Episode 1061: The Brett Andrew[s] [Radio] Hour

Zain 0:02

This is A Strategist, episode 1061. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, it is time to celebrate. Are you ready, Corey? Are you

Carter 0:17

Stephen? Celebrate. Oh, no, hold on. We're going to have to... We can't do anymore? Stop. No singing. Yeah,

Zain 0:21

so can't. We can't do anymore. Oh, yeah, you can't. I heard about this last episode. Stephen Carter breaking some so-can rules. rules. Stephen Carter, bad boy. Stephen Carter, we are celebrating a milestone. No, it is not the milestone of perhaps one of the few and first applications of the Velji rule in current political life. Corey, we'll get to that. There's another milestone we're celebrating. Lay it on us.

Corey 0:49

We now have one... It's massive. This is big. This is big. We

Corey 0:52

We have had the luxury, we've had the privilege of welcoming into the fold our 1000th subscriber to patreon which is like our 2000th listener on patreon but it's our 1000th paid subscriber

Corey 1:06

it's amazing we'll take

Carter 1:07

take it oh yeah that's

Carter 1:09

it was huge we

Zain 1:10

we would be we would be all stars we would be like the best that's true fucking like the best batter of all time yeah

Corey 1:17

and so we dedicate this hour to him our liege our friend brett andrews this is the brett andrews brett andrews oh my goodness 1000th

Zain 1:27

1000th patron yeah it's very exciting i'm

Carter 1:29

i'm over the moon brett

Zain 1:30

brett andrews if brett andrews dropped the s he'd

Zain 1:33

he'd be a typical cory hogan or steven carter yeah guy with two first names two

Corey 1:37

two first name dudes okay

Corey 1:39

we've been through this before hogan is

Zain 1:40

is not a first name we're gonna call him brett andrews i like i don't i'm dropping the s brett andrews that's gonna get zane

Zain 1:46

zane that's gonna get confusing we're gonna need We're

Carter 1:49

We're going to need you to focus. First

Zain 1:50

First of all, let's just go through the hierarchy. All white names are the same. Brett Andrew is what we're going with. That's step two on the line. No, no, we're definitely keeping the S. Brett

Carter 1:58

Brett Andrews. Honestly, it's like working with a child. Where's Annalise? Can we go? Is she available?

Zain 2:05

Andrew Brett, as he is known to me. My good friend, Andrew Brett. Brett Andrews, congratulations. I mean, you were, I don't know if he timed it perfectly. I don't know if this was desperation. I don't know if it even was an error for Brett Andrews, but he did it. I think he was trying to subscribe to West of Center, but they don't actually have a patron. Yeah, they don't. They don't. Well, they have a patron. It's all of us. We are the patron of West of Center. I don't know what it was about Brett Andrews or Brett Andrews, I like to call him. It could have just been a mistake. It could have been an error.

Carter 2:35

We need you. We need you to focus. We really need you

Zain 2:38

you to focus up here. We really need you

Zain 2:40

I'm in the middle of the campaign. I'm not focusing, okay? These names are all the same. Brett Andrews, congratulations, because through error, through strategy, through tactic, maybe it was a strategy. Maybe Brett Andrews is a strategic genius, putting himself at $1,000, thinking there'd be a grand prize in it for him. Well, Carter, it seems like there might be, isn't there?

Carter 2:58

Well, yes and no. I mean, it's more a grand prize for us. Okay. Because here's what we're not doing. We're not giving back Brett Andrews' money. We're taking Brett Andrews' cash. He had to pay for his first month up front. That's the new thing that we're doing. That's good stuff

Carter 3:13

us. absolutely kept that cash but he we did reach out to him we said uh brett is it okay if we make this the brett andrews hour you know the and and he said yes of course i mean you know who doesn't like being honored he did it

Zain 3:25

it he said yes oh my god

Carter 3:26

god oh yeah no this is this is where it starts to get great maybe i'm going to throw it over my good friend cory hogan to explain where it starts to get fucking genius a little

Corey 3:37

don't actually know what the next bit is here unless you're the website

Corey 3:43

oh the web okay well

Corey 3:44

well i feel like there was a more elegant way to do this but i threw it it's not just really that could be the title of this

Corey 3:50

podcast like for a year

Corey 3:54

this is not just this is not just the brett andrews hour well i mean it is just the brett andrews hour but there's there's more to the brett andrews hour perhaps than you've led uh the listeners to believe at this particular moment so exciting because it's it's also just by by total coincidence oh my fucking god may 11th also

Corey 4:12

also just happens to be our annual listener survey zane

Corey 4:15

zane oh my goodness where we go out and we pretend to care for one day and we ask the listeners their opinions and we ask the listeners all about them on a survey which you can access and you can fill out at brettandrews.ca yep

Carter 4:30

yep that's www for those of you who are my age www.brettandrews.ca that's the survey

Corey 4:39

there's no www they

Carter 4:41

they don't do that anymore

Corey 4:43

mean I don't think I set it up for that okay

Carter 4:46

okay never mind the www part the www

Zain 4:50

is optional is what I'm understanding the

Zain 4:53

the S on Brett Andrews not optional you

Zain 4:58

will need that at brettandrews.ca now there is something I should clarify do not go to thebrettandrews.ca that is not where you want to go for this survey uh just to be clear right carter uh brett andrews add the s i think it's unnecessary but add it uh brettandrews.ca that's where you should be going yeah

Zain 5:16

carter if they go to the brettandrews.ca they will not be able to access no

Carter 5:19

no once again we have run into a minor problem with our sponsor and as

Carter 5:24

as always cory's in charge of sponsor relationships things went down well okay this one was on me this is almost as bad as my discord fuck up but we're not allowed to talk about that on the that's

Corey 5:34

that's yeah on the public yeah

Carter 5:36

yeah this is the public feed but just if you were paying us money you'd know that there was a massive fuck up this week on on discord um rivaling rivaled only by our fuck up again with our sponsor flare airlines uh so if you go to thebrettandrews.ca you will of course um be able to book a flight let's just leave it there and again i'm i'm tremendously sorry uh no No, for Corey. Corey's the one who fucked that up.

Corey 6:01

Yeah, yeah. Not only does going to bretandrews.ca honor Brett Andrews, our 1,000th patron. Really important person.

Zain 6:09

Is it Brett Andrews' hour or radio hour? Brett Andrews'

Zain 6:12

It's not radio, Zane. It's not radio. It's not the radio hour. For Carter, don't tell Carter that. Come

Corey 6:18

Not only does this honor Brett Andrews, not only does this provide valuable information to the podcast but you can uh enter for a chance to win a a autographed one year subscription to our patreon uh where you can see the discord fuck up that steven was just talking about there's a there's a chance of that if you do that yeah now

Zain 6:37

now what are we autographing we'll

Zain 6:39

we'll figure it out in posts yeah you're slowing down the show these are these are these are details of course so just to just to clarify this is the brett andrews hour congratulations to brett and it

Corey 6:50

It's thebretandrewshour, but it's bretandrews.ca, not thebretandrews.ca.

Zain 6:55

.ca. Why do you got to

Corey 6:55

scoop me up? Why do you got to scoop me

Zain 6:57

me up? The URL,

Zain 6:58

URL, of course, bretandrews.ca. Like I said, the S, necessary, but not. bretandrews.ca, that's where you do the survey. Yeah. And if you do that survey, you get a chance to win an autograph, which we'll figure out in post, according to what I just heard, one-year Patreon subscription. I mean, this sounds amazing. Do not go to thebretandrews.ca. Uh, because that is of course where our, uh, sponsor, uh, Flair Airlines, uh, Flair Airlines will, will allow you to, to book a flight. Uh, Flair Airlines going downhill is technically going somewhere. Carter, um, anything else you want to, you want to add? Well, I,

Carter 7:35

know, it was a bad week for me, right? Like we had the Flair Airlines mess up. We had the discord situation. I was also in charge of reaching out to, uh, number 999 and 1001, uh,

Carter 7:46

uh, cause you know, to tell

Zain 7:47

tell them that they're major fuck ups in life and they should work on time. So I

Carter 7:50

I reached out to Taylor and Sarah and asked them if we could use their names. And no, we cannot.

Carter 8:00

Taylor and Sarah, we are not mentioning your names. So I'm

Carter 8:05

I'm not sure. That might be Taylor Swift. But I think I don't know for sure.

