The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Encore: Keith Boag on Donald Trump -- What To Make Of Trump 2.0

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Encore Presentation. Some of you have been writing, asking "where is Keith Boag?" Today the answer, as the former Washington correspondent brings us up to date on his latest thinking about Donald Trump. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, and welcome to our holiday season, Encore episodes of the Bridge. All of us here at the Bridge send you the best for the holidays. So enjoy now one of our episodes a second time from the fall of 2025. Donald Trump 2.0. Keith Bogue is here with his latest analysis on the U.S. President. That's coming right up. And hello there. Keith Bogus here, back by popular demand.

We haven't heard from Keith since the beginning of the year. He guided us through last year, the U.S. election year. And this year, it's a former Washington correspondent with deep ties to the U.S. story. He's back with us again. to give us a sense of what he thinks of Donald Trump 2.0 after we've experienced almost one year of the U.S. president in this latest role that he has. Anyway, Keith will be buying a moment. So he's back, but I've got to tell you about somebody else who's back.

You know who that is? It's Peter Moosebridge. Zootopia 2, the latest of the Disney franchise opens. And one of the characters in Zootopia 2, as was the case in Zootopia 1, is Peter Moosebridge. Now, who could have thought of that name? The character is a television anchor in the Zootopia world. And guess where his voice comes from?

You got it right here. I was a thrill for me to do Zootopia won a very small part, I might add. Very small. But a part nonetheless, in an Academy Award-winning film. The part is a little bigger this time. Not a lot bigger, but a little bigger. But it opens in theaters across Canada, across North America. And if you're at it, I mean, hey, let's face it, it's an animated feature.

mainly designed for kids but the message is strong I have talked about it here I'll let you see it make your own decisions about the message but I think it's a thoroughly enjoyable film and if you go or if your kids go or if you take your kids I think you'll enjoy the day all right that's my plug for Zootopia too and Peter Moosebridge an excellent character clearly was the tipping point in the decision by the Academy to award it the best animated feature in the Oscars of a couple of years ago. So we're all hoping it'll be up for another Oscar this year. Okay.

Enough of that. Let's get to why we're here. And why we're here is the opportunity to... hear from our good friend, Keith Bogue. So let's get to it. Here we go, The Bridge with Keith Bogue today as our guest right now. Well, Keith, I've been looking forward to this, and so I know I have listeners because they've been writing.

They've been writing saying, where's Keith Bogue? Why don't you ever have Keith Bogue on anymore? Show me the receipts. That's true. I'm not kidding. They write to me at the Mansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. write, and they say, I need to hear from Keith Bogue about what the heck to believe with Donald Trump these days.

Those are very kind people. Well, they are. They can also get unkind. I get those letters, too, but not about you. So the basic question, I mean, you helped us all through last year. I think the last time we talked was shortly after the election. So it's been whatever it's been. And I want to know before, you know, I have some.

general areas I want to get out with you, but I want to know where your head is at right now, as a guy who's watched him for 10 years, through a number of election campaigns and through various crises, national, international, and personal that he's faced, where's your head out on him right now? So I've been having a lot of trouble with it, and I don't mean just in my response to it, but in terms of organizing my thoughts around it, I find it very different from what they call Trump 1.0. Trump 2.0 has moved much more quickly in many more directions with greater confidence, although even more sloppily, I would argue, lately. And that has made all of it really difficult for me to synthesize. I think you and I had an email exchange earlier this year where I really felt kind of despairing and lost because I could not hold all of it in my head at one time.

And as I say, synthesize it so that I had a sense that I understood the big picture. I'm a little better at that now as I try and keep in mind. that you, without compartmentalizing it, you do have to divide it up into some kind of categories that are more manageable, whether it's separating the domestic from the foreign or the personal from the official, what's new from what's old, the performance of his cabinet, which I think is strikingly different, maybe the most different thing from the the first go around, the first term with Trump. So all of those things are starting to get clearer into my mind.

And I was helped recently by the New York Times editorial board put together it's kind of a 12 steps are things to watch to know whether the country's losing its democracy. And I found that very helpful. And as I say, synthesizing what's happening there. There were things like, is he trying to use the military domestically? And the answer, yes. is he trying to use the justice system to pursue his personal political foes? The answer to that is yes.

