A group of U.S. senators and representatives received a chilly reception in Europe this week as they arrived for a bipartisan fence-mending expedition where their comparative deficit of influence and power compared with the president was on full display.
Donald Trump began the week with threats to implement tariffs against the U.K. and several other European countries, including Denmark, if the NATO ally refuses to make a deal to cede the territory of Greenland to the United States, a stunning demand that threatens to fracture relationships in the NATO alliance.
The bipartisan group of lawmakers who arrived over the weekend to repair that damage was mostly made up of Democrats but included a few key Republicans, including Sens. Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski. Together, the two are outcast Republicans: Donald Trump, for reasons of perceived disloyalty, has burned them both, and as a result, the two have little purchase with the national GOP base. Tillis, retiring at the end of the year, is giving up his seat after a messy breakup with the president over Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”.
So as the group landed in Copenhagen and later traveled to Davos, Switzerland, for a meeting of the World Economic Forum, they were already at a disadvantage: Powerless, largely, to rally the broader GOP majorities in the House and Senate behind anything they said. Yet they persisted in attempts to reassure allies that the U.S. would remain a reliable partner, or at the very least had the capacity to become one in the future.
Murkowski, onstage with the CODEL’s leader, Sen. Chris Coons at Davos, told attendees: “We’re going to get through these challenging, difficult times. But the way that we do it is when we’re working together…for a common security, when we stand with our friends,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
In Davos, the group arrived under the shadow of the latest round of back-and-forth between Trump and world leaders like Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney, who are urging European leaders to stand up to the American president’s threats and cajoling.
Not mentioning Trump by name, the Canadian PM condemned “great powers” who “abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests.” Macron labelled Trump a “bully”, while the U.S. president countered at his own press conference. Asked how far he was willing to go to acquire Greenland, and whether it included military force, Trump replied: “You’ll find out.”
Even in the U.K., where Trump’s close ally Mike Johnson was addressing Parliament, the Republican House speaker found himself on the defensive when pressed by the Reform Party’s Nigel Farage, typically aligned with the U.S. president himself, over Trump’s threats.
“ This is serious and you’re here about to speak before Parliament. Is there nothing that can be done here?” Farage questioned Johnson in an interview on GB News.
But it was in Denmark, according to Punchbowl News, where U.S. lawmakers faced truly difficult questions from their Danish counterparts as they visited parliament and reportedly got an “earful” from the Europeans.
Both Republicans and Democrats on the trip found themselves admitting that there was little they could do to rein in the president before the midterms, when political analysts increasingly expect Democrats to win back one or possibly both chambers of Congress.
“The Danes are relieved to know we’re here. But really, what can we do?” asked Tillis in a moment of realistic reflection, according to Punchbowl. The outlet stated that the lawmakers “witnessed a level of anti-Americanism [in Denmark] that stunned and depressed them. Tillis warned it could lead to retaliatory measures aimed at the United States if Trump persists.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat and the other Senate retiree on the trip, told the outlet that even members of his party remain concerned about flexing the power of the Senate in another War Powers vote against the president, this time relating to Greenland. After the failure of a vote to pass a War Powers resolution aimed at restricting Trump’s operations in Venezuela, Durbin said his party is worried about handing the president a permission slip with another defeat.
As even Trump’s own allies in the Senate grow increasingly frustrated with his relentless provocations against Greenland, his threats of war across Asia and the Americas, and his continued politicized efforts to prosecute foes like Fed Chair Jerome Powell, the generally less-guarded sentiments expressed by the lawmakers on the trip illustrate the reality on Capitol Hill: Both parties are largely fed up with Trump. Neither one knows what to do about it.
