Trump and his top officials have professed a need for the United States to take Greenland, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark that, like the U.S., is a member of NATO.

“President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region,” Leavitt said in a statement to States Newsroom. “The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal.”

Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen in a Tuesday statement stressed to President Donald Trump that his country is “not something that can be annexed or taken over simply because someone feels like it.”

Leaders of Denmark and the heads of NATO countries Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and the United Kingdom, issued a joint statement in support of Greenland’s sovereignty. 

Leavitt's comments came after the NATO allies’ statement. 

Greenland’s government did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on Leavitt’s Tuesday statement.  

New questions after Venezuela

The Jan. 3 military operation in Venezuela to capture Maduro and his wife to be brought to face a trial in New York opened fresh doubt about the Trump administration’s foreign policy goals.

Following the operation, Trump held a press conference during which he said other countries could face the same fate. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement after senators were briefed by Trump officials Monday saying he could not get a clear answer that officials would not do the same thing to Columbia, Greenland or Iran. 

“Are we going to invade a NATO ally like Greenland? Where does this belligerence stop?,” the New York Democrat said.

This story was originally published by Stateline.

The situation requires “heightened vigilance,” said Madhu Gottumukkala, acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in a statement. 

“While CISA has not identified a specific threat at this time, we remain steadfast in monitoring for any indicators of malicious activity and are working shoulder-to-shoulder with our government and industry partners to defend against today’s risks and strengthen resilience for the future,” Gottumukkala said.

Last year, CISA removed many employees who tracked false information online, part of a broader effort launched under Trump 2.0 to rework the agency after GOP figures made unsubstantiated and disputed accusations that the cyber agency had used its counter-disinformation resources to censor Americans’ free speech.

Since the raid, regional experts have seen a rise in synthetic and inaccurate content. Adrián González, co-founder of the Venezuela-based nonprofit news and messaging monitor Cazadores de Fake News, said that much of the content generated by AI tools is coming from users in Venezuela and other Latin American countries, as opposed to larger U.S. adversaries. 

“There has been a wave of hoaxes created with AI, there is a lot of synthetic content on social media,” González said in an interview. “But it is spontaneous: it is content generated by the same users, which confuses a lot of other users.” 

He said the authors of this content are not linked to any foreign campaigns, despite previous documented coordination between Venezuela and Russia to amplify their individual preferred narratives. 

“These videos are generated in a spontaneous way and are not coordinated by a large number of users,” he said. “They don’t form part of coordinated disinformation operations.”

Some of the most viral AI-created images have purported to portray Maduro in prison, content which Cazadores de Fake News and others have worked to discredit. 

They are “creating images of Maduro detained that don’t exist, creating videos of Maduro dancing, uniformed in jail, or of the destruction of military or iconic installations of Chavismo that, in reality, were never destroyed,” said González.

Chavismo is a left-wing populist political movement in Venezuela named after the nation’s founder, former president Hugo Chávez, and associated with Maduro.

There has also been an increase in website domain registrations around Maduro, Donald Trump, and other high-profile figures related to the Venezuela operation, said Rishika Desai, a threat researcher with BforeAI, a firm that uses predictive AI tools to identify and stop cyber threats.

“We identified over 140 domains in various stages of preparation in the past three days, referencing alleged ‘releases’ or sites claiming as his [Maduro's] official narrative,” Desai said.

The firm also tracked the registration of more than 460 new domains on themes such as Nobel Peace Prize claims and petition-based campaigns against political figures, she said.

She said the team “also noted the emergence of coin-branded narratives, including so-called ‘Venezuelan libre’ tokens and ‘Crypto Maduro,’ which are commonly used for fraudulent investments and pump-and-dump schemes.”

Venezuela is no stranger to information warfare, with its government having spent years promoting state-aligned narratives through official media and online supporters. Those efforts have typically lacked the scale, sophistication and global reach seen with more robust influence operations from nations like Russia and China.

Who is ultimately in charge? “Me,” Trump replied. He also repeated his goal of convincing American oil firms to somehow rebuild Venezuela’s petroleum industry and infrastructure. 

“A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue,” Trump said. That process, he speculated, could be complete in 18 months. 

For what it’s worth, billionaire investor and Trump-supporter Paul Singer is poised to benefit immensely from the president’s oil ambitions for Venezuela, Judd Legum of Popular Information noted Monday. “In November 2025, Singer acquired Citgo, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-run oil company” for $5.9 billion, Lugum reports. The sale “was forced by creditors of Venezuela after the country defaulted on its bond payments.” 

