Western Standard - Pulling the plug on Trudeau

00:00:00.000 Good day. Today is July 3rd, 2024. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of The Western Standard,

00:00:28.580 and you're watching The Pipeline, special Stampede edition of The Pipeline. I'm joined, as always,

00:00:35.900 by Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford. Hello again. Nigel actually did not dress for

00:00:40.480 Stampede. He just kindly removed his tie so the rest of us didn't look like total schmucks. This 0.99

00:00:44.920 is my Trudeau impression. Ah, well, yeah, you got the sleeves. Yeah. You got to do a dance. You got to do a dance. Yep. And Western Standard senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan. County partner. Who did get the memo. Ah.

00:00:57.960 No, he wasn't in the office yesterday. He got the memo. Yeah, you just did that yourself, didn't you? No, no, I got a memo from Nico. Oh, okay. He gave me a heads up. Okay, good, good, good.

00:01:08.060 All right. Well, you know, today is not very Western or Alberta focused. We're zooming out today. The closest we'll get is Ottawa. That'll be the closest to home.

00:01:19.620 Today is, well, there's a pretty common theme about some politicians circling the drain, so to speak.

00:01:29.660 You know, I try not to follow U.S. politics too closely, but God, I was out at the family cabin in the woods.

00:01:38.520 I started, you know, we got a decent phone signal there now.

00:01:41.560 I just started seeing clips of the U.S. presidential debate, and I just had to watch it. 0.97

00:01:47.400 Holy crap.

00:01:50.440 This might go down as possibly the most consequential U.S. presidential debate in history. 0.98

00:01:56.060 Donald Trump versus, I don't know, some drooling old man that they pushed on the stage.

00:02:01.040 So we're going to talk about the U.S. presidential debate and the continuing fallout for who will, in fact, be the Democratic nominee for president.

00:02:13.020 Apparently not the sitting Democratic president who has won the primaries.

00:02:17.680 And speaking of circling the drain, Justin Trudeau, the continuing fallout from the Toronto-St. Paul's by-election,

00:02:31.120 writing, conservatives had no business winning, and winning it.

00:02:35.640 And the crisis this has created, now finally, Justin Trudeau's had the country in crisis for years,

00:02:41.820 but now, finally, the Liberal Party has been plunged into crisis, as they similarly look around and find that the leader of their party does not seem to be a winner at this moment.

00:02:53.540 And compounding this, which should be a screaming national scandal, but really just hasn't got the attention because,

00:03:02.140 I mean, I think Canadians become kind of almost immune to Trudeau scandal at this point.

00:03:09.720 But Trudeau's defense minister at the time, Narjit Sajjan, I'm sure I'm not pronouncing that correctly,

00:03:18.560 very significant scandal emerging now, as we find that when he was Trudeau's defense minister,

00:03:24.860 and Afghanistan was falling to the Taliban, he diverted Canadian forces' resources away from rescuing Canadians

00:03:33.600 and Canadian allies, people who had served the Canadian forces, people like translators,

00:03:39.520 away from their duty and towards rescuing Sikhs. 1.00

00:03:48.240 Now, this is obviously nothing against Sikhs, but these were just Sikhs who were in Afghanistan.

00:03:53.680 Probably won't fare too well under the rule of someone like the Taliban, 0.97

00:03:58.060 but, you know, these were not Canadians and Canadian allied assets who had served the Canadian forces,

00:04:03.240 and as a result, people died.

00:04:05.060 People died as a result of this.

00:04:07.920 And it's now emerging that this all happened while certain Sikh organizations were donating to his campaign at that very moment.

00:04:16.100 But not a good look.

00:04:19.300 So, okay, we're going to zoom it back out, and we're going to start with the U.S. presidential debate.

00:04:25.440 I'm sure you've all seen clips of it by now.

00:04:28.740 I mean, if you have the Internet, it's impossible not to see, frankly, this poor old man

00:04:34.940 who was being abused by at least someone in his inner circle to stay in power.

00:04:42.440 Nico, why don't we just show some of the top highlights there of the Trump-Biden debate and what went down.

00:04:50.280 Making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system,

00:04:54.080 making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID,

00:05:03.040 or excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare.

00:05:14.820 I mean, if you're a Trump fan, I mean, you're just licking your lips.

00:05:20.380 It's, I mean, you don't get any better.

00:05:23.640 But, God, there's a part of me that just feels bad for this old man who's been trotted out.

00:05:29.860 Okay, we'll get to the media reaction and the DNC reaction and talk of replacing him as candidate in a bit.

00:05:39.520 But just, we'll start off, Nigel, here with the debate performance.

00:05:45.420 I mean, obviously, I don't know what analogy to use.

00:05:49.080 Trainwreck, Hindenburg, none of them seem to do justice to how much of a catastrophe this was to the Biden campaign.

00:05:55.020 Well, of course it was. And the thing is, it was foreseeable.

00:06:01.340 And that leads to a whole area.

00:06:04.100 Well, we're going to get to that part.

00:06:05.580 We'll just talk, we'll talk, just the debate itself for now.

00:06:08.820 We'll get to all that.

00:06:10.280 Well, you know, I'll tell you what, I thought Mr. Trump handled it brilliantly by not making it any worse for Biden.

00:06:17.940 The optics of Mr. Trump just beating up on this poor old man who's, you know, he looked white and pallid.

00:06:27.900 Well, he looked orange a few days later.

00:06:29.240 Well, you know, a spray can of that tan stuff does wonders, I'm told.

00:06:33.040 Well, but at the time that we're talking about, which is the debate, he was looking tired.

00:06:40.120 He was sort of white in that kind of elderly old man look that you have.

00:06:46.960 And he couldn't form his words.

00:06:51.060 The clip that we've just watched, where he starts off and then just goes into complete balderdash, is painful.

00:07:02.420 And it makes you wonder why anybody would have put him through that.