Zain 8:10

I don't know about you. Corey's going to love this next part. Carter, if folks want to get a hold of them, can you please give us their email addresses? email address is

Carter 8:23

and no i can't i i'm having some troubles reading it anyways uh why

Zain 8:28

why are you saying it like sarah is like taylor jensen

Carter 8:31

the way taylor are you saying

Carter 8:34

yeah that's what i'm wondering no maybe she spelled it incorrectly anyway

Corey 8:37

anyway is that s-a-r-a no i can't

Carter 8:39

what is that sarah if i

Carter 8:40

i spell it everybody's gonna know who it is it's s-a-h-r-a um Um, Sarah. Sahara? Sahara? Oh,

Carter 8:47

Okay, it is. And Taylor. We got you. Taylor's email doesn't even match. Her email is all fucked up. So I'm probably not supposed to mention this because she's probably in witness protection or something like that. So we should probably, we

Carter 9:00

we should probably drop this bit. Well,

Corey 9:02

Well, I mean, you guys blew it, Sarah and Taylor, because as everybody knows, if Brett Andrews, for whatever reason, cannot fulfill his duties as 1,000th patron, that does kind kind of you know constitutionally fall to you two well in this to share the responsibility

Carter 9:19

me to believe that he's kind of a loser so he's probably gonna fuck up so that's

Corey 9:22

that's that's not nice that's not nice that's not really yeah that's come on it's me

Carter 9:25

me because i sent him like an email hoping to get a single oh he thought this

Corey 9:30

this was a friendship this

Carter 9:31

this is now like he's back and forth with me you know what

Corey 9:33

what it's brett i've decided i if brett is my friend now okay Okay,

Carter 9:36

Okay, then you have to take emailing the patrons off of my team.

Carter 9:40

you're not in Calgary.

Zain 9:41

I think we're team back. And that is, Sara, where you do need the S.

Zain 9:45

Just so you know, that is a situation where an S is appropriate. Brett Andrews, just letting you guys know. What else do we want to talk about before we start the show? I don't know, 20 minutes in. The Velji rule made an appearance. Velji did not, because, of course, it was about provincial politics. Anything you guys want to tell me since last episode? Because I, like Stephen, my favorite topic is me.

Carter 10:10

Well, you know how you say, you

Carter 10:13

you know, having to say the words, I've always been a friend of the Jewish people?

Zain 10:18

Which I have, but yes. Yeah,

Carter 10:19

Yeah, that's a part of the Velji rule. That's like the core element, right? It is

Zain 10:23

is the only element one might say. Word

Carter 10:26

Word for word, that's

Carter 10:27

that's what you say? Like there's other ways of saying that,

Zain 10:29

that, right? Like we could write... Several other ways of saying it. So the reason, okay, you

Carter 10:33

you know the history here. Are they trolling her? Well, okay,

Zain 10:37

okay, now you guys may have talked about this. I tuned out. But the reason that I find the Velji rule to be very funny, outside of the fact that it is named after Velji, is – I speak in third person now – is because who the fuck would actually say that, right? No one. Like, those words are so cliché and, like, just so terrible.

Corey 10:59

It's one of those clichés that's never actually happened. It's like the summary of the thing that's always been different than the summary.

Corey 11:07

It's like the line in the movie, God, or Dave. Why did I say God? That's so weird.

Corey 11:13

weird. That is so

Zain 11:14

I won't talk about it more, because as you guys know, I'm not addressing anything related to provincial politics at the moment. Yeah, which we've discussed,

Carter 11:20

discussed, and we think you're being a pussy. But okay, continue. However,

Zain 11:23

However, the last thing I will say, there are several people who have direct messaged me and told me that the spelling of my name, Z-A-I-N, is an anagram for Nazi. So how appropriate to leave yeah so that's that's good to know this uh yeah that's good now you know you know that and you can't unknow that let's move on to our first segment our first segment town hall train wreck cory hogan donald trump he

Zain 11:46

he is back he's always been back he's always had but now the traditional media which have feasted on donald trump have now given him time

Zain 11:57

time prime time last night cnn gave gave Donald Trump prime time in a town hall. They phrased it and framed it, I should say, as an accountability interview. But they are being widely, widely panned for giving the former president so much airtime exclusively to not even answer questions, but to skirt questions, to kind of get away with certain topics. Reviews include toe-curlingly bad television, no fact-checking, no care for the truth, no no ability to call him out on his lies, you know, just powering

Zain 12:33

powering through the host there in many ways. Corey, I want to get your reactions first, and then we'll get into the strategy on both sides, because there is some crisis strategy that CNN might need to do here. There's some, you know, strategy of Donald Trump's opponents, perhaps with both colors applied to it, the blue and the red. But Corey, your initial thoughts, Carter, initial thoughts, and then let's get into the strategy.

Corey 12:57

I actually – so I'm really kind of of many, many minds on this. The first and most foundational is CNN should not have done this. They can say whatever they want. This was not about accountability. This was about ratings. This was about trying to get people to tune into a network that's been struggling and floundering and not really part of the conversation the way it was 20,

Corey 13:17

20, 30 years ago when CNN was the source of breaking news. But the world has gone on to the Fox News and the MSNBCs as we've ended up in a more polarized time.

Corey 13:27

Foundationally, that's what I believe. I don't think that this was in any way, shape, or form about accountability. But,

Corey 13:35

we actually got some interesting things out of this town hall, as much as we might be loathe to admit it. So, yeah, absolute clown car of a situation. Really disgusting the way the audience was applauding certain things that are certainly not applause worthy. But,

Corey 13:49

But, but we also have the possibility that Gene Carroll is now going to sue Donald Trump again because of his comments. He also went out and he made comments about the confidential documents, the classified documents that he brought with him that may put him into legal trouble. trouble and of course he made his very famous comment that maybe we should just default on the debt this absolute ridiculous

Corey 14:12

ridiculous position this nihilistic position that just seems to want to make the world burn uh no matter how many people get hurt how many retirements get lost you know how much livelihood is destroyed and

Corey 14:24

and so in a funny way while i don't believe accountability was in any way shape or form the goal i

Corey 14:30

i actually think there were quite a few things that happened last night that are going to have lasting consequences for Donald Trump and could potentially, you

Corey 14:38

you know, if this was a play, you might see this as Act III, where his fate is entirely sealed because his comments in particular on the classified documents feel destined to get him into legal hot water.

Zain 14:51

Carter, what do you think? When you saw that this was happening, when you saw they gave him a primetime slot, you know, many are equating this to less of a town hall, which we are used to as a format of facilitation by a host, and more so like a debate between a CNN host. Like this was like a back and forth to the point where at the end of the debate, Trump was like, you're a nasty woman for everything that you've done over the course of this hour to me.

Zain 15:15

What did you think? Your top line thoughts?

Carter 15:17

Well, my top line thoughts are, you know, why would CNN do this? And I agree with Corey. It was for ratings. I mean, I'm told that they got six times the normal ratings for that particular moment in time. I mean, that's a significant ratings bump. I mean, I've actually penned an invite to Donald Trump to join the strategist next week. If we can get a, you know, a six times ratings bump. I mean, that's huge. You

Corey 15:41

should mention that Zayn's name is an anagram for Nazi. It might help. Oh,

Carter 15:44

Oh, no, I actually

Carter 15:44

actually wrote that in. That's how I think I'm going to get him.

Carter 15:51

we're trying to figure out is whose job is it to stop the proliferation of anarchy, right? Right. Is it the media's job to stop the proliferation of anarchy or is it us as political operatives? And I think it's our job to stop the the the spread of political anarchy. And it is the media's job to give us the the platforms to speak from. And the CNN, all CNN did was give Trump the platform. And to Corey's point, he may hang himself a little bit from that platform because he's not do you know, he's not great at this. um and in the past we let him get away with it we society let him get away with it because we were uh willing to look past societal norms in order to bring him you know to to allow

Carter 16:40

allow him to continue i mean he should have been he should have died after they grabbed them by the pussy comment he should have died after like how many times did the media objectively call this guy you know show what he said with the expectation that the audience would just simply go oh that's that's a step too far now that we're no longer going to vote for him that's the media's job the media's job is not to censor and decide who should get the airtime and who shouldn't now i will argue this to me wasn't a debate between the cnn hosting and donald trump this was you don't think so it was no it was a commercial for donald trump um donald what really bothered me about this is the audience the audience selection really bothered me about this you don't fill the fucking hall with sycophants and undecided lean Trump independence. You fill the audience with everybody, everybody. And if Donald Trump doesn't want to have the general population in the audience, then he doesn't get the slot.

Zain 17:35

Let's talk about the audience in a second, but can I get some clarifying comments from both of you very quickly? Corey, if you were CNN, would you have done this? Yes or no? Carter, if you were CNN, would you have done this? Yes or no? Let's get that on the table, then I want to move on.

