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Au Pair Testifies Banfield Wanted to Get Rid of His Wife in Double Murder Trial; Norway Sends Defense Personnel to Greenland; Denmark to Increase Military Around Greenland Amid Trump Threats; Trump Says Anything Less Than U.S. Control of Greenland is Unacceptable; Danish, Greenlandic Officials to Speak After White House Meeting. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired January 14, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- still paying for everything. His mother paid to get her commissary food, phone privileges to Brazil, but she finally is presented with a deal where she could plead guilty and testify against him.

And her mother had just sent her from Brazil an email like the day before saying, well, Brendan planned all this. We don't know how the mother learned that or said that, but defense was trying to show that the mother was a big influence on her. And it's so important for this witness, Juliana, the au pair, to be discredited by the defense because everything she says implicates Brendan Banfield, the man who's facing two life terms.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Yeah, and this is only day two. I mean, who else can we expect to hear from this week?

CASAREZ: It's going to be all forensics. There's going to be so much forensics here from blood spatter to probably crime scene reconstructionist, to phone records, to so much because the prosecutor said in their opening statement you're going to hear her testimony, but you're going to see how all the forensics corroborates what she is saying is true.

And so it's going to be a lot of experts. But then, Brianna, you've got the battle of the experts. And when you have battle of experts in the courtroom, the defense is going to have an expert too. They're going to have cross-examination too, and you're left with, oh, well, maybe it's this way, maybe it's that way.

So I think her testimony is crucial here. The jury has got to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that she is telling the truth.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Just a really stunning case. Jean Casarez, thank you so much.

So, Norway is now sending defense personnel to Greenland amid President Trump's threats to take control of the territory. Some details when we come back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:36:03]

SANCHEZ: Just minutes from now, we're expecting to hear from top officials from Denmark and Greenland following their critical meeting with Vice President, J.D. Vance and Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. It comes as President Trump intensifies his threat to take over the territory, posting earlier on social media, "Anything less than U.S. control of Greenland is unacceptable."

Meantime, Denmark just announced it's taking new steps to boost its military presence in and around the area. With us now to discuss is former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley Clark. General, thanks so much for being with us.

So there's already a U.S. space base on Greenland. Couldn't the U.S. just accomplish its national security goals in concert with Greenland and Denmark's government?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: It would certainly seem to be the case that you could set up an arrangement and put the bases in that you want. You could do the patrols. You can bring the Danes in with you in the joint headquarters. You could call it national security control of Denmark, doesn't have to necessarily mean ownership.

Just have the control. You could also set up the same arrangement with, let's say, economic exploitation of minerals in Greenland. So, there are different ways to go at this other than simply saying you've got to own the territory.

SANCHEZ: So why do you think Trump is going this route?

CLARK: Well, he says it makes him more comfortable. But, he's the president. That's what he wants to do. There are alternatives to this that will be more palatable. I think it has put a lot of stress on NATO.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. And on that question, Trump has argued that U.S. ownership of Greenland would be vital for his proposed Golden Dome. But also, he suggests that U.S. control would make NATO far more formidable and effective. How do you see those justifications, not only on NATO, but on that proposed missile defense system?

CLARK: I'd have to understand the details, Boris, of why simply positioning assets up there would be less effective than, let's say, legal ownership of the territory. It's not clear from what he says, but there are many ways to go after it. I do feel that those relationships in the Arctic are changing. Russia is up there. They're challenging us.

China wants that Northwest Passage over the top of Siberia to get to Europe on a shorter route. There's a lot of challenges in the Arctic coming, and the United States really hasn't prepared for it very well. We don't have the icebreakers we need to work in the Arctic. But we can have all the access we need under the existing arrangements in Greenland, it seems to me. So maybe there's something here that we don't see.

But superficially, at least, I hope that that Rubio meeting with the Danes and the Greenland prime minister turns out the right way and gives us whatever shred of additional control that we need. I think we could establish a joint command up there, an Arctic command that NATO doesn't have. But again, this proliferates commands and Pentagon has been trying to reduce the number of commands. But there's many ways to go after this.

SANCHEZ: So I wonder what you make of this proposal, this legislation that's been introduced by Senators Murkowski and Senator Shaheen that would effectively block any funding to the Pentagon or to the State Department for the purpose of taking over NATO territory without consent. Do you consider it effective, perhaps premature or misguided?

