Episode 1824: Mastermind over matter

Zain 0:01

This is a strategist episode 1824. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, and of course, Corey Hogan, who's decided to join us with this green lime

Zain 0:11

lime flavored bubbly. That's true.

Zain 0:15

Will I open it now? Will I open it later? We'll find out. I

Carter 0:18

expected more from you, Corey.

Zain 0:19

Why didn't they make a commercial where if you drink a bubbly, it gives you the voice of a crooner like Buble? That should have been their entire marketing shtick from the beginning. You know what? You

Corey 0:28

You should get into that business. Yeah. Marketing? Yeah. Stop trying to do ads that make the NDP popular in Alberta and go sell soft drinks, buddy. Like, come on. Make some money. No, no, no.

Zain 0:41

Do you think the profit margin on bubbly is higher, greater or

Corey 0:46

or less than cocaine? It's literally just fucking water. I'm sure the profit margin is pretty good. Put some lime

Corey 0:52

Yeah. It must be so fun. Maybe

Carter 0:52

Maybe some sugar. Okay,

Corey 0:53

Okay, open it up here. No, I'm not going to do that. Oh,

Corey 0:56

you're going to leave

Zain 0:57

Oh, wow. I'm going to leave it closed for now. He's not going to quench his thirst the entire show. Carter, let's get him talking right away. Okay.

Zain 1:02

Corey, how was your weekend? How was your 12 kids?

Zain 1:06

Mouth's still dry, Zane.

Corey 1:06

Zane. Come back to me in a minute. Go to Carter first. Carter,

Zain 1:10

Carter, dry mouth, very common amongst men of a certain age. Oh,

Zain 1:14

yeah. Have you ever experienced it?

Carter 1:15

No, I haven't. I'm not of that certain age. I'm still

Carter 1:19

still a young man at heart.

Zain 1:21

Yeah, absolutely. How's our heart doing?

Carter 1:29

came out okay i

Zain 1:30

i didn't i meant i meant more i meant more from a feelings perspective trying to get deep on the show oh yeah i'm jay shetty actually this is not i'm a different brown guy this is uh this is where i get you to be vulnerable and then lie to you about everything that's built my career uh cory uh you're you're doing well can i ask you about your gaggle of children and and uh their their overall well-being i mean last i checked i still had them all but

Carter 1:54

that was the last you checked i mean how long How long ago was that?

Zain 1:58

Guys, I was in Toronto at a political conference, the next campaign conference. And let me tell you something. Not many fans of the pod. I made a Flair Airlines joke from the stage. Few laughs. Few laughs. Some people, I think some people were feeling pity. But let me tell you something. We got to increase that Eastern Canadian market share, okay? There's a lot of people in that room. Don't worry, I converted. By the end, they're eating out of the palm of my hand, Carter.

Zain 2:22

Carter. Sure they were. But at the beginning, I can drop some Flair Airlines material in and know that it's going to land, kind of like the airline itself.

Corey 2:28

Now, your assumption is they didn't listen if they didn't find your Flair Airlines jokes funny? Yeah,

Carter 2:34

Yeah, we got some bad news for you, man.

Corey 2:37

no, no. I'm sorry. No,

Zain 2:37

No, you're... Guys, guys, I

Zain 2:40

I have a fucking thousand... I

Zain 2:42

I bet a fucking

Zain 2:44

I bet. I'm like Vlade Guerrero in the second half of the season, which is, by the way, a real thing. It should be doing a different show. So many references that you're just...

Carter 2:52

just... Oh, so good. it's so good people are laughing right now they're

Zain 2:55

they're not they're just like wow is he smart or is he dumb then they don't know they actually have no idea okay

Zain 3:01

okay if there's nothing else let's move it on to our first segment our first segment sellout or strategic steven carter i

Carter 3:10

being in that in that sentence like that sellout or

Zain 3:12

or strategic steven carter it's true i did not leave much breathing room yeah headline and the start um but those are are two things that you've been told in the past and in fact it's not

Zain 3:24

in fact at the same time at the same yeah uh i i suspect that's been a label that you've proudly proudly worn proudly worn and associated with probably leaked uh to the media uh yourself as a label about you yeah

