The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - THE TRUMP CIRCUS HITS MIAMI

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

It's a serious indictment against a former US President, but like almost everything that involves Donald Trump it turns into a circus.  Bruce has his thoughts on everything from the courtroom to the newsroom.  Also today Erin O'Toole's farewell speech to the House of Commons where there were lessons for everyone.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth is next with Bruce Anderson. Is he the guy in the MAGA hat or is he the guy in the prisoner's outfit? We'll find out in a moment. Ah, that wonderful Wednesday theme. For Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth, SMT. Bruce Anderson is with us. Bruce, I don't know how much you followed yesterday.

I followed it more than I thought I would and more than I should have. We're talking about the Trump, the latest situation in Miami as he appeared in court. And it was like a circus there. First of all, it was a kind of OJ van chase to the courthouse. And then outside the courthouse, it really was like a circus. They expected upwards of 50,000. I think they got a few hundred. People in outfits, you know, fat Trump suits, lock them up signs, lots of MAGA hats from the Trump supporters and a guy in a prisoner's outfit who got arrested.

I don't know. Like the whole thing was nuts. But I sat there and watched it. I don't know. I don't know what's up with me that I was glued to watching this thing. And obviously the networks must have thought people wanted to see it because they were all playing it, including over here in the UK. Worldwide, I guess.

They were watching it. Al Jazeera ran it. So what do you think? What did you make of yesterday? Well, it's interesting what you say there, Peter, that, you know, they were playing it. And it's interesting to me because it implies there are two different reactions that one could have. One is that I've seen so much drama and circus around Trump that I really don't want to watch it endlessly anymore, right? That there's a kind of a sameness to it almost. But at the same time, it's really

unprecedented what's happening. And so for the media, had they decided not to cover it, almost would have been shocking in and of itself, right? That here's a guy who was president, who's running for president again, who at this point, based on all the available evidence, looks like he's likely to get the Republican nomination again, and is very competitive in head-to-head polls with the current incumbent president. So that's somebody who is a hugely important public figure to people in America and indeed around the world. So that's somebody who is a hugely important public figure to people in America and indeed around the world. So with all of that, you would say, yeah, this is pretty, pretty important. But I have the sense that what's almost more interesting to me right now is that the is that the american system which is based on

this notion of uh a judiciary an executive branch and a legislative branch and all would have different roles and functions in the uh in the body politic in the united states has kind of further broken down right that there's a real sense that the judiciary and the judicial system is living on borrowed time. You've got 81% of Republican voters who say they think that this is a persecution of a political rival, rather than what their eyes would tell them, which is, here's a guy who said he had no documents, and here's pictures of boxes and boxes and boxes of documents. And the prosecutors are saying, the boxes of documents contain things that are obviously sensitive US intelligence. But notwithstanding that, notwithstanding that prosecutors have moved

this case forward to courts, there is such an adherence to this idea of if my team is the red team, the red team is always right. And the blue team is always out to get us. And same is true, I guess, on the other side. But that's what struck me is that we're kind of witnessing a situation that Trump didn't start, but definitely took to another level, where how people evaluate news and fact is really more a function of who they dislike and distrust on the other side side rather than what the evidence and the facts are you know um you correctly point out these kind of three arms of of government if you will the you know judicial executive and legislative in the united states was there's

almost a fourth arm uh although it doesn't have any official duties, but the fourth arm would be the media and the impact it has on stories like this. I mean, we saw all the fuss, legitimate, I thought, made about CNN's decision to do Trump in a town hall the day after he'd been convicted of, well, not convicted, but found liable on sexual abuse charges and gave him almost a free reign of just one lie after another. So yesterday, the media, in its wisdom, all the elements of it, chooses to give wall-to-wall blanket coverage during the day.

