Trump Kicks Off Fresh Tariff War Over Canada’s Ronald Reagan Ad

Donald Trump is economically punishing Canada (and the American public) for daring to televise Ronald Reagan’s position on tariffs.

The president announced Saturday that America’s northern neighbor would literally pay for Ontario’s decision to air portions of one of Reagan’s 1987 radio addresses, in which the conservative icon argued that tariffs undermine economic prosperity and only serve to “hurt every American.” The 35 percent tariff on Canadian goods would increase by at least 10 percent, Trump said.

The advert really irked Trump, who claimed that the very real speech was a “fake.” Trump also cited the advertisement as his reason for canceling trade talks with Canada and then deciding to actually impose more levies on America’s Hat as recompense for the stunt.

“Canada was caught, red handed, putting up a fraudulent advertisement on Ronald Reagan’s Speech on Tariffs,” Trump posted to Truth Social. “The Reagan Foundation said that they, ‘created an ad campaign using selective audio and video of President Ronald Reagan. The ad misrepresents the Presidential Radio Address,’ and ‘did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute is reviewing its legal options in this matter.’

“The sole purpose of this FRAUD was Canada’s hope that the United States Supreme Court will come to their ‘rescue’ on Tariffs that they have used for years to hurt the United States. Now the United States is able to defend itself against high and overbearing Canadian Tariffs (and those from the rest of the World as well!).”

While the ad stitched together some of Reagan’s quotes from different parts of the speech, none of the soundbites used in the ad were made up. In fact, the speech in its entirety reveals Reagan was much harsher on tariffs than the ad made him out to be.

The ad was developed by Ontario’s provincial government. The goal of the ad, per Ontario Premier Doug Ford, was to reach as many Americans as possible. After a conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Ford announced the decision to pull the ad, which will officially stop airing on Monday.

But ultimately, Trump doesn’t appear able to grapple with the reality that his Republican hero considered his favorite economic stratagem a total dud.

“Ronald Reagan LOVED Tariffs for purposes of National Security and the Economy, but Canada said he didn’t!” Trump continued in his post. “Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD. Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10 percent over and above what they are paying now.”

Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One Monday, Trump said he had no interest in meeting with Carney to resolve the matter, further elaborating that he wouldn’t be meeting with Carney “for a while.”

President Trump on Monday bragged about passing a dementia test, while challenging Democrats decades younger than him to try and do the same. 

“[We] have a great group of people, which they don’t,” Trump said while taking questions inside Air Force One. “They have Jasmine Crocket, a low-IQ person. [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] is low IQ.… Have her pass, like, the exams that I decided to take when I was at Walter Reed. Those are really hard, they’re really aptitude tests, I guess, in a certain way. But they’re cognitive tests.” 

The “cognitive tests” that Trump is bragging about so proudly—and condescendingly telling two outspoken, progressive women of color to take—is most likely some variation of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. The MoCA is a 10-minute assessment designed to identify signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s, and yet Trump talks about it like it was the Graduate Record Examinations or the LSAT. 

Trump visited Walter Reed Medical Center earlier this month, raising questions about whether he once again took the dementia test on this visit.

The president has been bragging about this test for years now. 

“It was 30 to 35 questions.… The first questions are very easy. The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question. It’s, like, you’ll go: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. So they say, ‘Could you repeat that?’ So I said, ‘Yeah. It’s: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV,’” Trump said back in 2020. “They said nobody gets it in order.… It’s actually not that easy, but for me, it was easy.”

“I think it was 35, 30 questions,” he said again last year. “They always show you the first one, like a giraffe, a tiger, or this, or that—a whale. ‘Which one is the whale?’ OK. And that goes on for three or four [questions], and then it gets harder and harder and harder.”

The test itself is controversial within the medical community, and Trump’s misrepresentation of it has been thoroughly debunked over the years.  

“It’s a very, very low bar for somebody who carries the nuclear launch codes in their pocket to pass and certainly nothing to brag about,” Jonathan Reiner, a George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences professor and cardiologist, told The Washington Post last year.  

And yet Trump, in the midst of a government shutdown, continues to place the MoCA on a pedestal, using it to disparage Representatives Crockett and Ocasio-Cortez even though they could likely pass it with flying colors. Especially if it just consists of  “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.”

President Donald Trump’s administration claims that its hands are tied against funding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program while the government is closed, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s own shutdown plan says that’s not the case.

The USDA published a memo in August claiming that SNAP contingency funds could not legally be used to cover regular benefits for the 42 million Americans that use them, and that any states trying to cover the cost would not be reimbursed, Axios reported Monday.

“SNAP contingency funds are only available to supplement regular monthly benefits when amounts have been appropriated for, but are insufficient to cover benefits,” the memo stated. “The contingency fund is not available to support FY 2026 regular benefits, because the appropriation for regular benefits no longer exists.”

