The Ben Mulroney Show - A bridge deal too far for Trump? How the Las Vegas plea for tourists has played out

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

GUEST:  DEREK STEVENS – CEO Circa Casino Las Vegas Guest: Carmi Levy / Tech journalist If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. At MedCan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds.

That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup that provides a clear picture of your health today and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. The healthier you means more moments to cherish. Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today. Medcan, live well for life.

Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. Congratulations to the Canadian short-track speed skating mixed team relay for winning a silver medal at these Winter Olympics. Welcome to the show. I'm Ben Mulroney. And by the way, we've been talking a lot about the halftime show. at the Super Bowl. I have said many times

I didn't believe that I was necessarily the target demographic. I enjoyed it very much far more than I thought I would. But if I'm not the target demographic, then Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario

is most certainly not the target demo. Let's listen to his assessment of that show. Especially that halftime. That was a good one. Bad bunny. Yeah, bad bunny, big bunny, whatever the bunny.

was. The only bunny I know was Bugs Bunny. He's more famous than all of them. Tell me you're an old man without telling me you're an old man. It was such a good line. It's such a good line. But he really is really really leading into old man screaming at clouds. Even though he wasn't screaming at clouds, he was giving Bad Bunny a compliment. Bad Bunny a compliment. How many of these kids even know who Bugs Bunny is? No one does, I have to think. None of them do. I don't know. I mean, it hasn't been on, I don't know if it's been on TV for a line. So, so there was a movie that was a movie that was,

that was made, Bill Hader was in it. Right? You know, this- Love Bill Hader. Okay, so Bill Hader was in this movie, and it was a mix of animation and live action. And it was about a lawsuit between the Acme Company and somebody else, right? So it was about all.

And this movie was apparent. Bill Hader said it was one of the funniest things he's ever made. And it got shelved and never to be seen. And he was very upset about it. And for some reason, in the past couple of months, They changed course on it and they are going to release it. And so it's a big, big, like for him, a big celebration. But it's movies like that that will introduce those characters to younger generations.

Without that, I don't know that kids are watching those cartoons anymore. Would it be, is it to, is Bugs Bunny to the kids today what, say, Steamboat Willie was to us? Remember the first Disney cartoon ever? That was like 50 years before we were born? But don't you remember, like, a few years ago when the world had lost its mind? They didn't want kids to see that because it was violent and it was You know

It promoted I don't know what it did I just thought it was funny right But they didn't like it A lot of people didn't like it Because it was it portrayed violence In a comic I don't know what it was so stupid

Anyway Listen we want to back into this first story And I want to thank Donald Trump I want to send him a thank you Because his thoroughly unhinged and untethered from reality, truth social about the new Gordie Howe bridge has been an entry point for so many of us today to learn about that bridge and to learn about the history of the border crossing between Windsor and Detroit. Without his

ridiculous statement that that, that, like I said, it has absolutely no relation to the world we're actually living in. Without that statement by him, most people would not have known anything about this new bridge, how it came to be, why it was necessary, and the ingenious method by which Canadians and people in Michigan, Michiganders, were able to get around one of the most obstructionist human beings in history. So as a primer, Donald Trump, for some reason, took to his true social, and he threatened to block the opening of the bridge unless the U.S. gets, quote, half ownership, even though Canada paid for the entire $6.4 billion cost after Michigan couldn't secure funding. We're going to get into that in a second.

The story is incredible. Yeah. It's incredible. There's a lot of backstory to the full story. But Drew Dilkins, the mayor of Windsor. Yeah, so this was Drew Dilkins, the mayor of Windsor, going on. record. This is really regretful because this type of construction is something you see once in a generation, if that. And in any normal time, this would be an opening of a bridge that you would have

a prime minister and a president fly in to meet in the middle, shake hands, cut the ribbon, and celebrate this binational relationship. And look, Mark Carney, I'm going to do something that some might shock people. Mark Carney's take and his tone upon a, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, talking to the president and then we're counting back that call, that's exactly what we needed in this moment. We didn't need somebody to turn the volume up to 11 to get all upset. We needed somebody who would very calmly, methodically, and dispassionately dispel the president of all the BS that he was spouting. Let's listen to the prime minister. Explain the facts. I explained that Canada, of course, paid for the construction of the bridge over $4 billion. That the ownership is

