At Issue - Will Donald Trump's revenge tour backfire? | Analysis from Washington

Episode Date: May 30, 2026

CBC’s weekly podcast, Two Blocks from the White House, takes a clear-eyed look at what’s happening in the U.S. right now and what it means for Canadians. From a $1.8 billion US fund for Donald Trump allies, which some critics call a 'MAGA slush fund', to retribution for Republicans who have spoken out against him, the U.S. president is pushing his personal agenda amid declining approval ratings and with the midterm elections right around the corner.This week on Two Blocks from the White House, Washington correspondents Katie Simpson, Paul Hunter and Louis Blouin ask: How far can Donald Trump go before paying the political price?Find and follow Two Blocks from the White House wherever you get your podcasts, or here: https://link.mgln.ai/2BFTWHxAtIssue0526

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two blocks from the White House, the show that takes a clear-eyed look at what's happening in the U.S. and, of course, what it means for Canadians. This week, Washington correspondents, Katie Simpson, Paul Hunter, and Louis Bluin. I love Louis Blanc, ask how far can Donald Trump go before paying the political price? From a $1.8 billion U.S. fund for Trump allies, described by some critics as a MAGA slush fund to retribution against Republicans who have spoken out against him.

The U.S. President is pushing his personal agenda amid declining approval ratings and with the midterm elections right around the corner. Have a listen to this. Hey, Katie. Hey. Hi, Paul. Hey, I was going to say, bonjour, Louis Bluen. I bought my half jersey from him. It's great.

Go have to go. Oh, my goodness. You had to, didn't you? Of course. Yeah, I want to annoy you as much as possible. Someone's got to be enthusiastic about something. So, Louis, I'm so glad it's you. I'm ready. I'm the one.

Louis, thank you for joining us. You, of course, are... You do the same job that we do, but for Radio Canada. Despite the jersey, you bring a great vibe to the news. I try. You know, it's the spirit of Willie, too. You know, he's a Habs fan. So I needed to, you know, if I'm replacing him, just to, you know...

Indeed, our usual co-host and noted Habs fan, Willie Lowry is on assignment in Jerusalem this week. Keeping an eye on a possible U.S.-Iran peace deal. We'll connect with him again next week, and I'm sure we'll have lots to talk about. Yeah, and for this week, we are going to take a look at a number of things Donald Trump has been doing that are fairly unprecedented in American politics. And we can talk about that all day long. That's nothing new. But we're taking a look at some specific challenges in this moment and how the president is actually being criticized for pushing a very personal agenda forward.

And he's doing things that might be good for Donald Trump, but not necessarily for his party. And the midterm elections are less than six months, about five months away now. So some Republicans are finally starting to express some concern about this and even push back whether or not they or anyone else can do anything to rein in. Trump's seemingly ever-growing agenda is another question. So on today's episode, we're asking how far can Donald Trump go? I'm Paul Hunter. I'm Louis Bluie. And I'm Katie Simpson.

We are CBC and Radio Canada. Washington correspondents. and we are two blocks from the White House. Okay, Katie, we should really start with this $1.8 billion, well, 1.776 billion, to get it, to be precise. $1.8 billion fund for people who say that they are victims of government, air quotes, weaponization. So, like, what is this fund? And how will it work? So when I start to describe it, it's going to sound a lot like, one of those really loud infomercials or commercials you see on TV where you've got the personal injury lawyer who's up there saying,

have you been personally victimized by XYZ, XYZ, whatever it is? Have you been, but in this case, it's have you been personally victimized by the previous Biden administration? And instead of a personal injury lawyer, it's the sitting U.S. president. And, you know, I make a joke about that, but it's so not funny. and it is causing so much controversy here and understandably so. We don't know a lot of the specifics just yet and things could be changing. So if you're listening to this, we're taping this on a Tuesday afternoon by Wednesday morning. Who knows if there could be all kinds of announcements about what comes next or what changes.