Is he using his office for personal enrichment? The answer to that is yes. So I think that's the approach you have to go. To try to keep it in your head all at the same time, I think is impossible. But you have to pay attention to all of it. But I think look at it as different components of his presidency. I don't know whether that's helpful for anybody else, but that's kind of what I'm trying now. No, that's fascinating to hear it, you know, described in those terms.

Not surprisingly, just in that answer, you've tripped the wire on a lot of different questions. Let me try those ones, first of all, that you just answered yes to those three questions about him and what he's, whether he's actually planned, or whether he's actually in the affirmative on, on some of those questions, whether it's the military or the justice system or what have you. Do you think at the beginning of this term, he was actually planning to do all those things? Or did he just fall into, did they just sort of fall into place for him? Because it goes to the heart of this, like, how smart is he, how bright is he, what is he, how does he actually think through these things or does he even think through them or do they just sort of happen?

So I think the most important answer to that is what he learned in the first term, the most important lesson to him was that he much prefers having people who are loyal to him than they are loyal to the Constitution or loyal to the norms of their roles in government. So he wants people, he wants a Secretary of Defense who is not going to be like the one he had to deal with. in his first term. He wants a chief of defense staff who's not going to be like the one he had in the first term.

He wants people who are going to figure out how to do what he wants to do and not demand that he explained why he wants to do it. So, you know, I imagine he's quite pleased with Pete Hegseth as his secretary of war, as he now wants to call him, because Hegseth essentially just does what he wants to do.

He's getting rid of all the senior military brass that would have questions about the president's behavior, his orders, his strategy, his direction. One of the very first things that he did, I don't think a lot of people maybe noticed this, but in the Department of Defense, he got rid of all of Judge Advocates General in each of the branches of the armed forces. And we are seeing now how important that might have been for him, because those people who I think are known sort of culturally as the people who run court marshals and so on, courts marshals.

They are also the people who are the legal advisors to the military when trying to determine the difficult, ethical and moral questions that you can imagine that a military might face about what are terms of engagement, who is a legitimate target and those kinds of things. That's gone from inside there. They've been replaced, I assume, by Trump loyalists. And you look what's happening in the Caribbean where, based on evidence that we've never seen, the military's killing people who might turn out to be innocent people. This is murder. You know, I think I saw you.

I had not read deeply into this. Perhaps you have UK, as a member of the Five Eyes, has decided to no longer share intelligence information about the Caribbean because they don't want to be seen as aiding and abetting what's going on there by the Trump administration. That is an incredible thing. That's a really stunning thing that shows you what the world thinks of what is happening now and the deep moral questions they have about the way the president is operating in just this one particular question. And of course, there are many others. You know, Defense Department is clearly one. The Justice Department is another, the Attorney General.

You know, you tend to forget that his initial choice for Attorney General was Matt Gates. And people went, there's no way, you can't do that. The guy is borderline criminal, you know. It wasn't just people who said that. It was Republicans who said that. Like, this is not happening. And so what does he do? He goes to the former Attorney General of Florida, Pam Bondi, who had a record.

which was not a bad record as Attorney General in Florida. But she was clearly a friend of the president. And she's shown that through and through and through in her term, from everything from, you know, the Epstein files to what else. And so it's the same kind of thing. And then you go into the Commerce Secretary and the Treasury Secretary and the Trade Commissioner and all of this. And they're all kind of pals, as you said.

These are not the kind of people who were in there in Trump, 1.0. I mean, they were a very different group of people who weren't afraid to say, you can't do this. These people, I'm sure those words have never come across their lips in a conversation with Donald Trump. So you have that issue. So I guess the answer to the question, your answer is, yeah, he was planning this. He is, in his own view, determined not to make what he considers to be the mistakes of the last administration.

That is, he doesn't want any adults around him are going to disagree with him. He just simply does not want people disagreeing him with him. He wants to do what he wants to do. In the case of Pam Bondi, it is, I want to use all of the power at my disposal to go after my perceived political enemies. and she said, okay, I'll get on it. And she has. And I think she is becoming a really good example of the sloppiness with which she's had to approach that job because there's still enough people in the Department of Justice to say no to her. And they have said no to her and they have said no to prosecuting James Comey and Letitia James. And so she's found somebody who will do it anyway. And that just blew up in her face when a judge dismissed the case. against the former director of the FBI and the Attorney General of New York. We'll see where that ends up, but I don't think that you could get a clearer example of the abuse of power that we're seeing happening within the Department of Justice.

