The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Race Next Door ..... Bruce Is Back

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

Bruce Anderson and some really good new talk on what's happening south of the border as Joe Biden rolls out his team..

and hello there peter mansbridge here the latest episode of the bridge daily this is going to be a double today the old podcast within a podcast will be coming up in a moment as the race next door gets back in the game. And Bruce Anderson will be joining us. He's standing by in our Ottawa studios right now and will be joining us in a moment. But I got a couple of little things I got to bring up, a bit of housekeeping, if you will. First of all, on the book, which is doing extremely well. The latest charts will come out later on today. We'll find out where it sits.

Obviously, it will be at least second to Barack Obama's book, which made a huge debut in the last week. So it's expected to win quite handily the top nonfiction book of all entries in Canada over the last week. So in other words, foreign or domestic. Then there's a separate list, which is just the Canadian list. And we'll see how we do. We were top of the charts on both those last week.

We'll see where it is this week. A lot of you have been writing on the book plates. Hundreds of people have been asking for book plates because I crazily made that promise that if you needed a book plate for your book, I would sign one and mail it to you. Well, you've been writing in about that. Lots of you. And so I've been sending them out. But here's what I find funny if the hundreds that have come in I would say about 10 percent of you forget to put your address in your email so it's kind of hard for me to get you the book plate

if you don't add the address but I understand that you know people tend to forget these things it's like when I forget to open the mic on the guest. So if that's happened, as you know, I have sent you an email back and you've eventually sent me the proper address and the book blades do go out. But it would make it a lot easier if you just check and make sure you're sending the book blades. And finally, quite a few of you have written and said, am I doing an audio book of the book? Extraordinary Canadians?

Um, no, I'm not on this, uh, at least on this edition. Um, however, if you go to my website, thepetermansbridge.com, you click on the extraordinary Canadians link, top right-hand corner of the homepage, that'll take you into an area where you can get an audio version of the forward on the book that I do. It's about 10 minutes long. Um, and you know, it's, uh, that's not the whole book. That's not what you're looking for, but it is a start. So, uh, that's where you can get it on the website at thepetermansbridge.com. Now, as I said, Bruce is standing by, and he's ready to go.

So let's bring up the freshest new edition of The Race Next Door. Hail to the Chief. And no doubt now that Hail to the Chief will, in fact, be playing on January 20th in the afternoon, right after noon. It will play for Joe Biden, number 46, the 46th president of the United States. He'll be sworn in on that day. Boom. So there we go. Good to talk to you again. Yes, it's good to talk to you, sir. It's. Good to talk to you again.

Yes. It's good to talk to you, sir. It's always great to talk to Bruce. I wanted to tell you, I just, everywhere I go, everybody's saying to me, they're stopping me in the street. They're coming up to the restaurant that you and I are partners in. They come to the window. They say, yeah, we'd like some pasta. We'd like a bottle of wine, but you have a copy of that book. Extraordinary Canadians,

because everywhere you go, people are talking about it. I'm so proud of you for having written that book and giving up a few golf games this summer to do it. And I'm so happy that people are going to have this great book to read through the holiday season. That's very nice of you, Bruce. You read it exactly the way I wrote it and emailed it to you earlier this morning. But I do think we should...

I even got some new sound equipment this week in the Ottawa studios of the Bridge Podcast Centre. And hopefully this will improve the sound quality for people who are listening to us, especially my sound, so that that extra value that I try to bring with the extraordinary polling part of the conversation is really loud and clear. Well, that's good. And I know people will appreciate that. And I got to tell you, it does sound excellent. So good for you. Okay.

And thank you for the plug on the book because we need it. You know, we're just like, we got to get out there and sell. And maybe I'll have to think of something for our restaurant in Ottawa. Maybe need new shoes. You got to, you know, I'm in. We'll have to figure out some way of maybe giving the odd signed book out at the restaurant. We'll have to talk about that. Anyway, let's moving on.