There was some pullback in the evening when Trump spoke to the usual crowd of hangers-on and some donors and wannabe Trumpers at Bedminster, one of his hotels. CNN, I think, and MSNBC did not run it, did not run that speech, which was also, once again, full of lies and outrageous statements. Fox did. And it's funny because I was listening to John Dean, Richard Nixon's former White House attorney, who was the one who kind of blew the whistle on Nixon back in 72, 73, 74,

up to the resignation over the Watergate scandal, having warned Nixon there was a cancer growing on his presidency but dean was asked if this media atmosphere existed back in those days in the early 1970s would nixon have been forced to resign and he didn't hesitate at all he said no no it never would have happened if there'd been a fox news and all the other uh pretenders to the right-wing media crown, if they show i think that there is another unofficial kind of arm to that uh triumph of who makes decisions about how governments perform and and what happens to governments um in the united states aside from the public of course who have the ultimate decision to make yeah yeah i agree. I was looking at a piece yesterday

that said that MSNBC had walloped CNN in the ratings over the last several days. And, you know, well, I tend to be somebody who leans more towards MSNBC than Fox, of course, just given my attitudes about issues and the sense that I have that Fox can't be trusted to give me accurate and honest information. But I don't love MSNBC because it feels like a bit of a rabbit hole. It feels like the bias is so evident all the time that it's a kind of an entertainment

product for the people who love a particular type of entertainment. CNN has been struggling with trying to decide whether or not it wants to play a role in the middle or whether or not it wants to look a little bit more right to disaffected right-wing people. And we'll see where it goes. But right now, CNN, which of those three cable news networks is probably the only one that's trying to occupy something that resembles the middle. It's losing. It's in third and it's losing badly. I think the reality is that just as the Republican politicians realize that, with the one exception, I think, of Chris Christie, that they are only going to succeed if they look like followers of their followers, to use the phrase that Aaron O'Toole used in the House the other day, right? If they echo back what

the base wants to hear, they're going to do okay. But if they challenge it, if they echo back what the base wants to hear they're going to do okay but if they challenge it if they try to say no no no no that's not the way to look at this here's another way to think about it then the chances are that they they lose badly i think that's also been a problem that's grown for the media especially these media enterprises that see themselves as being voices for the left or voices for the right, is that once they start down that road, they can see the economic benefits of it, but they lose sight of the broader risks, if not to them, then to society of not having those kind of reliable kind of middle of the road objective kind of reliable kind of middle of the road

objective kind of perspectives from a reporting standpoint. So I'm definitely seeing that in this. And I feel as though right now on this case, Trump's best strategy is to play out the clock as much as possible, right? I was reading a piece this morning that said that if this case hasn't come to trial by the time of the next election, and he wins that election, these charges go away. They disappear. And a reminder again in the U.S., their system is, if not specifically written, the understanding is that the president can't be charged, a sitting president can't be charged with a crime, which I think really kind of goes against the grain for a lot of people here in Canada anyway, to think that because the president is the chief law enforcement officer, which is the case in the United States, that no matter what they might do,

there's no criminal sanction that would be applied to them. It would seem very, very strange. You know, I just, I quite frankly don't know what to think anymore about our good friends to the south. I just, I watched that yesterday as kind of half entertainment, but half in disbelief that this was actually happening. You have the situation where the court, in their wisdom, has decided that it can't show the proceedings. It can't even do an audio feed of the proceedings. And they've got reporters kind of locked in the rooms and overflow rooms with a bizarre method of trying to move what they're hearing, what they're reporting in the courtroom out onto the street

to the various anchor booths and everything, which took 10, 15, 20 minutes to do. It's just nuts. So you had these various people on all the channels saying, you know, why can't we have television in the courtroom? And you say to yourself, you know, why can't you? I mean, the argument is it can turn it into a circus. Well, not really.

Not if you have, you know, strict rules in the courtroom and the judge is sitting there willing to follow those rules. But people get this, like this is, as you said in one of your first comments, this is an incredibly important case and unprecedented. You know, the former president of the United States your first comments this is an incredibly important case and unprecedented you know the former president of the united states basically being charged with treason at least being charged under the treason act and we can't watch this like this is 2023 it's not like 1940. It doesn't make any sense at all.

