The Ben Mulroney Show - Ben sits with Conrad Black to talk about Canada/U.S. Relations, Leadership, and the new Pope

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Ben sits with Conrad Black to talk about Canada/U.S. Relations, Leadership, and the new Pope with Guest: Lord Conrad Black, Former politician, newspaper publisher, and author of many books including most recently, The Political and Strategic History of the World, Vol II: From the Caesars to the Peace of Westphalia and Louis XIV If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of your Thursday with us. And you know, we say thank you wherever you find us. You might be listening on the radio or on the iHeart radio streaming app, or you might find us on the podcast platform of your choice and coming up soon as a matter of fact now you may find us on our YouTube channel. So thank you very much. All right. This next guest I have a long family relationship with,

and I remember when he would call the house to looking for my dad. And I would have to take the message. He would use so many words that I didn't know at the time that I would write down just gobbledygook and then hand it to my dad. And he would just see the chicken scratch and know who was calling.

He is a great Canadian with a depth of knowledge on a number of fields. He's been a nation builder and a corporate titan, Lord Conrad Black, former politician, newspaper publisher, author of so many more books than I've read. And now, most recently, the political and strategic history of the world, volume two, from the Caesars to the Peace of Westphalia and Louis XIV. Lord Black, welcome to the show of Westphalia and Louis XIV.

Lord Black, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Ben. And it's good to see you again. Always good to see any of them already. Well, I'm very glad to chat with you about volume two. This is no small feat. Writing a history this broad, it must require a lot of your time, a lot of your attention,

a lot of care. It has been a lot of work. I'm almost finished now. I'm up to the Vietnam War, so I'm almost finished. Well, one of the broad strokes of the book is, you are one of these people who believes in the power of the individual to shape history, and that we're not at the mercy of moments and trends, but there are definitional people who can change the outcome of any given event. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, people make history. The idea that we're just, you know, we're soldier ants and subject to changes of public attitude and so on, like, you know, as if it was the weather. This is rubbish. I mean, history is made by people like, you know, Julius Caesar and Napoleon and Abraham Lincoln, and all kinds of people that the world would be very different if they hadn't been

there. Are there commonalities between certain types of leaders? Or are there buckets in which you can say, okay, we put leader one, two, and three in this bucket over here, and these other ones fall in this other category. What have you learned about leadership in studying this large of a part of history? The criteria for leadership have changed. You see, prior to, let us say, the book you've just referred to gets us up almost to the end of the 17th century, and prior to that, great leaders were either conquerors like

Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great, I mean, Genghis Khan in a way, but he didn't really try and administer anything. Or, but subsequent to that, or even a man like Cardinal Richiel, for example, really the builder of the modern state and a great academic, I mean the founder of the French Academy and the provost of the Sorbonne. But subsequent to that, rights and the concept of ethics and government became much more focused on and much more required by publics and ultimately electorates. And so in the subsequent era, you get people where there's a strong dimension of what they did in an altruistic

way, like an Abraham Lincoln or a Winston Churchill or Franklin D. Roosevelt, people like this. Now, they couldn't have commanded armies like Napoleon did or, you know, conquered the world. But on the other hand, in the perception of modern times, they're greater statesmen because they were ultimately more positive people defending good things. You know, one of the lines that people say all the time is those who don't learn their history are doomed to repeat it. Now you've now studied enough history.

Have we ever done that? Are there examples in history of people not knowing their history and then repeating it? Or is that just a trite phrase? Yeah, there are. And there are cautionary tales in all sorts of people. In the first volume, I made a comparison between Pericles and Gorbachev. I mean, these people can be tremendously well-intentioned, but a little naive about the consequences of their actions and everything comes apart. I mean, Pericles died before the end of the Peloponnesian very well get books written about him in the future, Mark Carney, our new prime minister. And I'm a Lord Black, I'm of the opinion that in these early days of a government, I'm not going to get too heated

over any one thing or another because they haven't done anything of consequence yet. However, I do know how the election campaign was prosecuted. I know what story Mark Carney told the Canadian people that got him elected. And what I'm seeing in these early days is he is behaving in a way that is most certainly not a product of that story. There's no elbows up, there's no retaliatory tariffs. The old relationship is still exists,

and the US isn't trying to weaken us to take us over. Ben, by the way, for heaven's sake, call me Conrad for at least 40 years. All right, Conrad. But no, look, I don't want to be, I agree with you. He's a new prime minister and he's our prime minister now, so we wish him success. But the campaign was a fraud. It was based on the idea that he was taking a kind of Churchillian oath to stand down at the Toronto lakeshore shaking his fist at potential invading our maghets crossing from Rochester, New York, launched by President Trump against us or something like this, you see.