shared between the state of Michigan and the government of Canada and that in the construction of the bridge, obviously there's Canadian steel, Canadian workers, but also U.S. Steel, U.S. workers that were involved. This is a great example of cooperation between our countries. And in 2017, he stood prior, the Trump stood shoulder-shoulder with Justin Trudeau at touting how great this bridge was, couldn't wait for it to open. In fact, his administration called it a priority project. So this is the same man who signed the renegotiated NAFTA, only to turn around and say it was the worst deal of all time. So this is the type of mental bait and switch that Mark Carney is dealing with. I do not envy him this sort of relationship, but he asked for it.

He got the keys. And now he's got to drive us to the promise land. But a lot of people, if they don't know the history and they don't know the story, are asking, why did we pay for the whole thing? and why is it going to be owned partially between us and them if we paid for everything, including a quarter billion dollar customs plaza on the American side? Well, the story is interesting, right? So Michigan Democrats, well, sorry, not Michigan Democrats, there's a guy named Mani, sorry, Maddie Maroon. Manuel Maddie Maroon.

And he was a Detroit billionaire. He bought the Ambassador Bridge back in the 70s, right? Apparently had been around since the 20s. But he was odd. He became a private owner of one of the busiest border crossings between Canada and the United States. At its peak, $300 million of goods go across that bridge each and every day. That's how impactful it is to our economy. And when...

And it really was the only crossing? It was the only crossing. Because there is a tunnel, but you can't take the trucks through there. Then in 2002, Jean-Cretzien and George W. Bush got together. and said, yeah, we need another bridge. We need another bridge. This is a choke point at this point. We cannot get the goods across that need to get across as quickly as we need to get them

across. So 2002 is when this started happening. However, Maroon didn't like this. He wanted to be the only game in town. So he started buying land in the exact area needed for the Gordi Howe bridge for the connection to the roads. He refused to sell. He forced governments into lengthy expropriation battles.

He probably added 10 to 12 years. easily. Easily to this. He filed lawsuits claiming the government had no right to build access roads through his properties. Massive political lobby. Massive political lobby. And so this is what Canada did. In 2012, Canada told Michigan, we will pay for the entire bridge.

We'll cover the U.S. Customs Plaza. We'll pay for the U.S. Highway connections. You don't owe anything up front. We will recoup the costs through tolls over decades. It's estimated to think about 60 years for us to recoup all those costs through tolls. And then once that happens, happens, then we split the proceeds 50-50. And why did we do that? Because it allowed the Michigan

governor who was a fan of this project and knew how vital it was to approve the project without needing the legislature, which apparently had a lot of allies of Maroon. He had bought the legislature in Michigan. So this, this allowed, if there was no money that was required, this could just be a signing ceremony and this bypassed Maroon's influence. Isn't this story? It is wild. But here, Here's why Donald Trump should love this. The man who criticized us for not taking border security properly. This bridge is going to have the capability to scan things that are going across to ensure that less contraband gets across. Human trafficking is going to be easier to spot.

More customs agent, more border patrol, just more people, more, the debit of you're going to have more things going across and more ability and capability to make sure that the stuff that's not supposed to cross doesn't cross. This is a dream come true for Donald Trump. Look, he couldn't get Mexico to pay for the wall. He got Canada to pay for a bridge. I don't know what the problem is. But maybe this is the entry point we need to finally start launching back into the negotiations with Donald Trump. This is a physical manifestation of the integrated economies between Canada and the United States

and a demonstration of cooperation, the likes of which doesn't exist elsewhere in the world. the world. So I commend everybody for getting this bridge done. Can't wait for it to be done. And hopefully he will show up for the ribbon cutting ceremony. All right, when we come back, my intrepid producer had a conversation with one of the biggest names in Las Vegas about how to get Canadians down to Sin City. All right, Mike Trolay sitting in for Ben Roll Rooney. Let's talk Vegas, because for years, Canadians practically treated it like a second home. Lately, that love affair, let's be honest, it's cooled a bit. But one guy who's determined to change that is Derek Stevens.