And I also don't expect we've seen the end of that. I don't think he's going to be chastened by this experience at all. I think we'll just see more of it. That's interesting. You don't think he's learned any lessons through this process so far. And I asked that with the background of this, you know, apparent split in the MAGA movement, the whole Marjorie Taylor Green thing,

but there's other examples, not just her, of people now starting to speak out. And they're starting to speak out because of things like the fumbling of various files by the Attorney General, because of Heg-Seth, because of tariffs and the affordability issue that's biting back at Republicans across the kind of, country. But you don't, you don't think he's learning a lesson from all this? Well, with respect

going after his perceived political enemies with all the powers at his disposal, I don't. Because in the case of the failed, so far failed prosecution of James Comey and Letitia James, those cases have been dismissed on what one might argue is a technical point about whether the prosecutor who they found to go ahead with these indictments was eligible for that job. Was she appropriately appointed? There is a completely separate question of whether those were vindictive or selective prosecutions. And that is before the courts. And some of the strongest evidence in the defense's favor. In other words, in Comey and Leticia James's favor, are the tweets and words out of the president's own mouth. And he's continuing to do that. You see that the government, yesterday we

heard Pam Bondi say that the government intends to appeal these cases. Well, I mean, like at some point when you've been told by the court, this is not a legitimate prosecution, and you persist, that just gets added to a pile of evidence that says this is being done vindictively. And you know, I've heard many, many smart analysts say it's very, very hard to win a case on vindictive prosecution, but if ever there were when this is it. And he just seems to be making it. So that's kind of why I say those things, that he's just so determined to even scores. I mean, that's been a large part of his biography is always getting even, that I don't think that he, I don't think he learns those lessons. I think he looks for other ways to

to accomplish the same ends. Do you think he's worried right now about this state of things? I hear what you're saying on the... Yes. You do think he's worried now. Yes, I think so. I think that he's... I think that he is worried about losing the midterm elections because of what that

will mean if the Democrats are in charge. You know, I've been asking people what... Okay, think less people who watch politics as you and I do. Should the Democrats impeach him? I don't know what the answer to that is. But certainly that is going to be the question. I think it's most likely to be the question on everybody's mind one year from now. But there are going to be investigations.

There's no doubt about that. There are going to be investigations into what looks like personal corruption, personal enrichment, the abuse of his office to enrich himself. And I don't think he looks forward to that. I don't think he like, you know, we do see him reacting with a thin skin about questions about Epstein, for instance. So we know he's vulnerable. He's not impregnable. He reacted very badly to Marjorie Taylor Green because what she was saying was not only damaging, but it was correct.

That, you know, he could do more to release the Epstein files. He could release them with a snap lips fingers if he wanted to. And that was hurting him. And when reporters, as we saw last week, ask him about it, it brings out the nastiest, ugliest and most vulgar Trump. And those are all to be signs that, you know, that he's felt, he's felt the pressure, felt the attack. He's been hit. What do you make of the Epstein story? You know, in a way, I mean, it's kind of marvelous because they stoke to the conspiracy theories.

I don't believe that every question that everybody has about Epstein and what happened there is a legitimate question. I think likely very few of them are, but some of the ones that are are hugely important, such as how did Alex Costa managed to find a deal that was so lenient on Jeffrey Epstein the first time he was prosecuted, which was just for soliciting prostitution and not for what it should have been, which is sex trafficking, right? How did that come together? who intervened on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein with Alex Costa? Was it Donald Trump? I mean, that was before, it was during the Bush years, I believe. It was before Trump had obvious political ambitions. But Trump has always had a part of him that liked people to know how powerful he was,

how well connected he was. And he was buddies with Jeffrey Epstein. And he knew Jeffrey Epstein had a problem. And perhaps in the files you will find, I think I have good reason to suspect this to be suspicious, but I don't have evidence. I think it's possible that you might find that one of the people who weighed in on Jeffrey Epstein's behalf was Donald Trump, and that maybe he was very effective in that regard. I don't think we really even understand how Alex Costa wound up being in his cabinet in the

first administration right from the get-go. He was his first labor secretary. That's how all of this really got a second life, was. because of that appointment by Donald Trump to his cabinet of Alex Costa. So, anyway, that's what I think about. I hope that's not too long-winded for you. But I think what has happened is that they've actually uncovered parts of a story where there there.