Carter 3:39

yeah that and uh political mastermind those are the two things i leaked about myself cory

Zain 3:43

cory he has been called i'm not even let's take a detour here for a second what have you been called there's a term that you have been called and that in your bio for a long time it was included in there and i just want to make to make you embarrassed about it you were called embarrassed political

Corey 3:57

political boy genius political mastermind

Zain 3:58

mastermind shit like boy genius i didn't

Carter 4:02

didn't write that no

Zain 4:03

no no no it said he's been called by the national post as a political mastermind now cory it was a national post opinion column okay it wasn't the national post editorial board getting together okay and saying wow let's name a political mastermind but you know carter you rolled with it and i like that you take advantage

Carter 4:21

advantage of what you're given one

Carter 4:22

one day you'll be given faint praise

Zain 4:27

then i can skew you and

Carter 4:28

and to promote my benefit and i really i suspect you'll do it you're

Carter 4:34

you're gonna ask me a question wow

Zain 4:36

wow you're just really eager to move move on well i mean

Carter 4:39

we can stay here if you want i

Zain 4:41

wanted to stay here for a very long time i know one person who in addition to myself who did as well which is cory um hey cory are you okay

Corey 4:48

okay for me to move on wasn't trump almost shot today like no okay okay

Zain 4:52

okay well let's talk okay almost

Zain 4:55

asked you which topics you care about you said none of them all of them and now you're like why are we fucking doing this why are we doing political mastermind material wasn't trump shot yes he was almost shot again no

Carter 5:05

he wasn't let's let's discuss what almost shot entails okay almost shot entails someone points a gun at you and almost shoots you well

Corey 5:15

well he didn't even get that far he

Carter 5:17

he didn't get that far like

Corey 5:17

like details we're we're recording rephrase cory donald

Corey 5:22

donald trump was on a golf course apparently one or two holes ahead somebody had an ak-47 type weapon and was getting ready to To line up a shot, presumably, against the president. And then the Secret Service found it and then has him in custody, I understand, after he ran to a black Nissan. And I was thinking, it's always interesting when you hear like the cars of attempted murderers, you know? Yeah, or at least the

Corey 5:50

Nissan. Were you paying black Nissan?

Corey 5:52

No, you know what?

Corey 5:53

What kind of car

Corey 5:54

car do I think?

Corey 5:56

screams rental. Absolutely. It's an Altima. It was picked up at the airport, which is just like a kilometer away.

Corey 6:02

No, fuck this. Fuck this. You guys are absolutely wrong about

Zain 6:06

about this. I don't even know what car it was. It was a 2024 Rogue with under 30,000 miles on

Zain 6:12

it. Okay. I guarantee you. There's no way. Absolutely

Zain 6:15

no way. I'm willing to bet after domain purchases, my Patreon money this week, that it was a 2024 Rogue. You're really showing

Carter 6:24

showing some commitment to this bit. It's

Zain 6:25

It's a 2024 Rogue. Okay.

Zain 6:28

So are you actually concerned about this, Corey? Because you just threw it into what I think was going to be a meaty topic.

Corey 6:35

So we had to brush past Jagmeet Singh being a sellout to talk about somebody trying to assassinate the former president of the United States. Yes, I think that's actually a bigger deal. But that's the point that I think is maybe worth dwelling on for a minute. it last time this happened i think we all felt oh my god like this is this just over this changes everything are we a little over correcting now has the whole world shrugged a little too much about the fact that somebody got that close to shooting donald you mean

Zain 7:04

mean we're numb to an assassination shockingly

Corey 7:07

like on what seems like a fairly serious assassination attempt that occurred two months after the previous one like what it's really fascinating to me how how how this this instantly does not feel like it's even as significant as the last one which turned out to be not particularly significant well

Carter 7:25

well i mean if if he'd actually been shot at i think that i might have a little bit different of opinion but instead it was just like a guy with a gun went to the golf course i mean this sounds like a sunday in the bushes like any one hole ahead of donald

Carter 7:40

trump any sunday in florida a guy with a golf you know with a gun went to a golf Well, the main

Zain 7:44

main question is, do you yell for when you pull the trigger?

