Front Burner - FB Exclusive: Trump's re-election, one year later

Episode Date: November 8, 2025

One year after Trump’s election, the U.S. looks very different than it did in 2024. PM Mark Carney has dubbed Trump “transformative”, and there’s no indication the president is shifting gears. CBC’s Washington correspondents – Paul Hunter, Katie Simpson and Louis Blouin – take stock of the last year, talking to Americans about whether they still stand by their votes, and assessing what’s ahead for Canada.

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over-delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing.

Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hey, I'm Damon Fairless, podcast host here at CBC and sometimes guest host a front burner. If you're a regular listener to Frontburner, you'll know we've spent a lot of time over the past year talking about the massive impact Donald Trump's having on us here in Canada. Well, my colleagues in Washington have been thinking back to Election Day just over a year ago, and they've been talking to Americans in key regions where the votes swung in favor of. Trump to find out if they still support or regret their choice. Paul Hunter, Katie Simpson, and Louis Bluin recently sat down to talk about that and about how the past year of Trump has impacted their work, too, as Canadians in D.C.

We have that conversation now as a front burner exclusive. Have a listen. We're gathered today on the one-year anniversary of the single most consequential election victory they say this is them this isn't me I'm a very modest person I would never say this can you believe

it's been 12 months already like blink blur I looked at my daytimeer today and it's like full of it's full of scrawls because I'm just jotting down stuff as it goes 12 months just like that everything moves so quickly it feels like nothing really sticks like you just blink and you're here

you've moved countries yes I came in the summer so it looks even shorter for me. But, you know, it seems long at the same time, in a way. Well, welcome to D.C. Thank you. Hey, I'm Paul Hunter, and I'm senior correspondent for the CBC here in Washington. I'm Katie Simpson. I'm also

a senior correspondent here in Washington. I'm Louis Bluyn. I'm the U.S. correspondent for Radio Canada. The new guy. We are here in the CBC Bureau in Washington, D.C. I suppose we should tell people listening where we are specifically, the historic national press building, as everyone knows. Fun fact.

Both of you, once the tallest commercial building in D.C. Really? Yes. Did you know that? I don't know. Fun fact. But this is the place we go to work every day.

And to get here, we walk by all the sights and scenes you've seen in the movies about D.C. The Washington Monuments, not far away. Capital building just up Pennsylvania Avenue. And we are literally two blocks from the White House. And the best part about that, between here and there, there is a really good bar. And it's about the size of an entire block. So, you know what? If it's been a day, they're open late.

We can go. This office is always busy, hence certain necessities. But the past year has been especially busy. From the moment U.S. President Donald Trump was reelected, there was no question. It was going to be an administration that had an impact. Or as Mark Carney has put it, he is transformative. So here we are. It's just a few days past the one year mark, as we were saying, since the 2020.

election. And so it's time to talk a little bit about how America has changed and how our relationship, Canada's relationship with this country has changed and give everyone a sense of what we're hearing from people who live and work not only here in Washington, but also across the country. I was in Los Angeles, I guess, early in the summer, late spring when the National Guard, the first wave, I guess, moved in. Katie, you were in Texas the other day, right? And Louis, where were you? North Carolina. North Carolina, yeah. Speaking of with people. So I want to hear more about both of your trips in a second. But let's start by going back a year. Katie, deep breath. It's almost hard to imagine it now. But take us back

into the headspace that the world was in as the election campaign wrapped up last November. There was a time, a long, long time ago on a planet so far away when people thought Joe Biden had a shot at re-election. That's, I guess, where we sort of have to start. And there had been so much pressure sort of building around his campaign because there had been questions about his health, his mental health and sort of fitness for duty. And it all sort of, everything changed the night that Joe Biden decided to debate Donald Trump at CNN. I was there in Atlanta. And we watched.

