Joy Reid garbles American history and claims Canada would beat US in war as she resurfaces after MSNBC firing
By ALYSSA GUZMAN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM Published: 13:09 EDT, 21 March 2025 | Updated: 14:18 EDT, 21 March 2025
Former MSNBC host Joy Reid has resurfaced for the first time since being fired by the liberal network just to wildly claim Canada would most definitely beat the US in a war.
Reid, 56, joined ex-CNN host Don Lemon on his show to discuss Trump's 'absurd' plan to take over Canada and make it the 51st State.
'First of all, you can't make Canada the 51st State without going to war with them,' she told Lemon on Thursday. 'And let me explain how that happened, how that worked out the last time we tried to go to war with Canada.
'They burned the White House to the ground in 1814 and won the war.'
She's referring to the War of 1812, which broke out after the US invaded Canada in hopes of conquering the country - which was then part of the British Empire - in order to get the British to stop encroaching on their maritime rights during the Napoleonic Wars.
As the US was unable to attack the Royal Navy, it set its eyes on Canada.
The British eventually occupied Washington, DC, in 1814 and began burning the city in revenge for the Americans torching York, present-day Toronto.
British Admiral George Cockburn ordered his British and Canadian troops to burn the White House - which was occupied by President James Madison - the Capitol Building, and the Library of Congress.
Joy Reid, 56, joined ex-CNN host Don Lemon on his show to discuss Trump's 'absurd' plan to take over Canada and making it the 51st State . 'First of all, you can't make Canada the 51st State without going to war with them,' she told Lemon, before butchering US history
Joy Reid, 56, joined ex-CNN host Don Lemon on his show to discuss Trump's 'absurd' plan to take over Canada and making it the 51st State . 'First of all, you can't make Canada the 51st State without going to war with them,' she told Lemon, before butchering US history
Trump has said he would consider making Canada the 51st State. Reid claimed the US lost to Canada in the War of 1812, where America invaded Canada to try an stop Britain - which owned Canada - to stop effecting their maritime rights
Trump has said he would consider making Canada the 51st State. Reid claimed the US lost to Canada in the War of 1812, where America invaded Canada to try an stop Britain - which owned Canada - to stop effecting their maritime rights
The British eventually occupied Washington DC in 1814 and began burning the city in revenge for the Americans torching York, present-day Toronto. However, the war ended in a stalemate and a treaty was signed to say the country would maintain their previous territories (pictured: War of 1812)
The British eventually occupied Washington DC in 1814 and began burning the city in revenge for the Americans torching York, present-day Toronto. However, the war ended in a stalemate and a treaty was signed to say the country would maintain their previous territories
The war ended in a stalemate and the Treaty of Ghent was signed on December 24, 1814. The treaty stated that each country would maintain the land they had previously occupied, according to the US Constitution Museum.
Reid claimed that 'Canada beat us in the War of 1812' and said 'they probably like their chances against us.'
'We're not going to beat them in a war because we have never been able to do that,' Reid told Lemon, slightly butchering history.
'You'd have to occupy a country that is equivalent of the size of the United States, in which the top two-thirds of it is uninhabited frozen forest land that touches the Arctic,' she continued.
'And you know how that worked out when the Nazis tried that with Russia, which is the equivalent of Canada on that part of the world.
'We're going to lose.'
The Germans launched Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 to invade the Soviet Union in World War II.
It was one of Adolf Hitler's first defeats in the war and an estimated 20 million died, with 775,000 military casualties on the German side and more than 800,000 Soviet soldiers died in the frozen tundra, many from frostbite and hypothermia.
The Germans' attack on Russia became one of the deadliest military operations in history, according to Smithsonian Associates.
Reid claimed that 'Canada beat us in the War of 1812' and said 'they probably like their chances against us.' No one won the War of 1812
She also compared Canada to Russia in World War II where the Germans (pictured in 1941) invaded the cold country in Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 and was one of the deadliest military operations. Reid said Canada's uninhabited Arctic wouldn't serve US soldiers well
Reid went on to pad her argument by saying that Canadians have 'about as many guns per capita as we do.'
However, as of 2017, the US had nearly 400 million civilian firearms compared to Canada's 12.7 million, according to World Population Review.
The US has a population 8.5 times bigger than Canada, with approximately 340 million to 40 million citizens. Even if Canadian civilian gun ownership increased by the same amount, it would not come near America's total.
Reid went on to say that the only reason the US has more shootings than their neighbor to the North is because '[Canadians] don't take their guns to Walmart.'
'But they got a lot of guns,' she said. 'And they've beat us in a war before so that's issue number one.
'You cannot absorb a country against their will. And this talk of making them the 51st State is absurd.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/media/article-14523853/joy-reid-claims-canada-beats-usa-war-msnbc-firing.html