The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Bridge: Donald Trump and His Dictator Friends

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

Another week that had observers scratching their heads over Donald Trump. The US President gives the Chinese President a red-carpet welcome, then offers Vladimir Putin a seat at an upcoming G20 meeting. Dr. Janice Stein tries to make sense of those moves, and more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge, Trump and his dictator friends. That's the focus this week with Dr. Janice Stein coming right up. And hello there. Welcome to another week. Welcome to Monday. Right here on the bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Mondays, of course. Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School of the University of Toronto. She'll be with us in a couple of minutes' time. with some of her thoughts on the last few days. There's some crazy stuff happening. We're going to try and figure out why. As we always do on Monday, we want to give you a sense of the week ahead,

but also a sense of our question of the week for Thursday. And Thursday is Your Turn, and the Random Ranter, of course. For the Your Turn question this week, A little bit of background. There's a couple of important elections coming up in the next little while in Canada. Next Monday, October 5th, a week from today, is Quebec Election Day. The Part of Quebec was ahead in the polls.

And if they win, they say they've promised a referendum on separation before they leave office. Now, two weeks after Quebec's election, on October 19th, We have the referendum in Alberta on whether to have a referendum on separation. That's right. You're going to have a referendum on whether to have a referendum. A couple of weeks after that will be the BC election. That's not involved in the question, though. The question for this week is on those two elections.

Quebec and Alberta, and you don't have to live in one of those provinces to answer this question. Here's the question. Are you worried about the Quebec or the Alberta elections in terms of the potential for separation? If you are concerned, there's one or the other worry you more. Or maybe you're happy about the prospect of one or the other or both leaving Canada. There are some people who think that way. Or maybe you have another thought on Quebec and or Alberta tiptoeing up to a referendum on separating from Canada.

So that is, obviously, that's not a pointed single question. There's a whole bunch in there. But you can pick whatever angle you want in terms of the upcoming two elections, the one in Quebec and the one in Alberta, referendum in Alberta. So how do you do that? Well, you come up with an answer that is, No longer than 75 words. The old 75 word.

You send it to your answer to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. You have until 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday to send that answer in. Include your name and the location you are writing from. Okay. So those are the conditions. That's the question. we look forward to seeing your answer. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com.

Coming up on the week, tomorrow is a Moore-Buts conversation, and it's going to be on a couple of things, on the BC election. James Moore lives in BC, of course. But the two of them have some interesting comments about why you call them election. That, and we're also going to talk about the media. And once again, this is some good stuff in here in the more butts conversation.

How do I know? Because I have to do the Moribut's conversations on the weekend because these two guys are really busy. Jerry's all over the world with his job with the Eurasia group. And James is a busy lawyer in Vancouver. So we do it on the weekend. So I know how it went. We had some like issues, technical issues. kept losing the Wi-Fi on James for some reason.

So there's a bit of jockeying around that we have to do in that conversation, but I think you'll enjoy it as you do all the more butts conversations. Wednesday is a statutory holiday across the Series XM network. It's National Truth and Reconciliation Day. We'll be going back in the files. and a conversation with, among others, the late Murray Sinclair, who headed up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,

a conversation I had with him in 2021. So that's Wednesday. Thursday, your turn, I've already explained it, and the random rant here on Friday, of course, good talk with Chantelle and Bruce. Okay, so that gives you a sense of where things are. in terms of the week ahead. So why don't we get started with our conversations with Dr. Janice Stein for this day,

for this Monday as we launch another week on the bridge? You ready for this? I'm ready for it. Here we go, Dr. Janice Stein for the Monk School, the University of Toronto. So Janice, I'm trying to figure out where our world is after the past few days. We've got a situation where you've got Donald Trump bending a knee, if not being on all fours in front of Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader. You've got Donald Trump inviting Vladimir Putin to the G20 in Florida, I assume without having talked to any of the other leaders, which is as usual pattern. And then you've got Donald Trump turning down Iran.

Now, he may be justified in turning down Iran on their latest, you know, peace proposal or proposal to reopen the Straits of Ormuse. But the three things coupled together, just go, what is going on? This is not the world we thought we were living in. I found it stunning, Peter, frankly. I found it really stunning. The biggest story was the welcome. that he gave to Xi Jinping.

