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Trump Tells Norway No 'Obligation to Think Only of Peace'; Pentagon Set to Deploy 1,500 Federal Troops to Minnesota; Multiple Factors Causing Energy Rates to Rise. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired January 19, 2026 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hurricanes will face off for college football's national championship tonight.

[06:00:06]

Indiana is undefeated and looking for its first ever football national title. Ranked No. 20 in a preseason poll, an Indiana win would be one of the biggest turnarounds in college football history.

Meanwhile, Miami is seeking its sixth national championship in program history and its first since 2001. The game will be played in Miami.

OK, that's going to do it for us here today on EARLY START. I'm Rahel Solomon, live in New York. I'll see you tomorrow. But CNN THIS MORNING start right now.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Good Monday morning. I'm Erica Hill, in for Audie Cornish.

Just how long is the reach of the federal government. To Greenland: is Europe finally waking up to Donald Trump's threats to the island nation? Telling Norway now he no longer feels bound to, in his words, "think purely of peace."

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a bit like a spoiled child turned old. And he think he can, and he can -- think he can scare people. He can't scare Greenlanders. We're not scared.

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HILL: To Minneapolis: the governor mobilizing National Guard troops as the president puts additional troops on standby. So, could it leave -- lead to a dangerous face-off?

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MAYOR JACOB FREY (D), MINNEAPOLIS: I never thought in a million years that we would be invaded by our own federal government.

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HILL: Over energy prices. The president's bid now to tackle high prices. Will it work?

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I used less electricity. And they charged us more.

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HILL: And to college football. Can the White House actually dictate just when and where the Army-Navy game and any other football games that day are aired?

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is not in charge of what can air on television, and he shouldn't be in charge of what can air on television and when.

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HILL: We begin, though, here. Is President Trump now taking his threat to annex Greenland to a new level?

There is new reporting from Reuters this morning President Trump, in a letter to Norway's prime minister making clear the decision over the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize has something to do with his thinking.

He writes, "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," going on to say, "although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America."

The European Union is taking Trump's threats seriously. Just moments ago, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer reiterating his calls for calm discussion, but also for the importance of maintaining Greenland and Denmark's sovereignty.

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KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Any decision about the future status of Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland and the kingdom of Denmark alone. That right is fundamental, and we support it.

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Hill: And it's a sentiment, for Greenlanders, that they agree with.

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PARNUNA OLSEN, PROTESTOR: Greenland is not for sale and we will never be for sale.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He doesn't respect anything. He just takes what he thinks is his and what he wants to do. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a bit like a spoiled child turned old. And he

think he can and he thinks he can scare people. He can't scare Greenlanders. We're not scared.

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HILL: Joining me now, CNN political and national security analyst and "New York Times" Washington and national security correspondent, David Sanger.

David, always good to talk to you. And I feel like throughout the course of this morning, my list of questions for you has only grown.

Let's start with this -- with this letter. You know, we were talking about it just before we came on the air. It -- it first reading, it almost felt like a joke. It is very much not, I would say, this letter from President Trump to Norway's prime minister.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's -- it's not a joke, Erica. And it's sort of wrongheaded in -- in many ways.

I mean, first of all, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was given for work done in 2024 when President Trump was not president.

So, the second is that the Norwegian government doesn't actually control the Peace Prize. So, you know, he's writing it to the country, as if it is for them to go hand out.

But thirdly, I thought what was really remarkable about it was that phrase in which he says, you know, he's -- he's generally for peace, but a little less so now.

And it almost sounds like what he is saying is that the power of the United States steps in at any moment that he considers himself to have been insulted, set aside here, and so forth.

[06:05:03]

It's a little bit -- it's a little bit remarkable on -- on all scales, but particularly because it gets at the central issue the Europeans are now facing. And I'm in Vienna as -- as we speak. And that is that they no longer believe that the United States basically has their interest and the alliance at heart.

HILL: Which has -- has -- and it's understandable why. But that leads me to my next question --

SANGER: Sure.

HILL: -- is, is there a sense in those European leaders that you speak with that the United States can be trusted?

SANGER: No, I don't think there is. I mean, this has been a long- running issue. And, you know, when President Trump went through his first term, he talked about withdrawing from NATO. He never actually did.

When President Biden got elected, he did a tour of Europe repeatedly in which he said, we're back. We're back to the old rules, in which the United States is the biggest and a generous power at the center of the alliance. And people kind of nodded, but they weren't really convinced.

