The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Trump becomes more erratic as the midterms approach and why Canadians should anticipate a spring election

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. This week, the U.S. President became a troll under a bridge, we learned AI is coming for our jobs, and America could be headed towards war with Iran. But amidst it all, a big story in Minnesota did not get the coverage it deserves: in a major retreat, the Trump administration is withdrawing significant numbers of ICE agents from the area. This story shows the importance of local people on the ground organizing and recording unseemly and unlawful behaviour for the public. Meanwhile there are musings that the President is considering pulling out of CUSMA negotiations as relations with Canada continue to decline and his behaviour gets more erratic. What will happen if he loses in the midterms? A defanged Trump is a more dangerous president than the version we are currently witnessing. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice talk about the likelihood of the Liberals calling a spring election to seize on high poll numbers, presenting their case to Canadians as needing a national mandate as they enter into tough CUSMA negotiations. Rudyard and Janice suggest, however, that there is more going on behind the scenes that is driving Canada towards a snap election.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.

I think the last half of this Trump term will be tougher on Canada than the first half. He'll be a lame duck. People will be more willing inside the United States to poke their heads up. Maybe people will discover some courage. He's going to be more frustrated in the second half of his term than he is in the first. And so I think there's going to be more scattershot coming at us. Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast for the Very scary.

13th of February, 2026. I'm Rudyard Griffith, joined by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the monk school. Hey, Janice. Before we get to anything serious, when I woke up this morning and saw Friday the 13th,

I shuddered. Do you react that way to Friday the 13th? I do. It's funny. It's like I'm not superstitious about a lot of things, but there's something about Friday the 13th. Maybe it's the movie that kind of I watched it when I was a little too young and got scared myself to death. I don't know.

I must say, I'm always happy when Friday the 13th is over. Yeah. Well, it was a scary week. The president became a troll under a bridge and threatened our Billy Goat gruff, Mark Carney. AI is coming for all of our jobs. And we may have a major war breaking in the Middle East between. the United States and Iran. So a lot to talk about on today's show.

But let's begin with what you're seeing Janice with the Trump administration as it kind of now, I think increasingly we have to say, limps towards the midterm elections last fall. Because this may be Janice, part of the reason we're seeing this renewed focus on Canada. And I'm happy to give a little summary as to why. that might be the case, but let's start with why you think Trump is really showing some weakness and how kind of citizen power might be at the core of a new kind of kryptonite that's emerging to drag down his administration. I do think there's a big story in Minnesota.

It kind of gets buried. It's like, you know, war stories always very peace stories. But there was a really significant retreat by the administration in Minneapolis. After a huge investment, and what's the retreat? They send in Honan to recalibrate. And what happened this week? An announcement that the surge was over in Minnesota. going to withdraw significant numbers.

Why does the story matter? Because this is a story about how local people on the ground, self-organized, they used their phones and apps on their phones, followed ICE people, blue whistles when ICE was making arrests or detentions, videot these arrests. They used all the techniques in a sense that civil society could bring to bear. And they won.

This is not a small story, Roger, because this, to me, the use of ice, it functions in many ways as a militia. It recruits with dog whistles using coat of lice. language that would make the proud boys at times even prouder than they are. And the plan was to deploy in the big cities, which, you know, traditionally are both Democratic. Wow. If you want to ground the way they did in Minneapolis, that is not a small stepback for the people around Donald Trump, like Stephen Miller and others.

who are so, so committed to this agenda. Yeah. It's a good news story from that perspective about how people in a community can self-organized and can prevail. This is not the elites doing this. This is people on the ground. Yeah. So I guess the question is, do you think that that is scalable? Because, I mean, we have seen these large no-kings protests, which may be foreshadowed some of the energy.

in Minnesota. But, you know, we saw other deployments of ice, you know, into California, into Illinois and other places where, where there wasn't, you know, this level of, of kind of organized, concerted, and scaled pushback. Now, maybe that was simply a question of time that, indignation had to build to a point or is there something something specific about about Minnesota about the culture there about the vulnerability that that those types of voters and that slice of America represents politically to the president you know

this this is swing state country after all mm-hmm well I think you're write, put your finger on the culture in Minneapolis. You know, it's not L.A. It's not New York. It's a smaller city in a swing state, but it's got a long history. Community. It's, you know, people know each other. It's because it's smaller size, I think, was an advantage here,

Redyard in allowing people to self-organize. that having been said, they provided a playbook for everybody. And the playbook doesn't depend on a lot of outside funding. It doesn't depend on outsiders coming in to do the hard work. They provided a playbook, and it may well be scalable in communities like Minneapolis, maybe not in the megacities, but elsewhere it may be. will be scalable. And what has to happen here, Redgers, is that the organizers around Donald Trump, the Stephen Millers of the White House, just have to think that this is scalable because you don't want to defeat

like this another time. It is a retreat. Let's call it what it is. It is a retreat. They had to pull their local people. They sent in their, you know, they're a more acceptable guy. He took a look at the situation on the ground. Then he said there's no in here. And he pulled back. That's what happened. Yeah. We're seeing the president now on some polls under 40% in terms of popularity and support amongst Republicans still high at 80-odd percent, but having fallen, you know, from the 90s. And that's pretty standard American politics when you're polling either Republicans or Democrats. in a sense, declared voters. You get very high levels of support.

