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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Sources: Trump Admin Discussing Insurrection Act As Last Resort; Greenlanders Defiant Amid Trump's Threats: "We Will Never Give In"; Shapiro: Harris' Vetting Team Asked "Offensive" Israel Question. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired January 19, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: And he says he's seen the media sensationalize his guys and how tightly knit they are hugging on the practice field.
[16:00:06]
He says he is tired of that. Listen to this.
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CURT CIGNETTI, INDIANA HEAD COACH: I think it's time to sharpen the saw now. Throw those warm fuzzies over out the door, that sentimentalism. You know, it's time to go play a game against a great opponent. We got to have a sharp edge going into this game. And, you know, you don't go to war with warm milk and cookies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: No milk and cookies for you.
Hey, good news for these astronomical ticket prices here to this game. The price has just dropped. The cheapest ticket now to get in is only $3,500.
ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Back down 500 bucks in the nosebleed.
Coy, thanks. Danny and I will make it just in time for kickoff.
DANNY FREEMAN, CNN HOST: Perfect.
And THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.
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AUDIE CORNISH, CNN HOST: Hey there, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. Kasie Hunt is away today. I'm Audie Cornish, and it's great to have you on with us this Monday.
Right now, we're going to turn to Minnesota. A potential standoff between federal troops and the states mobilized National Guard. A source telling CNN that the Pentagon has prepared 1,500 active duty troops for possible deployment to the state. And sources familiar with the matter say the senior White House officials are still discussing invoking the Insurrection Act, although they view it as a last resort.
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CORNISH: A chaotic scene inside a church in Saint Paul yesterday. So, protesters disrupted the service, alleging that one of the pastors is an ICE officer. Today, the Justice Department announced that it's actually investigating the incident, with Attorney General Pam Bondi accusing Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz of, quote, whipping these mobs into a frenzy and then allowing them to run rampant, end quote.
Sources say that the DOJ is also investigating the two leaders for possible obstruction of law enforcement. Now, as that happens, were learning more about the investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good. Two sources tell CNN that the FBI briefly opened an investigation into Jonathan Ross. That's the ICE agent who shot and killed good. In a highly unusual move, the investigation was shifted to focus instead on the actions of the victim and those around her.
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KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We are following the exact same investigative and review process that we always have under ICE and under the Department of Homeland Security and within the administration, the exact same policy that the Biden administration used. So, the exact --
(CROSSTALK)
HOST: His actions are being reviewed?
NOEM: We haven't changed any of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Okay. Let's get off the sidelines and head into THE ARENA.
My panel is here, along with CNN's Julia Vargas Jones. She's actually live outside that church in Saint Paul that was interrupted by protesters.
And, Julia, I understand you actually got to speak with one of those activists who was the organizer. What did you learn?
JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, she was one of the organizers, Audie. And I wanted to understand what was the thinking behind going through to a place of worship and disrupting service in that manner? If they accomplished what they wanted to accomplish when they came to this church behind me. She basically brushed off that concern and said their point was still made in this demonstration.
Take a listen.
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NEKIMA LEVY ARMSTRONG, ATTORNEY AND FOUNDER OF THE RACIAL JUSTICE NETWORK: It's unconscionable and unacceptable for someone to claim to serve as a pastor, while also being responsible for a lot of what is happening here in our community. They should seem shocked that one of their pastors is the director of ICE. That should be the most shocking thing that they should be concerned about. Not peaceful demonstrators coming to the church and making them aware of the duality of David Easterwood.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: David Easterwood is the acting field office director of enforcement and removal operations for ICE in Saint Paul.
Now, when we reached out to DHS to confirm if that was the same person who is a pastor at this church, the Department of Homeland Security said that they would not confirm whether or not that was the same person. They said that DHS would never confirm the identity or deny attempts to dox their law enforcement officers, basically, to your point to what you mentioned earlier in that same statement, Audie, referencing the safety of these agents and how that is their concern more than the point that those protesters were making here.
Now, Attorney General Pam Bondi had also said last night that she had spoken to the pastor in Minnesota, whose church was targeted.
[16:05:00]
And then she said attacks against law enforcement and the intimidation of Christians are being met with the full force of federal law nudge as well to that investigation that you mentioned, Audie.
CORNISH: Okay. Julia Vargas Jones speaking to us from Saint Paul.
