The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Argument To Keep Putin In Power

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

Brian Stewart's weekly commentary on Ukraine has a twist.  After months of calls for Putin to be overthrown, Brian reports on new theories that suggest no matter what happens in the near, the world might be better with Putin IN power.  Also, a new health study on what happens in the moments after your heart stops. 

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. The argument to keep Putin in power, even if Russia loses. And hello there, welcome to the Tuesday episode of The Bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge. You know what Tuesdays means. It means Brian Stewart. And the latest update on the ever-changing story in Ukraine. And we've got some really interesting elements on it today. But I want to start with a pet peeve about television. And I've had this pet peeve for years, decades actually. And this is what it has to do with. It has to do with maps.

You know, one of the wonderful things about television and the creative people in the different graphics departments from all networks. They can seemingly do anything. And when asked, they deal in maps as well. They put forward the best maps possible to show you the country we're talking about. And that therein lies the problem for me. I've always felt that I can, man, I can remember back into the 60s and early 70s when I was more of a watcher of television news than a participant in doing the news. But I can remember, let's pull out an example, say Uganda under Idi Amin and the various stories

that happened to do with Uganda. And I would always see the television news anchor of the day, no matter which network, would be sitting there at their desk. And beside them, over their shoulder, would be a map. And it would be the map of a country. And that country would say Uganda inside its borders. But that would be the only graphic, just the country of Uganda, not its neighbors, not the continent, Africa, that it was on, one of the many countries in Africa.

Just Uganda by itself. And I would say to myself, well, that's all very interesting. And it tells us where Kampala is in Uganda. But it doesn't position that country in the continent it's in, or in the world it's in. So if I was given a blank map

and said, point out Uganda, I wouldn't be able to do it. Because that had given me no reference. So I used to whine and moan about this through my days moving forward and upward within the television business at the CBC. And when I finally got into the anchor chair, when I became chief correspondent,

I can remember of the many things I used to talk to my good friend, Fred Parker, who was the director of the National the whole time I was there, and I had been the director for Nolan Nash as well before me. I used to talk to Fred and I'd say, Fred, we've got to do something about these graphics. And he said, what's the matter with the graphics? I said, the graphics are great, but it's what we're asking them to do.

We have to position countries in the continent they're in, or at least in the major region they're in, so people can get a better grasp of where we're talking about and he said okay i get it i'll talk to the graphic artist and we'll do something about that and in fact they did they did do something about that didn't last long though and i didn't see it migrating to other networksally you'd see something, but mostly it was still the same old way. They'd do a picture of the country

or a graphic of the country, and you pretty well had to know already before you sat down in front of your television where that country was. So, as I said, that was a pet peeve, just a small little peeve that I had, but I'm telling it for a reason today. Because there has been some similarity to the coverage overall, in terms of all the networks that I've been watching, of the Ukraine story. More than often, the kind of graphic that goes up there is Ukraine. And sometimes Ukraine

with its changing internal borders because of the Russian invasion and the Russian occupation. And now Ukraine's starting to take back some of that land. So that's reflected too. But where exactly Ukraine is, which leads to the old story, you know, that critics of Donald Trump would say, you know, you critics of Donald Trump would say, you know, you could put a blank map in front of Donald Trump and he wouldn't be able to tell you where Ukraine is, although he's got lots of things to say about it. Well, that may be the case, but it also may be the case for a lot of other people too. Anyway, so now we're talking about Ukraine and we're talking about maps.

And here's what I'm going to suggest. In fact, I think Brian Brian Stewart suggested this to me a couple of weeks ago and I kept meaning to talk about it but I kept forgetting but today I'm talking about it and that is especially for his the first portion of the discussion we're going to have today which is what's happened in the last week. You kind of need a map in front of you to follow some of this. And there are lots of good maps out there. There are lots of deceptive maps out there. You have to be, just like any piece of journalism,

you've got to be sure what you're looking at. You've got to have confidence. You've got to have trust in who is putting forward the piece of information you're looking at. You've got to have confidence. You've got to have trust in who is putting forward the piece of information you're looking at. So if you're looking for the latest updated maps of Ukraine, I'm assuming you know where Ukraine is to start with. But if you don't, it's all there. Just go online. And here's where I'm going to direct you to. Because if you don't, it's all there. You just go online. And here's where I'm going to direct you to, because if you just punch into your search engine,

