{"id":17803,"date":"2026-01-16T09:46:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/republicans-are-scrambling-to-counter-trump-on-greenland\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T09:46:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:46:43","slug":"republicans-are-scrambling-to-counter-trump-on-greenland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/republicans-are-scrambling-to-counter-trump-on-greenland\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans are scrambling to counter Trump on Greenland"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

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

As Trump continually threatens to bring the Danish territory into the U.S. over the objections of key global allies and the island\u2019s elected representatives<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

Sen. Thom Tillis<\/a> (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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there was any sort of action that looked like the goal was actually landing in Greenland and doing an illegal taking \u2026 there\u2019d be sufficient numbers here to pass a war powers resolution and withstand a veto,\u201d Tillis said.<\/p>\n

Rep. Don Bacon<\/a> (R-Neb.) went further, predicting that it would lead to impeachment<\/a> and calling Trump\u2019s Greenland obsession \u201cthe dumbest thing I\u2019ve ever heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> is not joining the delegation but he largely endorsed the message the contingent plans to send in comments to reporters Thursday, saying \u201cthere\u2019s certainly not an appetite here for some of the options that have been talked about or considered\u201d \u2014 an apparent reference to military action.<\/p>\n

The pushback amounts to one of the most profound breaches yet seen between GOP lawmakers and the president in Trump\u2019s second term. So far the Republican uneasiness over Trump\u2019s brash foreign policy moves have not resulted in any successful steps to restrain him.<\/p>\n

Following the operation to remove Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s 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<\/a> after the administration made some commitments regarding future action.<\/p>\n

Democrats believe Greenland \u2014 sovereign territory belonging to a NATO ally \u2014 could be different. Sen. Tim Kaine<\/a> 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\u2019 efforts.<\/p>\n

But \u201cwe might on Greenland,” Kaine added.<\/p>\n

Thune\u2019s predecessor as Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell<\/a> of Kentucky, spoke out in a floor speech where he said military action against Greenland would be \u201can unprecedented act of strategic self-harm\u201d that risks \u201cincinerating\u201d NATO alliances.<\/p>\n

Rep. Jeff Hurd<\/a> (R-Colo.), meanwhile, said he was \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d about the administration\u2019s Greenland message.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think it is productive, and I don’t think this is the way to treat an ally,\u201d he said, adding that he \u201cwould be opposed to military action in Greenland.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even as more Republicans speak out about Trump\u2019s Greenland ambitions, it\u2019s 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\u2019t have support on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cimminent\u201d military action, said he would not currently support a measure to stop Trump from using force in the region because it would \u201clegitimize\u201d a threat he doesn\u2019t think is now real.<\/p>\n

Instead, Tillis is using his megaphone as a retiring senator to launch broadsides against Trump\u2019s 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, \u201cit\u2019s not the position of the U.S. government.\u201dThat, he said, is \u201canother reason I\u2019m going to Copenhagen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Josh Hawley<\/a> (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.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot prospectively,\u201d Hawley said, adding that any such measure \u201cneeds to respond to really particular facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any formal GOP pushback is likely to include Sen. Lisa Murkowski<\/a> (R-Alaska) \u2014 co-founder of the Senate Arctic Caucus \u2014 who introduced a nonbinding resolution<\/a> 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 \u201cmutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity\u201d and that any military action would need congressional authorization.<\/p>\n

Murkowski, who met with Danish diplomats<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are operating in times where we\u2019re having conversations about things that we never thought even possible,\u201d Murkowski said. \u201cTo use the name Greenland in the context of a war powers resolution is absolutely stunning.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a war powers resolution can be fast-tracked to the floor, Greenland\u2019s allies in the Senate can\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure Thune will jump on it like a bad rash,\u201d Sen. John Kennedy<\/a> (R-La.) said.<\/p>\n

Meredith Lee Hill and Joe Gould contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s elected representatives, some GOP lawmakers are stepping up their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}