The Ben Mulroney Show - Sweden offers Canada a decent proposal/Trump has a very bad day. Real bad.

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

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If you got no place to go When you're free them down You're listening to the Ben Mulrooney show You know I don't need an excuse to play Abba Ever It is one of the greatest bands in the history of the world I will die on that hill I loved the sweetest supergroup

When I was in college My answering machine Was the most annoying thing in the world to my dad Because he had to listen to that Every time he called me I'd never had an answering machine before And so I was so enthralled at the idea of having an answering machine That I put together a long two-minute message

That people had to listen before they could leave Their own message And it was all about Abba and how much I loved Abba He hated it. So Sweden is all the talk of the town in Ottawa. Why? Why? Why is Sweden what we're talking about today?

What do we know about Sweden besides ABA and IKEA and Bluetooth and Skype and Spotify? That's the high-level stuff these days. But until recently, Sweden was known for its long history of military non-alignment. It stayed neutral in both world wars and during the Cold War. But that policy ended in 2024 when Sweden officially joined NATO in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And so yesterday in Ottawa, I think a lot of people were surprised by this, probably not the government, it was probably planned. But Swedish king, Carl Gustav, the 16th, and Queen Sylvia were in Ottawa. But the question is why?

Well, they're in Ottawa because they're trying to build a partnership with a country that they see a lot of common values in Canada. And they want us to deepen our relations, especially on the military front. And why don't we listen to the Swedish deputy prime minister, Ebba Bush, who was on with Vasi Capellos. Sweden is truly open for business and coming back to the matter of increased competitiveness, truly serving our citizens, the Swedish people and the Canadian people. I think Europe, for far too long, we've played in sort of, to speak Canadian, to speak hockey terms, we've played in really in box play. And it's time to get out of that and we'll come into power play instead.

And then we need to choose our friends very, very wisely. And, you know, we're a small country, but we're a very smart country. We're the second in the world when it comes to innovation. The reason that we can make fighter jets, submarines, AVAX systems, that we also send satellites into space, although we're a 10 million people country, the reason we can deliver all of this, because we choose our friends very, very specifically. So this group of people from Sweden, very high-level people from Sweden, including the king and queen, are there for a charm offensive trying to convince Canada to get into business with Saab. They used to make cars. They made a lot of things. They don't make cars anymore.

But they make a fighter jet called the Gripen E. Does Saab not make cars? No, they stopped making cars years ago. Really? Yeah. So the Saab Gripen E is a fighter jet, and they want Canada to build them to the tune of 10,000 jobs. Now, let me tell you, in a world where almost every week we are telling you stories about job losses, this is a story everybody, every Canadian should take a vested interest in. Now, are the numbers going to add up? I don't know. But this is what they're talking about. They're talking 10,000 jobs for Canadian workers to build this fighter jet.

Well, it's actually mostly to build another plane that they have in their arsenal, like one of these censored planes up in the air, like an AWAC sort of thing. But yeah, but they want to bring 10,000 jobs. 10,000 jobs. And they're being very aggressive with this. And they want us to buy the Gripin E, which is a fine jet from what we've been able to ascertain. You might remember that we are currently, well, we signed a deal to buy F-35s from the United States. From Lockheed Martin.

Billions upon billions upon billions of dollars. However, that deal, prior to this sort of coming in and adding a complication, that deal was already under review because I think the government was looking at it and asking, are we getting value for the contract? Well, because the price of these planes went up and up and up higher than the planes can actually fly. Yeah. Yeah. So, but we have a commitment by this government to beef up our military and give our brave men. and women in uniform, the tools that they need to do their job. And the F-35 was part of that, but it might not be moving forward. It might not be.

So Saab is pitching domestic grip in production, and it's got lower life cycle cost. Lockheed Martin stresses long-term industrial value for the F-35. And the government hasn't decided whether to stick with the planned fleet or get a mix, a hybrid of, you know, some different types of planes for its military. Melanie Jolie is looking at this contract, this pitch by Saab, and she finds it intriguing. What I've said is I don't believe that we've had enough jobs created and industrial benefits done out of the F-35 contract.

I think it's not enough. I think Canadians expect more, and we should get more. So that's my first point. And second, when it comes to the Gripon, of course, we're really interested in seeing what can be done because there was an unsolicited bid that came up. 10,000 jobs is indeed a very interesting offer. Yeah, so she said it right there. They came to us.

