National political correspondent Maggie Haberman said late Tuesday that President-elect Trump’s swipes at Canada being the “51st state” are more of a “troll” than a likely reality.
“It’s never totally gone away, but Trump is clearly in an expansionist mindset,” Haberman told CNN’s “AC360.”
“He also keeps talking about Canada as a 51st state,” the New York Times journalist said, adding, “That is clearly much more of a troll and sort of a dominance play.”
In recent weeks, the former president has ruffled foreign leaders by proposing potential additions to the U.S. with the purchase of Greenland and reacquiring the Panama Canal.
“This idea of acquiring Greenland for strategic purposes has happened for decades,” Haberman said earlier in the interview. “A close friend of Trump’s, Ron Lauder, suggested it in his first term.”
However, she also emphasized that the most shocking of Trump’s statements was the incoming president’s openness to potential military force.
He said he wouldn’t rule out using the measure to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal during a news briefing at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Tuesday.
“It’s not clear if that’s actually something he’s thinking about or something he said because he was quite visibly in a pretty bad mood during this press conference,” Haberman stated.
She added that it’s in his nature to lead with an aggressive arm.
“Trump at least in his language, has never been especially respectful of sovereign borders,” she said. “We’ll see what that looks like in actual practice.”
Her analysis comes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation earlier this week, sparking more talk from Trump about merging the two nations. The president-elect, who has threatened tariffs on goods imported from Canada, said the merger could make the tariffs disappear.
Trump also trolled Trudeau after speaking to him late last year, calling him the “governor” of Canada.