Corey 17:47

Chet, I mean, it sounds bad that I would say yes, but sure, I mean, what's my job? as a cnn executive it is actually you know the media like to talk about the media's importance in democracy you know the the fifth estate all all of the value that's provided there but the reality is it is a business and this is newsworthy at at its most foundational level i talked about three things donald trump said and did on cnn that were basically news right that's i mean and we haven't even gotten into some of like the the pageantry and entertainment value that's there That, yeah, it was very gross, but I'm sure actually served the purpose of getting advertisers to the network and supported it in that way, shape or form. I think I would have a hard time not doing it, right? I mean, I'm trying to imagine not

Corey 18:32

not doing it, although I do agree with Stephen, perhaps I would have been a little bit firmer on terms, because I think Donald Trump probably

Corey 18:39

probably would have accepted regardless, because he does need to get himself back into the limelight. He might be leading in the Republican primary, but he's not getting the crowds he used to get. He's not getting the attention he used to get. And so you've got a little bit more swing if you're CNN. And frankly, the way the crowd was created this time around, it felt like a Jerry Springer crowd almost, or

Corey 18:59

least a good portion of it. And it was it was not it was very unbecoming. And I don't think CNN should have constructed

Corey 19:07

constructed it the way they did. But the overall idea of having Donald Trump on an accountability town hall.

Corey 19:13

I don't know. I mean, I have a hard time saying not to do that. I think it

Corey 19:17

it would be only a hindsight thing. I think that'd be a hypocritical thing. Because I think if I was in the same position, I would probably be inclined

Corey 19:24

inclined to do that.

Carter 19:27

yeah i mean they

Carter 19:27

they absolutely should have done it um that's all i need to do right like i didn't need to do a four hours you didn't you didn't you didn't need to

Zain 19:33

to do what cory did there absolutely

Zain 19:34

not do you know who would not do that brett andrews brett

Carter 19:37

brett andrews never have brett andrews

Zain 19:38

andrews yeah fucking brett andrews

Carter 19:40

andrews congratulations emailing me again this is email brett

Corey 19:45

brett right now and ask him his opinion on

Corey 19:48

on this donald trump thing because i i think maybe if we can in real time get it on the show i think that that would really add value to the i'm on it andrew's hour if you're just joining us you're

Zain 19:56

you're tuning into the brett andrews hour uh i'm your host do

Zain 20:00

a podcast at like the 20 minute mark or like what's the no

Zain 20:03

no i'm just trying to make it like radio remember on radio they always it's called resetting cory you have to reset in case someone joins uh if you're just joining us i'm talking to cory hogan who gave a three minute answer to a yes and no question uh carter hang

Carter 20:17

hang on i'm typing

Zain 20:19

fucking idiot here's the thing you guys are interchangeable to me uh this

Zain 20:24

this one i might need a bit of substitution i'll get to the i get to the audience write

Corey 20:30

a whole right i'm i'm typing something to steven yeah you should send to brett andrews

Carter 20:35

andrews hang on okay okay

Carter 20:37

okay continue read it read it

Zain 20:39

it no no no read it out okay you can go ahead now yeah

Carter 20:41

yeah we're ready to read it but

Zain 20:42

but but read it out to us though so we can all be involved are

Zain 20:46

brett andrews are you brett Andrews? Do

Carter 20:48

Do you get to

Corey 20:48

hear messages from Brett

Carter 20:49

It's private. You know what? It's

Corey 20:51

It's private between me and Stephen and Stephen and Brett Andrews. Because

Carter 20:53

Because Taylor and Sarah expected privacy, and look what happened to them.

Zain 21:00

better not be their names.

Zain 21:03

Or it better be. I don't know. I really don't know. Oh,

Zain 21:09

you're a communications professional. Write me the best justification while acknowledging your democratic responsibility for why CNN should do what they did. in hindsight with

Zain 21:18

with all the heat in hindsight with today's all of the heat with all of the heat where does it start for you uh based on what you saw donald

Zain 21:27

donald trump calling a police officer a thug making racist comments about chinatown describing the host as a nasty person a woman he sexually is abused calling her a whack job these are just a few of the things right yeah this is this is now what you have a

Corey 21:41

a long gross list yeah

Zain 21:42

yeah you have to wear this in some ways in or do you and so So my question is, as a communications professional, in

Zain 21:48

in hindsight, what's CNN's response today? Where do you start? Yeah.

Corey 21:53

The news is not always pleasant to watch. Often we deal with reprehensible situations. We have dealt with murders, we have dealt with violence, and we have dealt with Donald Trump. But whether it's reprehensible does not determine its newsworthiness or lack thereof. Donald Trump on our network yesterday made no shorter than five statements that will have serious consequences to his campaign in the future and perhaps American democracy. And as a network, while we are deeply uncomfortable with the positions that Donald Trump took and the attacks against our anchor, there's no question that it reached a bar of newsworthiness and that the American democracy and the American conversation is stronger because of what we had to go through.

Zain 22:39

Carter, yes and that. Build on that for me. Yeah,

Carter 22:41

Yeah, I mean, that was really good. And now the next piece is, you know, it is not our job to censor the materials that you see. Our job is to show you the unvarnished truth and to allow you then to make decisions based upon that truth. Ruth. The decisions that some people made in the 2016 election had ramifications, and the decisions that are going to be made in the 2024 election will have ramifications. Those decisions will not be made by CNN. Those decisions will be made by the voters of the United States of America, and that is what we're the most proud of as a news organization.

Zain 23:19

Do you buy that? Having said that out of both of your mouths, do you guys actually buy that? I 100% buy that.

Zain 23:24

You actually buy that? that yeah

Zain 23:26

cory do you buy that fully or are you doing that just because i asked you to do the exercise i

Corey 23:29

i mean i half buy it i because again like i think what i said you

Corey 23:33

you know it's the nature of spin zane i i think that maybe like my third order thought is probably along the lines of what i just said there the main reasons i did it had nothing to do with the high-minded points that i put in about it was you know yeah yeah

Corey 23:46

yeah the news is not always easy but it's true the news is not always easy you can think about when they're covering in a war zone and there are people being murdered You can think about a hurricane where people are dying and being displaced. And the news covers that. And the news's job is not to make us feel comfortable. And the news's job is not to coddle us from the difficult things that we have to see and deal with, whether it be climate change or whether it be Donald Trump. And so, yeah, Donald Trump is newsworthy, whether we like it or not. He is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. And whether we like it or not, what he says is something that we have to reckon with, as he is the former and perhaps future leader of

Corey 24:25

I'm not even going to pretend

Carter 24:26

pretend that I think

Corey 24:26

think that that's a thing anymore.

Corey 24:28

is president of the United States, or was president, could be president. And that's a pretty fucking important job.

Zain 24:36

carter you buy it fully but i want to actually move on to something that you've mentioned which is the audience but let me package it into something broader which is um cory you mentioned this all the time there's like the three prongs that that the accessibility the viability intent is that right yeah avi baby so

Zain 24:56

so the viability question is interesting what creates someone is a viable candidate.

Zain 25:02

the reason I want to put the viability casing on it is, does a prime time slot to a struggling president

Zain 25:11

president help with viability? And the second sort of conversation I want to have here is actually the audience.

Zain 25:18

What is the function of an audience at a televised town hall? Because if he says some bullshit and they're validating it, at home, how is that received? Is that a big boon

Zain 25:31

boon for Donald Trump in some ways? Is that super helpful to have his supporters cheer on something because it further helps normalize it, further helps show his popularity, further helps show and increases that viability? Or am I over-reading too much into that around the audience? I think

Zain 25:45

think we agree on the

Zain 25:47

the audience was a serious mistake. But why? Let's dig into it. Because I think for some reason, for us, it's easy to dismiss if we put our take our strategist hats off that that's a bunch of you know donald trump supporters cheering on donald trump but carter the implications and the downstream effects are perhaps larger than that are they not well

Carter 26:07

well yeah because you know this

Carter 26:09

this is about a gang right this is about belonging to a club right so the great the great strength and the great weakness of the internet is it allows us to find our peers the people who that we who we like the people who who are like us that have similar interests now, you know, for, for Corey, that's bondage, but for other people, it's, it's, it's, um, you

Carter 26:29

you know, it's things like, like Donald Trump thing,

Corey 26:32

not slavery, just to be clear. Yeah,

Carter 26:34

Yeah, totally. The sex thing. Yeah.