00:07:06.060 The other thing that I noticed about his style was that he had clearly been prepped.

00:07:11.740 I understand they took him away for a week.

00:07:13.780 Six days of prep for this debate.

00:07:15.300 Six days of prep for this debate.

00:07:15.740 No one's ever been so well prepared for a debate.

00:07:17.200 And, you know, every question that came up, he would say, oh, three points.

00:07:23.380 And he would lead off for the first one, get mixed up on the second one, and forget the third one entirely.

00:07:31.020 And obviously somebody had been saying, all right, sir, when they ask you about this, these are the three things you need to, these are the talking points.

00:07:39.300 And he couldn't do it under the most favorable conditions imaginable.

00:07:44.040 But with all that preparation, it was just sad.

00:07:48.840 Corey, just, we're going to get to why this happened and the fallout and everything in a moment.

00:07:54.780 But just your...

00:07:56.420 I watched, you know, and I saw it popping up.

00:07:59.960 It was the impulsive.

00:08:00.880 Well, what the heck, we'll kick back and watch this.

00:08:03.200 I'm going to watch two men that I really don't care much for either of them.

00:08:06.280 I'm not a Trump fan.

00:08:07.740 And I know we'll get all the feedback from the viewers. 1.00

00:08:10.940 Fuck, get over it. 1.00

00:08:11.720 I don't like that. 1.00

00:08:13.520 But I expected those two to go at each other.

00:08:15.840 And it was just going to be more of the same.

00:08:17.240 And we'll see both sides of the Clara victory.

00:08:19.580 15 minutes in.

00:08:20.500 I mean, as is my one time, I live tweet.

00:08:22.540 One of my tweets I threw out was, is there a mercy rule?

00:08:24.740 Like, there's 70 minutes left in this thing.

00:08:27.060 And I can't, I don't know if I can watch this much more.

00:08:29.900 He was really that far in decline.

00:08:32.560 And to his credit, I mean, it was both strategic and I think hopefully showing a bit of sign in a character that a man typically doesn't show much mercy for others.

00:08:40.720 Trump did just kind of sit back and let Biden take care of himself.

00:08:44.620 Because, you know, had he just been in and poking or beating on him, you know, I mean, Trump was still being his usual blowhard self.

00:08:51.640 But he laid off on doing anything for Trump.

00:08:55.080 Yes.

00:08:55.520 For Trump, it was toned down.

00:08:56.560 Yeah.

00:08:56.740 You think there might have been a bit of speech prep in the Trump camp?

00:09:00.820 Listen, he's not going to do well.

00:09:02.480 Don't go for the throat.

00:09:04.120 I don't know if even he expected it to go that badly.

00:09:06.700 I looked at a little bit of his smirk as he watched it.

00:09:08.540 Like, wow. 0.98

00:09:09.680 But, you know, Trump's not a fool, whatever he is. 0.92

00:09:11.580 And he's just realizing, well, just let this go. 0.88

00:09:14.240 Like, this is taking care of it on my behalf.

00:09:17.180 But it was just a terrible performance.

00:09:18.820 It's a mismatch of people with cognitive ability that you really did.

00:09:24.860 And I'm not a fan of Biden, but you felt sorry for the man in that situation.

00:09:28.360 So the most fascinating part of it, to me, was immediately after the debate, you know, the hours and 24 hours after the debate, when all of the kind of left, Democratic-aligned media, all of a sudden were shocked.

00:09:47.680 Oh, my God.

00:09:49.760 Biden's so old.

00:09:51.620 Biden's senile.

00:09:53.460 We never knew this.

00:09:55.580 We clearly need a new candidate.

00:09:57.660 I mean, it's either massive self-delusion on the part of all these people, on the part of all, you know, the MSNBC, CNN types, Democratic pundits.

00:10:15.260 It was either mass self-delusion or they were lying.

00:10:18.320 And I generally try to be charitable towards those I disagree with.

00:10:22.200 But it has been painfully obvious for at a minimum two years, probably going on at least three.

00:10:29.980 I mean, he was already pretty slow and stuff in the 2020 presidential election.

00:10:34.480 But he could plausibly be able to hold it together.

00:10:39.300 For two years now, it has been painfully obvious this man is just not there anymore.

00:10:46.040 This is not the Joe Biden, even if you're a big Joe Biden fan, this is not the Joe Biden you knew.

00:10:50.800 This is not your father's Joe Biden.

00:10:52.300 This is your great-grandfather's Joe Biden.

00:10:56.800 He's been around that long, too.

00:10:58.640 Yeah.

00:10:59.020 I mean, this man has been a senator longer than I've been alive.

00:11:02.580 And I'm starting to feel old.

00:11:04.900 But his man has been a senator longer than I've been alive.

00:11:06.960 And they've all acted as if age and cognitive ability is not fair grounds, that it's somehow prejudiced towards this man and elderly people.

00:11:20.080 But in the 1984 U.S. presidential election, it was fair grounds because Ronald Reagan was how old?

00:11:28.680 73?

00:11:29.520 73 or so.

00:11:31.180 And at the time, that was the oldest man to ever be running for president.

00:11:37.140 And he's running for a second term.

00:11:39.640 And it was.

00:11:40.320 And it was an issue.

00:11:41.700 And it was fair game.

00:11:42.860 Let's roll the clip from that very unforgettable clip from the 1984 presidential debate between Ronald Reagan and Mondale, where this was an issue and Ronald Reagan's unforgettable response.

00:11:56.840 Mr. Truitt, and I want you to know that also, I will not make age an issue of this campaign.

00:12:03.700 I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.

00:12:09.840 If I still have time, I might add, Mr. Truitt, I might add that it was Seneca or it was Cicero, I don't know which, that said,

00:12:34.840 if it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state.

00:12:40.360 So when you've got the moderator and your opponent keeled over on laughter, you know you've won.

00:12:47.580 Point to Reagan for that.

00:12:49.120 Yeah, I mean, like, 1984 was never really in doubt.

