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India said early Wednesday it had launched a military operation against Pakistan, hitting “terrorist infrastructure” in both Pakistan and Pakistan administered-Kashmir, in a major escalation of tensions between the two neighbors.

“These steps come in the wake of the barbaric Pahalgam terrorist attack in which 25 Indians and one Nepali citizen were murdered,” India’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement, referring to an attack last month tourists in India-administered Kashmir.

“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution,” the statement added.

India said nine sites in total were targeted.

Pakistan’s military said three locations had been struck with missiles.

“Pakistan will respond to it at a time and place of its own choosing,” Pakistani military spokesperson Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry told Geo TV. “This heinous provocation will not go unanswered.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Israel’s military has issued an unprecedented evacuation warning for Yemen’s international airport in Sana’a.

It marks the first time the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has put out an evacuation warning in Yemen, more than 1,000 miles from Israel.

“Failure to evacuate the area endangers your lives,” Avichay Adraee, the IDF spokesperson in Arabic, said on social media.

The warning comes a day after the Israeli military carried out a series of strikes against the port in Yemen’s Hodeidah and a nearby cement factory. The Houthi-run Ministry of Health said at least one person had been killed and another 35 injured in an Israeli strike on the factory in Bajil, east of Hodeidah.

The IDF strikes came after a Houthi ballistic missile penetrated Israel’s air defenses and hit near Tel Aviv’s international airport on Sunday. Several attempts to intercept the missile failed, the IDF said.

Israel struck Sana’a international airport in December, killing at least three people and injuring 30 others, according to the Houthi-run al-Masirah satellite television network.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

India launched military strikes on Pakistan on Wednesday and Pakistan claimed it shot down five Indian Air Force jets, in an escalation that has pushed the two nations to the brink of war.

The escalation puts India and Pakistan, two neighbors with a long history of conflict, in dangerous territory, with Islamabad vowing to retaliate against India’s strikes and the international community calling for restraint.

New Delhi said the strikes are in response to the massacre of 26 people – mostly Indian tourists – who died in April when gunmen stormed a scenic mountain spot in the India-administered part of Kashmir, a disputed border region. India has blamed Pakistan for the attack, which Islamabad denies.

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened with India’s strikes?

India launched “Operation Sindoor” in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time (Tuesday night ET) in both Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Indian officials said nine sites were targeted, but claimed no Pakistani civilian, economic or military sites were struck. They said the 25-minute operation targeted “terrorist infrastructure” belonging to two militant groups – Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The name ‘Sindoor’ appears to be a reference to the red vermilion, or powder, many Hindu women wear on their foreheads after marriage. The April tourist massacre – which singled out men as victims – left several Indian women widowed.

A Pakistani military spokesperson said six locations were hit with 24 strikes. Some of those strikes hit the densely populated province of Punjab, Pakistan’s military said, and were the deepest India has struck inside Pakistan since 1971, when the two countries fought one of their four wars.

How did Pakistan respond?

Pakistani security sources claimed they had shot down five Indian Air Force jets and one drone during India’s attack.

They did not say exactly where, or how, the jets were downed – but said three Rafale jets were among those planes. India’s Rafale fighter jets are prized military assets that it bought from France only a few years ago.

An eyewitness and local government official said an unidentified aircraft crashed in the village of Wuyan in Indian-administered Kashmir. Photos published by the AFP news agency showed aircraft wreckage lying in a field next to a red-brick building.

It was not immediately clear from the photos who the aircraft belonged to.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday the country “has every right” to respond, calling India’s actions an “act of war.”

How many casualties are there?

At least 26 civilians were killed and 46 injured by India’s strikes, a Pakistan military spokesperson said, according to the news agency Reuters.

Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s military, said those killed include teenagers and children – the youngest of whom was three years old.

Seven civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir were also killed by shelling by Pakistani troops from across the border, Reuters reported, citing police there.

What else is happening on the ground?

On Wednesday, the two sides also exchanged shelling and gunfire across the Line of Control (LOC), the de facto border that divides Kashmir.

Authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir have ordered citizens to evacuate from areas deemed dangerous, saying accommodation, food and medicine will be provided.

The strikes have disrupted flights, with Pakistan closing parts of its airspace. Multiple major international airlines are avoiding flying over Pakistan, while several Indian airlines have reported disrupted flights and closed airports in the country’s north.

Some context: There have been regular exchanges of gunfire along the Line of Control in the weeks following the Pahalgam massacre.

What prompted all of this? What is Kashmir?

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been a flashpoint in India-Pakistan relations since both countries gained their independence from Britain in 1947.

The two nations to emerge from the bloody partition of British India – Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan – both claim Kashmir in full and, months after becoming independent, fought their first of three wars over the territory.

The divided region is now one of the most militarized places in the world.

India has long accused Pakistan of harboring militant groups there that conduct attacks across the border, something Islamabad has long denied.

The massacre in the tourist hotspot of Pahalgam in April sparked widespread anger in India, putting heavy pressure on the Hindu-nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India immediately blamed Islamabad, sparking tit-for-tat retaliatory measures in which both countries downgraded ties, canceled visas for each other’s citizens, and saw India pull out of a key water-sharing treaty.

What could come next?

The three previous wars over Kashmir have each been bloody; the last one in 1999 killed more than a thousand Pakistani troops, by the most conservative estimates.

In the decades since, militant groups have fought Indian security forces, with violence killing tens of thousands. The two countries have clashed multiple times, most recently in 2019 when India conducted airstrikes in Pakistan after it blamed Islamabad for a suicide car bomb attack in the region.

But those recent clashes did not explode into all-out war. Both sides are aware of the risks; since 1999, the two countries have worked to strengthen their militaries, including arming themselves with nuclear weapons.

How is the world reacting?

The strikes have raised global alarm and pleas for the two nations to prevent further escalation.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres voiced “deep concern” over India’s strikes, warning that the world “cannot afford a military confrontation” between the two nations.

The United States – which had urged restraint from both countries last week – said it was “closely monitoring developments,” according to a State Department spokesperson.

“We are aware of the reports, however we have no assessment to offer at this time,” the spokesperson said Tuesday. “This remains an evolving situation, and we are closely monitoring developments.”

The United Arab Emirates, China and Japan have also called for both sides to de-escalate.

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At least 22 people, including seven children, were killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike on a school compound sheltering thousands of displaced people in the Al Bureij camp in central Gaza, hospital officials said.

Dozens more were injured in the strike, they said.

At the site of the attack, video from the scene showed a large crater where people searched through the rubble of the school for survivors, the remnants of tents and belongings littering the ground.

Safaa Al Khaldi, who was sheltering at the school, said that her son was injured in the strike.

“Our children are starving, our children cannot find a piece of bread,” she said, referring to Israel’s complete blockade of Gaza, now in its third month. “What did we do wrong?”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck “terrorists who were operating within a Hamas command and control center,” on Tuesday, but did not provide any further information about the strike.

At the school compound, one woman screamed at Hamas, an expression of anger at Gaza’s ruling militants once virtually unthinkable. “Hamas should get out of the school, they are hiding between the people,” she cried. “Get them out, what’s the fault of the children who are torn apart?”

Tuesday’s strike on the refugee camp comes less than 24 hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the population of Gaza will be displaced to the south after his security cabinet approved an expanded military operation in the enclave.

“There will be a movement of the population to protect them,” Netanyahu said of the “intensified operation,” which by one far-right minister said would be a plan to “conquer” the besieged territory.

Since the Israeli cabinet approved an expanded military operation in Gaza on Sunday, at least 48 Palestinians have been killed and another 142 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. More than 2,500 Palestinians have been killed since Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza on March 18, according to figures provided by the ministry.

On Monday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said 13 of its 29 clinics in Gaza have shut down. The ones that are still functioning have “limited capabilities,” it said. Meanwhile, 21 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are only partially functioning, according to the UN health agency.