All right. We are going to take a talk about the race next door in terms of, I mean, things are finally rolling. The coward has finally suggested that, in fact, Joe Biden can get briefings and things are moving on. And there will be a transition of government on January 20th. He may continue to make a few noises here and there about the election, but it's not going to change anything. Now, I want to talk about, at least initially, what we saw yesterday, which was, you know, in many ways, the rollout of the initial part of the Biden government in the sense of the Biden cabinet. And you're better at this stuff than me, but let me just give you the two things that struck me right away. One was, and this was basically his national security team from Secretary of State to Homeland Security to, you know, a number, I think there were six appointments.

And, you know, they were all standing behind him. They each said a few words. Two things that struck me. One, none of them were previous office holders. In other words, you know, I had expected that Susan Rice was going to be in that grouping. She wasn't. She may still come in some other form in the Biden government. But in his initial move, all the faces were in the sense of the public fresh faces.

I know in Washington, many of these people are known players, public servants with a distinguished public service record, all of them, which said something, said something very important. They're not sort of hacks from the, you know, from the back rooms of the Democratic Party or hacks from, you know, various different elected officials within the Democratic Party. So that was kind of one thing. And the other was that at least so far, there's been no reach out to either the left-wing side of the Democratic Party in one of these appointments, or to the Republican Party.

And that's not to say that won't happen in the appointments still to come, but in the initial look for the people of America and the people of the world, the look was sort of fresh, dedicated, public servants, and in some ways many Democrats are going to be impressed with that. Many Americans may be impressed with that. Some others may say, oh, look, they're just half a dozen from the deep state. These people that have been a problem all along. We didn't know their names, but they're deep in the bureaucracy.

And they're pals of the new president. Anyway, I was impressed and a bit surprised by the rollout as we saw it. But you tell me where you're coming from on this, Bruce. Yeah, overall, I think I was quite impressed as well, Peter. I think what struck me watching this unfold over the last several days is, first of all, this is such a fishbowl situation where Biden and his team have the rest of the world literally looking on with a measure of kind of anticipation and hopefulness that's really unusual because of what preceded them. I think it's fair to say that there's the greatest hope for a reset, not to use a

controversial word, but a kind of a reestablishment of the idea of experience and expertise and professionalism and knowledge at the heart of government. And that's a hope that's felt by many people around the world, many other governments as well, many businesses in the United States, lots of different groups within the population. And at the same time, as there are these tremendous hopes that this new group of individuals who will take these leadership roles on will be really top quality people and do a great job. It's also reasonable to say that in some ways, Trump created the lowest possible bar for

them to get over. For all of the people who aren't known quantities, the average viewer of what's happening might say, well, I don't know these people, but I imagine they're probably smarter than the Rudy Giuliani standard under Trump. So Trump actually lowered the bar and created all of these hopes, but in a sense made it easier for Biden to bring forward some names and have people breathe a sigh of relief and say, this feels better. And I think that is what the general view is. A couple of other things that occurred to me is that you mentioned that there were a lot of people who maybe folks outside of the Washington bubble wouldn't know. And I agree with that. There were a couple of names that stood out, Janet Yellen and John Kerry, who really are well-known names, and both of which I think were kind of inspired picks. Kerry as the ambassador on climate change, or I forget exactly what the terminology that they used, but

the interlocutor with the rest of the world on climate change is something that's been missing on a critically important issue for a lot of Democratic voters in the States, a lot of Canadians and people quell some of the internal tensions that we saw within the Democratic Party about the importance of a Green New Deal or a real concerted effort on climate change. And then the last thing is Janet Yellen. One of the most curious things of so many curious things in the Trump era was watching him kind of come out of hiding, basically, yesterday to declare that the Dow Jones index had hit what he called a sacred number, which is a very odd way of describing a stock market move. But he obviously sensed correctly, I think, that other observers might look at that rise in the stock market and say, this is because Trump lost. This is because there's a government coming in that's going to be less chaotic. And Trump going to look more like you expect and want it to look like if you're an investor, if you're somebody from somewhere else in the world,

