The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Is The Media Finally Learning How To Cover Donald Trump?

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

Was there a lesson in what we witnessed yesterday in a New York Courthouse? Maybe, we can hope anyway. Donald Trump is on trial for fraud and spewing his version of events, but how did some media cover that? Plus our regular Tuesday commentary from Brian Stewart about the conflict in Ukraine.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Has the media finally learned how to cover Donald Trump? That's coming up. And hello there, welcome to Tuesday. Tuesdays is Brian Stewart Day, and Brian will be along in a few minutes' time, but I wanted to make a couple of comments first on a very different topic. You know, the media got heavily criticized for the way it has covered Donald Trump in the past, especially 2015 when he announced he was going to run for president, 2016 during the campaign, and 2017 when he finally was sworn in,

inaugurated as president of the United States. What was most of the criticism about? Well, basically that they gave him free airtime and uncontested airtime, that they let him go on, say things that they suspected may not be true, but they basically let him go on and say these things. And they covered it live day after day after day through that campaign. It's what they call free media, right? He didn't need to do advertising because the media, especially the news channels, were covering these speeches live, these rallies live. And he'd spew out all kinds of things. And there was very little fact-checking going on. So there was a lot of heavy criticism about the media, all the media, and the way they covered that campaign. They all swore up and down, we'll never do that again.

Well, they kind of did very similar things in 2020, not as much as same. So here we are in 2023, and as you know, he's going to spend most of the rest of this year and a lot of next year in a courtroom. If he's not there, his lawyers will be there trying to defend the variety of charges that are against him. Well, yesterday there was an interesting kind of scene played out in a courtroom in New York City where he's already been convicted of fraud. So he's a fraudster. That is cut and dry. That's happened. He was convicted.

A judge convicted him last week of fraud on his business dealings. But there are six more charges related to be had. So the courtroom is all set up, ready to go. Trump arrives in the lobby of the building in the courthouse and launches into a statement for the media. He waited until they were all gathered around, and he waited off at the side and then walked in and stood there in his performative way of, you know,

staring at the camera. Tough guy. Fraudster. Anyway, two of the channels, at least two, CNN and MSNBC, chose not to take all the comments. In some cases, didn't take them at all. Because he knew he was going to lie.

Because he lies. He's a liar. Proven over and over and over and over again. He lies. So, they didn't run them comments live. Which was, you remember, the criticism of how they've covered Trump in the past. They did eventually run clips of what he had to say in the courthouse lobby before, stare into the cameras while they were in the moments the cameras were allowed in before the proceedings started.

So when they ran the clips, and the best example is watching CNN, because there's a great Canadian angle to CNN's coverage of these moments now, and that's our friend Daniel Dale, used to work at the Toronto Star, cut his teeth on fact-checking Rob Ford, the former mayor. So Daniel Dale now works for CNN. He's kind of in charge of their fact-checking unit. I think they call him senior reporter or senior correspondent at CNN. He's terrific. He's always been terrific. He was terrific when he was at the Toronto Star. So what they did yesterday, they'd run a little clip of

Trump, and then they'd stop, and they'd say, okay, Daniel, is that true? And Daniel would just kind of slice and dice the thing. It's not true because this, this, this. Then they go on to the next clip. Same thing. So that's the way they covered it. And MSNBC was kind of a version of the same kind of coverage. So does this change anybody's mind? Well, I don't think it changes those who can't stand Trump, who are suddenly going to say, oh, well, I feel sorry for the guy. I don't think

that's going to happen. Will it happen to those who are the fervent supporters of Donald Trump? Will they change their minds? Unlikely, but some might. Some might. But I'm not sure. But the media has its, I don't know, trust factor restored to some degree by some because it's treating it the way it should be treated. Now, it can be hard if you're watching, if you're glued to this story and you want more,

you get frustrated by the fact, hey, he's standing right there, let's listen to him. Well, that's the dilemma, right? Listen to somebody you know is going to bend the truth, and that may be putting it politely, or wait till he's finished and then cover it properly. Here's what he said. Here's why it's not true, or here's why it is true, and then do it. Well, if you do that with Trump, should we be doing it with Biden?