Israel’s blockade, which has prevented the entry of food and medicine, is pushing the Gaza’s ravaged healthcare system towards collapse, aid agencies have warned.

Near the site of the latest Israeli strike, a woman hugged her crying daughter, saying that all her daughter’s friends were killed.

“My friend Leen is gone, my friend Yousra is gone, my friend Miral is gone,” the daughter said as tears streamed down her face.

The UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA) warned Tuesday of a “deepening catastrophe” in Gaza amid the blockade.

“OCHA stresses that under international humanitarian law, civilians must be protected, and their essential needs – including food, shelter, water and healthcare – must be met, wherever they are in Gaza and whether they move or stay,” OCHA said.

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The governors of six northeastern U.S. states have invited the premiers of six Canadian provinces to meet in Boston as both sides face the impacts of tariffs.

President Donald Trump’s policy of imposing tariffs on products imported from America’s northern neighbor and other nations has sparked controversy both in the U.S. and abroad.

The group of governors includes five Democrats — Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, and Rhode Island Gov. Daniel McKee — and one Republican — Vermont Gov. Phil Scott.

The governors are inviting the premiers of the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Québec, Healey and Mills press releases indicate.

‘While the international uproar over tariffs threatens to upend the economies of our respective communities, we write to reaffirm our friendship and unique interdependence. Ours is a cherished relationship that is founded not only on mutual financial advantages but also on centuries-old familial and cultural bonds that supersede politics,’  the U.S. politicians said in their invitation.

‘As Governors of the Northeast, we want to keep open lines of communication and cooperation and identify avenues to overcome the hardship of these uninvited tariffs and help our economies endure. As we continue to navigate this period of great uncertainty, we are committed to preserving cross border travel, encouraging tourism in our respective jurisdictions, and promoting each other’s advantages and amenities,’ they noted.

Trump, who has repeatedly indicated that he would like Canada to become America’s 51st state, is meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday.

‘Meet the Press’ moderator Kristen Welker asked Trump if he would speak to Carney about making the country the 51st state. 

‘I’ll always talk about that. You know why? We subsidize Canada to the tune of $200 billion dollars a year. We don’t need their cars, in fact we don’t want their cars. We don’t need their energy, we don’t even want their energy, we have more than they do. We don’t want their lumber, we have great lumber, all I have to do is free it up from the environmental lunatics. We don’t need anything that they have,’ Trump declared.

Mills said that the economic and cultural relationships between the U.S. and Canada have been ‘strained by the president’s haphazard tariffs and harmful rhetoric targeting our northern neighbors,’ according to the press releases.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

A scheduled vote on making President Donald Trump’s Gulf of America name change permanent is causing some heartburn within the House GOP conference.

Multiple House Republicans who spoke with Fox News Digital said they were frustrated by House GOP leaders’ decision to spend time voting on what they saw as a largely symbolic gesture in an otherwise light legislative week. It comes as GOP negotiators work behind the scenes to iron out divisions on Medicaid, tax policy and green energy subsidies in time to pass Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ by the Fourth of July.

‘This is a time where we should be in our districts, going to graduations, making sure that we’re listening to folks who have tariff issues,’ a more moderate GOP lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak freely, told Fox News Digital. 

‘Instead, we’re going to spend time doing this… it’s frustrating for somebody who’s got a lot of pragmatic legislation, waiting in the queue to be heard. Instead, we’re doing posture bills. It’s not what I came here to do.’

But the frustration is not limited to moderate and mainstream Republicans. One conservative GOP lawmaker vented to Fox News Digital, ‘125 other [executive orders], this is the one we pick.’

‘Folks are upset that we’re not doing something more important,’ the conservative lawmaker said.

Two sources familiar with House Republicans’ whip team meeting said at least three GOP lawmakers aired concerns about the bill — Reps. Don Bacon, R-Neb., Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Glenn Grothman, R-Wis.

One of the sources described their sentiments as, ‘They just think it’s kind of frivolous or not serious.’

