Hegseth says the Pentagon has contingency plans to invade Greenland if necessary

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Hegseth says the Pentagon has contingency plans to invade Greenland if necessary

2025-06-13 07:18 Last Updated At：07:20

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon has developed plans to take over Greenland and Panama by force if necessary but refused to answer repeated questions at a hotly combative congressional hearing Thursday about his use of Signal chats to discuss military operations.

Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee repeatedly got into heated exchanges with Hegseth, with some of the toughest lines of questioning coming from military veterans as many demanded yes or no answers and he tried to avoid direct responses about his actions as Pentagon chief.

In one back-and-forth, Hegseth did provide an eyebrow-raising answer. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., asked whether the Pentagon has developed plans to take Greenland or Panama by force if necessary.

“Our job at the Defense Department is to have plans for any contingency,” Hegseth said several times.

It is not unusual for the Pentagon to draw up contingency plans for conflicts that have not arisen, but his handling of the questions prompted a Republican lawmaker to step in a few minutes later.

“It is not your testimony today that there are plans at the Pentagon for taking by force or invading Greenland, correct?” said Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio.

As Hegseth started to repeat his answer about contingency plans, Turner added emphatically, “I sure as hell hope that is not your testimony.”

“We look forward to working with Greenland to ensure that it is secured from any potential threats,” Hegseth responded.

Time and again, lawmakers pressed Hegseth to answer questions he has avoided for months, including during the two previous days of hearings on Capitol Hill. And frustration boiled over.

"You’re an embarrassment to this country. You’re unfit to lead," Rep. Salud Carbajal snapped, the California Democrat's voice rising. “You should just get the hell out.”

GOP lawmakers on several occasions apologized to Hegseth for the Democrats' sharp remarks, saying he should not be subject to such “flagrant disrespect.” Hegseth said he was “happy to take the arrows” to make tough calls and do what's best.

Hegseth's use of two Signal chats to discuss details of the U.S. plans to strike Houthi rebels in Yemen with other U.S. leaders as well as members of his family prompted dizzying exchanges with lawmakers.

Hegseth was pressed multiple times over whether or not he shared classified information and if he should face accountability if he did.

Hegseth argued that the classification markings of any information about those military operations could not be discussed with lawmakers.

That became a quick trap, as Hegseth has asserted that nothing he posted — on strike times and munitions dropped in March — was classified. His questioner, Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat and Marine veteran, jumped on the disparity.

“You can very well disclose whether or not it was classified,” Moulton said.

“What’s not classified is that it was an incredible, successful mission,” Hegseth responded.

A Pentagon watchdog report on his Signal use is expected soon.

Moulton asked Hegseth whether he would hold himself accountable if the inspector general finds that he placed classified information on Signal, a commercially available app.

Hegseth would not directly say, only noting that he serves “at the pleasure of the president.”

He was asked if he would apologize to the mother of a pilot flying the strike mission for jeopardizing the operation and putting her son’s life at risk. Hegseth said, “I don’t apologize for success.”

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who appeared along Hegseth, was questioned about Trump's speech at Fort Bragg this week and whether the military was becoming politicized.

The Defense Department has a doctrine that prohibits troops from participating in political activity while in uniform. Members of the 82nd Airborne Division were directed to stand behind Trump at Fort Bragg, and they booed and cheered during his incendiary remarks, including condemnation of his predecessor, Joe Biden.

There also was a pop-up MAGA merchandise stand selling souvenirs to troops in uniform.

Caine repeatedly said U.S. service members must be apolitical but that he was unaware of anything that happened at Fort Bragg.

Hegseth got into a sharp debate about whether women and transgender service members should serve in the military or combat jobs.

He said he has worked to remove diversity programs and political correctness from the military. He said he has not politicized the military but simply wants the most capable troops.

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., demanded to know if Hegseth believes that both men and women can pull a trigger, cause death, operate a drone or launch a missile.

“It depends on the context,” Hegseth said, adding that “women carry equipment differently, a 155 round differently, a rucksack differently.”

Hegseth, who has previously said women “straight up” should not serve in combat, asserted that women have joined the military in record numbers under the Trump administration. He said the military “standards should be high and equal.”