Corey 26:35

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Dark

Carter 26:36

Dark man. That's dark. Um,

Carter 26:38

Um, anyways, the, the, the point is that people found their communities and they found their communities. And then, you

Carter 26:46

you know, that's great when you're finding your kids soccer team community and it isn't that great you know little timmy did great this year but when you are finding uh racism and when you're finding people who feel like they're downtrodden and who wish to blame others

Carter 27:00

others specifically others who are of a different race or different religion or different uh creed whatever

Carter 27:06

whatever that creed may be that becomes problematic and what cnn's job in this was to reflect the norm uh to reflect you know you should fill an audience with average everyday both sides and through

Carter 27:21

through i think capitulation they had chosen to instead of putting forward a real audience reflected all sides that may have found things like the eugene carroll uh elements disgusting um and and maybe would have booed him instead he gets a round of applause for each of the you know the more misogynistic he is the bigger the round of applause is and the signal that's sent to those watching at home is

Carter 27:50

that's how we get to be popular it's the exact same that happens with bullies on a schoolyard you know how did bullies on a schoolyard wind up with those other two you know like how did cory wind up with you and me zane cory was the big bully at h and k and you and i just slid in behind him you know just like like like we're in back to the future we're behind biff right i was biff i was the guy in the 3d glasses and biff was out there poking marty mcfly you and i were right there zane

Corey 28:16

zane zane's mcfly i think okay

Carter 28:18

okay well actually that destroys the analogy but i guess that no annalee's is the other that's

Carter 28:23

dave is the other

Corey 28:23

other guy yeah but

Carter 28:25

but the point of the exercise here is that you must if you're going to have an audience if you're going to uh reflect the norm if you will then that audience must in fact be the norm and that's the the that's the rule that cnn broke most likely because that was the demand of the person that they wanted to put on television cory

Zain 28:45

cory talk to me about the impact and the power of the audience their validation of certain points their their refusal to clap or acknowledge other points how does that translate at home and what does an entirely friendly audience kind of kind of do to you well

Corey 28:59

well i mean many of you have probably seen online either on tiktok or twitter or youtube the the meme of taking old sitcoms from the 90s and pulling the laugh track out and just how flat everything sounds and how not funny it is as a result you know in friends ross all of a sudden looks like a sociopath in seinfeld they all just seem like a bunch of weirdos right and some of its timing but not all of its timing a lot of why people laugh is because people are laughing a lot of why people cheer is because people are cheering and what cnn provided rather than true accountability ability was donald trump in four cameras he got his studio audience to laugh and to cheer and to just amp him on and up and around and that is in turn is going to make people at home want to have those same emotions we talk about the the word aping refers to apes right and how they like to mimic well humans are kind of like that too we like to mimic we like to ape things and we like to be like the people around us that's that's how mob mentalities get built here and what what cnn has unfortunately done is they fueled that. They've provided that stage and that backdrop for Donald Trump. And everything he said, rather

Corey 30:11

rather than having a neutral audience or no audience, seemed funnier because people laughed. The things that the moderator asked that the audience booed at seemed worse because the audience booed. And that backdrop means a lot. And that's exactly why you don't do what CNN did. I mean, it's as simple as that.

Zain 30:29

that. Let's talk about the overall viability that a primetime television slot gives to Donald Trump Carter. One might argue it's fucking CNN. Well, what does this matter? Why does it matter? But do you feel like there's actually an argument that a primetime slot, especially to a guy who's been sluggish in the polls that people are just, you know, looking at as more of a sideshow than anything else? Does this help with actual core viability in any meaningful way? And I'll ask ask the same question to your core in a second yeah

Carter 30:59

yeah absolutely and and the proof is the proof is

Carter 31:02

why did trump do it right

Carter 31:03

right this isn't his audience this isn't who he needs to go see i mean he needs to to help tucker carlson get you know get set up on twitter i mean he needs to find his his core audience and convince his core audience that this is this is you know his comeback he is viable he He is real. And by showing up on CNN and getting a full hour, the message was sent. The message was sent. He is absolutely real. Now, here's the other side of the coin, though. He is real. He

Carter 31:33

He is the front runner in the in the Republican. I almost said UCP, but that would have been wrong. He was in the in the Republican primary. He's the front runner. DeSantis is falling. There are no other credible alternatives. alternatives. So yeah, I mean, he wants to, I mean, to me, this is him trying to not just win the primary, but trying to win the actual election.

Carter 32:00

He's already thinking past the primary and putting himself in, I need to win the election and I'm going to need CNN's audience.

Zain 32:10

Corey, talk to me about the viability of something like this. Talk to me about what a televised prime slot, one-on-one, or I guess in this case, it wasn't even against anyone other than a moderator from CNN. What does that do? Many have called this a televised Trump rally paid for by CNN.

Zain 32:29

If it was that, or if it was a debate with the moderator, however you want to choose to assess it, does this help with his viability?

Corey 32:35

Yeah, I don't think it was a televised Trump rally paid for by CNN. I think that's a, like, again, in many ways, for me, it comes back to the audience but what i do believe is that it was of value to trump which doesn't mean it was wrong for cnn to do it i you know i think that people would love to think that if it promotes a politician it's not newsworthy but by that definition basically almost any coverage of a politician right shouldn't happen the value for donald trump in many ways was not his base who have stuck with him they were thick and thin it was that once again and for the first time in a a while in a way that wasn't entirely so weird to say, because what he said was so batshit crazy. But he seized the media cycle with this. And now people are talking about Donald Trump again in ways, frankly, that they weren't a week ago. And for me, my view of it is Donald Trump got value out of it in that we're all reacting to Donald Trump again. And that is ultimately Donald Trump's superpower. He keeps us spinning. He keeps us moving. He keeps us talking about him rather than everything else around him, putting him in context, the other people who could potentially move the country on from Donald Trump, such as DeSantis, frankly, such as Biden, such as any of the other candidates that might be out there for president.

Zain 33:52

president. Carter, you're the chief strategist for Ron DeSantis. You saw this as a prime time slot for Donald Trump, however you spin it. You also saw him say some totally insane things. How are are you feeling today are you feeling like you know what this is actually great this guy's got put so much stuff out there to cory's first point that he's just you know able to now tie his own rope so to speak or are you saying fuck this noise to cory's most recent point that now we can't even get into the media cycle we need our what are you thinking and what are you doing as a next step well

Carter 34:23

well the very first thing i'm thinking is i'm going to the candidate and i'm saying ron you to make up your mind this is it are you in in which case we need to attack or are you out in which case you can go back to being the governor uh of uh the soon to be disney-less uh florida um so did you see that they're threatening to leave that's nice yeah yeah i did see that um but you know this is this is where desantis is and all the others frankly you know whether it's Nikki Haley or what is the guy, Aisha Hutchison or whatever his name is, they're

Carter 35:01

they're all flailing because none of them will take on Trump.

Carter 35:05

And Trump said four or five or six things that were bad yesterday. The only way you get yourself into that cycle is to take the oppositional position. The Democrats aren't going to do it.

Carter 35:16

The Democrats don't need that kind of pain. So get in there and decide that you're going to run. And if you're going to run, it's because you're better than Trump. And if you aren't better than Trump, then just get the fuck out of the way. Just stop. Because there's no sense in running for a position that you're never going to get. And DeSantis right now can't beat Trump unless he decides to actually compete with Trump.

Zain 35:40

Corey, what are you doing? DeSantis, I think, is the most intriguing of the lot, right? We can easily ask how to strategize for Biden. DeSantis, the lack of official, the opaque nature of his declaration, whether he's doing it or not then you also have the added element of like well he's the one that's now kind of shepherding trumpism uh and then there's also the added element of like fuck this guy's actually really back and now he's we're all swirling around his son who s-u-n right what are you what are you kind of what are you kind of thinking of if you are strategizing for desantis right now if

Corey 36:13

if i'm strategizing for desantis isn't an interesting position because of course so many many of his supporters in

Corey 36:20

florida actually support donald trump in a federal context for president and you know like there's weird dynamics where basically he doesn't want to attack donald trump i think that we have to sort of acknowledge that as a starting point here and even though donald trump is in the lead i actually think if i was talking to desantis my basic strategy for donald trump would be to almost like

Corey 36:42

like diminish him by acting as though like he's just not the guy anymore more and taking it for granted. Like, let me play this one out for you. I'm Ron DeSantis. And DeSantis is going to be in, like everyone expects he'll be in. Yeah.

Zain 36:54

Yeah. Yeah. It's just a formality, I guess, in some ways. Yeah. Yeah.

Corey 36:57

So at that announcement, he says, I'm Ron DeSantis and I'm running for president. And someone says, well, what does this mean in terms of Donald Trump? And you'd be like, listen, I think Donald Trump was a great president, but I mean, I think we can all acknowledge Donald Trump's time is done here. Like, I mean, look at the legal troubles he's in, Look at the way he crashed out of the White House. I mean, you pick your words carefully, but you basically say, look, that's not my concern. If Donald Trump decides that he's actually going to go through with running, almost suggest that his announcement is kind of like a fake announcement or whatnot, well, then I guess we'll see him in the primaries. But the reality is I'm interested in becoming president of the United States here. And I'm looking forward to taking the fight to Joe Biden. And I would actually not necessarily spend a ton of time on Trump at the start. Like, he's going to come at you, he's going to be a jugular, but you almost jujitsu him. And the angrier he comes at him, you go, you know, I really appreciate what Donald Trump's done, but this kind of heat, this kind of energy, that's

Corey 37:51

that's exactly why, you know, I'm running. Because it's clearly evidence he's not actually going to be the guy next time. Like, it's not even like, that's why I think we need to beat him. But you almost be dismissive of the fact that everything he's done suggests that he doesn't stand a chance in a general election. actually. Carter, you're itching. You're itching

Zain 38:10

itching to get in. Well,

Carter 38:11

Well, I mean, that's absolutely right. But that is what Ron DeSantis will not do because he doesn't have the testicles. He doesn't have the ball sack. He doesn't have the ovaries. He doesn't have the uterus.

