Tulsi Gabbard Freaks Over Damning Report U.S. Is Spying on Greenland

Donald Trump’s quest to conquer Greenland is becoming increasingly serious.

The intelligence community directed intelligence agency chiefs to conduct a spy campaign on the Denmark-controlled island territory last week, issuing a “collection emphasis message” for information pertaining to Greenland’s independence movement, as well as an examination of local attitudes regarding “American resource extraction,” reported The Wall Street Journal. It also tasked agencies to identify individuals living in Greenland and Denmark who support the Trump administration’s goals for the island.

The directive came from several high-ranking officials under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, according to the paper, but Gabbard was not happy to hear that the news of the initiative had gotten out.

“The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of aiding deep state actors who seek to undermine the President by politicizing and leaking classified information,” Gabbard told the Journal in a statement. “They are breaking the law and undermining our nation’s security and democracy.”

The Greenland order, which went out to multiple departments including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency, is the first tangible step the Trump administration has made to satiate the president’s desire to own the self-governing island.

One intelligence official explained to the Journal that because collection resources are “inherently limited,” they are typically used for “perceived threats, not allied countries.”

The order is just another reminder that American voters should take Donald Trump at his word. In an interview with NBC News that aired Sunday, Trump refused to rule out the possibility of taking Greenland by force.

“I don’t rule it out,” the president said. “I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything. No, not there. We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of, and we’ll cherish them, and all of that. But we need that for international security.”

The White House National Security Council has met “several times” to make Trump’s desires for the arctic island a reality, The New York Times reported in early April. At the time, a U.S. official claimed the council had sent “specific instructions to multiple arms of the government.” But those instructions never specified the use of military force.

Another effort by the Trump administration to win over Greenland involves using federal dollars on advertising and social media campaigns with hopes of persuading Greenland’s 57,000 residents to basically annex themselves for America.

But Greenlanders have not taken kindly to Trump and his associates’ sudden interest in acquiring their land. After months of heavy pressure from the Trump family, including an embarrassing stunt in which Donald Trump Jr. reportedly convinced homeless residents to wear MAGA merchandise in exchange for food, and an effort in the U.S. Congress to rename the territory “Red, White, and Blueland,” Greenland’s various political parties set aside their differences in March to unite under a singular goal: opposing U.S. aggression.

“We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future,” Demokraatit Party leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen told Sky News the night his party won a decisive majority in Parliament, making him prime minister. “And we want to build our own country by ourselves.”

A late-January poll by pollster Verian found that 85 percent of Greenland’s residents do not want to become part of the United States. Just 6 percent were in favor of the switch, while 8 percent were undecided, according to The Guardian.

That disinterest became more apparent in late March, when second lady Usha Vance’s trip around Greenland was gutted and canceled after American representatives were spotted walking around Nuuk, the island’s capital, failing to find residents who would be interested in a visit from the vice president’s wife.

But none of that has squashed Trump’s interest. In a meeting in March with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump claimed that the U.S. needs Greenland “for international security,” reasoning that the “whole area is becoming very important” because there are “ships all over the place.”

“So, we’re going to have to make a deal on that, and Denmark is not able to do that, and you know, Denmark is very far away, and really has nothing to do. What happened? A boat landed there 200 years ago or something and they say they have rights to it, I don’t know if that’s true, I don’t think it is, actually,” the apparent anti-colonialist activist said at the time.

In an address to Congress in March, Trump clarified his intention: “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

The MAGAsphere is reeling as Republican Senator Thom Tillis seems likely to tank Trump’s nominee for D.C. attorney due to his legal and political support for January 6 insurrectionists.

Tillis came out against Ed Martin—who has been described as a “far-right election denier” and a “conspiracy theorist”—on Tuesday.

“Mr. Martin did a good job of explaining the one area that I think he’s probably right, that there were some people that were over-prosecuted, but there were some [200 to 300 of them] that should have never gotten a pardon,” Tillis told reporters Tuesday, referring to the Capitol riot insurrectionists. “I have no tolerance for anybody who entered the building on January 6.”

This has led to widespread anger among Trump supporters, particularly those on the farthest right.

“I was sentenced to nearly 3 years in prison—not for violence on J6, but for standing my ground and refusing to bow to a rigged political prosecution,” wrote Jon Strand, an insurrectionist who said he was “with the first dozen patriots” to storm the Capitol building.

“Now Senator Thom Tillis is opposing Ed Martin, one of the few men who actually understands the injustice that I and hundreds of others have endured. This isn’t politics, it’s a coverup,” he continued in the video attached to his post, with dramatic music playing in the background. “If Tillis won’t support President Trump’s nominee, a man clearly dedicated to justice, then I will dedicate myself to ending Thom Tillis’s career…. Make sure Tillis knows, we see him. And we won’t forget this.”

Mike Benz, head of a conservative “free speech” group, completely dismissed January 6 as an issue on Steve Bannon’s War Room show.

“This is not just an ancient memory, it’s settled. Done. For [January 6] to be invoked as the reason to block Ed Martin suggests something much darker to me.” Benz went on to accuse Tillis of being a member of the deep state who can’t accept the “fedsurrection,” a MAGA conspiracy theory that the insurrection was a planted, false flag event.

“Get off your high horse. Quit worrying about your feelings, and vote for President Trump’s people,” Senator Tommy Tuberville said Tuesday on Newsmax. “Seventy-seven million voted for President Trump. I just don’t understand how people put themselves first and not their constituents.”

Tillis received even more flack on Truth Social.

“Thom Tillis voted for Merrick Garland but won’t vote for Trump’s picks,” one MAGA account with a large following wrote. “You wouldn’t do this unless you’re in on the D.C corruption.”

