Bulwark Takes - Canada PM Carney Visits Trump’s Oval Office of Insanity

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Tim Miller and Sam Stein react to Canadian PM Mark Carney’s Oval Office visit shortly after winning his election, with mixed signals coming from Trump on trade policies, criticism of his own advisors, and US-Canada relations.

No offense, but your brain is a terrible place to keep your big idea. It belongs in the world, but you know that already. You have a calling, a voice that says, this is what I'm meant to do. Create the website your big idea deserves with Wix. Make it your own with top-to-bottom customization, AI to help realize your vision, and built-in business tools to turn your daydream into your dream job. Wix supports every stage of the

business journey except one. Your decision to begin. Ready? Go to Wix.com. What's the difference between DIY and doing it yourself? It's the difference between a part-time passion and a full-time business. Wix gives you the power to turn your passion into a moneymaker. With a website that fits your unique vision, let your ideas flow with AI that guides you, that keeps you in the driver's seat. Manage your business from one dashboard and keep it growing with built-in marketing features. It's time to turn your daydream into your dream job. Go to Wix.com. Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bulwark.

I am joined by Tim Miller. We just watched the new Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, at the Oval Office with Donald Trump. It was interesting on a variety of different levels. Mark Carney was just elected what, like a week ago? He gets his first trip, goes to the Oval. I was reminded of the entrance through the same door that Zelensky took, the same seat that Zelensky took. In this case, I was thinking Mark Carney legitimately should have thanked Trump because in this case, Trump gave him his election. And Trump seemed to acknowledge that early on. But this was notable not because it was contentious. It was notable because Trump backtracked in a fairly substantial way on the issue of trade.

I don't know if you watched it. I don't know if you watched it. I don't know if you have thoughts. He did. I've seen clips that I'm waiting. You were watching it minute by minute. I haven't seen a lot of walk back. I know that it's good for your spin because Sam Stein is just absolutely losing our gentleman's bet over when Trump is going to fold on the tariffs. No, I'm winning.

He pushed the 90-day delay. These tariffs are not going anywhere. I saw one clip from the press conference where he talked about how upset he is at his team for talking about all these deals. He's upset at his team for talking about all these deals. He's like, I might do a few deals, but

the tariffs are here to stay. He is pushing for autarky and he wants to crush the American economy. He wants people to have less dolls and pencils. You love that word. I do. You love that word. I'm going to be using it every single day on this YouTube for the foreseeable future

until I need to start going into my yard and gardening my own avocados. I don't really get anything from Canada. This is an aside. It had nothing to do with Carney. But yesterday, this story broke out that the CDC was issuing a salmonella warning because people were touching their chickens that they were putting in their backyard, which came after Brooke Rollins told people to grow backyard chickens to deal with the egg crisis. I think the silver lining in all of this is how do we in our backyards, we've got chickens in our backyard, how do we solve for something like this? And people are sort of looking around thinking,

wow, well, maybe I could get a chicken in my backyard. And it's awesome. Just a little bit of causation there. All right, back to Carney. Yes, that's how he backtracked. He said, look, we don't need trade deals. All my advisors are talking about deals that are coming in. No, we are not going to do deals. We have a clip of him saying just that. Play right now. We also have a situation because everyone says, when, when, when are you going to sign deals? We don't have to sign deals.

We can sign 25 deals right now, Howard, if we wanted. We don't have to sign deals. They have to sign deals with us. They want a piece of our market. We don't want a piece of their market. We don't care. All right, so what do you make of it? Like, to me, it's obvious they're not going to do deals with us. They want a piece of our market. We don't want a piece of their market. We don't care. All right. So what do you make of it? Like, to me, it's obvious they're not going to do deals. Maybe they'll have one or two, but he wants to just, I guess, to your point, maybe you will win this bet. Maybe you will. He doesn't want to do deals. He wants to set prices. Yeah,

he doesn't. He thinks he's a department store owner. He's a Maoist now. We want central planning of the entire government. That's just what he wants. He's been Maoist now. We want central planning of the entire government. That's just what he wants. He's been very explicit about it. He's been very explicit about what he wants. I know that all the Republican senators who pretend to be free market are like, I want to act like this is not what he wants to do. This is all part of some grand plan to

get to free trade and zero trade on better terms for us. That is not what he wants to do. It's not what he's planning on doing. And, you know, I mean, I think that at some level, the Canada thing, he certainly, besides like teasing them, he certainly kind of like backed off of, you know, the more aggressive rhetorical posture he's using during when Trudeau was there, but though he would not rule out, you know, still trying to acquire Canada.

You have said that Canada should become the 51st state. No, no. Well, I still believe that, but, but you know, takes two to tango,

right? But no, I do. Which is still pretty extreme, you know, pretty outside the Overton window from what past presidents have been saying about, about our dearest ally.

But like, you didn't see him. You, I, to me, I thought that the other, the other clip that I saw that was most noteworthy was basically when he's like,

we don't do that much business with Canada. Well, we don't do much business with Canada from our standpoint. They do a lot of business with us. We're at like 4%. It's only like 4% of the business that we do. It's all the cards. The cards are in my hands. And so I don't't i'm not going to get rid of the tariffs they asked like what the

concessions they would ask for and he's like nothing basically friendship i don't have concessions like he wants the tariffs this is the exchange is there anything carney can say to you today to change your mind on tariff in canada trump no question why not trump it's the way it is. Is there anything he can say to you in the course of your meetings with him today that gets you to lift tariffs on Canada? No. Why not? Just the way it is. Not much wiggle room there. Going to do tariffs. But I will say it's kind of interesting to watch that disconnect between the advisors and Trump.