He also was asked about three female service members — now being forced out as part of the Pentagon's move to ban transgender troops.

Hegseth agreed that their accomplishments — which Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., read out — were to be celebrated, until he learned they were transgender.

Republican lawmakers jumped to his defense, criticizing any Pentagon spending on gender transition surgery.

President Donald Trump has said multiple times that he wants to take control of Greenland, a strategic, mineral-rich island and long a U.S. ally. Those remarks have been met with flat rejections from the leaders of Greenland, an autonomous territory that is part of Denmark.

“Greenland is not for sale,” Jacob Isbosethsen, Greenland’s representative to the U.S, said Thursday at a forum in Washington sponsored by the Arctic Institute.

In an effort not to show the Pentagon’s hand on its routine effort to have plans for everything, Hegseth danced around the direct question from Smith, leading to the confusion.

“Speaking on behalf of the American people, I don’t think the American people voted for President Trump because they were hoping we would invade Greenland,” Smith said.

AP writer David Klepper in Washington contributed to this report.

Hennepin County prosecutor calls on the public to share Renee Good shooting evidence with her office

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty on Friday called on members of the public to send any video or other evidence in the fatal shooting of Renee Good directly to her office, challenging the Trump administration's decision to leave the investigation solely to the FBI.

Moriarty said that although her office has collaborated effectively with the FBI in past cases, she is concerned by the Trump administration's decision to bar state and local agencies from playing any role in the investigation into Wednesday's killing of Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.

She also said that despite the Trump administration’s insistence that the officer who shot Good has complete legal immunity, that isn’t the case.

“We do have jurisdiction to make this decision with what happened in this case,” she said at a news conference. “It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent.”

Moriarty said her office would post a link for the public to submit footage of the shooting, even though she acknowledged that she wasn't sure what legal outcome submissions might produce.

The prosecutor's announcement came on a third day of Minneapolis protests over Good's killing and a day after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon.

Good's wife, Becca Good, released a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday saying, “kindness radiated out of her.”

"On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns," Becca Good said.

“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him,” she wrote. “That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”

The reaction to the Good's shooting was immediate in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of protesters converging on the shooting scene and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution.

On Thursday night, hundreds marched in freezing rain down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now!” and holding signs saying, “Killer ice off our streets." And on Friday, protesters were out again demonstrating outside of a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown that began Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Authorities erected barricades outside the facility Friday.

City workers, meanwhile, removed makeshift barricades made of old Christmas trees and other debris that had been blocking the streets near the scene of Good's shooting. Officials said they would leave up a shrine to the 37-year-old mother of three.

The Portland shootings happened outside a hospital Thursday afternoon. Federal immigration officers shot and wounded a man and woman, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Venezuela nationals Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, who were inside a vehicle, and their conditions weren't immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed. Hundreds protested Thursday night at a local ICE building. Early Friday, Portland police reported that officers had arrested several protesters after asking the to get out of a street to allow traffic to flow.

Just as it did following Good's shooting, DHS defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying it occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It wasn't immediately clear if the shootings were captured on video, as Good's was.

The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.

The government is also shifting immigration officers to Minneapolis from sweeps in Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. This represents a pivot, as the Louisiana crackdown that began in December had been expected to last into February.

Good's death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, as protests happening in other places, including Texas, California, Detroit and Missouri.

In Washington, D.C., on Thursday, a woman held a sign that said, “Stop Trump’s Gestapo,” as hundreds of people marched to the White House. Protesters in Pflugerville, Texas, north of Austin, banged on the walls of an ICE facility. And a man in Los Angeles burned an American flag in front of federal detention center.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.

But state and local officials and protesters rejected that characterization, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey saying videos show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”

Several bystanders captured footage of Good's killing, which happened in a neighborhood south of downtown.

The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.

The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and ICE, according to records obtained by AP.

Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota, in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.

Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle whose driver was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. Ross was dragged and fired his Taser. A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.

Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis; Ed White in Detroit; Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas; Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Jim Mustian and Safiyah Riddle in New York; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.