Panelists sketched out several far-fetched scenarios president Donald Trump has opened up as possible but ultimately they were probably too implausible to actually happen.
King Charles III addressed Canada's parliament and promised to protect the nation's sovereign rights as Trump claims he would annex it as the "51st state," and panelists on "CNN This Morning" debated the plausibility of his threats to the North American neighbor and ally.
"I think he's trying to reassure Canada that the relationship with the UK is strong," said Jonathan Allen, senior national political writer for NBC News. "Look, there's not going to be a war between the UK or Europe and the United States over Canada."
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Host Audie Cornish said that wasn't the point, and that Trump had made such discussions possible or even necessary through his threats, which he repeated as recently as Tuesday on Truth Social, and Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson shook her head in disbelief.
"We're not annexing Canada," Soltis Anderson said. "It's not a thing that's going to happen – it's not going to happen."
Cornish pressed her to explain why Trump kept making threats if he didn't have any intention of carrying through.
"Canada does benefit from being within the general defense umbrella of being a next-door neighbor to the United States," Soltis Anderson said, "and so that's not incorrect that Canada benefits by being our our next-door neighbor. I think the king of it all is really interesting because Donald Trump famously, really, really enjoys the pomp and circumstance. He loves a state visit to London, getting the dinner at Buckingham Palace. He loves all of that, so I think in some interesting way, this could be meaningful to at least get Trump to, like, knock off some of because [he cares about pageantry], and he cares about the king liking him."
Allen pointed out that the U.S. benefits from the buffer Canada provides to the north, as does Mexico to the south and the oceans to the east and west, but Soltis Anderson said that Trump is at least intrigued by the idea of acquiring more territory – although she doubted that he was actually serious.
"I think Donald Trump probably views the world in some ways like a little bit of a 'Monopoly' board, right?" she said. "Like, 'Where can I put a hotel?' But that doesn't mean we're not going to annex Canada. You can replay this clip someday and say, 'Look what a moron Kristen was,' although I think at that point we'll have other bigger fish to fry."
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