WASHINGTON – Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) condemned comments made Wednesday by President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Stephen Miller about Greenland, calling them “stupid,” “amateur” and “absurd.”

“Some people around here call me grumpy. You know what makes me grumpy? Stupid,” Tillis said in a fiery speech on the Senate floor. “What puts me in a bad mood is when people don’t do their homework.”

“I’m tired of stupidity,” he added. “The fans who said it’s a good idea [to invade Greenland] “They should lose their jobs.”

Miller told CNN earlier this week that Greenland belongs to the United States and predicted that no one would oppose the United States militarily if it claimed the semi-autonomous territory that belongs to Denmark, a NATO ally.

Tillis’ comments amount to a direct attack on such a powerful presidential adviser who is often called Trump’s prime minister and a sharp escalation in the outgoing senator’s occasional criticism of the administration.

While Miller is known for his staunch opposition to legal and illegal immigration and his ties to the far right, he has emerged in Trump’s second term as one of the president’s most trusted advisers with influence on seemingly every aspect of foreign and domestic policy.

“No one is going to fight the United States militarily for the future of Greenland,” Miller told the outlet, which set off alarms in Denmark.

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“No one is going to fight the United States militarily for the future of Greenland,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told CNN.

Joe Raedle via Getty Images

Tillis took issue with Miller’s comments, saying he inappropriately presented that opinion as belonging to the entire US government rather than the president. He said Denmark is one of the United States’ closest allies and noted that it was one of the first to support us when NATO invoked Article 5 after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

“You don’t speak for this U.S. senator or Congress,” Tillis said, dismissing Miller’s words as “something a deputy chief of staff thought was a nice thing to say on television.”

The North Carolina Republican helps chair the U.S. Senate’s NATO Observer Group, which has expressed support for Denmark’s territorial integrity.

“When Denmark and Greenland make clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must fulfill its obligations under the treaty and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Tillis said in a statement along with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who also chairs the group, on Tuesday. “Any suggestion that our nation would subject a NATO ally to external coercion or pressure undermines the very principles of self-determination that our Alliance upholds.”

Republicans, for the most part, oppose the Trump administration’s threats to take Greenland by force, if necessary.

“Threats and intimidation by U.S. officials over U.S. ownership of Greenland are as unseemly as they are counterproductive,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement Wednesday. “And using force to seize the sovereign democratic territory of one of the United States’ most loyal and capable allies would be an especially catastrophic act of strategic self-harm for the United States and its global influence.”