He went to the airport. Let's just start there. The president of the United States, it's so rare that a president will go to Andrew's Air Force Base and stand on the tarmac and welcome a foreign leader. He did this for Xi Jinping, who didn't do that for him, by the way, when Trump went to Beijing recently. So it's not that this was reciprocal.

And then these two days, a state dinner, literally everything, all the pompant ceremony that he could conceivably manage. And around that talks in which Jiji Pink, frankly, led the conversations, right? You know, Jishiping told him how dangerous any kind of declaration. of independence by Taiwan would be, and how important it is that the United States discourage that. That's one example where he has an agenda. If you should think he knows what he wants. He doesn't want any disturbance before the big people's Congress

that's coming up that is going to elect in the fall next year. That's going to elect new members of the Central Committee. He wants quiet. He wants stability. But he is so much, frankly, more able, so much more strategic, so much more patient. All things that Donald Trump is not. This look to anybody else looking on in the world,

whether it's Modi in India, whether it's Kearney in Ottawa, whether it's the French or the Brits, it doesn't matter. This looked like, contrary to our friend Ian Brimmer, we're no longer in G0. We're in G2 here at the best, with one much better able to manage this relationship than the other. It is just stunning, frankly.

Well, let me stick on G for a minute, because what does Trump get out of that performance last week? What does he get? You know, what he asked for? And he's not, he got nothing. He got nothing. I mean, we can't see because there's no, there's no text, really. There's no communicate.

But he did ask the Chinese to stop buying Iranian oil, whistling in the breeze, frankly. They're the biggest customer, right? They're the biggest customer. Iran's biggest customer. Yes, yes. And China's also, it's the biggest customer. The Iranian economy would not be where it is, and it's in pretty terrible shape, as we're seeing, from some of the Iranian behavior finally.

But it wouldn't be where it is without China buying their oil. And there's an elaborate system for moving oil, from tankers to gray tankers and then to reflag them and they go to Asian ports and then China buys them. But effectively, it's China buying the oil. He got nothing on that, Peter, nothing. The second thing was there was a discussion about AI going on. And there, pre the summit, there was a release that said

that the United States and China would engage in it. AI dialogue. No substance. Absolutely no substance about it. And the Chinese have concerns about AI. Now, this is a regime that is found, it has one big fear, China. It's that what happened to the Communist Party of Russia, not happened to the Communist Party of China. I mean, that's what Xi Jinping took from the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Union. And so one thing that he and Vladimir Putin agree on, the biggest catastrophe was the dissolution of the Soviet Union disappearance for the Russian Communist Party. So everything is about not jeopardizing the position of the Communist Party of China.

And they're worried about AI. Because once you have open weight models, just one piece of technical jargon here, when you do. download an open model. You're not downloading the model. You're just downloading the weight. But then it's easy for people to build their own models. You know, this diffuses through Chinese society. You're giving people to some scope, which puts them at least for, in some important ways, beyond the scope of the state sensor who monitors everything. It's a huge problem. And that's why they're starting to talk about this now in China. The Minister of State Security, there was, you know, an unprecedented press conference, which she talked about all the ways AI could threaten

the Chinese Communist Party. So there's an agenda there, nothing, absolutely nothing. And a dinner with every tech CEO, big tech CEO at the dinner, and no Chinese businesses. Not because the Americans didn't invite them, but because Xi Jinping didn't invite them. I mean, just that alone. You know, there were Chinese CEOs that flew over from Beijing to Washington. in case Xi Jinping changed his mind at the last minute,

and they stood by and waited for an invitation, that never came. So this is about Shishi Ping saying, we don't want to be, we want independence, we want strategic autonomy. We don't want to depend on you for anything, but we need time, and we don't want to rock the boat. Okay, well, you can look at it that way,

and clearly it looks like Trump got rolled on this. He did. But let me ask it a different way. If he didn't get anything, Trump, if he didn't get anything, did he prevent things from happening that would have not been good for him by doing what he did?

Yeah. So look, there's one big thing that he prevented, which is the Chinese for the last year. Since February really have been using their control of critical minerals. And again, it's because they process so many of them. It's not because they aren't all over the world. They are. But China processes something like 85% on them.

They've been using access to those processed critical minerals as leverage against Trump, because you need them to make computer chips. Invidianese them to bring this down to brass tax, right? Which is, depending on the day, the most valuable business that exists in the United States, you need them to make cars. So the three big American car companies don't want that. So what did he get, Peter? He got an extension.

