A government detached from reality

**David Pakman** (0:00)
Vice President JD Vance accidentally articulated a very good case for prosecuting his own boss, and he insisted it's a great scenario for young people, all of whom can afford their own homes now, except none of the numbers actually bear that out. Donald Trump now starting his days after lunch, but he still found time this morning to threaten Canada and announced that Lake Ontario may become Lake America.
We're going to look at the empty schedule of Trump and a public appearance so bizarre that the reggae version of YMCA wasn't even the weirdest part. And then a Fox News interview completely off the rails when Jesse Watters talks about children's ding-a-lings and gets asked about his own manhood in return. And Trump's favorite CNN defender, Scott Jennings, has made an announcement. America has won the war in Iran. I know the war still continues. I know the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted.
I know that Iran certainly hasn't surrendered and we have no deal. But Scott Jennings says, rest assured, we've won it. Let's get right into it today.
Donald Trump woke up this morning and decided the United States should rename Lake Ontario to Lake America because he's angry with Canada and furious with Ontario. And somehow, and this is really weird, that was not necessarily the strangest thing about the message he posted to Truth Social on to a truth social for his Canadian counterpart, starting with, quote, The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don't expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
The president of the United States, the actual president, as as horrifying as that is to acknowledge, apparently unable to complete a basic English sentence, unless it's Natalie Harp typing out these posts, which sometimes it is, in which case she can't complete a basic English sentence, making an announcement that he may rename an international body of water to punish a Canadian province that is not just saying do whatever you want to a sir. Now, Lake Ontario, some of you may remember from elementary school Lake Geography.
Lake Ontario is shared by the United States and Canada. And Trump can certainly order the American federal government to call it Lake America. He could do that. He could demand that every Republican politician solemnly repeat, put their hand on their heart and say, I pledge allegiance to Lake America. He could do that. He could force government maps to say Lake America. But that doesn't change what it's actually called by the international community. And it certainly doesn't change what Canada calls it. And if this sounds familiar, it should. This is the same stupid routine we saw with the Gulf of Mexico. Trump said, oh, it's going to be the Gulf of America now. We are flying over the Gulf of America. And he pretends and so do many Republicans nauseatingly that this has really accomplished a major act of statesmanship, except this time the threat is implied by the name change because Donald Trump is saying we're not going to be doing much business with Ontario. And, of course, this is in the context that we talked about yesterday of Donald Trump launching another ill-advised trade war with one of our closest allies, a Democratic ally, an ally of so many friendly people. Whenever I go to Montreal, they come up to me on the streets and they say, sir, I love the show and I'm getting off track. But the point is, this is very much economically significant. Ontario is home to the center of Canada's auto industry that is deeply integrated with American manufacturing Trump's entire USMCA. The only real differences that it had with NAFTA, the important differences related to car industry and to vehicles made jointly by Canada, US and Mexico, parts cross the border, sometimes repeatedly during the production of a single vehicle. An American part may go to Canada to be assembled into a component, which then comes back to the United States and is part of the finished vehicle, for example. And so blowing that relationship up, it punishes Canadians, it makes stuff more expensive. How many times are we going to explain this? It makes things more expensive for American manufacturers. They pass it on to the consumers of the final product. That's basic trade. Trump doesn't understand basic trade. He doesn't understand that international trade is a system of mutually beneficial exchange. He sort of understands it like a mob boss. There's a winner and there's a loser. And if a country refuses my demands, I start threatening them with economic destruction. Now, there was another post here as well where Donald Trump was attempting to refute the claim from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney that all of a sudden the negotiations with Canada over the trade deal started to touch on multilingual elements of Canadian society and other stuff. Trump is denying it. And he posted, quote, I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French. In fact, I have never even thought of doing such a stupid thing. This lie was made up by a weak and ineffective prime minister in an attempt to gain political support, which he is totally lost from the people of Quebec. I love French Canadians. Now notice the denial is very specific. Trump says I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French. The dispute is not about Trump walking through Montreal and saying no more French.