After Justin Trudeau announced his plan to resign as Canada's prime minister, president-elect Trump had a plan for his successor.
After Trudeau's decision, Trump has continued a push to make the neighbor to the north the United States’ 51st state.
Trudeau said there was not a "snowball's chance in hell" that would ever happen, but if it does, Trump says he recruited Wayne Gretzky to be its "governor."
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"I was with Wayne Gretzky. I said, 'Wayne, would you like to be the governor of Canada?’ I can't imagine anybody doing better than Wayne," Trump said at Mar-a-Lago Thursday.
"Wayne was not too interested. But he probably would have liked statehood," Trump said. "He's a friend of mine. He's a great guy. He's the great one. We call him the great one, right? He's a great hockey player."
Gretzky attended a victory party for Trump's 2024 election win after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Gretzky's son-in-law, Dustin Johnson, plays on the LIV Golf tour, which has played tournaments at Trump's golf courses.
Trump said Canada should be a state during a news conference Tuesday in Palm Beach. On Monday, the president-elect said in a social media post "many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State."
"Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!" Trump exclaimed in his social media post.
Trudeau announced he intends to resign as party leader and prime minister after pressure from within his own Liberal Party increasingly grew amid heightened criticisms over his handling of the economy and threats levied by Trump. He said he will resign once the party selects a new leader.
Trudeau, who led the nation nearly a decade, has been grappling for months with significant drops in his approval ratings over mounting frustration relating to issues like the soaring cost of living and rising inflation.
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser, Caitlin McFall and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
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