And it was all nonsense. I mean, Trump was just having a joke at the expense of Justin Trudeau, who had been pretty cheeky with him, you know, in his first term. And the idea that he really had any designs on Canada was just foolishness. I found it as a citizen embarrassing that our country took the whole thing so seriously. And I wrote that, but we are where we are. But of course, the idea of, you know, man, the barricades, the US Marines are coming was just a lot of nonsense. Well, and he was trying to reconcile what he said on the campaign trail with sort of his

behavior today, Mackenzie Grave, Global News challenged him on that. And he said on the campaign trail with sort of his behavior today. Mackenzie Grave, Global News challenged him on that. And he said, no, the relationship is fundamentally over and we got to rebuild it. We got to build a new one. And it's about working together if we can, but not necessarily working together. I'm paraphrasing.

But I really thought I took issue with that because it's sort of like, it ignores the importance of relationships across the border over decades and building those relationships. Sometimes those relationships go swimmingly and sometimes less so. But we're in a different phase of that relationship today. When Donald Trump is gone, there will be somebody else in that seat, and that will dictate a new chapter in that relationship. But different doesn't mean over. It just means different. Yeah, and there's another aspect, too. I agree with what you say, but let's keep in mind

that when Justin said to Donald Trump when he visited him in Florida, if you impose these tariffs, our economy will collapse. And for years, Trump had been saying, Canada's not pulling its weight, you're only paying about 1% of GDP in defense, you're relying on us to defend you. Now, if you can't defend yourselves, and if we impose a tariff, your economy

collapses, I mean, are you sure that you really want to be an independent country? You join us, we've got basically a 50% higher per capita standard of living and national, you know, annual income. And, you know, you don't have to have any defense budget because we'll take care of that. And I mean, to him it was logical and based on what Justin had said and done. But this was, you know, transmogrified by the liberal myth makers and election apparatus into the theory that he was contemplating the takeover of Canada. You know, like the Mexican war or something. You know, we've got to have a smarter electorate here. We shouldn't be so gullible. Well, Conrad Black, I want to thank you so much for joining us to give us the pulse on

how you see things politically today, as well as to let us know about Volume 2 of the Political and Strategic History of the World. We appreciate your time and hope to talk to you again soon. Always a pleasure speaking with you, Ben. Good luck to you. Take care. Enjoy. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and thank you so much for joining us.

Well, another day, another world leader ending up in the White House and ending up on TV and on social media for all sorts of reasons. I give you the example of the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa. So he showed up and as we are now very used to, he was sitting on one side of the president and the media from both South Africa and the United States

were in the room. And you could tell by Donald Trump's introduction of President Ramaphosa that he wanted to go somewhere. Thank you very much everyone. It's a great honor to be with the president of South Africa, President Ramaphosa. And he is a man who is certainly in some circles really respected, other circles a little bit less respected like all of us in all fairness. We all like that.

Yep. So not quite sure where what he's what he's planning yet, but just to be safe and because he doesn't want to get Zelensky, I, Robofosa decided to do the safest thing, flatter the heck out of Donald Trump by disarming him with a very Trumpian gift. Now I brought you a really fantastic golf book, weighs 14 kilograms and it showcases the golf courses in our country. Johan Ruppert wrote a preface, so did any else, and I want to showcase our golf courses. You might remember when I spoke to you and we spoke about golf you said I should start practicing and I've started practicing president. So I'm

ready. So a lot of people were saying was Zelinsky Monday morning quarterbacks were saying, had he just done something like that? Had he said, Mr. President, on behalf of a grateful Ukrainian nation, we I show up today with the highest order of congratulations that my country has for a foreign leader. In fact, we had to create this new award just for you, Donald Trump,

