The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - Who Do You Trust?

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

The classic example of the morning after the day before.  It all boils down to one question, who do you trust? Yesterday had it all, a respected person with a controversial report, an opposition party not buying it, a government trying to defend it and the media caught in the middle.  Bruce has his thoughts and so do I.  

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. Bruce Anderson is here. Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth is next. Well, well, well. If there was ever a day for smoke, mirrors, and the truth, this may well be it. The day after, the day before. The day before being the David Johnson report into Chinese interference and whether or not there should be a public inquiry. You all know the results of that. Here's the bottom line on yesterday as far as the way I look at it.

Yesterday was all about trust. Who's got it? Who doesn't have it? Who wants it? How do you get it? It's all about trust. I mean, think of it this way. David Johnson said, trust me, I've seen everything. I can't show you any of it, but trust me, I know what really happened. And we don't need a public inquiry to deal with this. We need public hearings because the place is a mess. The intelligence services, to some degree, are a mess on this subject of interference. But trust me.

You got Pierre Poliev saying, trust me. These guys fixed this. The whole thing was a fix. Trust me. I know. Doesn't really explain how he knows, but he knows because he thinks past relationships between the Trudeau family and David Johnson raise questions about the integrity of the commission. The prime minister says, trust me, I trust David Johnson.

I agree we don't need a public inquiry. Trust me. The opposition leaders say, trust me, we need a public inquiry. But they're not quite at the same level as the lead opposition leader, Pierre Palliev. And then there's the media. They're saying, trust me, trust us. We know what we're doing.

We did it all right in spite of the fact, David Johnson says, in some cases, what the media reported was not only wrong, it was false and damaging. So here we are at the end of the first couple of months of this investigation into interference. We know we've got a mess on our hands, but you're looking around at the landscape and you're saying, who do I trust?

Where do I place my trust? And that becomes a big question for all of us. Bruce, where are you on all this generally and on the trust factor specifically? Well, you know, Peter, I think you're putting your finger on a really important issue, which is trust. And I get asked in the course of the work that I do by a lot of clients, do people trust us? How do they decide whether to trust us or not trust us? How can we build more trust? And so I followed it in terms of public opinion about trust for a long time. And what I see having emerged is that people don't trust any institution without some qualification. Essentially, it's got to be, I trust an argument. The information

that you're giving me and the way that you're giving me that information will determine whether I trust you or not. Not whether you are somebody who was a longstanding news reporter, anchor, and somebody who was very high up in the Canadian media establishment. I think that's been an evolution over time. I think it doesn't just apply to people in media. It applies to people in business and politics and all walks of life. There's very, very limited institutional trust. You can see some evidence of it with doctors, for example, on medical treatments. But when it comes to public issues, everybody's advocacy

is viewed through that lens, not of, is this an institution I trust more is this an argument that I feel that I can trust and I think that things like yesterday events like yesterday and issues like the one that we're talking about really do go to that point in other words that you might think on a given day that Pierre Pauliev is making a an argument that can trust. He's linking together, as he did some time ago, the situation involving something that you didn't know anything about called the Trudeau Foundation with Chinese interference. And he's drawing that thread through donations to that organization, people who are responsible for running it, and they're also involved in evaluating Chinese interference in Canadian politics. And on some days, that argument can sound to some people like one that they can trust.

Everybody in and around this issue has had days when they maybe gained a little bit of trust, maybe lost a little bit of trust, depending on what they were saying and how they were saying it and whether or not the arguments seemed to hold up. Yesterday, from my standpoint, for those who felt like we really need to get to the bottom of what skullduggery happened and how much the Liberal Party was involved in it, knowingly involved in helping the Chinese interfere in our politics in order to help the Liberal Party, they will not be satisfied at all with yesterday's outcome. For people who I think are looking at it and saying, we do understand that the Chinese have been trying to influence Canadian politics.

