Trump Ends Trade Talks With Canada Over Ad of Reagan Calling Him Out

Donald Trump is mad at Canada again, this time over a TV ad criticizing his tariffs.

In a Truth Social post late Thursday night, Trump declared that “ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED” thanks to an ad, paid for by the government of Ontario, which used audio from a 1987 speech from President Ronald Reagan where he said, “Trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer.”

In a statement, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute—which thus far has not had much to say about Trump’s tariffs—said that the ad misrepresented Reagan’s remarks and that the Province of Ontario did not seek permission to use the audio, and that it “is reviewing its legal options in this matter.” Trump attached this statement to his post.

On Friday morning, Trump blasted Canada again, claiming the country “CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!!”

“They fraudulently took a big buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like Tariffs, when actually he LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY,” Trump ranted on Truth Social. He claimed that the country was trying to “illegally influence” the Supreme Court against the president’s tariffs, and that Canada had a long history of cheating on import taxes.

Trump is failing (or refusing) to realize that the province of Ontario took out this ad, not the entire Canadian government. Trump’s anger is equivalent to another country blaming him and the U.S. government for an ad made by California or New York. Ontario happens to be led by Premier Doug Ford of Canada’s Conservative Party, who was a supporter of Trump prior to the president’s trade war and attacks on the country’s sovereignty.

The breaking off of trade negotiations comes only days after Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney announced plans to revamp the country’s economy to be less dependent on the U.S., saying the once-close ties between the two countries are now a vulnerability.

“Our relationship with the United States will never again be the same as it was.... We have to take care of ourselves, because we can’t rely on one foreign partner. We have to take care of each other because we are stronger together,” Carney said in a Wednesday night speech. Trump’s freakout over a TV ad is already proving Carney right.

Watch the ad that made Trump so angry below.

President Donald Trump floated the idea of expanding his extrajudicial strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels to dry land—or as one might refer to it, he pitched declaring war.

During a roundtable press conference Thursday, Trump claimed that he had all but eradicated drug trafficking by sea, after launching the ninth strike on a foreign vessel earlier this week without providing any actual evidence linking the boats to any drug cartel.

“So, now they’re coming in by land, and even the land is concerned, because I told them, that’s gonna be next,” Trump rambled. “You know the land is gonna be next? And we may go to the Senate, we may go to the Congress and tell them about it, but I can’t imagine they’d have any problem with it.”

“What are they gonna do? Say ‘Gee, we don’t want to stop drugs pouring in?’” Trump added.

But only Congress can decide if the United States is at war—not Trump—even if he thinks the GOP-led legislative branch is too weak-willed to stop him. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time the president has attempted to bypass Congress’s authority.

Trump has already decided to unilaterally declare war on the so-called narcoterrorist drug boats, by announcing a state of “non-international armed conflict” against vessels that are part of “designated terrorist organizations.” A memo sent to Congress last month claimed that Trump had the authority to determine cartels were “nonstate armed groups,” and that their transport of drugs constituted “an armed attack against the United States.”

Two Americans are suing Donald Trump for razing the White House’s East Wing.

While the rest of the nation was stunned by the haphazard destruction of one of the nation’s oldest and most cherished democratic symbols, at least two individuals moved to stop it. Charles K. Voorhees and Judith A. Voorhees filed a temporary restraining order Thursday intended to stop Trump’s bulldozing.

In a three-page court filing, the plaintiffs argued that the Trump administration violated the National Capital Planning Act of 1952 by failing to acquire the approval of the National Capital Planning Commission, which has been closed since the government shutdown began 23 days ago.

The Voorhees further claimed that, in fast-tracking the East Wing’s demo, Trump had breached the National Historic Preservation Act and bypassed legally required oversight from the Commission of Fine Arts. They also alleged that Trump and his associates had intentionally “decoupled” the demolition and construction process, picking apart semantics in order to stretch a loophole that could justify their unapproved blueprint for federally-owned grounds.

But their lawsuit may be too late to salvage the historic monument. Nothing but rubble remained of the East Wing by midday Thursday, according to satellite images of the grounds. The demo was apparently an essential component of the president’s plan to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom that he had initially pledged wouldn’t interfere with the preexisting structure.

