Fox News host and Donald Trump sycophant Sean Hannity has suggested the president swap Ottawa for Caracas when it comes to his antagonistic designs on expanding the United States.
Hannity’s suggestion that Trump direct his attention south, beyond the rechristened ‘Gulf of America’ toward Venezuela comes after an exiled opposition leader offered the U.S. president something of a consolation prize in the face of his Nobel snub.
“This opposition leader in Venezuela that won the Nobel Prize, and said it really deserved to go to Donald Trump, sounds like a pretty good leader to me for the people of Venezuela, and the end of narcoterrorism, and a better relationship with the U.S.,” Hannity said in conversation with South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. “Or, if they choose, maybe the 51st state.”
“Sounds good to me!” Graham beamed back.
Alongside toying with the annexation of Greenland and Panama, Trump has repeatedly poked at Canada, America’s northern neighbor, about becoming the 51st U.S. state. He has referred to the country’s former prime minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau,” and Canada’s current leader, Mark Carney, incorporated the popular “Never 51” slogan into his electoral campaign in March.
Trump and his allies had publicly lobbied for the president to be awarded the coveted Peace Prize, pushing much-debated claims he has, since assuming office for the second time this year, ended six, seven, or possibly eight otherwise intractable conflicts between countries whose names have occasionally bedevilled him.
In September, he said he’d brought peace between Azerbaijan and Albania, two states more than 1,000 miles apart that have never been at war.
The $1 million award instead went to Maria Corina Machado, exiled leader of Venezuela’s opposition who, according to the Nobel Committee, had earned the honor “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
Though the committee’s further comments about her keeping “the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness” were taken by some as throwing subtle shade at Trump himself, Machado, an ally of the U.S. president, chose to accept the award in honor of the MAGA leader.
“I dedicated this award to the Venezuelan people and President Trump because I believe that’s absolutely fair,” she said. “We, the Venezuelan people, are absolutely grateful to President Trump for the way he has supported democracy and freedom in the Americas.”
The U.S. president has since dubiously claimed Machado conceded in a private call that he ought to have received the award instead.
“So the person who actually got the Nobel prize called today, called me and said, I’m accepting this in honor of you because you really deserved it,” he said at a press conference. “I didn’t say, ‘Then give it to me,’ though. I could have. I think she might have.”