Advisors for that sale “valued Citgo at $13 billion, while Venezuelan officials said the assets were worth as much as $18 billion,” Legum writes. “Maduro’s government was also seeking to appeal court approval of Singer’s bid for Citgo. Now that Maduro has been ousted, however, it seems unlikely that the appeal will continue.” Read more, here. 

Survey says: Just a third of Americans approve of Trump’s plan to attack Venezuela and abduct Maduro; a slightly larger percentage (34%) said they disapprove; and the remaining 33% did not have an opinion yet, according to Reuters polling published Monday.

In similar polling, the Washington Post found 40% of respondents approve versus 42% who disapprove of the abduction operation. 

Coverage continues below…

Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter focused on developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so we’d like to take a moment to thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 2021, a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, assaulting at least 174 law-enforcement officers, in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Donald Trump, who falsely claimed voter fraud.

New: Seven European nations unite against Trump’s threats over Greenland. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the UK and Denmark released a joint statement Tuesday emphasizing America’s role as an “essential partner” and NATO ally, “Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.” 

That statement comes in the wake of the U.S. military attack on Venezuela over the weekend, in which American troops reportedly killed at least 80 people during an operation to abduct Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro and his wife in apparent violation of international law early Saturday in Caracas. 

The following day, U.S. President Donald Trump was asked if he expected “to take an action against Greenland” after the Venezuela operation, since he has openly speculated several times about the possibility since retaking office last year, despite not mentioning it at all during his campaign. Trump reiterated his position on Sunday, telling reporters, “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. And Denmark is not gonna be able to do it, I can tell you.” He repeated that goal in a separate interview later in the day. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen released her own statement Sunday warning Trump against trying to annex Greenland or “any of the three countries in the Danish kingdom,” which also includes the Faroe Islands. 

“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and the European Union needs us to have it, and they know that,” said Trump. 

The seven European leaders disagreed. “Arctic security remains a key priority for Europe and it is critical for international and transatlantic security,” they said at the outset of their statement Tuesday. “NATO has made clear that the Arctic region is a priority and European Allies are stepping up. We and many other Allies have increased our presence, activities and investments, to keep the Arctic safe and to deter adversaries.”

However, they continued in a subtle rebuke emphasizing international law, “Security in the Arctic must therefore be achieved collectively, in conjunction with NATO allies including the United States, by upholding the principles of the UN Charter, including sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders,” the leaders said, and stressed, “These are universal principles, and we will not stop defending them.” Read over the statement in full, here. 

At the United Nations on Monday, Russia and China demanded Maduro’s release while Secretary General António Guterres said the U.S. violated the UN’s charter, which delegates from Bahrain, Brazil and Mexico also echoed. Trump’s ambassador to the international body, Mike Waltz, insisted, “We are not occupying a country. This was a law enforcement operation.” 

Waltz: “You cannot continue to have the largest energy reserves in the world under the control of adversaries of the United States, under the control of illegitimate leaders, and not benefiting the people of Venezuela, and stolen by a handful of oligarchs inside of Venezuela,” the U.S. ambassador said. 

Second opinions: Former Pentagon special counsel Ryan Goodman described Waltz’s UN remarks as “One of most remarkable US presentations at [the] UN Security Council I've ever seen,” and noted his remarks about energy reserves as a justification is illegal. Former State Department counsel Brian Finacune asked that if, as Waltz says, “there's no war with Venezuela (and hence no application of the law of war), does that mean that the US military killing Venezuelan and Cuban security personnel was just murder?”

Venezuela’s position: “If the kidnapping of a head of state and bombing are tolerated or downplayed, the message sent to the world is a devastating one, mainly that the law is optional and force is the true arbiter of international order,” Ambassador Samuel Moncada said. 

Expert reax: “Military force can topple a dictator, but it cannot create political authority or legitimacy,” argues Monica Duffy Toft of Tufts University, whom we spoke with about the militarization of American foreign policy less than three years ago. Along with researcher Sidita Kushi, Toft is co-author of the “Military Intervention Project” documenting use cases throughout American history. 

“Removing a leader—even a brutal and incompetent one—is not the same as advancing a legitimate political order,” Toft wrote Monday for The Conversation. “By declaring its intent to govern Venezuela, the United States is creating a governance trap of its own making—one in which external force is mistakenly treated as a substitute for domestic legitimacy.”

