The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Trump doubles down & Canada prepares for tariffs

Episode Date: January 24, 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. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates' weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus. Rudyard and Janice start the show with the big international news of the week: A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that will suspend fighting and see the release of 33 Israeli hostages. Why now? and can it last? Rudyard and Janice then turn to the devastating LA fires and the astronomical cost of rebuilding without adequate insurance coverage. In Washington, Pete Hegseth breezed through US senate hearings to run the US Department of Defense. How does a man with no experience and a checkered past assume one of the most important and senior roles in government? Rudyard and Janice wrap up the show by anticipating what is to come on Monday when Trump takes office. Will his executive orders include a significant hike on tariffs for Canadian goods being exported into the US? To access full-length editions of 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 the Friday Focus podcast for the 24th of January 2025. I'm Rudyard Griffiths, the chair of the Monk Debates. joined by janice gross stein the founding director of the monk school of global affairs janis we start every show it seems with the declaration what a week but here we go again it's not hyperbole i think it builds into this trend that we've been talking to our listeners about over the last number of months really about the intensity of both the frequency of major events and their impact the portent that

they hold for everything, these last seven days was no exception. It's his velocity, Richard, that is so intense. You know, there's a story that some of our listeners may have missed about how to design a test that was so hard that the latest AI would fail. And they're working nonstop to do that. And the AI got 8% on the first round. And then the people who are doing it said in a few months, it will take just a few months to get this hay up to 92%. That's the pace of the world in which we're living right.

That's just beneath the surface. And I think that's what we're all feeling. Let me, before we dig into the big events of the news of the week, thank some supporters and curators that have come on in the last seven days to support the monk debates and its efforts to bring. civil and substantive, informed conversation to our increasingly fractious public square. So thank you, John G. and Charles FM for coming on board as curators. Curators make a single annual contribution that entitles them to the back half of Friday Focus, all of our other paid content on our website, and guaranteed seating at each and every

physical monk debate. A bunch of new supporters to Samuel S. Thank you, Sarah G. appreciated. Diggery W. I love that name. And Daniel S. Thank you all for coming on board as supporters who also get special ticketing privileges to our live events. Again, access to all of our behind the curtain content like the back half of the weekly Friday Focus podcast. So if you're not a supporter or a curator, consider becoming one. Please support the Monk Debates. I think what we do is more essential than ever. Janice, where I want to begin the show is to climb up in Altum.

a bit with you and try to frame the week. What has surprised me as we round out the week on Friday as we record this podcast is the seeming lack of reaction, almost the quietism, the resignation to what has been a series of kind of shocking developments. And I'm not going to try to categorize them all, but some of the highlights include you know, the removal we'll see, it'll be contestant in courts, birthright citizenship in the United States, potentially condemning millions of children of immigrants who born in the United States to a legal status. The removal of security details from former senior Trump officials like John Bolton, who were subject to well-documented,

well-verified assassination plots by, for instance, the government of Iran, the pardoning of thousands of, of January 6 riders, many of whom assaulted police officers brutally on that day on Capitol Hill. And again, Janice, I could go on and on through the list of kind of shock and awe that has rolled out since the inauguration this week. But why the quietism, Janice, why the resignation, why the lack of seeming response to this kind of death? of events, any which of one on their own, even a few months ago, a year ago, you pick your time frame, would have brought the public conversation to a halt. I think you're absolutely right, Roger, to highlight how different the public response inside the United States is to the first week of Trump two, as opposed to Trump one.

Remember, there was the women's minds. March last time around. The streets were jammed with protesters. I don't think it's quietism. I think it's a very different strategy. And there is some consensus around this. Save your resources and fight where it matters is the easiest possible way of describing this. We know this is coming.

I think the only surprise in the two or three items that you mentioned, there's a long list, as you said, they're pulling. security clearances from some of his formal officials. She's a kind of mean, petty thing to do, really. Other than that, this was all telegraphed. People knew it was coming. And there is investment in legal strategies. We are going to fight in court where we might stand a chance of winning,

delaying, postponing. And that's where the resources are going. There's, you know, there's frankly a sense, Roger, demonstrations will not. not be affected. They will not move the needle. They won't have an impact. Okay, if that's the case, what will? And there is a consensus, fighting court. And that's why you saw that challenge to the birthright decision. It was almost immediate. Trump got it too. He said predictable. I think he was told that this was unconstitutional. They put it in front of the right judge. But that's where the