President Trump gets elected a second time. They did the right thing, and they stepped up and spent a lot more on their own defense, because they had not been spending enough, clearly, as many administrations said. And I think President Trump deserves some of the credit for pressuring them to commit to -- a much larger portion of their GDP to defense.

But now, what has happened is they feel as if, suddenly, there is a conflict at the core of NATO, and it's over a country of 50 -- all right, territory, not even a country -- of 55,000 people, that's mostly covered in ice.

HILL: And it's also important to note the pushback that we're seeing. A member of Danish Parliament saying Trump's, you know, idea in going after Greenland, in his words, is lacking in logic.

Because there is this 1951 agreement that, if it's really about national security, which is what Donald Trump says it's about, that the U.S. could go in and, frankly, put as many bases or as many troops as they feel necessary, right? Based on this agreement with, with Greenland, with Denmark, that they could go in there.

So, all of this, right, is playing out in real time. I mean, who in this moment, David, actually has the upper hand?

SANGER: Well, President Trump's got the upper hand, because he's a much larger power. And of course, that's how he enters most of these.

But you get to a central point, Erica, and I write about it some in "The Times" today. This 1951 treaty that no one had paid a whole lot of attention to, although you know, people began looking at it a bit when -- with his first threats a year ago to Greenland. Basically, is broadly written so that the United States could reopen any of those 15 or 16 bases that it once had in Greenland at the end of during World War II and then through much of the Cold War.

We closed them down, because they were expensive and because nobody really thought that the Arctic was going to be a central area of strategic competition.

Well, the president's right. It is now a central area of strategic competition, partly because climate change has opened up Northern routes and, you know, made it possible to make it through the ice; partly because there's increased Russian and Chinese activity. But that's true in many parts of the world.

And so, picking this as the crisis point is strange.

The treaty would allow the U.S. to just spend the money and reopen air bases, base missiles there, do anything he wants. And the fact that the president hasn't invoked it tells you that this really -- he's not really looking for a compromise here. He's looking for a land acquisition.

HILL: Yes. And there was certainly some talk, I know, yesterday that this may be also about what he views as his leggy [SIC] -- legacy.

David, always good to talk to you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

SANGER: Great to be with you, Erica.

HILL: Just ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, the midterms now just months away. So, which party actually has the momentum heading into November? We've got the new CNN polling.

Plus, two trains collide in Spain. Dozens are dead. Officials now calling this disaster truly strange.

And activists in Minnesota swarming a church where an ICE official is the pastor. The group chat has some thoughts. That's next.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ICE out! ICE out!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ICE out! ICE out!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ICE out! ICE out!

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HILL: In Minnesota, tensions over federal law enforcement in the city remain high after yet another weekend of protests.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ICE out! ICE out!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ICE out! ICE out!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ICE out! ICE out!

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HILL: Anti-ICE protesters disrupting church services in St. Paul on Sunday, where they say a local ICE official is serving as the pastor of that church. The Department of Justice is now investigating civil rights violations against the protesters for demonstrating in a church.

We're also tracking an unprecedented, potentially explosive development. There are questions about whether U.S. military forces under federal command could actually, at some point, face off against National Guard troops under state control. Why is that question even being raised? Well, Governor Tim Walz, of

course, has mobilized the state National Guard to help support local law enforcement in Minneapolis.

Meantime, the Pentagon has now ordered 1,500 military troops be on standby for a potential deployment to Minnesota. Their mission, if they were to be sent, would be to support federal law enforcement.

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FREY: The best way to get safety is not to have an influx of even more agents, and in this case, military, in Minneapolis.

Right now, we have about 600 police officers, and they've got 3,000 or so ICE agents and border control. That they are now talking about deploying 1,500 military? This is -- well, it's ridiculous, but we will not be intimidated by the actions of this federal government.

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HILL: Joining me now in the group chat, Isaac Dovere, CNN senior reporter; Mario Parker, managing editor of economy and government at Bloomberg; and Seung Min Kim, CNN political analyst and White House reporter for the Associated Press. Nice to see all of you this morning.

So, we heard from the mayor there, certainly, making the rounds yesterday. But speaking with Jake there, saying he won't be intimidated.

And then, I thought was a really interesting response from the acting ICE director about why there is going -- there is now this surge in ICE troops. Just take a listen to this rationale.

