At Florida gala, Danielle Smith tried to laugh off 51st state rhetoric. Here's what she said

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's response to a U.S. podcaster's quips about Canada as the 51st state last week was to tell him and a conservative group's Florida donor gala that they'd regret having tens of millions of progressive Canadians voting for the U.S. president, according to video of her speaking event obtained by CBC News.

It stands in contrast with other Canadian leaders, even Conservative ones, who have handled Donald Trump's rhetoric about absorbing Canada by vocally denouncing "an unjustified threat" or declaring the country's not for sale. Instead, Smith gently deflected the 51st state references from Ben Shapiro at a fundraising dinner for PragerU by cautioning about how it would hurt the U.S. right wing's electoral prospects.

"That would be like adding another California to your electoral system, and [you] would never have a Republican president in the White House again," Smith told the audience. "So I would just caution you that it's probably best for us to just stay friends, and friends should never move in together."

CBC News has obtained a video copy of the full onstage dialogue between Shapiro and Smith.

In her remarks, Smith stuck largely to advocating about the harms of Trump's planned tariffs on the U.S. economy, and stressed the historically friendly cross-border relationship.

She not only highlighted the reliance U.S. refineries have on Alberta's heavy oil, but also highlighted the exports of uranium from Saskatchewan, aluminum from Quebec and critical minerals from several provinces.

"I think what you're seeing is some hurt feelings," she said. "I think we don't understand why it is that this relationship is having the tension that it is right now."

Smith avoided repeating some of the messages she'd delivered in a Breitbart News interview this month, about how she'd advised Trump administration officials to "pause" tariffs to avoid boosting the Liberals' election fortunes, and that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was "in sync" with Trump's direction.

Both comments triggered backlash back at home. Liberals made an attack ad out of her Poilievre comparison with Trump, which the Conservatives dispute.

There wasn't any of that at her Florida event, which suggests she prepared for how closely domestic audiences would be watching her comments for any political hazards, said political scientist Lisa Young.

"She was being very careful throughout the interview," said Young, a University of Calgary professor who reviewed the video. "Shapiro tried to lure her toward the pitfalls a couple of times anyway, and she sidestepped them quite neatly."

Shapiro, who has consistently criticized the tariffs on Canada, referred to the trade war as an impediment to getting the Conservative victory that he said Republicans would prefer in April's Canadian election.

"Let's work together to get those obstacles out of the way so we can get to a better government in Canada that actually acts to be a more solid American ally," he said onstage.

Later, he referred to an offstage discussion with Smith in which they apparently discussed Liberal Leader Mark Carney as a "bad negotiating partner" who wants the trade tensions to continue as "political wind in his sails," and who's fine dealing instead with China.