Unsolicited. Unsolicited. I suspect what happened is Sweden noticed tension between Canada and the United States and decided to see if they could sidle up and stick the. themselves in between us and the Americans and make us look at them instead of the U.S. Yeah, they read the tea leaves and the headlines. So Canada's participation in the F-35 program, it currently supports somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 jobs across the country.

Compare that to the 10,000 that we could be getting from this sob deal. Again, I don't know if 10,000 is going to be the ultimate number, but that's the one that they're pitching right now. It could be interesting. It could really be interesting. Now, you've got to remember, the F-35 and the Grippin are not the same plane. So on one hand, you've got the Gripin. It's a little bit faster than the F-35, and it's less expensive to acquire, to operate, and to maintain than the F-35.

But even though the F-35 has higher operational costs, it's like the Crem de la Crem. It's a fifth-generation fighter, and the Grippin is known as a... 4.5 generation fighter. Yeah. So it's like, yeah. So you either get the, the Cadillac of F-35s, of fighter jets,

or you get all the toys in it. Or you get one step down from that. Would it be kind of like getting, do you think, the car that has the navigation system installed or not installed? Yeah. Yeah.

Or the heads-up display. Yes. Right? It's the heads-up display and maybe the blind spot warning. Right? Those are the two things that you'll probably be getting on the F-35 that you're not getting on the Gripon. But this is the world we're living in now where we don't necessarily have a relationship with the United States that we would just look at the grip and say, sorry, no, thank you.

We're going with the F-35. There was a loyalty because of the close relationship and the fact that we do have the big, bad partner sitting right next to us, protecting us somewhat and yeah, we live under the umbrella so we've respected that over the years but now while the respect If he's gone. If he's looking out for number one, if Donald Trump

is looking out for the U.S., then Mark Carney's got to look out for Canada and exclusively Canada. And if that means that the Grippen is in our best interest and not the F-35, I support him, I support his government entirely on that decision. But we'll have to wait and see. We'll have to see if the math, math, math's a

and if it doesn't. Is it math? Well, sometimes the math doesn't math is what they say. Yeah, but we say math with an S? Because they do say that in the UK. Yeah, the Brits say that. But look, this is a story that came out of nowhere, and I kind of love it because 10,000 jobs is 10,000 jobs in this country.

We need everyone that we can get. All right, up next, a really, really, really bad day if you're Donald Trump. That's coming up next. This day This is the best day Thank you for a nice day And if you're listening to us live on the radio

We say thank you If you're listening to us on a streaming platform, we say thank you maybe it's a podcast, maybe it's on YouTube, maybe it's on social media, wherever you find us, we say thank you. And to all of you, yes, we hope you're having a nice day. That cannot be said about the day that Donald Trump had yesterday. Yesterday was not a good day for the president of the United States. Why? Because the U.S. Congress did something that I don't think any of us thought they were capable of. They reached across the aisle and they worked in the most bipartisan way I have seen in years overwhelmingly approving what's called the Epstein Files Transparency Act,

a bill that is designed to compel the Department of Justice to release all unclassified files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Now, how bipartisan was this? The House voted 427 to 1 to release the documents. 427 to 1 The lone dissenter was a Republican representative named Clay Higgins of Louisiana He argued that the bill

as written could harm innocent people named in the files 427 to 1 like seriously we have to spend a second on that because this doesn't happen and just to go back in time a little bit you'll remember

that part of his campaign platform was Donald Trump promised that once he got back to the Oval Office, he was going to release these files just as quick as he possibly could. And then he got there and nobody knows what happened, but Cash Patel of the FBI said there's nothing in there, nothing worth showing to the public. Donald Trump said, well, if there's nothing there, then I'm not going to release them. And slowly but surely, pressure has been building on him from all points, from Congress, from

the Senate, from the House of Representatives, from the press, from the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, demanding accountability by way of transparency. And despite that, Donald Trump, if he has an idea in his head, he sticks with it. So now Congress has taken matters into their own hands and voted 427 to 1 to release the documents. Trump was asked about the incriminating evidence in the Epstein files. He was on a plane. He was on Air Force One. He's talking to some members of the press. And when he was asked about the Epstein files, the audio is terrible. So instead of running a bad audio for you, I'll just tell you what he said.