The White House’s partial destruction is, ultimately, another illustration that the country’s constitutional system of checks and balances has all but eroded. The international real estate mogul’s desire to destroy the government—and with it, the architectural face of American democracy—has received practically zero pushback from his allies in Congress, who appear all too willing to sit back as Trump courts billionaires to fund his golden banquet hall.

Resisting Trump’s drafts for the East Wing would require someone in power to actually hold the president accountable. But his desire to destroy and redevelop the White House as he sees fit should come as no surprise, since he’s never appeared to be a fan of the national symbol. During his first term, Trump reportedly called the White House “a dump” (an allegation that he has publicly refuted) and has spent no small part of his second term living and dining at his own properties rather than the executive mansion.

A Justice Department investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James yielded information that may potentially spoil the Trump administration’s plans to convict her of mortgage fraud.

The DOJ, led by inexperienced Trump-appointed interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, accused James of committing mortgage fraud and lying about a second home being rented out as an “investment property,” collecting “thousands” in rent money and saving over $17,000 in the process.

But prosecutors who investigated James warned Halligan’s predecessor, Erik Seibert, that the evidence for those claims wasn’t so clear. They found that James allowed her niece and her children to live in the house rent-free in 2020, and she only reported collecting $1,350 in rent money on her tax return from that year, which was allegedly to cover the cost of utilities. The small sum undercuts the DOJ theory that she was using it as an investment property.

Government lawyers are also doubtful that they’ll be able to prove that James committed mortgage fraud due to the vague standards around what does and doesn’t count as occupancy in a second home. While the DOJ argues that James didn’t visit the home enough to be an occupant, Fannie Mae guidelines don’t specify that a person needs to sleep in the property overnight.

This all points to signs that the indictment is simply revenge for James’s successful fraud suit against Trump, which made her a lifelong enemy of our spiteful president.

“I will not bow, I will not break, I will not bend,” James said earlier this month at a rally for New York’s Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani in the midst of her federal indictment. “I will not capitulate, I will not give in.”

The Trump administration’s desperate attempt to incriminate her may have made doing that a bit earlier.

It looks like Stephen Miller’s quest to hire 10,000 so-called “Homeland Defenders” by January isn’t going so well.

During a multi-agency meeting earlier this week, Miller voiced frustration that Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasn’t bringing in deportation officers fast enough, CNN reported Thursday. Meanwhile, multiple sources told CNN that ICE has struggled to process the sudden surge of applicants after the agency dangled a $50,000 signing bonus in front of their noses, in the hopes of enticing Americans to join the legion of law enforcement officials ripping families apart. 

“It’s a shit show,” an administration official told CNN.

One senior ICE official told CNN that “HR is not equipped to hire en masse,” adding, “No one has support staff to support this.” In fact, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has had to lend out some personnel to help handle ICE’s influx of applications, which DHS reports has skyrocketed to 175,000.  

ICE officials are really feeling the strain once new recruits arrive for the agency’s training program, where more than 200 applicants have already been terminated from the program because they did not meet the physical or academic requirements, one source told CNN.

Sources told NBC News Wednesday that multiple new recruits had arrived for training without being properly vetted, and just under 10 were turned away due to disqualifying criminal backgrounds or failed drug testing. At ICE’s training academy in Brunswick, Georgia, staff discovered one recruit had previously been involved in a domestic violence incident, and was once charged with strong-arm robbery and battery. DHS officials told NBC News that other recruits in the six-week training course had not submitted their fingerprints for background checks, which is required by ICE. 

CNN reported that in one case, ICE gave a conditional offer to a Drug Enforcement Administration informant, which was only caught by the DEA. In another case, an individual had a pending gun charge.

These mistakes come as the Trump administration has attempted to speed up the onboarding process, which used to take months, into a partially remote process that only takes 47 days, CNN reported. 

Scott Shuchart, former head of policy at ICE during the Biden administration, suggested that the Trump administration had gone too far in attempting to streamline the process.“They’re trying to do something borderline impossible and they’re doing it too fast,” he told CNN.