“Welcome to Mar-a-Lago,” said U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump as the Faux Warktimes bureau chief sat down with him last Tuesday on the capacious sun porch at his Palm Beach resort.

“Will you be staying the night?” he asked.

“Uh, no,” I answered uneasily. “The Canadian dollar, you know.”

Trump smirked.

“Yeah, I know, it’s always about money with you guys up north,” he said. “Have you ever heard of a credit card?”

“Money is the poor man’s credit card,” I answered feebly, channelling Marshall McLuhan.

“The medium is the message,” Trump answered, “and also the mass age.”

“Do you mean X?” I asked straying far from my list of carefully rehearsed questions.

“I thought you were here to ask me about the 25% tariffs,” Trump said.

“But you know I don’t even want to talk about that today,” he continued. “When they hit, they’ll hurt like hell and you guys will fall all over yourselves signing up for American Express.”

“The 51st state,” I said somewhat rattled. “That’s what I wanted to ask about.”

“Oh that,” Trump answered. “All I can say to Canucks is ‘welcome aboard.’ Make sure you put that in.”

“Mr. President,” I asked politely, “What if we don’t want…”

It was then that The Donald dropped his faux H-bomb.

Kamala H. learning how to conjugate the verb “faire”

“Kamala Harris,” he said. “Know what she’s doing right now? Cramming French. Know why?”

“Uh, no,” I answered.

“Justin wants to give her his job. He figures it’s the only way to stop Skippy P. from winning.”

“What?”

“And Kamala wants it so she won’t have to face prosecution down here as an enemy of the people,” he added indignantly.

“Yeah, she’s fleeing to Canada to become governor there, where she can continue blistering my ass.”

“But she’s not a Canadian citizen,” I objected.

“You know what?” Trump asked.

“I told Justin when he came crawling to me a couple weeks ago. I told him, it’s the third thing I’m going to do right after I’m sworn in. Yeah, pardon the January 6th freedom fighters, invoke the Insurrection Act, declare Canada the 51st state and send in the troops.”

“Jesus!” I exclaimed.

The shower-scene ringer on Trump’s phone started screaming.

“Elon what’s up?” he asked.

“Yeah, just talking to some joker from the 51st state,” Trump said with a wink.

“OK,” he said, clicking off.

“Gotta go. Elon says that fuck Biden wants to drop a few bombs on Iran, so I won’t get credit for taking their nukes out myself,” Trump told me over his shoulder as he strode away.

“Will you be back?” I called out.

“No, he will not be back,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as he happened by on his way to the pool.

“Mr. Kennedy,” I said, seizing the moment.

“Can I ask you a question as the future U.S. Secretary of Health?”

“I have only one message for you and your friends up north,” he declared with a scowl.

“As the 51st state, you’re going to save tons of money when UnitedHealthcare takes over all your medical plans,” he said ambling away.

“Have a great day!”

RFK Jr. on his way to the pool at Mar-a-Lago