The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Dialogue with Andrew Coyne: The Conservative Party's failure to provide a roadmap for change

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Andrew Coyne is a Globe and Mail Columnist and one of Canada's most trusted commentators. He joins host Rudyard Griffiths to discuss how the Conservative Party's anti-Trudeau messaging undermined their ability to provide Canadians with an appealing platform in an election that doesn't include the former PM. Mark Carney, meanwhile, is acting like a grownup in charge when a crisis hits, even though his big spending promises suggest he's not the blue liberal many centre-right Canadians had hoped. Rudyard and Andrew also talk about Trump's threats to fire US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, and why the independent authority of central banks is so integral to the functioning of democracies.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 biggest single part of this election is the collapse of the NDP vote, the race towards the liberals. This is every election since I've been born, this has been the liberal strategy. And they just kind of just kind of fell into their laps this time because of the Trump crisis. And because Palli Aver did not do enough to differentiate themselves from Trump. Welcome to the Monk Dialogues. I'm Redier Griffiths, the chair of the Monk Debates. Great to be back with you, our audience, watching this in high-definition video or tuning into our regular podcast. I'm joined in studio by Andrew Coyne again for another one of our continuing conversations. Andrew,

so fortunate to have you here. Nice to be here with you in high-definition video. Yes, we're revealing all of our wrinkles and creaks and groans together. Quadraphonic sound. We are in the final week of a campaign, Andrew. We will be heading to the polls next week for what everyone has said is a consequential vote. How do you feel this election? is wrapping up. Do you feel that the country has debated the big issues that maybe it should have to position itself in a way of strength post-election and the uncertain environment that we meet? No. You know, the liberal's strategy in this election has been to talk about only one issue, which is Donald Trump and the tariff war and the larger existential struggle. But there hasn't been a whole lot of

policy discussions about that beyond things that the parties agree on. So, and they tend to agree on things that are kind of fatuously easy. So everyone's in favor of building more pipelines. No one's really discussed, well, how would we actually overcome indigenous and provincial opposition to that? You know, everybody wants to cut taxes, but nobody wants to just say how they're going to pay for them. So to the extent that other issues have intruded in the campaign, it's been very brief. If we, during the debates, because you couldn't just talk about Donald Trump the whole time, then we had a little more discussion such as it was about some other issues. But the liberals have hugged so close to the conservatives on policy terms,

and the conservatives have not done enough from the perspective of their own self-interest, but also from the standpoint of differentiation in the marketplace, to stake out territory where the liberals couldn't go. So as a result, it not much has happened in this election campaign, All the big movement, as we discussed last time, was before the writ was dropped. And I shouldn't say dropped. That's a terrible thing. Before the writ was issued, fell into that trap.

And it's really all, you know, people made up their minds about what they thought about the leaders. There was some suggestion that there might have been some tightening the polls, maybe a little bit. But the last polls I've been seeing are still in the 5, 6, 7, 8% range. And if it's anywhere, even even, then the liberals win. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the policy we have seen during this election. in the last day or so from the time of this recording, we've now have a full liberal platform. We'll supposedly get the conservative platform together. When you look at that liberal platform,

what impressions are you left with? I think many people have commented on the significant increase in deficits. Maybe some people surprised by that, thinking that Mark Carney was initially presenting himself more as a blue liberal, someone who was cutting the capital gains tax, cutting the carbon tax, positioning Canada's economy for economic competitiveness. What do you make of this liberal platform? Well, people, conservatives in particular are profession in those cells to be shocked and horrified by it. I'll be a little more persuaded by that if they bring in a platform that has smaller deficits. But given that they're calling for significantly larger tax cuts, that would imply that they'd have to bring in some spending cuts. So, yeah, the liberals are proposing a lot more spending. I think it's fair to say it's different from the previous government in so far.

as a lot more of that spending looks to be genuine bona fide investment capital rather than operational expenses. Now, we'll see when we go through the nitty gritty of it. But at first glance, that seems to be true. They themselves have kind of, parties do this for some reason, have overstated their own spending increases. So they put out this figure of $130 billion over four years. Everyone duly reported that. When you dug into it, those were for new measures, which included both spending increases and tax cuts. And when I dig through it, I find that, and you net out spending cuts and tax increases,

when you net it all out, it's about $60 billion in more spending and about $16 billion in tax cuts. If you look, I will be unsurprised to find that the conservative platform will be not hugely different in the overall numbers, but more weighted towards tax cuts and less towards spending increases.