All of us watched. as it unfolded and it appeared, it was this disastrous performance. And I'll never forget, sitting in this huge arena at these tables that are all set up, and everyone was just silent. Because I don't think anyone realized, you know, just how bad things were in terms of Joe Biden's ability to participate in something like this. And from there, it was the wheels were off the bus. Biden was going to be out within a matter of three weeks. Kamala Harris was going to be, you know,

ushered right on in running that campaign to the end. There was a bit of a surge in democratic support, some new hope. Then, of course, you know, we saw what happened, you know, Donald Trump picking up every single swing state. And not to mention in the middle of all that, just in the lead up to the election that Trump was shot at and the fight, fight, fight, and, you know, there were multiple points where you could say everything changed. That was a movie. It was incredible. but there we were on election night and it was unlike 2016 you know my recollection of 2016 was everybody knew how it was going to end and that was Hillary Clinton was going to win right and

then came the what on earth has just happened a year ago now it was like it was kind of I mean it could go either way was I think the general thinking but it didn't obviously Louis, you were watching from Ottawa that night as Radio Canada's Parliamentary Bureau Chief. What were the expectations then for the Canadian government as it waited to see who would be the next president? Everybody was holding their breaths for sure. And I remember the next day in Parliament, in the corridors of Parliament. And I remember the shock on the ministers of this liberal government. We're trying in the scrums to say, no, no, everything is all right.

We've been through this before. and we have the experience. We know we're going to have to negotiate, you know, or revise this trade deal next year. But everybody was trying to play it cool. But you saw in their face that they were just saying, oh, my God, here we go again, you know. And we could feel that shock for like a whole week in Ottawa.

And you know what? Since then, we got the 51st state. So this feeling that emerged the day after the election is still very present. But since we're looking at this snapshot in time, Let's talk about the mood here and now a year after that night. Louis, you just got back from North Carolina. Where did you go? And who did you speak with?

Yeah, I wanted to see what are the impacts of the so-called big, beautiful bill that I was adopted in the summer, where, you know, that there were massive cuts to Medicaid, $930 billion over the next 10 years. There's also restricting on the conditions to get access to the SNAP program, the food stamps here in the U.S. These are, like, very crucial programs for people who don't have a lot of revenue. So I wanted to see her year in, you know, do people feel betrayed by this bill? And do they see the impact? And what about cost of living? Because inflation is not under control in the U.S.

There's big pressure. And I met this family in Raleigh in North Carolina, the Arondo family. And I spoke with the mother who was a teacher. She's a Democrat. And she was very angry. And she explained to me how they feel the pinch right now, like big time. She's a teacher. She doesn't get a paycheck in the summer.

And they have to delay payments during the summer that they had to make on their house. And I ask her, you know, do you think they're going to pay a price? Should they be afraid the Republicans if we're looking at the midterms? She's a Republican? She's a Democrat. Okay. I know that they're afraid of the midterms. And so...

Should they? Yeah, they should be because people are pissed. I mean, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention. And I think, you know, a lot of people are tuning out because it's a shit. It's a dumpster fire every day and it keeps growing, you know? You can use a word if you want. It's a shit show. So that's a colorful way of putting it.

But, you know, people that I met, there are some people who were really pissed about what's happening. And in North Carolina, there's going to be a very tight Senate race there. and cost of living might be central to the issues. I also went to Western North Carolina, where I met a family doctor, Dr. Shannon Dowler. She was in charge of expanding program of Medicaid in the state a few years ago. And now she's just worried that Medicaid cuts will maybe put this expansion in danger. Like it's more than 600,000 people could lose their coverage in the state.

So she's very worried. And then again, I asked her, do you think the Republicans could pay the price? She's not sure about it. I'm really afraid they're not. I'm afraid that the misinformation that is so abundant and circulating everywhere is going to keep people from really understanding what's happening. I think also there's people just have sort of fixed false beliefs about the way the world is, this belief that people are taking advantage of the system and sitting at home and eating bonbons instead of working. and so they're on public assistance. That is just not my lived experience with over 20 years as a family doctor.