Should we be doing it with Trudeau? Should we be doing it with Polyev? Those are good questions, and the people will eventually at some point have to answer them. If you're convinced that politicians lie, all politicians lie, although there's never been anything like Trump. Never, at least not in my lifetime. Anyway, it was an interesting moment in the continuing story of Donald Trump,

watching that unfold yesterday. And one assumes we're going to see that a bit. I don't think he'll be in court. The trial itself could go on for a couple of months. I don't think Trump's going to be there every day, and nor does he have to be there every day. He's paying, or at least the lawyers hope he's paying, their bills to handle this case for him.

So there are going to be days where he has to be there because he may testify himself. So it'll be interesting to watch. And will it be interesting to watch, did we see something yesterday that will signal a new way of covering this guy? Those weren't just two channels, right? The right-wing channels, they kind of took everything of Trump's

and didn't challenge it from what I saw. Anyway, there we go. Enough on that. Let's move on to what Tuesdays have been all about here for the last year and a half. My friend, somebody who I know you admire because I get lots of mail on, Brian Stewart, who cut his teeth as a reporter first in local Montreal and in Quebec during the FLQ crisis.

But he joined the Ottawa Bureau of the CBC in the early 1970s, just before I did as well. So we've been great friends since then. Last 50 years. And Brian became a great foreign correspondent, war correspondent. He's, as we say, seen it all, done it all, covered it all. And he uses his past experiences and his knowledge of conflict and his desire to look at all the avenues of information to come up and help us each Tuesday with with trying to understand the war and there are lots

of things to talk about on this week's episode so enough from me let's get at it um with brian stewart brian i want to start by asking you a question that um that i didn't ask you last week i probably should have but i I'll ask you now. Your feelings about the story that happened in Canada last week, that in some ways, whether directly or indirectly, and I guess that's what I'll need to know from you, may have affected the war in Ukraine. And that was the whole situation unfolding from the Speaker's gallery and the Speaker recognizing the chap in the gallery.

What did you make of that in terms of how it may have impacted the situation in Ukraine? Well, of course, I did think, first of all, it was a staggering, embarrassing moment for Canada. I mean, I was embarrassed myself. It's such an extraordinary goof, and no question the Russians will be using it as propaganda, even though, you know, how widely believed their propaganda is at this stage isn't quite sure. But, you know, I've been very carefully looking at the various military analysts' writings and also listening to their podcasts. And, you know, it really hasn't come up as a significant factor at all across Europe or the United States.

It's almost as if, you know, in this world, everybody makes big goofs. Everybody ends up with egg on their face. And this was Canada's moment to look really, really, really out to lunch and quite stupid, quite frankly. But, you know, not many people in NATO can say, you know, you should follow our example and be more sensible. I mean, the British ended up with an extraordinary shambles this week. Just hard to believe in terms of ministers speaking

out or officials speaking out. When their defense minister, Grant Shapps, went before the last week, started the Conservative Party conference on the weekend and said that probably announced that the United Kingdom would soon have a military advisor's training on the ground inside Ukraine to get closer to the fighting. It would actually have military, uniform military United Kingdom personnel there with the Ukrainians showing them how to use these weapons to their best ability. And, you know, everybody just sort of stopped and said, inside NATO, what? What was that? I mean, if there's been one stand that NATO has taken from

the very first hours of this war, is that NATO is not going to have any boots on the ground. We're not going to put personnel inside Ukraine, because what would that do in terms of escalating the war to an extraordinarily dangerous part? And sure enough, within hours, the Kremlin was coming out with a blast saying, this is proof the West has been directly fighting Russia. It's got us in its sights. It's trying to come after us. And Dmitry Medvedev, the most extreme, the former, you remember, former president, and certainly the most extreme voice, I think, in the Kremlin came out, warning that if the British did this, those soldiers would be ruthlessly eliminated. And rattling nuclear sabers, saying, you know, this could lead to World War III and

hinting that nuclear weapons would be involved and denouncing Schaaf himself as, quote, a newly minted moron. I think that's the one comment he made that Schaaf's cabinet colleagues might have agreed on at that particular moment. So what happened, the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had to race immediately. He didn't wait three days like Trudeau. He raced immediately to assure the Tory convention and the world that this was a goof, it was a misstatement, and they really didn't mean that, and no, Britain would not be sending any armed, any advisors into that war zone. So Canada, you say?

