'This is not good policy': Some GOP senators question advice Trump is receiving

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis is one of a growing number of Republicans who believe that President Donald Trump is getting faulty policy guidance from his White House advisers, potentially jeopardizing his legacy and the GOP’s chances of retaining their majority.

Several in the Senate Republican Conference, including those at the top in leadership and across the party’s political spectrum, have been openly questioning several policy pronouncements coming out of the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, including those that are straining international relations and conservative financial proposals.

Addressing the Senate chamber last week, Tillis said he is going to do “everything I can to point out advice” Trump is being given by people who are not considering the president’s legacy.

“They’re not thinking about good policy and from time to time, they are fading far out of the realm of what I consider to be good, conservative, free market ideology,” he said, pointing specifically to proposals on Greenland and credit card interest as well as the independence of the Federal Reserve.

Similarly, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been questioning Trump’s idea to cap credit cards at 10%, an issue the South Dakota Republican has been vocal about as Trump hits the one-year mark in his second term.

Trump “may be getting advice on some of these issues, like, for example, the 10% cap on credit,” Thune told reporters last week. “Don’t know where that came from. I don’t know.”

The president is facing growing frustration from Senate Republicans for relying mostly on the advice of those at the White House, despite GOP lawmakers’ almost unbreakable loyalty to him up until recently.

Greenland emerges as point of contention

But cracks have begun to surface between the administration and Senate Republicans. Perhaps the biggest issue is Trump’s aim to make Greenland part of America, a move that risks ties with European allies.

Mainstream GOP hawks, like Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who chairs the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, have taken to the Senate floor in recent days to make the case for supporting European allies.

Coercing Denmark to give up Greenland would be “an unprecedented act of strategic self-harm,” said McConnell, who was the top Republican in the Senate until he stepped down from leadership last year.

“Following through on this provocation would be more disastrous for the president’s legacy than withdrawing from Afghanistan was for his predecessor,” McConnell said Jan. 14.

A bipartisan congressional delegation, including Tillis, traveled to Denmark this past weekend in an attempt to cool strained relations. Tillis was joined by Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who has stressed that the U.S. has “three separate but equal branches” of government.

And Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky who has broken with the president repeatedly on his foreign affairs agenda, described Trump’s aggressive stance over the semiautonomous Danish island as “bad advice.”

“I think there’s no support within the Senate for military action in Greenland,” he said. “None on the Democrat side, none on the Republican side.”

Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., who is retiring this year, has expressed bewilderment over Trump’s continued pronouncements on acquiring Greenland.

“I’ve always scratched my head a little bit about the Greenland thing, simply because I think there are ways to establish a defense presence that works for both Greenland and the United States without buying them or making them become American,” she said. “(So), a difference of opinion there.”

Most Americans oppose taking over or buying Greenland, according to a series of polls. A recent Quinnipiac University survey found 86% of voters opposed the use of military force and 55% against the U.S. trying to buy Greenland.

Tillis among most visible senators disquieted by Trump

Tillis has become one of the loudest to vocalize this growing concern among senators that the president has been on the receiving end of bad policy advice, particularly since the North Carolina Republican announced his retirement last year.

He previously ranked among the most vulnerable senators up for reelection and has continued to express anxiety at Trump’s policy vacillations.

“I want to create a better environment for Republicans to win next year or this year,” he said. “But a part of what we have to do is … make sure that you’ve got the best possible strategy for executing this policy. And sometimes it is literally like saying, ‘This is not a good idea, this is not good policy.’”

Tillis is also among a group of Republicans on both sides of Capitol Hill that have criticized the Justice Department’s investigation of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. A swing vote on the Banking Committee, Tillis said he’d oppose the confirmation of any Federal Reserve nominee until the matter was resolved.

“The whole argument about Fed’s independence comes into question. Right?” Tillis said. “It’s another example of, who in there thought this was a good idea?”

Thune has also argued that if “the Justice Department is pursuing something, I hope they have a smoking gun, because I don’t think you trifle with the Federal Reserve.”

Earlier this month, Tillis directly called out Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, for what he called “absurd” comments the president’s adviser had made during an interview on CNN, declaring that it has been the “formal policy” that Greenland should be a part of the U.S.

“You want me to get back to thanking the president for all the good things he’s doing?” Tillis said “Then give him good advice.”

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(Lia DeGroot, Niels Lesniewski and John M. Donnelly contributed to this report.)

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