Carter 38:25

He's missing the thing that makes a person a person. He's missing that steel that turns real people into active people. And sure, he became the governor by pretending to to build a lego wall with his son i mean let's not forget that he rode trump trump's coattails at the time when trump's coattails were the longest and he doesn't want to actually put himself in a position of leading uh what cory said was exactly right forget the guys there but but then forget the guys there but then really you know just rip the shit out of him he can't win because he just lost five million dollars to eugene carroll he can't win because he hasn't won won three elections in a row he can't win because you know like you can throw all those things out but that's what i'm saying when i say if i'm his campaign strategist i'm going into the door and i'm saying are you prepared to take these positions yes or no and if not then get the fuck out you

Corey 39:20

you know i think it's it's like i don't quite have it articulated here but i can almost imagine a debate between ron desantis and donald trump where donald trump goes fucking ape shit on ron desantis And Ron is like smiling, be like, Don, that's why we love you. You're such a character. You were so great as president, you know, and I'm going to take a lot of that same energy into the White House. But, you know, but what I'm also going to do is I'm going to I'm going to, you know, do the thing I did in Florida. I'm going to sweep it all out. And you almost treat him like he's he's the the retired guy who won't move on. Exactly. I think there's an opportunity. Exactly.

Carter 39:53

Exactly. I'm going to take that exact same energy, but I'm going to win.

Carter 39:57

That needs to be the statement, right? But I'm going to win because you're not. You're not going to win. And you know how I know you're not going to win? You haven't won.

Carter 40:05

And you haven't won in so long that people don't remember you winning. You can run around and claim this victory that didn't happen, but you are a loser.

Carter 40:14

And he needs to be willing to say that in some form. You can gussy it up, but it needs to be. said two

Zain 40:23

two two final questions one very quickly um brett andrews what does he need to do in this situation right now like brett andrews is currently probably listening it is a brett andrews hour uh the podcast hour or radio hour however he wants to say he can add his own word in between there what does brett andrews need to do right now carter very quickly brett

Carter 40:39

brett andrews needs to reply to me because i send him a fucking note and he's velgied me uh he's just you know what i love this you

Corey 40:46

you were just at the start you were like this brett andrews guy you know so

Carter 40:49

so why is he why is When we need him, he's

Carter 40:52

he's gone. He's exactly like Velji. Velji's

Carter 40:55

Velji's the same way. Maybe

Corey 40:55

Maybe he, like all of the listeners right now, is going to bretandrews.ca, not thebretandrews.ca. So bretandrews.ca

Corey 41:04

to fill out the strategist listener survey for a chance to win an autographed Patreon subscription for one year.

Zain 41:11

That sounds like a great gift. That's a really good gift. Finally, watching

Zain 41:16

watching last night, seems like years ago. Yeah.

Zain 41:20

Watching last night, has this redefined or even gotten you guys to think if you were strategists putting

Zain 41:26

putting up a candidate in this format in

Zain 41:30

any country, but let's use our country, does

Zain 41:32

does it change any of the core rules for you? Like, would you yourself say, fuck it, I guess I'm pushing for an audience of my supporters now because we could do that. I'd say, fuck it. I guess I'm just debating the moderator because we can do that. Or is this just all Trump dependent? Like, has any fundamental political 2023 town hall rule tweaked or changed? Or are you noodling something? And I always talk about era shifts. Has this shifted anything into a new era? And often we talk about these things in retrospect. Oh, you know, digital came and it did this. are we on the verge of something is the simple way for me to ask it are we on the verge of something and as would you as strategists observing what happened here perhaps

Zain 42:12

perhaps change one of your your your rules or one of your um sort of pillars in terms of how you think about these cory i'll start with you carter same question to you in a second okay

Corey 42:21

okay you know i the thing i've been wondering about in the past 24 hours is what do we think cnn's best case scenario was here like did they think that caitlin collins was going to do like frost nixon and basically just deconstruct this man on stage but then why would you have the studio audience that's so aggressively against us you you ask if this changes the rules this to me doesn't this is such an aberration i've never seen anything like this i've seen components of this but i've never seen all of them put together like together like i've seen a campaign put on an event that is like they're faithful who's going to cheer it on i have seen um this kind of debate between a moderator and a candidate like a sit-down interview i've seen a sit-down interview with an audience but that audience is more general but i've never seen the audience that's like a campaign audience that has that kind of energy and that kind of heat but it's with the moderator who is going at them

Corey 43:18

hall yeah in some way right weirdest

Zain 43:21

carter did it change any rules for you did it change any any if you were if you were called up as the strategist to help design the rules for the next town hall for your candidate, would watching what you did yesterday change any of the presumptions or strategies in your toolkit for you?

Carter 43:38

Well, I mean, Trump

Carter 43:40

Trump doesn't change our rules. Trump changes his own rules. That has been an ongoing truism since the beginning, because if Trump's rules could be adapted, then we wouldn't be seeing the Velji rule being pulled out by Danielle Smith right now because you know she would be able to get away with it because lord knows lord knows donald trump's been able to get away with it but the donald trump rules the things that he resets seem to only apply to him i mean first of all how many of us would have had the audacity to actually ask for the things that they got do you think that they didn't ask for that host you know why wasn't it anderson cooper because they didn't want anderson cooper why you know why was the audience the way they you know the audience because they didn't want I want a

Zain 44:28

real audience. But this is what's interesting to me, right? Do campaigns now just dictate the terms? We don't. Tell you what. To me, this was like, let's just, CNN, you need me more than I need you. You're going to say yes. You're going to face the heat, and you're still going to say yes. So if you want me, if you want Trump, here's what you got to do. You got to put this Frankenstein of a clown car show on. I want Caitlin Collins. I want my audience, and I get to say whatever the fuck I want. And I probably dictated what day and what time slot in some ways, too. But this is what I'm trying to ask, perhaps in a roundabout fashion, Carter. Has this changed the rules for campaigns to be like, fuck it, we run the show now? Just

Carter 45:05

Just go back to that campaign that you're not working on and suggest to your team that, you know what we need to do? We need to totally trump this new upcoming debate next week. If they want Rachel Notley, then they're going to follow our rules, goddammit. And you just get back to us next week how that went for you. I'm going to tell you how it's going to go. it's going to go to shit because there's no one else that has the capacity to get these things because no one else is donald trump and and it sucks cnn should not have given in on many of these on many of these points but i suspect that it was you know donald trump's not going to show up unless you do the following things and instead of being high-minded and smart they they capitulated and gave in and and that's the way that donald trump gets everything he fucking has a temper tantrum and he gets whatever he wants and the regular human beings the rest of us uh if we were to try that technique we'd we'd just be fucking laughed off the stage laughed

Zain 46:02

laughed off the story finish the finishes of off on this cory

Corey 46:04

cory and well that yeah i mean there is a truth to especially to that temper tantrum part we as like he just confronts people perpetually and he knows most of the time, most people are going to back down on all of these things. And it's led to his success, but it's also what makes him such a first class shitheel, right? Like he just, he thrives in confrontational environments and he's done this. But I, you know, Zane, to your question, I don't think the rules have changed. I think that Donald Trump is just somebody who has, because of his entertainment value, as much as we might disdain that, because of the numbers that he can draw and all of that he's just in a stronger negotiating position but the reality is these things are always negotiated now they're usually negotiated with more decorum campaigns are

Corey 46:48

usually like yeah that doesn't seem great so i'm not going to ask for that but he's fucking shameless he draws eyeballs and he he'll just ask for it and he'll do it but it's just an extreme manifestation of the rules as they've always existed you want to have a sit-down interview with somebody you're going to negotiate the terms the questions what's out of bounds what's in bounds is

Zain 47:07

is your spouse going

Corey 47:07

going going to be there with you? How big is the audience? Is the audience allowed to applaud? These things have been negotiated since the start of time. And like I said, none of these individually are new demands. It's the combination that makes it so novel, but it's the combination he was able to demand because of his bargaining power.

Zain 47:26

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. But the word that you brought up that I think is most interesting is shameless. And are we going to to be in an era of more politicians just being naked with what they want and shameless in how to get it and knowing that the upside is worth the cost in terms of process. I think that to me, if there was any rule

Zain 47:44

I think that... That

Carter 47:44

That could be great. It could be great if politicians were saying what they wanted and actually did and said what they wanted to get. But there has to be a consequence to it too. And that's where Trump is alone. He does not suffer the consequences.

Zain 47:58

Corey, you wanted to court me,

Corey 48:00

me, I suspect, too? No, I just think you should sound off at bretandrews.ca or maybe fly down to one of these locations in the United States and talk to a Trump supporter yourself by going to thebretandrews.ca.

Carter 48:14

.ca. Did we mention that we're not even charging them to give us this feedback?

