Juno News - March 06, 2026


Carney ADMITS he was WRONG on Iran


Episode Stats

Length

21 minutes

Words per Minute

172.90916

Word Count

3,667

Sentence Count

221

Hate Speech Sentences

20


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Well, Prime Minister Carney admits he was wrong to call on the United States and Israel
00:00:09.440 to de-escalate their attacks on Iran.
00:00:12.400 Yesterday, he issued this statement from Australia.
00:00:15.840 Canada calls for a rapid de-escalation of hostilities and is prepared to assist in achieving this goal.
00:00:21.740 When a reporter asked them about it later, Carney admitted it was the wrong thing to do.
00:00:26.940 But Prime Minister, how can you have it both ways?
00:00:28.820 how can you say you initially I understand your first statement you said was made in hours but
00:00:34.900 you also said there was some predictability you knew this was going to widen so how can you have
00:00:38.460 it both ways and in hindsight should you have called for de-escalation in that first statement
00:00:42.420 no in hindsight to your to that point uh in my judgment uh secondly in terms of uh in terms of
00:00:53.060 war. There are likelihoods, there are possibilities. You have to plan for the worst, but there
00:01:01.780 are no certainties.
00:01:02.780 Well, not only did Carney backpedal on calls for de-escalation, he says Canada could play
00:01:07.920 an active military role in the conflict.
00:01:11.260 One can never categorically rule out participation. We will stand by our allies, but it makes
00:01:17.460 sense. There's a distinction between the offensive actions that were taken and are being taken
00:01:25.560 by the United States and Israel, that were taken by them without consultation with Canada,
00:01:30.620 with other allies, and we're not party to those actions. But we will always defend Canadians.
00:01:38.680 We will always stand by and defend our allies when called upon.
00:01:42.640 Well, since it began, Canada's position on the conflict has been a moving target.
00:01:48.440 Ernie first endorsed the attack on Iran, then called for a diplomatic solution, condemned
00:01:54.580 the attack as a violation of international law, and now it's floating the idea of active
00:01:59.480 involvement in it.
00:02:01.040 Meantime, there are Canadians stranded in Iran.
00:02:04.980 The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Lebanon, and Israel.
00:02:09.000 Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Nand says Canada is helping citizens leave any way they can.
00:02:15.500 This morning, for example, we ensured that 75 people departed from Beirut on a commercial
00:02:23.460 flight with seats that we reserved.
00:02:27.960 Another 200 seats have been reserved over the next three days for people who wish to
00:02:34.780 leave Beirut.
00:02:36.780 As you can see behind me, more than 100,000 people across 15 affected countries have registered
00:02:45.040 with Global Affairs in order to receive the most up-to-date information pertaining to
00:02:51.340 the country they are in.
00:02:55.000 Our guest today is George Ann Burke, political strategist and communications expert.
00:02:59.100 Welcome, George Ann.
00:03:00.460 Thank you, Mark.
00:03:01.460 Well, I mean, from a communications standpoint, well, we've been hearing from the Prime Minister,
00:03:06.100 must be a nightmare. You, as an expert in communications and strategy, must pull your
00:03:11.320 hair out when you see politicians take multiple positions over the course of four or five days.
00:03:17.920 Actually, I'm kind of thinking that maybe his staff feels kind of like these people that keep
00:03:22.440 getting put up to be the next Ayatollah. Although Israel is killing them off, they probably want to
00:03:28.100 kill themselves off because they never know what this guy is going to say. He's actually held four
00:03:32.440 positions in six days. And I don't know how that's even possible for anybody who really
00:03:38.520 understands what's going on there. He could not possibly understand what's happening there. If he
00:03:43.200 said, we think it's good, then we think it's bad. They're breaking international law. Then he says,
00:03:49.220 oh no, I shouldn't have said that. Maybe I spoke out of turn. And then he's offering up Canadian
00:03:54.380 soldiers. I'm like, what? What's next? Really? I mean, you know, you kind of mentioned earlier
00:04:00.260 to me, maybe they're going to say they're fighting for Iran. Who knows? Anything is possible.
00:04:05.600 So, yeah, the thing that scares me even more than his obvious lack of financial expertise,
00:04:13.520 considering the condition the country's in, is he has even less understanding of the international