So the differences between the parties are not as large, I think we'll find in the end. They're both going to run larger, deficits. Look, in an immediate crisis, you could make a case for some deficit spending. If the crisis is as serious as we've all said it was, if, for example, we need to make rapid increases in defense spending, unparalleled in recent times, there's a case we said, you don't in that, you don't have to load all that onto the current tax base. I think the disappointing thing is, okay, you've got to make all these spending increases. Maybe you can make a case for more borrowing,

but have you done anything to try to cut out unnecessary current spending to make room for that new spending? And so it's harder to make that case for deficit spending when there's been no effort by either party seriously to make any spending custom-made room. So the liberals pencil in billions of dollars that are going to come from productivity increases. And Mark Carney will talk about that that's going to come from AI. Okay, maybe. But that seems like pretty sketchy. And then the conservatives, it's, you know, we'll cut consultants. We'll cut four in eight.

So just as no party left or right ever wants to raise taxes on you, right, if they're daring to talk about raising taxes on other people. Similarly, nobody wants to cut anything from spending that anybody actually values. And that's ridiculous. We're not going to get restoration of balance to our finances without cutting somebody's sacred cow. And at this point, nobody's talking about that. And what do you think, Andrew?

You mentioned it because there's been a lot of talk about so-called, you know, meeting the moment by all these leaders and campaigns. Yet here we are with both campaigns, the frontrunner campaigns, the liberals and the conservatives, contemplating expensive tax cuts. Tax cuts in the multiple, multiple billions of dollars in the face of what is supposedly a moment of national coming together. People even dare to talk about national sacrifice in face of these threats, yet we're engaging in large-scale middle-class tax cuts, as they're framed. Well, that's the thing. Borrowed.

Debt financed. That's right. And what the worst part about it is, they're the kinds of tax cuts that pay no dividend in terms of higher productivity. Yes. I would be prepared to defend as meeting the moment tax cuts that were designed to supercharge growth in the economy because that's absolutely what we need to do. We've needed to do that for years.

we've been, in the recent years, we've been shrinking in per capita terms. But one way of meeting the Trump thing, not just the direct Trump threat of I'm going to annex you or I'm going to slap all these tariffs on you, but the broader Trump threat, which is he's wrecking the global economy. So if we've already got really anemic, really weak growth, if we have a real challenge that we needed even before all this to get our growth up because of our looming fiscal challenges with the aging population, added to which we now have this defense and security, burden that we've got to start to step up and pay, then we really need to get growth up so that we can persist and still make forward momentum in the face of these headwinds from Trump. So if any of there should have been a growth election with both parties putting forward serious growth agendas, this would be it. And what most economists would tell you would be, if we're going to get our

investment rates up, we need to get our taxation on capital down, radically down. And instead what they did, the liberals, to some extent, the Tories would even greater extent, was they blew billions and billions of dollars cutting the bottom rate of tax. Now, I understand that's politically popular. We shouldn't confuse that with looking after the interests of those on low income for two reasons. One is, people on really low income don't pay any tax. Secondly, people on high income also benefit from cutting the bottom rate of tax. That's on their first tranche of income. So it was hugely irresponsible of both parties, vastly expensive, and will pay zero payoff in terms of productivity because the people at the bottom end who are paying that tax

don't have any disposable income to save and invest. The people at the top end, that's not their marginal income. That's not their next dollar they're thinking about investing. You're basically giving them free money. That's a tax code on money they've already earned. So that's one of the biggest disappointments in the whole campaign. The Tories did it because they thought they could win votes. The liberals did it to match the Tories. Yeah. And it comes against a back drop, Andrew, of a challenging decade for Canada on a whole bunch of different metrics from per capita GDP to, as you say, foreign direct investment. So where do we come out of this campaign? If we're not dealing with some of these root problems that are at the core of the economy