The man behind, let me see, let's list us off. Circuit Resorted Casino, the D, Las Vegas, Golden Gate Hotel and Casino. And he's also got the giant sports book, the pool parties, the energy. And now he wants Canadians back in a big way. So what's the plan? What's getting in the way and how do you convince people to make the trip when the dollar isn't exactly helping? So Derek is. Derek Stevens joins us now.

Derek, did I get that right? Did I get all the list right? I think you did. I think you did. Yeah, you know, for me, I own the three casinos here in Las Vegas, Circa, Las Vegas. I own the D-Las Vegas and the Golden Gate.

I grew up in a border town in Detroit. So I was back and forth the Windsor off in. My father went to the University of Toronto. I've got a lot of family and friends from Toronto to Leamington to Windsor. And I remembered what it was like. Like, let's say, for example, after a Red Wings game, how many hotels and restaurants and bars put up a sign that showed a Canadian flag with an equal sign to a U.S. flag or a Canadian dollar with an equal sign to a U.S. dollar. And it was a way to make sure that you could communicate that Canadians are welcome and wanted and we're going to treat the currency at par. And I just thought, you know, maybe on a grander scale here 30-some years later,

maybe that's something I felt that I didn't need it to do for Las Vegas and obviously for our properties. But I felt I'd be the right CEO to put it out there to really make sure that Canadians felt welcome. That was my number one thing. And then like you said, you said, you know, when the exchange rate gets a little out of whack, doing an at-par promotion kind of kind of helps get things going. again. I'm curious. Your connection to Canada, I guess you're in Gross Point, correct?

Yeah, I grew up in Gross Point right at Lake St. Clair. And literally from my house, I could see Windsor. Yeah. That was before the windmills on the lake. But yeah, right across, right across Lake St. Clair. And, you know, the sound carried. So, so I could hear, I could hear Canada when there was a big, when there was something big back, back then I would say when there's big gold by the maple leaves or something like that. Come on, you're hurting me. You're hurting me with that. My parents still live in the same house, though, and over last October,

every time the Blue Jays scored a run on this great, great run they had in the baseball playoffs, you can hear, you can literally hear Canada Roar from the house I grew up in. A lot of people don't realize how tight-knit that community is down there in southwestern Ontario, where, and in Michigan, around Detroit. people in Detroit in winter, they go over the border so often and they're so integrated. So obviously you had that connection. Do you think you'd be doing this Canadian a dollar, I don't know, do you call it a promotion, if you didn't have that connection to Canada?

I don't know, probably not. I mean, for me, I saw it pretty regularly. Whenever the exchange rate got out of whack, I would see this at par come up. Now, I haven't really seen it in the last 20 years, but now I live in Vegas the last 20 years. You know, it's not something that's at top of mind. But I remembered that and I remembered how it really kind of drove business. And like I said, you know, sometimes it's the exchange rate. Sometimes there's other things.

And I think in today's political climate, I just thought it would be worthwhile to make sure that I said, hey, uh, hey, Canada, I want to make sure you know, you still got some friends in America. You've got some friends very specifically in Las Vegas and, and you're welcome. you know, if I would have just put out a statement saying, hey, Canada, you're welcome. I don't think we would have gotten a lot of publicity. But I think by by doing that along with saying, hey, your currency is at par at any of our three hotels for hotel reservations, your, your, your, your, your currency is at par for a bar in each one of my places and even a gaming promotion.

I don't think it would have gotten as much play. But I think I think right now, because, you know, we've got this spat between our countries, it doesn't mean all, all the people feel that way. We're still best friends with Canada. We're Canada of the United States. We're best friends. We are allies. And I grew up watching, watching the economic impact that the Ambassador Bridge had with

trucks going back and forth or in Sarnia to Port Huron and the Blue Water Bridge. America is much better with Canada as its best friend. And Canada is, you know, in the same position with the mayor. If you could convince some people in Washington of that, that would be super helpful because, I mean, there's a lot of feelings that are hurt. there's a lot of because we've always you know I used to live down in Windsor and I've always felt a connection