If you can sit there and write about the trial, why can't you sit there and watch the trial? Like, it is crazy. It is crazy. And Trump knows how to play into this. He's using kind of the Trump playbook. It was interesting. I heard John Kelly, his former chief of staff, yesterday saying, knows how to play into this he's using kind of the trump playbook it was interesting i heard john kelly his former chief of staff yesterday saying you know having seen sitting with trump having

seen him in various situations and difficult situations and and tense situations kelly said i know what he what he's like he's scared stiff right now he used a different word than stiff but he's scared and the the way he combats that fear and being scared is to act the opposite like everything's fine wave from a limo make sure your limo motorcade is like miles long and uh and there is this kind of circus atmosphere around it. Make sure you've got your crowds with their flags and all that other stuff out there, which creates this image. So meanwhile, while you don't see what's going on in the courtroom, all these networks that were covering the daytime events were locked on

pictures from outside showing the circus and having various lawyers and experts talking to voiceover these pictures about what that what might be going on inside the courtroom because they don't know i mean so i retreat back to my original comment there i was stuck watching it. I mean, I congratulate you. You didn't. I did. I don't know how many did.

We'll find out, I guess, later today or tomorrow, what kind of ratings. Daytime ratings are never that big to start with. But we'll find out how many were. But I puzzle at myself, as somebody who sits here and lectures about how the media got sucked in by Trump in 2016 and still getting sucked in. And me too. I'm doing the same thing. It's such a spectacle, right? I mean, I think that's the gift of Trump is he understands how to create a spectacle that people want to pay attention to.

I mean, it was what made his TV show, The Apprentice, popular is that there was a combustibility to it. You weren't sure exactly what was going to happen next because he seemed kind of erratic and unpredictable. And that in the world of reality TV, I mean, in fact, I think reality TV became so popular in part because it was called unscripted TV, as you know, and unscripted TV appeals to people who are tired of overly scripted and predictable kind of programming. So Trump is in politics, the ultimate kind of reality TV. He's the ultimate in kind of unscripted. And that is so different from what politics had become.

Set aside regular TV, but politics on TV had become, as you've talked about a lot over the years, kind of predictable. Same questions getting asked the same way, answers getting avoided or structured answers, talking points I think you used to, I don't know how many times you will call me late at night and say these GED talking points. Are we going to have a no swearing policy on this podcast?

Do we have one? We do. We try and not swear because if you swear, then you have to declare there's swear words in it, and it's a kind of bureaucratic process. But I don't think we need it. I mean, listen, there's some podcasts that spend a lot of time swearing with every possible combination of words out there.

Fair enough. I don't think we need it. We're clearly listened to for the brilliance of our minds. You know, I'm going to be honest so that people know I'm a pretty sweary person, but I'm on my best behavior here. So anyway. It's usually just on the golf course, you swear, but that's okay. Anywhere.

Too often. All the time. Unspoken. Sorry about it. But he is unscripted in politics, and that's unusual. And I remember in thinking about when he won that nomination back in 2015,

I guess it was. He did it 2016? Yeah, 16. He did it because he stood up against 16 other candidates and they didn't know what to expect. And he kept on surprising them and he kept on kind of grabbing the camera and the microphone, figuratively speaking, because he did all of these things that people didn't expect. And he's still doing that. And now I, you know, felt it was a little bit encouraging that there was not 50,000 people out there yesterday. I do feel, and I listened to an interesting podcast yesterday with David Axelrod and Joe Gibbs and Mike Murphy.

