Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) stood by his comments on CNN, calling President Donald Trump's senior adviser Stephen Miller "stupid" for escalating the administration's threats against Denmark for not being willing to sell off Greenland to the United States — and warned that Trump and Miller are threatening one of America's most critical military partnerships over this obsession.
"So do you want Stephen Miller to lose his job?" asked anchor Jake Tapper.
"Look, either Stephen Miller needs to get into a lane where he knows what he's talking about or get out of his job," said Tillis, an increasingly frequent intraparty critic of the Trump administration. "Look, I've been the reason why I thought it was important for me to make a comment on the floor is I've been the Republican leader of the Senate NATO observer group since 2018. There is no more important alliance than the NATO alliance. And Denmark has punched above its weight. It came to Afghanistan, lost 43 soldiers on the ground, fought in some of the most contested regions, honoring their Article 5 commitment to the United States."
"I think they lost more soldiers than any other country per capita," said Tapper, which Tillis confirmed.
"And Jake, they were they were in among the NATO allies — at the time, it was 30 nations — they were among the top six," said Tillis. "And think about all the nations bigger than them. So they — to have the prime minister suggest that they have to be prepared for some sort of action by the United States, suggests to me that Mr. Miller does not know anything about the alliance, the importance of it."
"I was on Senate Armed Services for eight years, and generals would always say the same thing: the only thing worse than going to war with allies is going to war without allies," he added. "This alliance is critically important. Shaking that alliance sends a signal to Putin that he's winning. And Stephen Miller doesn't represent the U.S. government. He represents the Article II branch. And I, as a member of the U.S. Senate, get to weigh into this issue. And I know whether they say it out loud or not, most of my colleagues agree with me."