The big problem: When violence becomes a substitute for full-spectrum action, including diplomacy and economics, “it tends to deepen instability rather than resolve it,” Toft warns. 

Consider as well, “In 2026, for every dollar the United States invests in the diplomatic ‘scalpel’ of the State Department to prevent conflict, it allocates $28 to the military ‘hammer’ of the Department of Defense, effectively ensuring that force becomes a first rather than last resort,” she writes. 

Another troubling possible second-order effect of Trump’s plan to “run” Venezuela: Its infrastructure is already in ruins. “If the United States assumes responsibility for governance, it will be blamed for every blackout, every food shortage and every bureaucratic failure. The liberator will quickly become the occupier,” Toft writes. (Tom Friedman of the New York Times echoed this sentiment, which traces back to Colin Powell as the “Pottery Barn rule,” when Friedman warned on the day of Maduro’s abduction, “You Break It, You Own It.”)

And beyond that is the message other nefarious leaders around the world could take: “The more the United States normalizes unilateral governance, the easier it becomes for rivals to dismiss American appeals to sovereignty as selective and self-serving, and the more difficult it becomes for allies to justify their ties to the U.S.,” says Toft. Read on, here. 

Developing: The U.S. military may be preparing to intercept a Russian-flagged crude oil tanker transiting the North Atlantic, The War Zone reported Monday after a flurry of open-source flight tracking data appeared online. The U.S. Coast Guard has so far been unable to intercept the vessel; the recent movement of C-17 Globemaster III cargo jets suggests U.S. special operations forces may try next. Details here. 

Additional reading/viewing: 

• “Venezuela latest: Security forces patrol streets as opposition calls for release of political prisoners,” the BBC reported Tuesday; 
• “Venezuela Braces for Economic Collapse From U.S. Blockade on Oil Exports,” the New York Times reported Monday evening; 
• “Ukraine’s allies meet in Paris but progress is uncertain with US focus on Venezuela and Greenland,” the Associated Press reported Tuesday; 
• “GOP fears Trump’s foray into nation-building in Venezuela,” The Hill reported Tuesday; 
• And ICYMI, a political organizer in Michigan was arrested mid-interview while speaking out against U.S. action in Venezuela on Saturday. WZZM ABC13 out of Grand Rapids has video of the arrest. 

Around the Defense Department

Update: SecDef Hegseth has moved to downgrade Sen. Mark Kelly’s military rank over the lawmaker’s remarks discouraging troops from following unlawful orders, which is a sentiment Hegseth himself propagated ahead of Trump’s first term, though he backtracked during his confirmation hearing a year ago. In a Jan. 5 letter of censure, the defense secretary accused the senator of counseling disobedience, undermining the chain of command, and other charges by making videos urging troops to disobey illegal orders. Stateline has coverage, here.

Kelly responded with a statement, which read, in part: “Pete Hegseth wants to send the message to every single retired servicemember that if they say something he or Donald Trump doesn’t like, they will come after them the same way. It’s outrageous and it is wrong. There is nothing more un-American than that.”

Inside the Marine Corps' hidden recruiting crisis. The only service to consistently meet its intake goals in recent years is doing so at great cost, Business Insider reports in a four-part investigative series. "You're basically burning Marines in order to put more Marines in," one recruiting sergeant in a Great Plains duty station said. "That is what recruiting is."

The pressure to fill quotas is so great that some recruiter Marines are forging documents and even dying by suicide, the site reports. Read on, here.

Five years after Jan. 6

Several outlets have retrospectives on the attempted insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, and its aftermath, including NPR, Lawfare, the New York Times, and more.

Former special prosecutor Jack Smith, in Dec. 17 Congressional testimony:  “The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him.” The GOP-led House Judiciary Committee released a 255-page transcript of Smith’s deposition on Dec. 31.

Pardon update: “At least 33 pardoned insurrectionists have now been convicted of, charged with, or arrested for additional crimes since the violent attack on the Capitol,” Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin and House Judiciary Committee Democrats announced in a new report Monday.

Trump and other Republicans have “engaged in a near-complete effort to rewrite the history of the day and erase it from the collective American memory,” reports the Guardian. “On his first day in office, Trump pardoned anyone involved in the attack, a move that affected some 1,500 people.”

Gregory Rosen, who led the Justice Department unit that prosecuted Jan. 6 cases: “But Americans remember that day for a simple reason – we watched it happen. And as long as we remember what it was – unadulterated mob violence – we can speak honestly about what it means for our democracy and our future.”