latest Ukraine war maps, you'll see all kinds of different places where you can get that. And most of them you can trust, but some of them you can't, because they're spinning you on the story. So you go to where you can trust. And I tend to, on stories like this, I go to the BBC. I go to the BBC stories that have their maps. And if you go, if you, you know, once again, if you go to your search engine,

say you're using Google and you just go latest Ukraine war maps, one of the first options you'll see is BBC. So you go there, and the current link on that page will show you a series of maps, because the story lately has been about Kherson, or Kersond, depending on which way you want to pronounce it, the right way or the wrong way. But if you, you'll see they've got it, this is what the city looked like in March

when the Russians took it over. And then in August, when the Ukrainians were starting to move back into that region. And then in October, more Ukrainian movement. And then just August, when the Ukrainians were starting to move back into that region. And then in October, more Ukrainian movement. And then just last week, where the Ukrainians have gone back into Kherson. So, those are good maps. But if you keep scrolling down the page, you don't have to go that far, actually.

If you keep scrolling down the page, you will see, let me just make sure I get it right here. You'll see a map, which is a more general nature of Ukraine. You don't have to go far. It's like a page down. It's a broader picture of a broader map of Ukraine. If you keep going, there's even a broader ones. But the second one that I'm talking about is the best one to use to follow what Brian's going to be talking about now.

So you can see clearly what's what, where's where, how Odessa relates to where Kherson is, Zaporizhia, the Donetsk, Luhansk, Mariupol, and of course Crimea. So you want to look at a map like that while Brian's talking, or you're going to get lost fairly quickly. And it's really just for the first question. And then we're going to move into other areas, including what I think is the highlight of this discussion today and this is the discussion about putin you know the assumption has always been you got to get rid of putin well yes a lot of people feel that way but some people are starting to say you know what you better be careful what you ask for

because who knows what will come down the pipe after Putin. So that discussion is taking place here now as well. But enough about me and my pet peeves. Let's get to one of your favorite programs of the week, and that's Brian Stewart's commentary on where we are on the Ukraine story. So I'm going to give you one more minute to get the map you like and have it sitting in front of you. And then when we come back, we will definitely talk to Brian Stewart. That's right after this.

And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks. We're on your favorite podcast platform. And once again, on Wednesdays and Fridays,

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Subscribe. It's free, no charge. And then you'll get it automatically sent to you each day it's available. All right. Brian Stewart, Ukraine. That is the topic because it's Tuesday. Got your map ready? Got mine. Here we go. Brian, a week ago at this time, you and many other analysts were saying it looked like Kherson was about to fall. But you warned us about this issue of deception,

that there was a lot of concern about what was really going on inside that Ukrainian city. Well, here we are, you know, a week later, the Ukrainians moved into Kherson, but with caution because they were concerned and apparently are still somewhat concerned that there may have been deception in the way the russians backed out of that city right or even up to the hours they were walking in they were not quite sure whether the russians were fleeing and an orderly pattern or a route and they're still not sure there may be thousands of russians still wandering around uh west kerson and civilian and civilian clothes. They're trying to clear that up, and there are many booby traps. And it's just so vast an event. It's hard for people to get their minds around it. Even the Ukrainians, it came faster and easier than they thought it was going to be.

And now it has changed so many things on the battlefield that it was a week that changed it. That was the week that was. It was a week that really changed a massive amount of things. Not just as Harrison Free, the one regional area, the one oil blast or provincial area capital that Russia was able to capture in this war. That's a huge morale boost for Ukraine, obviously. But it is really pretty well ended, the giant fighting on the southern front for Odessa, which remember, Odessa was the big target, really. Kherson was secondary to the Russian desire to get to Odessa and take all of Ukraine's Black Sea coast from it and capture Odessa,

which would absolutely leave Ukraine devastated financially and in the power of Russia in future. So that is now being secured. The Russians, in some regards, have got exactly what their general staff wanted, which is most of their troops across the river safely. So now they can deploy them where they want to deploy them, which is up in the central front, where they're desperate to win battles around that area to show some kind of victory. At the same time, when the Russians pulled back, all the bridges were blown, so the Ukrainians can't really get across the Dnieper River,

as they were planning, talk of pointing towards Crimea. All that is put on hold, and now the Ukrainians have the opportunity to start moving some of their best and big, big units from Kherson to other battlefields in the central area to defend against Russian attacks or back up north. Remember Kharkiv, that front, Luhansk front for more offensives. And it's just an amazing thing because everybody was kind of settling into a thought, well, the rainy season, there'll probably be a stalemate.