So she's afraid and she think that Republicans might not pay the full price for this. Yeah. So we'll see what the impact is. And I spoke with some Republican voters while I was there and I asked about the Medicaid cuts. And a lot of them were just repeating the lines that we heard from the Oval Office, from the president, saying, you know, we need to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. I've heard a lot of that in this program. I've met not in this cycle, but I have met,

with Republican voters in eastern Kentucky, not too far from where you were. I met a guy who was a coal miner, laid off serious health issues, black lung. And at the time, Trump was looking to cut Obamacare, and he was terrified of this, but he still backed Donald Trump. It's one of the paradoxes of the political landscape in this country in the era of Trump. the, and I get it that Trump's disapproval ratings, you know, he's really dropping, as, by the way, do most presidents when they, after the initial sort of wave goes by, but Trump's is dropping a lot. And yet, historically, he has been able to rely on people who no matter what will stand by him. Is it enough? Is the question, you know, in elections to come? Katie, you were just in Texas. What did you get up to down there? So we decided to check in with voters one year after the election, and we picked this place called Star County. It's in southwest Texas.

It's on the border with Mexico. And we picked it because for 132 years in a row, the voters there had always voted for whoever was the Democratic nominee for president. But that changed in 2024. Trump flipped it. He won. And it was his message on immigration. And it was his message on the economy that really resonated. here. And it's one of the poorest places in all of the United States to live. It's the median

income, it can go anywhere from about $35,000 a year to about $38,000 a year. There are some real challenges in finding good jobs. Immigration has helped grow this community a significant amount. More than 90% of the people who live there are Hispanic. And so it sort of illustrated some of the bigger, broader trend lines we saw in the last election. And that's why we decided to go there. We spoke with the mayor of one of the towns called Roma. His name is Mayor Jamie Escobar. And he voted for Trump. He's actually a split voter.

And this is something that we noticed. He voted for Democrats at lower level offices, but voted for Trump. And he talked about his city hall office is next to this historic plaza, which is right on the Rio Grande River. And he talked about how frequently he would see people, they would either come across in like a little raft and come up and surrender to Border Patrol. which is one way to formally start the asylum-seeking process. Surrender, yeah, surrender.

Yeah, here we are. Come across and surrender and seek asylum and start that process. Other times, he said he would see people crossing and then making a run for it. Neither was necessarily unusual in terms of it could go either way. And he described to us how that has changed in the months since Donald Trump came into office. Since Donald Trump has become president, we haven't seen the same type of a, situations. We don't see illegal crossings. Like I mentioned, they could be happening. They just don't happen here like we used to see them here in this area. How does that make you feel? I think that for

the citizens here in Roma makes them feel secure. A lot of the neighbors were concerned that maybe people would be breaking in. They were concerned that sometimes the migrants, even though they're well-intentioned, a lot of them are. They just want to come for a better life. They were in fear that that maybe they would be their homes would be broken into or just they're not used to so much traffic. So it was a now I feel like they feel a lot more secure. So he described the difference as like night and day. According to customs and border patrol, crossings illegally into the U.S. are at a 55 year low during the peak of the immigration crisis under the Biden administration. It was like 5,000 people a day that were being stopped. Now it's down to about 230 or so people a day.

So the numbers have changed. People are not showing up on the southern border like they had been in the past. And so when we talk to Trump voters about it, there was a lot of satisfaction on that. Like, has your life gotten any better since Trump? I feel it has. You know, it has. I feel it a little more at ease, you know. I think that something's happening, you know.

What do you think about some of the stuff Donald Trump says and does about immigration? I used to be an immigration officer, so I think he's doing great. What do you like about the changes he's brought in? I love everything, everything. So there is support for that aspect of Trump's agenda. But the one place where we did find some sort of common ground between Democrats and Republicans, and Louie, you touched on it as well, it's the affordability issue. We talked to people that are having a really hard time buying groceries.

I spoke with one woman who said she tries to go grocery shopping once every month or once every two months if she can stretch it out. grocery prices are not down despite what Donald Trump has said and there has been some changes on some key issues like eggs the price of eggs they've stabilized the price of gas has stabilized but overall people are not

finding life is any easier in this moment those concerns about how am I going to feed my family how am I going to pay my rent or how am I going to pay a mortgage that is front and center and you know when we look at the elections

the local elections that happened this week in New York, in New Jersey, in Virginia. You know, cost of living was central. And the Democrat candidates, one, played that card like very well, as Oran Mamdani articulated his whole program on it, and it seems that it paid off while the president these days is talking about, you know, a ballroom.