if you're an American just craving a little bit of stability. I agree with that. I found it, you know, listen, there are a lot of pathetic things that Trump has done in the last few weeks, if not the last few years. But that coming out for whatever it was, 64 seconds, into the press theater at the White House to basically try to make it look like the stock market went over 30,000 yesterday because of him. I mean, that was pathetic. He could have let maybe some of his flunkies say something like that but to have him claim that when if it's clear it was the kind of things like

the appointment of janet yellen um that had the real impact it you know on the market, plus the clear sense now that this new regime, the incoming administration, is now starting to have its impact felt in a number of different areas. And yesterday – Yeah, including – Yeah. Sorry, I was going to say including on the coronavirus, the sense that instead of watching the train roll off the track and towards the cliff,

which is kind of what people were doing down there, right? I mean, Trump had launched this kind of warp speed, which he's very fond of taking credit of now. He's fond of taking credit of the fact that there are vaccines that look like they can work. But I think by and large, a reasonable observer would say he didn't care very much and he didn't do very much to fight the pandemic. And I think now people are looking at the pandemic and saying, Biden is going to try to institute enough national measures and work with enough states and other authorities to try to save more lives, basically. And at the same time, there's going to be a better effort than there

would have been had Trump been in charge on the distribution of a vaccine in a timely fashion. So I think that's helping the stock market and also just generally helping take down the temperature of the body politic as well. And in a kind of a funny way, the Republicans don't seem to know where to put themselves on the pandemic right now, in part because they, you know, like with everything else, but maybe more particularly that they don't really want to say, I just want to tell everybody that could vote for me that I believe Donald Trump did a great job on the pandemic because almost nobody believes that. And on the other hand, if they don't do that, he's kind of looking for them, too, because he kind of exists like this, not quite a ghost, but a kind of a terrifying uncle figure standing outside. It's quite the it's quite the thing on the pandemic issue for sure.

Right. And, you know, how long he has that hold or that image is, you know, he's still the president of the United States. There are things he can do. There's impacts he can have. But on January 20th at one minute after noon, all that stuff runs out. And I'm still of the opinion that as much as everybody keeps saying he's going to be this dominant force in Republican Party politics and this and that and the other thing, I don't buy it. I think he's going to slink away into the darkness and that'll be the end of him.

But I could be wrong, as I have been wrong before. Let me say something else about yesterday's rollout because there is kind of a sameness when new administrations come in. We've seen it in Canada. We've seen it in the United States. I mean, when Stephen Harper won election, it was all about Canada's back, Canada's back. And he kept doing that for the first year or so of his administration. Then when Justin Trudeau came in, the liberals were doing Canada's back, we're back. When Donald Trump came in and won the election in 2016, it was all about America's back, America's back.

And now we're seeing the same thing again with the Biden group. A number of them said yesterday, America's back. And quite frankly, a lot of other people have been saying that, not only in America, but around the world, as it relates to the outcome of this particular election, the whole America's back slogan. And I think in many ways yesterday was directed to receive that overseas. I mean, we know that a lot of foreign leaders have been talking to Biden

since the get-go of once the networks declared that he was the winner. I think Justin Trudeau might have been one of the first ones, if not the first one, within an hour of that happening, talking to Biden and welcoming America back. And so I think yesterday a lot, you know, obviously it was primarily directed at the American people, but I think it was also very much directed at foreign leaders around the world, not just allies, but adversaries as well, that, hey, this is going to be different,

and we're going to be on a very different pathway than this outgoing group. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with that. I think the, uh, I kind of read the signals as a Biden at one in the same time, trying to get across the idea that America is going to heal and that he isn't scary. Uh, and part of the reason why I think he's right to make sure that people understand that he's not a scary figure is obviously there's a political agenda in the near term in Georgia with those two Senate seats. And if he prosecuted those as a combatant still fighting the presidential election, saying we need to defeat Republicans, we need to, you know, kind of wipe that Trump era from our memory banks.

I think that there might be some reaction to that that doesn't go quite his way, you know, that he seems to succeed best if he uses the office of president or president-elect as a kind of a rallying point for the idea of healing and stability and not scary. And it looks like from the Senate polling that I've heard reported that one of those seats looks like it's tilting Democrat and the other tilting Republican, but there's still a lot to be determined there. And I do think it's important for his agenda. His legislative agenda is going to go a lot better if the Democrats finish with control of the Senate or a tie in the Senate, and therefore the vice president gets the deciding vote. So I think

that's very important in his mind. But I also think that the idea of establishing a clear point of departure on foreign policy issues is important. And I noticed that Mr. Biden talked about the conversations he'd had with world leaders, how many he had. to him say that and remarking how he avoided the way that Trump did, saying they called me, they love me, they told me how great I am, they told me how excited they are for, you know, how wonderful life under me will be. And Trump did that all the time, right? And it sounded so weird and phony and just like to Canadians, I think anyway, we would listen to that and go, we would frog march a politician out of office the next day who sounded like that talking about conversations with foreign leaders. And in our version of Canada's back, I remember how, you know, that that was used after the Harper government was defeated. And there are lots of people in Canada who didn't like certain aspects of the Harper

government, including me. But the Harper government was not horrible on a scale that Donald Trump was. And so and we were hearing people say Canada's back, Canada's back, he was talking about a change from something that people were unhappy with, or some people were unhappy with, is something that people were feeling more optimistic about. Whereas I think in America, it's a much more significant change that's going on. And there still looks like there's about half of the country that's going, well, I'm not happy with going on. And there still looks like there's about half of the country that's going, well, I'm not happy with this change and my America is not coming back. My America might be going away. And so we do still have down there this horrible potential that social media

and new media will continue to do the work intentionally or inadvertently of creating two separate states, two separate mindsets, and making them become more and more polarized. I don't know if you've been listening to it, Peter, but the social dilemma and commentary like that, there's quite a bit of it going on right now, which I find both disturbing and compelling in describing how these technologies, in some instances, not necessarily by design, just end up creating more polarization, more anger, because they kind of understand

that that's what motivates people to click and stay addicted. And so I'm worried about America still from that standpoint. And I like the Biden message of healing. And, you know, we say one thing about China and we don't say something completely different the next day. And the same thing about Russia and the same thing about NATO and the same thing about Canada. Yeah, I, you know, I don't want people to be confused by my earlier remarks. I do think Trump is going to disappear in terms of the impact he has on a general way on the dialogue. But at the same time, this issue of division within the United States is not going to disappear. It's fed not just by politicians, but by the whole social media aspect of things, and more than just social media.

I mean, the very clear divisions in the way, especially cable news operates with Fox and the other right-wing cable stations versus MSNBC and certain elements of the other cable networks that either give a middle-of-the-road or left-of-the-road view on policy and debates that are occurring within the U.S. That's not going to end. And my fear is when you listen to Biden talking about how we're going to find a way to be more inclusive and bring people together rather than apart. I mean, those are all the right things to say at a time of a change of government, but it's a lot harder to make it happen. And you usually hear governments say something like that in their initial stages. And then it kind of, you know, for any number of different reasons, retreats back to where it was.

This divide is harsh. It's deep. It's not going to be resolved easily, and it's going to take a lot more than one person to make that happen, and it's going to take a lot more than just politicians to, to make it happen, but they've all got it. I wanted to ask you a question about that, Peter. Okay.

You know, and this goes back a little bit to one of the conversations that you and I had with Sean Talley bear a little while ago, you know, I was reading a story in the New York times the other day about Newsmax, one of the new news platforms, basically, that serves that right wing Republican market. And I don't even think it's a cable net. I think it's basically just an online news service. So people kind of stream it. but I could be wrong about that. But in any event, with OAN and Newsmax, and I guess there's also a kind of a conservative platform called Parler that exists as an analog

to Twitter now. My question for you is that what do you think an organization like CNN or NBC should be trying to do, given those dynamics? On the one hand, I guess they could look at it and say, the business models that look most successful are the ones that further define themselves on some sort of a kind of, this is our tribe, this is what we think, this is the only thing that we think, and we hate the other people. On the other hand, if everybody does that, we have some sense of where that leaves democratic states, and it's not a pretty picture. But the conversation we were having with Chantal, which I want to bring you back to and sort of say, what do you think about this?

