The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Wildfires as Politics

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

As the smoke from Canadian wildfires descends on major parts of the United States the debate intensifies about the impacts of climate change.  Bruce is by with his thoughts on that plus the David Johnston affairs, and is Donald Trump about to shed whatever is left of his Teflon image?  

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. Bruce Anderson is here because it's time for Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth. You know, I know there's the temptation always to talk about what seems to be the hottest topic on Parliament Hill at any given moment. And we often do that. But today we're not going to talk about the David Johnson affair, at least not off the top of the program. We're going to talk about what an awful lot of people are talking about, especially in the most populated parts, not only of Canada, but the United States. And that is the Air Quality Index caused by, you hear me rasping? I've decided that part of that, part of that rasp is because of the wildfires in different parts of Canada.

And when, you know, that's what we're talking about, it becomes not only a health issue, it also becomes a political issue. You know, here's an example of how it's not just a Canadian story. You know, it's not just in Alberta and BC and Nova Scotia. It's right across the spectrum. In New York City last night, there's a dramatic picture in the new york times today skyline shots but there's one picture from yankee stadium where you know it's the classic baseball shot you know baseball players in the foreground but the background is the sky and the smoke in the new york city skyline and there is a huge story in the New York City skyline. And there is a huge story in the Times today, New York Times.

I'm sure there's one in Boston as well, because when you look at the moving map of the smoke, it's a big problem in the northeastern United States. It's really swept down. It came over down through Ontario, over Toronto. It's really swept down. It came over, you know, down through Ontario, over Toronto. It's still there, and it's pushed into the northeastern United States. So this is not just an environmental story, of which it certainly is one, but it also becomes a political story, you know, on the provincial level, on the federal level, now in the international side.

So, Bruce, why don't you launch us on, you know, wildfires as politics and the impact this can have and is having. Yeah, yeah. Peter, I think I started doing survey work, opinion research work, on the issue of climate change back around the time of the Kyoto Accord. So it goes back a long way. And in the early years when we were examining how people were feeling about this thing called climate change and the risk that scientists were telling us it put the world to, there was a certain degree of not

so much resistance on the part of the public, but hesitancy to see it as an urgent problem. Right. People sort of said, oh, that's I do feel like there's some change happening and it's happening over the long term. And probably humans are involved in causing climate change. But whenever public policy came forward that had a little bit of an edge to it or a cost or a sacrifice, there was a fair bit of hesitancy because some people just felt like, well, you know, the cost of living is more urgent for me, or this change that somebody wants me to undertake would be too disruptive or inconvenient for me. Maybe I don't need to do it right now. Maybe there are other solutions that can be

brought to the four technological ones, for example, that will attenuate this problem of climate change without me having to change my life too much. Along the way in the years since then, the thing that has had the most impact on public acceptance of the need to do more more quickly on climate change has been a combination of floods wildfires and storms the likes of which people don't recall seeing either in the strength or the frequency of those of those events and uh you could see it uh building over time into a sense of conviction that this shouldn't really be debatable whether we do more. It should be a question of debating what we do do more, and who does what, and how we motivate, and how we incentivize, and that sort of thing.

So I feel like wildfires have always been part of that story. But when wildfires exist or happen in unpopulated areas, they don't have that much impact compared to floods in cities, for example, and hurricanes that devastate communities or tornadoes that do, extreme weather events of that sort. But several years ago, the smoke from wildfires in British Columbia really settled in on the lower mainland, as you may recall. And the degree of public anxiety and concern we could really see escalating through that period of time. And one by one, different regions of the country. We've seen extreme weather events, including wildfires that are caused by the deterioration of conditions in the forest, if you like, because of global warming. Those factors have made more people more anxious

