Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and his great hair met with President Obama in the Rose Garden this morning to discuss everything from climate change to immigration to GOP candidates. And although Trudeau has publicly condemned Donald Trump’s rhetoric — “I stand firmly against the politics of intolerance or hateful rhetoric,” he said during a town hall in December — he wants to reassure the American people that, even if Trump does become president, Canada and the United States can still be friends. “One of the things that is abundantly clear,” said Trudeau during a joint press conference with the president, is that “the relationship, friendship between our two countries extends far beyond any two people.”
Because he’s just that great of a guy, Trudeau went on to say he has “tremendous” faith in the American people and that he “looks forward to working with” whoever they elect as president. Later, at a state dinner in his honor, Trudeau called the relationship between the U.S. and Canada “more like siblings. We have shared parentage, although we took different paths in our later years. We became the stay-at-home type. You grew to be a little more rebellious.” For his part, Obama said the bond between us and our northern neighbors “transcends party in terms of the interests that we share,” and thanked Canada for “rejecting the idea of building a wall to keep out your southern neighbors.”
But even with Trudeau’s blessing, the next president will have a lot to live up to in terms of photo ops.