We're in September now, until January of the existing trade arrangement where the United States backed off on the extreme tariffs and imposed. And China backed off on restricting export to critical minerals, although they are still slower than what the United States wants. Works for Donald Trump. It's after the midterms. Works for him. Right. It's a very short extension, which means that Gigi Ping is coming back to the table.

Twice more. They're going to see each other twice more this year. This year? Twice more than this year? Yeah, not in summits, but they're going to see each other at a summit meeting in Beijing in November, and they're going to see each other at the G20 meeting. in Florida in December.

I would call this a reprieve, frankly, more... It's what he really wanted, given the economic problems he's having inside the United States. But it's a reprieve. It's five months. That's all he really got here. And what do you think G was thinking as he got back on his plane and flew back to Beijing?

Look, you know, this is going to sound uncharitable, and maybe it is. You know, he is a very sophisticated, long-term player who has been in this job for a very long time and intends to stay in it for an extra five years. He's broken. You know, he broke the 10-year rotation. So he's getting close to his 15th year. he's going to be in the job.

He must get on that plane. And he walked through that corridor. There was a shot from whatever it was left of the press pool there covering that visit. I don't know if you saw it. He walked down that corridor with the portraits and the guilt frames with guilt decorations above it. And he must have thought, this is not as hard as I thought. would be. I'm surprised he would have even thought it was hard.

Yeah. Who he was dealing with and watching how how Trump has played the other leaders of that sort of dictatorship ilk, whether it's Putin, whether it's North Korea, and whether it's been joining in the past. There's something there that, you know, none of us have really been able to explain. It started with Putin early on And look, he's just as you said, he's invited him to the G20.

Why? Well, we're going to get into that now because First of all, before we leave G, the shot I'll remember is when he arrived and he's standing at the top of the stairs waiting to come down, but there's a hold on because somebody is, is down on the red carpet, on their hands and knees,

picking up a tiny little piece of fluff that they didn't want the Chinese leader to have to walk on. And I thought, good grief. That is quite so. You know, everybody who sees him now, Peter, because he's under stress right now, right, with the war and the midterms, but the people who get to see him come out and say,

that the conversation will go and then he'll shift it to the ballroom and the arch and he'll pull out architect's drawings and he'll roll them out on his desk so

that story is just consistent and he says to everybody I'm a real estate guy okay G20 Putin would explain that one to me. I'm assuming he hasn't talked to anybody. He didn't talk to

Karni or Burnham or Macron or anything. No, and you, some of the European leaders came out openly and expressed their shock, right, that he would do this. So there's a mysterious story here

Peter because it makes no sense diplomatically. There's no progress really coming through Trump and Kushner and and Steve Wittkoff on the mediation.

So he has no grounds to offer Putin something at this point. He's not encouraging good behavior. He's not rewarding good behavior in any way. If there were any progress like that, you might say, okay, but there's none.

And in fact, if anything, Russia has escalated. I mean, you know, it's using ballistic missiles now. and drones with jet aircraft. And Ukraine is being pummeled. The cities are being pummel. The energy infrastructure is being pummeled.

And people are concerned about how Ukraine gets through this winter. So a less opportune time to invite Vladimir would be really hard to find. So this comes back to something that people have been asking themselves for 10 years. why is admiration for Putin and Gigi Pang, frankly? You know, you could argue, well, the Russians had something on him, and everybody went down that road. I could never find anything, actually, that they had on him that would explain this kind of, you know, obsequence, frankly.

That's what he is. He's obsequious. There's some admiration that he has. has for authoritarian leaders. And I think he's a wannabe. He expresses some of it openly, talks about, oh, I wish I had that kind of power to, you know, to keep the press out of wherever I am and I don't want them around. I make the decisions. I don't want anybody challenging me from, you know, democratic institutions like Congress. So he told you. He's just. He told you. He's He's not a secret about admiring strong men, so to speak.

That's what, I mean, that's the only consistent explanation for his behavior. You know, he said to Shishi Ping, boy, you have great press there. Yeah. Right? He does. He certainly got good press. Great press. You know, they don't ask, they don't ask word questions.