and Canada's own story, regardless of the Trump threat, what does that say about where the country is right now? Some people have hypothesized, Andrew, I've heard in the last few days, that simply the crisis isn't either here yet or it's not intense enough for large portions of the voting electorate, especially older voters, to internalize necessity of a larger set of changes that would be required. And that right now there's a lot of cosplay that different parts of the electorate are engaged in, that are making them maybe feel good, making them feel like they're meeting the moment, they're part of this historic pushback against this aggressive American administration, but the reality is nobody, nobody is foregoing their cake right now.

Yes, the most charitable interpretation would be people have kind of kicked that decision one step down. What they're doing first is they're choosing, who do I trust to lead me? Okay. And so I'm being charitable here, that maybe you could interpret that as being, okay, the person I trust to lead me will be the person I'll trust to ask me for sacrifices in future. But first I want to figure out who do I think has got the character and the judgment and the intellect and the experience to be able to handle these very weighty issues. I say that's a charitable interpretation. I think the difficulty for the conservatives, you know, it's one thing to say this is a change election.

And I think once upon a time, not so long ago, they could have made that case like falling off a log. People were so fed up with the prime minister in particular, Prime Minister Trudeau in particular, that it wasn't that it wasn't that hard to be. persuade people, we need to make a change and a change of party together. Once that change, once that change, once Trudeau was gone, once Carney came in, I don't think the Conservatives have made a compelling enough case. If you're going to say, in other words, people were able to separate, and I don't think it's totally invalid to separate the party and government from the leader. We have a system that's so leader-centric, so driven by the Prime Minister, that it's not invalid to say, we have a new Prime Minister. Everyone's going to jump to his tune.

I would say he has not made a sufficient case, I would say, of how different he would be. That's one of the things you could say about that platform they brought out, that, yes, it shifted from current consumption to investment spending, but it still looks pretty large government, pretty liberal, you know, governments with a solution for every problem. So that's, that's on the one hand. But for the conservatives to make the case that we needed to change the government, and even with this new prime minister, I think they needed to map out a more distinctive policy agenda. They needed to go a little harder, a little more radical.

Again, meeting the moment. If the situation is the crisis that everyone agrees, I think the public would be a little more ready than they might ordinarily be for some bold and radical policy proposals. But for whatever reason, I think because they still thought they had this in the bag, all they had to do was say Mark Carney is just like Justin Trudeau, acts of the tax, all these kind of stale lines, frankly. And so they didn't do it.

enough to differentiate themselves either for their own electoral interests or, frankly, for the standpoint of giving the electorate a roadmap of here's a different path. Here's how different our policies would be from the governing liberals. Clearly, there are some differences. But if you're trying to get people to change horses in the middle of a crisis when the natural instinct is to rally around the devil you know, then I think they needed to make a stronger case. Yeah. I'm going to shift to Trump and some of the latest convulsions to our neighbor to the South inner moment. But before I do that, just one more question about the liberals in this platform that came out today. Some have commented. I would include myself in this group that I've been surprised over the last week or so of the campaign,

as Mark Carney seems to have decided to accept, in some cases, perpetuate a lot of the policy assumptions and preferences of the Trudeau era. I think of his policy, for instance, with regards to the CBC, increasing the funding, openly stating that they would allow to continue to commercialize their operations. It seems surprising to me. It seems so needlessly, one, uncreative, second, literally creating no distinction between you as a supposed change candidate in a change election with your predecessor, Justin Trudeau. And then there are other elements that we've seen in the platform that similarly reflect this kind of continuity. Is that just simply liberal confidence as this campaign has gone on, that they feel that they've won this and they can really now do what they want

to do regardless? Or is it something else? Is it the fact that maybe Mark Carney is closer to Justin Trudeau in some of the preferences that he has? And maybe he's not the blue liberal that many people seem to automatically assume at the beginning of the campaign, given his Goldman Sachs pedigree, his time at Brookfield and elsewhere. Well, I think we may have discussed this before in a little bit that people see in him what they want to see. So people will tell you they think he's a blue liberal or they think he's an environmentalist or they think he's, you know.

