Congress

Republicans are scrambling to counter Trump on Greenland

Published

5 months ago

January 16, 2026

President Donald Trump is talking about taking over Greenland by any means necessary. Republicans in Congress are trying to scare him back to reality.

As Trump continually threatens to bring the Danish territory into the U.S. over the objections of key global allies and the island’s elected representatives, some GOP lawmakers are stepping up their warnings and engaging in diplomacy as Democrats prepare to put the other party on record opposing a military invasion.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) predicted members on both sides of the aisle would lock arms and require congressional signoff if it became clear Trump was preparing imminent military action.

“If there was any sort of action that looked like the goal was actually landing in Greenland and doing an illegal taking … there’d be sufficient numbers here to pass a war powers resolution and withstand a veto,” Tillis said.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) went further, predicting that it would lead to impeachment and calling Trump’s Greenland obsession “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

The blunt public messaging comes as lawmakers try to reassure U.S. allies, including Denmark, in private. A bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers will be in Copenhagen Friday to try to drive home in person the message that military action does not have support on Capitol Hill.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is not joining the delegation but he largely endorsed the message the contingent plans to send in comments to reporters Thursday, saying “there’s certainly not an appetite here for some of the options that have been talked about or considered” — an apparent reference to military action.

The pushback amounts to one of the most profound breaches yet seen between GOP lawmakers and the president in Trump’s second term. So far the Republican uneasiness over Trump’s brash foreign policy moves have not resulted in any successful steps to restrain him.

Following the operation to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month, five Republicans joined Democrats to advance a measure restraining Trump from future military incursions in the South American country. But on Wednesday, two of them reversed course and ended the threat after the administration made some commitments regarding future action.

Democrats believe Greenland — sovereign territory belonging to a NATO ally — could be different. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who co-authored the Venezuela measure and signaled a raft of new war-powers legislation, acknowledged to reporters Wednesday that prospects were dim that a veto-proof number of GOP senators would join Democrats’ efforts.

But “we might on Greenland,” Kaine added.

Thune’s predecessor as Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, spoke out in a floor speech where he said military action against Greenland would be “an unprecedented act of strategic self-harm” that risks “incinerating” NATO alliances.

Rep. Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.), meanwhile, said he was “deeply concerned” about the administration’s Greenland message.

“I don’t think it is productive, and I don’t think this is the way to treat an ally,” he said, adding that he “would be opposed to military action in Greenland.”

But even as more Republicans speak out about Trump’s Greenland ambitions, it’s not clear they could put preemptive guardrails on his actions in this Congress even if they wanted to. Instead, they appear to be hoping that Trump will read the writing on the wall and realize he doesn’t have support on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Democrats are vowing to introduce a spate of war powers resolutions, including on Greenland, in the coming weeks and months. Yet even Tillis, who predicted overwhelming support for such a resolution in the case of “imminent” military action, said he would not currently support a measure to stop Trump from using force in the region because it would “legitimize” a threat he doesn’t think is now real.

Instead, Tillis is using his megaphone as a retiring senator to launch broadsides against Trump’s top aides, whom he blames for some excesses of the administration. While a Greenland takeover might be supported by hard-line deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Tillis said, “it’s not the position of the U.S. government.”That, he said, is “another reason I’m going to Copenhagen.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who initially supported the Venezuela war powers resolution before backtracking, also said in an interview that he was not on board with a similar effort for Greenland.

“Not prospectively,” Hawley said, adding that any such measure “needs to respond to really particular facts.”

Any formal GOP pushback is likely to include Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) — co-founder of the Senate Arctic Caucus — who introduced a nonbinding resolution Thursday with Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Bacon that would affirm the U.S. partnership with Greenland and Denmark. The resolution stresses the “mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity” and that any military action would need congressional authorization.

Murkowski, who met with Danish diplomats this week and is also traveling to Copenhagen, said she would support a Greenland war powers resolution if it came to that. She also introduced a bill with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) that would prohibit the administration from using funding to unilaterally blockade, occupy, annex or assert control over Greenland or any other territory belonging to a NATO country.

“We are operating in times where we’re having conversations about things that we never thought even possible,” Murkowski said. “To use the name Greenland in the context of a war powers resolution is absolutely stunning.”