about the health effects, as well as the economic effects and the environmental effects overall. And certainly, I think in Ontario right now and in Quebec, we could imagine that a lot of people are feeling that this is not just a random occurrence, that this is part of a pattern and something that needs to be taken more seriously. Yeah, I would agree with that in the sense that I think it is, you know, it's past the random occurrence phase now with a lot of people. But still, it's, you know, like so many things, it's the topic of the moment when you're in it,

and then it quickly gets replaced by something else when you're past it. I think that's true. But what hasn't changed, what I think also needs to be borne in mind, Pete, at least from my vantage point, is even though Pierre Poliev is campaigning to abandon the carbon tax, there is a higher expectation on the part of the public for action that mitigates climate change. And that level of expectation has been going up over time. It is the case that he doesn't particularly debate whether climate change is occurring. He says, we got to deal with it, but we're going to deal with it with technology instead of taxes. It may seem like it's too slow an evolution of the debate for a lot of people's taste, but the debate has evolved. And I do think that, especially for politicians or political movements that represent rural areas or areas where there is a large amount

of forest, these events are inflection points for the politicians. It's hard to sound like you're a politician that doesn't have a plan to ward off climate change in areas that have seen devastation. And, you know, Fort McMurray was one of those areas not very many years ago. And I do think that the opinion changes and the expectation level goes up, even though we still find ourselves embroiled in these skirmishes every once in a while

about a specific climate mitigation policy. So what are we saying here? That the public wants politicians to pick a lane and deal with it and Canada, then you add to it some people who say, well, the carbon price is not my favorite way of doing it, or I don't like it because it's Trudeau's idea or some combination of those things. But we were talking about this the other day, the 15% who are dead set against climate action, who kind of think it's a hoax or exaggerated or not worth the trouble, that kind of thing. We tend to hear so much about those opinions just because of the way that communications platforms work right now. It's possible to imagine that they're bigger than 15%, but they're really not.

Most people are in the middle of a spectrum that runs from, it's so urgent, we need to change almost everything about our lives right now, which is probably about 15% on that end of the spectrum. 15% say this is a hoax and we don't need to do very much about it, if anything at all. And then the rest are in favor of accelerated action. And what that looks like depends on who they are, where they live, how much they feel they can afford, how much they think they've already done to try to address the problem. And also to a certain degree, the question of hopefulness. One of the worst problems for motivating climate action is when people feel that it's hopeless to

try, that we are headed on to a trajectory that won't change because there simply won't be enough collective action. I tend to look at all of the evidence around clean energy and clean technology, EVs and where investment is going. I see a lot of room for optimism. change in the period of time that the scientists are telling us we need, because I don't think we know how technology is going to create breakthroughs yet or not, but there is, it's not nothing. It's quite a bit right now. You know, talking about the New York Times coverage of this this morning, I mean, they jumped on this story very quickly last night, and they had quite a few angles, as well as some spectacular pictures to it. And one of the angles that I thought was interesting, it's the kind of thing that can stick in the,

in people's memories and start to make sense to them that this is a huge problem. The mayor of New York put out a last name, sort of nine, nine or 10 o'clock last night, put out a health advisory, sort of nine or ten o'clock last night, put out a health advisory on the air quality because it was at bad levels and it could cause problems. Like, you know, I don't know whether my coughing problems are related to the smoke, but it

wouldn't surprise me because I can't find any other thing that they were related to. But the air quality numbers in New York City last night, the reference point he used was in the middle of the pandemic, the worst health crisis that so many of us have seen in our lives, air quality went up. It was better quality air than it had been you know in years previous and that's because you know people weren't out there were lockdowns who debate

lockdowns all you want but it had an impact positive impact on air quality and then the last night the air quality numbers went in the tank and there was real concern over for health issues so when those kind of things happen and they point directly you know there was there was part of us the american sovereignty was saying that's canada's you know canada caused this screw up and just look at the map and you can see it all coming down just like they blame us for you know bad winters um but this one you know was more to the point on on the air quality because of the smoke but when you see evidence like that it can take hold and add to this you know this is not random anymore it's you know happening on a number of levels i mean we got a letter last week from a trucker in in atlantic

canada and the point he was making is all these things are connected he said we had this terrible I mean, we got a letter last week from a trucker in Atlantic Canada, and the point he was making is all these things are connected. He said we had this terrible storm last fall or a year ago, and all these trees were knocked down as a result of the windstorm in Nova Scotia. And it's just sitting there as kindling, and boom, when you have a, you know, it's like lighting a match to your fireplace. This thing just took off, and there's still a lot a you know it's like lighting a match to your fireplace this thing just took off and there's still a lot more there that it's heading towards so when these you know

evidence points start to pile up um i agree i think the uh the point that you're making about the health is that uh is one that really caught my attention a few years ago, because most people see devastation from storms, but they don't necessarily associate it with risk to health or safety. It can have that, but typically people are able to mitigate the personal risk associated with it, right? Evacuations happen and that sort of thing. With wildfires, all of a sudden, the idea that climate change can pose a risk to your health or safety becomes real and frightening in part because there's nothing that you think you can do about it for most people, right? You're kind of existing in an environment where you can see the smoke, where you can feel the impact of it as you breathe it in, where you can smell it. And

the public agencies can tell you that it's bad, but they can't solve it for you. And that is a different kind of way for people to experience risk. It's not theoretical. It's in front of them. It's not just esoteric or economic damage. it's potential health risk to them, to their parents, to their children. And they don't know when it's going to end. And they don't really have a good advice on what they can do to mitigate the risk. Obviously, there's some advice, but I think a lot of people are experiencing that right now. And it doesn't necessarily make them think there's a magic wand solution, but it does create that sense that when the UN, I think it was last year, released a report that said these wildfires are going to be 50% more common by the end of the century. Some people in society love to dispute these reports. But more and more people are saying, you know, maybe there's room to debate the degrees of change that we're talking about or the pace of the problem.

But for most people, it's well past time to debate whether it's happening. 50% more wildfires by the end of the century. It feels like it's 50% more than it was 10 years ago already. Well, I don't know if it's 50% more, but it's definitely, they're describing these researchers a pace of change that is accelerating. And they're saying in a normal course of the way forests work, you should be able to see more fires around the equator and fewer fires the further afield you get. And they're seeing that that pattern has been kind of altered. Um, and obviously there's been such devastating wildfires in California in recent years and Australia and other places, um, where, uh, the threat to, uh, to human life from the fire, not just the smoke

is, uh, almost at, um, well, it's at alarming levels, obviously, for people who live there. It just seems to me that in Canada alone, the wildfires are coming sooner, earlier in the year than they used to be. They're more extensive and they're causing more damage and impact on a wider, wider birth. And they're harder to fight. One of the things that the researchers talk about in this piece from last year

is that so little of the resources to deal with fires go towards prevention. And the cost of management, once the fires are happening, has been exploding. And so there's a real disequilibrium between how much is put into doing the things in the forest and around the forest that would limit the risk of fires versus dealing with these massive fires on an ongoing and recurring and even more frequent basis. Okay. We're going to move on, but I, I, I did want to bring up a related matter just for, for a quick comment from you, because I know you weren't a fan of Mr.

Bean, a particular kind of kind of bent humor at times. So I Rowan Atkinson, the British actor slash comedian. He's also a big guy on the car front, and he is a big fan of EVs, electric vehicles. He had his first hybrid car, I think, about 20 years ago, right at sort of the early stages of, uh, moving into hybrid. And he's had an, uh, an EV for the last almost 10 years, but he kind of shocked a lot of followers of his in the last couple of days by saying, you know, I I'm still a believer in

EVs, but they aren't delivering what they promised to deliver in terms of the overall impact on the environment. And he's particularly concerned about lithium-ion batteries and, you know, governments, including Canada's, are putting a heck of a lot of money into supporting industries on the battery front for EVs. I'm just wondering how much, you know, people follow him, right? He has fans, he has, you know, kind of a worldwide following. You know, and here I am talking about it, giving it, you know, even more of an audience. Does something like that have an impact?

I know you were on the edge of buying an EV in the last year, and you didn't, not because of any of those concerns, but because of Musk, really. That's right, yeah. It doesn't mean you won't eventually buy something. There's a lot of different EVs on the market right now. But something like what Mr. Bean has said, does that kind of stunt the growth of these things or move on?

You know, probably not. And just to be clear, because I know there are a lot of people who like his humor. I don't have a big problem with it. It just has never been the sort of thing that makes me laugh out loud. And there are other things that make me laugh out loud. So it's not like I'm humorless, but I read his piece and I thought he made a few interesting points. And I do think that anybody with that kind of audience is a bit of an influencer, but whether or not he's really going to change the trajectory of demand, I'm doubtful because

I've seen so much evidence that people are really kind of looking into the market. The manufacturers are bringing more cars into the market. And, of course, it's also the case that when you first sent me that article, I looked at the headline and I thought, ah, why is he, you know, why is he kind of dunking on EVs? And then I read the story and he wasn't really doing that. What he was doing was saying a couple of things which reasonable people could easily agree with. I think thing one is, he said, if you live in an urban core and you're driving an old diesel kind of air quality pollution in addition to the climate change issue that people need to do something about in those urban cores. The second thing he said is that if you have a car that's only three years old, maybe don't think about getting a new car so quickly because the replacement of cars that quickly is bad in the aggregate for the environment. And I thought it was an interesting

point. You can talk to people in the architecture field who say, the first decision to make when you're thinking about the future of buildings is the environmental impact of taking one down and putting up a new one is not nothing. And so even if the new one could be more energy efficient, more climate friendly, there is going to be an impact with eliminating the what was. And I think he was making the same point in the automotive marketplace. The third thing he was saying is that the current state of evolution of EV technology includes some things that probably will change and maybe not too long into the future, but for now carry environmental impacts like the lithium ion batteries. Again, a reasonable point to make. And I think the last part of that, the last sentence maybe of that Guardian piece had him saying, there's no question that electric vehicles are going to dramatically change the climate change issue, the trajectory of our fight against it. But it isn't happening right now as much as we might think that it is.

And I thought all of those were reasonable points to make, might take issue with some of them, but they're reasonable points to make. And on your question really about whether or not it's going to change the trajectory, I've just seen so much evidence in the last few years that people are saying, if it's not the next car, it'll be the one after that. And Mr. Bean's issue of should that be three years from now or six years from now or 10 years from now, those are good things to think about in terms of the environmental impact of replacement. One thing I know for certain is we have some real hardcore listeners on the whole EV and lithium battery situation. whenever we touch on EVs, whether it's on this program or whether it's the random ranter talking with his theories about EVs and lithium batteries, I get a lot of response.

And the hardcore supporters are very evident, and I'm sure I can almost read the letters already. Well, this was wrong, or that was wrong, or, you know, you should read this professor's study or that professor's study. I mean, it's quite something. That's all good. Yeah, it is all good. Excuse me.

I get encouraged when I see that kind of, you know, discussion and debate going on about whatever the topic may be uh okay we'll move on here and uh take a quick break come back and we'll we'll talk about the david johnson affair for just a moment that's right after this And welcome back. You're listening to Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. On this episode of The Bridge, you're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Or because this is Wednesday, you can watch us on our YouTube channel. Okay.

David Johnston appears before Parliamentary Committee yesterday for a few more hours of being grilled on the subject of his investigation, if you will, into whether or not there should have been a public inquiry or whether there still should be a public inquiry or whether a public hearing is good enough and just what he hopes to do over these next couple of months of continuing meetings and investigation on his part, especially at a time where all the opposition parties

have called for him to move out of that position because they feel his relationship with Justin Trudeau over the last, whatever, 20, 30 years has tainted his ability to make a non-partisan look at this situation. People expected that this would be tough grilling for David Johnson yesterday, and it was tough grilling. And, you know, I wonder, as I did at the beginning of this episode, just how many people are following this anymore. Their minds are made up one way or the other, and I see that in the mail too. There's a lot of huge – there's a huge division over the David Johnson thing.

There are people who feel it's really unfair what's been done to him and said about him as a guy who's been in public service all his life. And there are others who feel, well, okay, I'll acknowledge that. However, this is wrong. He shouldn't be doing this. And opinions are pretty hardcore. I'm not sure why anything would have changed as a result of yesterday, but it was a dominant topic on Parliament Hill. do you got anything you want to add to it

yeah yeah but before i do i wanted to ask you okay let's let's take you back a few years and you're sitting in a a planning meeting for the night's broadcast on cBC on the National. And if you're having this conversation, what is the story coming out of yesterday as far as you're concerned? Set aside whether people are paying attention to it or not, you're going to do a story about it. So what is it going to be? Is it going to be kind of straight up? He came, he got asked questions, he gave answers, sure. But within that context, did he give as good as he got? Were there some holes exposed in his storyline? Did the questioners look ill-prepared and didn't have very good arguments?

What was your takeaway? And then I'll give you mine, I promise, afterwards. Well, you weren't asking for my takeaway as much as you were asking what would the approach be to going about doing the story. The first thing in my list, and we had these meetings about, you know, on stories every day. And the best meetings were ones where there would be real debate and discussion in the room about it you know about what had happened and why we were doing the story and where it should be placed in the

newscast etc etc and the way i would have looked at yesterday the same way i looked at most stories what did we learn that we didn't know before the day began? Whether it was from David Johnson himself or whether it was through the questions that were being asked. That would be, you know, agenda item number one. You know, it's got to be something new there. And if there wasn't, why are we doing the story? If it was just more of the exchange of what some might see as partisan shots from the opposition,

a defense that's been the same as from David Johnson through countless interviews, news conferences, statements, issuing of his report over the last couple of weeks. Then it could also come down to whether or not there were holes on the other side and how much of this needs to be fact-checked, the stuff that they were saying about Johnston or about what had happened on the inquiry front. So, you know, a lot of the angles you talked about were kind of included in there, you know,

but to me it always comes back to what do we know that we didn't know before this day began? And you move on from there. Because it's not just a matter that the people seem tired or bored of this story or not caring about this story. Because I don't think that is our, our purpose to, to judge that our purpose is to tell,

tell you what happened on the day and why it's different from what we thought going into the day. So that'd be my answer. Yeah. Okay. Look, I think that's an important point. I mean,

everybody, not everybody. Sometimes people like to frame things as either they're captivating the mass of public opinion or they're not important. And I don't think that's I don't think that's right, either from the standpoint of what is the role of journalism, but also politically. These two main parties are fighting over three or four percentage points in public opinion, right? That's going to make the difference likely between who wins the election and by how much. And so any issue where 25% of the population is watching it closely or following it closely is going to include some people, not everybody. Most of those people are going to be decided, but some of those people are not going to be decided. And so the course of these stories do matter both from a, is it important for

people to know? And also, will it have a potential impact on politics standpoint? What I think we know today that maybe we didn't know before includes some things that happened in the context of those hearings, and some things that happened maybe outside context of those hearings and some things that happened maybe outside those hearings. I gather that Chorus and Global put forward a statement of defense about the story that they ran that implied that Han Dong, the liberal MP who's now an independent, counseled the Chinese to keep the two Michaels. Remember that story? It wasn't that long ago. It was shocking when it happened. It was part of the catalyst for everything that followed

in terms of the heightened sense of, are the liberals somehow in cahoots with the Chinese in interfering in our democracy? In the statement of defense, I tried to find the actual copy of it rather than just a summary of it. I saw summary stories, so I don't know exactly what was in it because the stories provide a rather partial description of it. But it sounds like the statement of defense isn't that the stories were accurate. It's more that effort was put into making sure that they were right. I think that's a very interesting distinction,

if in fact that's what that statement of defense says. And the two or three stories that I saw kind of left it that way. I gather that Global and one of the journalists who is very prominently involved in that coverage have parted ways. I don't know the circumstances of it, but that's also part of the context for this issue and how it's evolving. Pardon me, Peter. You've got the hiccups. Going back.