But what we know at this point in time so far is that the Department of Justice is setting up a fund, a nearly $2 billion fund made up of taxpayer dollars, and it will be used to give payments to people who say they were, you know, targets of a weaponized department of justice, that the previous administration unfairly prosecuted them or targeted them or investigated them, things like that. Again, we are still waiting for more specifics, but, you know, there's going to be a creation of a commission, a five-person commission, and they are going to be sort of, sort of, deciding who qualifies and who gets what kind of payouts, that kind of thing. But what is important to point out is that this commission is going to be selected by the Attorney General. There are five people on it. Congress gets say on one person, they don't get to actually pick, but they get to weigh in on one of the five people. But it's going to be up to the Attorney General to make these decisions. And who is the Attorney General currently right now in the United States? It's

an acting Attorney General. It's Todd Blanche. Who had served as Donald Trump's personal attorney prior to this administration. He was there to defend Donald Trump during his New York City criminal trial investigation that took place there. So this is one of Donald Trump's closest allies who is going to be overseeing who gets selected here. And then Donald Trump will have the power to decide if someone should be fired from this commission, that kind of thing. And so who might be interested in this? We're getting a little bit of a sense of, okay, who are the people who feel they have been victims of a weaponization of, you know, the Biden administration's Justice Department. Think January 6th rioters, the people who have been pardoned, possibly even

people who were found guilty of violent offenses against law enforcement. We're going to get more into that in a little bit in our conversation. Pardoned by Trump. Pardoned by Trump. Think about Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy. He was never criminally charged with anything, but he was investigated by the FBI because he was a prolific and still continues to push conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election, essentially making the argument that the election in 2020 was stolen from Donald Trump, which we know, of course, it was not. But he was a prolific pusher of that and cites, you know, attacks by the Justice Department or attacks from wherever they came from, from his perspective, as wrecking his business. and so he's already come forward to say that he wants to put his hand up. People who have been prosecuted for blocking access to abortion clinics.

Some have already been pardoned by Donald Trump since Donald Trump returned to office, as well as some lawmakers who had their cell phones, some Republicans, secretly subpoenaed in the wake of the 2020 election. So that sort of gives you a sense of critics, Democrats, are calling it a slush fund, something that Donald Trump's allies or people who have, in some cases, broken the law since been pardoned, might be able to get a cash payout from taxpayer dollars. And though it should go without saying it's worth underlining that's taxpayer money. Yeah. That's where the cash comes from.

And there's also with all this, this link with the IRS, right, Paul? Like, it's stemming from that. I mean, looking back at last week, it feels like this all came out of nowhere, but it didn't. It all goes back to Trump 1.0. I think I filed on this for the national that night, as I recall. But a contractor at the IRS stole and leaked Trump's tax returns when Trump's tax returns were an ongoing issue in the news. And what it showed, by the way, was that Trump effectively paid little or no tax, income tax, for a number of years citing business losses. So anyway, the guy who stole that and leaked it to the New York Times and others was,

caught and sent to jail for five years. Trump was infuriated, you know, for sort of obvious reasons, I guess. Anyway, this past January, Trump sued the IRS over that for $10 billion. A sitting president suing the IRS for $10 billion. Just let that sort of... Just let that sit there. Not to interrupt, but just let that sit there. Because being the president, he was suing an agency that his administration controlled. In a fact, he was suing himself. He was suing himself. something by most smarter people than I have noted has never happened in this country before. And then came the settlement. So he sued in January, then came the settlement.

As Trump put it, he was settling with himself. And that is the $1.8 billion fund that, Katie, that you were talking about for any of the people who felt they were wrongly investigated by the government. But then there was a little subsection in that settlement where it said that the IRS is forever prohibited from auditing Trump's prior tax returns or his family or those of his business. You know, I think you use the word unprecedented. I think that's, you know, Trump critics would say that's being generous. At the other end of the scale is that it is corrupt. wherever you land on that scale, I mean, it was jaw-dropping, and it's a lot. And it was a lot to process.

And Louis, as you'll note, it has sparked not just backlash from Democrats, but even some Republicans causing a lot of trouble up on, I was going to say, Parliament Hill, up on Capitol Hill. Yeah, absolutely. And especially in the Senate Republicans, they were taken aback. They were taken by surprise to see that this measure was included in this big, immigration package that they were about to vote on. Senator Toon, the leader of their Republicans in the Senate, he called up the acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, and he said, you know, can you come and explain this, please, you know, in a meeting with Republican senators? So they asked question about how would that work.

They questioned the legality of it. And he was trying to reassure them, but he didn't. Like, it didn't go well. The meeting was very tense. He ended up apparently in a shouting match, two hours and a half. And, you know, when they just came out of there, there was a lot of Republican senators who were just not buying it. Republican senators. Yes, Republican senators.