00:12:53.100 But any issue, especially around his ability to do the job as an elderly man, was put to bed right there.

00:13:01.000 But, you know, to be fair, even in his very last years, Ronald Reagan did slow down and he stepped back from the public light.

00:13:09.000 Nancy Reagan, the first lady, kind of stepped in, made some of the decisions.

00:13:12.640 But that was not obvious, running for president.

00:13:16.540 He was clearly sharp enough to have a retort like that.

00:13:19.560 It was fine.

00:13:20.480 This is not.

00:13:21.180 The Democrats are now pretending to be shocked by this.

00:13:25.380 And they, I think they thought they could muddle through it.

00:13:30.240 What's different with this debate, what they did actually realize was he can't muddle through it.

00:13:35.140 We're going to lose if this man is at the top of the Democratic ticket.

00:13:39.880 Corey.

00:13:41.000 I can only assume, like, behind closed doors, the people around him.

00:13:45.800 Dementia, it's a difficult disease.

00:13:49.040 I mean, it hits some people in their late 50s.

00:13:52.120 Other people get in their 90s and they're still sharp as a tack.

00:13:55.000 You don't know who it's going to hit.

00:13:56.540 Sometimes it comes in waves.

00:13:58.080 The person has good days.

00:13:59.220 They have bad days.

00:14:00.680 But when you look, the most telling things are people showing Biden four years ago and putting it next to where he is today.

00:14:06.680 This has been progressing for a while.

00:14:08.480 People close to him, people behind closed doors knew how bad it's been getting.

00:14:13.160 I mean, maybe they were crossing their fingers hoping it was going to be a good night rather than a bad one.

00:14:17.040 But I think along the lines of others are saying they realized we're up the creek.

00:14:20.980 But the only way we can pull the pin on this and kind of pull a mercy rule and quickly get a new candidate in by the convention is to show not only the Republicans but the Democrats, he just can't do it anymore.

00:14:33.180 It's an emergency.

00:14:34.320 So putting him on the stage like that was their most clear way to do it.

00:14:37.380 And I think it was tactical.

00:14:40.340 So, Nigel, you and I, you know, we chatted earlier this morning in the newsroom about this.

00:14:45.360 I mean, I'm pretty good with not being in a tinfoil hat crowd.

00:14:50.160 But you can't help but see pretty strong signs that Biden was set up for this by people not just in the DNC but probably it is pretty close inner circle that, you know, because previous to this debate,

00:15:05.400 the earliest U.S. presidential debate ever was in September.

00:15:11.160 This is three months earlier than the previous earliest debate.

00:15:16.320 And the DNC was pushing for an early debate.

00:15:20.280 Now, they got very favorable rules.

00:15:22.060 They got CNN to host it, fairly favorable moderators.

00:15:26.620 Although they didn't do a terrible job, but, you know, fairly favorable moderators.

00:15:31.220 Mike's cut so that you can't really interrupt.

00:15:33.320 I think that puts a huge disadvantage on Trump.

00:15:35.400 Who, you know, with Hillary Clinton, he says, you know, because you'd be in jail, like little one-liners like that that he's good at that sting.

00:15:42.920 None of that.

00:15:43.720 They got favorable rules.

00:15:44.800 But still, they had this early debate.

00:15:47.520 And I can't help but think that they wanted this pre-convention so they can nominate someone else.

00:15:55.800 And, you know, the thinking would be, why didn't, you know, the power brokers in the Democratic Party do this?

00:16:05.280 Talk to him earlier so we could leave with a little more dignity than he's being pushed out right now.

00:16:09.380 And I got to think it's because, you know, the kind of crony capitalist establishment of the Democratic Party, they're afraid of an open primary because the radical left could win in its own right.

00:16:21.340 They could elect, you know, someone from kind of the AOC wing and that would make the Democrats unelectable.

00:16:26.440 Well, also, crony capitalists need to at least be some capitalism for the cronyism to work.

00:16:32.520 So that doesn't work with the far left either.

00:16:34.440 So they wanted a Biden type, but they needed to wait until after the primaries are done, but before he's nominated.

00:16:41.720 It sure just looks like this is a setup for the power brokers to bring in someone that they've probably already got in mind, doesn't it?

00:16:51.240 Yeah, I think you've got a pretty fair summary of the whole thing there, Derek.

00:16:57.320 Certainly, to take you back to your earlier point about the media, if you only watched what we refer to as the mainstream media, the MSNBC, the ABC, the CBS, those guys,

00:17:11.720 then you would have only had a very sheltered portrait of Joe Biden in the time of his presidency.

00:17:19.840 If you were a Fox News watcher, you would have almost seen an excess of Biden falls and fails in times when he misspoke himself,

00:17:34.060 almost to the point where you started to disapprove of it.

00:17:38.200 There's one thing to say, OK, this is the problem with the guy, but I don't want to see quite that much of it.

00:17:42.020 I don't want to see so much exultation over his failings.

00:17:46.760 But the truth was out there, thanks to Fox News, if you cared to look.

00:17:51.400 The other place where the truth was, was in the immediate circle around the man in the White House.

00:17:58.960 They knew better.

00:17:59.760 They saw him every day.

00:18:01.960 They saw him fumbling and stumbling.

00:18:03.960 And we don't know what, how much worse they have seen than we have seen in the privacy of their own private quarters.

00:18:12.160 Who knows?

00:18:12.600 So they knew darn well what they were going to get when they put him out there.

00:18:18.700 So really the question was only ever going to be, do we do it in June or do we do it in September?

00:18:24.940 And if we do it in September, we're kind of stuck with him.

00:18:27.900 And if we do it in June, oh, my goodness, everybody will clutch their pearls and say,

00:18:33.160 well, this man can't possibly carry on as president.

00:18:35.640 And it'll be relatively easy.

00:18:37.240 We don't have to win the argument.

00:18:38.800 We've just done it by default.