My panel is here in THE ARENA. CNN political commentator Jonah Goldberg, CNN's senior reporter Isaac Dovere, CNN political commentator and former DOJ official, Xochitl Hinojosa, and Republican strategist and former RNC communications director, Doug Heye.
We're all joined also by former acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau, Major General Randy Manner.
So, I want to start with you, General. As we are listening to this conversation, it feels like the right day to have it, given how people talked about the protests during the civil rights era, as people were agitated and -- agitators and people who were considered disruptive to the social fabric.
What do you make of sort of how these protests have escalated?
MAJOR GENERAL RANDY MANNER, U.S. ARMY (RET.): It's something where, again, any time that people are feeling their civil rights are not being respected, you're going to have very angry people, and rightfully so. So there's obviously a lot of undertones to the way that the ICE thugs are, quite frankly, treating these people, whether they are citizens or non-citizens, they are still human beings. And this kind of activity, which has been documented again and again by various videos. It's just very unconscionable and very unfortunate. CORNISH: Bringing in the rest of you, guys.
Stephen Miller was tweeting or posting or whatever people are doing these days, saying, "Only federal officers are upholding the law. Local and state police have been ordered to stand down and surrender."
I want to parse this because of this conversation about the Insurrection Act. What's your interpretation of him saying that that local and state police have been ordered to stand down?
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think what's happening in Minneapolis right now, we know that if there is an increase in law enforcement, federal law enforcement, it will only ramp things up. And I think local law enforcement is not -- they should -- they don't understand how to enforce immigration law. And so, I think it is one of these situations where if we do increase law enforcement presence on the ground, it will only end up causing even more chaos.
And what I find interesting about all of this and in the earlier reporting, is that they are sort of out there selectively enforcing the law. They're out there, you know, they're investigating the protesters, they're investigating Renee Good, but they're not necessarily investigating the officer who conducted the shooting, which is clear. He's in clear violation of DOJ policy as well as ICE policy and potentially federal law.
CORNISH: So, the conversation right now is a public that is dissatisfied with how with ICE tactics, air quotes. But the longer protests happen that people will have strong feelings about, does that affect this conversation? I don't know. You were watching the video very closely in the church.
JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So a couple different things. First of all, on the Stephen Miller thing, I've read the Constitution a couple of times. Nowhere in there does it say that the White House deputy chief of staff can order local law enforcement in a sovereign state to do -- I almost curse -- anything, and it's all -- not like maybe I missed some reporting that there has been some order or request made from federal authorities --
CORNISH: I think what they're generally saying, they're often arguing that local officials aren't cooperating.
GOLDBERG: No, I get that they're not cooperating. But like the president, never mind the white -- deputy White House chief of staff doesn't get to tell local law enforcement officers to lay down their weapons and surrender. I don't know what the hell that means.
On this, look, I have contempt for a lot of people in this whole thing. I think it is just incredibly selfish, myopic, and ill-advised to storm a church for this kind of protest. It doesn't help the situation at all. And what we have is basically what they call an economist, a Baptist and bootlegger situation where the most extreme people on the left have an interest in heightening tensions, and the most extreme people in the White House have an interest in heightening tensions.
CORNISH: Can I add to what you're saying? The bishop of New Hampshire -- in New Hampshire, I think, is an episcopal bishop. Bishop had been warning his clergy, he said, I've asked them to get their affairs in order to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world.
I think what he's saying, the church is not going to be on the sidelines, that that the gap between the bootleggers and Baptists, as you said, is going to close as you have more and more people speaking up.
GOLDBERG: Yes. I don't normally quote Yeats here, but the center is not holding, right?
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Most Americans, they don't like this chaos. They want -- they don't like people interfering with law enforcement, and they don't like law enforcement behaving like thugs.
But there are these people who want to heighten the contradictions and make it so that you have to choose sides on one side or the other. It's not good for the country. It's not good for these immigrants. It's not good for Minneapolis.
CORNISH: Yeah.
GOLDBERG: It puts a lot of people in danger.
ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: And the question that comes, what is the responsibility of the federal government, right? When you have activists all over the place who are trying to heighten tensions, the people who are supposed to be looking out for what's good for the country are the people in the White House, the president of the United States, deputy chief of staff, all those people. And it is a question of whether that -- how they are interpreting what that means, right? Whether doing what's best for the country, for them seems to be to continue to exacerbate the situation rather than to try to defuse it.
