NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump’s recent dinner with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his visit to Paris for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral were not just exercises in policy and diplomacy.
They were also prime trolling opportunities for Trump.
Throughout his first term in the White House and during his campaign to return, Trump has spun out countless provocative, antagonizing and mocking statements. There were his belittling nicknames for political opponents, his impressions of other political figures and the plentiful memes he shared on social media.
Now that’s he’s preparing to return to the Oval Office, Trump is back at it, and his trolling is attracting more attention — and eyerolls.
On Sunday, Trump turned a photo of himself seated near a smiling first lady Jill Biden at the Notre Dame ceremony into a social media promo for his new perfume and cologne line, with the tag line, “A fragrance your enemies can’t resist!”
The first lady’s office declined to comment.
When Trudeau hastily flew to Florida to meet with Trump last month over the president-elect’s threat to impose a 25% tax on all Canadian products entering the U.S., the Republican tossed out the idea that Canada become the 51st U.S. state.
The Canadians passed off the comment as a joke, but Trump has continued to play up the dig, including in a post Tuesday morning on his social media network referring to the prime minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada.”
After decades as an entertainer and tabloid fixture, Trump has a flair for the provocative that is aimed at attracting attention and, in his most recent incarnation as a politician, mobilizing fans. He has long relished poking at his opponents, both to demean and minimize them and to delight supporters who share his irreverent comments and posts widely online and cheer for them in person.
Trump, to the joy of his fans, first publicly needled Canada on his social media network a week ago when he posted an AI-generated image that showed him standing on a mountain with a Canadian flag next to him and the caption “Oh Canada!”
After his latest post, Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday: “It sounds like we’re living in a episode of South Park.”
Trudeau said earlier this week that when it comes to Trump, “his approach will often be to challenge people, to destabilize a…