It's called Hacks on Taps. As you know, it's a pretty good podcast that looks at U.S. politics. And they were saying, look, the polls do show that broad swaths of Republican voters are definitely leaning towards Trump as the nominee that they'd like to see. But they had Jeff Zeleny, a CNN reporter on, and he was talking about going out to Ohio and to these meetings where there are grassroots Republicans getting together and kind of meeting the candidates

and everything else. And his observation was that there's a lot more shopping around that's going on, where people are saying, you know, if we didn't have to have all of the drama of Trump, if we could find another candidate that we could that we could embrace, that we might. And they were cautioning. And these are very seasoned political observers. But it's way too early to decide that Trump has this locked up. I don't know if they're

right about that, but I thought it was kind of encouraging that there might be a significant number of Republican voters who will never say they don't like Trump, but they'll just decide that Trump is too much Trump for their tastes and that they would want to move on. So whether any of the other candidates are credible and offering something that sounds right to them, we'll see. Chris Christie is the only one so far who's decided his job is to be the anti-Trump. Maybe it'll turn out to be a good strategy. I think to some degree, it depends on how this case goes. But the last thing for me on this is that Trump isn't really saying he didn't do it.

I mean, he pleaded not guilty. That was the plea that he entered. But he's not saying he didn't do it. He's saying it's a persecution. He called Joe Biden a wannabe dictator last night. He is telling his voters that all is really going on here is you've got one guy trying to put his political rival in jail. And I don't think that's what's going on here. But I do think that a lot of voters are going to hear that and they're going to tend to believe that. And that leaves Trump free not to make any more of these kind of silly arguments about the documents. that he had said he didn't have, that he had refused to give back, that he knew contained hugely sensitive information,

that he shared with people that were not entitled to see that kind of information, and as a consequence that he put his country's interests at risk. I haven't heard anybody say that that didn't happen on his side. I've only heard people say that, well, if it did happen, it's secondary to the question of whether or not Joe Biden is trying to put his rival in jail. And I just think that's dead wrong. He seems to forget, Trump seems to forget that that's exactly what he was calling for Hillary Clinton to go to jail when he ran in 2016. Lock her up. Lock her up.

Right. So it's interesting to see his words thrown back at him. Let me, you know, you mentioned Aaron O'Toole a few moments ago, and I want to talk about his farewell speech that he gave in the house of commons a couple of nights ago um but just before i do one one last question on the this issue of what's happening inside the republican party or what's not happening um you're right about chris christie as was forecast two weeks ago on this program by gosh i forget who it was uh he will jump into the race and has jumped into the race with the sole purpose of attacking Trump. That appears to be all he's after.

I don't think he thinks for a minute he can win the nomination, but he wants to bring down Trump. And he wants his party to understand that they need to bring down Trump if they ever want to move ahead. Now, that's his belief, and he's pushing that very hard with every opportunity he's got. But, you know, interestingly, while most of the sort of, you know, flunkies and hangers-on within that party are defending Trump.

There are some indications that there's some movement away from that. You know, Pence is being very careful, as Pence always is, about how he says anything about anything. But he's being more negative about Trump than I think a lot of people expected him to be. Nikki Haley came out a little bit yesterday in the same way. And I'm just wondering whether they're picking up the indications from what Christie's doing that there is some support for, okay, enough is enough. We've got to move away from this guy. I know what the numbers say, and I hear you on that.

But I just, you know, there's a long time before the nomination. There's more indictments to come. I mean, what is it now? Like, it's more than 70 indictments against Trump. Yeah, 70, 71. And there's the January 6th stuff, which Jack Smith, the prosecutor on these documents case, is the same prosecutor. And I think he thinks that one is the real one.

That's the one, more than anything, that's going to pull this guy down. We'll see. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens sooner rather than later, those indictments. And then there's the stuff in Georgia on election interference. So there are lots more to come. And I think some Republicans are starting to say,

you know what, we got to think a little more smartly about what's happening here. We can still love Trump, but that doesn't mean we need him as our candidate anymore. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I was a little bit persuaded by those three experts from U.S. politics yesterday who were kind of making that point. And even though I'd written a piece last week saying I thought it was almost a foregone conclusion that Trump was going to win the nomination, I've been a little bit more.