I also was struck by the argument that both of you were making, which is, is that really the responsibility of media? And I'm kind of maybe drawing a distinction between the responsibility of journalists versus the owners of media platforms. But anyway, what do you think about what those are? I think there is a responsibility in terms of the ownership of media platforms. And I'll explain that in a second. Let me just back you up one little bit.

One of the things I find that's difficult in the way we cover these stories, generally in the media, and the media, you know, the old line, the stories, generally in the media. And the media, you know, the old line, the media is not a monolith. People operate differently and they have different guidelines and policies. But one of the things I find difficult is, and you kind of referred to it when you were starting this latest segment, by saying, you know, the right-wing Republican, you know, programs or commentators or journalists. And I tend, I try in my head not to, and I falter on this, so not perfect. But I try in my head not to include the name of the party when I do that.

Because, you know, from people who speak from the kind of center left, the Republicans have become this deep evil thing where, in fact, they are a part of American history and have done a tremendous good in their country over time, over years. Perhaps not recently, but they certainly have a history, as does the Democratic Party on its side. So are there hardcore right-wing news organizations and journalists and and activists absolutely um i i just find part of the kind of push to dividing that country is and it sometimes happens here too is is is you know wrapping it in the name of of of the two individual parties as in the case of the U.S. Now, on the bigger issue that you raise, listen, you know, these are private networks and private operations, and the business model, as you say, is, you know, it is what it is. It's to make money, you know, to keep investors happy.

There's no point in having an operation that's losing money. You want one that's losing money. You want one that's making money. And the belief at the moment, certainly on the right, is you're going to make money by pouring some of this continuous talk, opinion-led journalism, if you want to call it that, at your audience. And it's proven to be right. I mean, Fox has, you know, kind of dominated the ratings game for the last X number of years.

They've taken a hit since the election. All over their declaration, accurate as it was on election night that arizona was going to the democrats they've taken a pummeling um on that and they've lost audience to news mac as you say and and not just a little bit. The Newsmax audience in prime time at night has gone from, you know, 150,000 to over a million. That's money, right? And so the owners of Newsmax are looking at that and going, more. Give me more.

Give me more of that. You know, we've made Fox vulnerable. Now, Fox still has a huge lead, but it's about money. And so this is where networks and different organizations that are not, you know, 100% controlled by the dollar can make their mark with real, honest, transparent journalism. Whether in Canada, it's the CBC, and I have, you know, listen, I've spent 50 years at the CBC, so obviously I'm partial to the CBC, but that does not come without concern about the direction in which it takes and the power of the dollar,

even at the CBC, in making certain things happen, which I don't think should happen. But it's not just the CBC. There are other areas that are clear about their mandate more than anything is journalism. Do they want to satisfy their investors and stockholders? Well, you know, in cases that are privately owned, sure they do. But the dominant force for them is journalism. And sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case in some American networks, and it's not just the

right wing. I mean, I, you know, I probably watch MSNBC more than any of the other channels because I like very much some of their personalities and who I think are very good at it. But their tilt overall is absolutely as left of center as Fox's right of center. You know, promoting the kind of divisions that you're talking about. Well, I think that's right. I do think there's a weird extension of that, though. And I'm, you know, there are days when I feel like five years from now, we're going to wish that we could go back to Fox News as it has been, because I just don't know that I have the

confidence that in the American system, and maybe it's a little bit true, but maybe less so in Canada, that we're going to avoid a situation where the polarization becomes more intensified, because, you know, I think what we've seen is that if you put shocking nonsense out on the airwaves or on the internet, that shocking nonsense is going to start to build a business model. And the conversation that we were having about the networks cutting off Trump was really about them saying, we're going to cut off his shocking nonsense because that's what he's coming on to do. We had a conversation in Canada, as you recall, not that many weeks ago, where people like our old friend Andrew Coyne was lighting his hair on fire