resources are going, it's not quietism. I would say it's grim determination to make the opposition more effective than it was last time. Yeah, well, let me try to purposely be a little bit provocative here because I think it's one thing to hope maybe that the chattering classes can, you know, work out their litigation strategy. But I'm talking about the broader cross-section of American society, which seems to have accepted this revolution. It was revolutionary this week. The scale and breadth of these executive orders, you know, we go into the complete turnover

of diversity, equity, and inclusion as a kind of social goal and objective. You know, we can talk about the extent to which, you know, Trump is now walking away from the Paris Accords, from climate change as L.A. Burns. I mean, these are big, consequential decisions that impact millions of Americans. And I guess it leads one to wonder how entrenched, how supported were these ideas in the first place? We had assumed that things like DEI and climate change and, you know, the rule of law as it relates to January 6 riders,

what was all in a sense conventional opinion reflected and expressed by a broad cross-section of the American public at least that's what the Biden administration told itself and told Americans but now the script has been flipped Janice 180 degrees and and yes there's going to be tactical legal battles at superior courts and where else but where's the where's the reaction again Janice I go where's the reaction to, let's say, walking away from the Paris Accords. There's nothing. There's crickets. DEI, zero. In fact, corporations are now backpedaling their way out of their own DEI programs because they're worried about what the Trump administration is going to do not only in the federal government to diversity, equity, inclusion, but how this, I don't know, could impact them as

contractors to the federal government. These are big consequential moves. And I'm just surprised again by the lack of resistance, response, reaction? You know, of all of those that you've identified, climate change, I think, is the only one that had a real grip on what we would call the street, where people really cared about it. And there were parts, of course, in the wake of George Floyd's death. There was support. There was, we used to remember the street demonstrations at that time. Those are the only things that pulled people out into the streets,

Richard. The rest, frankly, is stuff for the chattering classes, both pro and con. And that's why you're not seeing much reaction. And he did this all before. He left the, you know, the Paris Climate Accord before. Janice, just react to this. Because look, we're friends here so we can have frank conversations with each other. I feel you're normalizing this.

I feel you're saying, folks, nothing to see here. walk on by he telegraphed all this it's all known it's all baked in it's just these DEI diversity equity inclusion social justice it's a lead issue you know

gone today you know here tomorrow back again I don't know I don't know Janice I think we have to be careful here about about again just normalizing what we're seeing and what's going on look I don't I don't think normal is the right word to describe what I'm talking about. Let's take a step back for a second right here. There was concern about the direction, the direction, not the, not the principle, but the direction of the EI long before Trump got elected, frankly.

Institutions were recalibrating because they saw some excesses in what they were doing. they were learning and this long-proceeded Trump's election, frankly, it's not that there's not a concern with social justice. The debate is very real and live, and it's on every university campus that I know about it, are we going about this the right way or are we creating some damage along the way? And do we need, in fact, to think this through, again, not the principle, but the way implement. That's perfectly normal. Frankly, when you go out of the gate with a program to respond to an issue and then you'll learn as you go. That's not a Trump issue, although Trump puts a voice on it and a face on it. The other thing that's important, that was in fact a dog whistling

in the Trump campaign that got the most public support. That's when his voters really applauded. So I think it's fair to say this is a divisive issue in the United States. And he won a slim majority on this. Okay. Let me see if I can push you further and get you into a zone where you feel as shocked as I do. This week, what did we see, jazz? We saw a parade of white billionaire men, flaunting and flouting, if the flouting is a word, Maybe it's an illegitism.

I don't know, but sounds good. Flonting and flouting. It sounds good. Their power, their wealth, their disregard for, you know, a lot of just accepted kind of behavior and social norms. And again, I would just say the contrast to even a few years ago after George Floyd and the public protests and the awakening, a reawakening, another awakening around issues of race and identity and the challenges that, you know, minority groups face in American society.

And then this week, what do we see, Janice? We see, you know, rich, white men running the board, running the entire board, saying we're back. We don't have to confirm to these things. We can use the R word at work. we can, you know, behave badly because we have now a permissive environment to do this. And you know that that's happening, Janice. You know that the Overton window has been exploded. It has been shattered.

It has been blown out since this election and in the last week. And again, I just, I don't have anything against rich billionaire white men. I'm two of those, not three. But at the same time, yeah, I think, you know, checking our privilege a little bit is not a bad thing. Being aware of other groups and how our actions affect them and the extent to which they face, you know, historic or systemic barriers to their full participation in society and, you know, the full benefits of opportunity that hopefully, you know, liberal democracies afford to them. Yeah. I think that's a kind of civilized, civilized approach to how we should live.