So he's been able to kind of cover the waterfront a little bit, which if you can get away with it in politics, his goal, because then everybody, you know, Paul Martin for a while had that same thing going for it, where everyone thought that he was on their side. I think that, so who knows, but I think one part of the calculation is you've got to give your base something reassuring that things haven't changed that much. Well, at the same time, trying to tell other people in subtle ways that, well, you know, I'll take off some of the woke edge. I won't be quite as obsessed. I thought it was fascinating, for example, when he appointed his cabinet, he made a point of making it, it must have been a decision, of making it not exactly

equal male and female, but very close to be able. It was one short. So if you wanted to say, oh, at last that kind of group quotas thing is over. you could see that. And if you wanted to say, okay, he was a little bit off, but he's still, you know. So he's playing a bit of that game. I think the calculation is that what most people were looking for had devolved into simply the persona of the leader. And that what the reassurance people were looking for is, is there a grown-up in charge?

Does this guy look like he's got mature judgment? He's unflappable. He'll be able to respond to whatever situation arises, which, again, is not an invalid part of your calculus as a voter. You're trying to, you know, nine times at a 10, a prime minister has to deal with issues during his term as prime minister that he never

foresaw, didn't plan, didn't wasn't part of his platform. So it's fair game to say part of your assessment of any incoming prospective government is not just their platform over the things that they're telling you they're going to do, but what would they do in the unpredictable situation? So it's a mix. And I think the calculation is

people had significant enough numbers of people had said, it's acceptable enough to me that we've changed leaders. And I think this guy seems to have what it takes. And I don't need to hear that much more from you in terms of how you change policy. You or I might not prefer that, but I think for a certain section of the electorate, that's enough. Yeah. And especially when they're measuring him against Pierre-Paul-Yev, and they're making an equal and opposite calculation of, I'm not as enamored or assured that he would have what it took in these situations. And he's also, So, as you say, politically, he's seemingly held now over weeks, half of all potentially available NDP voters inside his enhanced coalition.

So they're seeing enough, I guess, of a progressive impulse to feel comfortable voting liberal. That's incredible. Feeling comfortable voting liberal and feeling very uncomfortable with Pierre Paulyev. So that's probably the biggest single part of this election is the collapse of the NDP vote, the race towards the liberals. This is every election since I've been born, this has been the liberal strategy, and they just kind of fell into their laps this time because of the Trump crisis. And because Poliever did not do enough to differentiate himself from Trump.

That may be unfair to Poliever, who's very different from Trump in a lot of ways. But he himself was doing enough things atmospherically, rhetorically, et cetera, because he was trying to appeal to a certain type of voter that's sympathetic to Trump, that if you're a new Democrat voter, you're picking up that vibe and you're nervous as hell. And so the minute the bell went off, they fled towards the liberals. It's a remarkable thing. But it's very clear what was going on there. So people will say, oh, it's not Pierre, it's not Paliarva's fault because the NDP vote collapsed. No, he bears some responsibility for that happening. If you're a conservative leader in these kinds of situations, you've got to be doing your best.

Obviously, you have to reassure your base that you're going to bring in the kinds of policies they're happy with. But at the same time, you've got to be non-scary to left. the center voters. Otherwise, that left to center vote is going to coalesce around the liberals. Hi, Monk listeners. I want to tell you about our upcoming spring, 2025 month debate. On Thursday, May 29th, we will gather at Toronto's Roy Thompson Hall to debate the motion, be it resolved. This is America's golden age. Arguing in favor of the motion is the political consultant, pollster, and senior counselor to President Trump during his first term in office, Kelly Ann Conway. Her debate partner is the president of the prominent,

US think tank, the Heritage Foundation, who are the architects of Project 2025. That's Kevin Roberts. Arguing against the motion is the New York Times columnist, podcaster, bestselling author, one of America's most influential commentators on just about everything. That's Ezra Klein. He'll be joined on stage by senior advisor to former President Barack Obama and co-host of the international sensation Pod Save the World. If you're listening to Podcast, you listen to Pod Save the World. That's Ben Rhodes. The debate will be streamed online, so if you can't make it in person, you can watch it live from the comfort of your living room. Monk donors and members will have the opportunity to purchase tickets starting today, April 22nd, before they go on sale to the general public.

