TORONTO (AP) — Retired NHL great Wayne Gretzky downplayed his influence on Donald Trump in his first public comments since the U.S. president began his second term and began making references to making Canada the 51st state.

On a radio show Monday hosted by Ben Mulroney, son of former conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Gretzky never used Trump’s name and was never asked about Trump's tariffs and trade war or the 51st state comments. Mulroney instead asked Gretzky if it registered with him that others attempt to use his name to further their agendas.

“I don’t worry about those kind of things because you can’t make everybody happy,” Gretzky said on the show on AM-640 in Toronto. “But, trust me, I have no political power with the prime minister or the president. That’s between those two guys, and that’s why you hold elections and that’s why people get to do what they want to do and say what they want to say. But trust me I have no pull or power with either the prime minister or the president.”

Some Canadians have openly wondered why Gretzky doesn’t speak out against Trump’s comments and they have noted his relationship with the Republican president dates back some years.

Asked about having his NHL career goals record broken by Alex Ovechkin, a Russian player, Gretzky also brushed that aside and said he and his teammates never talked about politics during his playing days.

“We watched basketball, we watched baseball, we talked about the Blue Jays, we talked about the New York Yankees,” Gretzky said. "Hockey players, that’s never on the docket. It’s just something that we stay in our lane. The prime minister and the president don’t tell us how to play hockey, and we don’t tell them how to do politics, right?”

Trump has called Gretzky a friend and once suggested the “Great One” should be Canada's governor if the country becomes the 51st U.S. state. Gretzky sat with Trump's FBI Director, Kash Patel, during the Washington Capitals games in which Ovechkin tied and broke his record.

The 64-year-old from Brantford, Ontario, has generally declined to discuss politics.

“I always say to my kids — I’ve got five American kids, seven American grandchildren, an American wife, a 103-year-old American mother-in-law, and I always tell them every day that you be as proud of the United States of America as I am to be a Canadian," Gretzky said on Mulroney's show. "That’s what your grandfather would have wanted.”

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl