The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Trump Reality -- Janice Stein's View of What Happens Now

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

Janice Stein, may surprise you because she's not quite as pessimistic as others.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's no longer a possibility, it's the real deal. What's it going to be like dealing with Donald Trump? Janice Stein on that. Coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. Janice Stein on Donald Trump and what it's going to be like. That's our focus today on our regular Monday discussion with the director of the Bunk School at the University of Toronto, Janice Stein.

Looking forward to it. But a couple of housekeeping notes, first of all. And, well, this is more than housekeeping. It's Remembrance Day. And I know for many of you, you'll be listening to this after the services that have taken place of the National Service in Ottawa, or perhaps one of your local services that you've gone down to the local war memorial and joined with others to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, those who gave the sacrifice in terms of their time and their personal futures by joining the armed forces or perhaps, you know, working in a factory, your grandmother,

your great-grandmother, your uncles, your aunts. This is a day of remembrance, and we should use it as best we can to remember. So I'm hopeful that you had that opportunity today. The second thing that we do on Mondays is we give you a heads up about the question of the week. First of all, I should say last week's question of the week was your memories of Remembrance Day. And if you're still up for it and you didn't have the opportunity to listen, you should go back and listen to last Thursday's program. You can find it quite easily on your podcast provider. And it was a great program of listening to your thoughts

and your memories of what Remembrance Day has meant to you. Okay, this week, you know, I'm perhaps picking up the theme of it's the economy, stupid. We're going to do a little bit of economic thinking in the sense of this. We as a country, Canada as a country, has a massive debt, huge. And annually, once again, we have a huge deficit, which continues to build up that debt.

So there's a lot of discussion, and there always is, on the political parties about, you know, we've got to bring down the deficit. And to do that, how are we going to do that? Are we going to create more taxes? Are we going to cut programs? Well, that's the question today. It's not which of those two.

It's on the dealing with trying to balance budgets. It's this question because no one wants higher taxes. So the question becomes, what are you going to cut? Are you going to cut something? Are you just never going to cut? Just let these deficits and debt keep ballooning? But if the question is cuts, the question for this week is, what program would be your first cut if it was up to you?

What government service, what government program would be your first cut? Not looking for, well, there's this and there's this and there's this. I'm looking for one. What's your first cut? What's the first cut you're going to make? So let's hear it from you. Let's hear from you on that question. What program, what government service would be your first cut if it was up to you?

And you write to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Have your answer in by 6 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday. Include your name and the location you're writing from. And let's get back to keeping the answers brief Okay, first cut, what would it be? Alright, let's get at it then Our conversation with Janice Stein I told you what it's about. And, well, as in every week,

I hope you enjoy this discussion. Here we go. So, Janice, last week we talked in the abstract about what might happen if Trump won, what might happen if Harris won. Well, we know what happened. And so it's not abstract anymore it's we're dealing with the real the real thing but what do we know in a week uh that can give us you know perhaps a a more firm look at uh what this is going to mean, a new Trump administration, in terms of foreign policy and specifically as it relates to Russia and to the Middle East.

You know, Peter, we're reading tea leaves here. Two things I noticed this week. One, Trump made clear, no Mike Pompeo, no Nikki Haley. So any sense that he would draw on a broad tent to a Republican Party, not happening. Not everybody would describe Mike Pompeo as in the center of the Republican Party, but he's signaling very clearly. It's his loyalists now. Susie Wiles, his campaign chair,

is the chair of the transition. So we are going to get, we're going to get, there's no Trump light here coming. I think that's the first big one. There's, you know, I remember the coke ads. We're getting the real Donald Trump here.

Second interesting one that struck me during his call, Zelensky called very quickly to congratulate him, and Trump handed the phone to Elon Musk. Hard really to think of a precedent for that, but that shows you that the people who were most important to him in the campaign engaged in a mutual admiration society. I'm going to put it that way. I also found that interesting in the sense that, you know,

Musk has a relationship with Zelensky with Ukraine because of his satellite systems that he's been giving to Ukraine that have been instrumental in their fight. So you could look at that a number of ways. You could. You could. And one way, certainly, that Ukrainians, some influential Ukrainians are looking at this, Peter, because let's just backtrack for one second. to Ukraine. It's the way the Ukrainian army communicates. He funded it personally for the first few months. Went to the Pentagon and asked them to fund it. They wouldn't and there was a crisis, but that system continues to operate in Ukraine. It's not inconceivable that Elon Musk would be the go-between between Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky.