But now with these massive troop movements around, both sides want to start offensives again. The Russians have been piling away attack after attack after attack in the central front. And the Ukrainians have been holding them back. Now they'll have more troops to hold them back more firmly. In the meantime, the Ukrainians have been attacking up in the north. Now they'll have more troops to attack them back more firmly meantime the ukrainians have been attacking up in the north now that the more troops to attack more more rapidly and you know given the fact that everybody's wondering whether maybe peace talks down the road uh ukraine will want to capture as much territory as it possibly can and keep the momentum up. All right. So it's just a week that has got every military analyst

scratching their head and said, okay, this war is really turning into an amazing series of events that can be analyzed forever. You know, you make a very strong point there. In fact, you dropped me a note over the weekend saying uh this has been this last week or so has been like an earthquake moment in this conflict so much has happened and so much potentially has changed the equation um in terms of how this war is unfolding so i want to get to that point uh now and talk about how how the war may change as a result of what we've witnessed in these last few days and weeks.

How do you, before we, you know, and we'll also get to the peace talk issue that you raised as well, but in terms of how the war is going to change, what's likely now? Well, on this, let's say the southern front, the Kherson front, I think we won't see any attempt by the Ukrainians to cross the river and move into East Kherson and try and liberate the rest of that area. It's just too hard to get across a very wide Dnieper River and places without bridging of any kind under enemy fire it's just too hard there'll be there'll be a lot of artillery and rocket duels back and forth between ukrainians and russians but the action's going to move now uh to to those two areas i mentioned there'll be major action i think in the in the central front um the the Donbass area particularly. So there will almost certainly be a continuation of Ukrainian counteroffensives up in the north into the Luhansk area because they're trying to take back as much territory as possible, and now they'll have fresh troops to do so.

But, and this is a very big but, we have to keep our eyes on, a lot of analysts are going around and saying something, Ukrainians, they're masters at planning the unexpected, and they're planning Russians often, we think the Ukrainians have a special counter offensive that will strike just north of Kherson into the Zaporizhia area and you might be looking for that in coming weeks. This is not a prediction, it's just

everybody's looking at the map and saying, you know, if they were to strike there and cut right through to the Black Sea they would effectively cut the whole Russian invasion in two, in two parts. And also then be able to threaten to move into Crimea from that section on. So that seems to be, and all this interest in all theian analysts i listen to and their podcasts and broadcasts and they're writing also i'm not predicting that no no no i'm not making any predictions not at all i didn't say zaparizzi keep a look keep an eye on it but boy that's

that's could be a sneak attack coming so i think the war the ukrainian sorry the russians will continue to try and pound uh ukraine with as much as they can with rockets and cruise missiles and the rest of it, though they're running short of supply in that area because they want to weaken up as much, retaking as much of their own territory as they possibly can as their weapons become even more sophisticated, more precise, and are able to out-duel the Russians significantly. because they continue to throw in these untrained conscripts into battles that are just like we've mentioned this before, the First World War, those battles across mud baths and killing fields. That's going on all the time now. But at the same time, the Ukrainians have had terribly high casualties. And one of the great things about Kherson is how they managed to take it by trying to reduce their casualties as much as possible. And this is going to be a big balancing act with the Ukrainians. They're not like the Russians of throwing troops into the battle.

They're trying to do it, restricting casualties as much as possible. And that calls for a lot better planning, a lot better training, and an lot better more sophistication than their appendage their enemies are showing all right let me uh let me back you up a little bit because a couple of moments ago you mentioned crimea and what i found interesting um yesterday when i was watching the joe biden's a news conference from the uh from the far east he was asked specifically about crimea that did he think that the ukrainians were hoping to recapture um at crimea as it's been trying to do in other parts of ukraine that were taken by the russians earlier this year crimea of course was taken in 2014 so it's been in russian hands some time. But the question has become,

could Ukraine be going after Crimea, trying to get it back? Now, Biden ducked the question, didn't answer it. But you brought it up. Do you think it's possible? Well, I guess everything's possible. But do you think it's likely that Ukraine has Crimea in its sights as well? I think it's likely uh that ukraine has crimea in its sights as well