00:04:18.760 order of things for foreign affairs and fighting wars and military. He has zero understanding of
00:04:25.780 that. And unfortunately, he's with the Liberal Party, which has a long history of zero understanding
00:04:30.560 of that. So he doesn't even have anybody to fall back on. So if I were a person, I'm a Canadian
00:04:39.180 citizen, but if I was living up there now, I'd be super nervous about having that guy in charge of
00:04:44.600 the economy, in charge of our foreign policy, in charge of anything, to be very honest with you.
00:04:49.440 Yeah, I mean, he may have run into opposition from within his own caucus.
00:04:54.140 Oh, yeah, I think it's possible.
00:04:56.320 Putting out a video saying, this is wrong, we can't trust the Americans.
00:05:00.880 And then you had different positions from his cabinet ministers as well, with one saying, yeah, we support it, but we also support de-escalation.
00:05:10.660 We want a peaceful solution.
00:05:12.260 We want a diplomatic solution.
00:05:14.040 And then you had the calls for a ceasefire.
00:05:16.820 And so you've had a complete mess in terms of the messaging around this key issue.
00:05:23.180 And I know you have to wait for tomorrow to see what he's got, you know, on his plate tomorrow.
00:05:29.260 You just don't know from one day to the next where this guy stands.
00:05:32.220 It just looks bad for the country on the world stage, doesn't it?
00:05:35.240 I agree.
00:05:35.660 It makes Canada look, at best, weak and, at worst, completely clueless.
00:05:42.720 Now, I will tell you this, and I've said it before, and I know that you're very aware of this.
00:05:46.900 The United States government does not think much of him.
00:05:48.900 okay the israeli government i will tell you this i know not just the israeli government but the
00:05:54.100 israeli people who and they keep up on everything they know who their friends are and who they aren't
00:05:58.500 they despise him so every time he opens his mouth and says something stupid like they're
00:06:04.380 violating international law um naftali bennett who was a former prime minister of israel and he's a
00:06:10.640 very well-known um conservative i would say more conservative leaning and religious politician
00:06:17.000 in Israel, but he's like a moderate religious person and a conservative. He heard it and he
00:06:22.540 went, that is just stupid. That's what he said. He said, does he not understand that for 47 years
00:06:29.240 they've been threatening not only Israel, but they've been killing Americans. They've been
00:06:34.060 threatening everyone in the region. They have these proxy groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah
00:06:39.340 and Hamas that they've funded to create havoc, not only in the Middle East, but all over the world.
00:06:45.360 these are people that need to be taken down like rabid dogs. Really, that's what we're looking at
00:06:51.180 here. I mean, that's the Israelis feel that way. And when someone like Mark Carney gets up and
00:06:56.380 says, with some authority, as if he knows, they've broken international law, you don't know what
00:07:01.680 you're talking about, and you shouldn't talk about things you don't know. You want to talk about
00:07:05.540 that, you better get yourself a really good legal opinion before you open your trap.
00:07:09.240 Yeah, we played that clip yesterday, and he was not, the former prime minister of Israel was not holding back.
00:07:18.320 He just described the Cardi position as stupid, just flat out.
00:07:22.280 Now, one thing that we have heard from the prime minister is that Canada was not consulted.
00:07:27.360 And I guess the implication there is, you know, it would have been nice if they had let us know.
00:07:31.240 But unfortunately, I think the United States doesn't trust Canada very much anymore.
00:07:35.740 I mean, we're a hot shot of Chinese spying, so why would they trust us with something
00:07:42.500 like that, you know, sensitive information, like when they're going to attack and that
00:07:47.700 sort of thing?
00:07:48.580 So, and what's interesting about what you're actually saying is gets to the real reason
00:07:54.640 behind all of this.
00:07:56.180 Trump understands that Iran is really a proxy of communist China, okay?
00:08:03.500 He understands that they're, they're like joined at the hip and we have, in order to
00:08:09.120 get control over China, over that relationship, over that power that they're wielding all
00:08:14.240 over the world.
00:08:15.260 And, and I will tell you, I know factually in Africa, the Somaliland thing that's going
00:08:21.020 on over there, you know, Israel recognized Somaliland and Trump was very quiet when he