I've been thinking about that a little bit more in the last several days, maybe feeling a little bit more optimistic that that people would look for an alternative. But because I tend to err on the side of optimism a little bit, I still caution myself that all but one of the leading Republicans have rallied behind Trump. They have found it hard to say that he did something wrong. They have found it easy to say that this is a political witch hunt. And that's just so simply a piece of evidence, overwhelming evidence that the party has become more tribal and a rally around Trump tribal than it has been an active, you know, instrument for good public policy. This to me seemed so clear when the pictures were tabled along with the indictment.

The pictures really told such a compelling story, I thought, of somebody who had been saying that he, you know, maybe had a handful of documents that had been kind of placed somewhere. And that when the government was looking for them, he didn't know where they were or, you know, something like that. He really had minimized the idea that some documents left the White House with him. And then when you see these boxes and boxes and boxes, you kind of go, well, he obviously knew

that what he was doing was obstructing their efforts to recover these documents. So to see the Republicans not be able to kind of call him out for that, I think is a little bit telling. We'll see. I mean, it's not like the other candidates have really interesting things to say right now. I think I heard Mike Murphy say, or might have been one of the others, Nikki Haley, when she's got a chance, a choice, she always goes for, I think how he put it, was the capillary rather than the jugular, implying that she doesn't really try to stake out a hard line.

And I think that's kind of true of most of them except for Chris Christie at this point. Yeah, Chris Christie is definitely going for the jugular. No doubt about that. Okay. Interesting doubt about that. Okay, interesting. Good conversation, that's what we like to say. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about Aaron O'Toole's farewell speech in the House of Commons the other night.

That's right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Wednesday episode, Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. I'm Peter Mansbridge. You're listening on SiriusXM, channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. We're glad to have you with us no matter where you're listening or watching from. I got a message the other day from Aaron O'Toole's office. The former leader of the Conservative Party wants to go on the bridge as part of his farewell tour. And so we will do that on Monday. Coming up Monday, we'll have a special feature interview

with the outgoing Member of Parliament and former Conservative leader, Aaron O'Toole. I'm looking forward to having that discussion. We've talked to him before, and he's always an interesting guy to talk to. His farewell speech was interesting on a number of points. You used one of his quotes earlier in this program, Bruce, and it's a great one. His fear is that members of Parliament, of all stripes, are trying to be that members of parliament of all stripes are, um, are trying to be,

are trying to follow the follower, trying to follow, are trying, are becoming followers of their followers. Um, and he talks about the, uh, algorithm of the MPs are using to track likes that they get on, on various things they say

and that they're more concerned about likes on social media than they are about engaging in constructive discussions on the floor of the House of Commons. So it's a bit of a shot at everybody, and including himself, I think, as he made that speech. You know, talking about the dangers of, you know, performance politics. What did you make of what Mr. O'Toole had to say and what kind of a mark it leaves?

Yeah, well, I like Aaron O'Toole as I think think you do i've known him for a number of years we've had a number of good conversations together over time i felt that um i remember that he finished third the first time he ran for the leadership behind uh max bernier and andrew sheer i thought he was the better of those candidates um I still think he would have been a better choice for leader in that race than Andrew Scheer was. And I think that he was summarily dismissed by his party after losing the election that he lost, maybe not so much because he underperformed in terms of the election result, but because the party had become so interested

in the kind of politics being played by Max Berniers and the Andrew Shears of the world that Aaron O'Toole didn't really fit the bill for what they were looking for in terms of that style of politics, that style that really drew a lot on the algorithms that find the angry people and make them angrier. Now, so I thought it was really welcome that Aaron O'Toole gave the speech that he gave. I think that he's very thoughtful on these subjects and he has a lot of relevant experience and he didn't have to use his departing speech to make points that were, you know, ostensibly, but without being petty about it,