It's entirely possible because, as you know, Trump has pledged to end this war within a day. In one day. Within a day. But certainly there's 72 days till his inauguration. It's not inconceivable that that's the back channel. So you're absolutely right to say

there's more than one perspective. But what it also shows us, it's not going to be the State Department. It's not going to be the Pentagon. It is going to be the people around him that he knows, that he trusts, and more loyalty.

That's the single criteria for being influential in the coming administration. I want to just rewind a little bit to your sense that this won't be Trump-lite, that everything that we've seen so far in terms of, and we haven'tlite, that everything that we've seen so far in terms of, and we haven't seen a lot, but what we have seen would suggest that this is going to be the Trump that a lot of people feared would be in terms of the people around him and the direction he's going to take

and, you know, in spite of everything you said about the document 2025, look at it, because that could be exactly where the direction in this administration is going in. Talk to me a little more about it won't be Trump-lite. You know, it's really interesting that you brought up the Heritage Foundation's document 2025. That's written by a bunch of professional economists, Peter, and everybody, everybody went to see the Heritage Foundation over the last three months. And you can have, you know, we did, I was part of a group that did a Matter More project in the United States. Of course, the Heritage Foundation was a stop along that way in terms of the people that we consulted with. And they come at this as professional economists and policy people. There's flexibility there.

There's willingness. You can do it this way or you can do it that way. And here are some openings. It's very much, frankly, an inside the beltway kind of conversation that people are used to. I think Donald Trump rejected it in part because of that. And he really has rejected it. It said he has no part in it.

He's about the revolution. He sees himself as a revolutionary party that, you know, in a United States where the institutions don't work. That's the core political message. He wants to change those institutions he wants them to work differently and he has he has two years now where he has an open agenda so my sense is that's actually not the best guy to what he's going to do over the next two years it is much more um you know, and Silicon Valley is a great place for rule breakers.

They're very creative. They do a lot of great things, but they have, and I've seen it personally, they don't have any respect for the rules. In fact, the rules are what gets in the way of innovation, of wealth creation. That's really where he is. Okay.

Let's break this down a little bit. Let's go back to this relationship with Russia and what that could mean in terms of, you know, the Russia-Ukraine situation. But there's more, you know, in terms of that relationship. What do you see happening here? How is this going to unfold? So I have a less pessimistic view than many people, especially for Ukraine, than many people, because Ukraine finds itself, if you look at it objectively,

finds itself in a very, very difficult position right now. Peter, we've been talking about the kind of drip, drip, drip loss of territory over the last two months, 1,500 square miles. No more young people, really. It's very tough now for Zelensky to recruit new young men to throw at those front lines. And although it's still a grinding war of attrition, there is palpable fear among Ukrainians that the Russians could break through somewhere along the front. My sense of where Donald Trump will go, his relationship with Ukraine started over the Biden family.

It was personal. That's where the story begins for him, about Hunter Biden's activities in Ukraine. And he saw that as a wedge issue against Joe Biden. And his initial antagonism developed out of that because, first of all, the American ambassador there, antagonism developed out of that because first of all, the American ambassador there, but then Zelensky himself

was not forthcoming in his willingness to go after the Biden family. That's different, I think, from wanting to see Russia have a major strategic win in Europe. And that's where I'm less pessimistic than, for example, Timothy Snyder or others who work on Ukraine. I think he really wants to, he means to stop the fighting.

So what does that mean? It becomes a frozen conflict in which the line of the battlefield where we are now is what, in fact, is what it would look like. But that still leaves Ukraine. That leaves 80% of Ukraine intact. It ends the fighting.

It doesn't necessarily mean some final peace agreement. And frankly, it's going to bump over to the Europeans. The big challenge, if there is a ceasefire in place, which I think is his goal, he will bump over to the Europeans. And here's where the real trouble is. The challenge both of providing financial aid for Ukraine and then ultimately some kind of security guarantee. You make it sound like Trump's much more of a strategist than we've given him credit for. I don't think he's a strategist, actually, at all.

I think he's focused on one thing only, getting a ceasefire in place. That's it. His view is, I'm going to stop this war. Everything else, not interested in, right? But I'm going to stop this war because, you know, this is Trump. I don't fight wars. I stop them, he says on the campaign trail. That's where his head is. The fall on who funds Ukraine, does Ukraine become a member of NATO or not? Is there a security guarantee that the United States gives NATO? He's not interested in any of that. He wants the fighting to stop.

You know, again, Peter, you and I talked earlier this year, just a few months ago, actually, about the two of them close to approaching a stalemate. We said that. You know, Russia, I was staggered when I read this earlier, sweet Peter. Russia has lost more men in the last two months in this relentless grinding attrition than the United States lost in 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan. And that's just, frankly, astonishing, isn't it? It is. It is staggering. It's staggering. And so there may be this moment they can't recruit either of them with a huge political cost to them. They can't mobilize enough young men to keep the fighting up.

Is it credible that there could be a ceasefire in place? Yes. What does that mean for next year or two years from now? Does Russia go back at it? Those are all big strategic questions. Donald Trump doesn't want to talk about that. He wants a ceasefire in place, and then he can say, I stopped the war. But we would be naive to think that the Russians would accept this

for nothing other than a pause. That's right. Everything about their history has shown, the most recent being Crimea. It's not enough for them just to have the Donbass and that side of Ukraine. They'll eventually want more, even though it's come at such tremendous cost. Yeah, it has come at such tremendous cost. And the costs of going further are huge. And so Putin actually has to be the strategist, not Trump.

Yeah, right. It's over's already him. How much is a better relationship with a Trump led United States worth to him over the next three and a half years? What does that get him? Does he get any relief from sanctions? Because Trump could do that if, you know, we don't we're still waiting for the House. We don't know yet, but it certainly looks good for the Republicans. He controls the Senate. If there's a ceasefire in place, does he get rewarded? Does Trump pull back some of those sanctions?

Does he get readmitted to SWIFT, which handles all the international banking transactions, which has been a big problem for Russia. You know, he needs a pause. For how long does he need it? And I think that's why there is a chance of getting a ceasefire in place. And, you know, fast rather than slowly. Because it just might work for Putin, frankly.

Just might work for Putin. And, you know, for smaller countries that live next to bigger powers, we're one. We get it. On our good days, we get it. Three years is an eternity. It's a pause, but it's an eternity for a country like Ukraine that's gone through what it's gone through. Would the rest of NATO sort of wrap their arms around this

if this is the way it turned out? Well, let's look at what's happening in Europe right now as Donald Trump wins this election for just a moment. Olaf Scholz's coalition fell apart in Germany this week. You know, nobody noticed because of all the drama that was going on in Washington. There have to be elections in Germany. He's now governing without the consent of the German parliament. The first vote can actually bring him down. He's a weak leader right now. Macron rolled the dice last year, lost.

He has a prime minister that he appointed who has yet to pass a budget in the Assemblee Nationale. Unpopular, deeply unpopular. Just imagine this, the most secure leader, I think, right now, of the big ones in Europe is Giorgio Maloney. In Italy. In Italy. Of all places.

Right? The country of the revolving governments that lasted nine months, and by the way, a natural friend, Trump, because she comes out of that populist right wing.

So this is, I think, the great weakness of NATO right now. Everybody thinks it's Donald Trump. And of course, it's a big challenge. But it's the European flank of NATO. The big powers in NATO are at a moment really of unprecedented convergence of fragility among the big powers. You know, Britain, not in Europe anymore. You know, even a Labour government in Britain now, Keir Starmer, he's a strong supporter of NATO and a strong supporter of Ukraine. But it's outside of the European Union.

You know, a year ago, we used to talk about the struggle that was on the horizon between autocracy and democracy. Yeah. And then we kind of backed away from that discussion at different times in than last year, thinking even though the incumbent governments were in trouble all around the world, we kind of backed away from that discussion thinking, oh, you know, democracy is kind of, it's coming back. And the assumption that they would see that happen in the U.S. Well, so here we are a year later, and the picture you paint is

not one of great moments for the Democratic side. You know, you're right. It's a troubling time. There's no question, Peter. But, you know, let's take a step back for a minute. You know, just to say this, Kamala Harris ran on democracy, right? People don't vote on democracy. It's never the balance. It has to be extraordinary, right? Otherwise, they vote on the cost of living. They vote on how much trouble they're having finding housing. They vote on whether their kids are safe at school. Those are ballot box questions. I think what we're seeing is every government that was in power in the COVID years and the post-COVID years that was marked by that really intense inflation for most people. Those governments are being thrown out. You know, middle class people and working class people, it's not an abstract discussion how much a dozen eggs cost.

For them, it's the difference of do they buy the eggs or do they not buy the eggs? They live, and many live, paycheck to paycheck. So Britain, it's a regulatory government. An elected labor government. Does that mean there's a progressive wave coming at us? No. I think what we're seeing is any incumbent government. It's the most interesting thing. We call it the scourge of the middle class, you know, who are the

most fundamentally important supporters of democracy. Yes, in Canada, for example, and in other European countries, you know, it's slowed down to 2%. But we're never going back to X. The cost of dollars, it's not going to happen ever. And prices don't fall when inflation slows. And so all the voters who were asked, do you feel poorer now than you did four years ago? Yeah.

And so I don't see this so much as this cosmic battle between autocracy and democracy. I think this is a familiar pattern where inflation is the most corrosive thing that we go through for middle classes. Governments need to pay more attention. They need to be more careful about spending so that they don't let that genie out of the bottle. Well, that is a fundamental challenge to all governments,

new ones and old ones. And the old one in this country is facing that and will face it in the months ahead if it country is, you know, is facing that and will face it in the months ahead if it makes it to a budget. Oh, yeah. And you can just imagine in our own country, Peter, we could put a populist versus democratic frame on it. Or you could say, eggs now, I don't know about your supermarket, but in my supermarket, they're $4. Eggs are twice as expensive as they were two, three years ago. People remember when they paid $2 and change for a dozen eggs. So it doesn't matter that the slope or the price increase is less.

They feel poorer. And they vote the incumbent government out, Peter. You know, I get this. I get this. You know, it's the economy's stupid argument. It is. But sometimes, you know, I wonder. I watched what happened last week.

And there was this great scene on social media of, you know, half a dozen young women in a high ritzy restaurant in Los Angeles or San Francisco or something. They were all wearing the MAGA hats, red MAGA hats, spending big bucks. Yeah. It wasn't the economy stupid for them. No. It was something else and it was you know and it is that whole argument about uh you know did we totally misunderstand america a week ago that um i mean i agree with you there clearly wasn't democracy or the turnout would

have been a heck of a lot higher than it was. That's right. Especially for Democrats. That's right. But the fact that 70 million or whatever it ends up being voted for Trump and what Trump was standing for, I don't think it was just eggs. I think there was more going on there.

You're right that it's not only the economy. There's a whole bunch of other issues layered on top of that. Identity politics being one, frankly, which have royal politics. But the reason I remain a modest optimist, frankly, is I don't believe the election was about democracy versus authoritarianism. I believe it was all about that other basket of cultural and economic issues that are intermingled in really complex ways. And, you know, we'll have good studies that tease it all apart.

And my friends at the university will have a great 18 months figuring all this out. I would worry if I thought it was a democracy versus autocracy and that we were on a, you know, on the cusp of a wave of the kind we saw in the 30s. I don't believe that's where we are, Peter. And, you know, the democracy versus autocracy argument, we backed off it because it didn't work in Brazil. They didn't want any part of it.

It didn't work in India with Modi. He didn't want any part of it. Go have a conversation with Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia about democracy versus autocracy. It lasts 20 seconds. And that's the end of that. And yet many of these countries have deep ties to the United States, to Britain, and to the Europeans. So, you know, in a funny way, that's divisive theme globally,

autocracy versus democracy, and it doesn't really work as the ballot question in an election. Okay. We're going to take a pause here. I want to touch on the Middle East and the impact all this is going to have there, and we'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode.

That means Janice Stein is here with us, the director of the Munk School at the University of Toronto. You're listening on SiriusXM, channel 167. Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform. All right. You know, for most of the last year, you've been warning us, Netanyahu's not going to do anything until he knows what happens in the U.S. Yeah, right. And so here we are.

He didn't do anything except keep pursuing Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran. He's been doing all of that. And he hasn't cut any deals except for short temporary ones on ceasefires. So one wonders now with Trump coming back to the White House, what he's going to do. And he gave a signal this week by firing his defense minister. Yeah. Who had the gall to stand up and say, you're pursuing the wrong course here. And that was it for him.

Yeah. So what do we assume is going to happen here? So let's talk about it from Netanyahu's perspective first and then from Trump's. I don't think those two are as aligned as Netanyahu would like to think they are. I think this is, you know, this is for him, for Netanyahu, this is what he's waited for, a very tense relationship between the Biden team and Netanyahu. Three months after October 7th, it was already apparent that there was a tense relationship. And he hanging on by his fingernails to wait to see if Donald Trump could be elected. Because the first Trump presidency, Trump was very favorable to Israel.

The Abraham Accords were signed. The embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which no other U Trump than he ever could have had with the Biden team. And so there's very little incentive to do anything, frankly. And he fired his defense minister last week. Also, you know, in the 24-hour free period before the election, nobody really noticed. Nobody could make a big issue. But there was a fundamental fight with that defense minister. It wasn't that you're pursuing the wrong course, Peter, much worse. You're pursuing no course. You have no strategy. You have no political endgame. You are actually, to put it as bluntly as it was put, you are killing young Israeli soldiers for nothing because you have no strategy. So this was

an all-out fight and he took the chance to fire Gaunt. I think he's getting Trump wrong. I'm going to go out and tell them. I think he's getting Trump wrong. I think Trump wants in Gaza what he wants in Ukraine. He wants a ceasefire. He knows their political liabilities when Americans see these horrific pictures coming out of Gaza day after day after day. Trump doesn't want that. And he wants to be able to say,

I stopped the fighting. Now, at what point is this coming? Frankly, it's coming when there are no more military objectives in Gaza. Not by the wildest stretch of the imagination, frankly, Peter. But there's no plan. There never has been on Netanyahu's part, for any kind of governance structure. So that's why there still is fighting. Is there a back-channel option here too?

Yep. Saudi Arabia and the Emirates that are very tightly connected in to the Trump family. Interestingly enough, again, I was watching for the tea leaves because that's all we have, such early days. You know, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who played no part in this campaign, clearly feel they were burned by their time in Washington, do not want to be part of the next round of it.

Nevertheless, we're there for the election night speech. That's a sign. It doesn't matter whether we're there formally or not, we're there. I would be astonished if there already weren't conversations

going on behind the scenes between the Saudis, Jared Kushner. What do we need to do now to stop this war? What has to be put in place? Timing would work for Netanyahu because there's no more military objectives. They're close to that situation already in Lebanon. And, of course, for Iran, the nightmare to have Donald Trump back. Is there any scenario in which Netanyahu will be able to keep his job?

Oh, yes, there is. He doesn't have to have. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's perfect for him. Donald Trump has no interest in forcing him out. If he can get two ceasefires, that's what he needs, just two ceasefires in place. The harder challenge is going to be to get those remaining hostages back. That is a huge domestic issue inside

Israel, but it's not one in the United States, frankly. And so I guess the two ceasefires, also while everybody was busy with the U.S. election, Peter, Gideon Saar, who had a small party before Knesset members joined the government. So originally it was just four that had to cross the aisle. Now it's eight. It's entirely possible. It's astonishing to me, personally, as it is, that he will keep, he will remain as prime minister until 2026 when the elections are scheduled.

But, I mean, his popularity, if you can use that word, with Netanyahu these days, did rise somewhat through the success of the Lebanon situation and the elimination of a number of the key players on the Hamas side. Yeah. But did it ever rise to the level of a majority support within the people of Israel? You don't know. But as you know, this is the craziest system in the world. Really professional technical term I'm using here. Crazy.

Because it's the purest form of proportional representation that anywhere in the world, you know, to any Canadians who are dissatisfied with our electoral system and the way it distorts the vote, just look at that one and take a big step back. Because no government, no party has had a majority ever. Literally since the founding of the country, you have to build a coalition. So all that has to happen is that Netanyahu has enough coalition partners. And right now, he and Benny Gantz,

who was defense minister, he joined that national security cabinet for several months. They're functionally tied in the polls. Nobody has a majority, but they're functionally tied in the polls. Benny Gantz's party would get more, so if you get to the elections,

it's entirely conceivable that he doesn't prevail. But he can last. Now that Trump is there, he can last until the scheduled elections. Imagine if you're a family

of a hostage. That is a terrifying thought, Peter, because frankly, Netanyahu has not put as a priority the return of the hostages. That has not been a priority. Or he would have taken some of those ceasefire offers. He didn't. And there's an astonishing story going on for one more minute. Astonishing. We like astonishing stories.

Isn't it astonishing as a journalist, you're going to understand exactly what happened. Do you remember there was a trove of intelligence documents allegedly captured in Gaza that were, the story was taken back to Israel and some were released to the New York Times and other big papers around the world. Apparently, some of those were fake. And they came through the prime minister's office to the best. There's now an investigation going. And what were the fake documents?

The ones that emphasize the point that the political divisions inside Israel were an important reason that Hamas attacked. I don't have to say anything else that is better in correspondence than that for you to finish off the story. Yeah, that, you know, that's, that would make a great movie. That would make a great movie. Let me, let me just ask this one question. There has always been this theory on the part of governments that are facing hostage situations that you don't negotiate. And that at the end of the day, as sad as it is,

the hostages' lives are not what should guide how these things are worked out. Is that what Netanyahu's doing? I don't think so. I don't think so. I think his objections to the ceasefire were at the core of this, and they were related to the fact that as soon as the fighting stopped, he knew there was going to be an investigation into October the 7th. And he faces these criminal charges, right?

And why don't I think he's doing that? Because there's two kinds of hostages right now, Peter, that are who knows how many are alive by now. I'm sure some intelligence agencies know, but some are soldiers. Some were those women soldiers that you and I talked about, those spotters along the border, some of those were taken hostage. And when you have an army in a small country, almost a founding commitment of that army is they never leave a living soldier

or the body of a soldier behind. And that is a view. Again, we're coming to Remembrance Day today. That is a fundamental basis of solidarity in an army, that soldiers protect each other almost irrespective of government. Soldiers protect each other. If that's not there, it is, again, corrosive in an army. So the people in the streets who are demonstrating in Israel to get those hostages back, many of them are reserve soldiers who've been mobilized three times in this last

13 months because they're soldiers who are hostages. That's different from a civilian being taken hostage and then having to release 1,000 prisoners to get that one civilian back, which is what happened in the last big exchange. And of course, Yaya Sinwar was released in that last big exchange. I think the situation's very, very different. I've only got a moment left. And let me ask you this as a last question. I think some people will listen to you today and go,

wow, she's not quite as pessimistic as I thought she was going to be with a Trump victory, that you seem to have a streak of confidence in you that things actually, you know, I want to be careful how I phrase this, but you seem, let me put it this way, you seem less pessimistic than I think a lot of people would have thought you would. You know, there's probably two reasons for that, Peter.

Honestly, the wave of shock and pessimism and gloom and fear and apprehension is so high right now that it's almost take a breath, right? So that's a part of it. And I would not discount, if I were an undocumented immigrant in the United States right now, I would not discount what could happen. I will tell you, our Border Services Agency is occupied full-time with scenarios about what might happen at the Canadian border and making sure that they're as prepared as possible

and they should be. That's exactly what they should be doing. But I do have confidence coming from two different places. One is you look at the United States. There are resilient institutions in the United States. There's state governors of some of the biggest states, New York, California, and many others along the way who are enormously important in the United States

and can offer some ballast here as the United States goes through these four years. The United States is a big, deep country. I'm not confident about the courts. I'm not confident about Washington, but the United States is a big country with a lot of depth. And secondly, we've seen enough in history to know that sometimes a leader like Donald Trump, not because he's such a dealmaker, frankly, I don't think he's much of a dealmaker at all if we look at his business career over time. But sometimes there's opportunities.

When the parties to the fighting are exhausted, when somebody else walks in and they converge just because it's somebody different. You know, that was the Nixon strategy to China, right? There are these openings that can happen, and they're possible. And so I think it's important for people not to feel that all avenues are foreclosed. All right. Well, you've, you've definitely given us something to think about. And, and we, as we always do appreciate that very much. Thanks Janice. We'll talk again in seven days. What an eventful seven days, Peter.

And it is really a time to remember our soldiers, our own soldiers. Absolutely. Okay. Bye for now. Well, there you go. Our opening day of the week conversation, as always, with Janice Stein, the director of the Munk School at the University of Toronto, always gives us something to think about, always gives us a view we may challenge, we may have disagreements with,

but they're always views that make you think. And that's why we love Janice and always look forward to her conversations. All right, that's our Monday show. Tomorrow, we're going to talk to Bill Fox. Remember Bill? You may well remember Bill, former correspondent, former director of communications for the Mulrooney years,

for Brian Mulrooney's government, senior executive at Bell, at CN, in a number of places. Bill, he teaches, and he comes on the bridge every once in a while. We're going to talk about the role the media played in this election, what we learned, what we didn't learn about the media and how it operates, and whether the media generally did a good job or not so good a job. It'll be interesting to listen to what Bill has to say. He's written books on this subject. He's a great friend and a great conversation. Look forward to it. That's tomorrow. Wednesday is our encore Wednesday. Don't know which one we'll run this week,

but we'll run something. And on Thursday, it's your turn. You heard the question. What would you cut if you had to cut something in terms of a government program or service? If you're looking to get closer to a balanced budget, how would you do that? What would you cut?

All right. Demandsbridgepodcast.gmail.com is where you write. would you do that? What would you cut? All right. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com is where you write. Include your name, the location you're writing from. Keep it short. Have it in by 6 p.m. Wednesday. That's Thursday's show, and Friday, of course,

is Good Talk with Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening this week. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.