However the nation Donald Trump has fixated on most isn’t an adversary — it’s an ally. Greenland, a NATO member and longtime accomplice of the US has repeatedly discovered itself within the president’s crosshairs.
These threats, delivered largely via unilateral govt motion, have as soon as once more raised questions on Congress’s position as a examine on presidential energy. And with Trump in his closing time period, even some Republicans are displaying small however notable indicators of concern.
At present, Defined co-host Astead Herndon spoke with Annie Grayer, a senior reporter at CNN, about how Capitol Hill is responding — and the place these fractures contained in the GOP could also be heading.
Under is an excerpt of their dialog, edited for size and readability. There’s rather more within the full episode, so take heed to At present, Defined wherever you get podcasts, together with Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Can we count on extra Republicans breaking extra with Trump to alter now that it’s 2026 and never 2025?
Nicely, definitely Republicans realize it’s an election yr. The highlight is on them, and I believe we’re beginning to see some openings for cracks. However I put so many caveats there as a result of each time we predict there may very well be a gap for an actual Republican break up, as we noticed play out on the Hill with the struggle powers vote, Trump and his group are actually good at holding Republicans in line via a private and non-private stress marketing campaign.
However his skill to try this goes to get more and more tougher as Republicans begin campaigning and have to determine find out how to run on what Republicans in Congress have executed up to now. There are plenty of moderates who’re wanting on the calendar, what’s coming in 2026 and know that they need to carve out their very own lane right here.
Trump’s international interventionism undoubtedly looks as if the newest flash level within the GOP relationship with him. We did see 5 Republicans break with the White Home and help that struggle powers decision. What modified?
A number of Republicans had been publicly saying, I totally help how this operation went down and that this doesn’t want an intervention from Congress. Clearly behind the scenes there have been 5 Republican senators who felt very strongly this really does require an act of Congress and congressional intervention. What we noticed play out is Trump’s true stress marketing campaign and what it means to be a Republican in Donald Trump’s occasion.
Instantly after the vote, Trump took to Fact Social and name-checked all 5 of these Republicans and mentioned they shouldn’t be elected to Congress once more. These are members of his personal occasion. Now, a few of these Republican senators are in opposition to Trump, like Sens. Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins, however Todd Younger and Josh Hawley — that actually took the president and his group abruptly. So these had been the 2 that they targeted on, considering that they had been going to be those they might peel off.
However what we noticed right here was the position that Secretary Rubio performed, who’s a former senator, who has private relationships with all of those people and was in a position to sit with these senators, give them extra info and provides them assurances on their purple line. Each Todd Younger and Josh Hawley mentioned that their purple line was they didn’t need boots on the bottom in Venezuela.
So Republicans did get one thing out of it. However you’ll be able to ask your self what actually modified, and it truly is the full-court press that these Republicans obtained from Trump and his group.
What have Republican members in Congress been saying concerning the army use of power in Greenland?
So Greenland, we’re seeing an excellent greater break probably than what we noticed with Venezuela and from a forged of characters that aren’t the standard critics of Trump.
Republican senators particularly are kind of like, what are we doing right here with Greenland? Definitely persons are not on board with army power: the speaker of the Home, the chief of the Republican Senate, have mentioned army motion in Greenland wouldn’t be a good suggestion.
After which even in terms of the acquisition of Greenland, you could have the chair of the Senate Armed Providers Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), who got here out of a gathering with Danish officers and mentioned, we shouldn’t be speaking concerning the buy of Greenland. That’s not what these officers need.
And there’s plenty of Republicans, much more so privately who I’m speaking to who’re type of hoping that Trump isn’t severe about this. And so I believe Republicans are attempting to not get forward of the place the president is right here. They don’t need to draw a agency line till they see precisely what Trump goes to do. However there may be this kind of trepidation on this kind of, I don’t know, possibly even quiet finger crossing that Trump goes to drop this, he’s going to maneuver on, and that what he’s saying about Greenland isn’t really going to come back to fruition.
Is there any type of willingness for Congress to reign in that energy proper now, if we predict even past the struggle powers decision? How a lot is there dialogue of Congress’s personal position? How a lot are members speaking about that?
It’s an enormous matter of dialog.I believe that’s why the struggle powers decision votes had been such a giant deal as a result of this query is entrance and middle for each Democrats and Republicans. That is not a partisan query, however that is about defending the establishment of Congress, the legislative department, and in terms of the international intervention.
Extra particularly, after I’ve been asking this query to Republicans, they’re pointing to quite a lot of examples in current historical past that present that the degradation of Congress, particularly in terms of struggle powers, has been occurring for a very long time. In case you return to Obama and the bombing of Libya and going into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden, these had been issues that occurred with out congressional approval.
And so sure, what’s occurring proper now’s placing an actual highlight on the problem. However I believe for individuals to actually perceive this, we’ve to go means again. That is one thing that Congress has kind of been ceding energy little by little, and it finds us on this potential disaster that we’re in now.
And I believe the true query that I proceed to ask in my reporting, and I nonetheless don’t discover a solution to, is what will be the purple line that will get individuals to really say, okay, sufficient is sufficient.