“If Thom Tillis wont vote Ed Martin out of committee then he needs to be REMOVED from the committee and replaced with someone that will vote to confirm,” wrote far-right activist Charlie Kirk on X. “Its not that tough, @LeaderJohnThune. Man up and do what needs to be done.”

Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that Russia was “asking for too much” in its negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

During a Q&A at the Munich Leaders Meeting in Washington, Vance lobbed a rare criticism at Moscow over its lengthy list of demands required to end its invasion into Ukraine, when asked whether he thought Russia was serious about ending the conflict.

“I wouldn’t say—I’m not yet that pessimistic on this—I wouldn’t say that the Russians are uninterested in bringing this thing to a resolution. What I would say is right now the Russians are asking for a certain set of requirements, a certain set of concessions, in order to end the conflict,” Vance said. “We think they’re asking for too much.”

Russia’s list of demands have remained largely the same since its full-scale invasion first began in 2022. In April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia requires full control of five Ukrainian regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Crimea. Lavrov also insisted that Ukraine must be demilitarized, banned from entering NATO, and that Kyiv would need to introduce legislation to restore the state of Russian language, culture, and religious institutions.

The vice president claimed Wednesday that the next step for the U.S. was to facilitate a face-to-face meeting between the two warring governments. “It’s very important for the Russians and Ukrainians to start talking to one another,” Vance said.

This comes little over a week after Lavrov said that Russia wanted to lift a ban on Kyiv’s ability to directly negotiate with Moscow. Yaroslav Trofimov, the chief foreign affairs correspondent at The Wall Street Journal, said that Russia was essentially telling Trump to “get lost.”

Vance made it clear that in negotiations, the United States was still playing by Russia’s rules. After Russia refused to agree to a 30-day ceasefire, Vance said that the U.S. was abandoning those hopes as well. “We’ve tried to move beyond the obsession with the 30-day ceasefire,” he said.

During the Q&A, Vance waxed poetic about how important it was to truly understand each side, even if you didn’t agree with them, but he also took a moment to whine about all that pesky historical context he’d had to endure.

“They hate each other so much that if you have an hour conversation with either side, the first 30 minutes are just them complaining about some historical grievance from four years ago, or five years ago, or 10 years ago,” Vance said.

Speaking of history, one might flash back to Vance’s humiliating display in the Oval Office in February, when he lost his temper as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy explained Russia’s invasion of Crimea.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday raided a restaurant in Washington, D.C., owned by the husband of CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell.

Early Tuesday morning, immigration officers dressed in Homeland Security uniforms busted into the American fare restaurant Chef Geoff’s and demanded to see employees’ work authorization, Fox5 reported. No one was taken into custody, marking yet another pointless, fearmongering raid from ICE.

O’Donnell is a senior correspondent for CBS News and a contributing correspondent for the network’s 60 Minutes, which Trump has targeted ever since the network did an interview with Kamala Harris before the 2024 election. It’s unclear whether ICE knew that O’Donnell’s husband, Geoff Tracy, is the owner of Chef Geoff’s.

ICE also raided at least seven other restaurants in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, including Millie’s, Pupatella, and Chang Chang, to demand I-9 forms, The Washingtonian reported.

“We were under the impression that they were focusing on trying to find criminals,” Bo Blair, the owner of Millie’s, told The Washingtonian. “And this is just a whole new level of harassment to our hardworking, law-abiding employees.” The ICE agents informed staff at Millie’s that they will return on Monday to collect the remainder of the I-9 forms verifying employees’ identity and work authorization.

According to data from the Independent Restaurant Coalition, immigrants make up 22 percent of all U.S. workers in food services. Restaurant workers have long been bracing for ICE raids, and it looks like the GOP’s crackdown on yet another industry that relies heavily on immigrant labor is in full force.

Donald Trump made the “Gulf of America” so great again that he’s considering implementing a similar rebrand for another body of water—this time, one thousands of miles away from U.S. territory.

The president is considering renaming the Persian Gulf the “Arabian Gulf,” mere days after his family announced billions of dollars in forthcoming real estate deals in the region.

Those plans include a Trump-branded golf course in Qatar (as part of a $5.5 billion development project), a $1 billion Trump hotel and residence in Dubai, and a $2 billion investment by an Abu Dhabi firm into one of Trump’s cryptocurrency projects, the World Liberty Financial Coin.

The family also revealed in December that they would be expanding their presence in Saudi Arabia, announcing Trump Tower Jeddah. The price tag for the building has not been made public, but one of the developers on the project, Dar Global, compared it to another $530 million Trump Tower in the city, reported Reuters.

The Trumps have held deep financial ties to the region for years. After Trump’s first term, Saudi Arabia invested $2 billion in a firm belonging to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

Trump is expected to travel to Saudi Arabia next week, where it’s anticipated that he’ll make the announcement publicly, according to two officials who spoke with the Associated Press.

As a reminder, it’s actually unconstitutional for presidents to profit from or receive compensation from foreign governments. The White House has contested that the deals are not a conflict of interest since the president’s assets are managed by his eldest sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. But Trump’s pockets will undoubtedly be lined by the deal—even if he has to wait a handful of years before he’s out of office to see the cashflow. In the meantime, he’ll receive myriad personal benefits from his relationships in the Middle East for arranging the deal.

Seven other nations surround the body of water, including Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.

The Persian Gulf has been the body’s predominant name since the sixteenth century, but its moniker has also been regionally contested by other countries in the Middle East, where it is mainly referred to as the “Gulf of Arabia” or “Arabian Gulf,” according to The Daily Beast.

Referring to the inlet as the Arabian Gulf hasn’t served Trump’s diplomatic relations well in the past. During one such instance in 2017, former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told the U.S. leader that he needed to “study geography.”

“Everyone knew Trump’s friendship was for sale to the highest bidder. We now know that his geography is, too,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote online at the time.