Carter 7:47

Absolutely, you do. You got to give a person a chance.

Zain 7:49

chance. I think you have to. Courtesy is common. It's dark. Part of the game, Corey. It's not dark.

Zain 7:56

It's part of the game. That's just the main question. Here's my question for you, okay, if you actually want to talk about this. My question to you is, is there a long tail on this story? Because so much is unknown, is there a political long tail on this story that is actually significant that both camps from a political party perspective have to be aware of that you you can't brush it by too quickly if you're kamala harris or you can't lean into too much if you're donald trump what do you think well

Corey 8:25

just as we were all holding our breath with the first one thinking oh no like how might this exacerbate things based on who the shooter is when we did not know we thought could it be a democrat

Corey 8:35

democrat could it be an immigrant like what's the story here and how might this inflame the already existing tensions in the United States and create a bit more of a culture war flashpoint. I think with this one, there's almost the opposite, right? Like if this once again turns out to be somebody who is vaguely just pro-gun Trump-esque, doesn't it start to say

Corey 8:56

it's a problem, but maybe it's a problem that actually cuts against Donald Trump more than help? I mean, what a terrible thing to say. The guy was, again, somebody's trying to shoot him. I don't like Donald Trump. Would you people all stop trying to shoot him though, would be my my suggestion and my plea. But it's

Corey 9:11

it's really interesting to me that now you might end up in a situation where there's two shooters in a row who are not immigrants, who are not Democrats, who are, if anything, more on the Republican side of things. And

Corey 9:22

And what that says about US politics and what that means for Donald Trump's candidacy. Because at a certain point, if it's the right who is literally gunning for him,

Corey 9:32

I think it just messes up all of the easy narratives.

Corey 9:36

Carter, what do you think? Well,

Carter 9:36

Well, I think that it doesn't matter what the actual truth is. The narrative still gets spun. And that's part of the problem, part of the reason we don't get overly excited about these things. Because we know how it's going to be spun. There'll be a group of people talking about the truth, and there'll be a group of people who say that this was caused by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's rhetoric about Donald Trump. up it the facts won't matter the same way that facts didn't matter that uh you know they're eating dogs and cats in springfield right facts

Carter 10:05

facts don't matter i

Corey 10:07

i i'll say like you're acting as though it's just conventional wisdom that people don't care about it said attempted assassinations on precedence two

Carter 10:16

months ago we felt so different

Carter 10:17

about this we don't anymore we don't care you

Zain 10:19

you think carter carter are you being flip here are you actually saying we don't care like okay let's say like

Zain 10:25

like you you think you think the public is a just gonna first first of all not absorb this one as much as they did the first one yeah and secondly not care enough are those two fair statements that you would agree with yes

Carter 10:37

yes absolutely i mean even social media is not lighting up like it did the first time right like social media the first time lit up and even you know mediums like tiktok and instagram were dominated by this thing um you know twitter's always dominated by whatever is happening in the news right so you can't really use that as a barometer you look at your facebook your instagram your you know threads it's it's not anywhere on those mediums and it's not you know that's because no one cared no

Carter 11:08

no one cared that someone tried to assassinate or thought he could assassinate president trump no

Carter 11:14

no one cared well

Corey 11:15

well it certainly lacks the images and in the video that the last one had the

Corey 11:20

last one was a lot more spectacular

Corey 11:21

also somebody lost their life at the last one you know there's well two

Corey 11:25

yeah oh that's right yeah i'm just thinking about the person in the the crowd who yeah

Corey 11:32

it's uh so it's different but it also speaks to kind of a growing oh holy cow like how many of these are we gonna have is this just american there

Corey 11:41

there have been times in u.s history there's been times in world history where where assassination seems increasingly legitimate, or if not legitimate, increasingly common.

