Western Standard - HANNAFORD： Obama's fourth term

00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show

00:00:21.140 of the Western Standard. In just 15 days, the U.S. makes its choice between Trump Vance and

00:00:27.460 Harris Walsh to lead the republic for the next four years. With me today to talk about how

00:00:33.000 Canadians should think about who they prefer as president is author and political economist Brian

00:00:40.020 Lee Crowley. Brian is founder of Ottawa's leading think tank the McDonnell Laurier Institute and

00:00:45.800 also of the Washington-based Center for North American Prosperity and Security. Good to have

00:00:52.520 you back Brian. Nigel it's always great to be with you thank you. Thank you for coming.

00:00:56.980 So, Brian, two presidential candidates with very different ideas, two vice presidential candidates with very different skills and I think characters.

00:01:07.220 The outcome is hugely important to us, but we have no say in it.

00:01:11.540 How do you think Canadians should think about who they prefer as president of the United States?

00:01:18.820 Well, I think this is a very important question, Nigel.

00:01:21.840 And I have noticed over the years that Canadians have strong preferences often about who they want to see win American elections.

00:01:30.520 And yet I don't think the Canadians think very carefully about how they make their choices in the sense that my reading of Canadians is they like to, 0.89

00:01:42.480 if they had a vote, they think they would like to vote for people who would bring in policies that kind of look like Canada in the United States.

00:01:50.580 But, you know, these domestic policy choices are not what is going to affect Canada.

00:01:57.380 I always think that the most important thing is to think about how an American administration will affect the relationship with Canada.

00:02:05.220 Because we are, you know, our two societies are so deeply intertwined, especially from an economic point of view.

00:02:11.160 And so, you know, whether or not Americans have, you know, a health care system like Canada's or a welfare system like Canada's is kind of really irrelevant to Canada.

00:02:21.400 And I think Canadians would benefit from thinking, you know, more analytically about how an American president would behave towards Canada rather than how, you know, the administration would affect domestic American politics.

00:02:41.660 Well, Brian, given that we can't actually vote, I suppose some people might say, well, what does it matter what we think?

00:02:48.480 The Americans will do what the Americans are going to do. 0.97

00:02:50.800 Yeah. Which leads me to think, well, all right, we're talking about it. So it does matter what can Canadians and obviously we're talking about the government of Canada. How can the government of Canada proceed in a way to that does matter and that will advance Canada's interests in the United States?

00:03:13.720 Well, I've been thinking about this quite a lot, Nigel, because as you mentioned, my institute has opened a Washington office, the Center for North American Prosperity and Security.

00:03:24.000 And we did so because we think that the Canada-U.S. relationship is far and away the most important relationship Canada has.

00:03:34.280 And I did this, I opened this office in part because I think Canada is terribly, badly represented in Washington.

00:03:43.040 And I think this because, I think the whole philosophy on which our representation is based,

00:03:48.820 and I'm not just talking about the embassy, although the embassy is obviously, you know,

00:03:53.460 right at the forefront of representing Canada in Washington.

00:03:57.020 I'm thinking about, you know, the business sector and provincial governments.

00:04:02.840 Many, many people are represented in Washington.

00:04:06.120 But, you know, I think the whole philosophy behind it, in my experience, has been, you know,

00:04:13.040 So don't say anything that will upset the Americans. If there are unpleasant truths about our relationship, and I'll get to what some of those are in a minute, if there are unpleasant truths about the relationship, whatever you do, don't talk to the Americans about them.

00:04:27.140 Try and pretend they don't exist and always lead with we're your best friends approach, you know, and say somehow because of our historic relationship, you owe us something.

00:04:41.360 You, the Americans, owe us Canadians something.

00:04:44.040 You know, you should treat us nicely.

00:04:47.520 And I'm here to tell you, this is a completely mistaken way to relate with the Americans.

00:04:54.840 The Americans don't respect it.

00:04:56.340 they don't like it. It doesn't give us good results. You know, Washington is a very

00:05:03.360 transactional town. And what I mean by that is when you go in for a meeting, whatever's happened

00:05:08.760 in the past is kind of irrelevant. The person on the other side of the desk is sitting there

00:05:13.500 thinking, what is this person going to be able to do for me today? And if they do something for me,

00:05:20.580 I will do something for them. That's how the relationship works in Washington. Across every

00:05:25.920 desk you can think of well let's talk about the people on the other side of the desk actually this

00:05:31.880 of all the elections that we've had in the last 20 years this one's extremely interesting because

00:05:37.380 of the characters of the people that are involved obviously we've seen four years of donald trump

00:05:43.700 already we've uh we've seen uh on the campaign trail and in the and i say on the campaign trail

00:05:50.540 because we didn't see much of Kamala Harris when she was vice president. 1.00

00:05:55.480 She's almost an unknown quantity. 0.97

00:05:57.940 But then you have Mr. Walsh, who is a totally unknown quantity north of the border,

00:06:05.380 and J.D. Vance, who I think came to our notice as an author

00:06:09.540 before he came to our notice as a senator.

00:06:12.320 I'm speaking, of course, of the Hillbilly Elegy,

00:06:14.600 which was tremendously successful as a book and as a film.