While a war powers resolution can be fast-tracked to the floor, Greenland’s allies in the Senate can’t easily force a vote on the NATO measure or even the nonbinding resolution. And some Senate Republicans expressed skepticism that party leaders would let those latter measures go anywhere.

“I’m sure Thune will jump on it like a bad rash,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said.

Meredith Lee Hill and Joe Gould contributed to this report.

Congress

Congressional Black Caucus blasts Slotkin over her calls for new leadership in the House

Published

15 hours ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Congressional Black Caucus is emphatically declaring its support for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — and denouncing Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s call for new leadership in Congress.

In a statement posted to social media on Friday, the entirely Democratic CBC declared that it stands united behind the nation’s first Black minority leader of the House. The caucus accused the Michigan senator of “posturing for higher office in 2028” and called attention to her votes to approve multiple members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

“House Democrats don’t need a lesson on reading the political moment from someone who handed Donald Trump one of the most corrupt Cabinets in American history,” the CBC said. “Voting to confirm Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and five other Trump Cabinet secretaries is not the posture of someone who understood the moment’ after 2024.”

The CBC closed its defense of Jeffries with a sharp parting shot of remaining focused on providing for Americans rather than “engaging in distractions that only serve to divide Democrats at a moment when unity and resolve are essential.”

A spokesperson for Slotkin, who has repeatedly called for a new generation of leadership in Congress, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Congress

Key Democrats urge House to reject kids’ safety proposal

Published

18 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Commerce Committee’s top Democrat Maria Cantwell (Wash.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) warned House lawmakers against advancing their chamber’s version of the Kids Online Safety Act, arguing it would face intense lobbying from tech companies in the Senate and risk unraveling years of bipartisan work.

“If it is passed by the House it will come to the Senate,” Blumenthal, the bill’s Senate cosponsor, told reporters at a Friday press briefing. The Connecticut Democrat said he is concerned senators will be influenced by the tech industry’s “armies of lawyers and lobbyists” who may “confuse and exploit” misunderstandings about a House bill with the same name as a Senate version but excludes key provisions, such as the “duty of care.” (This concept requires online companies to design social media platforms with an eye for children’s safety.)

“We’re not going to let bad legislation with a good title just get across and think somebody’s done something,” Cantwell said.

The House version of KOSA — which is included in the KIDS Act, a revised bipartisan package that the Energy and Commerce Committee advanced along party lines in March — is scheduled to be considered on the House floor next week under suspension of the rules.

“We need to stop this bill in the House, and we need to prevent the White House from forming an alliance with Big Tech on this issue,” said Blumenthal, who characterized the version of KOSA that House leadership is pushing as a “sham.”

Both Democratic lawmakers also expressed concern that Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) could adopt the House version of KOSA in a kids’ safety package he has yet to publicly release but has pledged to markup by August recess. Cruz said “negotiations are ongoing” earlier this week when asked by Blue Light News whether he would be open to incorporating such changes put forward in the House.

Cruz’s package is expected to include KOSA as well legislation barring companies from using minors’ personal data for targeted advertising, banning kids under age 13 from social media, and providing greater oversight for how children interact with AI chatbots.

Although Blumenthal remains hopeful that Cruz will “stay true to his first vote in favor of KOSA,” which overwhelmingly passed in the Senate last Congress, the Connecticut Democrat said Friday he’s worried Cruz and others may be tempted to “take the bait” and abandon the bill’s basic principles.

Congress

Moderates beware: Mamdani coalition portends a dramatically different Democratic Party in NYC

Published

22 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — A coalition powered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani expanded the left’s reach Tuesday, winning younger voters across racial and ethnic lines and once again upending conventional wisdom about elections in New York City.

A series of hotly contested congressional and state elections pit a slate of Mamdani-backed democratic socialists and progressives against establishment candidates who, in several cases, differed little on policy aside from U.S.-Israel relations.

The results were staggering.

Midterm election cycles in deep-blue New York City tend to be sleepy affairs. Both this year and in 2022, just over 500,000 people cast ballots, less than 20 percent of eligible voters. But turnout within a congressional district spanning Upper Manhattan and the Bronx increased by roughly 50 percent between 2022 and Tuesday, with more than 66,000 voters heading to the polls.

In another seat covering parts of Brooklyn and Queens, turnout more than doubled from 2022, though state and federal elections were held on different days that year and the seat was not competitive, which would have reduced the number of voters going to the polls.