00:18:40.180 So that is probably one of the cruelest tricks of politics that I have seen, you know, in the last 20 years.

00:18:50.460 Maybe in my whole time of reporting, short of actually assassinating someone,

00:18:56.400 you'll actually destroy their reputation and their character. 1.00

00:19:01.720 And to just say, well, he's a bumbling old fool and we get him off. 0.99

00:19:05.240 I have no use for the man's policies. 0.99

00:19:07.840 I don't know him, so I can't talk about him in that way.

00:19:12.480 But what we know about Joe Biden is nothing to support.

00:19:15.400 But that was still a vicious, cruel way to push him off the stage.

00:19:21.500 Well, intramural politics are always the most vicious.

00:19:24.440 What most people see is they see the intraparty politics.

00:19:27.620 They see conservative and liberal and new Democrat.

00:19:29.660 They see, you know, Democrat Party, Republican Party.

00:19:32.840 Most people don't see the inside.

00:19:35.960 The inside stuff's the ugly. 0.86

00:19:37.380 That is where it's always the ugliest.

00:19:39.520 You know, that actually sparks a Churchill quote.

00:19:42.060 Apparently a young MP tapped Churchill on the shoulder and asked him about the people on the other side of the bench, the enemy.

00:19:49.800 And he corrected them.

00:19:50.920 He said, no, sir, those are not your enemy.

00:19:53.480 They're your opponents.

00:19:55.060 Your enemies are over here on our side.

00:19:57.560 So it would appear to be in the Democrat Party today.

00:20:01.700 Well, no doubt it is within the Republicans as well.

00:20:05.340 Every political party, your enemies are actually on your own side.

00:20:08.940 Your other side are your opponents.

00:20:10.620 The guys who could really get you. 0.85

00:20:11.940 The guys who can put a knife between the ribs.

00:20:13.740 They got to get close and they got to be quiet to do it.

00:20:16.700 And someone's done it to Joe Biden here.

00:20:18.840 And if I was a Democrat, I mean, I've got no time for his politics either, but Democrats like the guy.

00:20:27.480 You know, he has served in the Senate since the 70s.

00:20:32.280 Since the bloody 70s.

00:20:34.220 He's done his time.

00:20:36.240 And to send him out like this.

00:20:38.780 I mean, something else beyond this, though, beyond getting another candidate.

00:20:42.160 I mean, he's still technically, even if he didn't run again, could be president until January of next year.

00:20:46.980 Yeah, this is going to prompt possibly an invocation of the 25th.

00:20:51.180 And then suddenly you get President Kamala for the last bit of the term.

00:20:54.060 There's a lot more to this.

00:20:55.500 For those of you at home who do not know what the 25th Amendment is, that's the ability of the Cabinet to essentially remove the President if he's incapacitated or unable to serve.

00:21:05.760 And there's the Speaker of the House actually just called on the Cabinet to do it.

00:21:11.680 I think it was just yesterday.

00:21:12.940 Anyway, it's not just like, that's another question the Democrats will have to answer now.

00:21:19.140 If he's not fit to run for president, he can't be fit to be president.

00:21:24.480 And, you know, so there's still half a year to go.

00:21:27.460 And, I mean, from all appearances, the guy, I mean, if something goes on, can he even find the Situation Room in the White House?

00:21:34.620 I mean, obviously someone's going to lead him there.

00:21:37.720 If he said, meet us in the Situation Room, he'll probably end up in a, you know, janitor's closet or something at this point.

00:21:43.800 Yeah, they didn't just expose a president, or, I mean, a candidate in serious decline.

00:21:48.180 They exposed a president in serious decline, and they've got to look at that as well now.

00:21:51.660 So now you've got the, you know, the conventions come up in the summer here.

00:21:57.320 When is it again?

00:21:58.320 Well, as long as it's August 24th, I could be off.

00:22:00.920 It's normally around, it's normally in the back end of the summer.

00:22:05.400 Normally they're just kind of a fairly pro forma affair.

00:22:11.960 They, you know, someone stands behind, you know, people stand with these big signs for their state, and they do a roll call.

00:22:19.260 They nominate, formally nominate the president.

00:22:21.820 The president gives a big speech.

00:22:22.920 The only news is normally who, they announce the vice presidential candidates.

00:22:27.640 That's, that's it.

00:22:30.900 But the Democratic one could be very different.

00:22:33.740 Now, you could have the convention increasingly likely looking like the convention is going to pick it.

00:22:39.680 But all of these candidates, so all the delegates to this convention, they're all, well, not all, but they're overwhelmingly Biden delegates.

00:22:49.640 So they're going to be a part of the Democratic establishment.

00:22:51.560 There'll be a ton of horse trading, like we've never seen before.

00:22:59.160 It's already happening.

00:23:00.680 It's already happening.

00:23:01.820 Obviously, Kamala Harris is very, probably deeply wounded that very few people are talking. 0.53

00:23:06.600 He's the vice president, and everyone's like, ah, no, not her.

00:23:09.500 But there, there is at least one major compelling reason to pick her is money.

00:23:17.100 They've already, the Democrats have raised a lot of money for the presidential campaign.

00:23:20.000 And from at least what I've read from experts in the States, the money raised for the presidential campaign can only be used by people who are on that ticket.

00:23:28.780 So only if, only if she's on the ticket. 0.74

00:23:31.720 Now, perhaps they'd be able to find a way.

00:23:33.220 If they keep her as the VP, keep her at the bottom of the ticket, maybe they keep that in there. 0.98

00:23:37.600 I mean, man, that'd be a slap in the face to just stay at the bottom of the ticket with a new person.

00:23:42.500 Then it's truly a meal ticket.

00:23:43.980 Yeah.

00:23:45.020 It would just clearly be about the money at that point.

00:23:47.520 But that's not an insignificant consideration.

00:23:49.120 But, I don't know, Nigel, how likely does it seem to you that they're going to switch Biden out?