And then, you know, it can't be, when did he say this when he was asked? what guidance he needed to make a decision to go to war, he said nothing. Just my own sense of morality is enough. Well, that's a classic. I mean, so much of what he's doing inside the United States is the classic authoritarian playbook, the attack on the press, right? That's every authoritarian begins their story there. That's where they go.

The attack on the universities, that's the next stop. It always is. He's doing that. hasn't given up on doing that. You know, there's the destruction that we're seeing of some of the specialized agencies in the United States that are really important agencies like the Center for Disease Control. Wrecked. You know, FEMA, the federal emergencies agency that in the event of hurricanes or floods takes over. Top leadership gone. Same thing is true, frankly, in the CIA. So, when you actually look at what he does

where immigration in the way that he frankly talks about it, not as we need to control our borders. Every sovereign state needs to control our betters. He uses inflammatory language to talk about immigrants in the United States, classic authoritarian playbook. So you have to conclude Donald Trump is an authoritarian who's frustrated that he's living in a country where he can't exercise the authority in the way he wants. Okay.

So how does this play out in Florida at one of his golf resorts where they're going to have the G20, Dural, I think it is? But how does this play out? You get the leader of Russia, a country that many of those G20 nations, especially the most powerful ones, are concerned that Russia is not only, planning a war of some kind against them, but is in fact conducting one already. Cutting undersea cables, you know, cyber stuff. How does this play out? I mean, is it a good thing they're sitting around at the table talking?

Talk, talk, talk, better than fight, you know? Then, you know, John, it's better than war, war, right? Yeah. Look, you could argue it's always better to have somebody at the table than on the outside, a grieved, frustrated, angry, who then does stupid stuff, which you could argue could happen with Vladimir Putin, not with Shishipin, because he's so controlled and self-s disciplined. That's not true about Vladimir Putin. But the other side of the story is here you have Europeans.

Really stretching now to provide financial aid because the Ukrainian budget is really in the whole as its energy infrastructure gets hammered. You know, Vladimir Zelensky just a $27 billion budget shortfall in an economy of Ukraine size. He desperately needs help. The Europeans are stretching. They're buying equipment from the United States paying for it, paying for it. paying for it and then sending it to Ukraine. Those leaders come to the G20. I sit down in a room with Vladimir Putin and Shishi Ping.

It's really, really tough to imagine. And Donald Trump's the chair of the meeting. He's in control. So we know what kind of a chair that'll be. But it's amazing when you consider that some of those countries that would be sitting around that table would not let Putin land his plane in their country or they'd arrest him and they'd be in front of the International Criminal Court.

That's right. He's been indicted for war crimes, right? And so to have to sit at the table with him in Florida with Donald Trump, at the very minimum, it's so galling. Now, what are they going to do? Are they going to stay in the room? Are they going to leave? If they leave, they insult Donald Trump,

and no European leader wants to do that. No European leader wants to poke Donald Trump in the eye, frankly. That's not the path they've chosen. It's a nightmare for them, frankly. You know, who's poking him in the eye more than he used to? Is Carney. I mean, Carney's taken, you know, he's more on the offense than he is on the defense.

It really is interesting. gave an interview to the New York Times this last week, a long interview. And by the way, Peter, if you think there weren't grumbles from journalists in Canada, about why this interview went to the New York Times and an op-and-went into the financial times, the F.T. And they haven't been able to get that kind of 45 minutes sit down. Of course there were. But his audience was in some to some extent, the Americans. I mean, that's who he was really talking to. But then he, in that interview, he said,

well, you know, we have to wonder how long the dollar will be the global reserve currency. Well, if you want to raise the temperature to boiling point. Yeah. With Scott Besson and Donald Trump, just go ahead. You know, the global banker. whom everybody listens to when he says that, that has enormous impact. Sure.

I mean, you know, Carnie's, you know, Carnie's forgotten more about global financial structures than those two guys will ever know. Exactly. And so it's almost, when he says it, you know,

we just put two together. One, the Saturday after the Friday, when talks failed, in that press conference, in Ottawa, and he was stealing in that press conference. And he did say and everyone

should watch for the bond markets because sooner or later, bond markets wake up. Well, they woke up a couple of days after he said it. And the price of treasuries fell, right? Which is something that Donald Trump

cares about two things. The stock market and treasuries. And to making this comment, that was noticed, I can tell you. But nobody else is doing it, Peter. No, nobody else. All those, you know, like the Jamie Diamonds and this world are not doing that. Now, Carney and Diamond have had their, you know,

the bumped heads before. So it's interesting to watch that play out. You know what? I would make one other comment because you asked me, well, how's this going to play out in the G20, this authoritarian impulse? I think we're going to get a glimpse right in November after the 4th of November how this all plays it

because the polls and you would be the first one to tell me only one poll matters and that's on election day but the lead the size of the the Congress people that are projected to change is being on the margin of error here.

