The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Recap of the Munk Debate on Trump's America and Israel moves closer to striking Iran

Episode Date: May 30, 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 begin today's show by unpacking last night's sold out Munk Debate where Ezra Klein and Ben Rhodes debated Kevin Roberts and Kellyanne Conway about whether America has entered its golden age. It was a surprising show of civility between the debaters, and both Rudyard and Janice agree that a debate of this kind could not have taken place in the U.S. In the second half of the show they turn to the Middle East where Israel is hinting at a willingness to strike Iran's nuclear facilities against the wishes of the U.S. How will this impact ongoing nuclear negotiations between America and Iran? What role is Saudi Arabia playing in trying to prevent a war between these two rivals? And will Netanyahu go against Trump's explicit wishes, alienating its most important ally? 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.

The following is a complimentary excerpt of this week's edition of the Friday Focus podcast by The Monk Debates. To access full-length editions of each and every episode, along with all kinds of great additional benefits and perks, become a donor to the Monk debates. You can do that for as little as $25 a year, and you'll receive each and every year 50 Friday Focus episodes at full length. It's all available right now on our website. in just a few simple clicks. Triple W. The Monk Debates.com. Look for the Friday Focus option in our navigation bar, the top right of the website. Make your donation, and we will send you each and every Friday a link to listen to the

full-length edition of this program. Thanks in advance for your generous contribution. Welcome to Friday Focus for the 30th of May 2025. I'm Roger Griffiths, Chair of the Monk Debates, joined by Janice Gross-Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Hey, Janice. Good to be with you this Friday, Rudyard, after a long and exciting evening last night. Yeah, let's get into last night's Monk debate that happened at Roy Thompson Hall in front of a sold-out audience of over 3,000 people. Before we do that, though, I've got to thank some of the

great supporters that have come on board in the last seven days to support the monk debate's efforts to bring civility and substance to the public square. So a big thank you. It's a long list this week to Linda C. N. P. Ameliano C. Jean D. Robert A. Gloria C. Virginia A. Lorraine W. Charles M. Dale B. Marika W. Helen S. Nancy Lang.

Marika again. G. and Stephen R. Thank you all for your generous support. So great, Janice. to see all these people signing up as members of the Monk Debates. And if they were a member or you are a member you're watching and you weren't able to attend last night's sold out debate, you can watch it for free as part of your paid membership. If you're not a paid member for as little as $25 a year, you get full-length editions of this, the Friday Focus podcast,

and the ability to live stream and watch on-demand our main stage debates. So Janice, you and I literally said goodbye to each. other less than 12 hours ago at Roy Thompson Hall after the debate. The topic was, is this America's golden age? Your takeaways from an evening that saw, I don't know, a surprising outbreak of civility vis-a-vis two teams of high-powered U.S. debaters. You know, it was a civil debate. Remarkably so, given the really basic differences in opinion. And I think that was the big takeaway, not only for me,

likely for you as well, but for some of our debaters, they said a debate of this kind could not take place in the United States. And I stopped from all, and I thought, what a sad commentary that these four people have to come to the monk debates in Toronto in order to have this kind of conversation.

Yeah, we are the Switzerland of debate these days. The monk debates is the place you go, a neutral place to have these conversations. Let's go through quickly some of the performance of the different debaters. I want to start with Ezra Klein, New York Times columnist, a fantastic podcast. Many of us listen to author of the big new book, Abundance. What do you make of his performance last night? Any big, yeah, surprises, hero moments? I thought his closing statement was pretty damn good.

He was, I thought, really excellent, regular. And the Ezra, because, you know, he's on one side of a resolution. And in a debate, you're usually forced to wipe out some of the nuances in your thinking. And the real Ezra, I think, came through when he reached across the aisle and said to the two pro-tabators, you know, you make some points that I agree with. So he, I think that was, the room was so sympathetic to that. That he could get above the noise and see some validity. And that's, of course, what his book is about.

that the United States, and let me say, Rudyard, Canada can't build anything anymore. That's not a left-right argument, a Democrat, Republican, or a liberal Tory argument. That is just a real problem in our society. And that's what he wants to fix. And so I thought he was really, really good. Where he surprised me, Regiard, and I don't know what you think, is how exercised he is. about what he considers, and so do I, the corruption, the high-level corruption, that seems to follow Donald Trump and his family in there. When they're on official business, private business is running right along the official business.

Yeah. He was eloquent about that. Yeah. Let's go on to his principal opponent in the debate. Kevin D. Roberts, he is the head of the Heritage Foundation, which is very, very. large Washington-based think tank that, among other things, was the author of the Project 2025 kind of report and analysis that was so important to the Trump administration's kind of shock and awe agenda over its first hundred days. My take on, Kevin, it was actually

appreciated that knowing that he had a hostile audience, and there was some booing in Roy Thompson Hall, maybe a first at the Monk debate, some very loud booing of Kevin Roberts at more than one occasion. I appreciated that he still came to the debate with, you know, an authentic, I don't know, channeling of this administration's core principles and ideas around concepts like the administrative state, for example, or his defense of tariffs. It took a little bit of courage, I think, to do that in Toronto with an audience that was so obviously opposed to the Trump administration. You know, I have two comments really.