And, you know, John Toome, the Senate Majority Leader is the first, the most important. He said he was not a big fan of the fund, but also like influential figures like Mitch McConnell. You know, is the former GOP leader still an influential figure in the party who said, and I am going to quote him, it's utterly stupid, morally wrong. This is also leading to a clash between Senate Republican and House Republicans, because, you know, they have diverging interests. The Senate, GOP senators, they represent diverse population of entire states, while many House Republicans represent deep, red district, really, really loyal to Donald Trump, who will be ready to vote for everything he wants. So there's this clash going on between the Senate and the House GOP, these tensions. And we don't know if this immigration bill will go forward when they come back in town on the hill. So, yeah, this has done a lot of damage in the Republican family.

So we don't really know where it's going to end. It's kind of remarkable to hear it coming from Republicans, though, isn't it? Was it Tom Tillis, who called it stupid on stilts or something like that? Stupid on stilts. And Paul, one thing you mentioned, we were having a conversation earlier about Mitch McConnell, hearing Mitch McConnell's, you know, push back and say this now. But Mitch McConnell, as you have pointed out in the past, he held authority at a time when he could have done something to stand up to Trump. To be, you know, when it was clear that Donald Trump was going to win the Republican nomination, he, he was an influential figure, less so now, but still very senior leadership within the Republican Party. And you'd pointed out he had opportunities to stand up and push back, even with impeachment after the January 6 attack. And he didn't do it. So now it's kind of like, okay, so you're pushing back now.

A bit of buyer's remorse. Well, exactly. Katie, you've been doing some reporting on this as well as Louis. What have you been hearing? So when this story first broke, I started sending out a bunch of phone calls, bunch of emails to just try and get reaction from sort of different people who could be involved by this or people who might have strong reactions. And one person I heard back from was a man named Trenas Evans. He was at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

He was convicted of a misdemeanor. He pleaded guilty. He went into the Capitol. He was not convicted of a violent offense, but he sort of gained a little bit of notoriety, particularly in the United States, because he admitted to drinking shots of whiskey in Nancy Pelosi's office. But aside from that, that being his experience, he has founded this group called Condemned USA, and essentially it's a legal advocacy group for people who face charges during the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. And I sort of asked him, like, what are you hearing and what are sort of what's going on within this community? And he had said to me, work had already been well underway for hundreds of people linked to January 6 people who were convicted of crimes and then since pardoned. And they were going to pursue some sort of claim for financial compensation using laws and systems that already exist. They were arguing that they were unfairly treated. He says that he thinks that, and he thinks that.

everyone who was involved in January 6th should qualify for payments because even if people were convicted of violent offenses against law enforcement, he argues that those people didn't get a fair trial. This ripped apart families. People were destroyed because the false narrative of insurrection played out. You can never take away what the media said by calling people insurrectionist and the narrative that was chinned up. It caused them to lose people still in many cases, lost jobs, lost employment, lost businesses. So those dollar figures, I'm saying they're going to range in the millions of dollars. I'm sure some of those will be eight-figure settlements that

their people are seeking in these matters. It's going to be justice on this matter one way or the other. And he told me that he's working with more than 450 people who are going to be pursuing claims as soon as the process is up and running. And he's just one advocacy grip. He's aware, he says, of hundreds more who also plan to pursue claims. And he's predicting some of their requests for compensation could reach eight figures. That is his estimate. That's a lot. Yeah. Now, so on the flip side of that, I also spoke with a man named Michael Phanone. Canadians might recognize that name. He was one of the police officers. He was a metropolitan police officer. He was at the Capitol on January 6th, and he was severely, severely beaten during the riot and during the

capital attack. He has since become an advocate and sort of an outspoken critic of anyone who sort of is pushing claims of misinformation and all of these conspiracy theories around, you know, what actually happened on that day. He presents himself as living proof of the violence that happened. And, you know, he's one of dozens of police officers who are seriously injured on January 6th. And I talked to him. And I wasn't necessarily surprised by what he had to say, but I found what he had to say deeply revealing about this moment in America. And so anyone in America, whether it's in the media ecosystem or just the average citizen who's shocked or surprised by this, hasn't been paying attention.

This is what Trump supporters voted for. And so, you know, my anger has since turned, like I said, to the American people for betraying me and betraying my colleagues who fought to defend democracy. Because what did we do it for? What was that sacrifice for if Americans were going to vote themselves into an authoritarian dictatorship? And he is very frustrated. He continues to get, he says, intense amounts of death threats. He said that when this fund was announced, he saw social media posts that suggested people could basically get paid to go and kill him. That's the kind of online chatter he's seeing.