You've got the hiccups. You can go whether that sounds like the hiccups going back you've got the hiccups you can go whether that sounds like the hiccups i don't think it is but um here's the the thing that i was observing about the david johnson appearance um and i know when uh you and i and Chantal said what we said about whether or not as respected as he is and deserves to be, whether or not it's plausible for him in the context of the House of Commons having expressed a lack of confidence in him for him to continue. And obviously, technically, he can continue. The government has the ability to make that choice. And he has said that he wants to continue. But I can't help but when we said those things, I don't know about you, but I got some blowback on social media where people were saying, you don't bow down to bullies. You should defend this individual's integrity. And I understand those arguments, and I think they have some merit. But I think on balance, what I saw in the coverage of the testimony yesterday was a guy whose responsibility is to try to rebuild some public confidence

that there was no partisan involvement in this issue of Chinese interference. That's not really the only issue. The issue is really interference, not only the partisan part. But it is part of it, the partisan question. I've never felt like there was much there. But I do think that in the way that politics works, it's hard to find fault with opposition parties saying, well, you had this relationship. You were involved in the Trudeau Foundation. You picked a lead counsel who's donated exclusively to the Liberal Party. You know, they're pointing out connections that is part of our push and pull

in politics. It's, you know, you and I may be able to look at those connections and say, well, that doesn't really mean anything. That woman, that lawyer is very well respected. And his involvement in the Trudeau Foundation had nothing to do with the Chinese question. We can all sort of look at those facts and say they're well explained. But for me, having David Johnson say, well, you know, my lead counsel is a person of very great integrity well i'm sure that's that's

true but i'm not sure that's that's gonna work politically i guess is is where i'm coming from because but people not like me but people who do have doubts about whether or not the liberals might have had some sort of interest in the Chinese interference. I think it's a conspiracy theory. But you have to allow for people to have those opinions. And to me, having David Johnson there yesterday saying, look, members, I understand that you don't want me to do this, but this is my mandate and I'm going to do it. I continue to not see how that's going to end successfully for the government,

for Johnson, or for the resolution of this issue and the clarification on where we stand, but I could be proven wrong. Well, as we all know on the issue of conflict, it's not necessarily whether you can prove there actually was a conflict. It's whether there is the appearance of a conflict. And we've all had those kind of situations in our professional lives. And we've certainly covered enough others who have had that issue raised to them as well, the appearance of conflict.

It's awfully hard to, you know, to argue against that when you see evidence piled up, some of which you just went through. Okay, we're almost out of time, but we do have time to check in on one of the things we love to check in on. We talked earlier about how some Americans were perceiving us because of the wildfires. So we're watching them closely too,

and we're just fascinated by the Republican race that's going on for their presidential nominee next year. I don't need to go through the list because it's like the bad casting in a movie. But last week I said, this is all going to change if Chris Christie gets in because he's going to throw the hammer at Trump. He's not going to be shy about it, and he knows how to do it. Didn't work for him last time around because he was sucking up to Trump. But here, he's not going to do that.

And it could make a big difference. Well, he got in yesterday. And, you know, we're going to see very quickly, aside from what he said yesterday, how he's not afraid of Donald Trump. Now, who will come out at the end of the day, you know, as the victor on that discussion? Who knows?