I've always had we've always had a connection with the Americans with the states I went over and covered the war in Afghanistan so I was embedded with some of the Americans as long as well as the Canadians and I saw how we work together and I saw two countries supporting each other Canada very much supporting the war on terror with that

conflict and then all of this happened and a lot of Canadians said ah Are you kidding me? Really? Does, you know, that friendship not go back so far? Clearly, I mean, I can, I can hear it in your voice. You feel the same way. I absolutely feel the same way. I mean, I wish this, this political spat between our countries was over with and was over with quickly. I do think when we look back upon history, we're going to, we're going to revert back to the relationship that we once had. and if in this, you know, short term or this interim period, I could do something that says,

hey, Canada, you're welcome at my hotels and my casinos. I want to, I want to do that. It's interesting now. We've been, we've, we've done this now for two weeks.

It's just been two weeks. Yeah. Now this promotion goes through the end of August, but we've only been two weeks in. We've now booked thousands of hotel rooms, which I think is great. I've gotten, I've gotten hundreds of emails.

And the emails are very interesting. do to me. They're on both sides of the spectrum. One side is, hey, thank you very much for the offer. Thank you very much for the welcome. I booked my room. I booked my stay. I'm coming in March, April, May, whatever it may be. And that's probably about 50%. The other half is like, hey, I appreciate the offer, but there's no chance. I'm upset. Maybe I'm going to come and see you in three years, but not right now. So I'm interesting. I get it. I get. I'm upset. I'm upset. I'm going to come and see. I get it. I mean, I get it. I just think that the states in Canada are so integrated, culturally, economically, we are best friends. And I'm hoping we get over this pretty quickly. So you've had

thousands of hotels booked by Canadians since you started this promotion. Quite literally thousands? Thousands. Thousands in the last, in the last 14 days. It, I mean, it goes to show, it goes to show that there's actually some pent up demand for tourism. It goes to show there's some pent up demand for Las Vegas. And I think you touched upon this a second ago. You know, I think there's a lot of Canadians that are just upset by the way things have been said. And I think it's important to say, hey, Canada, even though our leaders might have a bit of a public, you know, war awards, we're still best friends. We want to make sure you know that you're welcome here.

So in your eye, is this, is the lack of Canadian tourism a political thing or an economic thing? I think it's a blend of both. It's a blend of both. If you say, if you say, takes up the totally external from our conversation. Yeah. Japanese tourism is down as well. Well, why is Japanese tourism down? Well, the yen's at 158 yen to the U.S. dollar when it used to be 110. 10. So that's more of an economic thing. Yeah. I think right now what we're seeing is a blend of both of both currency being a little too far out of whack and Vegas is just too damn expensive as well as as well as politics. It's it's it's it's the blend of both of those very important variables.

The connections to Canada, obviously a living across from Windsor growing up is interesting. but I didn't know this until we were just chatting earlier. Over your shoulder, there's a jersey from the, what was it? The Las Vegas, was it the Jays? It was the AAA team for the Blue Jays. Did they call them? I forget what they were called, though. Were they called Las Vegas Blue Jays?

No, I owned the AAA team, AAA baseball team here in Las Vegas for six seasons. Four of those seasons, we were the AAA team for the Toronto Blue Jays. The name of our team was the Las Vegas 51s. The 51s? Yeah, okay. Yeah, based upon area 51 and all that wacky stuff that happens out there theoretically. You got wacky stuff down there in Vegas. You certainly do.

You certainly do. Well, I think it's great that you're doing this. I'm glad to see that you are getting such a reaction. And I'm not surprised that you're getting that 50-50. People saying, thank you so much. This is something we needed. And also, you know what, I'm going to hold off. I do.

I understand that as well. Yeah, I think what people take a look at it, if it suits, suits what they're doing. We just wanted to make sure that the offer was out there if people do want to come visit. Everything can be found on our website, by the way, too, Circa, Las Vegas.com. But I just think that, you know, to think that, oh, I'm going to maybe come to Vegas, you know, three or four years from now or something like that. That's a long time to wait. And if you do want to come visit,

I just want to make sure people know, hey, you got a friend out here. We love Canadians. Well, I appreciate the sentiment. Again, I want you to yell and screaming at the loud, from the top of your pool parties. And so then those politicians in Washington hear it. Send some of your good hockey our way because,

I don't know, the Vegas team is just so good, it seems, year after year. And, yeah, and I wish you the best of luck. All right. Thanks a lot. Great to talk to you. I'm so happy to geek out with my friend Karmie Levy. We're talking tech. And there are so many great stories. Carmi, welcome to the show. We've got to talk Artemis. We got to talk about human beings going farther into space than ever before as they go around the sun.

