GOP lawmakers increasingly 'jittery' about backing Trump: analysis

After a particularly turbulent week, Republicans on Capitol Hill are becoming more cautious in their support for President Donald Trump.

That's according to a Friday analysis by the Atlantic's Russell Berman, who wrote that the president's chaotic appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland appeared to have rattled some of his Republican backers in Congress. It wasn't until NATO countries convinced Trump to back down from his threats to take Greenland by force that Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) relaxed in his calculated criticism of the administration.

"Sabre-rattling about annexing Greenland is needlessly dangerous," Moore said in a joint statement with Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) issued prior to the Davos summit.

Berman wrote that Moore's criticism stood out in particular due to his position as vice chairman of the House Republican Conference. The Atlantic writer noted that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) previously held Moore's position before being elected speaker. Moore is also a descendant of Danish immigrants, making Greenland — an autonomous territory under the Kingdom of Denmark — a personal subject for him.

Aside from Moore, Berman noted that Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) both also loudly criticized Trump's threats to invade Greenland. Bacon suggested that if Trump indeed deployed the U.S. military to a NATO ally, it could lead to his impeachment. However, Berman observed that because Bacon and Tillis were not running for another term in 2026 and Moore was, the Utah Republican was more careful with his words.

Moore stressed that regardless of the framework of the Greenland agreement Trump made with NATO, Congress would still need to grant final approval of any "sustained military presence" or "trillion-dollar acquisition." But he offered measured praise of the administration, saying Trump was a "tough negotiator" and that he was confident both the U.S. and Denmark would iron out an agreement on Greenland that would be a "net positive for everybody." Berman asserted that while Moore's split with Trump was "more a hairline fracture than a full rupture," it nonetheless signaled that Republicans were becoming more leery of the lame-duck president.

"[I]t still doesn’t take much — in this case, the barest outlines of a diplomatic agreement — for Trump to bring a jittery congressional Republican back into the fold," Berman wrote. "But as global crises mount and the midterm elections near, the president is discovering that his party is not quite as sanguine as it once was."

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