It's not wild conspiracy theories that don't deserve anybody's attention. There are certain questions about that that should have been answered a long time ago and haven't been. And he is in a position to make those answers easier to find or harder. and he's chosen to make them harder. And I think that raises justifiable suspicions. I don't think there is a long-winded answer on the Epstein file. I mean, people...

They just eat it up. They eat it up or they're confused by it or, you know, we've heard a lot of stuff, we've seen a lot of stuff. And for the longest time, there was no firm evidence that, Trump was involved in any way that was, you know, questionable in terms of his actions. Clearly, he was a friend of Epstein, nobody, including Trump, has denied that. Then something went wrong. He says, you know, he just didn't want him in the club anymore, although it appears that he never was in the club

on an official basis. but you know it's funny you know Janice Stein and Janice is with us every Monday here on the bridge and she was just at the Halifax Security Forum which she was a you know one of the founders of that farm and the best stuff that happens in Halifax is not in the actual meetings but it's at the bar at the evening or around dinner or what have you and she said the the conversations that she was hearing on the part of visitors to the forum, including the Americans, including Republicans and Democrats, there were eight senators there, everyone believes that Trump is involved in a way that is not just sort of OA. was a friend.

So there is an allegation of statutory rape against Trump that, began its journey into the courts and then stopped suddenly. Along with that allegation is the sworn affidavit, I believe, of a witness who was one of the people who worked with Jeffrey Epstein, was kind of a finder for him. And she says the details of that story are true. That story had a very, very short life. I think it deserves more attention. I read through the cases it was written up by the young woman's lawyer.

She's not a young woman anymore, I guess. And it was pretty convincing. You know, it was detailed, it was specific, and it was supported by a witness. So I'll find it and send it to you. No, I mean, it just reads like. Like, are you kidding me? How did this ever get stopped? And that's another important question. How long has this been going on?

I mean, it does appear that there are enough elements for us to understand that a cover-up has been going on for enough, like, years and years and years with regard to this. That maybe has its salient moment with Alex Costa's plea agreement with Jeffrey Epstein. But that may not be anywhere near the full extent of it. Well, if Trump can be helped on this, he's helped by the fact that there were so many other names, known names, of people of consequence from all parties and all sections of American life, who seem to be involved as well. Yeah. Which has created this kind of haze, this cloud around the whole issue. And I think it's become understood that his sudden interest in investigations into Larry Summers and Bill Clinton is quite possibly just another way to find a loophole around his promise to release all the files, to be able to say, you know, there's nothing I can do about this. It's under investigation and because those documents are relevant to the investigation, they have to remain classified or whatever.

they are, not available publicly. I mean, that seems to now be understood, which cannot be a good thing for him. Can't possibly be. In some senses, it's still kind of like the less we know about it, the worse it is for him. And it doesn't go away. It doesn't go away. I mean, all the Trump stories that have been damaging to him over the last 10 years have all gone away at one point or another They go away. This one doesn't go away. It just stays there. And the people to whom it's most important are in his base, nobody else's, right?

They are the conspiracy theorists that he has actively, deliberately, and to his advantage, courted over many years. He's told them, there's a there there, and now he's saying there isn't. And he's calling them stupid, foolish. I'll see. I guess that's got something to do with the fact that you look at these popularity numbers for him down in the 30s now, down at points where they've never been before. It's not all due to Epstein. A lot of it's due to affordability and housing and prices and inflation and all of that. But he's underwater on the things that used to be his strengths, right?

He's underwater on the economy. He's under water on immigration. I want to take a short break and come back and talk about another aspect of the Trump life right now. But as I said, let me take this quick break. Don't go away. We'll be right back after this.