This time, by the end of March, it probably will have happened. And for the first time, NASA is going to allow. these astronauts to bring their personal phones onto the mission? This is easily my favorite aspect. No one realizes that when astronauts go up into space, they're very limited in terms of what they can bring with them. And so you can't just bring any electronic device you want. You don't just stick your smartphone in your space suit and, you know, go up into orbit.

And so what NASA has done is Jared Isaacman is a new NASA administrator. He has been to space twice. He bought two missions so far. He'll probably go back at some point. This guy is the real deal. He flies his own fighter jet, has his own air force, basically. And so he has, he said they're now going to give their crews what he calls the tools to capture special moments for their families and share inspiring images and video at the world. They will be allowed to take iPhones on board, both crew 12, so the next mission to the ISS as well as Artemis 2 around the moon.

So this is huge because no one realizes the devices that they use, the kids. cameras. They're old. In one case, I think there was a 10-year-old GoPro because they haven't approved anything else since. And this is going to be absolutely game-changing. Imagine having an iPhone in space and just, you know, you don't have to reach for a camera. It's in your pocket. You pull it out. You shoot some video. You send it back. I think that's awesome. And it's going to make it so much more real for all of us here back on Earth. I'm looking forward to seeing what Jeremy Hansen sees through his iPhone lens. Okay. I want to talk about Elon Musk and his plans for like villages on the moon and on Mars.

It's been populated my feed nonstop. So what's going on here? I know, listen, I saw this. I saw somebody talking about Elon Musk's disparate companies and how if you look at them individually, they don't all make sense. But if you view them through the lens of what is required to build a colony on another planet,

he's got everything he needs. He's got the robots. He's got the electric cars. He's got the tunneling capability. He's got the solar panels. He's got the high-speed internet. He's got it all. And I guess he's going to, his goal was to marshal all of these resources to build a colony on Mars,

but he's pairing it back and saying that the first step is going to be the moon. Yeah, he's starting to realize that you can do a lot more, a lot faster on the moon than you can on Mars. On Mars, you have to wait every two years for a window to launch from Earth, because that's the only time when the Earth is close enough to Mars to make it feasible. And so they can only launch so many stars. ships there within that window, and it's just not going to work in order to build an appropriate Mars city like he has envisioned. Whereas with the moon, you can basically just keep shooting starships to the moon. And he calls it, you know, we can iterate far more quickly. And so he's

lowering his expectations a little bit. Mars is still on the horizon. But the priority of the moon, build a base there using the starship architecture. Well, that's the cool thing from what, like what I saw is so whatever lands on the moon, that part of the starship that's going to land on the moon. It'll tilt over. They'll remove the top. They'll cover it in earth, in moon, moon dust, I guess. Yeah, regular. And that will be the framework for the habitats. It's, uh, the repurposing of this, of these materials is, is ingenious. It absolutely is. Because if you think about it, you know, the moon doesn't have an atmosphere, high radiation environment. So you've got to protect everyone inside. Starship was designed from the start to support this architecture. And so, you know,

Basically, we've got to get it flying. We've got to get it, you know, going. They're building a pad. They're modifying the pad in Florida, so they'll be able to launch from there. They have permission now to launch frequently from Florida, which they didn't have before. So you kind of put it all together and you realize that we are actually, we're close. I mean, you know. By the way, is the goal for them to ship up an army of optimist robots to essentially do a lot of this work?

