Trudeau Reveals How He Got Trump To Stop Talking About Annexing Canada In New Jen Psaki Interview
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki how he steered his conversation with President-elect Donald Trump about Trump’s idea about annexing Canada into territory that was “not that funny anymore.”
Trump held a press conference at his Mar-a-lago resort Tuesday that was chock full of bonkers moments that included plans to take over Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada — by “force” (military or economic) if necessary. Trump has been trolling Trudeau and Canada for months.
In a preview clip of an interview that will air on Sunday’s edition of MSNBC’s Inside With Jen Psaki,Trudeau took Psaki inside his meeting with Trump at Mar-a-lago.
And when Psaki asked about the annexing thing, Trudeau revealed the rejoinder that he says took the wind out of Trump’s sails:
JEN PSAKI: You did make a trip down to Mar-a-Lago, and you did meet with the former and future President. What was that like? Tell me about that conversation…
PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU: It was nice to reconnect with him. Obviously, we had some good conversations about what we were going to be able to do together. He very clearly expressed what he had talked about in his tweet a few days before that. He has concerns about the border between Canada and the United States, particularly around migration and around fentanyl. I was pleased to highlight that less than 1% of the illegal migrants, less than 1% of the fentanyl that comes into the United States comes from Canada. So we’re not a problem, but we’re happy to and we’ve actually responded to his request for us to do more with billions of dollars worth of investments to even further strengthen the security at our borders, to make sure we’re reducing the flow of illicit drugs back and forth across our border, to get a better handle on the migration issues that are real at the northern border, but nowhere near the level of concern that Americans have further south. So there’s lots of things we can do. We’ve already responded to some of the concerns that he has, and we’re going to continue to doing that, because it’s in both of our interests to do well together.
…
PSAKI: I’m assuming he didn’t bring up his intention to publicly say he was going to annex, through economic means, your country…
TRUDEAU: It actually sort of came up at one point and then we started musing back and forth about this. And when I started to suggest, well, maybe there could be a trade for Vermont or California for certain parts, he immediately decided that it was not that funny anymore, and we moved on to a different conversation. So this isn’t out of the blue that he’s doing this, but my focus has to be not on something that he’s talking about that will not ever happen, but more on something that might well happen — that if he does choose to go forward with tariffs that raise the cost of just about everything for American citizens, that on top of that, we’re going to have to have a robust response to that.
Watch above via MSNBC’s Inside With Jen Psaki.
