The Ben Mulroney Show - The deplorable in the news balanced by THE uplifting story of the week

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

 Guest: Tony Chapman, Host of the award winning podcast Chatter that Matters, Founding Partner of Chatter AI 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. Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights,

festive shows, rides, and holiday treats. Plus, Coca-Cola is best. back with Canada's kindest community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide, with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at canadaswunderland.com. At Capital One, we're more than just a credit card company. We're people just like you who believe in the power of yes. Yes to new opportunities. Yes to second chances. Yes to a fresh start. That's why we've helped over four million Canadians.

get access to a credit card because at Capital One we say yes so you don't have to hear another no. What will you do with your yes? Get the yes you've been waiting for at Capital One.ca slash yes. Terms and conditions apply. Rooney Show on this Monday the 8th of December 2025. Happy Monday. Let's all enter this week with, let's manifest a great week, shall we? Let's put it in our heads that we want to have a great week and we're going to do our best to do that. And one of the things that makes it a good week is when you see a bad news story or you see something out there that you try to frame it as positively as possible. And a lot of hay was made prior to the last U.S. election, presidential

election about the cognitive decline of president joe biden and there is a video that is making the rounds on social media of president joe biden that i think puts that cognitive decline in the spotlight let's listen someone hope we get back up and remember who in the hell we are we're the united states of america out of that's who we are we're the u.s yeah he's been um he's people are making fun of them. People are laughing about it. I'm not going to do that. This is an older gentleman who dedicated his life to public service. He might not like what he stood for, but I'm the type of person that has a lot of respect for anybody who puts themselves out there in the public sphere to want to, I don't know, shape discourse and shape policy, and that's what he did. And now

I say with that, having seen that, it's time to, it's time to pack it in. I say that to the former president. If your goal is to galvanize Democrats, it's not going to work. That time has passed. You've got to pass the baton to somebody else. But, you know, you put in your time, sir, and you've fought the good fight. And now it's time to enjoy, enjoy retirement. Enjoy your friends and family and quiet time and read a book and hang out with your grandkids and all that stuff but given speeches now is there's going to be every single word that you say every step that you take if you look a little lost or a little tired that's going to come back and it's going to it's going to hurt you more than the speech will ever help so i say this with respect president biden it's time it's time to

stop giving speeches. It's time to stop being in public. And there are other people out there who can pick up the challenge and run with it. And you've done your part, sir. And that's all we'll say about that. So now let's turn our regard to the current president. Last week, he had some very choice words for the governor of Minnesota, who also happened to be the running mate of the, of the of his competitor in that race Kamala Harris he was running for

vice president Tim Walls Minnesota is under a little bit of fire these days because of what seems to be a lot of corruption and graft in the Somali community Donald Trump is none too happy about that and so he referred to

Tim Walls by the I mean I don't use the word the R word and he actually was even worse than that but what do he say he said he is seriously He seriously are.

Yeah. And some of Donald Trump's supporters have used that as license to drive by the governor's mansion and shout out their windows at the guy. And as a matter of fact, some of them are doing so gleefully that they are recording it

and putting on social media. Here's one example. Tim was you tip on love and read. Yeah. like and he's and and some of the responses are somebody by this guy a beer i saw that uh and the whole tampon thing is because he was putting tampons in boys bathrooms yeah um look i'm i've said it before like that that that word has always not sat right with me um i'm but i'm also at the point in my life and at a point of living in 2025 where uh people who use it to make fun of

their friends, um, go for it. This is not that. It also has some added sort of, uh, because Tim Walz's well, there's son. Yeah. So, um, and I, not, I don't, I don't, I didn't know it until Tim Walz's daughter, Hope Walls, posted something to social media complaining about these people shouting this at her house. How is it okay that the president of the United States can call somebody, anybody doesn't matter who they are that and then all of his freaking cult members come and attack those people in that person's family say what you want about my dad he's an elected official right like that's going to happen i think it's utterly disgraceful that the president would do that but then the attacks that i have seen i have people DMing me saying absolutely horrendous things when i was

home last week somebody drove by and screamed that we were our words just driving by in their car. I'm like, what world are we living in? And again, I draw the line at Gus because he dealt with that for and not again. You people are disgraceful. Yeah. It's I didn't know, we saw, okay, Gus Gus Walls, who's Gus Walls? I didn't even know

that Tim Walls had, oh, I didn't know he had a daughter or a son. I assumed he did, but I didn't know anything about them. It's not like they were paraded about during the election campaign. They were out on a couple of Yeah, nothing was really made of it, right? And so I didn't know anything about it, but we looked into it. What's Gus Wall's dealing with? He has a nonverbal learning disorder. Yeah. So, which is tough. It's tough and made even more tough when people shout that at you. I mean, the justification for people using the R word is they never use it about that,

