Republican Issues Impeachment Warning Over Trump’s Greenland Proposal
A Republican Congressman signaled he would move to impeach President Donald Trump if he follows through on his threat to invade Greenland and take it by force.
In an interview with the Omaha World-Herald, Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said he personally would “lean toward” voting to impeach the president if he were to follow through on threats to take over Greenland.
“I’ll be candid with you. There’s so many Republicans mad about this,” Bacon told the paper. “If he went through with the threats, I think it would be the end of his presidency.”
Bacon, a swing state Congressman who is known to split from his Republican colleagues, has become even more outspoken against Trump since announcing he is leaving Congress at the end of the current term.
“It’s about whether the United States intends to face a constellation of strategic adversaries with capable friends — or commit an unprecedented act of strategic self-harm and go it alone,” McConnell said. He added that, “following through on this provocation would be more disastrous for the President’s legacy than withdrawing from Afghanistan was for his predecessor.”
On Wednesday in the Oval Office, Trump snapped at a reporter who confronted him about a potential invasion.
“It sounds like you would potentially acquire Greenland by force,” the reporter said.
“No, you’re saying that. I didn’t say it,” Trump said. “You’re telling me that that’s what I’m going to do — you don’t know what I’m going to do.”
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In a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) warned that President Trump’s talk of seizing Greenland by force threatens to “incinerate” the nation’s long-standing ties with NATO allies.
McConnell declared that burning the treaty organization that formed after World War II to contain Soviet aggression would be an “unprecedented act of strategic self-harm.”
“Unless and until the president can demonstrate otherwise, then the proposition at hand today is very straightforward: incinerating the hard-won trust of loyal allies in exchange for no meaningful change in U.S. access to the Arctic,” McConnell said on the Senate floor, delivering one of the strongest statements criticizing the Trump administration’s talk about potentially seizing Greenland by force.
He warned that following through on the “ill-advised threats” from the administration would “shatter the trust of allies.”
“Following through on this provocation would be more disastrous for the President’s legacy than withdrawing from Afghanistan was for his predecessor,” he said.
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He pointed to polling showing that just 17 percent of Americans think trying to take control of Greenland is a good idea and that 68 percent of Americans view the NATO alliance favorably.
