An ex-con rapper-turned-Canadian politician is playing tough guy in the trade war with the US, mocking President Trump this week as he signed an executive order to remove American booze from store shelves.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew pled guilty to beating up a cab driver in 2004 before quitting booze and eventually pivoting to politics a little more than a decade later.
“This order, it’s a wonderful order, it’s a beautiful order,” Kinew, 43, said Tuesday to a cheering crowd.
Kinew, who was the frontman of Canadian hip hop groups Slangblossom and Dead Indians in the 2000s, told The Post the stunt was an attempt to create a moment of levity in the midst of the escalating trade war with the US.
“Canadians — we got a sense of humor too,” said Kinew, who was granted a pardon by the Parole Board of Canada in 2016 before running for office.
“If he wants to make jokes about the 51st state, we’re going to chirp back too,” he said of Trump.
Kinew was arrested at 22 for refusing a breath test after being arrested for driving his father’s Dodge Dakota erratically in 2003, court records show. The next year, after an altercation with a cabbie, he got out of the taxi at a red light and punched the driver in the face, then pushed him to the ground and kicked him, a court heard. He was granted a pardon for both convictions in 2016.
Kinew is the only leader who made a show of it as all Canadian provinces ordered their liquor stores immediately remove all US alcohol from shelves, in response to the 25% tariffs that went into effect Tuesday.
That hasn’t changed despite the one-month reprieve Trump announced Thursday on Canadian imports that were subject to a pre-existing trade agreement. Kinew said a pause isn’t good enough – the booze is gone.
Meanwhile, Cordell Lawrence from Kentucky’s Eastern Light Distilling says the bourbon industry will be collateral damage of the trade war.
“We’re a symbolic target,” he told The Post.