Carney cuts short questions to Trump ahead of G7 summit
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney cut off questioning to President Donald Trump, taking back a few minutes of time from reporters ahead of the start of the G7 summit.
Trump answered several questions about Russia’s dismissal from what was previously known as the G8 under former President Barack Obama and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership, as well as the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran. The last question Trump responded to focused on a social media post of his in which he called for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to expand efforts to detain and deport illegal immigrants in America’s largest cities, such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.
“Biden allowed 21 million people to come into our country,” Trump said. “The vast numbers of those people and murderers, killers, people from gangs, people from jails, they emptied their jails out into the U.S. Most of those people are in the cities, all blue cities, all Democrat-run cities, and they think they’re going to use them to vote. It’s not going to happen.”
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Receiving a nod of approval from Trump, Carney then cut the session off early.
“If you don’t mind,” Carney said, “I’m going to exercise my role if you will as G7 chair, since we have a few more minutes with the president and his team, and then we actually have to start the meeting to address some of the big issues. So thank you.”
Trump had reminded reporters that the G7 summit used to be the G8 until Obama and Trudeau pushed out Russia. Russia’s membership was suspended following the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
“That was a mistake because I think you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia, and you wouldn’t have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago,” Trump told reporters. “But it didn’t work out that way.”
“It was a mistake in that you spend so much time talking about Russia. He’s no longer at the table, so it makes life more complicated,” Trump said of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “But you wouldn’t have had the war. And, other than that, I think we’re going to accomplish a lot, and I expect to, and I think our primary focus would be trade and trade with Canada, and I’m sure we can work something out.”
When asked what was holding up a trade deal with Canada, Trump told reporters, “I’m a tariff person, I’ve always been a tariff person.” He said Carney “has a more complex idea, but also very good,” looking forward to negotiations during the summit.
Trump also said he has received messages signaling Iran wants to de-escalate the conflict with Israel.
“They’d like to talk, but they should have done that before. I had 60 days … and on the 61st day I said, we don’t have a deal. They have to make a deal. And it’s painful for both parties,” Trump said. “But I’d say Iran is not winning this war. And they should talk, and they should talk immediately before it’s too late.”
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When asked what it would take for the U.S. to get involved in the conflict militarily, Trump responded, “I don’t want to talk about that.”
Trump further addressed the fallout of nixing Russia from the summit. Other than the U.S. and Canada, the remaining G7 countries are the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
“Putin speaks to me, he doesn’t speak to anybody else. He doesn’t want to talk because he was very insulted when he got thrown out of the G8, as I would be, as you would be, as anybody would be, is very insulting,” Trump said.
Trump, however, suggested it might be too late to include Russia now, given Putin’s 2022 large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“I’m not saying he should at this point, because too much water has gone over the dam, maybe,” Trump said. “But, it was a big mistake. Obama didn’t want them and the head of your country, the proud head of your country, didn’t want him. This was a big mistake. You wouldn’t have that war.”
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