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TODD LYONS, ACTING ICE DIRECTOR: You hear about the 3,000 federal officers and special agents that deployed to Minneapolis. Majority of those, if not most, are to protect the men and women that are out there trying to make those arrests.

And that has definitely changed our tactics. Where we would go and have five to six officers on an arrest team, now you have to go with 10 to 15 just to protect those individuals that are trying to arrest a bad guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: So, placing some of the blame there on the city, but also saying we're sending in more troops to protect the people we already have there.

Seung Min, I'm curious: in this moment, is there a sense in the administration of what victory actually looks like in Minnesota for the Trump administration? SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, victory for them would be

deporting everyone who deserves to be deported, in their words, out of the country, which is why they're really aggressively ramping up their immigration operations.

And it's important to remember ICE has all those resources because of, actually, the tax and border spending law that Congress passed last year. We think of it as the tax, the no tax on tips and other measures.

But there was a significant ramp-up of federal funding for immigration enforcement. This is why the government has all these resources to do so.

And then, of course, hanging over all this is whether he's going to invoke the Insurrection Act or not.

HILL: Yes.

KIM: I mean, that would be a really rare -- that would be a really, really rarely used step. And really, you know, amplify the standoff between the federal government and local officials in Minnesota right now.

HILL: How much are -- how much -- so, there was so much talk, and I would say certainly at the end of last week, and we heard from officials, right, in Minnesota saying, don't give them these pictures. Don't, in their words -- the administration, rather -- these images. This is what they want, to your point, for the Insurrection Act.

The way that this is playing out, though, in a fairly small city, right, with, in the grand scheme of things, perhaps a smaller number of undocumented immigrants. Is this having the reaction politically that was hoped for?

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: And you've seen, in the polls, that people seem to be, by a majority of them, uncomfortable with what's going on and disapprove of it.

I do think this goes beyond the political side of it. I mean, even just the words that we're using here: what counts as victory, right?

HILL: Yes.

DOVERE: This is the American president, what he wants to get done in an American city. And that's because of the militarization that's happened here and the pretext that keeps shifting, the rationales that keep going back, that now the -- we might need to have the Alaska Airborne there to protect the ICE agents.

But the ICE agents need to be there because of the fraud. And it's just -- it goes all the way around in a circle.

And really, what we're seeing is just more militarization of American cities. I mean, even just yesterday, I was walking around Washington. Of course, we've had the National Guard deployment here for months, and it's been extended.

And just troops with their weapons out walking the streets, four of them at a time, walking around, not -- didn't seem like doing really much of anything, except that we are now being made used to, every day, more troops on the streets of more American cities.

HILL: And -- and as all of this is playing out, too, there are the continuing questions about the power of the executive branch. Right? What we're not seeing, of course, in the legislative branch.

But these images themselves, it -- it almost brings me back to the letter, right, that we were just talking about, that the president sent to the prime minister of Norway. Sort of these interesting pretexts for action across the board.

MARIO PARKER, MANAGING EDITOR OF ECONOMY AND GOVERNMENT, BLOOMBERG: Yes, absolutely. And similar to Norway and Europe, they've largely kowtowed to the president through most of his term. We've seen Republicans do that, as well.

What you saw this weekend, I think, is some of that discomfort on the part of Republicans. I'm thinking about Michael McCaul, for example, saying to lower some of the rhetoric and the temperature there, as well.

The fact that you saw the president on Friday kind of walk back whether or not he would use the Insurrection Act after we learned that some Republicans had called for him to kind of lower the rhetoric, as well.

Again, to Isaac's point, I don't want to politicize this too much, but talking to strategists, there was already a problem with these images even before Renee Good, before Minneapolis, of armed people with masks in American streets.

[06:20:08]

This will do the president no favors, or the GOP, no favors with the midterms.

DOVERE: And I think that the issue that comes with all of this -- with Greenland, with Minneapolis, with all these things -- there are very small margins of the majority for the Republicans, especially in the House, but also in the Senate.

And there are more Republican senators and members of the House who, certainly privately, and some of them publicly, have been speaking out against what the president is doing. It is a question, more and more each day, of whether that amounts to anything.

HILL: And what is your -- from what you're hearing from officials at the White House or even just throughout the city, is that starting to break through, in terms of those concerns, within the administration?

KIM: I'm not -- it's not quite clear within the administration and particularly those people closest to Trump, because right now the president is -- he -- he's kind of in a doubling down mode.