Maybe over the period of time that bits and pieces of information have come out about the relationship between the Trudeau Foundation, the Trudeau family, the Chinese donors, maybe it looks like maybe there was less there than originally seemed to meet the eye. And the question is really, what are we going to do differently going forward? Those people will probably feel satisfied with the way in which David Johnson discharged his duties. I tend to be a little bit more on the, I think he made the right recommendations side of things. I don't think, and especially when I read Aaron O'Toole's thoughtful piece the other day, I don't think that there was enough going on in terms of impact on our

last two elections to warrant a full public inquiry into those things. And I don't believe I've seen much evidence that there was a kind of a knowing liberal collaboration with the Chinese. And I don't think I've seen anything that made me more worried about the Trudeau Foundation connection over the months that this has been discussed. When I take all of those factors together, and I add to it the notion that, as David Johnson pointed out, that a public inquiry into the past and the documentation that was made by CSIS and where it went to and what was in it and what wasn't in it, and that can't be all shared publicly, which I accept as a given, it does feel

to me that a public inquiry on the past probably wouldn't add very much for the public versus hearings about what needs to be done going forward. Probably that is a useful thing. And I think already we've probably done enough to convince the Chinese that if they want to try to interfere in our politics, they better expect to be watching, we'll be watching very closely and trying to do everything we can to prevent it from happening. Okay, here's where I agree with you. Those who are already very much opposed to the Liberal government and the way they've

handled this. Nothing will change as of yesterday. They aren't suddenly going to be convinced. Oh, well, no, not everything's okay. They're solid in that camp. And the Polyev camp, if you wish. The more you trash the Liberals, the happier some of them are. I'm not so sure on the other side.

I think some, like you, agree with the report and the way it came down and what its suggestions are. I'm a little confused still between the difference between a public inquiry and public hearings. I mean, there's going to be something that's going to happen. But nevertheless, I think some people who were in that camp, you know, supportive of David Johnston and supportive to a degree of the Liberals, were surprised that there was no call for a public inquiry.

And whether they get over that surprise or not, I don't know. But I think it's fair to say there was some support was lost there, if only temporarily, yesterday, because they were surprised. They expected a public inquiry didn't happen. So I think that that's kind of the way it's settled after day one. These things don't last forever. The rest of this week, I'm sure we'll be dominated by this issue. Uh, and then we start to slide towards the summer.

Johnson continues his work if he doesn't, uh, if he doesn't go along with, so, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I was going to say, I think you touched on a really interesting point in terms of the way that we consume events like yesterday, which is that the expectation was that the most important thing we were going to learn about is, is there going to be a public inquiry or not? And that really wasn't it for me. I take your point that for a lot of other people, it had become the piece of news that you were looking for, right? But what he said was that people were going to get something that is probably what many people would assume is the equivalent of a public inquiry. Hearings

where people get to say, this is what happened happened there's some examination of what they say and the distinction between that and a public inquiry to me is probably got two parts to it and i'm not an expert in the in the the systems that surround a formal public inquiry but me, a formal public inquiry has a lot of structure to it that requires a full secretary to be set up and a whole bunch of other processes that have a lot of merit in situations where what you're really trying to do is investigate something that has been happening in the past. And I can see situations

where it can be quite helpful. I think it was probably helpful in the case of the convoy questions. But hearings on what isn't working and what else needs to be done, that's to me interesting. And if I were looking not just for a binary yes, no on a public inquiry rather than yes to public hearings to further evaluate what it is that's missing in the way that we deal with this now. I don't think it was just the media setting the stage. I mean, there were a lot of experts paraded out on television and radio in the last couple of days, experts in the field of intelligence you know, intelligence and security and analysis of those issues, who said they too felt

there was going to be a public inquiry, and they felt there was a need for a public inquiry. Some are saying, you know, we're going to get close to that with public hearings. We may get just as much as we would have got. Yeah. But they were, you know, they were surprised by the outcome yesterday. Let me ask about David Johnson.

There's a certain personal part of this. I've made no secret of the fact on this program that Davidson is a friend of mine i've known him for i don't know 40 45 years i remember when he was the moderator of the 1979 election debates when he first came kind of came to national prominence he was the prominence he was the he was the president of president of McGill at the time. But he's been in and out of our public life for a long time, and I've known him privately. I mean, I was chancellor of Mount Allison University in New Brunswick for eight years, and during

those eight years, I was lucky enough to be involved in handing out honorary doctorates, and one year I gave an honorary doctorate to David Johnson. He still calls me chancellor when we talk. So there's my personal conflict and personal bias, if you wish. But I watched yesterday this man who, two months ago, was kind of acknowledged as the most trusted man in Canada. Across the board. you know, appointed Governor General by Stephen Harper.

