Trump Abruptly Changes Tune on Canada After Prime Minister’s Threat

Donald Trump pulled a 180-degree turn Friday when speaking about Canada, after Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that the country’s relationship with the U.S. was “over.”

In a post on Truth Social Friday morning, Trump dropped his stupid schtick of calling Canada’s leader its “governor,” as part of his ongoing campaign to have it become the “fifty-first state.” Instead, he issued a surprisingly deferential statement about our northern neighbors.

“I just finished speaking with Prime Minister Mark Carney, of Canada. It was an extremely productive call, we agree on many things, and will be meeting immediately after Canada’s upcoming Election to work on elements of Politics, Business, and all other factors that will end up being great for both the United States of America and Canada,” Trump wrote.

On Wednesday, Trump levied a new round of “permanent” 25 percent tariffs on all imported vehicles and autoparts—a move sure to have a large impact in Canada, where many U.S. cars are assembled. Trump had threatened the European Union, warning it against working “with Canada in order to do economic harm” to the U.S. unless it too wanted to be hit with steep tariffs, a blatant attempt to back Canada into a corner.

Carney called the new tariffs on vehicles a “direct attack” on Canadian autoworkers and said that his country would make preparations to “dramatically reduce” its reliance on the U.S. The next day, the two leaders had their first conversation since Carney became prime minister earlier this month after Justin Trudeau stepped down. After being appointed, Carney triggered a parliamentary election to be held on April 28.

Earlier this month, Trump imposed a separate 25 percent tariff on all imports from Canada, with a lower 10 percent tariff on energy and some exemptions for goods covered by the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Increasingly, it seems that Trump’s trade war with Canada could potentially devastate states along America’s northern border.

The Trump administration’s abrupt street arrests of legal immigrants, who subsequently disappear into government detention, should be a huge scandal met with swift action by Democrats in Congress.

But for some reason, just 34 Democrats in the Senate and the House have signed on to a letter demanding answers about the arrest of Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk in Massachusetts and other international students who have had their legal immigration status swiftly revoked without due process and now face deportation.

The letter calls for “answers about this case and about ICE’s policy that has led to the identification and arrest of university students with valid legal status,” and was sent Thursday to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

On Thursday, Rubio boasted that he had revoked the visas of “more than 300 at this point” while failing to mention a specific reason why Ozturk’s visa was revoked. No justification has been provided for University of Alabama doctoral student Alireza Doroudi’s arrest and detention, either, and his whereabouts are unknown.

The 34 Democrats who signed the letter to Trump administration officials are below:

• Representative Yassamin Ansari—Arizona
• Senator Adam Schiff—California
• Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton—District of Columbia (nonvoting delegate)
• Representative Hank Johnson—Georgia
• Representative Delia Ramirez—Illinois
• ​​Representative André Carson—Indiana
• Senator Brian Schatz—Hawaii
• Representative Jill Tokuda—Hawaii
• Senator Chris Van Hollen—Maryland
• Senator Elizabeth Warren—Massachusetts
• Senator Edward Markey—Massachusetts
• Representative Ayanna Pressley—Massachusetts
• Representative Lori Trahan—Massachusetts
• Representative Katherine Clark—Massachusetts
• Representative Stephen Lynch—Massachusetts
• Representative Seth Moulton—Massachusetts
• Representative James McGovern—Massachusetts
• Representative Jake Auchincloss—Massachusetts
• Representative Rashida Tlaib—Michigan
• Representative Ilhan Omar—Minnesota
• Senator Tina Smith—Minnesota
• Senator Andy Kim—New Jersey
• Representative LaMonica McIver—New Jersey
• Representative Bonne Watson Coleman—New Jersey
• Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—New York
• Senator Jeff Merkley—Oregon
• Representative Summer Lee—Pennsylvania
• Representative Greg Casar—Texas
• Representative Lloyd Doggett—Texas
• Senator Bernie Sanders—Vermont (independent who caucuses with Democrats)
• Senator Peter Welch—Vermont
• Senator Tim Kaine—Virginia
• Representative Donald S. Beyer Jr.—Virginia
• Representative Mark Pocan—Wisconsin

Add one more to the number of Trump officials who don’t understand how digital security works.

In an interview with Fox News Thursday evening, Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed that the encrypted retail messenger app Signal is a “very safe way to communicate.”

“I don’t think foreign adversaries are able to hack Signal, as far as I know,” Bondi said.

But that’s all wrong, as pointed out by Representative Jimmy Gomez, who took a moment to publicly school the Justice Department chief on the matter.

“Hackers don’t need to hack Signal, they can hack your phone. Then they can see your screen and even access your camera and microphone,” the California Democrat posted Thursday night. “So Pam, if you can read your messages on signal, then China and Russia can read your messages on signal.”

The Trump administration has come under intense scrutiny after The Atlantic reported that several of its key officials discussed imminent plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen over Signal. The conversation was witnessed by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, who was seemingly accidentally invited to the group chat by national security adviser Mike Waltz.

Former intelligence officials have warned that America’s adversaries “undoubtedly” already have the chat records, largely thanks to the Trump administration’s special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff’s physical presence in Russia when he was added to the chat.

