The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Trump faces pressure from Gulf States, Britain's populist parties get a boost, and Canada's new GG is plucked from the Laurentian elite

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Tickets to our May 20th Munk Debate on Foreign Wars taking place in Toronto and featuring Mike Pompeo, Victoria Nuland, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, are now on sale. Visit https://munkdebates.com/debates/foreign-wars-debate/ to purchase tickets.   Trump's pause on escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz has less to do with pressure from Iran and more to do with pressure from Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile the U.S. has not done anything to protect the UAE which is under sustained attack from Iran. What happened to the US security guarantee to the Gulf States? In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to two previous Munk Debaters - Louise Arbour and Nigel Farage - who were in the news this week for different reasons. Nigel had a great night in Britain with his Reform Party trouncing Labour in local council elections. The rise of populism in Britain, on both the left and right, is due to the failure of governance and the political ineptness of their Prime Minister Keir Starmer. In Canada former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour was appointed as the country's new Governor General. Why is Ottawa unwilling—or incapable—of promoting talent beyond the Laurentian elite circle? And is it time for the Boomer careerists to step aside, bow out, and make room for a younger generation to inhabit these institutions? 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.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.

Bigger picture here is the Strait of Hormuz is a strategic showpoint. But as soon as you hold a strategic showpoint and you exploit it, which is what Iran has done, the market responds and people design solutions around it and away from it. That's not tomorrow. That's a few years. But that's what will happen. So to use Donald Trump's language, you play your biggest card and you lose it. Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast for the 8th of May, 2026. I'm Rudyard Griffiths, joined by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Hey, Janice.

Hey, Rudyard. How are you on this freezing May day in Central? Bring on some warm weather. This is getting ridiculous, but hey, it'll happen. The planet tilts. That at least hasn't changed. But what is changing so fast, Janice, is the situation in the Middle East and the ceasefire, increasingly unstable ceasefire between Iran and the United States. So the first half of the show, we've got to break down what is going on.

And maybe instead of focusing on the known unknowns, which is, will there be any kind of agreement to end this war in the next 72 hours, let's hope. but we're going to leave that to our listeners and readers to pay attention to their news feeds to find out what happened. Instead, I want to go back for the last few days with you and talk about some kind of really particular and peculiar events. And let's begin with the story, Janice, behind why Trump's Operation Freedom, which was the attempt to reopen the Straits of Hermuz to commercial shipping, was started and then stopped in the short page. space of only 24 hours. Something important behind that that I think would be good for our listeners and viewers to know about as it's a dynamic that no doubt will impact what happens in this conflict next. You know, it's an amazing story.

I'm glad you brought that one up because when he did that, it created this impression of, oh boy, no resolve, so right. But going on behind the scenes was a Saudi denial to the United States of the ability to use their airspace to overfly the top of the streets. And of course, if you can't do that, you actually can't escort ships. So the interesting question, and also the same signal from the Emirates, and to get the same signal right now, between from both the Saudis and the Emirates who are in the middle of, I would say, quite a dispute between the two of them. This is probably the deepest break we've seen between these two and quite a while.

Why would we get that signal? And they've reversed themselves the next day, right, to make the story even the storyline more erratic. Why did they do it and why did they reverse? themselves, they did not want to be the object of attack again from Iran. Iran still has drones, still has missiles. It is so destabilizing to the oil exports of these two. They're really worried about their oil infrastructure, their energy infrastructure. And when they were reassured by the United States that there would be interceptors that would be used where the Iranians

to attack, they changed them on again. But of course, it was too late by then. The operation had been canceled. And interestingly enough, the final twist of the story, Rudyard, the pace of negotiation had picked up even within that 24 hours when the United States was escorting ships. Some reports also that the denial of airspace was a concern that both governments, governments had that the Americans were not defending the UAE from a first wave of drone attacks that had happened earlier in the week. We now have reports overnight that the UAE has been attacked again by ballistic missiles and drones and that there have been fatalities. The United States either chose not to prevent those attacks. I'm just wondering, Janice, what is going on here?