I think extended by Stephen Harper in that role as well. But never a bad thing to say about David Johnson by Stephen Harper and other conservatives through that time. And still some conservatives today, but not their leader, clearly. But over these past couple of months, the most trusted man in Canada has been portrayed as the least trusted man in Canada by some elements, including the leader of His Majesty's loyal opposition. He tried to address some of that yesterday in terms of what his personal relationship

with Justin Trudeau as a child of a friend of his who was Pierre Trudeau in Pierre Trudeau's days of retirement. But his reputation has really been damaged in the last few months. To what extent, I'm not sure, but it's clearly not the same way it was two months ago. And so I watched yesterday.

I can see the strain on his face. He's not a young man anymore, but he's a very bright man, very intelligent man, a man who's committed to public service and has shown that in all kinds of different levels, especially in the academic field. I watched him yesterday and, you know, I really felt, I felt for him in the role he was in. I think he believes what he did yesterday and what he's suggesting the way forward is I believe he feels that is the right thing to do. But I also know that he's aware enough of the public mood to know that this has caused him considerable harm in terms of his public image.

Whether he cares about that or not, I don't know. But just looking at his face yesterday, you can tell the strain that this has put on him. So, you know, I'm not trying to say, oh my God, we've got to all feel sorry for David Johnston. But I'm saying this was a tough call for anybody who was going to make it. And it was a particularly tough call for somebody who has this,

or who at least had this image in Canada of, of the most trusted person in the country. That's being hurt by what's happened in the last two months. You know, I don't, I, I, I hear you you, and I understand how you feel about it, especially given your relationship with him. And I definitely think that for anybody to decide to do anything that's an act of public service today, they almost need to think hard about it

because the chances of it becoming something that is criticized just for the sake of people wanting something to criticize are much, much greater than used to be the case. But I don't really agree, Peter, on a couple of points. One is I think that it's overstated to say that he was widely accepted to be the most respected man in Canada. And it's not just you that was saying that. Everybody who was commenting on the setup of this was almost sort of setting up the work that he was doing by overstating the degree to which

Justin Trudeau had taken somebody who had iconic stature, almost religious levels of trust stature, and putting him in the line of fire to do this work. I do agree he was a very respected person. But from my standpoint, I see a lot of data that tell me a lot of people don't know who the governor general is today, let alone who it was two or three or four ago. And they don't know why they should respect people who hold that office unless they're heavy consumers of politics, which we know gets us down to a pretty small minority of people. I do think that in the, what I tend to call the political ecosystem, the media and the politicians

and the people who are surrounding that system very, very closely, he took a lot of hits through this period. So I agree with that, but I don't know that I would sort of enlarge it to the general public has come from believing he was the most exalted and trusted person to somebody that they can't trust anymore. I know that's not exactly what you're saying, but I'm saying I think the truth for me lies somewhere in people were reminded of this fellow who was a respected and accomplished fellow. He took on this role. The hardest partisans on one side hated the idea, the hardest partisans on

the other kind of liked the idea. I don't know, I tend to think all of it is going to roll away, except the substance of what he did, and the way in which he talked about it. I was happy that he took that ski buddy thing that Pierre Pauliev was saying about him and said, that's a myth. I think, I know some people were maybe wondering, well, should he have talked about his relationship?

I think it was good that he said, you know, I parked my car at their place when I went skiing. As I understand it, that was the extent of the ski buddy relationship. Yeah. Trudeau, Trudeau parked his car at David Johnson's place.

I think that was it. Fair enough, right? I mean, maybe that's a buddy relationship for Pierre Poliev, but it doesn't qualify at that level for me. It just reinforced for me that, go back to your question of trust, who can I trust? Can I trust Pierre Poliev on this? Every time he says ski buddy and implies that these two people were tight, really tight, and in cahoots on this whole thing.