To become a monk donor or member, visit our website, triple-w monk debates.com. There you will find ticketing information and details on how to watch a live stream of the debate if you can't make it. out in person. Again, all that information on how to attend and watch the debate is on our website, www.w.w.munkdebates.com. Let's shift to the U.S. on our last conversation, our viewers, appreciated having your take on the fast developing situations with the Trump administration. There seems to be a new crisis or permutation every 72 hours. The latest is ruminations on the part of the president about firing Jay Powell. the chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Maybe you could begin by explaining to listeners why the independence of central banks has really been one of the kind of cornerstones of post-war economic development, of sound economic policy, and why this seeming new impulse, this latest impulse of the president, is just so typically off the scales

in terms of its potential risks and damage that it could cause for the U.S. economy. Well, central banking is sort of similar to some other areas of government where we separate the overall policymaking responsibility, which is properly with the democratically elected government, and responsibility for day-to-day implementation. So if you think about, for example, criminal justice, the government and the parliament passes the laws defining what are crimes, but the government has no business talking about who are we going to arrest.

That's another issue that comes up with Trump. But I think there would be broad agreement on that. We don't want elected politicians deciding who should be locked up in jail. That way lies tyranny. So we separate off it. Well, we've done the same thing in Canada and other countries. In Canada, the particular model is that the Bank of Canada governor and the finance minister agree on an inflation target every five years.

and then the government goes away, and the central bank has decisions making power over, do I raise interest rates or lower interest rates on any given occasion? Very similar in other countries. What you're trying to achieve is a sort of a similar thing to the separation of powers, would be the second analogy. You know, governments have a vested interest, you might say, particularly heavily indebted governments in inflationary monetary policy. Usually when governments need to finance their activities,

they go to parliament, they go to the Congress, and they ask them to raise taxes. This is the most ancient responsibility of parliaments of all. Every revolution began as a tax revolt. So this idea that you have to go and ask the people's permission before you take their money. Well, inflation is a form of taxation. It basically despoils people by, you basically cheat them by saying, I'm going to pay you back in the future. But, oh, by the way, those dollars aren't going to be worth as much as they were now.

So to prevent governments from having access to that kind of sneaky form of taxation, we separate that power off into an independent central central government. bank so that they won't be tempted to use the inflation dodge to get out of their debt difficulties. That's, I think, really at the core of it. So it's, you know, it's become absolutely gospel in most democracies now that the central bank should be an independent authority and should not have to answer on a day-to-day basis to the government of the day, even if the overall stance of policy might be set by the government. You have a little bit of biography, family biography, that interestingly allides with this very moment,

this very discussion of a central banker potentially being fired by the political leader of an advanced economy. Your father, James Coyne, John Diefenbaker, a former Canadian Prime Minister, attempted to fire him. Tell us a little bit about that history, because if history doesn't repeat itself, it kind of rhymes. So this is clearly a tension that exists between political leaders and central bankers. It erupted here in Canada with your father over half a century ago. He comported himself with dignity and respect to the institution. In some ways, I would flatter you a bit to say that your dad, asserted the independence of central banking in Canada in a way that reverberates to this very day,

maybe in a way that it's not reverberating, Andrew, in the United States. Yeah, I mean, it's a much misunderstood episode, and without getting into all the details, it's sometimes presented as being that there was some enormous policy clash between the government. Right. And sometimes people are sympathetic to the deep maker position, and they think coin was out of control, and sometimes they're sympathetic to my father's position, and he was, you know, standing up an independent course of policy. In fact, there was very little actual policy difference between the two. What happened was the government was looking for a scapegoat. So they actually had supported the

policies he was pursuing up until the very last minute. But at that time, the bank was still very new, and the question of how independent it was was uncertain. And so when it suited the government, they would say, oh, don't blame us for high interest rates. That's the independent central banks position. We have no responsible. Because explain, this is the 1950s. So the Canadian economy is roaring. There's trade deficits. There's all kinds of similar