So he seems to be bleeding some of his own, not maybe his base, but the adjacent normie Republicans who stuck with him in the last presidential election. So to bring this back to Canada, I wonder, Janice, if we're seeing a pattern here, that when the president is constrained in one area, his his ego still needs to be fed each and every day each and every hour he needs to be making news he needs to kind of command our attention so so now the focus again and I don't think this works again for him terrifically on the domestic political front but now we see him engaged in some real brinksmanship with Iran who's not Venezuela and is not Greenland, but is actually a relatively serious threat in the region to American allies. The Straits of Hermuz, pretty important to global shipping, even if that was closed down for a matter of weeks, that would have an impact on the global economy.

And then this increasingly hostile tone towards Canada reports from Bloomberg, which is a credible outlet, suggesting that the prime minister has been musing amongst his aides about a unilateral pullout from Kuzma, from NAFTA, from the North American free trade agreement, and some indication that, well, you know, the Mexicans are being very constructive and behaving well, you know, the Canadians are obstaparist. and we're not really getting, you know, along with them. So is that right, Janice, to think that this presence is a bit like a blob of mercury? And, you know, you smash the hammer down in Minnesota. And the blob goes scurrying off to places far and wide. And right now it's Iran, Canada, his various ballrooms, Penn Station that he wants, named after himself, maybe the Kennedy Center. torn down. Who knows? My point is, I guess, the insanity continues, Janice, and that we have to take

that as a given. Oh, yeah, for sure. Let me just say that I read the same Bloomberg story. And of course, you stop over when you see the president musing that he might pull out. Because, as you know, Rudyard in Kuzma, you can give six months notice of withdrawal. I don't know about you, but when I read that story, it sounded like a plant to me. He's musing about it, but he hasn't decided. And Mexico is so much more amenable and easier to deal with in Canada. But he hasn't really made up his mind yet, but he's musing. It was almost a classic plant to send a signal as these trade negotiators start to do the work before the July 1st deadline here. I didn't take that one to seriously,

because the explanations for this, let's face it, are right now what we call overdetermined. There are too many that are pushing in the same direction. It starts with Carney's speech and Davos. No one he knew Donald Trump, who the target was. It took him about 24 hours to react. You know, he was the target in front of the glittering elite that he cares about.

He cares much more about Davos than he does the Munich Security Forum, which is taking place as we speak. So you would expect some noise. And I think the bridge story that also played out this week where he lost it. the Gordia Bridge. And it's an interesting story as a byway, really, because there was, you know, he was lobbying by the family that owned the Ambassador Bridge. Clearly have motive here to cause trouble for the Gordy Halbridge.

But I don't really take much of that, as frankly more than noise, my prediction for the next six months as we move up to. the July 1st deadline, we are going to have a ton of noise in the system. It's like being on a roller coaster, buckle up. And if you're like me who hates the ups and downs on the, I just hate them. Just close your eyes knowing that you're going to get off this thing at some point. Yeah. Yeah, I think we always is to be careful about impugning strategy to Trump.

I mean, because we're all, yeah. It's understandable. We're all, you know, analytical pattern-seeking, you know, creatures. And Trump is, you know, a lot of noise and we're trying to figure out what the signal is there. I don't know. I go back to some of the things that we've talked about earlier, which is just things, you know, known unknowns like his mental state. And I guess my concern would be that a midterm loss, a defeat at the. Supreme Court on tariffs this vote even this week in in Congress where some

Republicans defied him and supported a motion rejecting his tariffs on on Canada I mean it is unfortunately a nothing burger in that president has the has the role of signing that legislation into law and that's not going to happen I guess my my concern is that his both his kind of narcissism and neediness combined with his mental deterioration, combined with these domestic, mostly kind of domestic checks on his freedom of movement and action will mean that he will increasingly fall back on what a lenient Supreme Court has given him, which are far-reaching executive powers related to foreign affairs, the use of the military, abroad and you know powers related to to treaties and basically America's you know bilateral and multilateral relationships around the world and I I want to be hopeful that Canada's you know benefits from let's say a midterm setback or a Supreme Court ruling or a Congress that's maybe rediscovering its

backbone vis-a-vis the Epstein files or the president's own declining popularity and Republicans downstream may be seeing threats, you know, in their congressional districts. But, Janice, should we be concerned that Canada in particular, as you said, is the most exposed and vulnerable country to the United States, and that if the back half of this four-year term by Donald J. Trump will be defined. by anything. It'll be defined by his actions abroad and Canada is front and center in his windshield. There's no question. We are the most of all. We live next door to the United States. Our economies, Roger, as you know well, are still the most tightly integrated economies in the world, frankly.