00:23:58.500 Because Jill Biden, I haven't paid that much attention to her.

00:24:02.640 But, boy, she sure looks like she enjoys being First Lady a lot right now. 0.88

00:24:08.640 Yeah, also she doesn't want Hunter coming home to live with him.

00:24:14.520 She's an interesting character and one who's been very much underreported.

00:24:18.140 I think she's putting herself out there now.

00:24:21.100 I don't actually subscribe to the Lady Macbeth interpretation of Jill Biden.

00:24:27.680 I actually think she cares about the man and is trying to support him in any way that she could.

00:24:34.820 She comes across as if she's trying to run things.

00:24:38.700 But, actually...

00:24:39.840 But she might be running things at this point. 0.55

00:24:40.920 She might be running things. 1.00

00:24:42.200 Like Nancy Reagan was running the White House the last year and a half. 1.00

00:24:44.520 But, nevertheless, I actually think she comes across as somebody who cares about the man.

00:24:53.780 I could be wrong.

00:24:55.340 But, you ask.

00:24:56.440 That's where I am with Jill Biden.

00:24:58.900 But, as for Joe, this is what we're looking at now is a time of max danger.

00:25:07.120 If you were hostile to the United States, if you were, shall we say, a major Far Eastern superpower with eyes on an island just off your coast,

00:25:17.120 this would be an awfully good time.

00:25:19.420 We'll just wait until after 4 o'clock.

00:25:21.060 Yeah, right.

00:25:23.260 Yeah, because that was one of the excuses offered up by the White Houses.

00:25:26.520 Well, you know, he's good before 4 o'clock.

00:25:28.780 Yeah.

00:25:29.220 So, okay, we wait until 4.30 and then you land the landing craft.

00:25:33.020 Does he seem to have a cold?

00:25:34.660 You know, so there's a lot of things that could happen before January the 6th or it was going to be the 7th next year

00:25:42.000 that could require somebody in control.

00:25:48.540 And, you know, after the President, there's a Vice President, and then the Speaker of the House,

00:25:53.200 all of them, there are people there who are capable of making decisions, even if the President isn't.

00:26:00.700 And they are supported by a senior level of military officers if we're talking about a war situation.

00:26:08.060 And they're not going to be short of advice, and there will be somebody to make a decision.

00:26:13.020 But how well does the other side understand that?

00:26:17.240 The answer is probably somewhat, but it's still so awfully tempting.

00:26:24.280 The seconds count in those situations.

00:26:27.920 So, actually, you know, Mailer's desk is going to be busy this summer.

00:26:33.560 So, Corey, I mean, Kamala Harris is extremely unpopular, but she's clearly making a play for the top of the ticket right now. 1.00

00:26:42.000 You can tell her social media is just full of this crazy, cringeworthy stuff at this point.

00:26:46.920 I mean, it's always kind of cringe, but she's trying to take a bigger, more public role right now. 0.99

00:26:54.240 There's the money reason for keeping her on the ticket. 1.00

00:26:57.080 I can't imagine her staying at the bottom of the ticket.

00:26:59.320 That'd be really weird.

00:27:01.000 But, I mean, there's a case for, if they're going to switch it to her, they have reason for Biden to formally, he can call it retire instead of resign, say, I'm retiring.

00:27:13.580 He retires.

00:27:14.920 And then the Democrats get the claim they had the first woman president.

00:27:19.800 I mean, she might be the Kim Campbell of America. 0.92

00:27:22.340 I can see it, because, again, if they're making the case that he's unfit to be a candidate, the case is equally valid that he should not be in the presidential role.

00:27:28.940 And she is, technically, the person who's supposed to fill it in that circumstance.

00:27:32.940 It also, hey, it's only six months.

00:27:35.240 It knocks off some nice checkboxes.

00:27:37.120 It makes some history.

00:27:38.640 And it gets her out of their hair while they worry about who the actual incoming longer-term president, vice president, potentially could be as candidate. 0.98

00:27:47.400 But if they do set her up, like, she is going to be a potential for the top of the ticket.

00:27:52.760 I mean, the Democrats don't seem enthused about it because she's so unpopular.

00:27:55.960 Well, she's weird, and she's not that bright. 0.93

00:27:58.320 She's very weird. 0.62

00:27:59.560 Yeah, she's very not bright. 0.96

00:28:01.600 But at least she's not senile.

00:28:03.920 No, she's still got her cognitive ability.

00:28:08.000 There's a whole hornet's nest of scenarios now that they've got to look at.

00:28:11.260 I mean, even if it was tactical to take out Joe, that's fine.

00:28:13.460 But now you've got a spider web.

00:28:16.020 I don't think he resigns as president to let her become president unless she's going to be a Democratic candidate.

00:28:23.980 Because then she has the power of incumbency. 0.99

00:28:28.560 She is Madam President at that point.

00:28:31.140 And some Americans will not want the first woman president to be a Kim Campbell. 0.97

00:28:38.980 No, I mean, maybe some of them will just accept we're going to let another electoral cycle go to the Republicans and just let her take the fall and rebuild.

00:28:49.640 But they're not giving this as another cycle.

00:28:51.100 This is Donald Trump.

00:28:51.840 No, I know.

00:28:53.140 Donald Trump is looking for blood.

00:28:55.240 And, I mean, there's other talk.

00:28:56.540 Gavin Newsom is certainly sniffing around.

00:28:59.880 You know, others are starting to think this is their chance.

00:29:02.020 So, as Nigel said, Dave's desk is going to be very, very busy for the next time.

00:29:06.140 Yeah, with Donald Trump, just one quick thing there.

00:29:08.860 The attack from the president's website and his Twitter feed has been all about Donald Trump, the would-be dictator.

00:29:19.760 On the night, it was, well, he didn't, our guy didn't do very well, but Trump lies.

00:29:27.240 They'll carry on with that.