potential problems. They're still working out the kinks from the post-war economy. The central bank, as I say, was started in 1935, so it was pretty new. So when it suited them, as I say, they would say, don't blame us. Then as an election approach, they said, oh my goodness, this is terrible. Central bankers

run amok. We've got to rein them in. So an important thing is the Prime Minister does not actually have the power to fire a central bank company, even then, certainly not now. So when Pierre-Polliare, the conservative leader here, talks sometimes about firing the central bank governor, he's talking through his hat. He doesn't have that power. What they can do is pass legislation declaring the office vacant. It was what they did and blew up into a huge fight. The important thing that was established, and out of that came much of the modern system of the central bank. bank governor is independent, but nevertheless the government has responsibility for the policy.

You can't play that game of having it both ways. But what was really established by that was, if you're going to take the extraordinary step of removing a central bank governor, you better be prepared to deal with the crisis that's going to fall. But what had to be established was this isn't just some job you hire and fire like your tax collector or something. This is, this is more akin to a Supreme Court judge. And so, yeah, ultimately, everybody is removable for cause, but you can't just hire and fire them like patronage appointments. You know, if you do try, you're going to have a huge crisis.

And to come back to your initial question about Trump and things, you know, it's been clear it's been building towards this for a long time. Trump has been grousing about central bankers, probably since he was back in business 40 years ago. Bankers generally, he doesn't like that. They tend to call his loans. That's right. And he's in favor of easy credit.

But it was clear that the knock-on effect from his crazy conduct to do with the tariffs, et cetera, and with the galloping debt in the United States, which the tax cuts that the Republicans are proposing is just going to make that much worse, that Trump will be looking for somebody to bail him out, somebody and somebody to blame. And so you could predict this like the tides that at some point he was going to turn his guns on the Fed governor. it's particularly odious that he would be doing so in this case for a couple of reasons. One is he appointed him. Secondly, Powell carried off one of the great soft landings in history coming out of the inflation spike after the COVID, which he had no part of really of being blamed for, but certainly carried off the soft landing after it. That to me, you know, in most cases you would say that earns you being rehired.

So to turn on them in these situations is odious in a number of respects, but it's clearly going to do the exact opposite of calming the markets who've been absolutely scarred by this tariff experience by the clear sense that I was going to say nobody's in charge, but actually that a madman is in charge. And this is just going to confirm that. If he goes anywhere further down this road, again, I don't exactly know the methods by which you would remove a Fed governor, but I'm pretty clear it's something very similar. re-removed for cause, like he has to have been drunk on the job or, you know, assaulted somebody. You can't just do it because I'm low in the polls and I need to blame somebody. So there's some parallels with the coin situation is there's no actual serious policy dispute here. It's not like Trump has some alternative serious monetary policy he'd like to pursue. It's just I need somebody to whack.

And he's the latest guy I need to whack. So just to engage in a bit of Trumpology, How do you understand this, though, happening, and are so fast on his kind of tariff debacle that I get a feeling, a sense somehow that there is a desire on the part of this president, either inculcate or not, to accelerate a crisis. It seems, again, just completely outside of his own just naked, raw political interests, to take a tariff debacle, a constitutional crisis that has grown. and now add on to this, a trifecta, an attack on the one institution that arguably is more responsible than any other, in economic terms, to American exceptionalism over the last 50 years and put that in his crosshairs. Why? Along with every other institution, you know, along with the courts, along with the Congress,

along with democratic elections. He's a chaos agent, and there's obviously differing theories about that. One is that he's actively in the pay of Vladimir Putin is just bringing America down. That's probably far-fetched, although certainly he is sympathetic to Putin in every other way. We've talked about this a little bit before. To me, the most persuasive explanation is, and as far-fetched as this will sound, but nothing's far-fetched with Trump is, his psychology, his psyche needs this. He needs to transgress at ever and ever-higher doses against what is wisdom, against what is considered. right. So on any given policy, he will try to do the worst possible policy. He will try to do the