Well, we had center stage in the goof factor for about three days. And then other countries leapt in and took their rightful share of the storm and criticism storm. So the British will be riding this one for a little bit. Yeah, I must say it's mind-boggling. I mean, the guy may be new in the portfolio, but if you're the Minister of Defense for a country like the UK, you'd think you'd at least know where your troops are. And to make a blunder of this kind of saying they were inside the country

that was at war and understanding the stakes of saying they were inside the country that was at war and understanding the stakes of saying you were inside. It is just phenomenal. And, you know, Peter, we've covered a fair share of public officials over the years, and I've often been really stunned by how really intelligent people can sometimes put their foot in their mouth. I mean, they do something as if you're suddenly not thinking properly. How could the speaker, presumably a learned man with experience of the world, in the Canadian House not have known

that would be a problem introduction? How could he not have known this? How could Grant Shapps not have known that even talking about military officials on the ground inside Ukraine would have escalated the war instantly if they ever tried to do that? I just don't get it. And you must have seen many instances the same kind of phenomenon. Well, I mean, we've seen lots of people make goofs and we've made goofs ourselves, but we don't... Nobody's accused me of being overly intelligent, so I can get away with the odd goof. But these two, and especially the one in Canada, are mind-boggling.

Because it wasn't just the speaker. It was everybody standing in the House of Commons, standing there clapping. And surely the bell must have gone off for somebody in there that there's something wrong about this. Now, others have argued lately that when you take a hard look at the video of that day, that some people do look puzzled as to what's going on. Why is this happening? And whether they were doing that, showing that confusion because they know their history

and couldn't understand why others didn't, I don't know. I thought about that myself. And, you know, I assume that some of them, maybe a fair number of them, must have just assumed at the moment he must have bespoken himself. He probably didn't mean 43 to 45. You know, maybe he got the dates wrong or something like that. But I better not sit here while everybody else is on their feet clapping. You know, I'd be a bit embarrassing for everybody involved if I just sit here.

So I guess a lot of them sort of said, well, he must know what he's saying. I think he just bespoke himself and we'll be able to clarify that in the first minutes afterwards. But of course, that didn't happen. No. All right. Let's move on. We've talked a lot about the Ukraine situation of late. We have talked a little less lately in the last few weeks about the Russian side. So there have been a number of things that have come out, startling really, about the Russian position in the last few days. Why don't we go through some of that?

Yeah, well, you know, certainly they've been fighting a much improved, let's say, strategy and tactics on the ground defensively, but it's been wearing them down enormously. And the signs coming out of Moscow now is the attrition of this war is such that it is really starting to cost Russia heavily in terms in U.S. terms, $112 billion.

That's well over twice what they were spending just a year ago. This pushes the total spending up to 6% of Russian GDP is now going to be going on the military. That's their entire output compared to only 4% a year ago and 2.7% a year before that. So you're really seeing a tripling of spending in Russia. And that compared, there's 6% of GDP spending on defense, compared to say the U.S. is only spending 3%. So this is completely, really out of whack. And the other thing is that this is not the total spending for defense because there's another secret budget.

It's very hard to get to grips with just how many tens of billions it is. There have been some suggestions it could be up to 100 billion itself, which is hard to believe. But that's for secret things. They're not publishing what it's for. It's believed before supporting the occupied territories in Ukraine, supporting the Russian families who lost soldiers in the war, supporting bonuses for soldiers after they come back. All that is directly linked to the war itself. But it shows, I think, two things, and this is how it's been widely interpreted.