Corey 11:50

And of course, you saw this in Europe just before World War I. People were being assassinated all the time. It was crazy. And we've seen this at different times in the US in the late 19th century, where they lost a couple of presidents in pretty rapid succession there. So I don't know. know i mean like for me if anything this

Corey 12:12

this story it's a story to me that it's not a story but it's also perhaps a story to me that we're seeing the increased normalization of violence in the united states to resolve these things and even if it's not getting into the left right frame should

Corey 12:25

should i mean we should all be very alarmed well

Carter 12:27

well let me just let me let me take it to the left right fire frame because kamala harris tweeted about it and obviously she does all the you know she She says all the right words. And then the last line of this, of her tweet, is violence has no place in America.

Carter 12:42

And I kind of chuckled.

Corey 12:44

of chuckled. I was like

Corey 12:44

don't like the America we know and love, but- It doesn't

Carter 12:46

doesn't sound like the America I'm familiar with.

Carter 12:48

The America I'm familiar with has mass shootings every day. The America I'm familiar with has got a gun culture that's positively terrifying. So, you know, I was laughing at Kamala Harris's

Corey 12:58

Harris's response. I was revolution, civil war, global police, but, you know. the

Carter 13:02

the violence that they bring the violence that exists is real and uh i was just chuckling i just chuckled so i'm laughing you know like i think that this is part of the problem it is just you know school violence uh all the violence that occurs in the united states is now just priced in it's

Carter 13:21

it's priced in like a walmart price check yeah

Corey 13:23

yeah but my point is not the first time like i named a couple of times but then obviously in the late 60s which people compare present day to all of the time, protests and the nature of them and that they're on campuses and that they're in the streets of major cities and all of that, right?

Corey 13:39

was also a time of political violence in the United States. You saw Bobby Kennedy killed. You saw JFK killed. You saw civil rights leaders get killed, like Martin Luther King Jr. and earlier, Medgar Evers. We go through periods of this, right? And it does kind of make me worry that

Corey 14:00

that we are approaching another period like that.

Zain 14:04

Carter, tell me this. Yep.

Zain 14:08

Does the label of two attempted assassinations help Trump?

Carter 14:13

Conventional wisdom, a mere six weeks ago, said that any time a president or a former president has an attempted assassination attempt on them, their numbers go up.

Carter 14:25

Their numbers go up. But But conventional wisdom has been thrown out the window on this. In

Zain 14:28

In this cycle. We don't have any

Carter 14:30

any sense of how it's going to unfold. No one does. I don't think that we can look at the polls today and accurately predict what's going to happen next. Nothing is telling me how things are going to go. So I'd be really reluctant to suggest, Zane, that this is the way it's going to unfold. I just don't know. Corey,

Zain 14:52

Corey, let's talk about it. We're certainly going to talk about it backwards because we haven't talked about the debate just yet in which it was widely, not unanimously, but widely said that Kamala Harris had Trump's number. Is

Zain 15:06

Is this a helpful channel changer for Donald Trump? Trump, not only from the debate, Corey, but we've talked past on this show that one of the struggles that Trump has had since Harris has entered the race is that he hasn't been able to get as much airtime and make the story himself as much as he was used to for several years, arguably.

Zain 15:25

Talk to me about it from that crass, cynical, but strategic frame.

Corey 15:31

Well, sure. I think that obviously the debate has been unanimously called for Kamala Harris, even the right-wing outlets are saying she won but it's not fair you know she got an assist from the media or whatever you want often they include a critique that why did donald trump take the bait blah blah blah but people know she won the debate i think we saw a lot of flash polling to that effect we're starting to see post

Corey 15:55

post-debate polls coming in it's it's still an unclear picture but some of them are showing some pretty big jumps at least temporary ones we don't know a couple bumps yeah uh so to get off that story is not terrible for donald trump i for a while thought that the loomer stuff was going to maybe consume all of the oxygen there which let's i beg you let's not talk about uh we're not going to talk about carter

Zain 16:19

carter talked about do

Zain 16:20

you have any final thought here because i wanted to go carter on this final question as well well

Corey 16:24

well but i'll just say like um yeah

Corey 16:26

yeah an event like this obviously both is a natural channel changer but also is something thing that he can lean into as a bit of a channel changer. And I suspect he'll try to do that over the next couple of days, because as much as all of the reporting is Trump

Corey 16:40

Trump is even in private acting as though he won the debate, he has to know he didn't win the debate. It's exactly why he's,

Corey 16:46

you're right, we are talking about this backwards, but it's exactly why he said there won't be a second debate with Harris, a third debate over all of the series.