00:06:17.820 Now, you know, let's say that Trump wins

00:06:23.600 and he says, gives us Canada to Vance.

00:06:27.400 Look after the Canadians.

00:06:28.940 You know, we've got other jobs for you,

00:06:30.320 but Canada matters.

00:06:32.120 How do you think we would do with Mr. Vance?

00:06:34.840 He's obviously intelligent.

00:06:36.320 He's obviously very sophisticated.

00:06:39.080 He's also all-American.

00:06:40.520 Is he going to be a sympathetic voice

00:06:43.380 in the administration for Canada?

00:06:44.980 him? Well, I mean, the first thing to remember is that no matter what job the president gives the

00:06:52.200 vice president, the president is the boss and nothing will be done that doesn't get the approval

00:06:59.400 of the president. So while the vice president, if given certain kinds of jobs, can obviously

00:07:07.240 put their stamp on it, they can only do so within the constraints of what they think is acceptable

00:07:12.180 to the president uh we know for example that uh kamala harris was you know the so-called border 0.99

00:07:19.060 czar she certainly never rejected that title while she was vice president uh under joe biden uh even 0.89

00:07:26.180 though she wants to distance herself from it now uh uh and i i think one of the reasons she was

00:07:32.740 completely ineffective in that role is because joe biden didn't want her to be effective he wanted 0.81

00:07:38.180 to distance himself from you know a sort of militant stance on the border which people

00:07:44.020 associated with with donald trump so all of that said you know jd vance he knows something about

00:07:51.940 canada you probably know that his roommate at yale is now a conservative member of parliament

00:07:57.620 here in ottawa same names brian jamil giovanni okay and they know each other very well they're

00:08:07.460 good friends um uh so uh you know jd vance has a a pipeline uh into canada uh he i i think he's a

00:08:18.820 very smart guy uh i think he would uh uh you know be a lot more thoughtful in terms of uh how he

00:08:28.180 would perhaps manage the relationship than trump was uh you know i don't think trump is a is a

00:08:34.580 terribly thoughtful guy but he is a national conservative which means that JD Vance is

00:08:48.020 skeptical about free trade and I think he's also pretty strong on national security issues

00:08:57.140 and Canada presents a very weak front to the Americans these days on national security files

00:09:04.580 J.D. Vance would be very much on board with Trump's view that, you know, there are free riders in NATO, which Canada is probably the worst example.

00:09:19.780 And since NATO involves a commitment by America to defend its allies in NATO, they want those allies to meet the promises that NATO members are supposed to meet.

00:09:35.980 And Canada has signally failed in this regard.

00:09:38.900 These are all reasons why Canada's stock is extremely low in Washington and why it's going to be terribly important.

00:09:49.120 And whoever is in charge of the Canada file in Washington, that we'd be able to show up and say, assuming that there's a Trump administration, that we'd be able to show up and say, look, for the for the past couple of decades under both conservative and liberal governments in Ottawa, we have we have fumbled the ball.

00:10:09.700 And we're here to tell you how we're going to fix that.

00:10:13.280 And once we've done that, and once we put proof on the table,

00:10:15.900 it's not, you know, pretty words aren't going to do it anymore, Nigel.

00:10:19.900 Once we've done that, then we can have conversations with Americans

00:10:24.200 about things that we might need, like, say, renewal of CUSMA,

00:10:28.820 the trade agreement between Canada and the United States and Mexico.

00:10:31.420 All right, now let's talk about putative President Harris.

00:10:37.020 she has obviously had very little to say about her record as vice president for rather obvious

00:10:44.220 reasons um so do we really know anything about her other than that she was born in middle

00:10:53.540 into the middle class well we know very little about her and uh i think the campaign has

00:11:03.540 struggled very hard to keep us from knowing much about her and for you know all the democrats

00:11:12.500 scorn heaped on trump over his alleged anti-democratic tendencies i i think that's a bit

00:11:20.740 rich coming from a party that has uh through internal party machinations made kamala harris 1.00

00:11:28.660 the party's nominee uh when she has not uh in either uh the previous election or this election

00:11:36.820 even won a single delegate in a primary vote in any state uh so she i mean part of the the strength

00:11:45.460 of the american system i think is their primary system which is uh is designed to force candidates

00:11:52.820 to reveal themselves as much as possible to voters because there are so many contests that

00:11:58.260 they have to participate in so many occasions in which they have to make themselves available to

00:12:02.900 the public uh so many occasions in which they have to be uh you know subjected to grilling

00:12:08.260 by the media and so on uh and she has um in this election of course avoided that as much as she 1.00

00:12:17.460 could and in the previous election when she ran uh uh in some of the primaries before dropping out

00:12:23.780 um uh her performance was dismal and attracted no support so uh i i i think that this is

00:12:34.100 that this has been a bit of a coup and i don't mean that in a positive sense a a bit of a coup

00:12:39.620 by the leadership of the uh of the democrats who saw the the democratic campaign failing because

00:12:46.100 joe biden's uh capacities were so obviously diminished uh and they just simply slipped