Roger, one is about you because Roger was the moderator of the debate. And after in the middle of Kevin's opening statement, there was pretty loud booing, which normally does not happen. Hissing, not just booing, Jetta, hissing and booing. It's right. And you stepped right up. You walked out, you know, from the wings. in your moderator role

and in a warm tone but for today folks the monk debates are about civility. So you can clap but this is really not what we wanted the monk debate. And that was it for the evening.

Which is a kind of message to me, Rudyard. A lot of the uncivil behavior that we see in our own society and that we see in the United States, it's a function of leadership. It takes somebody to walk out and say, hey, this is not okay. And a lot of it can go away.

But people are willing and able to do that with humor as you did last night, feeling far between. Yeah. Let's go on here. Up next was Kelly Ann Conway, who is arguing in favor of the motion that, be it resolved America is at or upon its kind of golden age. She is a well-known advisor to Donald J. Trump played a key role in his 2016 election victory, then went on to become a counselor to him in the White House right through until 2020 in the end of his presidency. Yeah, I'd encourage our audience

to go watch the debate. We'll have excerpts also on the podcast feed in the next day or so. Yeah, I guess she is a Fox News contributor, so you have that kind of style, a slightly more confrontational style of delivery. She took a couple shots at me as the evening went on. I guess I got lumped in with the legacy press or something. I don't know. Her closing, though, no notes right out there at the front of the stage. I thought she did a good job of summing up her arguments. There were some real gems I thought from Kelly Ann Connolly.

And I'm surprised. You asked her one question which I think surprised her right there. You asked her, obviously you run a consulting business now. What would you tell your clients? And back came an answer. Don't react. don't react to the things that President Trump does. Be reflective.

See how you can be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Well, you know, if you actually listen to that, I do you? It's good advice. She's given a lot of ground there, frankly. And I thought the answer to that question was so revealing. Our last debater, Ben Rhodes, who joined Ezra Klein arguing against the motion. that America is entering its golden age was with the Obama administration, Deputy National Security Advisor. He's now a co-host, a pod Save the World, a really popular podcast on

international relations. I thought he had some good moments. I appreciated how he brought up again a bit more of the moral dimension of this moment that America finds itself in. And yeah, I almost was surprised that the con side of this debate didn't make a bit more out of just at times how seemingly dire the American domestic situation is. They seem to want to engage more with the other side on international relations and global issues, and that's fine. We love that at the Monk debates, but I thought for them tactically, if they'd gone a bit harder on, you know, the mass arrests of migrants, of the Salvadorian superprison that Venezuelans were seen. And so, you know, the Venezuelans were sent to with the suspension of habeas corpus, these kind of issues that I think are causing some

fear in American society. It's certainly causing fear even amongst Canadians about the idea of visiting the United States at this time. And I agree. That was amiss, I think, on the part of Ezra Klein and Ben Rhodes. And Ben, you know, so experienced on the National Security Council, in the White House and really, really smart and, you know, less, less giving, I think, than Ezra Klein was. You know, I think this conversation had been going on late at night in a bar, Richard. It would have, you know, Kevin and Ben Rhodes would have made it a lot tougher than it was. You know, just one final comment, which is interesting.

And it is a cultural thing more than anything else. What prompted the bullying of Kevin Richards in the beginning was he made a joke about the 51st state. None of the four of them took it seriously. They all four know it's an absolutely preposterous idea. But there's a tone deafness that you can talk to Canadians either in Canada or when Canadians are in the United States and treat this as a joke. I think that Canadians are going to find it funny. That's a big mess, frankly. There's no Canadian that finds it funny at all now.

And, you know, if either one of them had gotten up and said, you know what, we know you're hurt and you're offended, but this proposal for a 51st state. And we didn't mean it that way. It wasn't intended that way. I think they would want the debate. Yeah, they needed to do a little cleanup duty on aisle 6. The president dropped something, a large jar of mustard.

Canadian French is mustard, maybe at that. Janice, let's say goodbye to our complimentary listeners. We're going to, for the back half of the show, join with our donors and talk about this seeming, I don't know, possible rush towards some kind of confrontation between Israel and Iran. It's probably the biggest, highest stakes geopolitical risk at this moment. Janice has deep knowledge and expertise on the Middle East, having just been there and studied it for most of her academic career.

So we're going to bring that conversation for you right after this break. If you want that conversation and you want to be part of the full-length additions of Friday Focus, please become a member. You can do that for as little as $25 a year. If you're Canadian, you even get a charitable tax receipt for your membership. So again, sign up now at triple-d-d-d-com. monkdebates.com. We'll say goodbye to our YouTube audience and our free podcast audience and join our valued donors right after this short break.

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