The first is that we have to accept the fact Putin is in for a long war, and he seems to be planning for something that's going to run at least three years, and through the next American election and sometime beyond that. That's one thing it shows. You wouldn't be spending this kind of money if you weren't in it for the long haul, at least the medium haul, we should say. But the other thing it also shows is their losses in equipment

and their structural losses here have been really quite extraordinary and horrendous, really, is the term that comes to mind. I mean, they've lost 2,000 tanks since this war began. That's 2,000. Well, each tank costs about $2 million now to make. So, I mean, that's almost 4 billion U.S. they'll have to spend there just to try and rebuild 2,000 tanks, which is estimated at 200 a year to take a decade to do. So, all sorts of things, armored vehicles are having to repair,

rail lines repaired, headquarters repaired. They've be losing planes, as you've seen, from Ukraine missile artillery and drone strikes. So the cost of this war is going up all the time. And it's got to the point that the first time in Russian peacetime history, defense spending, military spending is over social spending, over everything is spending on healthcare, education, old age, pensions, all the other things. And this could really be hard for Putin now to start juggling that. Remember, he's got an election early next year that he's going to run in, and he's going to want to be giving out goodies to the public.

At the same time, he's pouring money into his military that's screaming, you know, look, every week we lose another couple billion dollars at this, that, or the rest. You've got to bail us out here. So it's certainly a strain on the economy. And we've certainly seen this strain on the ruble, which has basically gone from 60 to buy a dollar just three or four months ago to 100 now. So it's definitely the ruble of value is declining. And that's always very worrisome to the bank that has to keep it up. So strain is there. And that's the kind of strain you don't often see because it's not very fascinating war stuff. But that's probably in many ways as important as some of the human losses, which it is thought Putin really doesn't care that much about.

You know, I wonder whether there's somebody whispering in Putin's ear, you know, know your history, like we were saying last week on our own history. But, you know, you only have to think back to the 80s when the Soviet involvement inside Afghanistan basically led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. And one of the reasons why that was happening was the loss of young Soviet men in Afghanistan and the enormous cost to try and prolong that war. Now, it lasted much longer than this current one, but nevertheless, it's one of the reasons that they finally left Afghanistan. And within a short period of time afterwards, the Soviet Union collapsed because they were basically broke. The Americans had kept plowing the money in on their side

by supporting the kind of rebels inside Afghanistan against the Soviets. And the Soviets eventually couldn't match that kind of money. So I don't know how similar this situation is, but there is a historic trend there. There is, and that old adage is so true. Know your history or you're doomed to repeat it. There are a couple of other examples that would be chilling for any history-minded person in the Kremlin. That is, of course, 1917.

Russia went to war, fell into one attritional defeat after another, lost horrifying numbers of men. The economy went belly up, and the whole Romanov Empire collapsed. And that brought in the Bolsheviks and the communists. There's even a somewhat less dramatic lesson to Russia. And that is at the height of the Cold War, where I emphasize the cold element here, where there wasn't a shot fired at the continent of Europe between the Americans and the Russians, or NATO and the Russians. But it was this defense spending, particularly under Reagan, when Reagan went all out to basically, quote, spend the Soviet Union to the bath. The old wrestler term, you know, drive your enemy to the bath. And American defense spending was jacked up year after year, way beyond what it really

needed. But because the Americans figured out, their strategists said Russia would have to match everything the Americans were doing, particularly in space rocketry and the rest of it. And so it did. And so it went completely, really down the tubes economically. And that led to the fall of the communist empire. So getting into these high spending matches is something that no country should be doing, but Russia should certainly have an eye on the background. Now, of course, with Ukraine, it's also having enormous costs, but it's been bailed out every month, every week, every day by money pouring in from Europe and from the many allies, the United States,

Canada, and the many allies that Ukraine has around the world, even in the Pacific. So it can call upon this money flowing in. Russia's only hope, really, and this is pretty well admitted by Russian officials, is to see energy prices steadily increase. That's why when you see oil going, I don't drive anymore, so I don't watch that, oil going up to $90 or $100, that kind of thing. That's what will keep Russia going. If the cost of oil comes down, that will undercut Russia's ability to handle this. And I just wonder, you know, very interesting, the negotiations now underway between the United States and Saudi Arabia about a three-way deal with Israel,

but shoring up American support for Saudi Arabia. And one of the understandings is that Saudi Arabia will do its best to not see oil run harmful to American interests. Well, if Saudi Arabia produced more oil, that would undercut the Russians' hope to see it go through the roof. We'll see. Okay. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, I want to talk about the weather.

