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Opposition was stacking up to the United States buying the semiautonomous island or taking it by force.
Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, background, looking toward Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, at the Capitol on Wednesday.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Jan. 7, 2026, 4:39 p.m. ET
A clutch of Senate Republicans on Wednesday denounced considerations by the White House to acquire Greenland, through military force or other means, deriding the plans as “insane” and “unseemly.”
The rebuke came days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers that President Trump plans to buy the territory that falls under the soverei…
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Opposition was stacking up to the United States buying the semiautonomous island or taking it by force.
Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, background, looking toward Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, at the Capitol on Wednesday.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Jan. 7, 2026, 4:39 p.m. ET
A clutch of Senate Republicans on Wednesday denounced considerations by the White House to acquire Greenland, through military force or other means, deriding the plans as “insane” and “unseemly.”
The rebuke came days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers that President Trump plans to buy the territory that falls under the sovereign boundaries of Denmark, a member of NATO.
Congressional Republicans have mounted little in the way of pushback toward any of the sweeping executive measures Mr. Trump has taken during the second term of his presidency. But the opposition toward his interest in the taking control of the island was quickly stacking up.
“I heard no support within our caucus for introducing troops into Greenland to take Greenland, a military action to take Greenland,” Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said. “Zero support. I’ve not heard anybody in the hallways, in the gym, anywhere.”
A visibly outraged Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, took to the Senate floor and castigated “insane comments about how it is our right to” take over Greenland, singling out comments made by Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump.
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Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, at the Capitol last month. Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times
“You don’t speak on behalf of this U.S. senator or the Congress,” Mr. Tillis said, referring to Mr. Miller. “You can say it may be the position of the president of the United States that Greenland should be a part of the United States, but it’s not the position of this government. Because we are a co-equal branch, and if that were 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.”
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the former majority leader, released a statement praising how “cooperation with Arctic allies from Canada to the Nordics already grants the United States sweeping access to positions of strategic importance.”
“Threats and intimidation by U.S. officials over American ownership of Greenland are as unseemly as they are counterproductive,” Mr. McConnell said. “And the use of force to seize the sovereign democratic territory of one of America’s most loyal and capable allies would be an especially catastrophic act of strategic self-harm to America and its global influence.”
Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas, said to reporters at the Capitol, “We’re not going to take over another country that’s our ally.”
“As Greenland charts its future, we must see it as an ally,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said, “not an asset.”
Catie Edmondson covers Congress for The Times.
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