republican side. That's translated to more money for Ukraine in their fight against Russia, for example. I do think that there are a lot of Republicans who don't like this Greenland rhetoric and are worried it's destabilizing NATO. We'll see.

The other element here is Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State said he will be meeting with Danish officials next week. We'll see if this can come to some sort of conclusion. I think there's a large desire in the Republican Party in Congress for the administration to just cool down the rhetoric a little bit.

Amina Srna: That's all the time we have for today. My guest has been Burgess Everett, Congressional Bureau Chief for the news site Semafor. Burgess, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Burgess Everett: Thanks for having me, Amina. Appreciate it.

 

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