critiques of his own party. He made the point that everybody does it, but I think it was fairly clear that what he was doing was describing did do some of the things that he is reflecting on and saying we shouldn't do. He engaged people to work on his behalf who are part of that phenomena in politics that he was criticizing yesterday. But acknowledging that and then going on to look at the contribution that his speech yesterday made still leaves me feeling like people do do things in politics, that they're told by their advisors or the people who surround them or their caucus are important. And they do act in expedient ways. And I didn't feel like he needed to own that personally anymore. I thought it was useful enough that he made the point that this is a bad road to go down for the country. And you had said before, I think last week when we were talking, that if Aaron O'Toole was the leader of the Conservative Party now, they'd be doing better in the polls. I think that's true. 30 odd percent that the Conservatives can count on really want somebody who isn't like

Aaron O'Toole, who isn't trying to find a bridge to another part of the Canadian population. I don't know the answer to that. I don't think we're going to know the answer to that until we see how Pierre Polyev performs in an election campaign. But I think that's what Aaron O'Toole was cautioning everybody about, which is that let's not be more divisive. Let's not let politics become a reflection of of the tensions in society, but rather something that works to reduce them. You know, I would, it was actually Chantel who made that point about, she thought that if Aaron O'Toole was the leader, they'd be doing much better now than they're doing with Polyev.

I didn't disagree with that. I think that there's probably some truth to that, but who knows? That's something we'll never know either. But at one point, I will defend him on, is I do think he was including himself in the remarks he made the other day. He knows he made mistakes. He may have wanted to reconsider some of the people he hired to surround himself with.

But when you look at the phrases that got the quotes, they basically include himself. You know, he says, instead of debating, too many of us are often chasing algorithms down a sinkhole of diversion and division. He talked about performance politics fueling polarization. Virtue signaling is replacing discussion and far too office we're just using this chamber to generate clips not to start national debates now that's part of that is

nothing new i mean they've been generating clips for as long as a lot of these people on both sides of the house have had communications advisors and and trying to frame clips to make it onto the nightly news, which doesn't occur very often anymore. You don't, you rarely see stuff from the house of commons anymore on the nightly news. Um, but I think it was an important speech. The question is,

does it just, you know, gather dust on the hands or shells, uh, in the house of commons, which most speeches do. I don't know how often he talks to his successor in Polyev. I don't know whether the speech was not vetted,

but at least run by the leader's office to say, this is what I'm going to say. You might want to think about some of this. I don't know whether that happened. I don't know how often the two of them talk. Um, so I think there's no love lost there. I mean, I think the, uh, the reason that he was ousted had a lot to do with Polyev's desire to have that job. I think that, um, when he was the leader, he removed Polyev from the finance critic role at one point. I think he may have put him back into that role as he sensed that his leadership was coming under a lot of pressure. It can't be the case, it seems to me, that if you're Pierre Polyev, you could see that speech given yesterday and not see it as a warning to Canadians about the kind of politics

that Pierre Poliev is indulging in. Of all of the politicians in the House during that speech, one stands apart from the rest in terms of the degree to which they indulge in that kind of politics on a mass scale, and that's Pierre Polyev. So I think it was, whether it was shared or not, I think it's kind of, it would be interesting, but O'Toole would have been wanting to say the things that he said almost as a reproach to the current leadership style of the Conservative Party. And he did it in a relatively elegant way, in a way that was likely

calculated not to create a pushback from his own party, but a kind of an acceptance of these points needing to be made. Good for him for doing that. It's not an easy thing to do. And good for him for using his voice to call to mind a thing that we've talked about a lot and which I noticed just yesterday. I don't want to change the subject too much, but I noticed that the general secretary of the UN released a report yesterday that described the role of the Internet and social media in creating disinformation and hate as a crisis that was developing in the world and something that countries around the world needed to look at together and take more seriously and more urgently. And I think this is related to what Aaron O'Toole was talking about, how the Canada that he wanted to lead, that he felt like he had grown up in, didn't want to go down this road and needed leaders who were going to stand up against it. And again, good for him for making those comments and using his considerable voice.