because Justin Trudeau asked for 10 minutes at the supper hour to talk about the COVID pandemic wave that we're into right now. And we were like, how could that be a reasonable thing to ask for? But he wasn't going on to talk shocking nonsense. If anything, people criticized him for being kind of boring and telling us stuff that we already kind of had imagined was going to be a problem. Their problem is their economy of information and news operates on such a scale and with so much technology behind it that this drift towards, you know, one thing that's really sure is shocking nonsense is going to get the eyeballs, is going to get the clicks. It's going to support the advertising income streams that we need. And it's going to take strong, strong corporations that decide that they can withstand the temptation to go for the shocking

nonsense. And I have to say, I think there's shocking nonsense on the left too, but I think there's a lot more on the right, to be honest. And that's what kind of worries me is that the implication ultimately is that nonsense starts to become such a dominant force in the conversation that we can't get back to a place where information and knowledge actually matters more. So I'm quite worried about that. We see that. You probably won't agree with me, or maybe you won't even like hearing me say it. But there are days when, if I picked up a physical copy of the National Post, I would say there's a lot of shocking nonsense in it. I just sort of see the stories and the columns online, and I stop reading them because I kind of sense that that's the business model there a little bit. It doesn't have to be rooted in this just happened, or I did a little bit of research into this complicated issue.

It's just let's throw some spaghetti up against the wall, and some of it's going to make our regular readers happy. So I'm worried about all of that, and I don't want to go on forever. But I want to go back to that one point that you made about not using the names of parties if it isn't really the parties historically that have been the problem, I think that's a really fair point. I tend to use, I tend to name the Republicans in this instance. And sometimes when I talk about conservatives in Canada, I do the same thing, in part because I'm kind of wanting to challenge reasonable conservatives and reasonable Republicans to own their party again, to challenge the drift, to say this doesn't this shouldn't be who we are.

And I was a I worked with progressive conservative leaders, Joe Clark, Jean Charest, Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell. And I found that that party has changed. And I'm not obviously the only person who felt that way. And so I sometimes am a bit of a pain in the neck to conservatives who say, why is he so critical of us? And partly, I just want them to own their party again and not be talking every day about, let's be more angry at China. I mean, I find that the agenda is so limited and narrow here and it's so much looks like it's just playing to an angry base and it's, you know, participating in the market for shocking nonsense sometimes. And I, I, I'm worried about that. And I, I call it out because I want the partisans who still are there to kind of improve it and know that there are people who are looking for them to do that. We'll have to do a China show here at some point in the new year because that last point you made, you know, is an important one. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a major Canadian business leader who is fed up with the Trudeau government. And after

years of supporting, the Liberals is ready to move to the Conservatives. Or thought he was. Knows the current leader, Aaron Atul. But he is so mad at this China bashing stuff as a business leader. I mean, there's lots of reasons to be upset with China. They didn't start today or yesterday. They're historic since 1949. But his feeling is, look,

the future is going to be some relationship with China. It's just like obvious. And we have to figure out one that works for everybody and where we can still hold our head high. But just trashing them at every turn is not the right, not the route. And so I found that interesting because it is a dilemma on, you know, deep pockets people who, you know, can have an impact on elections. And so it was interesting to hear that. Anyway. It's a very big dilemma. I like the idea that we have a conversation about that for sure.

Okay. And we the idea that we have a conversation about that for sure. Okay. And we'll do that. And we'll, you know, we may, the way this vaccine thing is going in terms of where Canada is, you know, well positioned in terms of buying pre-orders, but are they positioned in terms of the lineup for when the vaccines come? I think that story still got a little bit to play out on, but I think we can talk about that as well in the days ahead. One last point, and I'm not looking for a long run on this, but seeing as I raised it two weeks ago and you poo-pooed it, the pardon issue is now coming up. As you can see from the leaks in the White House, that Donald Trump is on the verge, apparently, of pardoning a whole bunch of his panels,

starting with Michael Flynn, his national security advisor for 14 minutes or whatever it was at the beginning of his administration. And you can only imagine the rest of that crowd that he may be putting out pardons for because apparently the list is going to be long. Will it, though, include himself? The debate still kind of is out there about whether you can pardon yourself. Most legal experts say, no, you can't.

