Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 06/06/25

That's what I was thinking too (as a funny hypothetical rather than something which should or would actually happen). Trump keeps saying Canada should be the 51st state. The f*cking size of Canada… It's a little bit bigger than the entire USA. Fair enough, only has about 10% of the population, but then still has 1000% the population of some of the red states.

Someone should put it to Trump that would he accept Canada joining if they were 13 new states rather than just one, and get 2 senators per state, reasonable electoral college votes and House seats. See what the art of the deal looks like then.

If I were attribute any meaning or intelligence to what Donnie has been saying about Canada (and we'll come back to that issue in a second) I'd suggest that the intention was to make Canada into a single US State with just 2 senetors and the Electoral votes of one of the larger states (Canada has just a couple million more people than California). It would torpedo the GOP's chances in The House (assuming that Canadian liberal parties would caucus with the Dems), but not hurt the GOP too much in The Senate. It would however make GOP presidential runs harder with another large deep blue state in the running.

But that all depends on this being anything more than Donnie bleating out sound-bytes in order to sound "strong" or "presidential". As I tend to repeat, Donnie does not have a plan. Any plan. He does not have policies either. The whole Canada thing is likely little more than a political crutch to lean on when his other schemes blow up in his face.

• Tariffs gone badly? Let's talk about Ukraine then!
• Ukraine Peace deal going nowhere? Let's talk about Immigration!
• Immigration is turning into a highly unpopular nightmare? Let's talk about Elon and DOGE!
• Oh…Elon and DOGE are pointless & everyone hates them? How about we talk about Canada being the 51st State?
• Talking about Canada being the 51st State has handed the Liberals a win and has triggered a grass roots boycott of US goods. Erm….have we talked about Tariffs?

The British burned the White House.

similar to Brexit in the UK. It’s difficult to argue passionately for moderate policy.

No I completely get that. My point is that Trump is claiming his reasons for wanting Canada to become their 51st state are that the US can't continue financially supporting Canada through their trade, there's no need for a border between their countries, and it'd be a benefit to both countries if Canada became part of the US. So it should be put to Trump that if there are all these benefits, would he accept Canada joining if they joined as 13 new states rather than one. Then the facade of what a benefit it would be to both countries would be dropped, because the only difference between Canada joining as one state versus joining as 13 states would be the fact it would be politically disasterous for the GOP in terms of vote share.

I mean, it's an idea that shouldn't be entertained to begin with for a vast multitude of very simple reasons, but I'd just like to see Trump trying to defend his plan while showing he'd put the GOP over these supposed great benefits to both countries. It would definitively highlight that Trump's wants regarding Canada would be for exactly what you say; stripping Canada down to the bone and forcing all the healthcare, insurance, control of education, deregularisation etc onto Canadians and Canadian businesses rather than making them a true part of the USA.

The Director of the Economic Council doesn't understand tariffs. Or lying more likely.

Just looked at the BBC and RTE websites' reporting of Trump's 100-day rally. The lack of critical rebuttal of his lies is depressing. I suppose "balance" means they must give as much credit to Trump as they do to his rivals. I really wish the reporting uf such events would come with a robust fact-checking: I am sure it would be easy to construct a list of, say the top 10 lies he utters in a speech

Listing all the lies would take up too much space.

According to economist article I read this morning the chickens are coming home to roost

Or in case of trade the sailings from Asia to US fell off a cliff, the stock markets are in for a surprise once shelves start to go empty USSR style

Yes, the likes of RTE and the BBC are complicit by itheir lack of flood defences.

Meanwhile, retribution against FBI agents for taking the knee 5 years ago: real totalitarian stuff:

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/30/politics/fbi-agents-blm-protest/index.html

They won't need to. No toys for the kids so instead of bringing Christmas back, he cancelled it.

he's the Grinch!!!

That's the problem, very few reporters challenge them.

Like Trump claiming $2bil a day in tariffs were collected when in fact it was only $200mil. Why can't reporter ask where the missing $1.8bil has disappeared to? That's a massive amount of fraud committed daily under his watch etc… Spin it around.

Or Trump insisting tariffs will mean there will be no income tax but when he rows back on the tariffs and doing deals with countries, why is he doing that? It's basically taking money out of people's pockets because they will have to pay income tax.

I've been calling it journalistic malpractice for quite some time.

As the old saying goes... If one person says it’s raining and another says it’s not raining then the journalist should look out the window first and then report the truth