The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Pierre Poilievre's prime ministerial debate performance and Donald Trump's unconstrained chaos

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. Rudyard and Janice open the show with last night's Canadian English language leaders' debate. Rudyard thinks that Pierre Poilievre looked prime ministerial for the first time in this campaign, while Mark Carney showed a calmness and dexterity for someone with limited political experience. Bottom line: it was a good night for both leaders but it won't move the needle much. Furthermore, it's past time to rethink how the leaders' debate commission conducts election debates which fail to test leaders to the benefit of undecided voters. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice talk about Trump's very combative and controversial week: defying the courts and America's commitment to due process for illegal immigrants, a fight with Harvard University which could have broad implications on universities across the US, and his public condemnation of Jerome Powell, the chair of the US federal reserve, because he doesn't like the bank's restrictive rates and the inflationary threat they represent. Trump's willingness to engage in public battles and ignore basic laws signal an unconstrained chaos with no end in sight. To support the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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full-length edition of this program. Thanks in advance for your generous contribution. Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast for the 18th of April. Happy Good Friday. I'm Rudyard Griffiths, the chair of the Monk Debats. I'm joined by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Well, Janice, we got to talk about last night's English language leaders debate, two hours on stage out of Montreal, and an interesting debate, possibly one that will have some effect, maybe not a determining effect,

but some effect, I think, on the next critical 10 days of this current federal election underway. I think everybody read that debate differently, Roger. I'm going to be honest. I thought it was boring. It was the pacing was despite Steve Pickens' best efforts to keep everybody on time in their lane. The pace, and as it went on, there was a flatness to it. Everybody was predictable. You couldn't really get that clash except in rare moments.

And so I'm dubious. that it will move the needle very much. You know, the usual post-election polls, 2%, but fundamentally, people have already decided the debate affirmed their views. I'm not convinced that this is going to do much to move undecided voters. Janice, just to give it maybe a different PLV on that,

I think that to me it did two things. And again, I'm not a partisan. I don't have a membership in any political party. I will vote in this election, but that'll be a private matter. I do think that Pierre Polly, for the first time for me in this campaign, looked prime ministerial. Whatever he did and whatever strategy he came into for this debate, for the first time for me, at least, and it's my subjective opinion, he came across as somebody who's ready and seemingly able to be the prime minister of candidate. He showed a degree of comportment and self-control and mastery of the issues that I had not seen from him in this campaign to date because he's, like a lot of the leaders, pulled back his availability to the media. He holds these large kind of slightly Trump-esque kind of rallies that just don't connect to me as a voter.

So I thought that was notable. And I also thought that Mark Carney, you know, while he did not have. a great debate performance, certainly showed a political dexterity for someone who is not a politician, has only been in politics for what, 90 days now, that I think, you know, surprised to the upside. So I take your point that there was no knockout blow, but I think if you want, you know, some finer analysis, at least in my view, I think it was a win for Pierre Polyev because he came across as reasonable, rational, in control, a credible alternative to Mark Carney, maybe in a way, at least for me in this campaign, up to this point,

he had not emerged, he had not communicated. Look, I agree with you, Rudyard and your characterization of both. I would put it a little differently for the first time, Pierre Pollyette, in those direct exchanges, he had with Mark Carney was able to get a message across. It was this persistent emphasis on change and the need for change. And on core domestic issues that voters still care about despite the big Trump effect on this election. He was better able to get that message through that barrier than he's been at any other time in the campaign.

And he did so, as you say, right, you know, controlled way, which really matters. So I thought it was a really good night for him. For Mark Carney, I think he showed a side of himself to Canadian voters. It will matter too. He was the object of a three-way attack. It was a gang up on him, as you would expect for the front runner. And yet, he remained unflappable.