Zain 16:53

It's almost like I know what I'm doing with the show, Corey, even though I sound disinterested. it's

Zain 16:59

it's almost like no but he's just he's like we're gonna talk about it um cory uh you know i'm just putting you in your place for a second we talked about carter quite a bit that's true political mastermind thing

Zain 17:10

right um carter uh noted political mastermind by national post question for you um should

Zain 17:16

should trump lean into this channel changer and and is this is this something that you if you were advising him would lean into aggressively and and as much much as you can uh or do you feel like at some point this is this is not actually helpful i

Carter 17:30

had a little shiver there when you uh placed me in the advisor role uh oh you

Zain 17:34

you would be wonderful yes yeah and it didn't make me feel cold calculated yeah um

Carter 17:39

um nonetheless uh i think he has he has to lean into this i mean it is a naturally occurring channel changer we you know in politics we love naturally occurring channel changers that's

Carter 17:51

those those are the ones that that you know you make your money on um he

Carter 17:55

he needed this channel changer and uh he'd be nuts not to jump all over it now he is nuts but this the this is kind of the perfect channel changer for him because it is about him it is him it is you know he he doesn't have the discipline to have a channel changer that's not about him so this is actually something that fits right into the wheelhouse makes it super easy for him to to uh to take advantage of and uh this is it's really perfect timing for donald trump so

Corey 18:27

so cory finishes off here i mean i i agree ultimately i just that's where i start and that's where i end but can i make the counter argument that maybe this is not a great channel changer for for donald

Zain 18:38

one that he should just take advantage of

Zain 18:40

without thinking about okay make the point people

Corey 18:42

people uh you know so he's basically going to spend his time i'm talking about how people want to kill him you

Corey 18:48

you know i almost got

Zain 18:48

got shot they're after me we're doing something

Corey 18:50

something right well whatever or or people will start to say hmm man there seems to be an awful lot of people who don't want donald for people who supported donald trump maybe even in the past reporting early reporting murky but there's already a lot of internet sleuths who have determined that the person who's alleged to be the shooter this time was a trump supporter in 2016 right and and when you start having maybe biographical

Corey 19:14

biographical details like that come out shall we say i think they're a little inconvenient for the guy they were trump supporters and now he hates him so much he tried to shoot him like let's just say that's where that lands is that obviously he doesn't need to dwell on that detail no but is that actually helpful for him well

Zain 19:30

well no carter before you respond let me speculate in another way what if it's a trump shooter or trump supporter from 2016 and it comes to to air

Zain 19:41

air that that this person doesn't like donald Trump anymore because he's not right-wing enough. He's not radical enough. He's actually abandoned the movement that he built in 2016 and hasn't continued as far right as we need to, as extreme as we need to, so to speak. Doesn't that help him? I'm just throwing out maybe not the counter argument, but another hypothetical for you with that exact same situation.

Carter 20:03

I mean, Corey's playing with the facts again. Corey's making facts that fit into a narrative. Well, these guys are spectacular at creating facts that fit into a narrative and they're not going to allow the narrative to be negative. The narrative is going to be Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, the crime family, has sent another killer after me. It's not going to matter that the killer once supported Donald Trump. That's just how good they are. That's just how good they are. They were able to get someone who used to be a former supporter. I mean, what dirt did they have on this guy to force him to come after me?

Carter 20:41

That's the type of thinking. That's the way that the addled mind of Donald Trump works. So it doesn't matter what the facts are, Corey. This is going to be spun about Donald Trump and how he's the victim. And most

Carter 20:56

most of his audience is totally going to buy that. Right.

Corey 20:59

Right. Most of his audience will buy that. But that's not who the election's over, is it? That's not the fight for the election. There's

Carter 21:05

There's like four guys at a Dairy Queen left trying to figure out who they're going to vote for. Everybody else has figured out who they're voting for. Agree

Carter 21:12

Agree with that. They only had like six people on the focus groups because that's all they could find. But

Corey 21:16

But those four guys at the Dairy Queen, they

Corey 21:18

they matter. And so I'm just saying, maybe this is not the kind of thing that you want to dwell on forever.