Corey 48:18

I mean, we're actually offering it. Yes, Stephen. There's a chance. There's

Carter 48:22

There's a serious chance

Corey 48:23

chance that you could win You could win an autographed 12

Carter 48:30

subscription. I don't even know who we are. And

Zain 48:31

And I mean, we're the best, and we

Zain 48:34

we get the gift of feedback, which we will take very, very selectively. Oh,

Zain 48:40

Oh, yeah. Yeah, Corey will edit the feedback back to Carter and I so that we only hear the best. Well, I don't want to crush you. Yeah. Yeah,

Carter 48:47

Yeah, that would be really tough. That's true. Very fragile

Zain 48:48

fragile people. Let's move it on to our next segment, our next segment, Two Minutes for Interference. guys that's a hockey reference but it is also not thank

Zain 48:57

yes it is a reference to what is going on in ottawa with conservative mp michael chong who last week found out from intelligence officials confirming that

Zain 49:07

that him and his family had been targeted by chinese consular official uh in retaliation for a motion he moved in the house in february of 2021 uh condemning beijing's treatment of Uyghur Muslims. This was first reported by the Globe and Mail, confirmed by intelligence officials. This drew a lot of eyeballs and media stories last week. There's a lot to talk about on the China interference file, but I'm going to start at perhaps an interesting spot. Perhaps an interesting spot. Carter, this

Zain 49:38

this story had legs last week. It has legs this week, to the point where the House of Commons unanimously agreed that it should strike a study into the intimidation campaign, allegedly orchestrated by this now expelled diplomat. By the way, that was also new. This diplomat is now expelled. And the federal government is also now greenlining, or greenlighting, I should say, the foreign agents registry. They're going to now create this. This has been called upon for a long time, long time, long time. Didn't happen.

Zain 50:10

How much of this, Stephen Carter, is

Zain 50:12

is due almost singularly to

Zain 50:15

to the messenger and not so much the message, which is Michael Chong, a guy that seems to have a lot of respect within his party, despite maybe not being so aligned with the current Polyev world. This is me editorializing.

Zain 50:27

And seems to have a lot of, you know, respect amongst the Ottawa bubble, even amongst liberals. And what does this kind of say? Less about the story, but more about the messenger effect here, because that to me is the most intriguing. So I'm drawing you down a path. Feel free to continue on it. Feel free to take me away from it if you disagree. But how much of this was due to the messenger? Well,

Carter 50:46

I think Michael Chong, you know, I think you're right. I think that Michael Chong is one of the more universally admired, let's say admired MPs. I'm not sure, you know, is everybody

Carter 51:00

everybody going out for drinks? I don't know. But I do know that he is universally admired. And a lot of the things that he has suggested have become the norm, right? Right. Like we're shifting the way that we think of caucuses in no small part because of Michael Chong and some of the bills that he's brought forward. He is a thought leader. He is a person who is expected to speak his mind. And he's not just someone who's running around spouting lines. Right. Like if this had come from, you know, like one of them, like if Pierre Polyev had said this. If Michael

Zain 51:29

Michael Cooper, for example. Oh,

Carter 51:32

Oh, yeah. I mean, Michael Cooper would be a great example of someone who probably wouldn't have gotten very much attention from me, for sure, let alone the federal government. But when it's Michael Chong, Michael Chong has a reputation of being a straight shooter. uh and not only that michael chong um he's he's like the last of the reasonable guys on the on the right and so when he comes forward and he says this is happening you have the chance now if you're the if you're the uh the liberals to lose michael chong and that kind of um that voice from the house of commons because you know i'll tell you something if you're if you're if you're being being bullied online and you're an mp it's

Carter 52:19

it's it's almost like the price of admission is it right no but you expect it your family getting bullied your family getting pushed around your family getting pushed around in a different country that's a that's a bridge too far it is it's unconscionable and it is a direct affront uh to our ability to have a democracy um so you know i'm glad it was michael chong i'm glad that that the the the you know the liberals and the conservatives are taking this seriously and it's not just being used as political fodder uh as so much has been this is this is being um dealt

Carter 52:58

dealt with i think harshly and appropriately although slowly

Zain 53:03

yeah so slowly i want to get to slowly in a second that was kind of the second part of this conversation cory how much of this was due to the messenger as much as it was the message in the the situation i

Corey 53:12

i i disagree i i think that i agree with everything that steven has said about michael chan garnering a lot of respect in the uh parliament of canada and beyond of course but

Corey 53:25

but let's be really clear about what happened here an mp took a position and a foreign government tried to tried to unspool that position and penalize that position and have retribution for that position and i feel strongly that most

Corey 53:40

most any mp that would have happened to would have drawn a response back and a backlash you actually genuinely think

Corey 53:45

100 do i think if it was like a name that we were hearing for the first time we might be like wow that's really wrong and we might define that entire person based on the event and

Corey 53:55

and michael chong we just have a more textured view of because of course all of the things he's done in terms of uh you know changes to parliament I can't remember the name of the act all of a sudden but

Corey 54:05

allowing the leader the one that

Zain 54:07

got rid of Aaron O'Toole effectively not directly but because of its existence

Corey 54:14

well it'll come to me in a minute but like

Corey 54:17

it changes our view and it gives a more textured view but in a way if it had been somebody that was less of a brand name if it was somebody who was just an MP in say rural Nova Scotia that most of us had never heard of i

Corey 54:30

think in some ways it would have almost accentuated the matter because that's all we would have known about them and we would have been like what the hell that's outrageous that this occurred to this particular individual and

Corey 54:41

and look i mean there are lines and there are red lines that a government cannot allow a foreign government to cross and this was clearly one it was absolutely

Zain 54:50

one didn't mean to stop you we just came up with it the brett andrews act yeah

Carter 54:53

yeah brett andrews i just reached out to brett actually yeah he's it's actually called the the reform act um oh good

Corey 55:00

good very of course brett

Carter 55:01

brett was able to fill that in for me yeah

Zain 55:03

thank you brett thank you brett thank you brett as we celebrate this

Zain 55:06

the hour is named after you brett the thousand page show is it an hour or is it more like two at this point um

Carter 55:12

um we don't know that's the beauty of this particular show and

Zain 55:14

and you know what i mean that was episode that's how brett rolls you know that's how i roll that's two hours in an hour yeah not like annalise we don't we we don't we don't we don't tap out you and brett you guys are birds of a feather Totally, man. Brett and I.

Carter 55:30

Where are we? Like, what happened? Okay, continue. Continue. Ask me a question. Oh, I'm continuing.

Carter 55:36

I am ready to answer. You're not going to answer

Zain 55:37

answer it. I will. I've moved on from the... Okay, here's the thing. Corey's point is an interesting one. But here's my main thing. I wanted to kind of test that out.

Zain 55:46

But I really wanted to go to where this is a problem for the government now. Because Corey is right in another way, too. which

Zain 55:53

which is other MPs. Michael Chong has verified through the intelligence source that he has, the government has not, that there are others, that there are other MPs. How big of a problem is this for the government? And let's go get into the fact that they're acting so slowly. Is that slow acting

Zain 56:09

acting a political party and a government that is lethargic? Or is that a government that just knows way more than we do and has to be cautious? And you might say it's a bit of both, but give me your political take on this from what you see. Well,

Carter 56:22

Well, I'm going to go way out on a limb here. I'm going to tell you a couple things that I think you both know. Number one, China's not great. China's kind of a bully. The government of China has strength and power, and they are not afraid to use it. um you know we can see the retaliation they have done twice now against the united states because the speakers of the house have met with the uh the president of taiwan that is legitimate uh actions taken because they do not like the action of another government we had two of our citizens taken uh hostage essentially uh by that government um they're not they don't play the same rules that we play and any action that we take could be deemed to be an affront to China and when it you know I mean I got a lot of this when we were even just dealing with the Dalai Lama coming to Calgary like the truth of the matter is if you do something that China doesn't like you wind up on a list and that's just reality and they do things that we don't do they do try and influence the outcome you know they try and influence um through their core uh through their expats they try and influence members of the legislative assembly they try and influence uh your your your your counselor they try and influence your mayor and now they're influencing mla or mps um what

Carter 57:43

what does government do about that well there's lots of different things most of those things that the government does to deal with things like that we

Carter 57:49

we don't do with we don't do it in public that's that's not the place to do this isn't to do it in public because that just escalates everything uh further and faster and i just don't see how that's a good idea

Zain 58:02

cory yeah what do you think yeah

Corey 58:04

yeah well i actually want to build a little bit on what steven said first first line of defense is awareness so you don't fall into traps and you know accepting gifts and getting yourself in compromised situations and our security apparatus the rcmp pcsis they make sure that people are aware of those consequences they also uh you know have the ability to let people know that they know that china's reaching out to them which in itself can put a bit of a dapper on these things and remind people that we do have security apparatuses that look into these particular matters here why

Corey 58:36

why i where i think i maybe want to yank this conversation a tiny bit zane is um there