So everybody would have to be drastically wrong. Not that that doesn't happen, but they would have to be way off. So it looks like he will lose control of the house. That's a reasonably safe prediction to make. Well, you know, he

said, we can't let that happen. I mean, there are still reports that came out every few days of suggestions that he won't allow the vote. He'll declare martial law or whatever, and there won't be mid-term. I mean, really?

No. We can't get to that point. Well, here's, I don't think that will happen, right? Because that's extreme. That is really, that is the most extreme of all the options. Do I think that he won't put a lot of pressure on state officials who control elections because it's not federal officials who do it in the, it's state officials in the States. Do I think he won't put pressure on the state officials about the count,

about who's authorized to vote, who's not authorized to vote? That's what the whole mail ballot issue is about, frankly. If he doesn't like the results and the difference in any particular state is not great, will he, is it possible that there will be people at the polls who are discouraging voters? Yeah. I think those things are possible. In other words, there could be a level of harassment of voters in the United States and discounting of votes after they are counted that could go on for weeks and weeks afterwards, Peter. I think he will do everything short of counseling. You know, and why do I say everything short of? Because I have enough faith in Americans. Voting elections are in their DNA. They revolted against the United Kingdom because

they wanted representation. They were going to pay anybody taxes if they weren't represented, right? That's their origin story. And I think that transcends party lines. And if anyone threaten that, I think that would be it for Americans. Well, that's hope you're right. I hope I'm right. Yeah. Okay. But this is all going to get tested in November. It will certainly be. We've got to take our break.

Come back a totally different topic for a few minutes. We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the Monday episode of The Bridge. It is, of course, Dr. Janice Stein from the Mug School, the University of Toronto, her regular Monday appearance. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 160. Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform.

man, we're glad to have you with us, no matter how you're listening to us. Okay. Haretz is one of the leading news organizations in Israel. In the last few days, it's had a story that's caused a lot of reaction, and not only in Israel, but literally around the world, suggesting that Benjamin Netanyahu was warned. a week or so before October 7th, that Hamas was planning a major operation.

And as we all know, on October 7th, 2023, there was exactly that, and there was a slaughter. Now, interestingly enough, Janice, you wrote a piece it's almost a year and a half ago now, May of last year, a 25, a paper that had a lot of background to October 7th, including the suggestion that the top general in Egypt

had said something to Netanyahu in the week or so before October 7th, saying they're up to something Hamas is about to do major operation. There was that and there was intelligence provided by Israeli operatives, women on the front line of intelligence officers who were seeing things going on out of Gaza that they thought could lead to something big. Now, in both those cases, Nanyahu denied. that that ever happened.

And he's also denied this latest round from Her Ruts. So what do you make of this? Well, there were two big stories this week. One, as you say, broken by our S, which, you know, for the record, Peter, about five to seven or eight percent of Israelis read it. It's the progressive newspaper in Israel, but it's careful and it's reporting. Why is this story so high profile right now that,

and who was the general? So when I did my research, there were no names. I couldn't find any documented evidence. And so who was the general who came to Israel, the head, the Egyptian general, who was head of military intelligence in Egypt? flew on a private plane to Egypt parked at a private airport.

Now, any time ahead, I can tell you of Egyptian military intelligence comes to Israel. The Israeli Prime Minister knows about it. Now, he gave, as you accurately described, he said, I'm coming to tell you, this is serious. Hamas is planning a major operation.

