Mark Carney Snubs Trump With New Plan for Canada’s Economy

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called out the erosion of American soft power and international legitimacy in the age of Donald Trump, noting that the U.S. president’s actions have caused former economic strengths to become economic weaknesses.

“This decades-long process of an ever-closer economic relationship with the United States is now over. And as a consequence, many of our former strengths as a country … strengths based on close ties to America, have become our vulnerabilities,” Carney said during a Wednesday night speech to students in Ottawa. He also noted that Canadian manufacturing sectors and businesses were “under threat” due to Trump’s tariffs.

“Our relationship with the United States will never again be the same as it was … we have to take care of ourselves, because we can’t rely on one foreign partner. We have to take care of each other because we are stronger together,” he said.

These are harsh and alarming words to hear from the leader of what has been this country’s closest geographical and political ally for decades. But Carney’s view is entirely warranted. Trump has stoked conflict and disrespect by calling for Canada to be the 51st state, imposed harsh tariffs on Canadian goods, and overall tarnished what was once a fruitful relationship—all under the guise of his “America First” ideology. Now, Carney is thinking “Canada First.”

“Now, above all, we will build Canadian,” Carney continued. “Our upcoming budget will move forward with our Buy Canadian policy—prioritizing Canadian steel, aluminum, lumber, manufactured goods, and technology for Canadian projects.”

It isn’t just Canada. Countries throughout Europe have shifted away from the United States as they can no longer expect consistency and good faith negotiation from the Trump administration. So far “America First” has been more isolating than liberating.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was caught by his own words Wednesday night after CNN’s Kaitlan Collins called out Republicans for some shutdown hypocrisy.

Johnson initially thought he was making a good point by invoking a statement by Democratic Representative Katherine Clark, who spoke of using the shutdown as leverage despite knowing “that families will suffer.”

“It was pretty shocking today to hear them say that. They usually don’t say the quiet part out loud,” Johnson told Collins. But the CNN journalist then played a montage of Johnson’s fellow Republicans making similar statements, including then-vice presidential nominee JD Vance last year and President Donald Trump just last month.

“Some people might look at that and say, ‘Well, how is what Democrats are doing now different than what Republicans have argued before?’” Collins asked Johnson, who quickly claimed that those instances were “different times and different circumstances.”

Johnson insisted that the current shutdown was the first time that the government was shut down despite a clean continuing resolution being presented, and that Republicans have a clean record in that regard. But even if Vance’s statements last year could be claimed as “different circumstances,” Trump’s statements were only last month.

Trump has also publicly threatened to lay off federal workers, using their jobs as well as their backpay as leverage against the Democrats to get what he wants during the shutdown. Meanwhile, recent polls are not looking very good for the president, showing that as this standoff drags on, Trump and his fellow Republicans are taking a hit with the public.

Indiana Senate Republicans aren’t falling in line behind President Donald Trump’s gerrymandering scheme to keep control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.

Molly Swigart, a spokesperson for Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, put it simply when speaking to Politico Wednesday. “The votes aren’t there for redistricting,” she said.

Four people familiar with the matter spoke anonymously with Politico, and two of them suggested that Bray and his leadership team were holdouts on mid-cycle redistricting. “If Bray would personally release his leadership to support this, there would be enough votes for this to pass,” one of those people said.

The White House reportedly conducted a dial-in poll, which revealed that the majority of Republicans supported the redistricting effort. But one Republican claimed their colleagues had been confused by the poll’s instructions, and that the White House had not provided specific guidance on how to proceed with redistricting.

Three of the people who spoke anonymously with Politico said that Governor Mike Braun was inclined to call a special election in order to redraw the state’s congressional district maps to scrounge up extra GOP seats. In September, Braun had floated the idea of lawmakers returning for a special session in November, and warned that there could be “consequences” for breaking with Trump’s wishes.

A spokesperson for Braun told Politico that the governor was “confident” that he could secure a majority of state Senate Republicans to “ensure fair representation in Congress.”