Now the funds could solely be used for so-called contingencies, such as natural disasters, USDA claimed. “For example, Hurricane Melissa is currently swirling in the Caribbean and could reach Florida,” the memo stated. “Having funds readily available allows the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to mobilize quickly in the days and weeks following a disaster.”

But the USDA’s Lapse of Funding Plan, published a month later and which Axios reported has been removed from the agency’s website, stated just the opposite.

“OMB’s General Counsel provided a letter to USDA on May 23, 2025 stating that there is a bona fide need to obligate benefits for October—the first month of the fiscal year—during or prior to the month of September, thereby guaranteeing that benefit funds are available for program operations even in the event of a government shutdown at the beginning of a fiscal year,” the disappeared document states.

“In addition, Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds that can be used for State Administrative Expenses to ensure that the State can also continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown,” the plan stated. “These multi-year contingency funds are also available to fund participant benefits in the event that a lapse occurs in the middle of the fiscal year.”

The memo also claimed that using the contingency funds would prevent additional transfers to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, which has reportedly been funded using Trump’s tariff money during the shutdown.

This latest memo from the USDA is part of a wider campaign from the Trump administration to hold the health and well-being of millions of Americans hostage, while suggesting it is the Democrats who are responsible. In fact, the USDA website currently has a banner at the top explicitly blaming Democrats for the shutdown.

But in reality, it is the White House that is picking and choosing which projects to fund and what to withhold to make Americans hurt—so it can pressure Democrats into signing a clean continuing resolution.

Earlier this month, the USDA sent a letter to states warning that a lapse in appropriations had resulted in “insufficient funds” to pay SNAP benefits through November. Last week, states began to issue warnings to their most vulnerable residents that benefits would be suspended starting in the middle of October.

President Trump is doing absolutely nothing to dispel the growing rumor that he will completely disregard the Constitution to run for an illegal third presidential term.    

“Steve Bannon said in a recent interview that there would be plans for you to be able to run and potentially win a third term in 2028,” a reporter asked Trump on Air Force One on Monday. “Is that something you’d be willing to challenge in court?”

“Well, I haven’t really thought about it, we have some very good people as you know,” he replied. “But uh, I have the best poll numbers I’ve ever had.” 

After saying Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio could run for president in 2028, Trump again brought it back to himself. “I would love to do it,” he emphasized.

Asked by a reporter if he wasn’t ruling out a third term, Trump replied, “Am I not ruling it out? I mean you’ll have to tell me.”

The president is wrong about the poll numbers, as they are currently some of the lowest he’s experienced. And more importantly, the president has absolutely thought about 2028—he’s already had the hats made. Steve Bannon, his former right hand, has made the actual plans abundantly clear.

“Trump is gonna be president in ’28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that,” Bannon said in an interview with The Economist published last Thursday. “There’s many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is, but there’s a plan and President Trump will be the president in ’28.” 

Trump’s complete nonanswer, combined with everything Bannon and the deep MAGA base has said about it, should raise alarm for anyone still holding onto whatever constitutional values still apply in this country. The most corrupt president in modern history is planning a constitutional coup, and it’s highly unlikely that he’ll let tradition and custom—things he’s never cared about—stop him. 

The head of CNN reportedly wants his network to tone down its coverage of President Trump destroying the White House’s East Wing as he builds his enormous ballroom.

Status reports that CNN CEO Mark Thompson told his staffers on a conference call Thursday to reduce the network’s coverage of the White House’s destruction, one day after he had paid a visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Wednesday meeting at the White House was supposedly about CNN’s upcoming streaming product and an opportunity for Trump administration officials to appear on the network, but Thompson’s words to CNN employees raise the question of whether Trump officials told him to alter the network’s coverage. Staffers at the network are suspicious, according to Status, especially considering that CNN anchor Jake Tapper has been trying to get an interview with the president.

CNN has denied the report. “This is reckless and irresponsible conjecture without any fact checking done prior to publication,” a spokesperson said in a statement to The New Republic.

The network has a historically bad relationship with Trump, with its correspondents often butting heads with the president going back to before his first term, and its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, is up for sale with Trump ally David Ellison among the leading suitors. During his second term as president, Trump has made no secret of his grudges against media outlets, seeking to punish them through the FCC and defamation lawsuits. Despite Thompson’s reported words during the editorial call, the outlet has still covered the destruction of the East Wing since Thursday.

Could Trump be trying to take advantage of CNN and engineer softer coverage? Is Thompson trying to save his own job in the event Ellison acquires CNN? Either way, it’s another example of the Trump administration infringing on the freedom of the press.

This story has been updated.