about mental illness and mental disabilities, right? They say, no, it's one of my friends acting foolish and but if you're shouting that as gus walls is getting out of his getting out of a car with his family that's exactly what you're doing and that is that is despicable that is absolutely despicable and it's uh and it should not be tolerated and if you are one of these people who is doing that maybe you didn't know that gus walls was a somebody who has a mental disability if you if you are somebody who has been doing that maybe you'll think twice because i'm willing to give some people the benefit of the doubt that they didn't know and they were just piling on based on what their president was telling them to do or uh i i would i would

caution you to stop that's it's unhelpful it doesn't it's it's it's toxic it takes us backward rather than forward and you know and ask yourself what would your mother say honestly if you're doing that what would your mother say good way to put it yeah It's time to dial it down. Yeah, dial it down. Absolutely. Yeah, before we go to break, we got to spend some time on this.

This is, I mean, look, man, we're talking about the Cowich and Tribe, Aboriginal title ruling in British Columbia. You'll remember the BC Supreme Court, essentially said that this one tribe may have land claims that Trump, yours or my actual land titles on our homes, on our businesses,

and on vast swaths of Richmond, B.C. Well, now, and we were told that this decision by the B.C. Supreme Court would lead to such uncertainty that any sort of economic development would be put in jeopardy. David E.B., the premier, said, no, no, no, that's not going to happen. And he keeps doubling down saying that, you know, the people of British Columbia are on stolen land. Well, now a major lender pulled out of financing a Richmond warehouse project because of this ruling, citing new risks and uncertainty. certainty. The developer is Montrose property holdings. And they say that the ruling has stalled multiple projects, including a $35 million loan and long-term talks with two companies, Fortis and Enbridge. Of course it did. Of course it did. When the BC Supreme Court said, hey, listen, we have competing what should be a cut and dried case of I bought property,

I own property, well now all of that is up in the air because we've decided that this constant drumming of the, of like this recitation that we are on stolen land has led to us as a BC Supreme Court saying, you know what, maybe you are on stolen land. And if you are on stolen land, maybe we're going to give the land back to the people you stole it from. Maybe people won't want to invest millions of dollars in developing if they don't know who actually owns the land. Like, call me crazy. If that's my hot take, that's my hot take. But this was the inevitable conclusion to telling the world that we are on stolen land. And everyone we've spoken to, and on this show is very worried for the future. Yeah. What businesses are going to want to invest?

None. The answer is none. You would have to, you would have to want to see your investment lit on fire because this level of uncertainty makes it so that there's no guarantee. You put money, in, you don't know what it's going to yield. So good luck to the people of British Columbia. And as we've seen, this uncertainty has been expanding around the country. We need clarity. Up next, the story of Ed Bombas. Who is Ed Bombas? Well, you'll remember his name after our next segment. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back to the Ben Mall. Rooney's show, and yes, we could spend every single segment talking about something that

rubs us the wrong way, something that makes me want to scream at clouds, some failing of some level of government. There's enough out there, right? There's enough out there to fill this show many times over in a day. But every now and then, we need to take a break from that, and we have to look at the positive. And there was a story that popped up on my social media feed last week, and in fact popped up on a lot of people's social media feeds. But if you haven't heard the story of Ed Bombas, that I'm very glad to be sharing it with you today. So there's a social media influencer from Australia named Sam Weidenhofer. And he has made a brand for himself on social media, going out and finding people who, for

whatever reasons, find themselves behind the eight ball. They find themselves down on their luck. They find themselves having gotten a bad break. And he gets to know them a little bit. And then he tries to help them out. He tries to help them out and brighten their day. And because he's got sponsors behind him, he's able to offer them money to get back on their feet or turn the page or do that one thing that they need to do to live the life that they always want to lead. But when you hear the story of Ed Bombas, it is, you just hope it's got the ending.

You hope it's going to have. Ed is a veteran who worked at GM in Michigan, and he was currently working at a big box store. And I guess word got to the social media influencer, Sam Widenhoeffer. This is somebody you need to get to know. This is somebody that if it's in your power to help him, you should help him. So Sam goes to Michigan and meets Ed in his place of employ, which is a big box store. And this is a little bit of their first interaction. Thank you.

What was your name? Ed. I'm Sam. Okay. I actually had someone nominate you from this store and said you're very hard work. Well, I try to be. May I ask how old you are? An 88.

