Troops Stand By For Minnesota, Greenland NATO Tensions, Gaza Peace Board
Up First from NPR
NPR
4.5 • 52.8K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2026
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
Tensions rise with European allies as the White House pressures Denmark and other NATO countries over Greenland, prompting warnings of damage to transatlantic relations.
And world leaders are being asked to buy into a new U.S.-led “Board of Peace” for Gaza and other conflicts, with billion-dollar commitments and President Trump at the helm.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Padma Rama, Ben Swasey, Gerry Holmes, Mohamad ElBardicy, HJ Mai.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.
We get engineering support from Simon-Laslo Janssen. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
(0:00) Introduction
(01:57) Troops Stand By For Minnesota
(05:47) Greenland NATO Tensions
(09:34) Gaza Peace Board
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Minnesota is becoming the front line of resistance to federal immigration crackdown. |
| 0:06.7 | Up to 1,500 active duty troops are on standby after President Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to suppress protests. |
| 0:14.7 | I'm Michelle Martin. That's Steve Inskeep. And this is up first from NPR News. |
| 0:20.6 | The White House plans to use tariffs to pressure NATO allies to make a deal for the purchase of Greenland. |
| 0:26.2 | How far is the president willing to push America's closest partners? |
| 0:29.6 | Also, the president is inviting world leaders to join a new board of peace to secure conflict zones, apparently not just Gaza. |
| 0:36.8 | NPR obtained a copy of the charter, which asks other |
| 0:39.8 | countries to pay billions to join the board permanently and gives Trump sweeping seemingly |
| 0:44.6 | permanent authority. What does Israel think? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day. |
| 0:56.8 | Minnesota protesters spent a cold weekend on the streets confronting immigration agents, |
| 1:02.2 | and President Trump's administration spent the weekend escalating pressure. |
| 1:06.2 | Up to 1,500 active-duty troops are on standby for possible deployment there. |
| 1:12.4 | A U.S. official tells our colleague Tom Bowman that the troops are from the 11th Airborne Division. They're based in |
| 1:16.6 | Alaska and trained to operate in cold weather. The president has threatened to invoke the |
| 1:20.9 | Insurrection Act to justify sending troops to perform tasks typically performed by law enforcement. |
| 1:27.3 | Those were just some of the administration moves over the weekend, and Minnesota Public Radio's |
| 1:31.5 | Clay Masters is here. Clay, good morning. Good morning. What else did the administration do? |
| 1:35.9 | We learned that the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Minnesota |
| 1:39.9 | Governor Tim Walls and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry. Both Walls and Frye have been loud opponents |
| 1:45.4 | of ICE's increased presence in the state, especially the tactics in Minneapolis, since the fatal |
| 1:50.7 | shooting of Renee Macklin Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross. Walls, who announced a couple weeks ago he was |
| 1:56.4 | dropping his bid for re-election, said weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents is an authoritarian tactic. |
... |
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