00:29:28.620 But now, after that court ruling which declared presidential immunity, oh, well, now we're talking about a fascist state and the authoritarian.

00:29:37.560 So, this is the kind of tenor that it's going to have.

00:29:40.980 Well, we've taken well over half the show on justice.

00:29:44.340 But, I mean, it's such a fascinating topic.

00:29:46.160 We knew it would.

00:29:46.640 And, as I said, I don't follow, I generally don't follow U.S. politics in terribly much detail.

00:29:52.940 But I can't help it now.

00:29:54.500 Now, it's gotten so fascinating.

00:29:56.500 So much intrigue.

00:29:58.060 Okay.

00:29:58.620 Well, not much of a change in our headline from pulling the plug on Biden to pulling the plug on Trudeau.

00:30:05.140 So, Toronto St. Paul, in the very keep of the liberal castle fortress is a big speck of blue now.

00:30:17.680 Toronto St. Paul.

00:30:18.720 I think the last time that voted conservative was somewhere in the Paleolithic period.

00:30:26.140 I mean, technically, I guess it was in 1984 under Mulroney, when we had a totally different configuration of politics in the country.

00:30:33.300 The parties weren't even necessarily left-right in many ways.

00:30:35.880 The conservatives have no business even being competitive in a riding like that, let alone winning it.

00:30:43.980 And they won it.

00:30:46.800 What was his name?

00:30:48.620 I don't remember.

00:30:49.320 I talked to several conservatives after this Wednesday, why the hell did you guys do that?

00:30:54.000 Because you've now maybe woken the liberals up that, hey, maybe you have a problem.

00:30:59.860 You don't want to wake the liberals up to their failings.

00:31:01.860 You want them to continue doing what they're doing.

00:31:04.360 And a lot of senior conservatives I talked to said, we didn't try.

00:31:08.380 Like, we didn't try.

00:31:09.560 We put no money into it.

00:31:10.720 We didn't send the leader to it.

00:31:12.280 We didn't send high-profile people to it.

00:31:13.920 We just let the local campaign run its thing and do its thing.

00:31:17.320 They didn't put a star candidate in, but they won it anyway.

00:31:19.680 And the liberals, I mean.

00:31:22.980 Threw everything at it.

00:31:23.860 They firebombed the place like Dresden. 0.88

00:31:25.820 They brought everything in.

00:31:27.620 They brought the leader.

00:31:28.460 They brought the deputy prime minister.

00:31:30.400 They brought cabinet ministers.

00:31:32.120 They threw tons of money at it.

00:31:33.460 They did everything they could.

00:31:35.080 And they got killed on their own turf.

00:31:39.400 And, you know, we don't have too long to go into it, I guess.

00:31:42.520 But I guess there's probably two main areas to look at this.

00:31:46.920 What does it mean for the liberal vulnerability now?

00:31:50.420 That if they can be beaten there, this means they can be beaten everywhere.

00:31:54.760 They're now facing the potential of a 1993-style incineration.

00:32:01.340 And second is, you know, what's the political fallout within the liberal party and for Justin Trudeau?

00:32:07.840 So let's start with the first before we get to Justin Trudeau.

00:32:12.160 What this means, we'll start with you, Corey.

00:32:13.940 How disastrous is it for the liberals?

00:32:20.440 It's an outright catastrophe.

00:32:22.300 I mean, they've maintained incredible loyalty in keeping the cracks from leaking in the ship and moving along and convincing themselves, even though similar.

00:32:32.200 Again, it's a similar situation to the south, as you said, with the parallels.

00:32:35.300 I mean, you can see the signs.

00:32:36.420 You can see the problems.

00:32:37.380 You can see that this ship is sinking.

00:32:39.180 But now the hole is just blown out and it is gushing.

00:32:42.800 There's no denying anymore that not only are they in dire, dire straits of hopes of re-election, but no matter which leader they have, but without doubt, that Prime Minister Trudeau isn't anchored.

00:32:56.500 They have to either sync with that man, I know I was really hitting the analogies, or get rid of him.

00:33:04.540 And they're still divided.

00:33:07.120 They don't know.

00:33:07.880 They're unlike conservatives.

00:33:09.220 We would have thrown them out before the last ballot was counted, whoever the leader is.

00:33:12.840 Okay, that's it.

00:33:13.900 But the liberals are still navel-gazing, and I imagine Canadian support is just continuing to plummet in light of it.

00:33:20.560 So, Nigel, I want to go more to the second question to you.

00:33:24.020 So, the liberals are probably kicking themselves right now.

00:33:28.560 And funny, no one's talked about this.

00:33:30.320 Maybe this would be a good column for you.

00:33:32.680 The liberals broke the law immediately after the last election by not having a vote on adopting the Reform Act.

00:33:40.340 So, most people don't know too much about this, but the Reform Act was a private member's bill brought in by a conservative named Michael Chong.

00:33:47.400 It was designed to reform how Parliament is done a bit, give some more power back to members of Parliament, and away from the centralization of the leaders' offices.

00:33:56.800 And everybody, all the party leaders were opposed to this.

00:33:59.700 Harper was prime minister when this happened.

00:34:01.840 He was probably not too pleased about it.

00:34:04.300 But the act passed nonetheless.

00:34:07.600 It had a lot of watering down.

00:34:08.800 And one of the watering down provisions was that if provisions within caucuses are not automatic, but that after every election, the new caucus votes on if it applies to them or not.

00:34:19.320 I mean, so it was a pretty watered-down bill.

00:34:21.180 But you have, by law, to have that vote.

00:34:23.820 The liberals never had the vote on if the act applies to them.

00:34:26.720 So, what's the most important thing that act does?

00:34:29.900 It gives the caucus the right to fire the leader.

00:34:33.340 And that was used for the first time during the Freedom Convoy to fire Aaron O'Toole.

00:34:39.680 Aaron O'Toole started to, well, he had a pretty weak performance all the way around.