i think it's very likely they do i think it's almost certain they do i think the government and he and the government of ukraine has basically promised their people that the suffering is all going to be worth it because we want to take back all the territory that russia took from us including crimea which is it's like a most religious object almost to move back and and recapture crimea that's when the rest of the world let it down it believes and let russia get away with it they're going to take it back and and whether i think that's possible is a very different question because i don't see it right at the moment i don't see it right at the moment and that's causing a lot of western governments frankly to worry because is ukraine has ukraine set its objectives really

unrealistically high is it aiming for something that can't really get it has to get across big rivers it has to keep fighting a russian military that keeps reinforcing itself with unwilling but still kicked into action uh conscripts uh in a war that could go on for a very long time and then they've got to fight for you probably itself it's a big worry i mean to the ukrainians it's a must do the same way they want to see russia pay for this war brought to trial for war crimes all of these demands that krimi is also making all very legitimate demands and who wouldn't applaud them but are they there are they so realistic that they're they're fighting at some stage with a goal in mind that they're quite unlikely to achieve now

i should say that many ukrainian will say you outside world has underestimated us from the world where go and you're underestimating us again but this is causing a lot of worry in various parts of nato you know there are um uh you know there are a number of reports indicating that there's the pressure is on once again to try and get these two sides into some form of negotiation into some form of peace talks the ukrainians are are resisting because they feel they have the upper hand and they're moving to gain back territory, as you just mentioned. But there has been some outside attempts to get them to talk in a meaningful way in trying to bring peace to that region.

Now, I noticed with some interest a report that came out yesterday um suggesting that the top spies really the head of the cia in the united states and the head of his russian counterpart were meeting secretly i guess i guess it's not a secret if it's already a report about it but they were meeting in ankara in turkey and one of the things on their agenda was to try and see whether there was room for some kind of negotiations. Where's your head on negotiations, a move towards some kind of peace between Russia and Ukraine? Well, I should say to the Americans are now trying to reassure everybody that negotiations, peace negotiations, weren't on those secret talks. It was mainly about nuclear weapons,

how both sides should be really careful of knowing where red lines are and all that. And that's the series of talks that Ukraine wouldn't object to. What it is objecting to diplomatically in other words quietly more often are statements like the american chairman of the joint chiefs of staff mark mille general mark mille came out a while back and said this would be a good time to open negotiations open links with with russia paris is known to very much favor negotiations in part because it sees itself as a middleman but in other parts because it wants the war obviously wrapped up as soon as possible and ukraine is getting very worried now that major powers like the United States, Paris, France, Germany,

will start putting pressure on them for negotiations. And the only way that they can really put pressure on them is to start withholding some of their desperate need for new weapons, so turn the tap down on the weapons supply, in which case Ukraine will likely start screaming treason but here's a here's the the story behind the story kind of what is really worrying uh a lot of capitals now inside nato is that this idea that if putin we can just have russia lose the war to a point where putin is overthrown and and Putin falls and you get a new regime.

They're now starting to worry more and more that that may be the worst possible scenario. They're very worried what might follow Putin. when these far-right, extreme nationalists, pro-war elements inside the Kremlin and around the Kremlin, on podcasts and the rest of it in Russia, are extreme hardliners and critical of any setback. If Putin was to be overthrown by a still more nationalist, some would say more fascist, form of Russian nationalism, the world might be in a far more perilous state than it has been under Putin. So this is the balancing act the West has to do. Yes, we desperately want Russia punished, of course, for invasion, and Ukraine independence reassured.

But we don't particularly want Putin to be overthrown by some kind of force that we're not aware of i wouldn't by the way put it past the intelligence chiefs meeting in secret in ankara turkey to be off the record talking about what might happen if mr putin president putin was to take leave of absence or disappear. That might just come up, but I wouldn't predict it, obviously. But this is where we're at now, and it's a dangerous area, and because potentially very dangerous, because the pressure being put on Ukraine is going to cause Ukraine to say, stand back, you know, you guys fought for your liberty.