But he didn't give him a date, and he didn't get so but what really matters the story is the prime minister didn't tell the army chiefs and the security chiefs so when they were getting that battlefield the information from the women's borders along the front line

they didn't have that larger context to put it in even more stunning story in a way and this plays that in a very funny way is the crown prince of the United Emirates, the UAE, where there's really, there are, there's very close intelligence sharing among Israel and the UAE,

which predated the war in Iran, has been building for years. Nobody ever talked about it because the UAE doesn't want it known, but it's been going on. He called, one of his people, told, somebody in the Donnell's office, the following, that Yaya Sima had sent a message to them saying,

we're running out of time here. You have to do something about the prisoners. What's the message from Seymour? Because don't forget, Simaer was imprisoned in Israeli jail. Learned Hebrew there. had deep, deep personal friendships among the prisoners. He was released in exchange for an Israeli hostage. But a big issue for Sinawa all that time

was freeing his fellow prisoners. He promised them that he would get them released from Israeli jails. So this message comes from Sinclair, and he says, you're running out of time. If you don't do something about the prisoners, there will be an explosion. the lower level official told somebody in Netanyo's office who didn't react. And so the leader of the UAE calls Netanyo to make sure that he understood the gravity and pushed him hard to do something,

to make some concessions around more money and prisoners. as if, so this isn't a, you could read that note from Sinwar, do something, give me something, and I won't do this, right? Never went to when the security chiefs. Never went. Now, I actually think it was too late by the time that came. Sinwar was on track. This was a massive operation.

I don't think he was going to call it off, frankly, if 500 prisoners were released. Plus, that would have been very difficult to do. unless there was an obvious reason. But when that became public this week in Israel, and this is a big week for it to become, where is all this playing out? Big surprise right before an election, which is now four weeks off, right on the 27th of October.

So, Netanya, all lies, all designed, to interfere with our election, all lies. And the opposition's saying, no, true, because not only was it Kamal, the Egyptian general, anybody who knows anything would know, that if he was there, he was there to share a warning. But Nicholas Burns confirmed that he was told about it after. He's not going to make that up.

He's a serious, serious, respected diplomat. And the sheikh didn't deny it. He said, I refuse to discuss matters of confidence, which is hand to man to saying this is true. So this is no longer a story of a left-wing newspaper in Israel trying to sabotage a prime minister who's running for election, which is what it was for the first few days. This is now, oh my God. On top of which the heads of the intelligence agencies say, if we had known this, if we had been told this, we would have interpreted the data

that was coming in entirely differently. Mind you, they have some blame here too because the women, the junior women intelligence office, junior may be the wrong word, maybe mid-level, intelligence officers, the women who were pushing up the line within their departments saying there's something going on here. And they were ignored.

They're training to attack. I mean, they said there's no other explanation for what we're saying than Hamas is training units to attack across the border. And they fought with their senior generals who dismissed them as no nothings who were never in combat and didn't really understand what they were seeing. Just as a final thought on this, as you said, the election comes up a month from now or just under a month from now. This is a very divided country, has been all along through all this. Does this make a difference at this point? Well, it's really interesting. You're right, Peter, it's literally split down the middle, and that hasn't changed months.

And before this, government came to power, which has these extremist parties in it, there were four elections before one every six months for the prior two years where nobody could get a majority. So the country was really paralyzed. And fundamentally, it's still a version of the same story. But there's one thing that when it comes to a responsibility for a mistake like this, right? from the Israeli side of the story, it is about the attack on October the 7th,

what happened to civilian women and kids, and the hostages, which consumed everybody for the two years. That's all there was. You looked in newspapers. That's what the headline was. They were blind to what was happening in Gaza because they were so locked into their own story. And I'm not excusing him, but it's a fact.

That's really what happens. And to this day, that's what people talk about. If there's a sense that the prime minister messed up to be blunt, that he had warnings, that he didn't share with the Army chief and the head of intelligence and the two security agencies, that's going to transcend the political divides. frankly, everybody's kid except the Orthodox. Everybody's kid is drafted into that army.

Well, that is yet another thing that we'll be watching over the next month. That's going to do it for this week, Janice, another fabulous conversation, allowing us to think deeper into some of these issues and to try to understand them better. So appreciate that, and look forward to talking to you again in seven days. See you that, Peter. Another great Janice Stein conversation. Lots to mull over there, lots to think about in the various topics we discussed today.

And that will put a wrap on it for this Monday, launch of another week here on the bridge. Tomorrow the Moorbutts conversation. Look forward to that one. It's an interesting one. You know, when you get through some of the technical issues we had, it's a pretty good conversation. So look forward to that. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Thanks so much for listening today. We'll talk to you again in less than 24 hours.