Congressional candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America were able to replicate the mayor’s success by winning younger Latino voters in Brooklyn and a majority of Black voters in Harlem. Combined with the DSA’s base in relatively wealthy neighborhoods, the result charted the far left’s broadening appeal and a potential reorientation of the electorate that will influence races for years to come.

“This was a big wave for DSA and they did a good job capitalizing on it,” said Evan Roth Smith, a pollster with Slingshot Strategies. “The question now is: Was this a wave cycle that will abate, or is it the start of the takeover?”

Much of Mamdani’s base is concentrated in the so-called “commie-corridor,” a series of neighborhoods along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront filled with young, educated and affluent voters who’ve propelled several DSA candidates into office. They went gaga over Mamdani’s candidacy and, as Tuesday’s results show, will turn out for candidates he supports.

The area was crucial to Assemblymember Claire Valdez’s crushing 56-38 defeat of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

“The factor that felt most significant to me were all of these New Yorkers who got activated and politicized in the mayor’s race last year who were looking for the next fight,” said Andrew Epstein, a political adviser to Mamdani who worked on Valdez’ campaign. “Those people didn’t go away. And they want to keep going.”

Valdez also won several heavily Latino areas that were expected to break for her opponent.

Reynoso was born in Brooklyn to Dominican parents and just a few years ago was a City Council member representing Bushwick, a long-gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood that’s home to Latino families and young hipsters. Valdez was born in Texas, moved to New York City in 2015 and served in the state Assembly for just one term before launching her Mamdani-backed bid for retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s seat.

She ended up winning areas of Bushwick by even greater margins than the total results — in some election districts winning upwards of 80 percent of the vote.

“You don’t win the district by 35 points if you don’t have broad advantages across age and demographic groups,” said Michael Lange, an election analyst and Mamdani supporter who has tracked several contested races with extreme granularity. “Is she blowing him out of the water with Hispanic voters under 50? I see tons of evidence that the answer is yes.”

The age advantage was the common thread across several other races.

In Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, for example, younger Black voters in Harlem were key to Darializa Avila Chevalier’s win over Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who had built a small political empire in the district.

While gentrifying, the neighborhood remains a seat of Black political power and is home to younger households who tend to rent. That particular demographic is a strong indicator of why Mamdani won the area in 2025, even as he lost the Black vote overall to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose support was concentrated among older Black homeowners in Brooklyn and Queens.

While Espaillat never healed a rift with the Black community in upper Manhattan opened during his election in 2016, which contributed to his weak performance, Avila Chevalier demonstrated Tuesday that a significant share of voters there were not just supportive of Mamdani the person, but of the broader political movement he’s now leading.

Overall, she edged out Espaillat with Black voters 48-46, according to an analysis from The New York Times, which charted demographic breakdowns for several contested races.

Three winning congressional candidates endorsed by Mamdani — including former city Comptroller Brad Lander in Brooklyn, who unseated incumbent Dan Goldman — share several similarities. They won younger, college-educated and wealthier voters by huge margins, in several cases by 30 points or more, and lost lower-income voters to incumbents or candidates affiliated with incumbents — a sign that the movement seeking to boost struggling New Yorkers has not won them over.

While the DSA was able to win three state races without the support of Mamdani — a testament to the organizing prowess of the left that was essential to reactivating the mayor’s coalition — there were limits to the city’s leftward shift.

Rep. Grace Meng won her reelection race, though she only vanquished challenger Chuck Park by 14 points, an uncomfortable margin for an incumbent of her stature. Park, who ran to Meng’s left, was boosted by a huge turnout in Woodside, Queens, a multiethnic neighborhood that went heavily for Mamdani in last year’s mayoral race.

Elsewhere in the Bronx, however, incumbents remained strong. Rep. Ritchie Torres handily won reelection with 72 percent of the vote, though it was a low-turnout affair more consistent with an uncompetitive midterm. Nevertheless, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries touted the results — even as he watched a series of his endorsed candidates fall to the DSA in Brooklyn, his home borough, in a preview of the intraparty battles to come.

“In some higher-income districts, there was an outsized focus on the Middle East. In other districts, for instance, in the South Bronx, Ritchie Torres ran against somebody who was heavily critical of his position on Israel, and he won by fifty points,” Jeffries told MS NOW on Wednesday.