Within a week, 3 Republicans tell voters they don’t back annexing Canada

Constituents at tense town halls have been asking U.S. lawmakers if they support Trump's threats to make Canada the 51st state and take over other nations.

Republican lawmakers have been facing angry constituents at town halls across the U.S., leading some to say that they don’t support U.S. President Donald Trump’s annexation threats against Canada.

At a town hall in Columbus, Neb., Tuesday night, Rep. Mike Flood was asked by the moderator taking written questions if he would oppose “going to war with Canada.”

“Yes,” he responded. “Canada is a long-time, important ally of the United States of America. They have fought next to our soldiers in every major conflict. We share a very peaceful border them.

“The Canadians are good people, I respect them, and I want to cohabitate on North America’s continent with them and I want them to feel respected.”

Yet a few minutes after that answer, a voter said Flood’s “inaction” is showing “support (for) Trump’s tariffs on allies like Canada, as well as Trump wanting to annex Canada as the 51st state — so invading a sovereign nation that was our ally.”

Flood responded by defending Trump’s tariff policies he claimed would restore fair trade and return manufacturing to the U.S., as Trump has argued.

A day earlier, at a town hall in Spokane, Wash., Rep. Michael Baumgartner was asked about Trump’s repeated call to make Canada the 51st U.S. state and his desire to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal.

“This is getting really scary,” local resident Cindi Miraglia told Baumgartner, saying Trump’s imperialist rhetoric “really frighten(s) me” and asking why “this insane president … is not being impeached right now?”