I think David Johnson put a pretty good hole in that argument yesterday, and it's to his credit that he did. And it's to Pierre Polyev's discredit. They didn't back away from that, that he went out on air and said the same thing over and over and over again. Also, on the Pierre Polyev, can you trust him side, David Johnson, I think, quite properly called out the fact that Pierre Polyev did not want to meet. Not just he was given a too short window, that there were repeated efforts and that they were not accepted by the conservative leader. And that the conservative leader didn't want to take the briefings,

didn't want to go through the security clearance to have access to the intelligence in order to opine on the intelligence in a more informed way. That kind of raises questions about can I really trust what the conservative leader is saying if he is choosing not to consume the intelligence

because then he would know what the intelligence is and it would prevent him from making the kind of the political rhetorical arguments that he's trying to make. That's a trust question. And I thought it was good that David Johnson brought that out. I also think that it was good that David Johnson addressed the question of what's happening in CSIS. There's some leaking going on that to me is as big a story as the Chinese interference, but we haven't really started to focus on it yet. Something is deeply messed up in how that organization is running. And all party leaders should be focused on what are we going to do about that? What's actually going on that is allowing these leaks to occur repeatedly and cause as much questioning on the part of Canadians about what, what is and isn't happening

in our system. So I think that he raised important questions about CSIS and leaking, and some people will look at those points that he made and say, wow, that's a partisan defense of the liberals. But to be honest, I would feel the same way it was conservatives in power. We can't have a spy service that decides that it's going to have these kind of leaks to undermine the way in which the government of the day, whatever strength it is, is conducting its business. And the last thing that David Johnson did that, again, he didn't shy away from the line of fire on, but I'm sure that won't please everybody, is he questioned some of the media coverage, some of the very specific media allegations about the liberal MP, Han Dong. Remember that allegation that he had encouraged the Chinese to keep the two Michaels in prison longer,

and that MP is suing the news organization that put that story up. And yesterday, David Johnson said, well, I've looked at the intelligence, and that allegation to me is false. I think it was good that he did that. So I think he put himself in the line of fire. I think he's going to take some more hits uh but i think that on balance it sounds to me like he was delivering information and a point of view that um that is deserving of some trust and which parts of that uh did you not like or agree with well i you know i i think it's clear we have a difference of opinion on how the thing played yesterday on the on the big picture in terms of public inquiry versus no public inquiry.

I don't think it's a vast gap, but there is a gap in the way we portray that and how that went over. On the other things, on the media issue, the institution in Canada that goes on the defensive about its actions more than anyone else is the media. You can't criticize the media. And I've been a part of this too, without the media going, no, no,

you don't understand. That's not the way we do things. We absolutely do things right and correctly. And we have principles and all that other crap that you hear certain media organizations throw out at different times in defense of their actions. I think it's interesting that Global, who were particularly hit hard by David Johnson's report, I don't think have changed their statement in any way since yesterday's report. I may be out of date on that, but the last I saw, it was the same little statement they've been putting out for the last couple of months.

That they have a strong message. On that point, Peter, I mean, Alex Boudelier, I think it was the fellow at Global who wrote their story yesterday. And in writing the story, he included a reference to what one of the global news executives had said in March. Now, the only reason it seems to me this was your business, that you would include that, is that if you couldn't get a more up-to-the-minute reaction, right? Or unless they're saying we stand by our original statement.

But you're right, it did kind of stick out there. In which case, why not say that? It's not like they had to hit the publish button before they had a chance to talk about it internally. Well, they're facing a big, you know, multi-million dollar lawsuit. So one assumes their lawyers are calling all the shots, not right now, not their editors. So we'll see how that plays out in the hours and days ahead. It'll be very interesting to see if they, if they're ready for a court fight, then they're not going to change their position. If they want to get out of a court fight, they're going to have to change their position. So we'll see the way that plays out. What do you think about this CSIS issue, though?