But your thoughts on Chris Christie getting into the race? The former governor of New Hampshire. New Jersey. Yeah, yeah, it was wild. I don't know. You must have seen the, some of the clips that I saw, but he was doing his town hall and, you know, it's hard to keep being shocked at where American politics has gone from a bare knuckle where it's come to from a bare knuckle standpoint but it was a bit shocking

uh what he was doing he was kind of stalking this this room and he was saying uh you know donald trump might get 30 he might get more he might get less but he's gonna get it he's gonna have to he's gonna have to endure what i have have to say about him to succeed because I got some things to say. And he talked about Jared Kushner and Ivanka. And he said, you know, they left office and they got two saying the reason the Saudis gave them that money was because of favors that the administration did. It was a, I was surprised at the degree to which it seemed like a kind of a no holds barred indictment of the ethics as well as the competency of Trump, because, you know, it hasn't been evident that somebody can win that nomination doing that. On the other hand, I'm sort of looking at it and going, well, he's articulate, he's passionate, he's throwing everything he has at it. He's going to get attention in the same way that Trump got attention by saying the most outrageous sounding things.

He's going to get attention for what he did yesterday. And it sounds like he's going to keep on doing it. It sounds like that's almost his platform is I'm going to tell the truth about what an awful human being Donald Trump is. And some people are going to want to hear it. And some people aren't going to want to hear it. And we're going to let the chips fall where they may. And I do think it's interesting. A last point from my standpoint is that this is probably the 45th time that we seem to be on the precipice of Trump being arrested and charged with some sort of criminal activity. But, you know, it does seem like this might happen any day now, any hour now even. And if so, that timing by Christie could look like a little bit

of a political masterstroke. And it will put, he's put the other candidates on notice that if they don't match or similarly be willing to criticize Trump, he's going to be the only anti-Trump voice in that race. interesting uh proposition right to own that part of the republican uh base that says we can't do trump again if nobody else wants to compete for those votes chris christie's going to find them and um and he'll probably build some support based on that whether it'll be you know material enough to win to some degree depends on what what happens with everybody else including donald trump and whether or not he gets charged. Here are my brief thoughts on Chris Christie, who I've watched for years and different things.

On this question, you know, I think he wants to win the nomination, but I think he wants more than that to bring down Donald Trump. And he's sick of the wishy-washy, you know, other contenders for the crown who are just simply not willing to go after Trump. He's not going to hesitate there. But I remind him, as I'm sure he doesn't need reminding, of what he said for the last two years and his perch as a commentator on ABC, that if you're going to bring down the king,

it's got to be with a headshot. Can't hit him in the arm or the leg. You've got to hit him in the head because you've got to take him out totally right away. Yeah. Excuse me. And that has been the problem all along here, getting the headshot. So he's going, you know, he used that description as a classic, you know,

former prosecutor in New Jersey and seeing a lot of, you know, ugly crimes over the years. But, you know, that's what he's going for. He's going for the headshot, knowing full well that going around the edges isn't going to do it. And so the kind of things he's saying are intended for that impact. So let's see. Let's see how it all plays out.

But you're right. It feels like any moment, any day, any hour, he could be, Trump could be, you know, cuffed and, you know, in the orange jumpsuit and having pictures taken. But, you know, let's see what happens. There's also that segment of the population that believes that the justice system is crooked and he'll never end up going to jail or even being indicted. Well, at least half of those could be proven wrong this week or perhaps even later today. We'll see.

All right, Bruce, good to talk as always. And Bruce will be back on Friday with Chantel for a good talk tomorrow it's your turn so if you have some thoughts please get them in like now and we'll see which ones make the program tomorrow and the random rants. Just hear what you think about Mr. Bean

we want to hear from Mr. Bean comments I know what's going to happen there I can almost predict who's going to write from the varying sides on this debate. But that's okay. If you've got a voice on this issue, let's hear it and we'll weigh some of them

and see which ones make it onto the air tomorrow. All right, that's all good. Thanks again, Bruce. And we'll talk on Friday. And thank you for listening. And we'll see you again in 24 hours.