00:08:26.060 said it, he was standing right next to him, which means that he actually agrees with him.
00:08:29.020 Otherwise he would have not let him say it in the white house.
00:08:31.720 right um and and there's a lot of move between israel and somaliland they see this as a new
00:08:37.720 frontier against the chinese in in africa so this whole effort is to stop the chinese and
00:08:45.320 you have to just like we had to knock off the the um the houthis and hezbollah and hamas
00:08:52.680 who are the proxies for iran you have to knock off the proxies for china iran being a key one
00:08:58.440 So this is really more about China than anything else.
00:09:01.560 They haven't said it as much out loud, although it has been said.
00:09:04.760 There are people who are actually talking about it in the government.
00:09:06.880 They're saying it.
00:09:08.640 And we should not be deceived by the anti-war, either members of Congress, a few of them,
00:09:18.360 or even Republicans that are talking against this, a couple of them.
00:09:23.100 We shouldn't be deceived by the media that doesn't understand this anyway.
00:09:26.360 They need to listen to the people that are actually that understand what's going on.
00:09:29.900 People like Tom Cotton, people like the president himself, Marco Rubio, you know, P.
00:09:37.220 Hegseth, they are explaining what they're doing.
00:09:40.040 What they did was they destroyed the Iranian Navy.
00:09:42.640 They destroyed the Iranian Air Force.
00:09:44.860 They have taken out a ton of their missile sites.
00:09:48.100 And now what they're doing is they've been watching where they've been shooting missiles
00:09:51.360 from underground and they're dropping 2000 pound bombs on those spots.
00:09:55.960 they're knocking out the underground missile silos so this is a very carefully thought out
00:10:03.160 uh plan the other thing that i found very amusing so of course you know that last year
00:10:09.560 um there was a they got there was a meeting of iranian bigwigs who all got blown up at the same
00:10:15.560 time because mosad knew where they were so now they're going to get a committee together they're
00:10:22.840 they're going to put a team together, which is going to be an anti-Mossad team. They're going
00:10:26.700 to figure out who it is that's telling their secrets. What did they do? The whole team was
00:10:31.540 Mossad. They didn't even know that they were hiring Mossad operatives. And that's because
00:10:37.700 they think the Mossad operatives are coming from Israel. They're not. They're Iranians who are
00:10:43.400 working with Mossad to overthrow this government because they understand they've got to get rid
00:10:47.100 of them or their country will never be free. It cannot be free. So I was very amused when I heard
00:10:52.620 that, I said, oh, that's just the best story ever. I just love it. It's wonderful. I mean,
00:10:58.460 you speak about China. They have done nothing. They've looked very weak here.
00:11:02.460 Oh, yeah. People think of Iran and China, to your point earlier, as best friends and allies.
00:11:12.020 But while Iran has had the stuffings knocked out of it by Israel and the United States,
00:11:19.200 China has stepped back and said,
00:11:21.380 we want nothing to do with that.
00:11:23.660 Yeah, I'm actually shocked that they've been completely silent.
00:11:26.980 Like, not a word.
00:11:29.000 You know, certainly haven't sent any arms or any planes or any soldiers.
00:11:34.840 Nothing.
00:11:35.080 And as a matter of fact, the other, even Russia, buy it.
00:11:40.080 Nothing.
00:11:41.220 And today, they bombed something in Turkey, the Iranians.
00:11:46.980 Well, OK, maybe the Turks might have been a little bit more sympathetic to them than most members of NATO because it's a weird situation there with Turkey.
00:11:56.180 Today, I don't think they're so happy with them, just like Bahrain is not happy, just like Abu Dhabi is not happy, just like the UAE is not happy.
00:12:02.360 Jordan and all these other countries, they're picking and shooting bombs into these countries, claiming they're aiming for non-civilian targets and aiming for the Americans.
00:12:12.240 But they're blowing up civilians there.
00:12:14.880 Yeah, hotels and things like that.
00:12:16.660 Hotels and the girls' school story, of course, was completely made up, as usual.
00:12:21.520 They bombed, I guess there was a misdirected missile that hit the school and killed those girls, which is horrible.
00:12:30.160 But, of course, they said, oh, no, Israel did.
00:12:32.260 Yeah, okay.
00:12:33.200 We don't kill children.
00:12:34.640 We try not to.
00:12:35.920 I guess the question remains, like, what next for Iran?
