MSNBC host floats WAR with Canada in shocking on-air comments
Katy Tur was speaking on Tuesday with Canadian journalist Stephen Marche - whose article in The Atlantic evokes the chance of an armed conflict with the US's neighbor to the North.
'Stephen, let me ask you about the article you wrote for The Atlantic - and I sent this around to my friends,' Tur began.
'Just the very fact that it was published, I think is surprising - that we can have a conversation that is serious about what a war with Canada would look like. Explain why it's no longer unthinkable,' she pressed the journalist on her show, Katy Tur Reports.
Marche replied by blaming the rhetoric of President Trump for egging on a potential military battle between the longstanding allies.
'Well, because Donald Trump makes us think it, right?' he said.
'I mean, he talks about annexing us on a regular basis. I mean somewhere around two percent of the American population actually wants to do this, but you know at this point in history, you know, the American people can obviously be convinced of anything right?' he argued.
'And already, you see numbers of Republicans who consider Canada an enemy to be growing...
'And you know, I think when countries are in constitutional crisis and when their legal systems start to fall apart, violence against neighboring countries is a very common - to me, it's very intimately tied with this talk about being a third-term president,' Marche said.
'That's exactly, that's out of the playbook of authoritarian governments around the world.
'And so Canada really does need to think about protecting ourselves from the United States and making sure that we're not just a snack,' he argued.
Marche made similar arguments in his piece for The Atlantic, which was published over the weekend - just ahead of Trump's meeting with the new Canadian Prime Minister.
'Donald Trump's pointless and malicious trade war has been, by his own account, a prelude to softening up Canada economically so that it can be appropriated as the 51st state,' the journalist wrote. 'He has brought up his plans for incorporating Canada into the union with Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney in private calls.
'Canada could no longer comfortably sit within the American military sphere,' Marche declared. 'In this stark moment, our nation has abruptly become an adversary of the most powerful country in the world.'
He goes on to argue that Canada would not be seized easily, and weighs the possibility of an armed conflict.
Ultimately, Marche concludes: 'If Trump decides to run again, a manufactured emergency over Canada would be a convenient excuse for overturning the constitutional barriers.
'Nobody wants to believe that a continental conflict could happen,' he continues, noting, 'Very few Ukrainians, right up to the point of Russia's 2022 invasion, believed their malignant neighbor would invade.
'Canada cannot afford complacency,' Marche wrote.
The discussion came as Trump met with the new Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, inside the White House on Tuesday.
During their conversation, Trump once again brought up his idea to make the northern nation the United States' '51st state.'
He claimed that the U.S.-Canada border was an 'artificially drawn line' and if they joined together it would be a 'wonderful marriage.' He added: 'But it takes two to tango, right?'
Carney appeared to squirm in his seat and fired back that Canada was 'not for sale.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
23 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Air Canada flight attendants to defy back-to-work order and remain on strike
Air Canada's flight attendants plan to remain on strike, their union has said, defying government efforts to force them back to work and into binding arbitration over a dispute that has left more than 100,000 travellers stranded around the world during the peak summer travel season. About 10,000 flight attendants who work for Canada's largest airline walked out on the job early on Saturday amid an increasingly bitter dispute over what the union has described as 'poverty wages' and unpaid labour. Around the same time, Air Canada, which operates about 700 flights a day, said it would begin locking flight attendants out of airports. Less than 12 hours later, the Canadian government said it had ordered an end to the work stoppage, leading Air Canada to announce plans to resume flying by Sunday evening. However, that timeline was thrown into question after the union told Reuters it would challenge the return-to-work order, which it described as unconstitutional. It was the latest twist in talks that have dragged on since March as the flight attendants seek to address the fact that they are not compensated for work carried out when planes are not in the air, whether it is time spent on the ground between flights and or helping passengers to board. On Saturday, Canada's federal jobs minister, Patty Hajdu, said it was clear the talks had reached an impasse and that the impact was being felt by Canadians and visitors across the country. 