00:12:54.100 kamala harris in to represent the democrats in the election without any of the scrutiny that

00:13:02.260 major party candidates would normally have to undergo in in the united states and i i think that

00:13:08.580 there's a bit of buyer's remorse right now in the in the democratic party because what is being

00:13:13.940 revealed about her character and her abilities is not looking too good which of the debates or

00:13:23.700 interviews featuring kamala harris have you have have you seen brian there was one with

00:13:31.380 brit bear on fox recently there was another one with colbert and you know and one with

00:13:37.860 oprah winfrey that obviously these are very lightweight interviews not the not the fox news

00:13:42.660 one but uh well i i i have to admit uh nigel that i i actually find most of these political debates

00:13:50.740 to be extremely painful i tend to watch extracts uh uh which uh people who i trust post because

00:14:00.180 they feel they're uh illustrative of the nature of the debate uh and so i feel i've i've seen quite

00:14:07.220 a lot of the um of the debates but not uh i haven't sat through you know uh the the full

00:14:14.900 debate in any case because so is there any one of those clips that you would say when i saw that

00:14:22.260 that's when i knew well you know i thought i thought uh in the fox news interview when

00:14:30.900 kamala harris was talking about you know donald trump's fitness to be president

00:14:37.220 And, you know, she made some, I think, some fair points about his mental acuity and so on.

00:14:47.360 And then the interviewer said, well, he basically said, since you've raised this,

00:14:53.400 when did you first realize that Joe Biden's faculties were diminished?

00:15:01.700 And she was clearly stumped by this question.

00:15:06.100 Yes.

00:15:06.400 She was like a deer in the headlights.

00:15:08.700 And yet, you know, she was there as the vice president for Joe Biden during the four years he was supposed to be governing the United States.

00:15:20.040 And she clearly knew, as so many Democrats knew, and eventually the public knew, that Joe Biden wasn't up to being president.

00:15:30.340 And she conspired with a lot of people to hide this from the American public. 1.00

00:15:35.980 And I thought that was a telling moment.

00:15:38.140 That was indeed.

00:15:40.060 And one of the things that it prompts you to consider is when Mr. Biden was not making all the decisions and President Harris, Vice President Harris doesn't seem like she was on top of her files either.

00:15:56.300 who was actually directing policy and making decisions in the White House

00:16:03.440 that were then rubber-stamped as coming from the Oval Office.

00:16:09.120 Do you have a theory there?

00:16:12.240 Yes. No.

00:16:14.140 No? All right.

00:16:15.780 I do have a theory.

00:16:17.620 But, you know, I have to say it's based on impressions and extrapolations and deductions rather than direct evidence.

00:16:28.740 I have to say that I think that former President Obama was the guy who had the most influence over the people who were essentially running the administration in the mental absence of Joe Biden.

00:16:50.280 So a third Obama term.

00:16:52.680 Well, and if Kamala Harris wins, I suspect there will be a fourth.

00:16:58.740 Yes. That's actually a frightening thought, not only because of what it means in practical terms, but that the system itself could be manipulated in that way.

00:17:08.760 Brian, it's less than three weeks to the election. We're almost out of time here, but I should ask you this.

00:17:15.980 If you were a betting man, in fact, would you even take a bet on the outcome of this election?

00:17:23.680 yes i mean it's when i i i am willing to bet and i'm going to tell you in a second what my bet is

00:17:32.380 okay but i'm going to say uh first of all that um it's only a balance of probability

00:17:39.760 uh there are many many factors that will go into this and it is so close

00:17:44.360 that uh you know handfuls of votes in a in a few states will affect the outcome in a in a very

00:17:52.300 powerful way. So all that said, if I was a betting man, I would say that Trump has the advantage

00:18:02.320 going into the election. If you follow these things, for example, Real Clear Politics, which

00:18:09.180 I have a lot of time for, a website in Washington, Real Clear Politics runs a very authoritative

00:18:19.140 uh sort of summary of the polls and so on and uh their view is that uh uh trump's going to win by

00:18:26.500 about 40 votes in the electoral college roughly speaking uh which is a actually a fairly decisive

00:18:34.180 uh margin of victory and that's in spite of the fact by the way that uh harris will almost

00:18:39.060 certainly win the popular vote but by a very tiny margin and um because of the way the electoral

00:18:44.900 college works uh that will result in a in a trump victory uh perfectly in order in terms of the

00:18:52.980 american constitutional order uh uh so if you're asking me to put my 10 bucks down

00:18:59.820 it would be on uh it would be on trump to win but uh you know it could very easily go the other way

00:19:08.200 well that's the fact that's about as clear as i could have asked for thank you very much brian

00:19:14.120 Brian it's always a pleasure to have you on the show

00:19:17.220 your thoughts are

00:19:18.780 insightful and to the point

00:19:20.960 thank you for doing this today

00:19:22.840 and we will see you

00:19:25.440 again probably soon after

00:19:27.280 the election for a recap

00:19:29.300 meanwhile

00:19:30.060 for the Western Standard I'm Nigel Hannaford

00:19:44.120 Thank you.

Western Standard - October 22, 2024

HANNAFORD： Obama's fourth term

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