And still working? Yes, I have to. Why do you have to keep working? I retired from General Motors in 99. In 2012, I went bankrupt, and they took my pension away from it. Oh, my gosh. Do you have a wife? She passed away seven years ago.

Seven years ago. She was sick when I lost my pension. So you've been struggling a bit? A little bit. You said that you lost your pension? Yes, sir. I did. I was in the Army back in 16, 66.

So you're a veteran, too. Yes. The thing that hurt me the most, because my wife was real sick. And when they took the pension, they also took the health care coverage. And all but $10,000 of my life insurance. And yeah, so now he's got to work. And he's 88 years old, and he's working every day, Monday through Friday, just trying to stay afloat. and Sam asked him

and it's a big question to ask somebody at 88 who's had this much disappointment and who's been pushing that rock up the hill for so long he asks him what are your hopes for the future I work five days a week eight hours a day and you do that because you have to or yeah I don't have enough income

what's your dream somewhat the life I was hoping for like to share your story and try and you know get people to help you retired. Oh, thank you. So he gives him a tip, a $400 tip, and this was just too much for Ed. He breaks down. He breaks down. He's so emotional. He doesn't understand that somebody could be this kind. And look, so then Sam does what Sam does. He leverages the power of his community and most people who follow him are following because they want that, they want that inspirational

content. They want to know that they're, they are on the receiving end of something positive on online. and he started a go-fund me. So I was following it as of that day, and I did not expect what happened next. And I don't think Sam expected it, and I don't think Ed expected it. Let's listen to the conclusion of at least this part of the story. I want to truly say that your wife is looking over your shoulder.

I know you've been visiting and a lot asking about that, and you still have that $400 in my pocket you gave me. With everyone supporting the room, I want to reveal that this is one of the largest individual fundraisers and GoFundee history. And, yeah, if you want, you will be able to retire, because we've raised to $1.77 million. Yeah, now, just remember, so he was handed $400, and when Sam goes to visit him, he says, do with the money so it's still in my pocket because I didn't know if it was legit like he didn't spend it he was concerned that this might have been someone was pulling the wool over his eyes

but the world got behind this this man who's a veteran who who had worked his life if he defended his country and then he worked a job on the line at at GM and when GM went under when went when bankrupt he lost his pension we what was also not revealed in that initial story is he was about a quarter of a million dollars US in debt because he had to take on this debt to take care of his wife. He didn't complain about that. He also has a brother and a sister-in-law who both have cancer and he can't visit them because he doesn't have the money to go visit. And so this money that was brought together through the kindness of strangers. And by the way, I've said this many times social media is is a benign force it can be used exactly how people intended it can be used

as a weapon or it can be used as a shield it can be used as a tool or it can be used to light a house on fire and in this case this is an entirely positive vehicle that people using social media in the most positive possible way to galvanize people's optimism towards somebody and change their lives for the better 1.7 million almost 1.8 million people's million at this point i'm probably i'm sure they're getting close to two million on top of that there was also a financial services company that pledged to help uh to help ed maintain this this nest egg for as long as possible they're going to set up a trust so that once once he uh passes that money will be passed on to the relatives that he so chooses and it will be managed so that it goes

as as it'll be invested properly so that it can help future generations in the bombus family it's a beautiful story it was one i want to share with you but i think also one of the positive things to point out is that or well i don't know it's a positive thing but it's important to note that ed is not one of one right there are a lot of people out there both in canada and in the united states that have through no fault of their own i mean ed played by the rules when when he was called upon to serve his country he served his country and when he came back from serving his country, got a job. And he worked hard at that job,

expecting that when it was time to retire, he would have a pension that would help take care of him. He would have health care that would help take care of him or his wife if they got sick. Three years into that retirement, his world exploded because his pension became a fiction. And he had to do what he had to do to take care of his wife. And he took care of his wife because he's a man.

And he's a provider, and that's what he did. And then when she passed, he went and worked at a big box store every single day. He's 88 years old. And fortunately, fortunately, because there is goodwill out there, the social media influencer came in like a Deu Sex Machina, like an angel from above, and changed his life. But there are a lot of people who need an angel. There are a lot of people who need a Sam Wiedenhofer in their life. And they're not, you know, they're probably not going to get that help.

But it's important to remember that there are people out there that we pass every single day who are playing by rules that keep changing on them. And you wouldn't know it for a lot of them. Like you had Bambas, he wasn't complaining. No, he wasn't complaining. He was just doing his job. He was just doing his job. And it was like pulling teeth trying to get him to, trying to,

extract this information that was going to eventually unlock this generosity. And so, so kudos to Sam Weidenhoffer. Kudos to Ed Bombas. Kudos to GoFund me. Kudos to all the people who donated. But just remember, there are a lot of people out there, a lot, far too many who fall through the cracks and who, I wouldn't say suffer in silence, but certainly were promised something that was pulled away from them at the last minute.