He remained calm. He wasn't rattled, as you said. He doesn't have the experience of polyeth. has in these kinds of debates. But he came out solid, unflappable, and that of course is a quality the voters

are looking for right now if the overwhelming ballot question is Trump. So I thought it was a good night for both of them. The best night in many ways, each of them has had in their own way, but I just don't think it's going to move

the needle beyond one or two percent in either direction. which is, you know, it's a statistical rounding error, frankly. Yeah, I do agree with you that the format was disappointing. And it really interesting, it wasn't until the final 15 minutes of the debate, when they actually allowed them to ask questions of each other and engage with each other directly. Everything up to that point really almost came across as a job interview,

these very kind of short, somewhat simplistic questions. I don't blame Steve Paken for this. It's clear that he didn't write the questions, producer wrote the questions, and I guess he effectively had to ask whatever questions were pre-programmed. So he had no ability as a very skilled moderator in his own right to kind of respond in real time and try to build a conversation and a flow to the debate. I think that was a huge missed opportunity. And I think to me it speaks, you know, this is my perspective at the monk debate, so take it or leave it. But it speaks to a problem that the media has organizing

debates generally, because this is this leader's commission, this government-appointed Commission and funded exercise. It's, in effect, it's three strikes you're out, in my view. They had horrible debates in the 2019 election, but largely panned because of moderators and five of them on stage. And they did that again. They rinsed and repeated in 2021. This time, thankfully, they pulled it back to one moderator.

But they, I think the media doesn't really understand debate. The media understands, albeit their job, which they feel is to convey as a as much information as possible to viewers and voters as quickly and efficiently as possible. That to me is not what a debate is. A debate should be a pressure testing. It should be an ability for voters and viewers to watch these leaders think and respond in real time to each other and to see what decisions they make about the types of issues they bring forward on the offense, how they react on the defense. And I think we've just, last night was not a debate. It was something else.

And they keep doing this. This is the third election in a row where they've just fundamentally misunderstood what debate is. And they've turned it into some kind of media product, some kind of, you know, something that's in their brain as journalists. God bless them. But it's not a debate, Janice. And I think we lose out each time because of that. I couldn't agree more, Rudyard. And that's the frustrating part.

You actually want to see how leaders. are going to cope when they engage, when there's an unexpected question. These questions, and again, no, you know, Steve Pekin had no part in running, every single one of them. There was not a single surprising question in that whole list. It's exactly what you and I could have scripted. And let's talk about one other thing, Roger, which I thought, really, frankly, surprising and disappointing.

There were media scrums, but not the media scrums that we, not. normally see when a cluster of reporters gathers around and throws questions at a candidate. There were scripted media scrums after for 10 minutes up to the French language debate if you watched. But apparently

a group of right wing questioners were overrepresented in the audience. So they canceled the one after the English one because quote, they couldn't control the balance of the audience. You know what my reaction to that is

Rudyard, are you kidding? Are you... Just have a scrum. These are politicians. They should answer questions from 100 people at once if they want to. I mean, that's to me, that to me in a nutshell, was everything that was wrong, right? So if you watch the French language one, Jasmine Singh said repeatedly, I do not answer questions from this outlet because it does a B and C. Fine.

Fine. You know where Jasmine Singh sits in, okay? But that's to me absolutely terrible. And representative of everything that we should not be doing in an official debate format. I think it is three strikes and it's that we've got to get better at doing this. Well, Janice, what we have to do is we have to go back to what happened, you know, for decades prior to 2019, when the Trudeau government created this Leaders Debates Commission, funded by government. funded by taxpayers.

It spent over $12, $13 million now, again, on three rounds of demonstrably underperforming and underwhelming debates. And before 2019, there was that election. 2015, you and I worked together on the Monk Leaders' debate on foreign policy. And I remember you were a big source of wise counsel to me. We structured that debate in a way

that allowed for a lot of opportunity for exchange. As a private organization, we were able just not to include the block. just said no block, no green. We don't think you're relevant to the national conversation and certainly the international conversation about Kansas foreign policy. We just didn't invite them because we're a private group and we're able to make that determination as opposed to a government agency that's understandably wrapped up in all these rules and bureaucracy

that they've created for themselves to then, in fact, arbitrarily disinvite the Greens the day of the French language debate. So their rules only kind of matter when they matter. I don't know, Janice. the whole thing is such a schmazel. And I would just love us to go back to what we've done for decades up until 2019, which was allow the broadcasters, allowed newspapers, allowed civil society groups like the month debates to organize debates that were paid for by those organizations, not by taxpayers.