00:34:44.620 We don't need to recount his political sins.

00:34:46.340 But he was making some moves behind the scenes against certain people who ended up being leader after him.

00:34:53.320 And the caucus revolted against him, and they fired him.

00:34:56.300 It was, I mean, compare that to Alberta, where we had a drawn-out, bloody fight for two years.

00:35:02.980 But eventually, Kenney did go down.

00:35:04.700 Conservatives will eventually take them down if they have to.

00:35:07.600 But federally, it was nice and clean and quick.

00:35:10.220 It was like 24 hours.

00:35:12.620 He's gone.

00:35:13.740 And minimal blood on the floor as a result.

00:35:16.880 The liberals broke the law by not having that vote.

00:35:20.620 They don't kind of have the power.

00:35:23.700 Constitutionally, they can.

00:35:25.900 But it's pretty ambiguous.

00:35:27.620 How do you fire the leader of your party?

00:35:32.160 But now the conversation has started.

00:35:35.020 The liberals know.

00:35:36.160 They're pretty doomed if they stick with Trudeau.

00:35:38.880 They're probably doomed even with someone else.

00:35:41.100 But maybe someone else could stem the destruction that will come from the next election.

00:35:47.220 Well, not to sound Biden-esque, but there's a couple of points here.

00:35:51.220 First of all...

00:35:51.820 See if you get to the third.

00:35:52.940 Yeah.

00:35:53.440 Well, how are we doing for time?

00:35:57.400 First of all, you fire the leader by just withdrawing your support.

00:36:01.500 You might recall back in the early days of the Canadian Alliance when Stockwell Day was leader,

00:36:06.180 people started just saying, well, you know, I'm out of the party.

00:36:10.960 Well, they sat as a different caucus.

00:36:12.620 They sat as a different caucus.

00:36:14.260 And so you had that...

00:36:15.860 I think there was about seven of them in.

00:36:17.820 Well, one a week, every week.

00:36:19.800 The Democratic Reform Caucus, yeah.

00:36:21.500 And there would pretty soon come a point where the Prime Minister would not have the support of enough of his caucus to keep the thing going.

00:36:31.260 That's one way that you do it.

00:36:32.560 The problem is that was an opposition party against the majority government.

00:36:36.440 This is a government already in a minority position.

00:36:39.760 So do they vote non-confidence in their own government?

00:36:42.460 They might.

00:36:43.460 If they really want to fire him, they could do that.

00:36:47.560 Okay, your next point?

00:36:48.780 So, yeah, what else you got?

00:36:50.020 Yeah.

00:36:50.940 So the second point would be that the people do not care.

00:36:58.320 Now, you and I, Corey, we get into the weeds of this thing, but that's not what's going to bring him down.

00:37:07.300 What's going to bring him down is people who can't afford groceries, can't get a place to stay,

00:37:13.860 their lives are falling apart because of the consequences of liberal policies, liberal actions,

00:37:22.280 things that these men and women have done.

00:37:24.580 Sure, but that's bringing the liberals down in the next election. 0.99

00:37:30.260 But what this by-election has done is it's scared the crap out of the liberal caucus and power brokers

00:37:35.200 who are looking around saying, we're going to lose the next election now.

00:37:38.680 So if you're a liberal, you're trying to think, you're trying to wonder how to hold on to power best.

00:37:43.480 Probably not.

00:37:44.100 But at this point, we're just wondering how to save the furniture.

00:37:46.280 And the question, like, is Trudeau the best to save the furniture or someone else?

00:37:52.420 And they don't hold, they don't have the gun in their hands that the conservative caucus did

00:37:57.060 to fire their leader because they didn't follow the law.

00:38:00.540 That was the third point, is that the polls that came out immediately after the by-election results were announced

00:38:07.140 seemed to indicate that there was not anybody within the liberal orbit that could do better than Mr. Trudeau

00:38:14.880 at the forthcoming election.

00:38:17.160 So the only way that I can see that they could force him out is to withdraw their support one by one

00:38:26.680 and set as a rebel caucus.

00:38:30.120 With the goal being to what? To get a new leader?

00:38:33.120 To get to the point where there's a vote of non-confidence called and probably by the conservatives.

00:38:40.140 Yeah, but that doesn't save your own seat if you're a liberal MP.

00:38:42.360 I mean, you've got nothing to lose anymore.

00:38:44.800 Those guys know they're toast anyway.

00:38:46.820 Well, no, but if you're a liberal MP, I mean, for your politician, hope springs eternal.

00:38:51.600 You've got to find a way to turn around.

00:38:53.140 You've got to keep your seat.

00:38:54.240 And if you're a liberal MP, is your best bet, you know, stick with the captain

00:38:58.240 and hopefully not everyone goes down with the ship?

00:39:00.840 Well, maybe I mean, or get someone else and, you know, they're trying to organize the closest thing

00:39:06.560 they can get to an intervention.

00:39:08.140 Some liberal members of parliament have been desperately calling, saying,

00:39:10.920 we need an emergency caucus meeting.

00:39:12.780 Trudeau was refused that meeting.

00:39:13.980 And Trudeau was running away, prancing off, dancing and hiding from the entire thing.

00:39:17.400 Well, let's actually just, before you continue, let's show him what he was doing.

00:39:21.520 He's not showing up in Calgary for Stampede, but he did manage to get to some Chinese event

00:39:28.580 in the Toronto area or something, where he busts out his latest new dance moves.

00:39:32.500 Let's roll that.

00:39:33.940 Instead of dancing, what about us now?

00:39:47.140 So, Corey, the Trudeau dances and blackface and stuff, the Indian costumes, 0.97

00:39:55.620 all these, the most cringe, cringeworthy things.

00:40:00.040 He stopped, I think there was an intervention, fairly early on his prime minister,

00:40:04.260 where, you know, Gerald Bud set him down.

00:40:05.860 He's like, you can only do blackface around me, buddy. 0.99

00:40:09.000 Like, you know, these dances, all these things.

