Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered up an awkward defense of President Donald Trump’s plans to annex Canada Sunday on Meet the Press.
In the waning moments of comprehensive interview, moderator Kristen Welker pressed the secretary about Trump’s desire to make Canada the 51st state.
“Have you taken any steps to carry out President Trump’s plans? As he has said, he would like to annex Canada. Have you taken any steps in that direction?
“No, I think what the president has said, and he has said this repeatedly, is he was told by the previous prime minister that Canada could not survive without unfair trade with the United States,” Rubio said. “At which point he asked, ‘well, if you can’t survive as a nation without treating us unfairly in trade, then you should become a state.’ That’s what he said.”
“They’ll have their elections this week,” Rubio continued. “They’re going to have a new leader, and we’ll deal with a new leadership of Canada. There are many things we work with cooperatively on Canada on, but we actually don’t like the way they treated us when it comes to trade, and the president has made that point when he responded to the previous prime minister in regards to this.”
Welker pushed Rubio to fully go to bat for Trump’s
“So does the president, does the U.S., still want to make Canada the 51st state?” Welker asked.
“I think the president has stated repeatedly he thinks Canada would be better off as a state,” Rubio replied. “I mean, he has said that based on what he was told by the previous prime minister, who said Canada can’t survive unless it treats the U.S. unfairly in trade.”
Watch the clip above via NBC News.