Trump appointee pleads with Iceland to forgive his 'totally inappropriate' 52nd state joke

Donald Trump's administration and allies are rarely known to retreat from controversial statements, but that is precisely what Billy Long, nominee to be ambassador to Iceland, has done after backlash to a joke about making the country the "52nd state," according to Politico.

Long previously served as a Republican congressman from Mississippi for over a decade, departing the office to make a failed Senate bid in 2022. He also served as Trump's IRS commissioner after being confirmed by the Senate in June, but was removed from that office just two months later as the president prepared to nominate him for the Iceland ambassadorship.

Long's path to confirmation hit a significant bump last month when he joked to members of the House that Iceland ought to become the "52nd state," with himself serving as governor. Reports of this remark set off a firestorm of controversy, with the Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs pressing the U.S. embassy with questions about it and the Icelandic public launching a petition for Long's nomination to be rejected.

During a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Long apologized for the joke and pleaded with the people of Iceland for "a second chance."

“It was totally inappropriate,” Long said. “I just hope that the people in Iceland will give me a second chance to make a first impression.”

He also added: "There was nothing serious about that, I was with some people, who I hadn’t met for three years, and they were kidding about Jeff Landry being governor of Greenland and they started joking about me and if anyone took offense to it, then I apologize."

While Long insisted that the remark was meant purely in jest, it came in the wake of Trump's unprecedented pursuit of power over foreign nations and territories.

Early on, the second Trump administration severely stressed relations with Canada after making repeated assertions that the nation should give up its sovereignty and become the "51st state." Long's joke also came not long after the U.S. seized a measure of authority over Venezuela after a military operation ousted its president, Nicolás Maduro, and in the midst of Trump's insistence that the U.S. must annex the Arctic island territory of Greenland from Denmark. The latter situation set a major international backlash after Trump refused to rule out the use of military force, risking the dissolution of the NATO alliance.