CORNISH: Randy, can I just bring you in for a second? I feel like there have been mass protest movements and civil disobedience in this country, cyclically. And occasionally, the federal government is called in and troops are called in, right? We saw that in the civil rights period to protect desegregation efforts. But are we walking in that direction now or are we running?
MANNER: Actually, it's not anything like what has been done before. Whenever both Eisenhower as well as JFK called in troops into the south to enforce civil rights laws, federal civil rights laws, this that was done to protect the rights of individuals. This particular incursion is the reverse of that. It's to actually infringe upon the personal liberties of those people in Minneapolis. And of course, it's not about de-escalating. It's about escalating the tensions. It also makes me wonder, as a military retired general officer why are
we using an arctic trained and equipped brigade to go into Minneapolis? Who is the president listening to? We only have two brigades of those kind of forces. I tell you what, it also makes me wonder, are they preparing for something else? For example, to potentially reinforce U.S. bases in Greenland because we could take any forces in the United States to potentially use in Minneapolis? And of course, that begs the question, why do it at all?
But we already know the answer to that is that this particular administration does not want to see any kind of demonstrations against him. And so, this is a very difficult and very dangerous situation where we might have federal troops on one side saying U.S. army and on the other side of the line, national guard troops, their brothers and sisters, whose uniforms also say U.S. Army on them.
And this is unprecedented. It's unnecessary. And again, it is not in any way supporting the governor or the mayor there in Minneapolis. This is absolutely a misuse of military resources.
CORNISH: Doug, can I bring you in here? Because I feel like going into midterms, you're going to have Republicans that are going to be out talking about this moment. And there is definitely a world where they describe it as the anarchy, the street protests, like the kind of the way they did after 2020.
DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Sure. But this isn't what Republicans want to be talking about. They see the same polls that everybody else does that the country, by and large, does not like this. Some on the right are happy to see, you know, federal officers there enforcing law however, they may see.
In Minneapolis, obviously those on the left feel differently. But that center is saying over and over again, please talk about and address what's important to us. And that is overwhelmingly jobs, the economy and prices. CBS had a poll this morning that came out, 74 percent of independent voters said this administration is spending too little time focused on the economy.
That means they're not focused on, or at least appear not to be focused on, what voters are saying very loudly. Please focus on what we deal with every day.
DOVERE: And the question is, when you have people, even if they are extreme hardliners on immigration and want massive deportations, many of them are responding to this and saying, well, we still don't want to see people get shot or pulled out of their cars. And those scenes are clearly troubling. A lot of Americans, wherever they are on the political spectrum.
HEYE: And the reality is Trump also could take a huge victory lap and say, we're not even talking about securing the border anymore because the border is secure. That's a conversation that we've really stopped.
CORNISH: Has anyone heard a single metric for when this is over? I think Kristi Noem was asked this weekend that question. HINOJOSA: But I also think that they claim and they believe that this
is a good thing for them. I think going into the midterm elections, while the president -- while the center might think that this -- they don't want to be talking about this, they want to talk about costs. I do think that the president would like to be in Democratic cities and show that, you know, it is Democrats that where there is large amounts of crime and where immigration is a problem, et cetera.
But the problem is, is that Donald Trump is in charge. This is his problem as well.
CORNISH: I just to play devil's advocate here, I do not underestimate the capacity of a Democrat to step on a rake, sort of like messaging wise. And --
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HEYE: Storming a church is a good way to do that.
CORNISH: Well --
HINOJOSA: Well, look at Minneapolis.
CORNISH: It's not just that. It's what do you say to the people who are storming the church? How do you fill in the gap between what is the issue that people are frustrated on and the issue of which you could step in and be the solution if you don't have solutions? I'm not judging here, but I do want to hear from you guys. If you see anybody stepping into that gap and finding a way.
Right now, we're hearing, you know, Minnesota lawmakers are sort of politically vulnerable because of this scandal in the Somali community. So who helps? Who steps in?
HINOJOSA: Yeah. And I think that part of where you see Democrats stepping in it a little bit is when they're talking about abolishing ICE, that is a conversation.
CORNISH: That went really well last time.
HINOJOSA: I don't -- that's a conversation that I don't think anybody should be having. They should have talks about how maybe to reform ICE. I think I should not be under DHS anymore. I think it should be under DOJ.
