{"id":18920,"date":"2026-02-12T18:02:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/billy-long-calls-iceland-52nd-state-joke-totally-inappropriate\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T18:02:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:02:47","slug":"billy-long-calls-iceland-52nd-state-joke-totally-inappropriate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/billy-long-calls-iceland-52nd-state-joke-totally-inappropriate\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Long calls Iceland \u201852nd state\u2019 joke \u2018totally inappropriate\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Former Rep. Billy Long apologized to lawmakers for a private joke he made to former House colleagues saying Iceland would be the \u201c52nd state\u201d with him as its governor.<\/p>\n

Appearing Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, President Donald Trump\u2019s pick to serve as ambassador to the Arctic nation moved to clean up a diplomatic mess<\/u><\/a> of his own making.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was totally inappropriate,\u201d Long told senators, describing the remark as an attempt at humor that did not land well. \u201cI just hope that the people in Iceland will give me a second chance to make a first impression.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long\u2019s private joke on the House floor, first reported by Blue Light News<\/u><\/a>, prompted minor diplomatic issues amid tense relations between the U.S. and Iceland as Trump seeks to take control of nearby Greenland, a Danish territory. Icelanders also launched a petition<\/u><\/a> to their foreign, minister, Katr\u00edn\u202fGunnarsd\u00f3ttir to reject Long as ambassador.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want [Katr\u00edn Gunnarsd\u00f3ttir] to reject Billy Long as ambassador to Iceland and call for the United States to nominate another man, who will show Iceland and Icelanders more respect,\u201d the petition read, garnering thousands of signatures.<\/p>\n

Long later apologized for the remark, telling Alaska-based news site Arctic Today<\/u><\/a> that he was aware of the reaction in Iceland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing serious about that, I was with some people, who I hadn\u2019t met for three years, and they were kidding about Jeff Landry being governor of Greenland and they started joking about me and if anyone took offense to it, then I apologize,\u201d Long said.<\/p>\n

The president has also mused about making Canada the 51st state.<\/p>\n

Trump nominated Long to replace former Ambassador Carrin Patman. Long represented Missouri\u2019s 7th Congressional District for six terms and briefly served as IRS commissioner last year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Rep. Billy Long apologized to lawmakers for a private joke he made to former House colleagues saying Iceland would be the \u201c52nd state\u201d with him as its governor. Appearing Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, President Donald Trump\u2019s pick to serve as ambassador to the Arctic nation moved to clean up a diplomatic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}