A ballroom. He's throwing a great Gatsby party for Halloween the day before the food stamp will stop. So there's a risk for him, I think, at this moment, to appear disconnected from voters. Yeah, and just to clarify what we're talking about for everybody, there were three elections in this country this week, the mayoral race in New York City that Louis was referencing also the election of two governors, both Democrat in New Jersey and Virginia. I think it's fair to say Democrats feel pretty good about those elections this week. And even if Donald Trump wouldn't say so, a lot of Republicans has given them pause. I think the stories that both of you tell are a reminder, though.

I think a lot of people think there's one single thing that is going to turn and just watch that thing. But in fact, it's a mosaic. Different people in different parts of the country, city, rural, different issues matter to different people. Texas is, you know, come back to the elections this week, but just pick up on what you're talking about, Texas. That has been this place that Democrats have long had their eye on. Surely this is the time, right? But the next presidential is still a long way away, and memory can be short. And so if, to come back to inflation, that gets under, he's got a long time to get that under control.

You know, Katie, you were watching the elections this week. What did you think about? Yeah. So I think the mayoral race in New York City is obviously the one to watch because this is, Mamdani is a transformative figure when it comes to politics in America. At a time when the Democrats do not have any sort of clear leadership, is this the direction? that the party wants to go, he delivered a message on affordability, on making, you know, life easier in New York City, and it's a message that absolutely did resonate. He's being vilified

by the Republicans, and you can sort of look at that sort of two ways. Is it because they're scared that his message might gain traction, or are they concerned about the changes he's going to bring in? I think watching him going forward is going to be certainly, you know, if he is successful in making life more affordable in New York City, and he remains popular. Are we going to see Democrats sort of hitch their wagon to him? The other thing that stands out to me as well, and this is more of sort of Washington, D.C. kind of thing, is the election in Virginia and the way that there was democratic surges, and it's likely because so many federal government employees lost their jobs.

Doge came in and has sort of been a wrecking ball to the federal public service and if you didn't lose your job, you know, chances are you were treated very, very poorly and morale is not great in this moment. You don't know whether your job is going to stick around. You're worried you might lose

your job if you haven't. Exactly. And now the federal government is shut down. Everything is sort of, if you are in that space where, you know, federal government jobs generally are considered very stable, very good jobs and all these people in the suburbs around Washington, D.C., who contribute to the Federal Public Service, getting doged, it did not go well for Republicans. I know that that's just one very specific local sort of thing, but it played out that way.

But this week, Donald Trump was saying, oh, you know, we lost because I wasn't on the ballot, but you know what? He was on the ballot, right? You know, you mentioned the cuts, but also in New Jersey, there's this big infrastructure project between New Jersey and New York that he cancel the funding and the Democratic candidate just played big time on it and it served well. So that's where, you know, it was a bit about Trump too this week. On every ballot, he was right there between the lines. Yes. Absolutely. So, yeah, the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays, right? So we're not going to talk about that, but we will draw Canada into this. Look, each of us has at different times covered Parliament Hill. You two more recently than me. But we all know

Canadians who are here working the Canada file vis-vis the White House and Capitol Hill. to both of you now. I mean, let's characterize how the U.S. counter relationship has changed from the time you were on the hill. Louis, you were there most recently. It's been just a short time for you here. Yeah. Well, for me, it's the contrast between, you know, when they were able in the first Trump mandate to negotiate and have this plain land on the NAFTA renegotiation at the time.