The weather in terms of the impact it's having on the Ukrainian offensive that has been underway for a couple of months now. But first, this quick break. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Tuesday episode. Brian Stewart's with us as we focus on the situation in Ukraine on our weekly check-in with Brian, the foreign correspondent or correspondent. Brian's done it all over his time, so he's seen a lot. All right, so the Ukrainians have, as we said, been out there offensive, counter-offensive, if you want to call it that, for the last couple of months.

And there have been complaints by some analysts, some allies, that it's been going pretty slow. Well, it has been going pretty slow, but it's actually been going. It's actually been moving forward very slowly, but they have been moving forward and gaining ground. Now we're about to what you used to call it last year, general winter or general mud. The weather is changing. What is the impact going to have on the Ukrainian offensive, whether you consider it too slow or not? What's your sense on the weather angle? Well, this is interesting. I should say off the top, a lot of analysts, including the United States, have been critical

of Ukraine in the past. We're not moving. So we're coming around to Ukraine's view that basically it's fighting the only war it can, which is attritional. It's moved from territorial gain as the be-all and end-all to you treat the enemy. And that's the steady progress across many fronts, which wears the Russians down, is really the only thing they can fight at the moment, and they're doing it really quite well.

But the key is here, yes, the leaves are turning, they will be falling, but the Ukrainians now are in a different kind of war than they were talking about two months ago. It's not a territorial war so much as an attritional war. And this, it seems to me that they're giving off signals that they're going to continue to attack during this period. Because, you know, the mud and the fall of the leaves and the rest of it has two-pronged effects. I mean, it certainly will slow down Ukrainian movements, but as they're not going terribly fast at the moment, as it is,

what it will may hurt more is the Russian movements in two ways. Hard for them to get their supplies up, but more importantly, when the leaves go down, the Russians will start losing one of their great advantages they've had in this terrain of eastern Ukraine, which is, as you know from the maps and pictures, largely farmland, with tree lines all around each farm. And they've been using the tree lines very skillfully. The Russians were very good at camouflage, always were, by the way, historically. But they've been using the tree lines very skillfully. The Russians were very good at camouflage, always were, by the way, historically. But they've been extremely good at it.

But with the leaves falling, more and more Russian positions are going to come open, will be easily visible to Ukrainians who have more precision weapons than the Russians, are getting a lot more coming in, and we'll be able to take, you know, frontline positions, trenches position, headquarter positions, stockpiles of weapons and logistics, probably easier without this leaf coverage everywhere. It'll be a barren countryside, which will go play very well for the drones and the missile fires, you know, and satellite imagery, we can pick up where the Russians are. So it could be the Russians will get a bit of a break from the constant forward push by the Ukrainians, however limited,

and hoping for a bit of a breather. But instead of a breather, they're going to be getting probably a lot more fire coming in upon their their position so that will possibly drive up russian quite likely i would say drive up russian casualties higher through the fall and into the winter because the right the ukrainians now are getting more of these long-range weaponry that will be fired throughout the winter. They're stockpiling some now. We promise some more ones from the United States that will go ever deeper into Russian rearguard positions and possibly into Russia itself.