'The talks broke down,' said Hajdu as she told reporters that she had asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order an immediate end to the strike and to impose binding arbitration. 'It is clear that the parties are not any closer to resolving some of the key issues that remain and they will need help with the arbitrator.' She appeared to link her actions to the toll that US tariff increases had taken on the Canadian economy. 'In a year in which Canadian families and businesses have already experienced too much disruption and uncertainty, this is not the time to add additional challenges and disruptions to their lives and our economy,' she said in a statement. Hajdu's power to halt the strike stems from a section of the Canada Labour Code, which gives the minister unilateral authority to end work stoppages in order to 'maintain or secure industrial peace'. While the section was rarely used by previous governments, the Liberal government has invoked it several times in the past year, quelling strikes by workers at Canadian ports, the post office and railway companies, prompting analysts to voice concerns that the use of the clause may be undermining workers' rights. The union representing the flight attendants decried the Liberal government for stepping in within hours, accusing it of violating their right to take job action. Air Canada had reportedly previously requested that the government intervene to impose binding arbitration. Wesley Lesosky, of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said the government was giving 'Air Canada exactly what they want – hours and hours of unpaid labour from underpaid flight attendants, while the company pulls in sky-high profits and extraordinary executive compensation'. According to the aviation analytics firm Cirium, the airline had cancelled 671 flights by Saturday afternoon, leaving some travellers stranded overseas and others scrambling to find alternatives during the busy summer travel season. About 130,000 customers a day could be affected by a disruption, according to the airline. The airline said earlier it had offered its flight attendants 'an increase of more than 38% on global compensation', but the union said the figure failed to fully account for inflation. Air Canada also said it was willing to pay flight attendants 50% of their wage for work done before planes take off, leading the union to reply that its members should be fully compensated for their labour. About 70% of the airline's flight attendants are women, said Natasha Stea, a local union president and flight attendant. She questioned whether they were being treated fairly, given that Air Canada pilots, the vast majority of whom are men, received a significant raise last year. 'We are heartbroken for our passengers,' she told the Associated Press late last week. 'Nobody wants to see Canadians stranded or anxious about their travel plans, but we cannot work for free.'
The Guardian
23 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Rubio says both Russia and Ukraine ‘have to make concessions' for peace deal
In a combative series of interviews on Sunday, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that 'both sides are going to have to make concessions' for there to be a peaceful resolution to the war that erupted when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. 'You can't have a peace agreement unless both sides make concessions – that's a fact,' the Trump administration's top diplomat said Sunday on ABC's This Week. 'That's true in virtually any negotiation. If not, it's just called surrender. And neither side is going to surrender. So both sides are going to have to make concessions.' Rubio said the recent talks in Alaska between Russian president Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump toward ending the war had 'made progress in the sense that we identified potential areas of agreement – but there remains some big areas of disagreement'. 'We're still a long ways off,' Rubio added. 'We're not at the precipice of a peace agreement. We're not at the edge of one. But I do think progress was made and towards one.' He declined to go into specific areas of agreement or disagreement, or outline what Trump has described as 'severe consequences' for Russia if its aggression toward Ukraine continued. 'Ultimately, if there isn't a peace agreement, if there isn't an end of this war, the president's been clear – there are going to be consequences,' Rubio remarked. 'But we're trying to avoid that. And the way we're trying to avoid those consequences is with an even better consequence, which is peace, the end of hostilities.' Rubio agreed that no agreement was possible without both sides – including that of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy – being at the table. 'You're not going to reach a ceasefire or a peace agreement in a meeting in which only one side is represented,' Rubio told ABC News. 