Many Republicans are downplaying the Trump administration’s threat to use military force to seize Greenland, while some GOP lawmakers denounce what they say would be a senseless attack on a longtime U.S. partner that could splinter the NATO alliance.
“I don’t think anybody’s seriously considering that,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said of a potential military annexation of the territory, while speaking with reporters Wednesday. “In the Congress, we’re certainly not.”
On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) also dismissed the possibility, saying he did not “see military action being an option there.”
Other GOP lawmakers have been more openly critical. In a statement, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the GOP chair of the Senate panel on defense spending, called the administration’s comments “unseemly” and “counterproductive,” warning that any military action would be “an especially catastrophic act of strategic self-harm to America and its global influence.”
Their comments came days after Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, told CNN that Greenland should “obviously” be part of the United States in the wake of a daring U.S. military raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The White House said in a statement Tuesday that the administration was considering “a range of options” to acquire Greenland and that “utilizing the U.S. military is always an option” for the president.
The split between leadership in the GOP-controlled Congress and the White House underscores the tensions in the party over the president’s military adventurism. Even as most Republicans have backed Trump’s military strikes around the world — including in Yemen, Iran and Venezuela — threatening a NATO ally is going too far, some lawmakers warn.
GOP lawmakers have largely framed President Donald Trump’s threats to seize the island as a negotiating tactic, but that position is becoming more tenuous as senior officials affirm military force as an option and the administration intervenes in foreign countries elsewhere.
Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a U.S. ally and NATO member. The administration’s veiled warnings have prompted outcry from other European allies, many of whom see military action against the island as a red line in their relations with Washington.
While many Republican members of Congress cast doubt on the possibility that the administration would forcibly annex Greenland, others sharply criticized the vague threats coming from the highest levels of the White House.
“I’m sick of stupid,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), who co-chairs a Senate panel on NATO, said in a restive floor speech Wednesday. “The amateurs who said it was a good idea should lose their jobs,” he continued, referencing Miller’s comments Monday.
During a classified briefing with select lawmakers Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated that the president’s goal was to purchase the territory — an overture Denmark has repeatedly dismissed. Speaking with reporters Wednesday after appearing at a closed-door meeting with the full Senate, Rubio said he would meet with the Danish government next week to discuss the topic and didn’t address whether the administration would consider using military force.
Rubio, who also serves as the White House national security adviser, said his comments Monday were an attempt to remind lawmakers of Trump’s long-standing goal of purchasing the island.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who co-chairs the Senate Arctic Caucus, said in a statement that she hoped the administration’s “rhetoric on Greenland is nothing more than posturing for a new era of cooperation.” Forcibly annexing the territory, she warned, would “degrade both our national security and our international relationships.”
In a press briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to take military action off the table when pressed by reporters on the administration’s policy toward Greenland. Leavitt said that the president’s “first option” was to acquire the territory through diplomacy — though she raised the comparisons of Iran and Venezuela, both of which became targets of U.S. military force after initial high-level dialogues.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said he was unaware of a single Senate Republican who supports taking military action against the territory.
While Paul is not opposed to the United States buying Greenland, he said he thought it was a mistake to muse about taking it by force.
“It’s loose talk. It’s from people like Stephen Miller, who also ruminated about getting rid of habeas corpus,” Paul said, referring to the requirement that a person under arrest be brought before a judge. “That kind of stuff should be condemned.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) said he expected senators to introduce war powers resolutions to block the administration from attacking Greenland and other territories, though he said he was unsure if such a measure would pass.
“If we have a vote on Greenland and there hasn’t been any military action taken, I can see a lot of folks who don’t want to buck Donald Trump saying, ‘Oh, nothing’s going to happen, it was a bluff,’” Kaine told reporters. “And I’ll say, ‘Yeah, but you said that about Venezuela, and it wasn’t a bluff.’”
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