I mean, at the core of the Middle East and America's relationship with these states and all the American military bases throughout that region was a supposedly unbreakable covenant that the United States would come to the defense of these countries. It was, in a sense, a security guarantee, a security guarantee that affected billions of dollars of weapons purchases by these governments and also large amounts of capital investment in the United States. It basically knitted together the future of the GCC with that of multiple presidencies of various parties and various outlooks, probably no more fulsomely embraced than by Donald Trump in the opening months of his second term. What do you make of the fact that we've now had two attacks in the space of 72 hours? on the UAE, where the United States seems to be letting these attacks proceed because they're concerned about pushing negotiations with Iran into a place, I guess, that would be irretrievable on the basis of either counteracting those attacks

or going after the sources of those attacks in Iran. This seems like a real change in something pretty fundamental. You know, it's an astonishing story, Roger. It really is. You know, to defend, and the UAE has taken the brunt of the attacks from Iran, far, Saudi Arabia, far, far less. But really the UAE has been the target of these attacks. And as you know, the Israel sent a Patriot missile battery and other interceptors,

which are scarce in Israel, which is also a first in this part of the world. to help the UAE defend itself against these attacks. The driving force, but you know, first of all, interceptors are not plentiful right now, and you're always making a calculated decision. What's coming at you? Is it a drone? You'll let it through, but some of the drones are lethal,

and there's an increasing number of fatalities in these attacks. The big war is infrastructure. So why is the United States doing this? because the message came through from by Pakistan, from Iran, we will have a negotiation. We will have a discussion about ending this war, but we're going to break it off as soon as theirs. You use force against Iran to retaliate for these attacks, frankly. That's a version of what came through. Nobody's seeing the language, but that's the message.

right so this is not forever because these negotiations either are going to land or they're not going to land um you know and then we have another round of something and then we go back to the table so this is an on and off dynamic but but jennis doesn't it show just how much leverage the iranians have i mean if it it is in a sense to me this week was just such a powerful proof point at the extent to which this war has in Iran, a freedom of maneuver, at least for now, that would be incomprehensible mere months ago, that it could attack UAE with ballistic missiles and drones in the United States with large amounts of weapons, troops, materials, and ships would do nothing about it, and they could do that twice in the period of 72 hours.

Yeah. You know, you're right, wretched. It's inconceivable and it's having, in a sense, two very contradictory consequences, right? One is, well, what's a U.S. security guarantee worth? And does having U.S. bases in the Gulf make Gulf states more likely to be the objects? Right? So it's not only that it's helpful. It actually could be a liability in the future.

and there's a very active discussion going on. There's no question about it. On the other hand, and this is the other side of the story, there is bristling anger against Iran in the Gulf. I think it'll take a decade for any Gulf state really to think seriously about rebuilding meaningful bridges to Iran. There is an awareness that this is connected to negotiations. And look, Rudy, the bigger picture here is the Strait of Hormuz is a strategic showpoint.

But as soon as you hold a strategic showpoint and you exploit it, which is what Iran has done, the market responds and people design solutions around it and away from it. That's not tomorrow. That's a few years. But that's what will happen. So to use Donald Trump's language, yeah, play your biggest card. and you'll lose it. Yeah.

I just say any future pipeline to the Red Sea could also be the subject of a drone or missile attack. So the vulnerabilities are there. Let's just before we wrap up this extra show, conjecture a little bit about where the Trump presidency finds itself. Because the president has been all over the map this week. And I think we've just never seen this before. This kind of diplomacy, if you call it that, undertaken in the public, hour to hour, reversals. bellicose rhetoric followed by, you know, optimistic musings about an imminent peace deal. It seems almost schizophrenic, Janice. I guess just one wonders what's going on here. I mean, I'm looking

forward to the Bob Woodward book on Trump's Iran War and what it must be like in this White House. And I just, as someone as a seasoned observer of White House, and presidents, what do you make of this and what do you make of the seeming complete lack of control on not only his part, but on his staff and the people around him to craft any set of coherent messages and to do what all past examples would suggest would be in their interest if they seemingly politically, for domestic reasons, desperately want a deal, which is not to litigate and relitigate with Iran in public 24 hours, seven days a week? You know, look, for the day, this is the worst performance I've ever seen my lifetime by a U.S.

President. It's the worst example of crisis management I've ever seen. It's one of the poorest examples of negotiation. And it's, you know, I'm not the only one of saying that, obviously, but I think, The icing on the cake was Marco Rubio coming out on Monday and holding press conference. And within 30 minutes, the president contradicts him. And the Secretary of State is left high and dry off message and doesn't really know what to make of it. So this is a president who talks to the press literally nonstop. It's almost addictive. It's not can't stay on message because that would have.