00:40:12.620 It's, it's not helping you.

00:40:14.240 But this is kind of a rewind to eight, nine, ten years ago, where, where he does this.

00:40:20.680 And I'm, I gotta be thinking that what's going through his mind that he's thinking,

00:40:25.220 well, uh, grown up, mature Trudeau, if that ever existed, is not working.

00:40:30.080 People want the old Trudeau.

00:40:31.520 They want the young guy who danced and did these things.

00:40:35.920 Or maybe he's regressing kind of into the, just the shallow man he is.

00:40:39.060 He's running away from responsibility by sitting with his own caucus.

00:40:42.620 And he enjoys being the center of attention in those events.

00:40:46.140 He's the kid who would do the cartwheel in the middle of the room at the party.

00:40:49.600 He is the drunkard of the 60s who would have the lampshade on their head.

00:40:53.140 He has to be there. 0.99

00:40:54.300 That's why he does his goofy dances.

00:40:55.860 Your hat looks a bit like a lampshade.

00:40:57.020 Yeah, is playing King and the rest.

00:40:58.980 Yeah.

00:40:59.280 So, uh, though it's a sober, uh, terrible display I'm putting on.

00:41:03.780 Uh, I, I think it could be a man who's just, he's given up, but he's just doing what he likes.

00:41:09.380 And then I got the summer of events of people adoring me, of dancing, of being an attention

00:41:14.020 figure. 0.99

00:41:14.580 And I'm just going to hide as far as I can from those, those, those darn stodgy politicians 0.99

00:41:20.500 who want to talk to me. 0.99

00:41:21.520 So you see what Derek does here before he comes on the program, he reads the column that

00:41:25.620 I've just released.

00:41:26.940 And then he delivers this, uh, because this is precisely what I'm saying.

00:41:30.980 This is the, it's not 2015 anymore.

00:41:33.380 And, uh, I remember that famous line, well, because it's 2015 as he was, I think, uh,

00:41:40.160 swearing, swearing in a equal number of women. 1.00

00:41:42.700 Yeah.

00:41:43.060 All right.

00:41:43.320 So fine.

00:41:44.260 If they're, if they're clever and they deserve it, good for them.

00:41:46.800 I'm not sure that was always the case, but, uh, at any rate, the thing is what worked in

00:41:51.720 2015 when you had an electorate that was comfortable and it was well disposed.

00:41:57.300 So, uh, yeah, I'm a little bored with the seriousness of the, uh, of the Harper approach

00:42:02.220 to government, uh, we'll give this guy a try.

00:42:05.340 They're not thinking that now.

00:42:06.460 No, they are absolutely not thinking that as they line up groceries, 20% more than what

00:42:14.300 they were two years ago.

00:42:16.680 You keep hearing about the 2.9% and the 2.7% compound that through and you've got a 20%

00:42:23.880 increase in grocery costs.

00:42:25.580 You've got a, you've, you've got this, the shortage of housing.

00:42:30.840 Um, people are mad and it's not going to take them anywhere.

00:42:35.880 You know, uh, we don't have a lot of time left, but Corey, I think you, uh, we were chatting

00:42:42.320 off there about why Trudeau wasn't coming to Stampede.

00:42:45.300 I mean, he goes to all of these events across the country.

00:42:47.760 He was at some, uh, obscure Chinese events.

00:42:50.380 It was in Markham.

00:42:51.800 Markham.

00:42:52.380 Yeah.

00:42:52.600 So the Toronto area.

00:42:53.180 The Asian food fest or something.

00:42:55.140 Sure.

00:42:55.300 Yeah.

00:42:55.680 He goes to the Asian food festival, but he does come to the single largest event in Canada

00:43:00.000 this year.

00:43:01.220 Now, normally he flies in unannounced and goes to a kind of closed door liberal meeting

00:43:07.800 somewhere.

00:43:08.180 So he can say he's been to Calgary during Stampede.

00:43:11.160 Certainly doesn't show his face on the parade or anything where that might be a downright

00:43:15.680 security risk for him at this point.

00:43:17.220 But, um, normally he'd go in and do a little closed door event with George Chahal.

00:43:22.620 I think you had a good reason, uh, for, uh, off air.

00:43:26.040 We talked about, about why he's not even coming for that this year.

00:43:29.100 Well, yeah.

00:43:29.680 I mean, Chahal is the lone liberal MP in Calgary, I believe right now.

00:43:33.620 And, and, uh, we got Randy up in, uh, the Randys up in Edmonton.

00:43:37.340 And, uh, but Chahal is one of the few MPs who's outright said he's got to go.

00:43:42.720 He's, he's actually, Chahal spoke up and said, Trudeau has to go.

00:43:45.760 We got to do something about it.

00:43:46.720 So why is Justin going to come here to pad up the potential seat of a man who's calling

00:43:52.880 for Trudeau's resignation?

00:43:54.280 So I suspect that has a lot behind why, well, you know, if you're not helping me, George,

00:43:58.560 I'm going to certainly not coming out there to, to help you.

00:44:01.120 So I think it's a bit of tit for tat.

00:44:02.960 Yeah.

00:44:03.440 And, uh, just the usual politics.

00:44:06.120 I don't think it's going to save Chahal either. 0.99

00:44:08.280 Well, we don't even have time to get to our last bit here from, uh, Narjit Sajjan, uh,

00:44:13.560 the former defense minister and the downright betrayal he committed against our, uh, against

00:44:20.080 Canadians and Canadian allies in Afghanistan. 0.97

00:44:22.220 And we, we just don't have time to it because damn, those topics were just so damn juicy. 0.97

00:44:26.480 We had too much to chew on today. 0.95

00:44:28.320 So, uh, thank you very much, gentlemen.

00:44:30.840 And I'll thank all of you for joining us today.

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Western Standard - July 04, 2024

Pulling the plug on Trudeau

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