They will be part of that because. it's a lot easier to put a robot outside and have it, you know, dig through the rigolith, make the changes to the starship itself, cut out, you know, the top, put in the interior, build it into, you know, that sort of connected moon base that, you know, we've all seen in sci-fi, easier to do that with robotics than you can with humans. You can scale that construction a lot faster than you could if you had to do a spacewalk every single time. We've learned a lot from having the ISS with spacewalks to both build it and maintain it, but now robotics are going to kind of take that to the next level because

what they're proposing on the moon is way bigger than the ISS will ever be. And I think with the lessons that they learn on the moon, I mean, I can see, I could absolutely see a scenario where they launch a few starships towards Mars that contain hundreds, if not thousands of these robots, as well as the, you know, the space-faring Teslas, for example. And, and they just get to work. They just get to work over there. And 10 years later, there's a colony ready for a human habitat. Exactly. And all the technologies that his other companies are developing,

those become integral to building this out autonomously before the first human even lands. And so by the time humans get there, they're not just going there to hang around for a little while and then come back. There's a small city ready and waiting for them and they can immediately start to build their habitat and live there from the first moment.

after they land. It's kind of crazy. Like this is, I mean, listen, this thing might not happen and if it does happen, it might take five times as long, but it's really exciting to imagine. It absolutely is. And, you know, even if, you know, Elon Musk, all of his projects always shift to the right.

He never hits his timelines. But that's not the point here. The point is, is that there is now a low Earth orbit economy. There will be a moon economy. Eventually, there will be a Mars economy. And so you kind have to have these roadmaps out there, even if they are the stuff of science fiction and they're not 100% realistic,

it doesn't matter. It means there's interest, there's investment that, you know, that governments want to be a part of this. And it means that we're not just going to wait another 50 years to go back to the moon like we did after Apollo. All right. Let's talk about the Donald Trump phone.

That was the T1, Trump mobile. It was a thing and then it wasn't going to be a thing and now it's a thing again. It's a thing again. But it's going to be a more expensive thing and a little bit uglier than it was before, or at least based on the images that we're seeing. So the verge has done some reporting, and they spoke with two of the three top executives at Trump Mobile.

And basically, if you already put down your $100 deposit for this $500 phone, which you can buy for $100 anywhere else without the glittering gold pink, by the way, your price is locked in. When it ships later this year, they still don't have a date, you will still be able to pay $49 total U.S. But if you haven't put down your deposit, well, guess what? The price is now $999 with a slightly new design. And they're not no longer claiming that it'll be built in the U.S.

The tagline is with American hands behind every device. So I'm not quite sure what that means, but I'm reasonably certain it means shipped over from overseas and then an American touches it at the port when they unload it from the ship. Yes. So yet again, this was doubtful right from the start. And quite frankly, anyone who is intelligent about buying smartphones isn't buying a T1 from Trump mobile. But, you know, now the deal has gotten worse.

The timelines have been pushed further out. And it's even more hideous than it was before. I can't imagine anybody wanting to pull one of these things out among their peers. Oh, there are. Come on, man. We heard the stuff. You saw the shoes, the Trump shoes back in the day, the gold. They look like retro.

Wild, though. So yeah, or maybe people are just putting them in boxes and hoping they'll appreciate you. There are people out there who love Donald Trump. And it's not a judgment call on him, but they want to show how much they love him in every way, shape, and form in it. And if he's got a phone that allows them to show that, they're going to do that. It's, he elicits passion on both sides, right? And if there's a thin line between hate and love and there's a lot of people who hate him, a lot of people. The nerd in me is looking at this going, you know, this phone was announced last year.

And apparently it might ship by the end of this year if we're lucky. So you're essentially paying four figures for a year and a half to two-year-old phone that's been on sale for three years, frankly. And so by the time you get it, it's obsolete. You could easily buy a better, cheaper model somewhere else. That's not the point, Carmi. It's never the point. And you know that. You know that.

I know. It's all right in it. I got to let you go, but love geeking out with you. We got to do it again. Let's geek out on stories like this more often. Thank you, my friend. Appreciate it. Thanks, Ben.

The world is changing. From the misuse of AI and the rise of deepfakes to the dangerous spread of misinformation, it's getting harder for Canadians to separate fact from fiction. That's why having a trustworthy news source is vital. At global news, we're committed to objective journalism that cuts through the noise. Stick to the facts.

Global News, Canada's Trusted News.