And so from his perspective, as we heard there, it is par for the course in what is a very dangerous moment. Let's see if Toronto advisors know their life insurance providers. Hey there. Who offers term plus life insurance a flexible solution with really low premiums? Oh, uh, Beneva. Correct. Who makes it easier to protect your clients with high approval rates and several built-in benefits? Beneva.

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A career, a reputation, a life that's already in motion. But maybe staying right where you are isn't feeling right anymore. At the University of Alberta, our flexible online graduate programs are built for working professionals. so you can step up without stepping away from your work, your income, from everything you've built. Explore online graduate programs at uab.ca slash step up. There's the fund, but there's like other issues also that are raising eyebrows, even amongst Republican on Capitol Hill, right? Yeah, I mean, and some of those are also fund related, not that fund, but just funds broadly.

I mean, keep in mind that constitutionally in this country, it is the U.S. that generally controls the purse strings. If money's being spent, it's up to Congress, explicitly not, with some exceptions, the realm of the U.S. president. So with all this money heading out the door, effectively on Capitol Hill, and we've been talking about some of this already, people are losing their minds, right? This is not the way this country is structured. The new ballroom that we've talked so much about at the White House, for example, that Trump said would be privately funded. Well, all of a sudden, now American taxpayers are learning, oh, but now there's this.

It's being tagged with security costs and things like that, and that's going to cost a billion dollars. The Iran War launched without congressional approval, by the way, is costing, depending on who's giving the estimate, somewhere between $500 million and $2 billion a day taxpayer money. And now there's talk of a U.S. military intervention in Cuba as well. I mean, it's, all of this is head spinning, right? But, as many have learned the hard way, if Republicans who are starting to speak out, but historically, and even now, Republicans who speak out against Donald Trump, are finding have found that it gets complicated fast. I mean, say what you will about Donald Trump, right? He has a long memory and he's not afraid to target those who cross him. Yeah.

And we saw that Trump is already getting heavily involved in these primary races. For Canadians who are unaware of what a primary race is, we should probably just explain. It's basically a primer on primary? A primer on primary. That's what we're here for, Paul. Basically, it's when candidates are running to become the nominee for a party. So a number of people are running to become the Republican nominee for this position, whether it's in the House or whether it's in the Senate or whether it's for mayor or whatever it is. Those races, there's no sort of set schedule for it other than these parties have to pick their nominees and it varies by state.

And so there are all kinds of races all over the place. And Donald Trump is getting heavily involved when it comes to who should be selected to be the Republican nominees. And he's gotten involved and it means a lot for some Republicans who have spoken out against him. And Louie, you went and chatted, spent some time in Kentucky chatting with one Republican who's been very critical, very, vocal against the president. Yeah, and this fracture in the Republican Party was like all out. And the question was, can Donald Trump, you know, it's a test for him, keep his grip on the party?

Is he still the most influential person in this party? And that was the test in Kentucky. And, you know, the answer there was yes, because it was Thomas Massey, this guy who has libertarian views who stood up to Donald Trump on the Epstein file. on spending, that he also expressed himself against the war in Iran. He questioned the unconditional support of the United States toward Israel. So the question was, could he survive this primary against Trump's back candidate, Ed Galrine? And he didn't.

And it was a demonstration of how Donald Trump is still the most powerful men in this party. But what was interesting that I found when I was there is this generational divide, too, between older Republicans who watch Fox News, you know, a very Trump-aligned, loyal media towards Donald Trump and younger Republican voters who supported, you know, in a big margin, Massey over the candidate of Donald Trump at Gal Ryan. And it's interesting because they consume their news differently.

They have, you know, different influencers talking to them, you know. Older generation, boomers, listening to Fox News, younger generation, podcasters, influencers. And I could see that clearly in also the position that young voters would take. They were very similar to the one of Massey's, you know, about state spending, about the war in Iran and everything. So there was this clear divide there. And I asked Massey, because I met him the day before the vote, you know, if you lost. I said, I don't telling you, you're going to lose.

But if you do lose, what's the damage that might be done to the party? If I were to lose, you would alienate a large part of the coalition that was formed that put us into the. White House, put our party in the majority in both chambers, people that want America to be healthy, they want their privacy, their Second Amendment, they want Congress to debate things instead of doing giant bills that contain everything in one thing. You'd alienate a whole bunch of those people, and I think it would not bode well for November. And that could become a problem for Donald Trump if young voters, for instance, just stay home, you know, in November and don't go out to vote and are not mobilized when it's time to vote.