So are you not shocked by this veneration, celebration orgy of white male billionaires, suddenly arriving on the scene here, telling us what we should do, how we should do it, why they're victims, and why they're going to set the agenda for the next four years. Is that shocking to you? I'm going to be blunt in return, Richard. No, I'm not shocked. What did you expect when Donald Trump became president, the second time around.

This is what he did the first time he was going to double down on it. He was so clear. In fact, I found almost nothing. Nothing he did really surprised me. Was I shocked when two people convicted of capital assault were freed from jail? Of course, does that undermine the rule of law? But the broad tone of the Trump administration, from tariffs to rich billionaire white men believing they can break everything and then put it all back together and make it better?

Am I surprised, frankly, not one bit. The second point is, I don't believe that people are giving up on social justice. If you actually, it'd be very interesting to monitor what happens in the big institutions, which is really where they manage. Yeah, companies are walking back the name and the label. Do you believe the companies that are. consumer facing and have diverse workforces are not going to, are going to revert back to what it was like before 2020.

I don't think there's a chance of that happening, frankly. And you look at all progress on social justice. It's two steps forward, one step back. And then another two steps forward. I do it better. Maybe you and I just, what I'm hearing from you, Janice, everything's okay. It's not okay. No worries.

Let's, you know, this is, again, just. just part of the course, anticipated, expected. And I don't know, Jess, then, like, again, defining deviancy down to quote the late and great Patrick Moynihan, the U.S. Senator. At what point does you mention it before we went on air today, Elon Musk's kind of, you know, neo-Nazi, you know, schick on Twitter with a series of tweets on Friday the 24th. Is that too far? Like, where do we draw the line? Like, what moment do we say, okay, you know, this, you know, we've moved beyond Nero. We're now in like the Caligula era and things are not our rights.

And it's not okay to just say this was all for, you know, preordained and, you know, these broad institutions and values will hold. I mean, that was the rhetoric of the first Trump term. And they did hold. And, yeah, but January 6 happened, Janice. He just pardoned hundreds of people that assaulted police officers. If that does not send a message, which is if you fight for me, you will not face the consequences of the rule of law in America. Like, again, I just say that is a shattering of a norm that to me has pretty profound consequences. And I'm not willing to normalize that.

I'm not willing to say that that's just that's just Trump being Trump and it's a one-off and it's not going to have any long-term effects on, you know, American democracy and American institutions and American perceptions of the rule of law. You break things enough and Humpty Dumpty ain't getting put back together again. That is the whole point. Oh, you know, how, what really breaks things? And there's a big debate. Is Trump now slipped into authoritarianism without anybody? United States really looking at the United States put us foot over the line and democracy is fundamentally and deeply broken in the United States. That's really the debate. Let me throw

it back to you. You're shocked. You don't want to normalize this. You're living in the United States. What do you do about it? And I think that's the dilemma. What do you do about it? So the pardoning of the January 6th is terrible, frankly. There's no other word for it. And it's astonishing to me that he, because he said he was not going to pardon the people who were convicted of criminal assault against these police forces, policemen, which resulted in one death, by the way. And so the right is shocked by that because they are the traditional supporters of police. What are they going to do about it? That's where the legal strategy is going to come in. They are going to court to ask those that those pardons be overturned.

so well for us over the last four years. But what are you going to do about it? They really did the job. What's the strategy, but you're? Yeah. What's the strategy? Rinse fail again. Anyway, let's put a pin in this half.

This is no doubt a debate and a topic. We're going to come back to this. We'll continue to have over what will be a fun filled action packed four years of of norm, shattering behavior and change that will, you know, may the bridges we burn like the way to our freedom. I think that could be the slogan for the second Trump presidency. So we're going to say goodbye to our complimentary listeners right now. We'll be back on the other side to talk about terrorists because Trump had some some frank, tough rhetoric at a Zoom appearance at Davos this week about Canada. Yeah, some of it, again, kind of shocking. Maybe it's all, maybe it's all talk.

Maybe it's not. We're going to get into it right after this break. Thanks for listening to this excerpt of the Friday Focus podcast. To get full-length editions of each and every episode of this program, simply go to our website, www.w. The monkdebates.com. Click on the Friday Focus tab in our navigation on the top right of the site. Make a donation as little as $25 a year or 50 cents an episode, and we'll send you not only the full-length editions of each and

in every Friday Focus podcast, but all kinds of special offers, perks, access to events, and additional content. Again, you can do that right now by becoming a donor to the Monk Debates at Triple W Monk Debates, MUNK, DebateswithanS dot com.