00:12:40.180 Yeah, I mean, the war is still going on.
00:12:41.980 It appears that America now and Israel have total air supremacy over the skies.
00:12:48.320 The Navy's gone, to your point earlier.
00:12:51.100 And what I understand is Iran won't have any missiles to shoot within a few days.
00:12:58.840 So they're almost out of ammo.
00:13:01.440 And so what next, I guess, in terms of the leadership?
00:13:05.200 Some of the people that the United States would have preferred to have seen taken over that country
00:13:11.200 are dead as well. They were killed during the raids, initial raid, and then the raid that
00:13:17.800 followed it. And so there's a lot of questions around what next. I mean, it's one thing for
00:13:24.180 Trump to call for the Iranian people to take over their government. I think we'd all love to see
00:13:29.040 that and institute a government that is accountable and responsible to the people. But it's hard to
00:13:35.860 actually do that thing. And in the fog of war and all this confusion, I mean, there are questions
00:13:40.500 around who's going to take over that country.
00:13:43.180 What do you think about?
00:13:44.220 Yeah, I think it's very interesting because I've been paying very close attention to people
00:13:48.540 that I know from the Iranian community that are kind of very knowledgeable people who
00:13:52.720 came from Iran or whose families, immediate parents, maybe they were born in Canada, but
00:13:57.580 their immediate parents came from Iran and they've lived with this all their lives, this
00:14:01.920 horrible period of 47 years when their country was lost to them.
00:14:07.600 What's interesting is a couple of things.
00:14:09.200 One, they're trying to create some kind of a division between the Kurds and the Persians and the Iranians.
00:14:18.640 And the Kurds do want independence, but this is not the time to be talking about that.
00:14:23.180 And I think that reasonable people understand that.
00:14:26.120 But there are people that are trying to stir that up because they want to create havoc after this is over.
00:14:31.360 Also, there are political parties there that are completely unacceptable.
00:14:34.960 If you hear that the MEK is getting any kind of traction, you should get scared.
00:14:40.280 These are Islamo-fascist commies.
00:14:43.800 OK, and I'm putting that is like being kind to them.
00:14:46.660 They are not good.
00:14:47.640 I've known about the MEK for over 20 years and not just, by the way, in Iran.
00:14:52.900 They're also in Pakistan.
00:14:55.080 So they are a very dangerous group of people.
00:14:57.620 But they're out there talking like they're moderates.
00:15:00.920 That stupid Matt Gaetz.
00:15:02.540 and I mean, I'm really disgusted with him, interviewed the head of MEK and treated him
00:15:08.460 as if he's like an important piece to the future of Iran. In fact, most Iranians don't want MEK
00:15:14.420 in charge. The question will be this. The military may pick a side. And, you know, these are,
00:15:21.720 they did have a very good military in terms of trained people. They're not all dead. They're
00:15:25.360 there. They may have arms. So the question is going to be, where are they going to be? Are
00:15:29.300 Are they going to be with a secular, multicultural Iran, which is what it used to be?
00:15:34.740 And that's really what most Iranians want.
00:15:36.680 They want it to be non-religious, no religion, just secular, but allowing all people to practice
00:15:42.940 their religions, allowing all their different cultures to flourish, but in a non-confrontational
00:15:49.020 way.
00:15:49.820 OK, that's what they really want.
00:15:51.020 So the question is, are they going to get the kind of support they need to be able to
00:15:53.760 do that within their own country?
00:15:55.640 From outside, you can't do that.
00:15:57.740 That's got to be done from inside.
00:15:58.720 I mean, the outside could be Iranians who've been living out of the country coming back and supporting change in their country.
00:16:07.440 That I do think is going to happen.
00:16:09.420 I'm feeling pretty sure that they're going to go back to Iran.
00:16:15.360 That's what I've heard from people.
00:16:16.440 They very much want to do that.
00:16:17.680 Actually, one of my friends is very distraught.
00:16:20.320 Her father passed away four weeks ago.
00:16:22.740 They escaped from Iran.
00:16:23.980 She was put as a teenager, 16, in Evin Prison for several years.
00:16:31.120 She got out, and the family escaped and came to Canada.
00:16:34.960 Her father was praying for the day that he would go back to Iran,
00:16:38.160 and he unfortunately passed away four or five weeks, I think five weeks ago.