And I think that a lot of times, maybe around in the first term, there were people around him who could help him kind of course correct. And there isn't that group of people now.

His closest aides are all true believers. They are going to really help execute what the president wants to do and not kind of really serve as a check, because they don't believe that is their role for the president to do.

But at the same time, it is hard to ignore the polling. Obviously, you have the overall approval ratings for the president.

But if you look in the different individual categories, whether it's the economy or immigration, which had been seen as one of his strongest positions, that can't be good. That can't be good for the president to see.

So, whether he actually course corrects in a midterm year when he technically is not on the ballot, but the elections could really, certainly, you know, change the course of his last two years in office, it remains to be seen.

It -- you know, Donald Trump doesn't really like to kind of, you know, admit what he's doing is wrong --

HILL: Right.

KIM: -- or change directions, but -- but you -- it's hard to kind of ignore those numbers right now.

HILL: Yes, absolutely. All right. Much more to discuss this morning. Stick around.

After the break on CNN THIS MORNING, the Justice Department opening an investigation into Minnesota's governor and Minneapolis's mayor. So, could this actually lead to a breaking point for some of the career prosecutors at DOJ, especially in the wake of some resignations?

Plus, if you have noticed your electric bill is a whole lot higher, you are not alone. So, what's the plan to tackle those prices? Well take a closer look.

Before the break, though, a little good morning to our friends in Nashville. Welcome to your week.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just opened up my electric bill that's due at the end of this month: $526 and $0.86. This is insane.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We used less electricity, and they charged us more.

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HILL: Millions of Americans are feeling powerless in the face of skyrocketing energy costs. So, here's a closer look at where things stand.

The price of electricity itself, it's up 6.7 percent nationwide over the last year. It's up nearly 30 percent since the end of 2021, according to the Consumer Price Index.

Now, one big culprit: those A.I. data centers you've heard so much about. Well, now there's a push from the White House and several Northeast governors to make tech giants pay for surging power costs caused by those data centers.

Joining me to discuss is Mark Wolfe. He's executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association.

We were talking briefly in the break.

MARK WOLFE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ENERGY ASSISTANCE DIRECTORS ASSOCIATION: Right.

HILL: I mean, this is so maddening for so many people. They've seen their bills double or even triple. It doesn't make sense. They're using less, as we saw, for one woman. In some cases, they're paying more.

Is it really all the fault of these giant A.I. data centers, as we've been told?

WOLFE: Well, data centers are one part of the problem. Think of it as a new industry has come to town, and they need a lot of electricity. And they also need reliable electricity.

So, the electric company has to upgrade the grid in order to meet their needs. And then, it also put more pressure on the amount of electricity available in that area. So, that's pushing up prices. But that's only one reason.

Then the other thing is how do you share those costs across the whole rate base? Those are all the people who pay into the system to buy electricity.

Well, because of the way that A.I. centers have developed -- and it's really a fairly recent phenomenon -- many of those costs are being spread across the whole rate base. So, people who use electricity to heat their home, to heat their hot water, are also paying part of the costs of the data center requirements. And that's unfair. And that's what's getting people angry.

But it's only one part of the problem. Think of it like a whack-a-mole game. So, you've got data centers. You can address that.

But then natural gas, which is a major feeder fuel for electricity: 40 percent of the fuels that produce electricity come from natural gas. Well, those costs have gone up 50 percent in the last year.

HILL: Wow.

WOLFE: And then there's rebuilding the grid. The grid is dated. That's the system to get electricity to your house. There are 200 either pending rate cases, already approved rate cases. Those are cases that go before the Public Service Commission. That's each state has a commission that approves rates.

And those increases as they -- as they're approved, are also pushing up the price of electricity. So, you've got multiple things going on that's making electricity more expensive.

HILL: There's also been a big fight over wind farms and wind turbines, which especially here in the Northeast, which relies heavily on natural gas, has this aging infrastructure, and a really dense population base.

WOLFE: Right.

HILL: Cold winters, warm summers. So, that adds to the demand.

There was a lot of concern over the back and forth in terms of stopping these wind farms by the administration --

WOLFE: Right.

HILL: -- about the impact, because a lot of Northeast states were relying on that --

WOLFE: Right.

HILL: -- to bring in more power and reduce prices. How much of an impact could those wind farms actually have on the issue?

WOLFE: Well, that's going to have a significant impact, because wind is free.

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