The Trump administration has previously urged Indiana to follow the lead of other states’ redistricting efforts and deliver Trump one or two additional Republican House seats. In August, Vice President JD Vance visited with more than 55 Republicans at the Indiana state House, pressing them to approve a new map, and Trump met privately with the Republican heads of the Indiana House and Senate in the Oval Office.

Trump’s redistricting efforts are widespread across the country. On Wednesday, North Carolina Republicans passed a new congressional map that diluted the voting power of Black residents and merged districts to make them more conservative, likely giving the GOP another seat in Congress.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has apparently chosen the silent treatment in response to a threat on the life of one of his colleagues.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Wednesday that he still hadn’t heard from the Republican House leader, days after the wannabe assassin was arrested.

“Has Speaker Johnson reached out to you since a January 6er made a threat on your life?” a reporter asked.

“No,” Jeffries said plainly.

Christopher Moynihan, a 34-year-old from upstate New York, was arrested Saturday for plotting to kill Jeffries at New York City’s Economic Club.

Moynihan was convicted in 2022 for participating in the Capitol riot. Video evidence captured him breaking through fences, entering the Capitol, and rifling through documents in the Senate Gallery. During the riot, Moynihan said, “There’s got to be something in here we can fucking use against these scumbags,” according to court documents. Moynihan was also depicted standing behind the Senate well alongside Jacob Chansley, better known as the QAnon Shaman.

He was sentenced to nearly two years in prison in 2023 but was prematurely released thanks to a blanket pardon from Donald Trump that freed 1,500 January 6 rioters on his first day back in office.

Johnson claimed Tuesday that he was previously unaware of Moynihan’s threats against Jeffries, before he attempted to divert attention away from the right-wing attacker toward the past weekend’s anti-Trump No Kings protests and “violence on the left.”

“The assassination culture that’s been advanced now—this is the left, in almost every case that is advancing this, and not the right,” Johnson told reporters. “Let’s not make this a partisan issue, you don’t want me to go there.”

Jeffries said in a statement Tuesday that “threats of violence will not stop us from showing up, standing up and speaking up for the American people.”

Moynihan sent text messages Friday that spelled out his plans to end Jeffries’s life.

“I cannot allow this terrorist to live,” Moynihan allegedly wrote, according to a criminal complaint. “Even if I am hated he must be eliminated.… I will kill him for the future.”

The anonymous recipient flagged the messages to authorities, expressing additional concern over Moynihan’s “increased narcotic abuse and homicidal ideations,” reported Axios.

President Trump’s unilateral, indiscriminate “drug boat” bombings have expanded from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

“Yesterday, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel being operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on Wednesday. “The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking transit route, and carrying narcotics. There were two narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters. Both terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike.”

Hegseth then went on to compare these alleged drug traffickers—who were killed thousands of miles away from the U.S. border—to the 9/11 perpetrators.

“Just as Al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people,” he said. “There will be no refuge or forgiveness—only justice.”

All previous bombings have occurred in the Caribbean Sea, where the Trump administration is ratcheting up its military presence. This strike has broadened the scope of the administration’s already deeply controversial bombing campaign. And this kind of language, combining the failed war on drugs with the failed war on terror, has been deployed to justify brutal extrajudicial executions that have killed 32 people at this point, at least two of whom were just regular fishermen.

“Every boat that we knock out we save 25,000 American lives, so every time you see a boat and you feel badly you say, ‘Wow, that’s rough,’” Trump said last week. “It is rough, but if you lose three people and save 25,000 people … these are people that are killing our population.”

That number is a complete guess at best. And there is no evidence beyond the administration’s own word that these boats were carrying drugs, or that the men blown to bits were drug traffickers. There are no questions asked, and no other evidence aside from the grainy highlight reels officials like Hegseth post.

Chad “Charpo” Joseph and Rishi Samaroo were two northern Trinidadian fishermen murdered by the Trump administration earlier this month for being “narcoterrorists.”

“I just want to know why Donald Trump killing poor people just so,” Joseph’s uncle “Dollars” told The Guardian. “Just because he going after the people gas and their oil. He going after people riches and killing poor people children.”