A woman said, asked him about these Epstein files. And he responded with, quiet, quiet, piggy. That's what he said. Quiet, quiet, piggy. To the journalist, not a good look. So what's next? Well, President Trump could veto the bill, but he has indicated he'll some. sign the bill into law, and that would require the Department of Justice to release the files

within 30 days. But this is the question stands. What was preventing him from releasing these unclassified documents in the first place? Why did he need to be forced by Congress to do so? Was there something in there that maybe somebody that he knows, he didn't want them affected? I don't know. Nobody knows. And we won't have answers to those questions. until we get these documents unloaded and open to the public. So this is a good thing. And unfortunately, Donald Trump, he likes to look strong. He likes to look in control.

And he wasn't in control of this. So I guarantee you he wasn't happy. He wasn't happy when that happened. And all of this was happening while he was hosting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House. You'll remember MBS is the leader of Saudi Arabia. He was supposed to come in and be this young. progressive new voice in the Middle East

and he has not necessarily lived up to that on his watch a journalist in the United States was killed and dismembered and what's the name of Khashoggi and this that happened on MBS's watch and his reputation took a hit because of that

so anyway they're meeting at the White House and at the White House, Saudi Arabia committed to increasing its investments in the U.S. to nearly $1 trillion. That sounds like a lot of money to me. In a significant policy shift, the U.S. agreed to sell advanced F-35 fighters, so maybe the ones that Canada was going to buy, and 300 tanks to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which they call a major non-NATO ally.

Now, just for context, if they're going to spend a trillion dollars, The entire GDP of Saudi Arabia is $1.2 trillion. So a trillion dollars spent in the United States unlikely, unlikely. But still, Donald Trump's making deals. Donald Trump's selling stuff and he's bringing money into the United States. That's a good thing for his country. But after that, that's when things got intense. That's when we saw a version of Donald Trump that I thought was relegated to the past in Trump 1.0.

I didn't think this was Trump 2.0 anymore. But sure enough, we went back to the past when an ABC reporter asked the crown prince of Saudi Arabia about 9-11. Your Royal Highness, the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist.

9-11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Who you were? Who are you? And the same to you, Mr. President. Now, who are you with? I'm with ABC News, sir. You with who?

ABC News, sir. Fake news. ABC fake news. one of the worst one of the worst in the business. Yeah, I mean, just calling you some fake news doesn't change the fact that 9-11 happened and 9-11 families, victims of families, families of victims, rather, are a little perplexed why the red carpet is being rolled out for the leader of a country where most of the terrorists came from on 9-11.

And it gets worse with Mr. Trump. It gets worse. Let's listen to now Donald Trump defending the crown prince all while bashing the journalist who was murdered on U.S. soil by members of that government or agents of that government, rather. He's done a phenomenal job. You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about, whether you like him or didn't like him. Things happened, but he knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that.

You don't have to embarrass our guests by asking a question like that. I mean, look, you don't have to, you can, you can protect your, your guest without bashing a murdered journalist who was murdered on U.S. soil. I mean, that was a, that was, that was, that was a, that was a, that was a, that was a, that's not terrorist attack. But if I found out, if I was the president of the United States and I found out that agents of another country came up, onto my soil and killed a journalist. It was in Turkey, by the way, where he was killed. Oh, it was in Turkey? Yes, he was killed in the States.

No. Oh, I apologize. I apologize. It was at the Saudi consulate. Oh, okay. But yeah, this is not a good dude, MBS. And it continues. Here's, so the journalist for ABC was called Mary Bruce.

And here's Trump just going back onto her, just railing on Mary Bruce, doubling down on his insults and his slurs. It's not the question that I mind. It's your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It's the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man who's highly respected asking him a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question. And you could even ask that same exact question nicely. You're all psyched. Somebody psyched you over at ABC. You're going to psych it. You're a terrible person and a terrible reporter. A terrible person and a terrible reporter. The president of the United States is saying that. Like, I'm trying to think about the people I have the least amount of respect for in the world. It would take a lot for me to look that person in the eye or those people in the eye and call them a terrible person and a terrible something else. Like, it would take a lot to get me there.

And he did, and he, of all the people to go to the mattresses, for. He did so for MBS. And you'll remember how he treated our, of Vladimir Zelensky, who's in the middle of a war against Russia, treated him terribly, but MBS, whose country helped orchestrate 9-11, he gets the full-throated defense of Donald Trump. Sometimes I just don't think he thinks this stuff through. It was, it was quite the remarkable day. Yeah, it was not a good day. I think all of it was spilling out there and you're not a good person and you're not a good journalist.

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