In an interview with MeidasTouch Tuesday, former national security adviser Susan Rice said that Witkoff’s use of Signal while in Russia basically hand-delivered news of the attack to the Kremlin hours before it took place.

“Russians have whatever Witkoff was doing or saying on his personal cell phone,” Rice told the podcast.

Bondi indicated Thursday that the Justice Department would not launch a criminal investigation into administration officials’ use of Signal to communicate the attack plans.

She also declared that the details shared in the chat—which included down-to-the-minute scheduling for the launch of U.S. F-18 attack planes toward Yemen, “trigger based” strikes, and the launch of sea-based subsonic cruise missiles—were “not classified.”

Meanwhile, Representative Chrissy Houlahan cornered National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard during a House Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday, committing the intelligence chief to “follow the law” and investigate the leak as required by bipartisan legislation.

The vast majority of Americans believe that something should be done about the reckless intelligence breach. A YouGov survey published on Tuesday found that 53 percent of nearly 6,000 polled Americans felt that the Trump administration’s Signal leak was “very serious,” while another 21 percent described it as “somewhat serious.”

Donald Trump got whacked by two lawsuits Friday from major law firms challenging his executive orders targeting them for defending clients and causes he dislikes or employing lawyers he’s deemed as enemies.

WilmerHale and Jenner & Block both filed suits against the Trump administration over a pair of retaliatory executive orders allegedly “addressing risks” from the two firms, after Trump previously targeted three other firms. 

The orders targeting WilmerHale and Jenner & Block claimed that the firms had engaged in “obvious partisan representations” and so-called discrimination “against its employees based on race and other categories prohibited by civil rights laws, including through the use of race-based ‘targets,’” meaning they used DEI hiring practices. 

The president threatened to suspend security clearances held by firm members, stop all federal contracts, and bar federal employees from engaging with firm members. 

Trump claimed that the firms had committed wrongdoing by simply taking up cases that went against his policy agenda. He alleged that WilmerHale wrongfully defended clients in cases involving race and elections, and that Jenner & Block had supported “attacks against women and children based on a refusal to accept the biological reality of sex.” He alleged that both firms had backed “the obstruction of efforts to prevent illegal aliens from committing horrific crimes and trafficking deadly drugs within our borders,” likely meaning they simply defended clients in immigration cases. Of course, none of this is actually legally wrong, it just presents obstacles to Trump’s agenda.  

Trump also attacked WilmerHale for “welcoming” former special counsel Robert Mueller to the firm, and Jenner & Block for re-hiring his associate Andrew Weissmann.

In response, WilmerHale filed a lawsuit against the entire Trump administration, including every department and Cabinet member, alleging that Trump’s executive orders constituted an “unprecedented attack” on the Sixth Amendment right to counsel and were an an “undisguised form of retaliation for representing clients and causes he disfavors or employing lawyers he dislikes.”

“These ‘personal vendetta[s]’ are so facially improper that the first court to address the merits of one of these orders concluded that it likely violates multiple foundational safeguards enshrined in the Bill of Rights,” lawyers for WilmerHale stated in a 63-page filing. 

In a statement Thursday, WilmerHale hit back at the ridiculous order, stating that they represented a range of clients “including in matters against administrations from both parties.”

Jenner & Block also filed suit challenging the order. “The Order threatens not only Jenner, but also its clients and the legal system itself,” the firm wrote. “Our Constitution, top to bottom, forbids attempts by the government to punish citizens and lawyers based on the clients they represent, the positions they advocate, the opinions they voice, and the people with whom they associate.”

The law firm Perkins Coie, which was targeted for representing Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, challenged a similar order earlier this month and was granted a temporary injunction against the Trump administration’s threat to revoke clearances and access. Another firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, caved to the administration and offered $40 million in free legal services, revoked their own DEI practices, and sold one of their own lawyers down the river, simply because he’d once investigated Trump for alleged financial crimes. 

Trump’s latest orders are a bold-faced attempt to make it impossible for individuals to challenge his actions, and policy agenda, by attempting to chill the work of those who would mount their representation. 

MAHA conspiracy theorists rejoice: Utah has become the first state to ban fluoride from public drinking water.

Republican Governor Spencer Cox signed a bill late Thursday that will prevent local cities from choosing to add the mineral to their water.

The order—which will go into effect on May 7—is a culmination of a baseless premise that originated in the 1960s that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has pushed even further. Fluoride removal bills are also on the table in North Dakota, Montana, and Tennessee.

This anti-fluoride movement is rooted in the conspiracy that early childhood exposure to fluoride could cause mental disability and low IQ. These studies have been thoroughly debunked. Utah’s legislation made no mention of these worries in the text.

“The benefits of community water fluoridation are most pronounced in low income communities—communities that often have the least access to dental care and to other sources of fluoride,” Dr. Scott Toma, a dentist, told The New York Times.

Multiple studies suggest that fluoridation actually is good for dental and oral health. It’s connected with a 27 percent decline in adult cavities and a 30 percent decline in child cavities.