‘I’ve heard criticisms from all corners of the conference. Conservatives to pragmatic ones,’ Bacon told Fox News Digital. ‘It seems sophomoric. The United States is bigger and better than this.’

Bacon is among the Republicans pushing hard for a restrained hand on Medicaid cuts in Trump’s multitrillion-dollar bill, while other GOP lawmakers are pushing for more significant cuts.

Grothman would not confirm or deny his concerns, telling Fox News Digital, ‘That’s behind-the-scenes stuff.’

Obernolte’s office did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

While the concerns have not come from a large number of the overall conference, any degree of defections is significant with the GOP’s razor-thin House majority.

With all lawmakers present in the chamber, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., can currently lose up to three votes to still pass something along party lines.

It’s also a sign of Trump’s continued dominance on Capitol Hill starting to wear on some Republican lawmakers.

It’s not clear that the lawmakers who expressed concerns will vote against the final bill, however, particularly with pressure from House GOP leaders.

A third House Republican who spoke with Fox News Digital anonymously acknowledged the frustrations, but nevertheless said, ‘It’s not the hill to die on.’

Meanwhile, Trump allies have defended the bill as a core part of the president’s agenda. Trump himself has touted his ‘Gulf of America’ name change several times, and even proclaimed Feb. 9 to be ‘Gulf of America Day.’

It’s worth noting that congressional Republicans have passed several bills promoting Trump’s agenda already, including resolutions to roll back key Biden administration policies.

The budget reconciliation package, Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ is GOP negotiators’ current priority.

The Gulf of America Act was introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a top Trump ally. 

When reached for comment on some GOP lawmakers’ concerns, Greene told Fox News Digital, ‘Codifying the rightful renaming of the Gulf of America isn’t just a priority for me and President Trump, it’s a priority for the American people. American taxpayers fund its protection, our military defends its waters, and American businesses fuel its economy. My bill advances President Trump’s America First agenda.’

‘If certain moderate Republicans want to start elsewhere, where do they suggest?’ she continued. ‘I have bills ready for all of it. But let’s be clear, we should be voting to codify every single executive order President Trump issues.’

The House is also voting on a bill this week cracking down on Chinese influence in the U.S. through Confucious Institutes.

The bill is currently slated to get a vote on Thursday morning, and Johnson promoted it during his House GOP leadership press conference on Tuesday.

‘We’re going to pass Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill to permanently rename the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America. And then we’re going to codify dozens more of President Trump’s budget-related executive orders, spending-related executive orders through the budget reconciliation process,’ the speaker said.

Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Fla., posted on X in response to the speaker, ‘This will be a tremendous economic driver for my district. Families across the country will flock to the Florida Panhandle to be the FIRST to enjoy the Gulf of AMERICA!’

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

Tensions on the Supreme Court have flared this term as justices have clashed with each other and with lawyers at oral arguments amid a wave of Trump-era emergency appeals. 

These exchanges at any other forum would hardly even raise an eyebrow. But at the Supreme Court, where decorum and respect are bedrock principles and underpin even the most casual cross-talk between justices, these recent clashes are significant. 

After one particularly acrimonious exchange, several longtime Supreme Court watchers noted that the behavior displayed was unlike anything they’d seen in ‘decades’ of covering the high court.

Here are two high-profile Supreme Court spats that have made headlines in recent weeks.

Mahmoud v. Taylor

Last month, Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor quarreled briefly during oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case focused on LGBTQ-related books in elementary schools and whether parents with religious objections can ‘opt out’ children being read such material. 

The exhange occurred when Sotomayor asked Mahmoud attorney Eric Baxter about a book titled ‘Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,’ a story that invoked a same-sex relationship. Sotomayor asked Baxter whether exposure to same-sex relationships in children’s books like the one in question should be considered ‘coercion.’

Baxter began responding when Alito chimed in.

‘I’ve read that book as well as a lot of these other books,’ Alito said. ‘Do you think it’s fair to say that all that is done in ‘Uncle Bobby’s Wedding’ is to expose children to the fact that there are men who marry other men?’