But then here we go, chapter two, second round. And we're just going through this kind of trade. nightmare again. And it's like we didn't move. We didn't advance. And yeah, there's kind of a feeling of deja vu for me when I look at what's happening. It's so unprecedented. And, you know, there's nothing you can really control with the president in those negotiations. So at some point, I wonder where this plane is going to land. We thought it landed, but, you know, it didn't. What I've been told, and I've reported on this across various CBC platforms, is every sort of signal I get from everyone who's actually involved in what's going on is that during Trump 1.0

when Canadian officials were negotiating with their counterparts. So say it was Christia Freeland, was dealing with U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer. If the two of them came to an agreement and Robert Lighthizer had signed off on it, you could guarantee, okay, this is good, excellent, off to the White House, Donald Trump's going to approve it, and on we go. That is completely out the window now. Also, Canada found people who were allies during the Trump administration nodding to Jared Kushner about how much he helped advanced Canadian issues, you know, saying the Canadians

would get a call. You know, Trump's at a good mood right now. Now might be the time to sort of make an approach and maybe make an inquiry about this. And they had help along the way to get to sort of a landing zone because there were people around the president who A had influence and B, saw the value in the Canada-U.S. relationship. We're now in a time where different members of the Trump administration have different ideas about what should be going. And if Canadian officials are talking to an American official, whether it's Howard Lutnik or Jameson Greer, who's a new U.S. trade representative, or if it's even Scott Bessent, whoever it is

they're talking with, they all go in and make pitches to the president and nothing is guaranteed. And they're not finding that they have the same kind of allies around the table that Canada had previously. They're looking for a handle, right? And I think they don't have it. And I was told it was even raised, does Carney play golf? You know, could he go and have a game with the president and try to smooth things off? And apparently it doesn't play very well. So they're kind of looking. Maybe that's a good thing. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it could be. But, you know, they're looking for ins. And it seems that it's difficult. I agree with you that the most complicating factor, I guess, besides the obvious, is just the unpredictability of it. That nobody knows.

what will come tomorrow and that's that's a problem no matter no matter how you slice it I thought you're going to say the most complicating factor is that Mark Carney's not good at golf we're going to get a call from PMO saying he is an excellent golfer this assent isn't for everyone you need grit to climb this high this often you've got to be an underdog that always over delivers you've got to be six thousand five hundred hospital staff one thousand dollars is all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough.

Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo.ca.a. Canada faces an unprecedented political crisis. Overregulation is stifling the economy. Young people are frustrated by unaffordable housing and unstable gig jobs and regional tensions threaten unity in Quebec and the prairies. And Breaking Point, Darrell Bricker and John Ibitson explore this crisis with urgency for action on how we save Canada, available now in hardcover and audiobook.

I get so many questions from Canadians when I go back to Canada about what it's like to work here and cover U.S. politics per the way we've been talking here. I mean, if you're listening right now and you're wondering about anything we've been talking about or have a question that we haven't answered, we want to know what you've. want to know about. If you're listening on Spotify, please drop in a comment and let us know. Katie, what questions do you get when you go home? Is it as chaotic as it looks? And the short answer is yes. I was in Vancouver recently to speak to an audience of journalists just about what this moment is. And the story I told to sort of like sum up, it was, we'll go back to January. Donald Trump was inaugurated. And one of the first things he did was he signed an executive order granting pardons to the people who were convicted of crimes or anything related to

January 6th. And he did that at night the next day. We all got wind of the scenes that were happening outside the jail in Washington, D.C. So we get a camera and we head on over. And what I witnessed over the course of like three hours was just so surreal. And it sort of starts, we get there and there's a there's a few maybe a couple dozen pro January 6 supporters who were there at the scene a couple of them have megaphones so they're making a lot of noise and um you know they're they're they're there they're demonstrating they're waiting for people to be released but they're so loud that you actually see that there's an apartment building right beside the jail and people in the building start lifting up their windows and start screaming out at them screaming you know January 6 you wrecked our city and it it gets heated there's expletives being lost bunched back and forth, back and forth. And then it goes from that to a hurling and exchange of racial slurs back and forth, back and forth. So as that's happening, that's one thing. It sort of dies down and Peters out. At the same time, there's another group of protesters. They're demonstrators in support of January 6 people. And they seem to be extremely religious. They're holding hands. They're standing in a circle. They're saying prayers. They're singing hymns. They're bursting into God bless America, the national anthem. That's happening. And at the same time, who walks in next but the proud boys, ready to welcome anyone from their group that had been incarcerated as a result of January 6th. So they're there. And then in the crowd, I see a guy that he's wearing a hat that says Biden sucks.