Okay. Yeah, no, I'm happy to discuss that one. One of the most interesting interviews I saw yesterday was with Ward Elcock, who used to be the head of CSIS, right? A respected observer on the intelligence scene. And when he heard everything that had been in the report, and I assume had read a good chunk of it, his determination on the issues, on the leaks, was that none of this came from a senior source in an intelligence service in Canada.

That it was junior, low-level stuff. Because it was so wrong, if you buy into what David Johnson said. I found that interesting. And, you know, while that's bothersome on one hand, it's also, it makes you feel a little more comfortable with the security services, if in fact that's true. If we're talking about a junior clerk or somebody who might have happened to see one draft of something somehow and then leaked that, That's a lot different than a senior member of the intelligence service

leaking confidential documents that were in fact had gone to cabinet or gone to the prime minister. So that's one thing. The other thing that I saw yesterday was from the man who ran the conservative campaign last time round, Fred Delory, who's been on the record saying he didn't think there should be a public inquiry. I know he should say that. He said that from the get-go.

He just thought it would only present problems, much the same way as David Johnson concluded yesterday. But Fred Delory, who, as I said, ran the Stephen Harper's, or not Stephen Harper's campaign, but Aaron O'Toole's campaign last time around, he said that he watched Pierre Polyev yesterday and that he believes Pierre Polyev should be the next prime minister, but that he is waiting for Pierre Polyev to act like a statesman instead of an opposition leader.

And that yesterday he acted like an opposition leader and he was very upset by that. I thought that was telling. I mean, there's no doubt Pauliev went to town on David Johnson. He trashed him, trashed him in a way he's, you know, he's trashed him for two months, but not the way he trashed him yesterday. He really went to town on it. And it somehow seemed, at least to Fred Delory, that this was A, beneath him, and B, did not serve his purposes in doing it that way. So, I mean, it reminded me of the day almost two months ago when Polyev basically accused Justin Trudeau of treason

and that he should be held accountable for treason in working for the enemy, basically. Now, he dropped that whole line within 24 hours because there was such a backspin to it. But he sure hasn't dropped the attack on David Johnson. Well, he does that quite a bit, I find, that he goes to the red meat locker every once in a while and throws it out. And the people who really, really loathe Trudeau

and loathe the liberal government, they rejoice in hearing him do that. And he's very effective at it. But I think the question that Fred Delory is raising is, are there enough of those people to elect Pierre Poliev and the conservatives at the next election? And if there aren't, what are the next 10, 20% of voters likely to think about him? Are they willing to trust him to be a more stable leader, a more kind of a less combustible leader, let me put it that way, to kind of stay within certain norms of how you talk about issues

and other people in politics? Because I do think that unlike a lot of voters in the United States, Canadian voters don't like a full-on pitch battle all the time. Now, there are a lot of Americans who don't like that either, but that is their system. Ours has historically been a little bit less like that. We've got a large number of voters who say, everything is in a 10-alarm fire.

Don't treat everything as though it's a hill that you need to die on. Don't demonize everybody who's in a different party than you all the time. And come prepared to talk about something other than your partisan interest. When Pierre Polyev does the latter or any of those latter things, I think he makes progress. And I think he has those days where he does and where people can see in him somebody who wants to talk about housing but has more energy about how he's going to solve it. He may not have the right ideas. There may not be ideas that can to solve it. He may not have the right ideas. There may not be ideas that can easily solve it, but he applies himself to the task of talking about, I've got to solve this with people. And I find it sometimes is quite persuasive, I think, with voters.

Trudeau, on the other hand, we haven't talked about him i i'd like to know what you thought about his his press conference um i felt like he has not on this issue really ever been well prepared i don't think there's been a day when this has been managed well by the liberal government the china interference issue until yesterday, where I do think that the Prime Minister showed up well-prepared, composed, thoughtful on what needed to happen, and with a little bit of a fight in him. I saw that one moment in the press conference where a journalist, I'm not sure who it was, said something about, you know, are you going to start talking about this more? And he said, well, I need to take issue with the

idea that I haven't been. And so it was more reminiscent for me of how he had communicated in the session that he did with the convoy commission, where he took the stand for the better part of a day, and he answered a lot of questions. He had a lot of information, and his composure was good, and his ability to communicate was pretty good as well. But that's what I saw in it. What did you see? How did you feel about what he did?

