Trump Rails Against Trudeau For Kicking Russia Out of the G8 — But It Was Actually His Conservative Predecessor Who Led the Charge

President Donald Trump met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday as Canada hosted the G7 summit. During some quick opening remarks to the press, Carney welcomed Trump and replied by raging at former President Barack Obama and ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for kicking Russia out of the G8.

Trump, however, flubbed his timeline as Trudeau’s predecessor, Conservative PM Stephen Harper, led the charge to kick Russia out of the G8 in 2014, while Trudeau didn’t take office until late 2015. Russia being expelled from the G8 was also a very popular move among American conservatives at the time, who fumed at Vladimir Putin violating the sovereign borders of another country.

After Carney welcomed Trump with flattering remarks, Trump replied, “I appreciate it. And we’ve developed a very good relationship, and we’re going to be talking about trade and many other things. And we have a whole group of people, some traders and some other people. I see my top economy people. But we have very talented group of and you do too, and I know they work together very well. I look forward to that.”

Trump then went on one of his weaves, saying, “The G7 used to be the G8, Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau. Didn’t want to have Russia in, then I would say that that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia in. And you wouldn’t have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago, but it didn’t work out that way.” He added:

But it used to be the G8, and now it’s, I guess, what’s that, nine years ago? Eight years ago, it switched over. They threw Russia out, which I claimed was a very big mistake, even though it wasn’t in politics then, I was very loud about it. It was a mistake in that you spend so much time talking about Russia, and he’s no longer at the table. So it makes life more complicated. But you wouldn’t have had the war. And other than that, I think we’re going to accomplish a lot. And I expect to. And I think our primary focus will be trade and trade with Canada.

In March of 2014, the other members of the G7 cancelled the G8 summit that year, which was meant to be held in the Russian city of Sochi, and suspended Russia from the group over its recent annexation of Crimea.

Harper was one of the primary proponents for removing Vladimir Putin from the group of the world’s largest economies. The Globe and Mail reported ahead of the move, “Mr. Harper, who has previously cast Moscow as a pariah by calling the Group of Eight the ‘G7 plus one,’ left no doubt where he stands on the future of Russia’s membership Saturday. ‘I don’t think it takes much imagination to figure out what my view is but I will certainly listen to what our partners in the G7 have to say before we arrive at final decisions.’”

Trudeau defeated Harper in October 2015 to become the prime minister of Canada.

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.