Vice President JD Vance introduced late Tuesday that he’s crashing his spouse and the U.S. delegation’s journey to Greenland later this week, following fierce pushback over the second girl’s deliberate journey to the Arctic island.
Whereas Vance framed his participation as a matter of nationwide safety, the timing is handy. His journey takes him removed from the U.S. simply as he and different members of President Donald Trump’s Cupboard are coping with the fallout from unintentionally discussing the deserves of bombing Yemen by way of Sign chat—with a identified journalist current.
Notably, it additionally locations Vance far-off from Trump, whom he reportedly implied was unable to know the gravity of the wartime plans. Excerpts from the Sign textual content chain recommend that Vance, or somebody showing to be him, proposed delaying bombing for a month. Now, in response to The New York Occasions, Vance is outwardly scrambling to make amends.
“I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Vance mentioned, in response to the leaked texts. “There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices,” he mentioned.
Vance continued, writing, “I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”
Whereas it’s unclear if Vance’s last-minute journey to Greenland is immediately tied to the leaked Sign chats, it conveniently locations him removed from the political firestorm. In the meantime, his Republican colleagues again dwelling face mounting scrutiny over why they shared delicate strike goal info by way of an app that, regardless of its encryption, is way from foolproof.
“We’re going to check out how things are going there,” Vance mentioned in a video posted to social media on Tuesday. “Speaking for President Trump, we want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it’s important to protect the security of the entire world.”
Past distancing himself from the controversy surrounding the Sign group chat, Vance’s go to to Greenland will likely be notably decrease profile than what was initially deliberate for U.S. officers.
Boys play on a frozen seashore in Nuuk, Greenland, on March 11, 2025.
Danish officers welcomed this revised itinerary. The Related Press reported that Danish International Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen considered the adjustment as a “de-escalation,” whilst Trump’s Cupboard and Vance proceed to border the journey as a nationwide safety mission.
Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Egede had initially criticized Usha Vance, nationwide safety adviser Mike Waltz, and Power Secretary Chris Wright’s journey to the island as “highly aggressive.” Initially, the second girl was set to journey to Greenland with one in all her youngsters to attend the territory’s nationwide dogsled race. She had additionally meant to go to the capital, Nuuk, and Greenlandic heritage websites, NBC experiences.
Regardless of Trump’s well-documented fixation on buying Greenland, its residents have firmly rejected the president’s plan.
Egede, for his half, made it clear that his authorities had no intention of assembly with the U.S. officers. He emphasised that officers had not “extended any invitations for any visits, neither private nor official.” Egede was significantly essential of Waltz’s presence.
It’s a good query. And doesn’t Waltz, like Vance, have extra urgent issues to deal with stateside? (Sure, he’s nonetheless going, together with Vance.)
Maybe with Vance and Waltz away for a number of days, members of Trump’s Cupboard hope they’ll shift blame for the Sign chat fiasco to the opposite main participant within the debacle: Pete Hegseth.
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