[13:40:00]

CLARK: I think it is part of the give and take that goes on in politics in the United States. This is essentially a political issue. The military issue, the national security issue can be solved. But this is about the battle in the Senate and in Congress between Democrats and Republicans, and different views of how they see the country moving forward.

SANCHEZ: General Wesley Clark, we have to leave the conversation there. Always appreciate hearing your perspective. Thank you.

CLARK: Thank you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Up next, we have some brand new details about an early morning FBI raid at the home of a Washington Post journalist. Hear what agents may have been looking for when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:45:17]

KEILAR: Today, the Justice Department confirmed that an investigation into the illegal retention of classified information prompted the FBI to search a reporter's home. That reporter, Hannah Natanson of The Washington Post, seen here on CNN in 2020, is the author of the piece, "I Am the Post's Federal Government Whisperer. It's Been Brutal."

It's about how her efforts to show how Trump was transforming government brought her more than 1,100 sources. A source says Natanson was told she is not the subject of the investigation. She has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Let's go to CNN Chief Media Analyst, Brian Stelter with the latest here. All right, Brian, who is the target of this FBI search?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yeah, we've been working on this for the past few hours. As best we can tell, this seems to be an ongoing probe into a government contractor in Maryland by the name of Aurelio Perez-Lugones.

He was charged last week with illegally retaining classified documents, and there's a hearing in his case coming up tomorrow. CNN has reviewed the court filings in his case, and there's no reference to him potentially sharing secrets with any reporters. However, it seems the government is pursuing that line of inquiry.

Attorney General, Pam Bondi said today that a Post reporter was "obtaining and reporting classified and illegally-leaked information from a Pentagon contractor." Now, there's been no backup for that specific claim. The Post has not commented on it, and it's not illegal to report on classified information.

That is a First Amendment right that's been inferred by the courts over and over again. So Hannah Natanson was not detained. She hasn't been accused of any crime, but her phone and her two computers are now in the government's possession, leading to a lot of concern among journalists and others that her sources might now be exposed.

She wrote in that column for The Post last month that she had more than 1,000 tipsters inside the federal government, some of them blowing the whistle on Trump's changes to the government, trying to alert the media to what was going on. All those sources in her phone, hopefully, are protected using the encrypted messaging app, Signal, but could potentially now be at risk. That's at least the question on many people's minds.

We've also heard, by the way, we heard from Washington Post Editor, Matt Murray in the past few minutes. He sent a memo to the newsroom saying, "This extraordinary, aggressive action is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work."

KEILAR: How are reporters at The Post and elsewhere responding to this search of a reporter's personal space by the government?

STELTER: Well, I've been talking with some of these reporters on condition of anonymity because they don't want to be quoted on the record, so using sources.

Here's what one Post reporter said to me, "We're horrified for Hannah, who's a wonderful reporter, and we're scared for ourselves trying to think through how to best protect, further protect sources and secure our reporting and devices." We've heard from a number of press freedom groups in the last few hours who are very worried about the chilling effect this action could have. It is basically -- it is highly, highly unusual to have FBI agents show up at a reporter's home like this and seize a phone or a computer.

Jameel Jaffer, the Executive Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, said "searches of newsrooms and journalists are hallmarks of illiberal regimes, and we must ensure that these practices are not normalized here."

KEILAR: Yeah, how norm-shattering is this exactly, Brian? STELTER: Well, that's the thing, right? There's been skirmishes over leaked probes in the past. I remember some of these coming up during the Obama years, not because of raids inside reporters' homes, but because of subpoenas. And that's how it used to work in the past.

There'd be a court process, a subpoena, and there'd be a lengthy legal fight over what's going to happen with reporters' records, with their phone logs, for example, for things like that. And when there have been those skirmishes in the past, there have been some attempts to mend fences.

During the Biden years, for example, there was a new understanding reached between the Attorney General at the time, Merrick Garland, and major news outlets about how that subpoena process would work. It seems that that process has now been blown up. And in fact, last year, we know that Bondi, Pam Bondi blew that process up, said it wasn't going to apply anymore.

The Trump administration made it easier for investigators to pursue reporters' records last year. This seems to be the first test of those new relaxed rules. The idea that these agents showed up early in the morning unannounced, seizing a phone, seizing two computers, this doesn't just affect journalists.