00:16:43.060 And she's just so distraught, and her family's distraught,
00:16:46.420 and she knows that his greatest wish was to be able to go back.
00:16:49.720 But their family would go.
00:16:51.480 I don't know that they'd completely relocate there, but they would go back to try to help the country, you know, get back on its feet.
00:16:59.860 So it is, that is the big danger.
00:17:03.000 That is, you know, the big concern.
00:17:05.960 Trump is right to say, we don't want to do nation building.
00:17:10.980 I think it would be a mistake.
00:17:13.040 It's been a mistake every time we've tried it.
00:17:14.740 It has never worked.
00:17:15.880 They have to build their own nation.
00:17:17.260 So the question is, are there ways we can support that, be helpful, without interfering?
00:17:24.420 Regarding Canada's, just getting back to that one about not being consulted,
00:17:31.240 because I think that's probably a bit of a sore point.
00:17:34.720 I'm wondering if Canada's, specifically Mark Carney's cozy relationship with the Chinese,
00:17:40.880 and you mentioned that a lot of what's going on in Iran is really about China.
00:17:44.100 And now, of course, here we are about to receive, you know, Chinese made EVs, which represents a security risk.
00:17:53.280 I'm wondering if I wouldn't buy one undermine our relationship with the Trump administration going into our negotiations, our CUSMA negotiations in a few months time.
00:18:04.880 Yeah, I agree with you. I think this is. So first of all, he's not so crazy about Carney anyway.
00:18:10.400 as you know there have been um some issues but this goes back before carney it goes back to the
00:18:16.640 time when trudeau was in charge the five eyes stopped being the five eyes it kind of became
00:18:21.200 the four eyes because they don't really trust canada and you think they're going to tell them
00:18:25.840 any you're going to consult them or give them any advance notice of anything they don't trust them
00:18:29.440 to keep their mouth shut they don't trust them because they are they're like sucking up to china
00:18:35.040 you think that somebody wouldn't run to china and say oh i got some inside info for you
00:18:39.680 huh no they're not going to do it uh that's like the same thing as the reaction to congress saying
00:18:44.720 they didn't consult us well if we could trust you maybe we would consult you we told the gang of eight
00:18:49.840 which is what they were obligated to do and the gang of eight is under such strict things if
00:18:54.000 anything came out they would know where it came from right but that's all that's the only people
00:18:59.040 they told and it was actually after the fact okay so they're being very careful and i do not blame
00:19:05.040 them, and Canada can blame itself for the lack of trust, which goes back, as I said
00:19:10.460 before, Kearney, and Kearney has done nothing to fix that.
00:19:14.140 Yeah, I mean, you'd think that the Democrats were cheering for more casualties just so
00:19:19.980 that Trump doesn't get a boost out of all this, a political boost heading into the midterms.
00:19:25.040 There's that whole thing around the political impact.
00:19:28.660 Now, of course, you've got the Democrats arguing against Trump's right even to launch this
00:19:35.040 uh action against iran it's just such a confusing confusing thing for americans and the world but i
00:19:42.000 i think trump is going to move forward continue moving forward on this yeah and so far it's but
00:19:47.600 it's been a success last word to you yeah so the democrats and the you know couple of crazy
00:19:55.280 republicans lost the vote in the senate i think they'll lose the vote in the house too um god
00:20:00.000 God bless John Fetterman. He replaced crazy Rand Paul, and that's why they were able to do it.
00:20:06.660 I think there will be Democrats that will support the war on the House side.
00:20:11.940 There are a few that understand why this is being done, and they're not opposed to it.
00:20:18.260 It doesn't mean that they love Donald Trump. They don't have to pledge their love and support for him.
00:20:23.060 But they do have to say, we understand this is good for America. This is good for the world.
00:20:26.620 This will remove a source of pain, suffering, and hatred from the world if we get rid of this horrible regime.
00:20:36.620 And then the Iranian people will be free to hopefully create a new and better life for themselves, which they richly deserve.
00:20:45.180 They really do deserve that.
00:20:47.140 Georgianne, thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.
00:20:49.780 My pleasure. Great to see you, Merck.
00:20:51.480 Georgianne, Merck.
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