So it's not a good time for Russia either. Okay, two more areas I'd like to get your thoughts on. You know, ever since this conflict began, coming on two years ago now, we've kind of heard a lot of different names of Ukrainian communities, cities, villages caught up in the fighting, or soon to be caught up. Is there one name that stands out right now for you that we should be listening for? Yeah, for sure. I think there's one name, Tokmak. I'm not sure the pronunciation. It's in the Zaporizhzhia area where the Ukrainians are doing their main push. It basically is a very important Russian rail hub, supply depot,

logistical center, and it's only now 20 kilometers from the advancing Ukrainians. It is enormously important for the Russians to hold. They've encircled it with lines of defenses, with trenches and everything else, clearly showing they're determined to hold this. And the Ukrainians seem determined to make a push upon it. So it could become the big battle name that we keep hearing, like some of the others we've heard throughout the war, over and over and over again. If Ukraine takes Tokmak, not only will it be an enormous prestige win for Ukraine and a real logistical serious loss for Russia, but it will open the way much more easily, perhaps, to their push towards the sea and Melitopol, a city that they

wanted to take as they try and cut the Russians in half in the South and the Northern forces. So Tokmak is something to pay attention to when that name is made and to consider that the Ukrainian offensive is now only 20 kilometers away and even advancing at a few kilometers. Well, they're not at the moment, but getting up to advancing a few kilometers a day would very soon bring that into a major battle.

All right. And that name again, if you're going to follow that, it's Tokmak, T-O-K-M-A-K. Hopefully we're pronouncing it right. It's been one of the challenges of this war because some of the names are pronounced differently depending on where you come from, what region you come from inside Ukraine. So it's been interesting. But that one, T-O-K-M-A-K.

Many of these names that come up, you know, it's really just a small town. A big town town small city it was a rail hub and that's what's got it into the unfortunately the lens of history so to speak sure fortunes of war now center on it it's tragic for those towns and villages that get caught in these positions but that's the way this war and other wars go. All right. Crimea is the other area I want you to talk about. Now, we're all familiar with that name and that location and that history because the Russians moved in on Crimea, what, 2014? Have been there ever since.

But the Ukrainians seem to be targeting it almost as, and I've heard this phrase used at times, that this could be the Achilles heel for Russia. Tell us about that. That's right. Well, the Russians have to hold it, and that means they have to supply it, and they have to hold it and supply it while the main fighting is going on in other areas. And it's the major prestige thing because it's the one that Ukraine has announced

over and over. It's determined to win back. And as Ukrainians have now built up their long-range firing forces and the precision of their weaponry, they're able to start hammering at Crimea over and over in very effective ways. We've seen attacks on Sevastopol, which was a major Russian naval base. The Russians have had to withdraw their ships from there because the attacks were becoming so consistent by drones. But now with the U.S. supplying the latest promise from Biden is attack missiles. They can hit 180 miles or 300 kilometers deep, which means they're a ballistic missile, very hard to bring down.

They go way up in the space. They're hard to hit. They're obviously faster than cruise missiles, tougher to fight against. And they can fire a single warhead or with these cluster bombs so they're almost perfect for going after uh russian ammunition dumps bridges above all bridges bridges bridges which would isolate crimea and rail lines rail lines highways so that kind of battery that the ukrainians have put themselves into a position now to conduct upon Crimea over and over again through the winter and into next year is going to be very wearing on the Russians. And it's obviously one of the bargaining ploys they're hoping that will convince Russia that it's too costly to try and hold on to some of this ground we captured.

And we better come up with some diplomatic solution down the road, but that's not coming anytime soon. Watch for more and more attacks. There are even some rumors the Ukrainians are planning a seaborne attack on western Crimea, but I think that's just a feint to draw them into, draw the Russians, troops, bring more troops down from their defensive lines

to help defend Crimea, which has stretched the Russian forces all that more. How would they even do a seaborne assault? You told us last week they don't really have a navy beyond, you know, small. What they've got, and they keep this very, very secret, they've got a large, large number of motorboat, fast motorboats, fast dinghies or whatever they call these things. I'm not really too up to the speed of that. That'd be a lot of dinghies. A lot of dinghies for a seaport assault.