I just want to share that happy story today. And he's a proud man. He's one of those proud guys. Yeah, yeah, proud guy who finally gets to live a little bit of the life that he thought he was going to lead. And sadly, he doesn't get to do it with his wife. But, you know, she's looking down and happy that her husband has a little bit of peace. Maybe it's just a phase you're going through. You'll get over it.

I can't help you with that. The next appointment is in six months. You're not alone. Finding mental health support shouldn't leave you feeling more lost. At CAMH, we know how frustrating it can be trying to access care. We're working to build a future where the path to support is clear, and every step forward feels like progress. Not another wrong turn.

Visit camh.ca to help us forge a better path for mental health care. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And there are a couple of big, big stories, three big stories that popped up this week. And I thought to myself, you know who I need to talk to about these stories is Tony Chapman. He's a guy who's able to parse these things in ways that other people can't. He sees things that other people don't. And so let's bring Tony Chapman, who is the host of the award-winning podcast, Chatter That Matters, as well as family partner in chatter AI. Tony, welcome to the show and damn you for being in a place that is warmer than

here. I think most of the places in the planet are now warmer than where you are. Very, very good point. All right, let's talk about Columbia sportswear, outerware, because this is a heck of a marketing coup, I would say. Tell our listeners, tell the viewers on YouTube what Columbia is doing. Well, again, we've talked about it time and time again, that the oxygen of marketing is attention. Attention, breeze life, and the possibilities. So today it's really hard to get people's attention because more often than not, we're creating content and seeking validation versus consuming it. So you've got to be very clever. What they've done is one of the headshakers of all time that there's a group of people

on this planet that are absolutely convinced, including my brother-in-law, that the world is flat. What? And at the end, why Antarctica has never been fully explored is you get to the end and there's a cliff that takes you down and they have the sun and moon are 5,000 miles away and it goes on and on and on. And they have wrapped themselves into every possible argument. So what I loved about this, what's going on here is that Columbia has come out and said, listen, if you're so, if you have this proof, I'll tell you what, you go take a picture at the end of Antarctica and send it to us and we'll give you all the assets to our company.

And the fun part about it is it's going to be talked about everywhere. First of all, it's a great challenge. everybody's up for a great challenge and second of all for the vast majority i would argue 99.99% of the people that really do see the world is round it's a lot of fun and a fun way to go back at the what most of us think are just a pretty crazy thought so it's a brilliant brilliant way to get attention have us talking about it and really again plays to an insight like jerry Seinfeld did in every show just something that can create an itch and once you scratch it you just keep talking about it well i i remember a few years ago there was a meme that was circulating it was like a

screen grab of some some the website of some flat earth society and this flat earth society was touting hundreds or thousands of members quote around the world end quote so somebody screen grabbed and said say that last part out loud yeah i had chris hatfield on my podcast and i just i just you know said my brother-in-law's convinced what do you have to say for it to him. And Chris Hadfield, the astronaut, said nothing. Yeah, I got nothing to say. Okay, well, let's talk about a one of the biggest deals probably in the history of media, which is the Netflix won the sweepstakes to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, which includes HBO. Now, this deal still has to go through regulatory approval. There are a lot of people

who think that it will not happen. Because if you take the content out of it, right, both both companies are content providers. You take the content out and just look at the streaming capability. You've got the number one streamer in America, purchasing the number three streamer in America. So already there are antitrust implications. People are thinking that you're building a monopoly. What do you think of this deal? And if it does go through, talking about the benefits and maybe the negative aspects.

Well, we saw what Fife did giving a Nobel or Global Peace Prize to Donald Trump. I would just simply sell this as antitrust by saying we'll do a. a two-year series on how wonderful Donald Trump is and it'll probably pass because I don't think there's such a thing as antitrust anymore in the States. It's so powerful. If they get away with this, what Netflix is done now is they've gone into the content creation versus purchasing content. As you said, they've combined their streaming power. They've got $10 billion in revenue already. It's a runaway train for them. It lets them get into merchandise, sports gambling, developing theme parks, cruise lines, sports, every aspect of what content, how content can be monetized, data.