But the Trump people are saying, sure, you can. So I will be fascinated to watch this pardon thing play out. Every president has the right at the end of their term, at the end of each year, actually, but certainly at the end of their term, of pardoning people. It's usually pardons are reserved for those who have spent some time in prison, incarcerated in some form. This is like getting them out before they go in. Anyway, I just wanted to make that point that that issue could be alive and well discussed and debated in the days and weeks ahead.

Well, one thing that I think we can be pretty sure of is that when Donald Trump goes to bed every night and he lies there in the White House and thinks about whether he should pardon himself, but one thing that really he won't spend a lot spend a lot of time you know he probably isn't one of those guys who makes lists here's all the reasons i should here's all the reasons i shouldn't uh so i don't think there'll be a careful kind of balance sheet approach that gets him to a conclusion on this peter but i also think he on the short list of things that he might consider, what's the precedent? It will not be one of those. I don't think he's ever concerned himself with the precedent,

except maybe to say, if it hasn't been done before, that's all the more reason I should do it, right? I'll be the first ever to do this. I'll be the first ever, and I'll kind of warp speed myself out of guilt and into innocence. And I think he's probably carefully looking at the, is there a way to get pardoned for the state level offenses? Because I don't think he probably wouldn't be troubled by giving himself a pass on any federal crimes. Because in his mind, he's probably convinced that

anybody who comes after him from the federal standpoint is that it's a political vendetta. So he should just inoculate himself from that. I don't think that would be true necessarily, but I think that's probably how he thinks. But if he could find a way to to absolve himself on any of the state level charges, I think that would be a good thing. But, you know, if we're imagining this is we're in the Wizard of Oz times right now where. You know, when you kind of look at him and you go, well, he's you know, he's cagey and he's clever and he accomplished more politically than anybody ever thought he could, given what a failure he was at business and as a human being. Now, when we see him, we see Rudy Giuliani kind of leaking hair dye and making ridiculous arguments

in front of judges and organizing press conferences in front of a landscaping company. And it doesn't look like there's some careful plotting behind the scenes. It looks like the chaos that it's always been, with the only exception that he's playing golf or he's lying on his bed, eating Kentucky Fried Chicken, and wondering what the rest of his life is going to be like. Well, on that image, on that image and that note, I think we'll, uh, we'll call it a day for this, uh, this edition of the race next door built inside the, uh, bridge daily Bruce.

Thanks so much, uh, as always. And we look forward to doing the 10. We, again, we've got obviously a lot of fun. Yeah, we've got obviously a couple of good topics that we can go at. I should tell everybody, and I have given Bruce the heads up, that David Axelrod will be joining us a couple of weeks from now on the Bridge Daily and the Race Next Door. David, of course, was one of those very close and senior advisors to Barack Obama that

won him the White House in 2008 and then again in 2012. He has a very successful podcast of his own in the United States right now. He's also worked for CNN as a commentator during the election process. But David just sent me a note yesterday to nail down a time and a day, and we're looking forward to doing that. That'll be fun. That'll be fun. Looking forward to that, too.

Now, Peter, before I go, don't forget to send or get your publishers to send more of those books, Extraordinary Canadians, down to Ottawa so that, you know, it's snowing here and people are going to be staying in. They're going to need that great read. And we can't get enough of it.

So please get those books here. That's a really good idea. And I encourage people to, it's actually a very good book. It's not about me. It's about you, actually. It's about, you know, 17 extraordinary Canadians whose stories will inspire you. And they come from all over the country. And they're very different in terms of what they've accomplished in life.

So if you get a chance, you should pick that book up. All right. Thank you, Bruce. Thank you to all of you who have been following the Bridge Daily and the Race Next Door throughout all this, and especially today. It's been a treat to talk to you. As always, I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening, and we will be back in 24 hours. Thank you.