And welcome back. you're listening to The Bridge, the Wednesday episode, it's Keith Bogue, the former chief political correspondent for the CBC, former Washington correspondent for the CBC, former any number of other different correspondents and different parts of the world for the CBC, and now enjoying, as some of us do, those days of retirement. But for Keith, he never gives a sight of Washington. He loves that story, as many of us do. But he spends a lot. a lot of time on it. Okay, Keith, I should say, you're listening on Sirius XM Channel 167 Canada Talks or on your favorite podcast platform. Okay, let me try this on you. We've seen in the last few days this attempt by the Trump administration to try and find a peace deal in Ukraine.

Just like we did with Gaza, just like we did with the, according to Trump, the six other peace deals that he's arranged around the world, which some of the people who were involved in those were not aware that he'd been involved in the talks at all. But nevertheless, on this one, the Americans are certainly involved with Rubio at the table and others. but here's a tell me if I'm wrong here does does Donald Trump give a damn one way or the other about Ukraine even Russia in this or does he just want to be able to say I was involved in getting a deal I think he wishes it would go away and that he didn't have to think about it. I think that he's torn between wanting to get a deal and be able to take credit for and realizing that because that's so difficult and perhaps impossible, he needs to get as far away from all of it as possible. I think that he's genuinely torn up by that. But I also think

there's a circular element to this that's kind of getting a little bit tiresome where he seems to get involved and seems to understand the stakes for Ukraine and sympathize. And then, you know, he has another conversation with Putin gets totally sucked in, takes Russia's side again, and then comes out of that saying, damn it, I can't believe they did it to me again, right? But like, how many times have we seen this now? I think fundamentally he has to ask himself what it means if Putin, what it means to him, that Putin doesn't want peace.

how to what is what is then trump's alternative because i think that a lot of people would argue that the the agreement that was put on the table on saturday is an indication that Putin doesn't want a deal i mean he said she said look we can solve this just give me everything i want I mean, it was kind of embarrassing for anyone on the other side of it to even consider that that was a serious negotiation if that's where it ended up? Well, you know, I guess the hours and days ahead

are going to tell us what's actually possible there. I mean, well, you know, people are dying on a large scale and they're dying every night. The important thing may be what seems obvious is that Putin doesn't care that people are dying.

He doesn't care that his own people are dying. No, that's clear. He certainly doesn't. If he did, it's hard to justify the hundreds of thousands who have died on both sides, but a lot on the Russian side. I mean, there is

there is a history there of Russian leaders pushing people forward onto the battlefield knowing full well there are going to be losses in huge numbers anyway we'll see

let me switch to something that's less bloody at least at the moment but costly and that is the relationship with Canada. Did you see this coming to the extenateism? Oh, no. No.

I didn't see Trump being as capricious in every, in every theater, not just Canada, but, you know, the craziness of what he does, like just Argentina and completely the opposite direction and how. how bad these things are for him domestically, and yet he does them anyway internationally. And, you know, obviously, Argentina and Canada are at very different points in their relationships with Donald Trump.

But they're both kinds of things, the kinds of things that I didn't foresee, and I think were kind of unpredictable. I mean, I have to confess, I've been impressed with how Mark Carney has handled the personality of Trump and that I do believe that as bad as it are, it could be worse. If he didn't, if he wasn't able, so let me put it this way. I don't know Mark Carney. I know people who have worked for him. And although they admire him greatly and say he always is the

spartist guy in the room, he just wants you to know it. They also agree that he has issues with his temperament. And I don't see that in public. I think that's the kind of thing that could be easily provoked by Donald Trump. And I admire the way that Carney has managed it. But I think that people who think that there's a Rosetta Stone for Trump or a key that unlocks all of it, I think we're just learning that's not true. He is capricious. There isn't enough at stake for him this time, as there was last time, because he's, I don't know, we could talk about whether he's going to run again. But, I mean, it doesn't look like he's going to run again. And the same forces that the Trudeau government was able to bring against him don't seem to be effective

this time. The White House is much more determined to be dealt with directly that it seems to me than it was when Trudeau was prime minister and they were able to organize away from the White House in constituencies that the Trump administration had to pay attention to elsewhere in the country. I'm not sure whether that's, you know, I really don't know whether that is part of a strategy anymore. What do you think Trump's intentions really are about Canada? So that's a complicated.