But I mean, I think there are some reforms you can make without calling for abolishing ICE. You can also be you know, for reducing violent crime and not in some of these states where violent crime is fine.
GOLDBERG: I also think there's a messaging -- I don't normally give a lot of advice to Democrats or Republicans these days, but there's messaging that says the way they're doing this is putting ICE agents in danger.
CORNISH: Yeah. GOLDBERG: Like this is not how -- if you actually want to do a surge into a place, you don't announce it beforehand and turn it into this Spanish civil war kind of thing.
CORNISH: Okay, hold on one second, guys. We're going to talk more about this. I want to say goodbye to Major General Randy Manner. I hope I can speak to you again soon. Thank you so much for being with us.
And coming up in THE ARENA. Is 2028 really that far away? Ahead, how Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is shedding some light and some shade on his relationship with Kamala Harris.
Plus, Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal will enter THE ARENA. I'll get her take on the situation in Minnesota as local leaders accused the federal government of an invasion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR JACOB FREY (D), MINNESOTA: Invaded, under siege, occupied, you know, use whatever word or superlative that you want to attach. But the bottom line is what is taking place is designed to intimidate. It is not fair. It's not just and it's completely unconstitutional.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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CORNISH: That was the scene inside a church in Saint Paul, Minnesota, this Sunday. Protesters disrupting the service and claiming that the pastor is an ICE officer. Well, today, DHS is declining to confirm whether the pastor is an officer saying that would amount to doxing.
Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington is in THE ARENA. She is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and ranking member of the Immigration, Integrity, Security and Enforcement Committee.
Thank you so much for being here.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Thank you for having me, Audie.
CORNISH: So first, I want to start with this protest in a church. We were talking here on the panel about whether that is going too far, disrupting a service. What do you think?
JAYAPAL: Well, I haven't reviewed the entire video for that, but I will just say that the vast majority of protesters, like 99.9 percent, have been engaging in peaceful protest. And a court decision on Friday reaffirmed that. And actually said that it's the tactics of ICE agents and CBP agents that are the problem here that are violating constitutional protections. You do have the right to peacefully say that you disagree, to follow
ICE agents and record what they are doing at a safe distance. And the reality is, it's been ICE and CBP that's been really inflaming tensions and making people less safe rather than more safe.
CORNISH: Now you actually are part of the movement to abolish ICE. I think back in 2018, you introduced a bill around that, that would have sort of moved its funding and positions to other agencies. Do you want to see the return to the slogan abolish ICE and a return to that movement?
JAYAPAL: Audie, I never used the words "abolish ICE". And if you look carefully at that bill that I introduced, what I said is that the agency itself of ICE, which never existed prior to 2001. As you remember, the Department of Homeland Security was created in the wake of 9/11 and a whole number of different departments and agencies were put together under DHS. That's when ICE was created.
So, my bill back then, and I never used the language "abolish ICE", was really about restructuring DHS, moving the enforcement activities of ICE to another place, and making sure that we had very good guardrails and accountability in place. I still believe that that is the decision we should be having.
And at a minimum, what we should be doing right now when we don't have the gavels, we're not in control, is saying that we're not going to fund another penny to ICE and CBP, without significant accountability and guardrails, things like you cant arrest somebody without a judicial warrant, that you have to make sure that bond hearings are legitimately processed, that people have access to those, that people can't be masked -- ICE and CBP agents can't be masked and hiding their identities, while they're in communities.
These are the kinds of things that I think every American agrees with and is horrified by as we watch the scenes out of Minneapolis.
(CROSSTALK)
CORNISHI: The reason why I ask is, let me jump in here. The reason why I ask is, before you get the gavel, you got to convince people, right, that Democrats will do something once they have it.
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And right now, when we were looking at CNN polling, our Democrats in Congress doing enough to oppose Donald Trump, 78 percent said too little. So there is a big gap between what you want to be doing and what you're talking about doing, and whether or not the public believes you.
JAYAPAL: No, I think that's legit. And I think that it really comes from the Senate, frankly, not to cast shade on the other chamber, but it is in the senate where you actually have to get 60 votes to stop things. And that's why I hope that in the House, we will have a big vote against this funding of ICE and CBP without those significant guardrails, if we get them, great. But I don't think we will. And it is in the Senate where they'll have to block it, because that's
the place where you actually need Democratic votes to be able to do something.
