Maggie Haberman Praises Carney For Handling Trump With ‘Not For Sale’ Line Without Setting Him Off
CNN commentator and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman told Anderson Cooper that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney succeeded at making his point without setting President Donald Trump off when he told Trump Canada is “not for sale.”
Trump and Carney met in the Oval Office Tuesday morning for the first time, after Carney was propelled to victory in an election that many credit to Canadian animosity toward Trump over his trade policies and relentless threats to annex the country.
Carney addressed the latter elephant in the room by employing a spoonful of sugar as he told Trump that Canada “won’t be for sale ever.”
On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Haberman said Carney navigated the fraught meeting and avoided a “Zelensky-0type moment with Trump” by “saying something that would both disarm Trump and also make his point”:
COOPER: What stood out to you about the meeting with Carney?
HABERMAN: Many things. The main one is that all of these foreign leaders go into the Oval Office with President Trump and something of a no win situation, because the President sets the terms of what he wants it to be.
He did a Truth post before this meeting started. He has obviously been talking about the 51st state. He has been talking about trade. And so, Carney, who has been pretty tough and who was elected in part as backlash to Donald Trump in Canada had a choice to make on how he was going to handle it.
He came in clearly with a prepared line, which was Canada’s not for sale. But then he had to sort of navigate not having a, you know, Zelenskyy type moment with Trump whether in a standoff he seemed to have. But again, it was all on President Trump —
COOPER: It was so interesting. I mean you — the only thing to compare it Zelenskyy on one end of the spectrum —
HABERMAN: — right, completely very far.
COOPER: Right, and then there’s the British Prime Minister presenting the like a golden letter from the Buckingham Palace with like double plus good invitations.
HABERMAN: Right, and not being in total disagreement with him but, you know, occasionally or not being in total agreement with him, occasionally voicing some disagreement when they were at their separate podiums. This is this is somewhere on that spectrum. It is it is far closer to Keir Starmer, the British P.M., than Zelenskyy.
COOPER: The Prime Minister also seemed to have — I don’t know if the thing about the real estate deal was a pre-planned out, but it seemed like it. It sure sounded like it and was interesting to see the President kind of responding.
HABERMAN: Well, it’s interesting, Anderson, because all of these foreign leaders do work. I mean, it’s not uncommon that you would workshop how you’re going to handle meeting with the U.S. President, but the extent to which they all have to do some form of prep, because they know they’re going to end up in a bind with President Trump.
He clearly had practiced saying something that would both disarm Trump and also make his point. And he did that. Trump did respond. He laughed. But then he went right back to his point.
Watch above via Anderson Cooper 360.