'That's why it's important to bring both leaders together – and that's the goal here.' Rubio confirmed that a ceasefire – or, as Trump now reportedly prefers, a straight-to-peace deal – 'is going to be difficult', despite the White House's openly demanding one. The war, he said, has been 'going on for three and a half years'. 'You have two very entrenched sides, and we're going to have to continue to work and chip away at it,' Rubio said. Separately, on NBC's Meet the Press, Rubio said a ceasefire was 'not off the table', though he added: 'It was agreed by all that the best way to end this conflict is through a full peace deal.' He said the US had advocated for a ceasefire, but 'unfortunately, the Russians as of now have not agreed to that. 'But the ideal here, what we're aiming for here is not a ceasefire,' he said. 'What we ultimately are aiming for is an end to this.' Nonetheless, Rubio said he doubted that a new set of western sanctions on Russia would force Moscow to agree to any deal. He also denied that Trump, as critics claim, had merely given the aggressor in the conflict, Putin, an unwarranted place on the world stage. 'Putin is already on the world stage,' Rubio said on ABC News. 'The guy's conducting a full scale war in Ukraine. 'That doesn't mean he's right about the war. That doesn't mean he's justified about the war. You're not going to end a war between Russia and Ukraine without dealing with Putin. That's just common sense. So people can say whatever they want.' On NBC's Meet the Press, the Democratic US senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut countered on Sunday that the Trump-Putin 'meeting was a disaster'. 'It was an embarrassment for the United States,' Murphy said. 'It was a failure. Putin got everything he wanted.' Murphy said that Trump had given Putin 'that photo-op' he wanted and to 'be absolved of his war crimes in front of the world. 'War criminals are not normally invited to the United States of America,' Murphy remarked. Secondly, he said, Putin had not been forced to give up anything. 'President Trump said he wanted a ceasefire – it appears the ceasefire wasn't even seriously discussed,' Murphy added. 'And then, third, there's no consequences. 'Trump said, 'If I don't get a cease fire, Putin is going to pay a price.' And then he walked out of that meeting saying, 'I didn't get a ceasefire. I didn't get a peace deal, and I'm not even considering sanctions.''
Telegraph
42 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Ghislaine Maxwell files will not be released despite Trump order
Ghislaine Maxwell 's grand jury transcripts will not be released, a federal judge has ruled, saying the Trump administration 's request to do so is a 'diversion'. Paul Engelmayer, a Manhattan District Court judge, suggested the Department of Justice (DOJ) had requested the transcripts be released to create the 'illusion' of transparency. The judge said the files would not reveal any new information, adding that they 'do not discuss or identify any client of Epstein's or Maxwell's'. The decision will come as a blow to Donald Trump, who continues to grapple with the fallout after his administration closed the Jeffrey Epstein case. The administration's refusal to release information surrounding Epstein, the late financier and convicted paedophile, prompted a backlash from some of Mr Trump's most loyal supporters. In an effort to placate his base Mr Trump ordered Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, to seek the release of grand jury testimony related to the case in July. However, in a ruling filed on Monday, Mr Engelmayer said none of the arguments made by the DoJ for unsealing the transcripts met the requirements to authorise the disclosure of grand jury materials. 'The Court's review confirmed that unsealing the grand jury materials would not reveal new information of any consequence,' Mr Engelmayer wrote. He added: 'A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government's motion for their unsealing was aimed not at 'transparency' but at diversion — aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such.' In the 31-page order, Mr Engelmayer said the DoJ's argument that the unsealing of the documents was necessary because of public interest 'fails at the threshold'. He said the suggestion that the transcripts would bring 'meaningful new information' about Epstein and Maxwell's crimes was 'demonstrably false'and the public 'would thus learn nothing new' from their disclosure. The judge said the files 'do not discuss or identify any client of Epstein's or Maxwell's' and 'do not reveal any heretofore unknown means or methods of Epstein's or Maxwell's crimes'. He added: 'They do not reveal new venues at which their crimes occurred. They do not reveal new sources of their wealth. They do not explore the circumstances of Epstein's death. They do not reveal the path of the government's investigation.' Weeks before the Trump administration announced it would not release the so-called Epstein files, Mr Trump was reportedly told his name came up several times in the documents, according to Wall Street Journal. Being mentioned in the files is not a sign of wrongdoing, and the Trump administration said the story was 'fake news'.