question because I don't think Trump understands his own policies, right? And by that, I mean, we often hear that he does, he, he thinks that the tariffs are paid by the country on whose goods he's imposing the tariffs and blah, blah, blah. But quite apart from that, I think that he, within his administration, he is uncertain about whether tariffs are a leverage point to gain something in the immediate moment, or whether there are a long-term strategy to repatriate the manufacturing sector that had been lost over the last 40 years, back to the United States. Those are two very different purposes of tariffs. At different times, he has supported both of them, but they aren't exactly, they're not necessarily complementary, and they could be

contradictory. And certainly one seems like a short, the leverage one seems like a short-term tactic where we come up with some kind of a great deal that works for all of us. Whereas the other tactic, which is about repatriating the manufacturing sector, that's a decades-long project. And some would say a foolish one, it's never going to happen. But nevertheless, it would require, it requires different methods and a different approach to the whole thing. where people understand that these terrorists are not temporary, they're permanent, and there's no negotiating your way out of it, and the United States is prepared to bear the burdens that are associated with that for some long-range goals.

But that's not the way he behaves most of the time, and yet that is what the people who support his terror policy believe he's, that's what they always believed was the objective. And he can't seem to keep his eye on the ball for that. I think there's a lot of confusion internally about what are we actually doing here. Yeah. No, I think there is confusion around that. But increasingly, you know, increasingly I see the situation is we have to defend ourselves. and I mean that in every meaning of the word

because I think he wants us Trump and I don't think he's alone in that feeling that's a long border it is a long border it is a long border a border which he has no respect for from what he said himself about how it was created

the 49th parallel Well, I'm one of those who believe that he, that he sees the real border as the Arctic. Yeah. Well, I think he, do you think, so next year we head into the, it's a 250th anniversary. But you could say the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. And as you know, some of the early battles and the revolution were fought up here. Sure. And they lost them.

And then they tried again. And they lost again. Yeah. So I don't want to sound too, I don't want to sound too jingoistic here. But, you know, maybe when his mind focuses on, on. That's like saying the Leafs used to win a long time ago. See, no wonder you get this nail. I don't know.

I know. Maybe it's just me. But I, you know, I think a number of things have happened this year in this relationship. one one it's going to have an impact generationally this isn't suddenly going to go away like some Americans think after the next election or if there's a non-Trump elected or suddenly there's going to be a deal and everybody's going to be happy again I don't think it's going to play out that way I think this is this is a generational thing I think people got really really upset about it this year and you know they handed that down to their

their kids, some of their kids were ahead of their parents on it. And I think it can be a long, long time before this relationship is, is if at all back to where it was. So one of the things I think that we learned in the election this year was that when Carney said the relationship, as we've known it, is over. He didn't need to explain that further, that people understood exactly. what it meant. They felt it themselves and they agreed. And so I agree with you. I think that we're looking at changes that have to take place independent of the friction in our bilateral relationship. They have to take place with a more forward-looking vision about how are we going to make sure that we're never this vulnerable again?

Exactly. But I don't know what to say to you when you say, think he wants us because, I mean, you're right, like, it's not going to be like 1776 or 1812 again, you know, and no, no. All I hope is that there are those who work for this country who are heavily involved in planning how we're going to defend ourselves in every sense of that word, not just on the trade front, but on all fronts. So we'll see. Maybe it's just an old man blabbering away here, but I don't like anything I've seen or heard about the things that he's saying and others around him are saying about Canada, about Greenland, about, you know, whatever it may be, Mexico.

that if they want, nothing will get in the way of them going after whatever it is, going after the drug cartels or going after the minerals in the ground or the water in the lakes or whatever it may be. Anyway, I digress. Is he going to run again? I would not rule out him being on the ballot in 2028. And I don't buy into these really complicated scenarios where Vance runs for the presidency. He's on the bottom of the ticket as the vice presidential candidate.

They win. Vance resigns and he becomes president. You know, I think that what is more likely to happen is that they encourage people to put his name on the belt and make it a legal question. where the courts would have to decide. So basically, I imagine it as the Republican Party choosing him as their nominee in 2028. And essentially daring the courts to stop them. And this going to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court saying this is unconstitutional, but it's gone too far.

