President-elect Donald Trump's talk of expanding the United States is a distraction from his Cabinet picks and major White House appointments, said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
"I'm going to do this one on two levels. The first one is the United States respects international law. We respect the boundaries of other countries," Warren told CNN Wednesday when asked about Trump's statement that he couldn't assure the world that he wouldn't use military force or economic coercion to assume control of Greenland or the Panama Canal.
"But I want to make a second point, and that is: Why is Donald Trump doing this?" Warren added. "And I think the answer is, let's have a big distraction and several more questions so we don't spend more time on Pete Hegseth, the nominee to head the Department of Defense, so we don't spend more time on Tulsi Gabbard, who has been in the pocket of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and is not someone to be trusted with our secrets, so that we don't spend more time on Robert Kennedy [Jr.]'s views on vaccines."
Trump refused on Tuesday to rule out using military or economic action to pursue acquisition of the Panama Canal and Greenland, part of a broader expansionist agenda he has promoted since winning the Nov. 5 election.
He also floated the idea of turning Canada into a U.S. state, said he would demand far higher defense spending from NATO allies, and promised to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Information from Reuters was used in this report.