And there are a lot of journalists sort of around him. But what stands out to him about me is I can see his shoes. And he's wearing orange prison-issued sneakers. So I know this is a guy who had just come out of a job. jail. Sure enough, he agrees to speak with us. And we do our interview. He was arrested, charged, convicted on violent offenses related to January 6th. And he was just awaiting his sentencing. So we do our interview and, you know, I'm asking him, what do you think, what do you say to people who don't think you should be granted a pardon and all this kind of stuff?

We finish up the interview. And the interview ends and the camera's off and I'm sort of just still talking to him. And he starts making fun of me for being Canadian. And he's like, so when are, When are you guys going to be the 51st state? And I'm like, when I think about all the things in America right now and all the different things that are going on, it's that story. It's that moment that sort of all of it encapsulated into one, all of these different challenges and tensions. And then on top of it, we're dealing with, hey, when are you going to be the 51st state? It's just, it's just so surreal. I got a lot of apologies.

I was in New York this week for the mayoral race. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, York, Canada. I'm so sorry about our president. I get that a lot. I think it depends where you go, though. And that speaks to the divide here, right?

If you go, I mean, it's, it's, you get the 51st state jokes if you're in a Republican area. Yep. Yep. The apologies if you're in a Democrat area. Yeah. It's bizarre. It's very interesting and very telling, I think. Look, you know, it feels like we have lots more to talk about, but it's executive decision time by me.

So let's end this conversation for now by looking ahead. Louis, what are you looking forward to in the year ahead? First, cost of living. We've been talking about it. Is inflation will come back. under control. I think that could make a big difference for the midterms, control of Congress and you know what will happen to the next presidential election. So that's one. Second, will there be any maneuvers from this administration to try and control the way the voting process will happen?

You know, we've seen all these redistricting fights happening in a lot of states, but could it go further than that? Like, I think we should be expecting anything and be ready for anything. Katie, what about you? Tariffs. What is going to happen with the Supreme Court case? The Supreme Court justices in asking questions of the Trump administration about tariffs seemed quite skeptical. Really making it very clear that tariffs are taxes on U.S. citizens and sort of returning back to the fact that is Congress that has control of taxation of American citizens, it doesn't just simply lie with the president. And so what's going to happen on tariffs Are those tariffs going to be overturned?

What's going to happen to the markets? What's going to happen to small businesses? What will this do for Canada? Will the courts bring some relief? Or here's another question. We can have a conversation on another day. If the courts overturn this, does Donald Trump say, you know what? Will all these other tariffs, raise them?

More tariffs? Bring them in. More sex? Find another way. Yeah, find another way to do it to make up for the money that they have to give back. It's tariffs all day, tariff, tariff, and then another tariff. For me, I think I'm going to say Democrats, whither Democrats, right? I mean, you know, Trump's popularity is dropping, as we were noting earlier, and we've seen the rallies with Bernie Sanders and Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

and the tens of thousands of people, et cetera. But the messaging is complicated for Democrats. And can they take advantage of reduced popularity for Trump? I'll never, I think it's always important to remember that 77 million people voted for Trump a year ago, because they believed in a lot of what he was messaging at the time. And there are still many tens of millions who full, notwithstanding the conversation we've just had, who full on support the Trump policies and the Trump mandate. And so I think Democrats, per the elections this week, might be thinking they've got an opening here. But can they,

can they hone their message to something that matters? To, you know, a lot of people would say, move away from the far left, get to the center to get into the jargon of it all, right? What are they going to do to get back to where they think they should be is, I think, one of the things to watch this year. Okay, that's it for us here in our perch two blocks from the White House, but we'll pick things up and be back again with you next week. It's all part of our look at America through a Canadian lens as we hit the one-year mark since the U.S. presidential election.

Thanks, everyone. and I'm Paul Hunter, joined by my colleagues here at our CBC and Radio Canada Bureau in Washington. And I'm Katie Simpson. And I'm Louis Bluin, a U.S. correspondent for Radio Canada in the U.S. The new guy. Yeah. Talk again soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca.com.