Corey 58:45

was a moment about a month ago that we talked about at the time with katie telford's testimony at the committee where she said the prime minister reads all of the things that goes ahead and now we've had in the past couple of weeks some conversation about what the prime minister knew and when who was told what did this file actually get on anybody's desk And I can't help but think that we've seen Chekhov's committee testimony. Like at the time, I think I said that that's a dangerous comment, because all you need to do then is sort of point that something ended up in the prime minister's office, and it implicates Justin Trudeau. And I'm

Zain 59:24

now. now and well and

Corey 59:25

and i think you

Zain 59:26

it was just this comment just to be just for folks that that didn't catch up the prime minister reads everything that comes across his desk like almost like a blanket statement yeah

Zain 59:34

yeah it was a blanket statement of

Corey 59:35

of course if it came to the prime minister he would have done that and i can't help but note the caution that everybody is now talking in in terms of like what we knew at the time what was available a lot of hedge words and i think part part of why everything is moving a little bit more methodically at this point is like they're

Corey 59:54

they're walking around bear traps they set for themselves and i'm not saying that they're saying there was a thing and they're trying to cover up the thing i'm emphatically not saying that i'm saying they've realized they've made some strong statements and they better be fucking careful going forward in terms of what they've said carter

Zain 1:00:10

carter what do you do here you've got michael chunk whether cory cory's point's a good one any he thinks any mp would have gotten this level of attention to the the story, but you've got a sympathetic messenger in Michael Chung, a respected messenger in Michael Chung. You've got actions taken this week that people have been calling for for months now, in certain ways. You have a prime minister who didn't know, right? The prime minister did not know. This is a Globe and Mail and intelligence officials verifying to MP Chung that this is what happened. If you're the prime minister right now, what sort of crisis damage are you doing? Are you you just saying, fuck this noise? I'm taking David Johnson out of the picture. We're calling a public inquiry. Are you channel changing on the issue? Are you channel changing away from the issue? Can you even channel change for long enough so that it doesn't get back to the issue? You also note that there's more MPs, more actual names of your colleagues will come out in terms of who else was targeted. This seems, Corey's bear traps is absolutely right. This seems like a shit ton of bear traps, some of which you've put for yourself, some of which are newly emerging. You've also got up here probably have breathing down your neck on it carter what is i'm not asking for a silver bullet but

Zain 1:01:19

but give me the pathway here are you expediting a public inquiry are you channel shifting away from this what are you thinking about um on this particular fog because it seems to have this this yo-yo effect that you perhaps want to avoid at the most inopportune time there's

Carter 1:01:36

there's There's only one real solution to something like this, and that is to create a bipartisan solution or a tripartisan solution. You've got to bring everybody to the table. You've got to get a committee put together. That committee needs to be in a position where they are enabled to see the information, to see the fullness of the information, and it does not appear to be controlled by the government.

Carter 1:02:03

That's essential. presidential um keep

Carter 1:02:06

keep in mind in this particular the prime minister is not directing ceases on what to do the prime minister is not sitting in ceases office and saying have you got have you got a guy over there studying these people on the west coast because especially we're especially bad on the west coast we got to make sure we got some stuff going on over there the prime minister has empowered the bureaucracy to deal with this and the bureaucracy needs to be uh needs to be reporting back to the to the legislative branch the uh you know and telling uh the house of commons what's going on in secret in private uh behind closed doors and the only way that you can make that happen is through some sort of bipartisan you know bipartisan element this

Carter 1:02:49

this uh david johnson piece is just now i think it i think it's run its course and i'm sad to say I'll say that because I think I was one of the people saying that it would never run its course. I'm thinking that I'm going to be wrong. I was too, for

Corey 1:03:02

for what it's worth.

Zain 1:03:04

What are you doing on that front? When you say run its course, be clear with me. Are you yanking it away from

Corey 1:03:09

from Johnson? What do you mean? In

Corey 1:03:11

In fewer than two weeks, in less than two weeks time, this report is due. May 23rd, it's due. We're recording it. It's May 11th here. So why would you accelerate it? It wouldn't even be accelerated. Like if the report showed up tomorrow, it would be like, that's

Corey 1:03:25

that's kind of when you expect the report to show up, right? Like a Friday just before it, where you can kind of bury it on the weekend, potentially. Now, the question does become, what are the recommendations that come out of it? And perhaps they will be like what Stephen said, that say, we've got to deal with this in a back room where we can have more robust security conversations that include many parties or maybe it will say we need a public inquiry or maybe it'll say we need a combination of these two things because there are public questions and there are private questions or you know questions of state security is probably a better way to put on it all of which must be addressed at this particular moment and like lest we forget this the michael chong thing is really quite serious And quite dramatic. But we still have many questions to answer about the Handong situation. Obviously,

Corey 1:04:12

we've also seen an escalation where he is now suing the reporters or the media outlet that put that story out. But the foundational challenge

Corey 1:04:23

challenge on that first one was either A, the security apparatus tried to torpedo the liberals, or B, the liberals did not take seriously an attempt to interfere in an election on their benefit. it and so you know there's a lot of things out there and at this point there are so many issues and so many challenges but related

Corey 1:04:39

related to canada's relations with china like i i'm really curious to see what johnson does but i do think in a way it's a dead letter because it has run its course and and the issue has expanded and gone into so many different ways with this chong thing that even if johnson was to say i don't think we need an inquiry because of the

Corey 1:04:58

the the handong thing now we've got a whole

Corey 1:05:01

whole other kettle of fish and so this just doesn't go away i mean and i don't even mean this in a small sense i mean canada china relations this does not go away we need to think about how we're going to address this as a country yeah

Zain 1:05:13

so carter this does not go away from a pure policy perspective from an issue that we need to deal with politically however is there opportunity in having a lot of issues on the same file that are hard to understand And listen, I have utmost respect for the voters. But like, there are nine different chapters, six different pretzels, just a lot going on, that on its face, this is not a crisp one sentence, I get it. This is not $16 orange juice. This is not one of those stories. It's big, China, Beijing, CCP, like every country. all it's am i

Zain 1:05:52

i being am i being too naive

Zain 1:05:55

naive that there's opportunity in complexity opinions

Zain 1:05:59

there's there's opportunity in in political raw political opportunity in complexity and that the layers are actually not hurtful they're perhaps helpful carter what do you think i

Carter 1:06:09

i i think you're right i think that you know this isn't going i mean i haven't seen any polling on this has anybody seen any polling um not recently i don't think this is going to be the top of the line polling question i don't think people are going to come away from this saying you know if we don't figure this out we've got real issues but that's the reason that you can put together a committee and put it behind the scenes because if the gen pop cared about this the way that they should care about this we may be demanding a public inquiry what we should be doing is you know recognizing that this is big this is big this is big but it's also probably probably pretty quiet in terms of, you

Carter 1:06:44

you know, political intrigue. And by God, if I was Pierre Polyev, if I was one of his advisors, I'd be telling him, please, please just keep it quiet. This isn't something that we solve in public. This isn't something that we make hay on. This is something that needs to be discussed. And we need to reach a solution because China, China is a powerful, powerful ally slash frenemy. This could go really bad in a very short period of time.

Zain 1:07:18

Corey, you want to add to that point around the layers adding political opportunity for the liberals, not just political risk?

Corey 1:07:26

Well, I think it's charitable, but an immense stretch to call China an ally at this point, Stephen. But I think your point is a really Yeah,

Corey 1:07:34

it was a really solid one in terms. So, Zane, as you were going on, the reason I was so emphatically agreeing is I actually think that complexity has has two consequences that have political elements here. The first is with the conservative caucus, like the more that this ratchets up and this becomes China and its effect on this nation and the consequences to the conservative caucus members themselves and all of that, I think the more it forces people to be serious about this and say, okay, you know, I know we said it would handcuff us and no, we can't take these security briefings and all of that. But at a certain point, it's like, we

Corey 1:08:11

we got to figure this out, right? And so we've all got to take this a little bit serious. Maybe we got to dial down the rhetoric. Maybe we got to get behind closed doors and figure out what the fuck we're dealing with, right? So that's element number one. And I think that can change the tenor of the political conversation overall. And certainly, it makes it less of a game when you're in the caucus and you're now seeing the consequences that are happening for some people. And perhaps that's not fair to say that they thought it was a game, but perhaps it's not unfair to say they weren't taking it super seriously like this before this particular moment. Oh,

Zain 1:08:41

Oh, no, they were trying to extract political value. And you saw it even how Polyev was writing to the special rapporteur and other things on that file. Keep going, Corey. Yeah,

Corey 1:08:50

Yeah, dear rapporteur in quotes and all that. We talked about that. But the second element is the public element. And let's look at it from the lens of the liberals right now. And let's just talk about this. And I've sort of introduced this, right? There was the issue previous on, I mean, there's been so many issues related to China, including the vote on the Uyghur, the Uyghur vote in the first place, where, you know,

Zain 1:09:10

know, people who didn't

Corey 1:09:11

didn't show up from the cabinet and all of that, right?