And I'm glad that he's doing an interview with you yesterday, and it suggests that he's going to do, you know, going to continue that message, which I hope he does. Right. And that interview will run on Monday. Next week is our final week before the summer break, so we have some good programs lined up, including Monday with the feature interview with Aaron O'Toole. Pierre Polyev described him, and these are his words,

as a statesman, based on his speech the other day in the House, and his public service career, of which it is being distinguished. You know, Aaron O'Toole was in the RCAF. Before getting into politics, he served, I think, 15 years in the House of Commons, or more than that, actually, I think. But nevertheless, a distinguished career, both outside the house and inside. And it was interesting that Polyev used that word because that was exactly how he was described as not being

by some members of his own party following some of the David Johnston stuff. Okay, we want to get a couple of minutes left. In fact, really only a couple of minutes. Three polls in the last couple of days on the national political landscape in Canada, and as often happens with polls, very different. Take the one you want, I guess, depending on what party you may be hoping for. But a couple of them showing the Conservatives with a six- or seven-point lead, and one of them showing the Conservatives with a two-point lead,

which is probably not enough to win. So one suggesting a Liberal win, and the other suggesting a Conservative win. Of course, there's no election, so it doesn't mean much other than the fact we've got polls showing different results, significantly different results. As the resident pollster here on the bridge, do you have any comments you'd like to make on all this? Yeah, a couple. I think you mentioned the two kinds of,

the two flavors of the polls that are out there now show the Liberals barely holding on to what could be a small victory again or losing badly. What they don't show, what they don't include is a Liberals winning a majority

or strengthening their situation. And I think that if you're the liberals, you need to look at that with a clear set of eyes. You need to say, well, it's okay that we're doing poorly because we've been around a long time and stuff happens to parties that have been around a long time, that's a losing way of thinking. That is not a great way to approach another election campaign. And so I think the Liberals need to be careful not to take comfort in the fact that there are a couple of polls that show them kind of holding on,

even though, again, losing the popular vote in polling parlance. There isn't anything that shows that for all of the policy that they brought in, and they pretty much had a ring to do whatever they wanted to do, that they're not growing their support, that they're not outperforming Pierre Pauliev significantly. So that's the thing I would encourage liberals to think about. But there were two things in the latest Abacus poll that caught my attention. One is the question that David Coletto asked about whether or not people wanted change and knew what party they wanted to

change to, whether they wanted to change, but they didn't see an alternative they liked better than the liberals or whether they didn't want change. And it highlights the fact that if the liberals win, it won't be because there are so many people who don't want change. It'll be because there are a fair number of people who might want change, but don't see the alternative that they're looking for. And the last point in the Abacus poll was an indication that Pierre Poliev's negatives have been going up somewhat significantly. Now I think we need to see another poll or two to be sure that that trend is, is confirmed. But unlike Andrew Scheer and Aaron O'Toole, whose negative started and kind of did

that, Polyevs have not really been doing that. But it may be that some of the way in which he's conducting his style of leadership is catching up to him and people are noticing it a little bit more and people are, are reacting somewhat negatively to it. But I think we should watch that space rather than conclude that that's happening at this point in time. All right. I'm going to leave it at that for the, for this week for smoke mirrors and the truth.

One more episode to go next Wednesday before we take our summer break. But Bruce will be back this Friday, of course, with Chantel for Good Talk. Looking forward to that. Tomorrow it's your turn. So if you've got thoughts on anything that was said today, please get them in now to make it onto tomorrow's show. Tomorrow is too late for tomorrow's show.

So get them in today. That's The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Thanks, Bruce. Talk to you again soon. You bet. And thank you out there for listening. We'll talk again in 24 hours.