So we're going to allow it but just this once. And the just this once thing is what I get from. the Bush v. Gore, Florida election, where the Supreme Court intervened to stop the recount, won't go into the details of that. But there was a part of their decision then that said that, I cannot remember the language of it, but it was something like, this decision applies only to these circumstances, which was then sort of giving them a loophole for creating a precedent where the set of facts they knew was questionable. And in a sense, they've created a precedent for that precedent, for the court to make a really important decision

and then walk away from it as though it hasn't happened and say this can only happen once and only in these circumstances. It's happened before, and I think if Trump were to wind up on the ballot in 2028, it's more likely that it would happen that way with broad popular support within the Republican Party and the party saying to the courts, we dare you to stop this. He'd be, what, 82, 83? He's 79 now. Yeah. He said there'd be no math.

Yeah, so he'd be 82 in the election year in 83 on inauguration. No, he'd be 82 on inauguration day in 83 in its first. I really don't think it's going to happen because I don't know that we're going to get that far with him anyway. So we'll see, I mean, because of his age and other things. Right. I'm not sure. Other things that I find interesting. I mean, there are so many possibilities.

Obviously, his health could be an issue. Yeah. His past could be an issue. His business dealings while in office could be an issue. Somebody said the other day, he's worth four times more today than he was on inauguration day. Yeah. So I think the only comprehensive view of that that I've seen is one the New Yorker did,

where they went painstakingly through all of the things he's profited from. And it's a long, long piece, and I'm not sure I finished it, but I think I got to about $4 billion. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's obviously just like us, right? Well, the thing about it that's still. Our wealth this year? Yeah, four times zero is still, let me see.

Oh, zero. I read something that I thought sounded very persuasive, which is that, One of his techniques, one of his tactics, is to do everything publicly because it leads people to say, well, if he's doing it publicly, then it must be legal. Otherwise, he'd be hiding it. And that's kind of brilliant in its way. Because I think, like the stuff he's doing with crypto, and I must admit, I barely understand how all this works. It's not my thing, right? But there are just too many people saying, you do see what's going on here.

This guy just bought his way. out of jail by helping Trump's crypto, crypto investments. You see that, right? I can't remember the guy's name it, but I'm sure you're... No, no, no, I know who we were talking about. But I also, I hear what you're saying when you put forward the idea that he's doing everything in the open, which leaves a lot of people saying, well, it must be okay. Like, it's not hiding it.

We know he's doing it. Yeah. So it must be okay. But what we've witnessed in the last couple of weeks is more than a few of that Republican crowd that has looked the other way on everything for the last 10 years with him. Yeah. They're not looking the other way right now. You know, it has to have some meaning that they drove the vote on.

Epstein and Trump had to rush to get to the head of that parade. They learned something from that. They learned that they can stand up to him. Well, that may be the headline at this point. So the question will become, what does standing up to him actually do and mean? Well, one thing it could mean, and I'm sorry, I don't want to, I think you're writing up here. They can't afford to lose. A few more Marjorie Taylor Greens.

They will be in danger of losing their majority in the house before we even get to the midterms if this continues. And you are hearing these stories. I'm sure you've heard them too that, you know, people are going to go home for the holidays for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They're going to come back and think, maybe I've had enough of this. Yeah. Wouldn't that be something? They not even get to that. Yeah.

And you hear rumbles. Now, rumbles don't mean anything unless they actually deliver an outcome. come. We've witnessed that here enough times and we witnessed it a couple of weeks ago inside conservative caucus. So let's let's let's let's see what happens. But what it guarantees is there going to be more Keith Dubebog discussions in the in the future. I'm glad we waited a few months though because it was a good time to kind of put a pause what's actually happening here. And it's great to great to have you help us through that. Thanks for inviting me, Peter.

I'm always. Great. Happy to chat with you. Until the next time. Thanks, Keith. Adios. Take care. Keith Bogh with us.

And it's been a long time since we talked to Keith. It's been almost a year. So I'm glad we did this. And we'll check in with Keith again the next time it's warranted for a discussion of that, that, you know, length and substance. So I'm glad we did it. Thanks for joining us for this holiday season. an encore episode of The Bridge. We'll be back with the first of our new shows on January 5th.

We'll talk with you then.