Transcript of Canada government in chaos over Trump threat

Tonight, Donald Trump throwing Canada into chaos. After calling Canada a state and calling its prime minister governor Justin Trudeau comes as Trump's nemesis in Canada. The country's deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, who's also its finance minister, is gone. She abruptly resigned after clashing with prime minister Trudeau, saying he is not doing enough to stand up to Trump and Trump's threat of 25% tariffs on every single good that comes into the United States from Canada. Trump calls her toxic, but there is another top Canadian official now taking Trump on tonight.

Ontario premier Doug Ford, he is calling for his country to use every tool in our toolbox, a direct quote, including cutting off Canadian energy to the United States if Trump follows through with this threat. Warning, quote, the Americans are gonna feel the pain as well. Premier Ford is out front with me tonight. And, premier, I appreciate your time. I wanna just start here with your proposal itself.

What exactly does cutting off Canadian energy to the United States look like?

Well, first of all, Aaron, thanks for having me on. You know, that's the last thing I wanna do. I wanna sell more electricity, more power, to our US friends and closest allies in the world. But that's a tool that we have in our toolbox. We power over 1,500,000 homes in, Michigan and companies in Michigan and New York State and Wisconsin.

That's the last thing I wanna do. I wanna sell more energy to the US. I wanna sell more critical minerals to the US. Again, we we, we're the closest trading partner, closest allies. We do $1,300,000,000,000 of 2 way trade.

That's more than Japan, China, UK, and France combined. I I just feel we aren't the enemy. The big problem in my opinion is, China. Cheap Chinese products going through Mexico. They're slapping a made in Mexico sticker on, shipping it up through the US and and Canada and costing American and Canadian jobs.

So, you know, when you talk about, the the the Americans will feel the pain if you have to go through with this, you know, you you specifically threatened to turn off the lights to a million and a half Americans. And and I say that just because if you're specifically talking about electricity coming into the US from Canada, that only makes up about 1% of annual US electricity consumption. That's according to the EIA, here in the US. But, Premier, when it comes to crude oil, if you go bigger, you're looking at Canadian exports to the US. You know, 60% of, America's total oil imports come from Canada.

So do you wanna go bigger in this you know, if if if these tariffs are gonna go through, will you should you reciprocate with tariffs, not just on electricity, but on crude oil itself?

Well, for we we ship down 4,300,000 barrels every single day. If there was a tariff on that, that would increase, gas by a dollar a gallon. That wouldn't go over very well. And, you know, both sides of the border are gonna feel the pain. We rely on each other.

Ontario is a big auto, province. And I just I wanna work with, the US. I love the American people. I spent 20 years of my life there in Chicago, in our Chicago facility in New Jersey. I love Americans.

I love the US, and we're so much stronger together. Let's let's build, 4th of AmCan, and let's onshore these products from China and create more American and Canadian

products. So can I just ask you taking a step back? And I know some of the stuff Trump had posted. You know, you referred again to Canada as a state. He referred again to prime minister Trudeau as a governor.

It's not the first time he had posted that AI generated image of himself staying next to the Canadian flag with the caption, oh, Canada. And that was after prime minister Trudeau flew down to Mar a Lago unannounced to meet with Trump about his tariff threat where, you know, Trump joked that Canada could become the 51st state. So can we just take a step back? I know in some of this, he's sort of making a joke, but he's doing it again and again and again, and, obviously, you know, it is demeaning. I mean, how do you respond to that that he keeps referring to Canada as a state and the leader of your country as a governor?

Well, it's up to premiers like myself, which is equivalent to governors down down in the US. Yep. It's our job to go down and inform, Americans. We're we have a large ad campaign going on in the US to inform them that, we are their number 1 trading partner, number 1 ally in the entire world. The supply chains are are so integrated.

We're so much stronger together. The only people that win, Aaron, is China. Americans lose, Canadians lose, and that that's the problem. Mexico has to make a decision. You're either with Beijing or you're with Washington.

I'll tell you what Canadians are with. They're with Washington.

So do you take Trump seriously when he mocks Canada, or do you think that that's just, you know, his negotiating tactic?

You know, he has a sense of humor, but I'm more concerned about the the trade, making sure that we secure, trade on both sides of the border. And this is pretty simple. The president has asked to secure our border. I agree with him a 1000%. We need to secure our border.

We're going to secure our border. We have to meet our 2% commitment to NATO, and, we're gonna do both. So those are 2 asks that we're gonna get done. I've been saying it well before president Trump, was elected that we have to meet the 2%. We have to secure our our borders, And then we move forward and sit down and have a discussion.

I'd love to sit down with the president, businessman to businessman, and and have a conversation with him because we are so much stronger, together.

Alright. Well, Premier Ford, I appreciate your time tonight, and thank you.