GOP Senators Sure Hope Trump Is Kidding About Invading Greenland
Plus: The path ahead for the Obamacare subsidies extension bill.
Seeing Green(land)
When it comes to Trump’s long-sought goal of acquiring Greenland from the Danish government, the U.S. government has several options on the table. A negotiated purchase is one. An influence campaign leading to an independence referendum, which could remove Denmark from the equation entirely, is another. But military action remains a very real possibility, precisely because the White House wants it to be so.
“All options are always on the table for President Trump as he examines what’s in the best interest of the United States, but I will just say that the president’s first option always has been diplomacy,” White House Press Pecretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday.
After emerging from an all-Senate classified briefing Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters he will be meeting with Greenland officials next week. Rubio left out that the Danes will be included in the proceedings, and that they are the ones who initially sought the meeting.
A few members of the Senate Armed Services Committee I spoke with this week attempted to brush aside concerns that President Donald Trump would invade Greenland if he fails to purchase it.
“I don’t think it’s a threat,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told me of the administration’s behavior. “I think it’s a promise that we’ll offer some money for it.”