You know, I say often that Germany, which is deeply embedded in the European Union, its economy is less integrated in Europe than ours is with the United States. So we are exposed, and I think there is nobody that, you know, among our political leaders that should take their eye off this. There is a state of hypervigilance. there really is in Ottawa toward the United States but I do think there are noise there is noise in the system even with Donald Trump

you know partly that limited attention span that you talked about the need you know for the adrenaline that comes with the latest thing works for us Roger because he moves on he'll move on from the bridge

you know he will he'll move on from Greenland. I mean, there's no deal on Greenland, but he's left it behind. He'll move on. And that capacity just to stay resolved, stay calm, not feed the beast more than we have to, and keep up the hard work of trying to rebuild our economy. That's where the action is for this country over these next two and a half years. You know, just to finish a thought,

Reggie, that you're having, I think the last half of this Trump term will be tougher on Canada than the first half. He'll be a lame duck. People will be more willing inside the United States to poke their heads up. Maybe people will discover some courage. He's going to be more frustrated

in the second half of his term than he is in the first. And so I think there's going to be more, scattershot coming at us as well as others and we just have to prepare for it, expect it, know it's coming, and be reasonably confident that we can survive it. Yeah. Before we wrap up this segment of the show, let's just talk about the bridge fiasco this week. This is the Gordie Howe bridge that Canada has built. And that Trump kind of threatened to delay or the opening on the basis that. What does that mean, my dear? What does it mean? Yeah, on the basis that, you know, half of it should be his.

And we don't quite know often with him what exactly his means, his families or Americas. because it's all a bit of a gray space. But the argument is just factually incorrect. The bridge obviously is owned jointly by the state of Michigan and Canada. Canada paid for it, but tolls and duties will ultimately for many years reimburse Canadian taxpayers for that initial upfront investment. It was manufactured by Canadian and American workers. in Canadian-American steel. Again, it's this thing.

There's all kinds of rational things that you can say to Donald Trump when he, when he does things like this. But the fact is that he does things like this. And I think you and I have a theory, and I'll let you expound it, that this is probably deeply political. It may have elements of corruption to it. And it just suggests, Janice, that whatever. ever happens with Kuzma, whatever negotiation we have with whatever agreement we reach,

it's all draws. It's all just, you know, whispers and innuendo and and be walked back or destabilized in a minute by a president whose incentive structure and motivations are just fundamentally unaligned with, you know, good faith negotiation. Yeah. You know, I have to say when I read that comment about the bridge, I thought you had to really work hard to find a case that was as lousy as this one, right? To focus on. I mean, the big picture story when you get above all the details, this is a bridge paid for by Canada where the tolls are dividers. you don't get a better deal than that if you're the United States. And why did we do it, Roger? Because the traffic was backing up.

We needed a second bridge. We were suffering in terms of what, you know, the pace of which we could drive trucks across the border. So we bit the bullet and we paid for the bridge, which the United States gets 50% of the benefit. Boy, if I were the president, that is not the case. I would choose to stick it to Canada. But here's the problem.

You're exactly right. Somebody lobbied him. The owner of the ambassador, rich. Nobody does any work there around him in that small team. So he goes off like a rocket. And frankly, makes the threat, which I keep asking, as I said to Richard, what does it mean? I don't know what it actually means. So I think we're in for this.

We've got three more years of this. I do think renegotiating Kuzma and keeping it alive, even if it doesn't look a lot like the current one does really, really matters. Because one of the reasons that we have had less of a jolt to our economy than others is 90% of what we're sending across the U.S. border. is tower free. And he knows that and he keeps saying

you've got the best deal in the world. That's true. I think until the midterm elections and then if he loses the midterm elections you know, does he care as much

about short term inflationary or other effects? Like I think, I don't know, I worry that a defeat in the midterms could in some ways actually unconstrained him. Yeah. uh, enrage him and lead to a scenario where he's lashing out in anyone and, uh, and everything.

Again, with all the caveats implied about how the midterms happen, what happens after the midterms, our legislators seated in Congress. There's a lot of things domestically. The United States is going to have to go through, but I don't know. I just fundamentally think that in some ways a, uh, a defense. Trump in terms of his power right now, which has been almost absolute over Congress, is almost a more dangerous president. If that can be imagined, but I guess time will tell. We'll tell. We're going to say goodbye to our complimentary listeners and viewers and join our monk donors on the other side of this break.

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