Corey 1:09:14

here's the thing there

Corey 1:09:16

was a story where it seemed like there was potentially one of the angles was almost collusion china and liberals or at least liberal indifference or maybe there was something with the c you know csis and the security apparatus and there were a lot of people in the story and you weren't necessarily sure i mean you knew china wasn't acting great but maybe some other people were not acting great you didn't quite know who the villains were and we had to get to the bottom of this and all that but now we're layering in more stories where clearly china is acting, being a bad actor. And it is combining and it's conflated in people's minds. And it's becoming

Corey 1:09:49

becoming a little more difficult to say this is a liberal party story, and it's feeling a lot more like a bigger China story. And that muddying, I think, has political consequences that are not entirely negative for the liberals. Although, as we've said, there are bear traps all around that the liberals need to watch out for here. But the two are tied. As the stakes get more serious, as this becomes clearly more geopolitical in nature, I think that both the Conservative caucus more immediately and the Canadian public are viewing it more as a geopolitical struggle, and that has domestic political consequences.

Zain 1:10:25

We're going to leave that segment there, Carter. Moving on to our final segment, our over-under and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, we do it for you. No,

Carter 1:10:31

No, we don't. We do it for Brett Andrews.

Zain 1:10:34

do it for Brett

Carter 1:10:35

Honestly, Zane, it's like you don't read the memos.

Carter 1:10:40

We send memo after after memo people like you'd have no idea how many memos we've sent to this guy.

Corey 1:10:45

Do you want to give that another one? You want to give it a clean shot there? You just want to just, you want to say it again? Yeah.

Corey 1:10:51

Steven Carter. Our final

Zain 1:10:52

final segment are over under our lightning round, but Andrews, we do this for you. We always do this for you. Uh, you are, you are, are, are, are shining lights. You're our rock. You are, you are a rock. If you ever cancel your Patreon subscription. Oh, you're going to hear no end. We will, we

Corey 1:11:08

we will end you.

Carter 1:11:09

No, we'll end the show. We will, We'll end the show. It's over. We will. Yeah. No, we will fuck it up. That's true. We'll end the show.

Corey 1:11:15

show. Yeah, we're not going to threaten you. We love you, Brett Andrews.

Carter 1:11:17

Andrews. We will end the show. We'll end the show. You can't.

Zain 1:11:19

Well, you're going to fuck it up for everyone else. And we're going to, on the final show, your address, your email, your phone number. No, we're not going to do that. Do we have that information?

Carter 1:11:26

Okay. Carter, I think you have

Zain 1:11:28

have that information. Hang on.

Carter 1:11:29

on. I'm just going to- We're not even using.

Zain 1:11:30

using. We're not threatening Brett Andrews. All I

Carter 1:11:32

I know for sure is I've got Taylor and Sarah. We love Brett Andrews. that they're ashamed of if

Carter 1:11:37

you're ashamed of something

Corey 1:11:37

something we love you we would never hurt you but we would hurt this podcast we would

Corey 1:11:42

would hurt this podcast very

Zain 1:11:43

very on bread actually doing both things very on bread yeah

Zain 1:11:47

steven carter yep tucker carlson is back no

Zain 1:11:53

he's he's gonna do a show on twitter um are

Zain 1:11:56

are you in or are you out on tucker carlson doing this show on on twitter steven even carter i'm

Carter 1:12:00

i'm out um i am so close to leaving twitter oh this was very close this week kids and i'll tell you something what's making it easier to uh consider or even contemplate leaving leaving twitter is our discord on uh you know the strategist dick's discord which comes for free when you become a patreon um

Corey 1:12:19

um so actually it means it costs money but yes go on yeah

Carter 1:12:22

yeah okay it's free when you are a member it's

Carter 1:12:25

free when you're a member

Zain 1:12:25

member that's a very long-winded way to say but

Corey 1:12:28

six dollars a month

Carter 1:12:29

month that's like cheap and so i'm on and you know what i'm on the discord zero

Zain 1:12:32

zero i'm on the zero if you go to brett andrews.ca

Zain 1:12:35

do you know what else is free when you pay for it everything hey

Carter 1:12:39

hey cory do you have a position on this uh because it's the lightning i i

Corey 1:12:44

really like the discord too

Zain 1:12:45

i think are you in around is actually pretty carlson are you in around tucker carson joining twitter uh as is as i'm actually genuinely curious if twitter can can house original content it's

Carter 1:12:55

it's over but like it's over it's

Zain 1:12:57

a lot of fucking eyeballs

Corey 1:12:59

cory any thoughts on

Corey 1:13:00

well i think twitter

Corey 1:13:02

twitter serves a different function it is about conversation i do think opinion leaders congregate there i think one of the reasons cbc decided to come back to twitter is not because they were getting eyeballs to their stories it's because they were no longer involved in conversations meaningful conversations about policy and news in this country and just put

Carter 1:13:20

put the knife right in her back hey yeah i know

Zain 1:13:26

it's okay she doesn't listen i've heard it's

Zain 1:13:29

her and i have that in common yeah so that's good uh

Corey 1:13:33

uh tucker carlson um going

Corey 1:13:36

going to twitter is a way that he wants to continue to be in the conversation but i you know if that's his goal then good good for him not good for the rest rest of us but good for him but ultimately he's just it's going to be difficult to have the relevance he had on on fox news on twitter twitter

Corey 1:13:53

twitter is not where you think of going for content like original content you go there twitter has replaced the comment section on newspapers twitter has replaced the conversation it is not it's not where content producers generally

Zain 1:14:06

generally live cory cnn one word of advice for them going forward what would it be

Corey 1:14:14

don't know um repent

Corey 1:14:17

repent i know i don't even know i mean like i'm not really sure that cnn needs any advice this is the tempest of this week and we'll all move on carter

Zain 1:14:25

carter will we all move on and if so what's your advice for them in one word for this week patience

Carter 1:14:31

that see how that was one word that was one word well now i'm going to change my answer it's

Corey 1:14:35

it's all going down there's going to be heads rolling at cnn because stephen carter suggested patience that's

Zain 1:14:42

true another carter another carter prediction prediction yeah

Zain 1:14:45

we're gonna do it there carter a final question to you i'm gonna start with you on this one scale of one to ten how fucked are the liberals with the the the ongoing china interference stories uh on a scale of one to ten we talked about complexity perhaps being a political win but we also have the the the issue that they are still government, they have to deal with this shit, even if there's political neutrality or political opportunity available for them. How fucked are the liberals overall policy and political perspective combined, Carter?

Carter 1:15:15

I would give it about a four,

Carter 1:15:18

four out of 10. Corey, are

Corey 1:15:20

are you the same four out of 10? No, I give it much higher. I give it something more like a seven. Nobody should sleep on this issue. The rise of China's power is one of the most consequential things that's happened in our lifetimes. It is just a reality that we've moved from a unipolar world to something different. And we

Corey 1:15:43

we are going to be dealing with the consequences of that for quite some time. And it is not entirely clear to me what they are yet. But yeah, buckle up. This is going to get strange. And the fact that our government is in such a tense moment with this power, this rising power, is challenging

Corey 1:15:59

challenging to say to say the least. So stay tuned.

Zain 1:16:03

I'm going to leave that segment there. That segment, of course, brought to us by Flair Airlines. Flair Airlines, buckle up. Buckle up. It's going to get strange. That's a wrap on episode 1061 of The Strategist, also episode one of the Brett Andrews Radio Hour. Who gives a fuck, Brett? We're going to add radio to it. My name is Zade Velger. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

Corey 1:16:31

Hey, everybody, but especially Brett Andrews. Thank you for listening to the Strategist's Brett Andrews Hour. We'd like you to maybe just consider potentially for a moment here going to brettandrews.ca and filling out our survey. It's really important to Zane. There's a few questions about him specifically on it. And I mean, frankly, if he doesn't get the results that he's looking for, we're going to hear about it for a long, long time here. The other thing you do need to keep in mind is we are bribing you to do this. There is the opportunity to win really impressive prizes. Well, one prize, actually, and it's not that impressive. But it's

Corey 1:17:09

it's something to consider as you sit there at the end of this episode, realizing that your life is so empty, you just listen to us talk for like, what, 80 minutes? I don't know. Yeah,

Corey 1:17:17

Yeah, there's some opportunity here to channel that effort into going to bretandrews.ca, not thebretandrews.ca. I understand that thebretandrews.ca is no longer owned by the Strategist Media Corporation. But bretandrews.ca, we got that one. And we got you, Brett. And we love you, Brett. And we love the rest of you who

Corey 1:17:43

who know Brett and can give love to Brett as well.

Carter 1:17:46

Really good job, Corey. Really good job. Thank

Zain 1:17:49

Yeah, I think that was great. And if I do not get the results I want, stop the steal. Big lie. It's happening. Here we go.

Zain 1:17:59

A new definition to the Velji rule. Okay, we're all going to... Fuck it.

Transcript