Which happens election after election after election. I mean, it's the older voters, especially at the primary stage, they're the ones who go out in numbers. And it's funny, having heard what Massey said there, that was done before. Right before the vote, yes. So what happened in the vote, he got voted down. Having said all that, people voted for the other guy. It's interesting, isn't it? Massey, of course, isn't the only Republican who's being, air quotes again, primaried by Donald Trump.

Katie, who else is feeling this? Well, we could go back years or, you know, hours. Let's talk Liz Cheney, Liz Cheney, who is one of the people seeking real information about what was going on with the attack on the Capitol riot. Remember Liz Cheney? Remember when Liz Cheney was campaigning with Democrats in the 2024 election? Yeah, Liz, let's, you know, that's Liz Cheney, the daughter of the former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who was seen as at one time possibly a future leader of the Republican Party. She was a representative from Wyoming.

She had gained some leadership within the House, within the Republican Party. Feared by Democrats. Absolutely. And then she sort of was the leading Republican, leading the charge against what Donald Trump's involvement related to January 6th was. And he went after her and used every single resource at his disposal. essentially, essentially, to go after her and look what happened there. She lost. She was primaried and lost. She was one of his first and, you know, immediate targets.

But, you know, in the immediate, there were a number of lawmakers in Indiana, Republican lawmakers in Indiana, who did not get on board with wanting to change electoral district maps to give Republicans an advantage in the midterm elections. By the way, the elections we're talking about take place in November. The midterm elections will be held in November, and we're going to talk a lot about them between now and then because so much will be determined by the outcome of those elections. But there were seven Republican lawmakers who would not get on board with that. Trump lashed out on social media against all of them. Five of them were defeated.

They lost their primary races. Let's talk about Senator Bill Cassidy, who is a senator from Louisiana, who wasn't found to be sufficiently loyal enough to Donald Trump. He'd criticized RFK. He's a doctor and he criticized in question some of RFK's policies. RFK Jr. being who the health and human services secretary, he's essentially in charge of health policy in the United States. He's been critical or questioned him. And Trump did not find him to be sufficiently loyal. And he was in favor of the impeachment, if I remember correctly, right? Yes, he was one of seven Republicans who voted in favor to impeach Donald Trump after the capital attack. So much of what we talk about in American politics does go.

back to what happened on January 6th. So it's the revenge tour, right? Yeah. Which we said at the time was forthcoming, and it is. And there's another one playing out right now in Texas with Ken Paxton and John Cornyn. And we should just, I'll just jump in, Katie. That's happening tonight as we record this.

So when it is listened to, this will be in the past, but it's still a valid point that's happening. Ken Paxton. Ken Paxton is one of the most scandal-ridden politicians from Texas that I think we can to point to, and that's probably saying a lot in this moment in American politics, from being indicted, impeached, allegations of bribery or securities-related fraud, those kinds of things. There's a scandal about him cheating on his wife, his wife filing for divorce after I believe it was 38 years for biblical reasons, all of these kinds of things that play big in Texas politics. And yet, he is sufficiently loyal to Donald Trump.

He's a mega-Trump loyal. He is basically take every social issue. that Republicans like to use for wedge politics, take the most conservative position there that Maga, what we've seen the Maga base take. He is sort of a culture war warrior and sort of stokes those divisions, particularly around culture war issues. And he's up against John Cornyn, Senator John Cornyn, who's been a popular guy in the Senate. Very powerful with influential Republicans. Been there for a long time. Big money from like donors in the Republican establishment. And then Donald Trump decided that he's going to endorse Paxton. So it's, it, it, it, it,

It could possibly, Paul, I think, set up a very difficult, if Ken Paxton is the winner there, set of a very challenging fight to see who is going to be that senator from Texas. Sure, because the broad view is, and this is where people wonder is Trump shooting himself or the Republican Party in the foot with all of this? Because he's on the revenge tour and he's only going to support people who were loyal to him and he is going to target people who he deems not loyal enough or disloyal. So, you know, let's say Paxton comes through instead of Cornyn. He has seen, I think, by many Republicans as the weaker candidate, notwithstanding Trump's preference for him, which means sitting back at this point and watching all of this unfold is James Talarico, who we've talked about, the Democrat nominee for Senate in Texas. The guy that the latest guy for Democrats to pin their hopes on, as I called him a week or so ago, the new Beto O'Rourke, he's sitting back and watching, well, if Paxton wins. Yeah, and that's the big question. That's better for the Democrats.