After Baxter objected, Alito noted that the book in question ‘has a clear message’ but one that some individuals with ‘traditional religious beliefs don’t agree with.’

Sotomayor jumped in partway through Alito’s objection, ‘What a minute, the reservation is – ‘

‘Can I finish?’ Alito said to Sotomayor in a rare moment of frustration. 

He continued, ‘It has a clear moral message, and it may be a good message. It’s just a message that a lot of religious people disagree with.’

‘There is a growing heat to the exchanges between the justices,’ Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley observed on social media after the exchange. 

A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools

The Sotomayor-Alito spat made some court-watchers uncomfortable. But it paled in comparison to the heated, tense exchange that played out just one week later between Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Lisa Blatt, a litigator from the firm Williams & Connolly.

The exchange took place during oral arguments in A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, a case about whether school districts can be held liable for discriminating against students with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. 

Gorsuch scolded Blatt, an experienced Supreme Court litigator who was representing the public schools in the case, after she accused the other side of ‘lying.’ 

What played out was a remarkably heated exchange, if only by Supreme Court standards. Several court observers noted that they had never seen Gorsuch so angry, and others remarked they had never seen counsel accuse the other side of ‘lying.’

‘You believe that Mr. Martinez and the Solicitor General are lying? Is that your accusation?’ Gorsuch asked Blatt, who fired back, ‘Yes, absolutely.’

 Counsel ‘should be more careful with their words,’ Gorsuch told Blatt in an early tone of warning.

‘OK, well, they should be more careful in mischaracterizing a position by an experienced advocate of the Supreme Court, with all due respect,’ Blatt responded.

Several minutes later, Gorsuch referenced the lying accusation again, ‘Ms. Blatt, I confess I’m still troubled by your suggestion that your friends on the other side have lied.’

‘I’d ask you to reconsider that phrase,’ he said. ‘You can accuse people of being incorrect, but lying, lying is another matter.’

He then began to read through quotations that she had entered before the court, before she interrupted again. 

‘I’m not finished,’ Gorsuch told Blatt, raising his voice.

‘Fine,’ she responded.

Shortly after, Gorsuch asked Blatt to withdraw her earlier remarks that accused the other side of lying.

‘Withdraw your accusation, Ms. Blatt,’ Gorsuch said.

‘Fine, I withdraw,’ she shot back.

Plaintiffs said in rebuttal that they would not dignify the name-calling.

The exchange sparked some buzz online, including from an experienced appeals court litigator, Raffi Melkonian, who wrote on social media, ‘I’ve never heard Justice Gorsuch so angry.’

‘Both of those moments literally stopped me in my tracks,’ said Steve Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. ‘You might want to listen somewhere where you can cringe in peace.’

‪Mark Joseph Stern‬, a court reporter for Slate, described the exchange as ‘extremely tense’ and described Blatt’s behavior as ‘indignant and unrepentant.’

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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called out the Biden administration for allegedly neglecting a government agency’s report about the poor state of the air traffic control system.

In an X post on Tuesday, Duffy shared an excerpt from a report published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) entitled ‘Air Traffic Control: FAA Actions Are Urgently Needed to Modernize Aging Systems.’ The report was published on Sept. 24, 2024.

‘A government watchdog warned Biden & Buttigieg about the failing air traffic control system,’ Duffy wrote. 

‘Look at this report. They knew the air traffic control system was strained AND STILL DID NOTHING!’

Duffy went on to say that he was working with President Donald Trump to modernize the system.

‘Working with @POTUS, we are going to do what no administration has done: deliver an all-new, envy of the world ATC system,’ he concluded.

In the passage that Duffy highlighted, the report noted that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ‘has been slow to modernize some of the most critical and at-risk systems.’ 

‘Specifically, when considering age, sustainability ratings, operational impact level, and expected date of modernization or replacement for each system, as of May 2024, FAA had 17 systems that were especially concerning,’ the report said. 

‘The 17 systems range from as few as 2 years old to as many as 50 years old, are unsustainable, and are critical to the safety and efficiency of the national airspace.’

Duffy’s comments came amid several chaotic events concerning U.S. air space in recent days. Newark Liberty International Airport, a major travel hub in the New York City metropolitan area, has suffered hundreds of delays and cancellations since last week. 

On Monday, a damning report found that FAA air traffic controllers in Philadelphia briefly lost radar and radio signals while guiding planes to Newark Airport last week.

Duffy appeared on Fox News Channel’s ‘The Story’ on Tuesday to discuss the developments, telling host Martha MacCallum that the last presidential administration was aware of the issues.

‘It wasn’t shocking to Joe Biden and it wasn’t shocking to Pete Buttigieg,’ Duffy said. ‘They knew we had an old system. They saw the GAO report saying it was about to fail.’

The government official went on to say that he plans to introduce legislation to Congress about the issue shortly.

‘[In January] I started digging into the FAA and realized it wasn’t just one small part of the infrastructure. It was the whole infrastructure that had to be built brand new,’ Duffy explained. ‘And so I’ve developed a plan. I’ve talked to the president. He has signed off on the plan.’

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India said it attacked ‘terrorist infrastructure’ in neighboring Pakistan on Tuesday and two of its occupied territories.

Indian armed forces launched ‘Operation Sindoor,’ which targeted terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed, the Press Information Bureau of India said in a statement. 

‘Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature,’ the statement said. ‘No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution.’

The military action comes amid tense relations between the nuclear-armed states following an April 22 attack that killed 26 people. 

The attack targeted Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir, the worst such assault on civilians in India in nearly two decades, Reuters reported. 

This story is breaking. Please check back for updates.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

Despite President Donald Trump’s interest in Canada becoming the 51st state, Canada isn’t for sale – ever, according to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Trump regularly has said he wants Canada to become a U.S. state, and has discussed acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal for security purposes. However, the matter of Canada isn’t open to negotiation, Carney said. 

‘Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign the last several months, it’s not for sale,’ Carney said at the White House Tuesday. ‘Won’t be for sale ever, but the opportunity is in the partnership and what we can build together. We have done that in the past, and part of that, as the president just said, is with respect to our security and my government is committed for a step change in our investment in Canadian security and our partnership.’

 

While Trump acknowledged that Canada was stepping up its investment in military security, Trump said ‘never say never’ in response to Canada becoming another state. 

‘I’ve had many, many things that were not doable, and they ended up being doable,’ Trump said. 

Later, Carney said Canada’s stance on the issue wouldn’t alter.

‘Respectfully, Canadians’ view on this is not going to change on the 51st state,’ Carney said. 

The interaction comes after Trump told Time magazine in an April interview that he wasn’t ‘trolling’ when discussing the possibility of Canada becoming part of the U.S. Trump told Time’s Eric Cortellessa that the U.S. is ‘losing’ money supporting Canada, and the only solution on the table is for it to become a state.

‘We’re taking care of their military,’ Trump told the magazine. ‘We’re taking care of every aspect of their lives, and we don’t need them to make cars for us. In fact, we don’t want them to make cars for us. We want to make our own cars. We don’t need their lumber. We don’t need their energy. We don’t need anything from Canada. And I say the only way this thing really works is for Canada to become a state.’

Still, Trump will continue pushing for Canada to become a state, though he cast doubt on whether he’d use military force to achieve such ends, he told NBC’s Kristen Welker in an interview that aired Sunday. 

‘Well, I think we’re not going to ever get to that point,’ Trump said. ‘It could happen.’

In the same interview, Trump doubled down on how significant Greenland is for the U.S. in terms of national security. Although Greenland has asserted it is seeking independence from Denmark and isn’t interested in joining the U.S., Trump has regularly expressed a strong interest in securing Greenland – particularly given an increase in Russian and Chinese presence in the Arctic. 

‘Something could happen with Greenland,’ Trump told NBC. ‘I’ll be honest, we need that for national and international security.’

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