Most importantly, it affects the people who trusted that journalist, who sent that journalist information that they wanted to have published. Hannah Natanson of The Washington Post did great work last year covering the changes to the federal government, just as reporters have at CNN and The New York Times and other outlets. And we rely on those anonymous, confidential sources to let us know what's really going on inside the government.

So if we hear about a case like this where a reporter's home is being raided, possibly pursuing information about their sources, it can have a chill, yes, on newsrooms, but also on the public more broadly. And that's the real concern today.

KEILAR: Yeah. Brian Stelter, thank you so much. A really important story here.

[13:50:00]

And next, a measles outbreak in South Carolina doubling in size as we're getting some new data about the number of parents who are forgoing vaccinations for their children.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: All right, as President Trump has said that anything less than U.S. control of Greenland is unacceptable, let's go to the White House where the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers have just met with Secretary Rubio and the Vice President.

LARS LOKKE RASMUSSEN, DANISH FOREIGN MINISTER: -- remarkable public comments on Greenland and Arctic security. Our aim was to find a joint way forward to increase Arctic security. What can the Kingdom of Denmark do more? What can U.S. do more? What can NATO do more? The Kingdom of Denmark has already stepped up our own contribution by committing additional funds for military capabilities. Not dock slates, but ships, drones, fighter jets, et cetera. And we are definitely ready to do more.

The U.S. has already a wide military access to Greenland. Under the 1951 defense agreement, the U.S. can always ask for increasing its presence in Greenland.

[13:55:00]

And therefore, we wish to hear if the U.S. had any further request to make in this aspect. We would examine any such request constructively.

Greenland is, through the Kingdom of Denmark, a member of NATO and has been that since the very founding of NATO in '49 and is therefore also covered by Article 5. We have been pushing for quite a while in NATO for a stronger collective role in Greenland together with a number of allies. And we are eager to work with the U.S. on advancing this agenda and we are prepared to go further.

Therefore, our aim was to find a common understanding on all these points and to launch, if possible, further in-depth work to deliver on them. On this basis, we had what I will describe as a frank, but also constructive discussion. The discussions focused on how to ensure the long-term security in Greenland. And here, our perspectives continue to differ, I must say.

The President has made his view clear and we have a different position. We, the Kingdom of Denmark, continue to believe that also the long-term security of Greenland can be ensured inside the current framework, the 1951 Agreement on the Defense of Greenland as well as the NATO Treaty.

For us, ideas that would not respect territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark and the right of self-determination of the Greenlandic people are, of course, totally unacceptable. And we therefore still have a fundamental disagreement, but we also agree to disagree. And therefore, we will, however, continue to talk.

We have decided to form a high-level working group to explore if we can find a common way forward. The group, in our view, should focus on how to address the American security concerns while at the same time respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark. We expect that such a group will meet for a first time within a matter of weeks.

And then, I will pass the floor to my colleague from Greenland, Vivian Motzfeldt.

VIVIAN MOTZFELDT, FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER, GREENLAND: Thank you so much. Not repeating what has already been said here. So I would like to say something in my own language because there are many, many people in Greenland that follow us and for that I hope that you will allow me. So --

[Foreign Language] SANCHEZ: We have been listening to the Foreign Ministers of Denmark and Greenland at the Danish Embassy following their meeting at the White House with Vice President, J.D. Vance and Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. There the Danish foreign minister is saying that this was a frank, but positive conversation, saying that perspectives continue to differ. We're going to agree to disagree.

It sounds like the representatives for President Trump maintain his position that there is no other option but a U.S. takeover of Greenland. Effectively, the foreign minister there is saying that they don't see it that way. They believe that they can maintain the long- term security of the territory with the current agreement that's in place, saying that the U.S. already has vested interests and ample opportunities to expand its role in Greenland.

KEILAR: Yeah. Let's listen back into the Greenlandic foreign minister. She's now speaking in English.

RASMUSSEN: I'm going to take a few questions. Tom (ph) from BBC. Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

RASMUSSEN: Well, that's actually quite a few questions at the same time. Well, I have known the President for quite a while, also in my former capacity as Prime Minister in Denmark, and I know his approach. But I must say, even though he addressed things quite differently from what I would have done myself, there's also always a bit of truth in what he's saying.

Not about the dog sleighs. Well, we also have dog sleighs to our special forces. That's the way to, you know -- otherwise, you couldn't come around in the northern part of Greenland. But I must say that, of course, we share to some extent his concerns. There is definitely a new security situation in the Arctic and --