because no one has come to the aid of Ukraine the way you have. And he would have given him the world's biggest medal. And Donald Trump would have perhaps been in a better mood. Ramaphosa saw what not to do and did that. That being said, the world's biggest medal, and Donald Trump would have perhaps been in a better mood. Ramaphosa saw what not to do and did that. That being said, this is when things went off the rails. Donald Trump wanted an explanation

as to what is happening to the white farmers of South Africa. Now, there is a lot of misinformation out there. There is a lot of opinion that is manifesting as fact. I don't believe there's a genocide of white farmers in South Africa. However, a number of white farmers have been killed. They have been targeted and they've been killed and they've been targeted because they're white.

And some of them are in fact fleeing this persecution as refugees to the United States. Donald Trump has called it something I don't believe it is but that doesn't mean it's any less wrong. And so this is Donald Trump trying to get an explanation. So what's going on with white farmers in South Africa. People that feel they're being persecuted and they're coming to the United States. So we take from many, many locations if we feel there's persecution or genocide going on.

And we had a lot of people. I must tell you, Mr. President, we have had a tremendous number of people, especially since they've seen this. Generally, they're white farmers and they're fleeing South Africa. And it's a very sad thing to see. But I hope we can have an explanation of that because I know you don't want that. And it's kind of a different meeting. Normally Normally we have meetings, we talk about trade, and we'll be talking about trade and other things, but that certainly will be a subject that comes up. Orama Fossa next, very deftly and adeptly and diplomatically

answers the question of how to explain to Donald Trump whether or not, or rather why there is no genocide of white farmers in South Africa. It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here. When we have talks between us on the quiet, at a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them. I'm not going to be repeating what I've been saying.

I would say if there was a free Ghana farmer genocide, I can bet you these three gentlemen would not be here, including my Minister of Agriculture. He would not be with me. So it'll take him President Trump listening to their stories to their perspective That is the answer to your question. But Mr. President, we have no no wait With thousands of stories talking about it. We have documentaries we have news stories, and that is Natalie here, somebody here to turn that,

I could show you a couple of things. Yeah, this is where things take a turn. They dim the lights in the White House, in the Oval Office to show a video that Donald Trump believes proves his point and well let's let's listen to this part let's be Trump playing the video for Ramaphosa Turn the lights down and just put this on it's right behind you that's not what this parliament can do. With or without you, people are going to occupy land. We require no permission from you, from the president, from no one.

We don't care. We can do whatever you want to do. These are burial sites right here. Burial sites. Over a thousand of white farmers and those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross and there's approximately a thousand of them. They're all white farmers, the family of white farmers. And of course, these these events and these pageants inside the Oval Office, they they are heightened by the bit players who are there. You know, the the Zelensky moment was only the Zelensky moment

because of J.D. Vance and that two bit journalist. And this moment was heightened because Donald Trump says he's got many friends who are South African, including Elon Musk, who was in the room. And Elon Musk gave a death stare to the South African president. Here's Donald Trump talking about Elon Musk being from South Africa. I have many friends from South Africa, but many of those friends are, or they can't go back. I have, Elon is from South Africa. I don of those friends are, they can't go back. I have, Elon is from South Africa. I don't want to get Elon involved.

That's all I have to do, get him into another thing. But Elon happens to be from South Africa. This is what Elon wanted. He actually came here on a different subject, sending rockets to Mars, okay? He likes that better. He likes that subject better. But Elon is from South Africa, and I don't want to talk to him about that.

I don't think it's fair to him. Now, credit where credit is due, nobody was kicked out, unlike the Zelensky thing, nobody was kicked out of the White House, no one was kicked out of the room. And a huge kudos to the president of South Africa, who was able to even inject some humor at the end of the meeting.

Let's listen. That idiot talks about after viewing a thing where thousands of people are dead. I'm sorry, I don't have a plane to give you. I wish you did. I take it. I would take it. If your country offered the United States Air Force

a plane, I would take it. Okay. Yeah, that's still a head scratcher. The fact that he's going ahead with accepting a plane from a country that is not really an ally, that's something. So well done, President Ramaphosa, on your first meeting inside the Oval Office, because there's nothing like that show anywhere else in the world.

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