policy that every expert recommends against. So what would be the stupidest possible trade policy? Let's bring in massive tariffs. Oh, and let's change our mind every six hours about what level the tariff will be. Let's bring it in, you know, like there's a theoretical tariff case that I might disagree with, but I would at least say was being handled by people who are on planet Earth. And And then there's the policy he's been pursuing. And then, you know, coming out of the ruckus of that, what would be the stupidest possible policy for a government with massive amounts of debt that it's adding to by the trillions of dollars every year, what does debt imply it means you need to persuade people to lend you

money? Yeah. And if you're going to persuade them to lend you money, they've got to believe that you are halfway truthful when you say you're going to pay back the debt and that you're halfway competent to manage an economy in such a way as you'll be able to pay back the debt. So the worst thing you could possibly do to them is to announce, I don't find the central bank inflationary enough. He's not obeying my commands to lower interest rates by dictate at the worst possible moment. So therefore, I'm going to fire him to the extent he has that power.

It just sends all the wrong signals, but I would only say to you there'll be something worse next. And I mean that sincerely. There'll be something even crazier next because he has to increase the dose to get the outrage and the chaos that makes him feel like he is the master of all he surveys and is the agent of all agents and gets his followers to say, ah, he's making all of the media upset by this and all of the experts and the fancy pants people who think they know better than us. He's making them upset. Therefore, he's doing what we send him there to do. Two final questions.

Any sense, Andrew, that this, and again, this may seem out there, and it's definitely very sinister. But this constant, as you say, upping of the stakes, it's to reach an authoritarian moment, to create a crisis that requires a response. And in that response to that crisis, which is manufactured, is the moment where the veil drops. And there is something that we finally know was there. We haven't seen. and it is revealed, and there is a takeover of institutions. In a, I mean, it's a kind of, historically, you go back and you look at these movements, Crystal Knock, they happen at a moment of inflection, of kind of acute, self-conscious power grab.

Is that where we're going to? You would certainly say that we're halfway there, if not closer. When you're talking about, as he, certainly, they're still trying to, to dance around saying that they haven't really defied the Supreme Court, but he's got more and more people in his orbit openly advocating to defy the Supreme Court, to dissolve the Supreme Court, we're talking of things that are impossible. Impeach judges. Impeach judges.

So that is certainly one of those Rubicon moments. A lot of people have been saying, oh, I'm worried about all these other things he's doing, but ultimately it's illegal, and the fact that he's breaking the law, that will hold him in. and I've always been listening to these people going, I don't think you're really paying attention, that the rule of law as that is absolutely is that bulwark. But as we discussed last time, you know, Richard Nixon handed it over the tapes

Donald Trump would not and will not. And so that is certainly an indicator that we're reaching some sort of crisis. It's aligned with or aligned with some of these other indications to do with the deportations where they're talking about or have invoked, you know, emergency powers, wartime powers,

because this is supposedly an invasion. I don't think it's at all alarmist or hyperbolic to say we're very close to the point where he attempts to use military force or some kind of armed force to enforce his doctrine, his rule in the face of what he will claim is an apprehended insurrection or whatever. I mean, there's going to be, and there is building street-level protests about this, I think the further they go down the route of trying to deport 12 million people, in particular when they're deporting them without due process, et cetera, then that's going to build more and more street resistance.

I'm very worried. At some point, somebody does something violent on whatever side, and then somebody responds to that, and you get in a situation where Trump can claim, and some of his followers will take this at base value, that I'm forced to do this because of the situation, because we're in such a crisis or an emergency. So that would be another theory about why he seems to be engendering chaos wherever he goes

is to get to a point where his self-created chaos becomes the self-fulfilling prophecy or self-fulfilling argument that I need to impose emergency rule and emergency powers to deal with this. Yeah. Andrew, I so enjoy these conversations with you. We did exactly what I wanted, a little Canadian politics in a consequential week and then trying to unpack the kind of the mysteries of a demented Oracle of Delphi that's kind of lurching around the White House and confusing us each and every week. So thank you so much for coming on the Monk Debates and sharing your insights with our community. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in.

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