CORNISH: One of the reasons why I know you and when you came to prominence is as an activist, post-9/11, where you were in a group that was actually able to push back against the Bush administration when they went after Somali immigrants because they were Muslim, right? And they were doing a deportation effort then.
Do you feel like you actually, in a way, were more successful and more powerful as a volunteer activist than you are right now as a ranking member with a gavel?
JAYAPAL: Well, I don't have a gavel yet, but once I have a gavel, I promise you I will be just as powerful. I mean, look, I came in from the outside because I do think Congress needs to do much more. And Democrats, my own party, needs to do much more on this issue of immigration.
(CROSSTALK)
CORNISH: But I ask because the activists on the street right now, they feel a kind of helplessness. Right? That's how you end up bullying your way into a church. And you've been in that chair. Youve been the person who was the activist and felt like lawmakers weren't doing enough. Do you understand their frustration?
JAYAPAL: Of course. But I just held a hearing, not having a gavel. I still had an accountability hearing in Minneapolis with 28 Democratic members, not a single Republican showed up where we had a hearing. This is the sixth in a series that I've been doing called kidnapped and disappeared.
So, in many ways, I feel like I'm bringing my activist organizer talents into Congress and organizing inside Congress. And I would just say Republicans are not showing up at all. They're giving away the power of the purse. And so as much as I'm pushing my own party to be strong on this issue and many others, the reality is we have a system where Republicans have turned over all of the power that is in the Constitution given to Congress to fight Donald Trump on anything.
And so, I think that, you know, I've seen a lot of gratitude from activists and organizers in the immigration space. But in every space and the affordability space and the health care space for what we are doing to really push our own party to be strong, as well as to stand up to these Republicans who are literally giving away the power of the purse, giving away the power of Congress to Donald Trump.
They're essentially a cult party that's following one guy. That's not what the constitution intended. It intended for Congress to be a, you know, a check and a balance. And not a single very few Republicans, I should say, other than maybe Thomas Massie and a few others are actually standing up to him.
CORNISH: Okay. Congresswoman Jayapal, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.
JAYAPAL: Thank you, Audie.
CORNISH: Coming up in THE ARENA, we at CNN have obtained a copy of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's upcoming memoir. Ahead, the question about Israel that Kamala Harris's VP vetting team asked that Shapiro says was offensive.
Plus, CNN is live on the ground in Greenland. You'll hear what Greenlanders are saying about President Donald Trump's escalating threats to take over their country.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a bit like a spoiled child turned old, and you think he can and he can think he can scare people. He can't scare Greenlanders. We're not scared. We -- we'll fight them to the end and we'll never give in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's out of his mind. Really? He's losing his mind. Well, he lost a long time ago. It's a bit like a spoiled child turned old. And you think he can. And he can think he can scare people. He can't scare Greenlanders. We're not scared.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Greenlanders defiant in the face of threats from President Trump to take over their homeland. In a newly obtained text messages between Norway's prime minister and President Trump, the president seemed to tie his efforts to acquire Greenland to his unsuccessful bid for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Yesterday, Norway's prime minister texting President Trump in part, quote, we believe we all should work to take this down and deescalate. So much is happening around us where we need to stand together. President Trump responds little less than 30 minutes later with this, "Dear Jonas, considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped eight wars, plus I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace.
Although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China. And why do they have a right of ownership anyway?"
CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson joins us now from Greenland. Nic, I just want to start to how NATO allies are responding to this
throughout the day and how they're even preparing for this level of threat.
[16:35:01]
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The secretary general of NATO has met with the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers. There's a definite sound of unity on Arctic security coming from them. The Danish government has sent more troops, not just here to Nuuk today, but to another base about 200 miles north of here in the Arctic. They sent their top army commander.
So, you really get a sense of when the Danish foreign minister, as he did today, say that United States getting Greenland is a red line, that they're backing up that red line with reinforced military forces, the NATO forces who were here. Their governments have responded to President Trump's threat of tariffs, saying this undermines the transatlantic alliance. This also is a sort of a downward spiral in the relationship.
And that seems to be where the language is further downward spiral today. But when you talk to people here in Greenland and they took the opportunity of a protest at the weekend to send that very simple, loud and clear message to President Trump, we don't want to be American.
