'What is he doing?' Analyst explains why 'people are petrified' of Trudeau’s behavior
Donald Trump on Monday night doubled down on calling Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the "governor of the state of Canada," after the president-elect has threatened to to impose massive tariffs on imports from the country.
MSNBC's Joy Reid spoke with MSNBC political analyst and Bloomberg Opinion Editor Tim O'Brien Tuesday about why Canada's leader continues to bend the knee to Trump despite continued public humiliation.
"He will always reward weakness with more humiliation," Reid said. "And that includes foreign leaders like Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, who went to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring last month, behaving like Trump was already president. And how does Trump reward him? By publicly mocking him on his social media site. Calling Trudeau the 'governor of the great state of Canada.'"
READ MORE: Calls for Trudeau to resign as exiting Canadian Finance Minister warns of Trump tariffs
"What is he doing?" Reid asked O'Brien. "When will people learn ... that emasculating yourself before Trump, as so many have done, doesn't help, and just makes things worse."
The Bloomberg editor replied, "It's also a reminder, Joy, that he has been this way forever. He came up at the knee of Roy Cohn, who taught him how to weaponize the legal system. And he's learned that you don't necessarily need to go to court or to ultimately break people, if they are scared enough in the first innings, of any action that you take to capitulate. Whether they're politicians, members of the business community, members of media, members of Congress, or members of the judiciary."
O'Brien continued, "And we can pull that out examples of each and every one of these institutions and some of their leading members deciding in advance that the safest way, and the most productive way to deal with Donald Trump is to kiss the ring. And we see example after example of once they do that he then shames them in public. And he is not ultimately delivering on some of the things they want."
"And he does it to the people he holds close to him," the MSNBC analyst concluded. "Think about how many days was it after RFK Jr. got nominated or HHS, and there was a picture of him eating fast food with Don Jr., on the presidential plane. Eat your food, take your punishment. For Trudeau, his own government is fractured because of this. And he could very well be out of a job because of this. So, I do think that people in the near term right now are petrified. They're not sure how to respond to the fact that Trump was re-elected again other than to capitulate, but they should keep, I think, their eyes on the prize."
READ MORE: 'USA is a threat': Canadians slam 'bully' Trump’s 'arrogant' mockery of 'Governor Trudeau'
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