Your November the 11th remembrance day was all about standing up for principle freedom your own independence and now you're going to start lecturing us so we should do a a quick peace negotiation and cede part of our territory five percent ten percent fifteen percent of our land to bring a peace that is probably good for your economic situation and oil and gas supplies, but it's terrible for our future. And on top of that, there's elements in NATO, including those in the Northeast, Latvia, Lithuania, perhaps even Poland, I'm leaving one of them out, Estonia, sorry, are taking a very hard line with the rest of NATO and saying, if you start in any way turning your back on Ukraine and going back on statements that will be there for Ukraine as long as it takes, how much faith should we be putting in the NATO section five guarantees attack on one is attack on all maybe we'll start questioning nato and ukrainians are saying and others are saying this could be a dire moment

for nato if people fell over this so anyways i don't think negotiations are going to be reasonably seen for for many months ahead but talk of negotiations themselves are going to start i think splitting people into camps that are going to cause a lot of serious problems down the road you know the putin question is really it's really an interesting one and it it's fascinating to see how the conversation has changed somewhat in the last six months. Six months ago, when things weren't going as it started to appear that things weren't going well for Russia, the talk in Western capitals, you know, quietly, but nevertheless it was being discussed,

was, you know, if only Putin could get overthrown and forces more liberalized and more of the Western thinking took over power in Russia, how wonderful all things could be in the relationship between Russia and the West. And now you're telling us that the discussion is a 180 from that, really. It's that if Putin's overthrown the likelihood that it could go, that power could go to a much more extreme much more right-wing solution in russia than had been the hope you know as little as six months ago right and a lot of that

is due to in a strange way media just in the last few months as you well know all these new voices have been appearing in russia and speaking out and And to the astonishment of the world, they're speaking out critically on air, but they're not speaking out as a liberal, left, progressive, lesbian, internationalist force. They're speaking out as an even more dire nationalist pro-war faction than the current Kremlin crowd. So it's as if you're looking back in history and say, oh my gosh, you topple that dictator and possibly a worse dictator comes in, you know, Lenin's fall, you know, whatever.

We'll go into analogies on this one. But it's a very serious thought. A lot of also Western reporters with extensive experience in russia have been coming out and saying look still in the west you guys are overestimating just how uh weak the regime is it's not a week it could change leadership but it's not going to change from fundamentally running things uh you might you know the economy isn't hurt as badly as you wished it was and people haven't turned against the war as much as you would want them to uh and the fact of the matter is uh the the pro-war group that doesn't think the war's being conducted well enough hard

enough vicious enough even brutally enough is actually the force gaining strength around the very isolated President Putin. So this is starting to be a nightmare for some foreign departments around the world. I'm sure the Canadian government is rather worried about it as well. Okay, last point, and it's still on the Putin question. I know you don't like predicting, and I admire you for that. And you keep your credibility by ensuring that you don't get into too far-fetched predictions. But let me ask you this anyway.

Do you think Putin can survive what has been a clear debacle for his government in this past year i think he can i think to a lot of the russians they're now portraying this on air excuse me as you know the pullout was brilliantly done it was kind of like a mini dunkirk you know it was our moment to pull back and show how we could organize things. I think this is very far from reality. I think a lot of it was a rout and a shambles, but still some of it was very skillfully done. And I think more likely than suddenly he would go would be that he'll remain a weaker and weaker and weaker actual figure and become more of a figurehead and a cabal around him of 12 or however many security official military types the real nationalists

hardliners will be more and more in the driver's seat i still think at one stage, Russia's going to have to say, look, even that crowd's going to have to say, this is a war that's leading us into darker and darker times. Let's, for heaven's sakes, we better start coming up with some negotiation with Ukraine that will guarantee its independence. But I think, you know,

that could still be a year away. I wouldn't even be surprised if it was two years now um you know there was something i forget these philosophers said states have a lot of ruin in them states can take a lot of bad times and ruin and few states can take more ruin than russia has over its history uh What we would regard as an absolute catastrophic, awful event. A lot of Russians in their 50s and 60s and 70s would say, we're still going through a miraculous, wonderful time compared to where we were just 20, 30, 40 years ago.

So I think the interesting thing on that, I will predict that unless Russia can clear up this mess in its army and stop sending these ill-trained, poor morale, badly equipped, desperately anxious not to fight conscripts in the battle, you could start getting a coming apart at the seams of the Russian military in the field. And nobody can really predict where that could lead when armies start to dissolve um all bets are off and then dire dire events indeed can occur as we saw in 1917 it only underlines continues to underline what a uh you know in some degrees fascinating in in some degrees depressing conflict this has been, the Russia-Ukraine conflict throughout this year, 2022.