assume there is a message to stay on, doesn't have any strategic focus on what needs to be accomplished here and goes high, low within five minutes. The only thing I can say, it must be so terrible for allies, terrible for allies, but it must be very confusing for adversaries as well. What do you make of him? You know, we haven't mentioned this about here, but he's off to China next week. Yeah. If you're sober-minded Xi Jinping sitting in Beijing, what do you make of a president of the United States who behaves like this? Yeah. As you say, Janice, though, I wonder if there's a side of him. Obviously, he's desperate to end this war. He can see, you know, plunging poll numbers. He can see possibly control the Senate. And,

the house slipping away from him, which could open up the possibility of another round of impeachments. All of that said, though, Janice, the attention, the singular focus. If there's one line of continuity through the last 12 months, it's Trump's desire to be in all of our heads all of the time. And I think one, if I was to analyze this, and here's, you know, some dime store psychology, as disastrous as this war is for him politically, I think as a serial narcissist, it is giving something to him that he has extracted at various other points over the last 12 months through other vehicles, like his tariffs, or as much in economic policy, I think, as they were, again, some kind of psychological aid that he demands and desires, which is,

in an attention economy, which is a big part of how our economy functions these days, it's about commanding people's attention through apps, through television screens, through politics. In an attention economy, he is always insatiable in his desire to command and drive attention. And this war certainly has delivered that for him. There's no, you know, I think that's a really important insight. You know, sometimes I think about Donald Trump this way. He is our first social media president, right? He set up his own social media when he was thrown off X.

He posts, you know, at all hours of the night when there's no staff in the room. Everything is at all caps with exclamation marks. And if you actually watch the cable news networks who cover him, they're responding to his posts literally all day long. I know. So, you know, as Marshall McClellan, the great Canadian, and the great UFT scholar once said, the medium is the message,

it's not surprising that this president, who's a social media, addict behaves this way. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good point. My last point in this segment would be that the media and all of us should not play into his game. That so much, and this week is an example, so much of what the media seems to cover hour by hour is just flotsam and jetsam that comes out of his mind into his, you know, his, onto his phone, into his keyboard and out. through his truth social platform. It almost, it's inconsequential.

It's a president of the United States, and it's strange to say that, but it is almost like a stream of consciousness as opposed to something that actually demands and deserves, maybe more importantly, our attention. I'm just, I'll live you the last word, Janice, but I'm really disappointed by the press because they talked about his first term and learning this lesson about him

and not succumbing to his social media addiction, as you correctly have identified it. Yet here we are back doing the exact same thing. And more importantly, maybe with more significance, we're now covering a major war that's having big impacts on the global economy, potentially all of our lives, in the modality that he is chosen,

for us. It's bizarrely disempowering when we, in fact, have the agency to do something very, very different. Yeah. You know, just to put a point point on what you just said, but because I completely agree. There was a story yesterday, which is really, really important, which is Supreme Court of the United States invalidated the new tariffs that President Trump. impose those 10% tariffs. Well, that has an impact on Canada's economy. It has an impact on all the allies when he lost the last round with IEPA tariffs. Now this round has been declared now how much coverage did that get? Yeah. Almost nothing because everybody's focused on what Donald Trump has said in the last 10 minutes frankly. Yeah, I'm just so tired of seeing like serious journalists who I respect, like even the Atlantic, covering, you know, convening White House correspondence and then covering the week as if this was somehow normal, you know, in that all of this deserved

dissection and analysis and basically trying to impute some strategy to what, like, demonstrably, It must be, mostly, if not all, a kind of a process of chaos, if that oxymoron makes sense. And I just, I don't know, I just wish we could see this for what it is and move the conversation on. Talking Janus about moving conversations on, let's say goodbye to our complimentary listeners. And viewers are going to join our monk donors after the short break. And we're going to talk about something that happened this week. It doesn't always happen. And monk debaters get into the news. We've had a lot of famous people on the monk debate stage

over the course of the last decade and a half or so. But this week, two monk debaters who are in the same debate together, Louise Arbor and Nigel Farage, both made big news for different reasons. And we're going to unpack this right after this short break. Thank you for listening to the first half of the Friday Focus Podcasts. To get access to the full episode right now, Become a monk donor. You can do that for just $50 a year. That's less than a dollar a week. You also get advanced access to full-length editions of our weekly monk dialogues with Andrew Coyne. Exclusive live streams of our main stage debates and all kinds of other great perks and privileges. Simply go to our website, triplew.munkdebates.com. That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com.

Click on the join button on the top right-hand corner of the screen. Again, that website, website triplew.munk debates.com. The Monk Debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundations. Rudyard Griffiths and Ricky Gerwitz are the producers. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating. Thank you again for listening.