U.S. President Donald Trump “seemed positively delighted” about the impact he had on Canada’s federal election, a U.S. journalist said while recounting a recent interview with the president.
Ashley Parker was one of three writers at The Atlantic who interviewed Trump in the Oval Office for an article published late last month, before Canadians elected a Liberal minority government in last week’s election.
The interview transcript includes a brief section on Canada, where Trump again said he is serious about making Canada an American state, and mused about the “close” election race between the Liberals and the Conservatives.
“Trump sort of gleefully said, ‘Once I became a presence in the Canadian elections, I really turned it into a close call; I kind of threw it from the Conservatives to the Liberals,’” Parker told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on the West Block.
“That’s not his political ideology, but he seemed positively delighted at what he saw as the outsized influence he had in another country’s elections.”
The Liberals had been 25 points behind the Conservatives as recently as December, according to polling by Ipsos, but the resignation of former prime minister Justin Trudeau and Trump’s attacks on Canada’s economy and sovereignty pushed the Liberals back on top.
The election campaign was dominated by how the next government would respond to Trump and negotiate a new relationship with the U.S., which polling showed the Liberals were overwhelmingly seen as the best party to address.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to meet with Trump in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to kickstart talks on trade and security.
According to The Atlantic transcript of the interview, the magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg asked Trump if he “seriously” wants Canada to become a U.S. state.
“I think it would be great,” Trump replied, to which Goldberg pointed out a hypothetical Canadian state would likely elect Democratic senators and representatives to Congress.
“A lot of people say that, but I’m okay with it if it has to be,” the Republican president said, before pivoting to the Canadian election.
“You know, until I came along, remember that the Conservative was leading by 25 points,” he said.
“Then I was disliked by enough of the Canadians that I’ve thrown the election into a close call, right? I don’t even know if it’s a close call. But the Conservative, they didn’t like Governor Trudeau too much, and I would call him Governor Trudeau, but he wasn’t fond of that.”
Trump made similar remarks to reporters during a cabinet meeting the day after the election, following his call with Carney where Trump congratulated the prime minister on his victory.
“They both hated Trump, and it was the one that hated Trump, I think, the least that won,” Trump said last week. “I actually think the Conservative hated me much more than the so-called Liberal.”
He also said at the time that he believes a “great relationship” with Canada is possible under Carney.
Despite Trump saying again he thinks having Canada become part of the U.S. would be “great,” Parker said the president didn’t seem as serious about the annexation threat as he is about his top priorities.
“I will say, he said this, but he didn’t seem to say it as fervently as some of his other deep beliefs on, say, immigration and tariffs, and he also didn’t offer any sort of plausible plan on how he plans to make that happen,” she said.
The Atlantic article also features an earlier phone conversation during which Trump remarks that in his second presidential term, “I run the country and the world.”
Parker said the comment reflects the outsized influence he now wields through his often-volatile policymaking — particularly on the global economy.
“I think a more accurate version of that is that he is sort of making the world bend to his will and respond to his actions,” she said.
“A classic example of that is simply tariffs. What Trump did with tariffs … there’s just about no country in the world that is not paying attention or dealing with some ramifications or fallout or trying to figure out what a potential trade war with the United States and President Trump might mean.”
The issue of Canada only came up during the Oval Office interview after Trump remarked that “one of the things I’ve been most successful with is foreign relations.”
“I think the Canadians would disagree,” Goldberg responded.