There's also a sense here that they sort of feel as if they're sort of bystanders to their own destiny. Here's what some young people said to me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's scary to think about it, and its scary at night to try to sleep and its the talk of the day every day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now, I think as a generation, we're kind of scared for the future because it feels like we don't have enough power to make our own decisions fully.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My biggest fear is that were going to be, you know, that the U.S. military will come here and try to take over our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTSON: And that's it. In a way, people can use their voices in the prime minister here today spoken about the unity of message. And it's been a unified message. And the country has got support from its European partners.
But this sort of sense that it's all happening and it could all change. Almost overnight. That is a fear for some people here. And it is a sense of, well, what can we do?
We're saying it at the tops of our voices, and our friends are standing behind us. But this is the United States, and they really don't know which way it's going to go.
CORNISH: That's Nic Robertson speaking to us from Greenland. My panel is back.
I want to ask a question here, maybe of our Republican.
Doug, can I start with you? Do -- would Republicans rather have Greenland or NATO?
HEYE: They'd rather have Donald Trump. By and large, I think we've just learned that in the very new senate primary in Louisiana. The problem for a lot of these Republicans is they never seem to learn the lesson that, you know, as they try and score points with Donald Trump, Donald Trump doesn't give points. He only takes them away one at a time.
And so we can ask Bill Cassidy now. He learned the hard way that trying and voting for RFK Jr. ultimately wouldn't matter.
CORNISH: Right. Cassidy, now facing a primary challenger, someone backed by Trump.
HEYE: But they want as little separation from Trump as they can be, even if they don't like it, even if they don't like this. Some are speaking out. They're using words like stupid, but that also means they're going to find a place to be on Trump's good side immediately as well.
CORNISH: All right. Let me give you a roundup of what they have been saying so far. I think on Sunday we heard from Mike McCaul, a Republican from Texas, Mike Turner from Ohio, and of course, Rand Paul of Kentucky. Here's what they had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE MCCAUL (R-TX): The president has full military access to Greenland to protect us from any threat. So, if he wants to purchase Greenland, that's one thing. But for him to militarily invade would turn Article Five of NATO on its very head and in essence, put us at war with NATO itself.
REP. MIKE TURNER (R-OH): Certainly, this is problematic that the president has made this statement and has caused tension among the alliance.
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): I'm hoping that we don't get to a military invasion. I kind of actually don't think we're going to because quietly, there is not a Republican that's come up to me and said, oh, yes, I'll back him to the hilt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: That's interesting.
GOLDBERG: Yeah. I don't know. How many Republicans Rand Paul's talking to, but -- CORNISH: That's fair. That's fair.
GOLDBERG: Rand Paul's been pretty good on all this.
CORNISH: He has, and I should say in the polling, U.S. attempting to take control of Greenland among independents, 82 percent opposed.
GOLDBERG: Yeah, but here's the problem is, like, this is another one of these things where Trump goes for something, threatens something maximal and doesn't have to do it. And everyone says, okay, now we're in reasonable territory, threatening, insinuating the use of force on a NATO ally, even if you have no intention of following through on it. Trump has a lot of bluster, is outrageous. If in "The Godfather", when he put -- when Don Corleone orders Luca Brasi to put a gun to Johnny Fontane's managers head and says, I'll make you an offer you can't refuse, that is violence, too. The threat is violence, too.
This is the worst crisis for NATO, for the transatlantic alliance since the Suez crisis, and the fact that he is admitting he's willing to risk breaking NATO because he's crying over the fact and whining that he didn't get a Nobel Peace Prize, in which he admits he wasn't putting America first for a year.
[16:40:11]
He was concentrating on doing things in foreign policy so he could win a prize. And now that he didn't get the prize, he feels he can do these other things is just beyond outrageous.
CORNISH: Because "The Wall Street Journal" agrees with you, the Greenland war of 2026 is their title. It says for more than 75 years, the fondest dream of Russian strategy has been to divide western Europe from the U.S. and break the NATO alliance. That is now a possibility, as President Trump presses his campaign to capture Greenland no matter what.
DOVERE: Yeah, and part of what were seeing, even in that text to t to the Norwegian prime minister, is a president who is either actually detached from reality or is acting like he's detached from reality. There are so many things in that that are just not true.
The government did not decide not to give Donald Trump the Peace Prize. He was not eligible for the Peace Prize in 2025 because that was --
CORNISH: We did a graphic of the process, because we thought it would be helpful for people. But the main thing to help you is that the government doesn't do it.