And the story keeps turning. You know, it seems like every week or every couple of weeks there's a totally different angle to it. The only thing I'd say about, you know, the Russians sort of throwing in the towel and moving out a lot of people say they'd never do that well you know the circumstances were a little different but they did that in Afghanistan right they went in in in 79 uh to prop up a government and basically uh you know be the overseer of that country uh and 10 years, they pulled out because they were losing. And they were taking tremendous losses, and they lost the battle

of the home front in terms of support in the home front. But as you said, these things don't happen overnight. That one took 10 years. All right, Brian, that's another great conversation, and we look forward to having our next one next Tuesday. So thanks for this. Okay, my pleasure. Well, there you go.

Brian Stewart, you can put your maps away now. Aren't you glad you had that map out? Once again, you know, Brian brings some fascinating stuff to the forefront on this discussion about Ukraine and we greatly appreciate his time. All right. That just about wraps it up. But I have another end bit.

And believe me, this is an end bit. Here's the headline. It comes from UPI, United Press International. Here's the headline. Many saved by CPR recall lucid experiences of death. Now, we've all heard this story in different versions over the years about how something happens in those final moments of life or what appears to be the final moments of life,

that the person affected sees something, feels something. This is a new study. Hasn't been peer-reviewed yet. But nevertheless, it's interesting. So I'll read from it a little bit here. People have long talked about having near-death experiences in which they felt they were looking down on themselves while others tried to save them.

Now, researchers have documented some of those experiences in a new study. Investigators found that about 20% of patients recalled lucid experiences of death that occurred while they were seemingly unconscious and dying these lucid experiences cannot be considered a trick of a disordered or dying brain but rather a unique human experience that emerges on the brink of death said said lead researcher Dr. Sam Perina. He's an intensive care physician and associate professor in the New York

University Grossman School of Medicine in New York City. Our results offer evidence that while on the brink of death and in a coma, people undergo a unique inner conscious experience, including awareness without distress. Parnia added in a NYU news release. The study involved 25 hospitals in the United States and the United Kingdom. In it, researchers studied 567 hospital patients whose hearts stopped during their stay between May of 2017 and March of 2020. The patients received cardiopulmonary resuscitation, CPR, immediately, but only 10% were discharged from the hospital. The experiences these patients described included a perception of separation from the hospital. The experiences these patients described including a perception of separation from the body. They reported observing events without pain or anguish. The time also included a meaningful evaluation of

life. These experiences of death were different from hallucinations, delusions, dreams, or CPR induced consciousness, the researchers said. Now, it goes on, gets quite detailed in its description of different things. But the study authors are quite excited about this, even though it hasn't been peer-reviewed yet. They further explain that at death, many of the brain's natural breaking systems

are released in what is called disinhibition. A person has access to the depths of their consciousness, from early childhood memories to other aspects of reality. This reveals intriguing questions about human consciousness, even at death. Parnia added, the lead researcher, noting further research is needed on this. The hospitals use standardized CPR and resuscitation methods and recordings of brain activity.

The researchers also examined 126 additional testimonies of survivors of cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly stops pumping. The studies were presented, the findings of the studies were presented last week at a meeting of the American Heart Association. I remind you once again, don't go to town on this quite yet

because it has not been peer-reviewed, as the article points out a number of times. But, you know, we all want to know the answer to this question, right? We don't want to be there yet, but we want to know what it might be like when we do get there. What is that last minute or two like? Do you sort of withdraw from your body and look down at what's happening? Do you have that moment to reflect on your various memories of life from childhood on?

Well, I guess we're never going to know until we get there, right? But we can take studies like that and we can try to imagine. Alright, there you go. Wrapping it up for this Tuesday. Tomorrow, Bruce Anderson,

Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth. And remember, because it's a Wednesday, the video of the making of SMT will be available on my YouTube channel. Once again, it's easy to get. Just click on the link in my bio on Twitter or Instagram. It'll take you right there.

You can subscribe, no cost, and you'll get it from then on in. I'm actually surprised. I mean, it's exactly the same as what you get listening this way either on sirius xm or downloading the podcast but it appears some people like to like to see how funny we look in our little living rooms and offices and hotel rooms on the road. So you get a reflection of that. It's not like the old studio days. No suit and tie.

At least not by me. All right, that's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening to The Bridge. Really enjoy having you with us. If you have thoughts on anything we've discussed so far this week, and we've had some pretty good discussions. Yesterday was masking, today was Ukraine, and all the various end bits.

Drop me a line, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. That'll be Thursday's show, your your turn along with the random renter he's winding up in the bullpen right now coming up with this week's topic okay that's it for today we'll talk to you again in 24 hours hours.