I thought he was better in his performance in his news conference than he usually is in his news conferences, which are usually pretty bland, and he doesn't look like he's totally into the game, whatever the game happens to be that day. I thought he had more of that yesterday. I'm still not convinced

that it would have made that much of a difference yesterday. I think yesterday was a day that had boiled down, rightly or wrongly, to yes or no to a public inquiry. The assumption on the majority of people was it was going to be a yes. It turned out to be a no. That may well have cost them, certainly initially, in terms of the way this thing delivered yesterday. We'll see. We're going to see in the days ahead. I mean, there was already, I mean, I don't know, the public opinion polls that I saw in the last month

were heavily in favor of a public inquiry. Whether yesterday is going to change that or not, I don't know. I suspect, certainly in the short term, it's not going to change that. But that's basically where you and I differ. I agree that the Trudeau we witnessed yesterday was closer to the Trudeau we saw on the stand in the fall on the use of the Emergencies Act. And, you know, for those who want to believe that their prime minister is up to the game, they probably saw that yesterday, more so than they usually see.

But whether it makes any difference, certainly in the short term or not, I don't know. I don't think so. I think there was, I think it was an expectation yesterday, and I'm not sure all the reasoning as to why that expectation did not bear out. I'm not sure that that delivered. Anyway, we'll see as time goes by. It was a remarkable day on so many different fronts as i explained at the beginning that um that there's so much to pick and choose from there about how you know how david johnson did how pierre colliev did how they uh how how

the security agencies which this is supposedly all, did what the Chinese were really up to. I mean, there was so much there to pick from. It was one of those classic days where you could, you know, you could take from it what you wished. And I'm sure a lot of people will do that. But I think if there was movement, if only temporarily, it may have been not in favor of the government. But as I said, we'll see about that. Okay, enough on that. We're almost out of time, but there is something else I wanted to talk about, something completely different.

Well, it's not funny, but it's different. And we'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the final segment of Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth. Bruce Anderson is with us. I'm Peter Mansbridge. You're listening on Sirius XM, channel 167. Or on your favorite podcast platform.

Or, and this is important in this moment, or on our YouTube channel. And that's why I, that's, you know, I was trying to figure out, you're much more tech savvy than I am. You probably know how to do this, but I don't. I got a picture I want to show you here, and I would flash it up on the screen,

but I don't know how to do that. I will hold my phone up with the picture in a second, but I got to set the understanding of this, the background to this. You know, as our listeners know, that for the past, I don't know, half a dozen years, the prime minister has worn socks that most of us don't wear. They're the kind of socks that are different from the norm.

Instead of just plain black socks or plain brown socks or plain white socks, they're multicolored. And as a result, he's been made fun of by his political opponents and some in the media for his socks. And it's also, you know, at times it's even more than just making fun of. It's like, how could he embarrass Canada this way of going on the world stage and being the only guy on the stage sitting there with weird socks on? So I've never, you know, who cares?

They're just socks, right? And they work for some people. They don't work for others. I remember at the time I tried, and I couldn't stand looking at them in the mirror, so I just never wore them again. They're still sitting in my sock drawer. So imagine my surprise,

because it was almost painted as kind of like a woke thing. He's wearing woke socks. So imagine my surprise, was it yesterday or two days ago, when I saw the picture from the White House, the Oval Office, by the fireplace, President Biden wearing black socks, but next to him, the leader of the Republican Party in Congress, Kevin McCarthy. Let me put that up there.

Oh, no, that's Biden. And look over there. Look what Kevin McCarthy's wearing. That woke guy, that woke socks guy. He's wearing multicolored purple and gray and white and black socks. I don't know. I'm so glad you're taking this voyage on your own and that we're almost out of time. Don't you think that's funny? You don't think anything of it? No, no, no. Like funny as in like, is it the funniest thing I'm going to hear today

or see today? No, probably not. It's not as funny as our opening 35 minutes. Well, that was just a riot. That was a knee slapper. It was the funniest part of this podcast. Yes. Okay.