DOVERE: Right.
CORNISH: But that's a little different.
DOVERE: The point is that not just for the niggling fact checks here, it is that you see that this is a president who again, either he does not know what is actually happening in the world, or he is acting like that. And when you're dealing with that, it doesn't seem to matter that we're talking about NATO or what the long-term effects are, or what Rand Paul or anybody else in Congress has to say. It's that this is how he's acting.
CORNISH: Yeah. The implications of that, though, are quite serious. When the president has laid out to "The New York Times" topic after topic, they write, he made clear that he's restrained only by, quote, "my own morality".
HINOJOSA: Yeah. That's scary. It is scary when he is making foreign policy decisions based on his own morality and nothing else. And that, you know, that text chain is clear that it is based on his own morality. It's actually based on his ego.
It is based on the fact that he is hurt. And I agree with the clip earlier. He's acting like a child, you know, and is kicking and screaming because he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize.
The reality is, is that the election will be all about costs. And the funny thing about this is not the funny thing, the terrible thing for Americans is if we use force, go into Greenland, but then also potentially slap tariffs on our European allies, that will only hurt Americans, that will only hurt our economy. At the end of the day, that is not helpful for Americans.
And so, when you're seeing all of these things pile up, you have to ask, as Americans, okay, it is more expensive for me at the grocery store. How is it invading Greenland going to help me?
CORNISH: Invading Greenland, strikes on Venezuela, control of Panama Canal, Canada, the 51st state. We\re sort of building up our hemispheric interests.
DOVERE: The margins in the house and the Senate are very small, and the number of Republicans who even just going on TV, who have said that they have problems with any which ones of these issues is larger than those margins. The number of Republicans who speak about it privately and say that they're frustrated about what's going on and want to stop it, is larger than those margins.
It's not just about Donald Trump here. It is about a Congress that has decided with the Republican majorities to continue to subsume itself entirely to Trump's will, even when, as Doug pointed out, he continues through this weekend to prove that he just does what he wants.
CORNISH: That's why so many of them are also retiring or leaving.
DOVERE: Right.
CORNISH: Especially in the Republican Party.
You know, ahead in THE ARENA, we're going to talk about Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, opening up about what he calls troubling questions Kamala Harris's team asked him when they were looking for a running mate. Isaac has some new reporting that you're going to bring us. Thank you so much. On the other side of this break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:48:13]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Let me tell you about my friend Kamala Harris, someone I've been friends with for two decades. She is courtroom tough. She has a big heart. And she is battle tested and ready to go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Okay, friends on the campaign trail. Behind the scenes, not so much.
In her book, Kamala Harris didn't hold her punches about Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's attitude during the VP vetting process. Now he is sharing the details that shocked him about that same time he's talking about it. In his new memoir, Shapiro writes that a member of the vetting team asked him, quote, "Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?" she asked. Had I been a double agent for Israel? Was she kidding? I told her how offensive the question was.
He goes on to write, "Well, we have to ask," she said. "We just wanted to check." She added, "Have you ever communicated with an undercover agent of Israel?"
Shapiro is an observant Jew. He previously volunteered on an Israeli army base, worked a brief stint in the Israeli embassy's public affairs division. This was at the beginning of his career.
So new reporting from our own Isaac Dovere reveals he wasn't the only one to be asked the question of whether he had been an agent of a foreign government. Tim Walz was asked if he had ever been an agent for China, given his multiple trips to the country before running for office.
Panel is back.
Isaac, I want to come to you for your reporting.
But first, Sochi. Come on DNC, help me understand. In the aftermath what -- he's being very specific, releasing this excerpt, talking about it. What conversation is -- he does -- he want to pick up with this?
HINOJOSA: Well, I think it's an antisemitic one. You've seen antisemitism rise over the last few years. And listen, I think that it is one thing to ask all of the potential vice presidential picks questions about that you get on your normal FBI background check about whether you have been in touch with a foreign aid or, you know, foreign agent, or who you know, who you've been in touch with overseas, your relationships with those people. I mean, that is part of the FBI background checks overall. But whenever you're asking a specific question about that person
because of their background or because they spent time there, that's when it can be offensive. If they asked me whether or not I had relation to the Mexican government because I am Mexican and from Brownsville, Texas, I probably would take offense to something like that.