But remember, a lot of the areas, not like the Normandy coast, a lot of the area, cry area crime isn't all that well defended so you could land several hundred top commandos with the the orders to hold as long as you can to make as much trouble as you possibly can it would be like a dieppe rate only more sensibly conducted one would hope and not so suicidal but it would it would their their plan would be not to stay there and conquer, but to create complete confusion from the Russian command and then really mess up the Russian commander's minds and force them to bring down more troops from battlefields elsewhere. I don't believe it's going to happen. I think it's merely an attempt of the Ukrainians to tease the Russians into reinforcing the Crimea more than they probably should at the moment. All right, we're going to leave it at that for this week, Brian. You gave us a lot to think about in there, and we will do that, as you will too, as we head towards the Thanksgiving weekend.

For all the troubles that we all have, there's still lots to give thanks for. So enjoy your weekend coming up, and we'll talk to you again, well, probably next week. Thanks, Brian. Great. You too. Thanks a lot. Brian Stewart with us, as he almost always is on Tuesdays.

And great to hear from him. Lots of stuff in that one. Okay, we have time for an end bit. We have time for an end bit before we close out today's episode. Do you know what the first guitar, what kind of guitar it was, that Paul McCartney bought after becoming the bassist for the Beatles? Okay, so going back quite a ways here. And we're also looking for those of you who have a certain expertise

in guitars, and especially bass guitars. So here's a hint. It was the same guitar that was used in some of the Beatles' most famous early hits. Love Me Do, She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, yeah. And twist and shout. Okay, you know, does anybody out there know the answer to this? I would be shocked if they did. But I'm sure there's somebody out there somewhere who knows the answer to this question.

And here is the answer. It is the distinctive Hoffner violin bass. That was the first guitar that Paul McCartney bought after becoming the bassist. Now, why am I telling you this? Because it's been missing

for half a century. And there's a search on. Let's find that guitar. Because that's historic. That was the base used on some of those early hits. According to the New York Times, there is a new campaign

seeking to find the missing instrument, and hundreds of people have responded hoping to help solve the decades-old mystery. Where is Paul McCartney's missing bass guitar? Where did he find it? He bought it.

They haven't found it. Where did he pick up the bass guitar originally? Picked it up in a Hamburg music store in 1961. And it accompanied the Fab Four as they rocketed to stunning success, becoming the most famous band in the world. But the guitar vanished eight years later. So there are all kinds of people looking for this.

McCartney said, I got my violin bass at the Steinway shop in the town center. I remember going along. There was this bass which was quite cheap. He said in a 1993 interview with Guitar Magazine, adding that he had not wanted to go into debt and could only afford the Hoffner 500-slash-1 guitar. At the time, it cost about 30 pounds.

30 pounds is about, I don't know, 50 bucks, somewhere in there, in today's numbers. Once I bought it, I fell in love with it, said Paul. Took it back to Britain, where it accompanied the Beatles through hundreds of gigs. From the band's early concerts at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where they were spotted by Brian Epstein, who would become their manager to the recording of their first two albums. It was repaired in 1964, according to the team behind the new search, and then used along with other bass guitars.

The last confirmed sighting of the instrument was in London in 1969, in video footage of the band members writing their final album, Let It Be. Rumors have percolated over the time since about what happened to the instrument. The lost bass project suggests that it could have been stolen or lost either from the basement of Abbey Road Studios or from the Apple Corp. recording studio on Savile Row. Well, there you go. You got an old bass guitar in the attic?

Better check it out. Is it a Hoffner? It's got Paul's fingerprints on it. You never know, eh? All right, that's going to wrap it up for this day. Tomorrow at Smoke Mirrors and the Truth, Bruce Anderson will be by. Thursday, it's your turn. If you have anything to say at all about anything you've heard this week,

please write today. I've got a crazy week of doing different things this week, please write today. I've got a crazy week of doing different things this week, and so I'll probably be packaging the Your Turn and the Random Ranter Thursday program early, probably on Wednesday, to have it ready for the Thursday show. So if you have something you want to say about whatever it may be, please write in. Remember your name and your location, and please, please try to keep the letter short. The long letters don't do well here,

and there have been some really long ones already this week. So drop me a line, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. That's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you again in 24 hours.