But the question for me, like, is this the right bet to go in, like, supporting full-patch, MAGA, Trump, loyalist candidates when the voters next fall that will make a difference, that will sway this election, are moderate. It seems what matters more to Trump is whether he has loyalists, regardless of how that plays out. But that's not speaking to independence and moderates that will have an important say in those purple districts and purple racist, purple states that the people that will sway the election, now Trump is saying to them,

no, I'm going hard, you know, Trump, loyalist, MAGA. So is that the good decision for the party? I'm wondering, Paul, if President Trump is becoming his worst enemy with this. We'll find out. I mean, I'm not, you know, saying that to dodge the question because it's, I think,

nobody quite understands what his strategy is on this. Like, what is? his actual thinking? Is it to make himself feel better that he's got loyalists around? But if it's at, if it's at the detriment of the Republican Party, I mean, it's as if Trump and his advisors have concluded that they can do whatever they want, right? And if they win, they win. And if they lose, they lose, on whatever the thing is. If they lose, they lose. But if they win, they win. But generally, they've been winning from their perspective, I think you could argue. But it's like they've decided we, we, there are no reins on us. And we, whether it's a workaround or a loophole or some

sort of thing in the, wherever it's written down, they can find a way through and they can do it. He seems to believe that there is no stopping himself. And I know it's a bit an extreme question, but like, does he care about the future of the party, you know, because after that, if he doesn't bode well for him in November, he could say, well, my name was not on the ballot. You know what? I was able to get those wins before and you guys can't and you know that's not my problem i'm going to you know what to that point i'm going to pull up a tweet right now and that i'm going to read that um that stood out to me that i think speaks to that and it's from a man named stephen chung who is a senior member of the trump administration in the communications department someone we hear from a lot but rarely see

rarely see him but you hear a lot from him and let me just pull this up give me one second i'm going to this is a quote and remember this is from a senior staffer within the Trump administration in the communications department posted on next. I think I know what you're going to read. Do not ever doubt President Trump and his political power. F*** around and find out from the White House. And so I truly believe that the Trump administration views this moment and views these wins from their perspective as it is the party of Donald Trump. And we hear it in the language that Trump uses sometimes when he calls people rhinos.

Republicans and name only. It's that he's redefined what the party is. He's redefined the terms of loyalty. And from to the point of that tweet, that post from a senior communications official within the Trump administration, F word around and find out. That's that is the attitude there. And that's that sort of where it gets to. Have we answered our own question? How far, how far can Trump go? We'll see. Yeah, to quote the great Paul Hunter. All right, look, that was a great conversation. Thanks for joining us, Louis. Pleasure.

In honor of our usual co-host, Willie Lowry. I've got this question from a listener named Melina, who left a comment for us on Spotify. She asks, this is a quote, why are Paul and Katie so unenthusiastic about the Canadian's progress in the playoffs? You know, I can come. Habs in six, Paul. Habs in six. I'm ready.

I'm going to fill in the void. I think really actually wrote that question and submitted it. I don't think. Yeah. Who is Malina? And listen, someone has to give Willie a hard time. I think, you know, having an early morning shift where he's up at 4 o'clock and having two kids under the age of seven and, you know, him and his wife try to like, you know, live their lives. I don't think that's easy enough for him.

So I would like to, like, bring him a little bit of misery. I sound like the HR module, like, which of this is workplace bullying me giving Willie a hard time about his favorite hockey? team. Paul, why do you... I will say there's a little known bylaw in Toronto. This is anybody who grew up there by law has to push back against the habs, mainly because they always beat the Leafs. That's the truth.

It's the only Canadian team in the series, Paul. Coming around. I'm coming around. I appreciate it. Thank you. I can't give you my jersey if you want for the rest of the series. If it can you know, help you. Somewhere in the Middle East, Willie Lowry is sleeping peacefully. Yeah, loving it. Listen, thanks to Malina for getting in touch with us and for listening to the podcast.

And if you have something you'd like to ask or feedback about what you're hearing, send us an email to Washington pod, all one word, at cbc.ca. That is Washingtonpod at cbc.c.com or you can leave us a comment on Spotify. And if you like what you're hearing, spread the word. Tell a friend about this podcast and follow us on your favorite podcast app and never miss an episode. Louis, thank you so much for joining us. I don't know if we want to be invited again. It's fine. It was great. That was great. Go Habs go. Yes. You got it. Thanks, you, too. That was this week's episode of two blocks from the White House.

To keep up with the latest news coming out of Washington, find and follow the show wherever you get your podcast so you don't miss an episode ever. Thanks for listening, though. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.