And we had many great debates over those decades. This is another example to me of just bureaucratizing and getting the government in the state involved in things. that it just, of a 1,001 priorities facing the government of Canada, organizing debates inside elections is a thousand and two. I, listen, I completely agree. And frankly, one of voters really want to see, they wanted to see sustained, you want to call it a conversation, sustained debate between the two leaders of the biggest parties.

It doesn't mean the other two shouldn't have been there, but structure it in bilateral segments, okay? Well, you let leaders go at each other so that it's not just one question and then move on. They have a follow-up. But it's one question and answer. A question and answer. This really matters to Canadian voters.

This is a very consequential election. I think Canadians deserve better than we got lastly. You know, I am a wonk. You know, this to me is fascinating. I love the leaders' debates. If it couldn't keep my attention, it was lucky that I hung around and saw the last 50 minutes because that was the best part. Yeah. Yeah, look, I don't know, Janice, I think this is just a case where, you know, good intentions are paving the road to debate hell.

And were you right? We need to get rid of this commission. But Mark Carney was out, I think, yesterday in media statements saying that he supports the commission. He thinks it's a good idea. He thinks it should continue on. Why? Why? I just, again, that worries me consistently about the Carney campaign and the Carney messaging. There's a saying, well, I'm different than Trudeau. But the fact is, whether it's media subsidies, you know, election debate commissions, bills to ban, you know, the construction of pipelines, he's not exactly moving off some of the of the key, I think, own goals of the Trudeau years. But hey, I'm being too political here, so let me tell that down. Let me make one last comment, Richard. You know, it's just kind of

above the noise comment. You know better than anybody that the under 40s, let me be generous right now. Get their news on the phone. Get them in clippable moments. You know, don't spend two hours doing anything, frankly, and want a thrust in power, which is, quick and pointed and sharp. That debate was everything that 65-year-old plus love and was calculated to disengage any of the under 40s, frankly. So we have a format that is past its best before, take. Just the amusing thing that Michelle Cormier was kind of on CBC.

He's the head of the Debates Commission, who's getting pressured about this sudden disinviting of the Greens. and then the chaos of the press conferences, you know, what happened in Montreal, and then the canceling last night of the scrums. And his answer to all this is, you know what really matters is the debates? And we're getting big numbers for them. Lots of Canadians are tuning in. I'm like, you've got a monopoly.

Of course you've got big numbers. You are a monopoly. You selected the broadcasters. And it's not like the monk debates can compete with you. you to offer a vying debate because you're paying the broadcasters millions of dollars to stage these debates. So you're completely distorting any kind of market of ideas to produce debates independent of this commission. To me, it's just an example, I don't, I don't have to be, to me, it's just the poster child for how sometimes government can absolutely screw things up. And you have

to be very careful when you're making public policy. to understand where government's important, stuff like health care, roads, schools, the military, 100%. But when you start thinking that government has a role in these minutia of elections and media and, you know, other weird things about who gets in and out of what bathroom according to what gender and, you know, whether that bathroom has menstrual products in it or not, I mean, God, people, let's move on. Anyway, let's move on in our show. Here's a homework assignment for me, Richard, which I'm going to go and do it. I get 15 minutes. I want to see an eight, you know, they got numbers. I want to see what the age breakdown is, right?

I have a research question. How many under 40s stayed with that thing? Yeah, for more than five minutes. Yeah, because, and why do I make this point, not to insult my peers, because we matter. And I'd be the last person to say. the more generation doesn't matter. But it also matters that young people, that we reach young people,

that young people feel excited by politics, that they find ways, that we create platforms where they can join in the conversation as well. I'm going to go, have a look, see if we can come back to this next week. Yeah, we will take a look. Janice, let's, on the back half of the show now,

jump into some big international events, so we'll say goodbye to our complimentary listeners and viewers. And if you'd like to be part of the full Friday focus community and get all of Janice and my insight on everything international for the last seven days, join as a monk donor. You can do this for as little as $25 a year. That's 50 cents an episode. Come on. That's the best deal in town. Sign up now and we'll email you right away a link to listen to the back. In one other one other issue, Rudyard, if they had joined, they would have gotten an email. email on Wednesday with advanced seats to the big debate that's coming up. So it's a twofer.

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