On Wednesday, The Independent asked Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina about President Donald Trump threatening to use military force to take Greenland.
Tillis, who is retiring at the end of the year, called it “unproductive and unwise.”
But shortly thereafter, Tillis took to the Senate floor and let people know what he really thought about the plans.
“Folks, amateur hour is over,” Tillis said in a booming speech. Specifically, he seemed to call out Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff who promoted the idea in a bombastic interview on CNN Monday.
“It may be the position of the president of the United States that Greenland should be part of the United States, but it’s not the position of this government because we’re a coequal branch,” he said. “If that were to come to pass, there would be a vote on the floor to make it real, not the surreal sort of environment that some deputy chief of staff thinks was cute to say on TV.”
Tillis and Trump had a public falling out last year when the North Carolina Republican opposed Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” which led to him saying he would not seek re-election. That gives him some latitude.
But even Republicans who are vocal supporters of the president do not seem sold on the idea of taking Greenland, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, by military force.
“I just think we need to work well with the Danes,” Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, who is also retiring, told The Independent.
And it’s not just retiring Republicans who appear fed up with the president.
“I continue to hope the administration’s rhetoric on Greenland is nothing more than posturing for a new era of cooperation, because any effort to claim or take the territory by force would degrade both our national security and our international relationships,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in a statement.
Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump for his actions on January 6 five years ago, has walked a fine line between her critiques of the president and voting for his nominees. But as a senator with close ties to Arctic partners, she is firmly in the camp of opposing military action.
House Speaker Mike Johnson also brushed off Trump’s rhetoric around military action in Greenland.
“So all this stuff about military action and all that, I don't even think that's a possibility,” Johnson told The Independent during his weekly press conference. “I don't think anybody's seriously considering that. And in the Congress, we’re certainly not.”
Of course, that’s not true. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt floated the idea this week.
“The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the US military is always an option at the Commander-in-Chief's disposal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a libertarian with a noninterventionist streak, criticized the idea.
“I think buying Greenland would be a lot different, but I’m not for military action, “ he told The Independent.
The president is feeling especially emboldened after he ordered a successful operation in Caracas that concluded with the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
In response to Trump’s proposal to take Greenland by force, Democratic senators are planning to have a vote on a War Powers Act resolution. Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a combat veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, is proposing his own legislation.
“I hope good sense prevails,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told The Independent. “But I mean, the decision-making in his national security team is just bananas right now, I think it's going to be continued, continued bananas for the foreseeable future.”
This comes as Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia will force a vote on his War Powers Act resolution for military action in Venezuela on Thursday.
“All I will say is, they're talking about it, and people thought Trump was bluffing when he talked about Venezuela, and he wasn't,” Kaine told The Independent. “So you got to take it seriously.”
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