All right. We have two minutes. And everybody knows that you don't just have a sock drawer. You have a sock room that's next to your shirt room and next to your pants room. Right. Here's your last two minutes. There's a lot of white socks. You get.

The race gets wider today for the Republican nomination when Ron DeSantis finally, after months of playing the game, gets into the game today with your other friend, Elon Musk. Bruce is not a fan. Using the Elon Musk platform and Elon Musk as a moderator to say, I'm in. I'm all in. Any thoughts on either of those two guys? Yeah. Look, I i mean i think that

when elon musk took over twitter you may remember i said i thought that we needed to have an open mind to whether or not he could make it better because he's a certain amount of genius there obviously having created some really spectacularly successful innovations. I don't think that's been what he's done. I did want to believe for the longest period of time that what he really cared about most was freedom, but that he just maybe didn't understand well enough in the social context in which we live how allowing everybody to say everything that they want

carries certain serious consequences for society. And I thought that over time, he would become more imbued with a sense of responsibility to kind of moderate that idea of freedom. But I'm losing hope in Elon Musk, and the decision to pair up with Ron DeSantis, I think, is another signal that his version of freedom is really meant to be a bit of a signal to people

who want to limit the freedom of others, who want to limit the freedom of people who they consider to be a bit of a signal to people who want to limit the freedom of others. They want to limit the freedom of people who they consider to be woke, for example, or people who are gay. Ron DeSantis, for me, is a very worrying champion of minimizing the rights of certain minorities. Doesn't mean that he's not entitled to run for the office of president. Doesn't mean that he won't mount a very successful campaign. Doesn't mean that he might not even win the nomination and the presidency. But if you were Elon Musk and what you wanted to do was telegraph that you're not just for freedom of speech,

but you're for protection of some people from the excesses sometimes that happen with freedom of speech. Doing something with Ron DeSantis is sending the opposite signal. It's basically saying this is a platform that welcomes the kinds of things that Ron DeSantis is championing, which, as you know, Peter, in the last little bit, has been everything from banning books, like large numbers of books, different books, getting into a big, big war with Disney

over the way in which Disney conducts its business, looking for corporations that don't have environmental or social governance standards as the kind of the darlings to come and invest in Florida and everybody else can stay away. So it's disappointing for me in terms of the Twitter platform, but I guess it shouldn't be so surprising to me anymore. What do you make of it? You love asking me to declare, right, on all these issues.

What do you think of it? That was the deal when we agreed to do this podcast together. Here's what I think is going to happen. I think he's going to get down in the mud with Trump, and during the time that Trump isn't in jail, they'll fight it out and they'll dirty themselves up and they'll damage each other. And at some point, the Republicans will come to their senses and say, we can win this election against Joe Biden, but we're not going to win it with either of these two guys. And they will turn to my candidate, my favorite candidate for the Republican side,

which is Governor Sununu of New Hampshire. I think he's the guy. He's the guy to watch. I listened yesterday to Hacks on Tap, you know, the podcast that Mike Murphy and David Axelrod, Joe Gibbs do. And Joe Scarborough was on it yesterday. And they were talking a lot about the Republican nomination. And I think they didn't mention Sununu, but they were saying, some of them anyway, we're definitely in the place that you are, which is at some point the party may say, these can't be the only two choices.

We need somebody better. Because they could win. They could easily win next year, you know, depending on how things play out over the next year. At this point, they could win. But I can't see them winning with either of these two guys. Anyway, we'll see where it all ends up. Bruce will be back on Friday with Chantel for Good Talk.

I'm sure we'll still be talking to some degree about the Johnson report and everything that happens as a result of yesterday's release and the reaction that will come both today and tomorrow. So Friday we'll be back with good talk on that. Tomorrow is your turn. So if you've got some thoughts, get them in now. I've got a crazy day tomorrow, so I'll probably be doing the packaging the podcast early tomorrow for

its noon hour release. Sorry, I got the hiccups here. Anyway, thanks Bruce. We'll talk to you again in 48 hours or so. Meanwhile, thank you for listening and we'll talk to you all in 24 hours.