Ben Taub

So they deployed police to maintain public order and make sure that they would be safe in nuke.

And for the next several days, American representatives were, as a Danish TV correspondent put it, they were seen walking around practically knocking on one door after another and asking people if they'd be interested in a visit from the vice president's wife.

And everywhere, the response was no thanks.

So at that point, the White House canceled Usha's touristic visits completely and instead reframed this as the vice president is going to make sure that we've got a good check on the security situation in Greenland, giving all the essentially fictional Russian and Chinese threats happening up there.

And so he traveled up to Patufik's base on an official visit where he then berated Denmark, lied about Russia and China, attempting a lot of very aggressive incursions into Greenland,

and essentially blurted out the truth at one point.

He said, the president said we have to have Greenland and added, we can't just ignore the president's desires.

So that was sort of the end of that for a while.

And from that point forward, it seemed like things were quieting down in terms of influence operations for a while.

But it soon became clear in Denmark and Greenland that what was actually happening was it was just kind of a strategic pause while they regrouped and figured out what to do instead.

Yes, in the aftermath of the Venezuela raid, it really seems to the Danes and the Greenlanders that sort of piggybacking off of the success of that raid, he might do something else.

And there were a number of indications that Greenland would be the next target.

Among them was that a former White House official, Katie Miller, who's also married to Stephen Miller, Trump's Homeland Security Advisor, posted online a map of Greenland overlaid with the American flag with a one word caption.

It just said,

And then Trump said, we do need Greenland, absolutely.

And his acolytes were basically making clear that this was a priority.

Stephen Miller himself went on CNN and said, nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.

By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland?

So at that point, the Danes were really spooked and they and seven other European nations deployed troops to Greenland.

They actually carried live ammunition and explosives and they prepared to blow up Greenland's runways to slow any possible invasion.