The advisors were sitting there on the couches in the Oval, like Howard Lutnick is there. And he's just looking at them basically being like, you guys keep talking about these deals and how close we are to doing these deals. Sub-deals. The sub-sub-deals. We got deals. We're going to do deals on deals. That said, Trump did say that he has 200 deals ready to go. So he's talking out of both sides of his mouth. But anyways, he's out there. He's like, I think my people are doing a

bad job, basically. And they keep saying, we have these deals ready, and I don't really care. I just think I'm going to set the prices, and people can shop at our store regardless. And it's yet another case where all these trump advisors think they're doing the thing that's going to please trump and they just look silly and foolish at the end of it yeah and you know i mean in some cases you can already see it like we i was uh in the pod today with jvl like we played the clip from besant on cnbc yesterday which uh where he's talking where he's getting asked like what's the status of the china negotiations basically and he's like there is no's getting asked, like, what's the status of the China negotiations, basically?

And he's like, there is no status. So they need to make more gestures? What is it that you're looking for? And is that happening? Is there a negotiation about the negotiation? Yeah, we'll see over the coming weeks. And we'll see what President Trump wants to accept. Right.

And that's like the place that they have to go now. That's the big one. Which is like Besson's point now, big point now, is that like this is unsustainable for, he won't say our economy, but it's in the subtext. He says it's for their economy. It's unsustainable. And anything that's unsustainable will eventually end. And it's like, that's the plan? Like you're hoping that the Chinese are going to crack?

That's what Trump was saying today, too. He's like, look's the plan? Like, you're hoping that the Chinese are going to crack? That's what Trump was saying today, too. He's like, look, they are really suffering. They are really suffering over there, and they're going to bend eventually. Look, they're suffering greatly. Their economy is suffering greatly because they're not doing trade with the U.S. And they made most of their money off the U.S. Don't kid yourself. It's like, I don't know, man.

I don't know. They are pretty immune to political pressure. Yeah, were you awake during COVID? I know he was president during COVID. Do you remember what the Chinese did? I mean, you think. Pure lockdown. Yeah, and I thought closing down the parks in Berkeley,

we had some lefty status that went a little far for me. It was nothing compared to what was happening in China. People couldn't leave their fucking house. It was horrible. It was a literal dystopia in China. And that didn't... Well, there wasn't a revolution. She recovered.

No. Gained more power. So anyway, the whole prospect is ridiculous. So I thought that Carney, from my side in Canada, again, I just talked about it, so I don't watch the whole thing. From what I've seen, he did what you're supposed to do in these situations.

Right. Which is, which is like, you hold the line on your position. Like, this is no, like, Oh,

I'm trying to accommodate. You know what I mean? It's like, Oh, you know, I, and obviously he's not going to try to negotiate on whether Canada's for sale,

but you know, he's like, Canada's never for sale. It's like the white house. It's not like he did not budge. There's not like, Oh, I'm going to listen.

Like when Trump said the only do 4% of business, he kind of was like, no, actually, we have a lot of business together. It's important that we do business together. He did a few things that I don't really like that I wouldn't want to do, which is, you know, like he does kind of this backhanded compliment of Trump where he's like, you know, Trump has really reinvigorated NATO. The president has revitalized international security, revitalized NATO, and us playing our full weight in NATO. Right. It's like, well, yeah. I mean, he has kind of by, like, threatening to break up NATO, and now all the NATO countries are doing more. So I get that.

I guess that counts. I guess that counts. So he does, like, little things like that where there are these sort of Canadian nice compliments. But it's nothing. It wasn't – he was not doing what Trump – the kiss the ring, the oh, now we're going to – oh, let's all be friends. That thing wasn't really happening. No, and I did notice that. And the other thing that I noticed was how succinct his comments were whenever he –

He basically sat there for a lot of it and and then he chose his spots, and he said, no, we're not going to be for sale. That will never change. Never going to be the fifth or first date. But you know what? We can build on our USMCA talks, and that's why we're here. And part of the way you've conducted these tariffs has taken advantage of existing aspects of USMCA.

So it's going to have to change. There's other elements that are come and that's part of what we're going to discuss. And then that was it. He like literally stopped. And then suddenly it's like, oh, well, Trump's going to talk again. And then Trump would like divert into, you know, he had this weird aside about how Obama needed to build his library with woke workers. It was very weird. President Obama. And if I, if he wanted help, I'd give him help because I'm a really good builder and I build on time, on budget. He's building his library in Chicago.

It's a disaster. And he said something to the effect, I only want DEI. I only want woke. He wants woke people to build it. But yeah, I thought Carney did what you're supposed to do, which is go in there, say your bit, get out. Yeah. We can work together on security stuff national security and like that was like basically there was there was one moment where trump kind of admitted that

uh you know he fucked it all up for the conservatives in canada where he was like you know you probably owe me one sir and i was like yeah he probably that's all you want so he won a very big election in canada and i think I was probably the greatest thing that happened to him, but I can't say the vote. Any other final thoughts before we close this one out? It's a strange world that we're in, Sam. I don't have any other thoughts beyond that. Okay, cool.

All right. Thank you, buddy. Appreciate it. Thank you guys for watching. We'll catch you later. Oh, Canada. Oh, Canada.