CORNISH: Yeah --
HINOJOSA: But when the when the FBI asked me, you know, have you been in contact with anybody overseas, things like that? No, that's a typical question that you ask.
CORNISH: Well, it was in the context of this. He writes that she asked him whether he would apologize for statements he made condemning the campus protests at the University of Pennsylvania. People were campaigning about Gaza at the time. He says, No, I said flatly, he writes. But he says he told her he felt he could still make the case for her, even in places like Dearborn, Michigan.
DOVERE: Yeah, it should be said that, though, you played that clip of Shapiro saying that they've been friends for 20 years, they have known each other for 20 years. They have not been friends for 20 years. In fact, they --
(CROSSTALK)
DOVERE: Like even more than like politicians. They don't like each other personally. That was clear for a long time.
And Shapiro was coming into that VP vetting process. It was obviously a rushed process after Harris became the nominee so quickly. So two- week process. And he was quickly became a finalist for it. But he also was quickly zeroed in on because of his faith and because of this, some of the statements that he had made over time, going back to when he was in college and when he was governor, talking about the campus protests.
And that led to extra sensitivity. It's clear when he was asked about whether he has been an agent of the Israeli government. But this is a standard question on vetting forms. And it was a standard question in vetting interviews, when they try to build it out. And part of what was going on here was doing the standard process.
And as I report in the story that's up on our site right now, Tim Walz was asked the same question about whether he was an agent of China, not because he has any Chinese heritage, but because he'd taken a bunch of trips there. And part of what they were trying to suss out is also what happens if and when you're on the campaign trail and the Republican opposition or others are coming at you with this, what's your reaction going to be? How do you take a punch?
And to the Harris team, that was all information that they were feeding into the decision about what to do here. A large part of why Shapiro was not picked is because they did not get along in that interview. It had nothing to do with anybody's religion at all. CORNISH: Not sure things have improved, frankly. But it's interesting
because the conversation on the right has changed even more when it comes to antisemitism. And I do wonder, sort of like how that would play out now, right? Because now if you're talking about antisemitism and protests on the left, you got like Groypers yelling at J.D. Vance at events on college campuses and talking about the nation as a Christian nation.
GOLDBERG: Yeah. The right, the new right, and elements of the Republican Party have a big antisemitism problem. That doesn't mean there aren't problems on the left either. Right? I think one of the ways that --
CORNISH: This is coming up, because we know there were problems.
GOLDBERG: Yeah.
CORNISH: But I'm saying sort of one of my one of my points all of these months later with the conversation look the same. If you have both parties dealing with this in such a extremely public way.
GOLDBERG: I don't I don't know the answer to that. I think that's sort of the -- first of all, I was going to joke what was Tim Walz's answer to the question about whether he was an agent of China, but --
DOVERE: Probably.
GOLDBERG: But the real embarrassment here in some ways, in the vetting of Tim Walz is that these welfare cases were not exposed. I mean, this was --
CORNISH: Scandal. Yeah.
GOLDBERG: Like there were there was stuff on the record that the national media kind of missed, a lot of people missed --
HINOJOSA: Prosecuting those cases. Yeah.
GOLDBERG: Yeah. And like the idea that that wasn't going to be a problem is kind of like a huge swing and a miss for the Harris team.
DOVERE: Though, also wasn't a problem during the campaign, which is, as you know, fair point.
HINOJOSA: Well, but one thing that is interesting is were talking about Democratic vetting and Democrats do their due diligence. But it's interesting because the Trump administration didn't want to use FBI vetting, you know, when they're getting their cabinet nominees.
CORNISH: Okay. Well, I'm sure were going to hear about this again, because nobody seems to want to put that election down in a way and move forward. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:59:15] CORNISH: Okay, I want to say thank you to my panel. Thanks for being here.
And before we go, on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we leave you with some of Dr. King's own words. Sitting in jail in Birmingham, Alabama, King wrote a famous letter. In it, he directly addressed criticism of his protest tactics.
He wrote, quote, "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which is constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored," end quote.
Today, we remember MLK as an American hero and a legend of the civil rights movement. Just a quick reminder, it wasn't always the case. Polling conducted in 1963 found just 41 percent of Americans actually approved of him, a reminder that the right thing may not always be the most popular thing.
I want to turn things over now to Pamela Brown, standing by for THE LEAD.
Hey there, Pam.