You know, Ben, the thing is interesting about it, I know what show you're watching. I know when you drop off, and therefore I know exactly what kind of things you like. Therefore, I can place the right advertising. Even as a game changer for advertising is profound. My bet is we're going to see another move because consolidation always leads to another one. And I have to look at Amazon and Apple teaming up to say, we need to be a Goliath. countering Goliath. If not the craze of the world, the Amazon Prime and Apple can possibly keep up with something that big. I get that. But in both Amazon and Apple's cases, they're streaming

business. That's a loss leader for them. They're not doing that to make money. They're doing that to attract people to their main businesses, which is shopping or, you know, with Apple, it's for all the other um it's like about keeping people on their phones longer right absolutely stick it's stickiness but ben let me put back what if warner decides and they're going to now you can buy shopping off of their streaming service yeah just click to buy yeah and they suddenly become the next and they become the consolidator above amazon so now amazon has to sell through them and they collect a tollboats and what if they start getting into the uh do as exclusive deal with the with the google or the Samsung phones.

The power in data, it is, it's a race to control the head, art and hands of consumers. This is a massive move on the chessboard. And I don't see Amazon

and Apple sitting on the, and saying we're about to surrender connection with the consumer that easily. Now, what do you think? I mean, look, we've already talked,

we talked about Netflix getting into live events, right? We've talked about them doing the boxing. We've talked about the football games. Like, all of that is in the offing. I believe that they tried to get their hands on the Oscars, and that fell through. But, you know, they're knocking at the door on so many of these valuable properties.

It's only a matter of time. It's only a matter of time before they get into live news, right, and breaking events. Like, I could see Netflix news being a thing 10 years from now, right? They buy CNN or something like that. Well, they said they don't want CNN, and I see, a reason why is AI can produce that newscast right now. Sure. So, okay, so they'll get into that. right so next thing you know you're getting your news you're getting your sports you're getting your

entertainment all from one place and there's no way that they i mean yes they can there there's always ways to get bigger but there is such a thing as too big uh in the eyes of the united states but you said you don't think there's any there's there's there's no such thing as antitrust anymore not with america all donald trump wants is the power to be in america so i think that the reason why those digital barons lined up with an inauguration paying for his white house power is really because they understand that he is going to support anything they do to make America dominant. Digital is the new frontier. Just like oil used to be, who controlled rubber was the reason why Japan got involved in World War II.

Now it's about data, and this is another data play that favors America. They have 300 million subscribers worldwide. When they're going to go to the Oscars next time, they're going to say, hey, how many people do you actually want to watch the show? We can personalize the ads to each individual watching it. It's a deal breaker because it's access, not imagine access, my ratings on television. This is actual data showing you how many eyeballs are watching at what time and do they click and do they do other things with it. And that's just so much power to put in the hands of a handful of companies.

And what Netflix is saying is we want to see it alongside meta. We want to see it alongside Open AI and Google. And I think that's what this move is at play for. So what do you think the next, if this is the action, if this is the action, what do you think the reaction is going to be? Because if I were a betting man, which I'm not, but if I were a betting man, I would say that Apple would make a play for Disney.

Apple could make a play for Disney for sure, but I think it's I really wonder if Amazon and Apple realizing that each brings such incredible strength is something that's on the drawing board. But I have to believe that there's worse than war rooms, scenario rooms happening, imagining a variety of different things, because consolidation is the future.

And the same with this open AI right now and perplexity. and ask for pocket. Who's going to win that? Yeah. Because billions are being spent. But billions were, when Edison created electricity, there was 2,000 electric companies that started immediately. And Westinghouse was at the end of the gauntlet.

And the same thing is going to happen here that people are just going to be gobbled out. Yeah. I mean, look, Matta just bought Limitless on the weekend, which is a pendant you wear to track conversations with people. Oh, I know. They just do it. They're bringing facial recognition. When you wear a pair of glasses, you walk up to a stranger.

It'll tell you who the stranger. name is. I mean, this world is getting creepy. Yeah. And well, I'll tell you one thing that is a guarantee after if this deal goes through, somebody's going to have to pay for it. And there's no way that your, uh, that the cost of your, your Netflix, uh, account is not going to go up significantly. Uh, so that is, yeah, that's something we can, it's your blue jay tickets with these pictures that they're signing. It all comes back to the consumer's wallet. There's no, there's no charity out there. Hey, Tony Chapman, thank you very much. Enjoy the weather. We'll talk to you soon. All right. Chat soon.

Your day. Your day starts right here. Your day starts right here. The number one place to be in the morning. We've got the news you need. Take that team candidate approach. The expert you trust. More exclusives than anywhere else.

And your first stop for the biggest entertainment stories. The morning show, weekdays on Global.