As Trump continues to threaten to bring the Danish territory under U.S. control, despite opposition from key global allies and the island’s own elected officials, some Republican lawmakers are stepping up their warnings and engaging in diplomacy, while Democrats are preparing to put the other party on the record as opposing a military invasion.
Senator Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) predicted that lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum would unite and demand congressional approval if it became clear that Trump was preparing for immediate military action, Politico reports.
“If any action appeared to be aimed at actually landing on Greenland and illegally taking it over … there would be enough votes to pass a war powers resolution and survive a presidential veto,” Tillis said.
Representative Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) went even further, predicting that it would lead to impeachment, calling Trump’s obsession with Greenland “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
The blunt public messages come as lawmakers privately try to reassure U.S. allies, including Denmark. A bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers will be in Copenhagen on Friday to personally deliver the message that military action has no support on Capitol Hill.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is not joining the delegation, but he largely supported the message the delegation intends to send in a statement Thursday, saying that “there is certainly no mood here for some of the options that have been discussed or considered” — an apparent reference to military action.
The resistance represents one of the deepest divisions yet seen between Republican lawmakers and the president in Trump’s second term. So far, Republican unease with Trump’s abrupt foreign policy moves has not resulted in successful attempts to rein him in.
Following the operation to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month, five Republicans joined Democrats in pushing through a measure that would have limited Trump’s future military intervention in the South American country. But on Wednesday, two of them reversed course and withdrew the threat after the administration gave some assurances about future action.
Democrats believe that Greenland — a sovereign territory belonging to a NATO ally — could be a different case. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, a co-author of the Venezuela measure and a frontrunner for a series of new war powers bills, acknowledged to reporters on Wednesday that the chances are slim that enough Republican senators would join Democrats to override the veto.
But, Kaine added, “In Greenland, we might be able to.”
Thune’s predecessor as Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, made the remarks in a Senate floor speech in which he said military action against Greenland would be “an unprecedented act of strategic self-harm” that could “burn” NATO alliances.
Representative Jeff Hurd (R-Colorado) said he was “deeply concerned” about the administration’s messaging on Greenland.
“I don’t think it’s productive, and I don’t think it’s the way to treat an ally,” he said, adding that he would “oppose military action in Greenland.”
But even as more Republicans speak out publicly against Trump’s Greenland ambitions, it’s unclear whether they could put in place preemptive safeguards in this session of Congress, even if they wanted to. Instead, they seem to be hoping that Trump will read between the lines and realize that he has no support on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Democrats are promising to introduce a series of war powers resolutions, including one on Greenland, in the coming weeks and months. Yet even Tillis, who predicted overwhelming support for such a resolution in the event of “immediate” military action, said he would not support a measure that would bar Trump from using force in the region at this time because it would “legitimize” a threat he does not believe is real.
Instead, Tillis is using his public space as an outgoing senator to harshly criticize Trump’s closest aides, whom he blames for some of the administration’s excesses. While the Greenland takeover might be supported by hardline deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Tillis said, “that is not the position of the U.S. government.” That, he added, is “another reason I am going to Copenhagen.”
Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), who initially supported the war powers resolution for Venezuela before changing his mind, also said in an interview that he does not support a similar move for Greenland.
“Not upfront,” Hawley said, adding that any such measure “has to respond to very specific facts.”
Any formal Republican pushback would likely include Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) — co-founder of the Senate Arctic Caucus — who on Thursday joined Senator Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a representative of Ro Kh
Foto: Wikimedia