Corey 21:25

I don't know. I mean, like I said, I start and I end where you were. But

Corey 21:28

But there is part of me that says, I

Corey 21:30

I don't know, like, is it actually a great thing to be, I'm so unpopular that people are trying to kill me left, right and center?

Zain 21:38

We shall find out.

Zain 21:39

Corey, let's move it on to some higher stakes politics, politics that really kind of, you know, get the blood pressure up. Carbon tax.

Zain 21:47

um let's talk about the carbon tax corey uh is jagmeet singh strategic or is he a sellout because this past week he said he won't commit to the consumer carbon price if his party forms government in the next election he spoke to reporters in montreal this past thursday criticizing both the liberals and the conservatives over their approaches on finding climate change we want to see an approach for finding climate change where it doesn't put the burden on the backs of working people where big polluters have to pay their fair share etc this is a different stance for Jagmeet Singh, historically, than when he was within the confidence and supply agreement where he backed Justin Trudeau. He backed the Liberal Party, which, to be clear for folks, has the consumer facing price on carbon included within it. We know and we talked about that he'd be trying to add some distance from the Liberals. And we also know, and let's just add another piece on the board, that there's a by-election happening where the NDP are defending a seat in and I'm with Transcona tomorrow.

Zain 22:44

tomorrow. So, Corey, let me start with a very simple frame of the segment title. Is Jagmeet Singh strategic or, in the words of Pierre Polyev, is he a sellout?

Corey 22:55

He's a sucker. He's the third. He's a sucker.

Corey 22:57

sucker. He didn't mention. Yeah.

Corey 22:59

Because I don't think he's either, right? Like, I don't – I think he's trying to be strategic. I don't think he's very particularly strategic on this matter. Let's – And you'll have to explain to me why and work it through, but yes, keep going. All right. Right. Let's go through a little bit of the history of the NDP on this particular matter. And EB is super fascinating to me too. We'll

Zain 23:19

about what EB did. But yeah, if you want to throw it in there, go ahead. Yeah.

Corey 23:21

Yeah. So the falling out of love with carbon pricing, consumer carbon pricing to be clear. So I think most of the left-wing parties and the left-wing governments in this country still support the idea that polluters pay. But the falling out of love with the consumer carbon Carbon tax has been going on for a while and I think it was probably moved from the background to the front when Racky Pancholi launched her leadership campaign for the Alberta- I was going to say, it was probably kick-started

Zain 23:47

-started right in our backyard. Right

Corey 23:47

Right in our backyard with the Alberta NDP

Corey 23:49

NDP saying, let's still support price

Corey 23:51

price on carbon, just don't support consumer carbon price. We've

Corey 23:54

We've got to find a different way. There's all sorts of words there. It

Corey 23:57

It wasn't too much later that, and I can't remember the order of the dominoes, but other Alberta NDP leadership candidates said, yeah, that kind of makes sense. and they took the opportunity to agree with it or at least not fight with it basically at the same time. So to the Ontario Liberals,

Corey 24:12

see a couple of other

Corey 24:12

people say, yeah, okay, maybe this is a message that's going to work for us. And Singh is, I guess I would, I just want to underline, not the first guy to have thought of this, right?

Corey 24:22

But this is, in my opinion, like an absolute perfect example of what we were talking about last week, where you can't just port a strategy from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and say, well, well, that's clever. I'm going to do that. Because

Corey 24:34

Because I simply- My provincial

Zain 24:35

provincial friends did something like this or have broadcasted that this is

Zain 24:39

intent. Why don't I just port

Corey 24:40

port that up to the federal level? Sure. It may even seem to work for them, right? Pretty sensible approach for them. Maybe we should take the exact same approach. But the reality is this.

Corey 24:50

Racky Petroli was running for leader of the Alberta NDP. The other candidates were running for leader of the Alberta NDP. Emphasis on Alberta. In this province, like in many of the provincial wings, it's a broad based political movement. It's not environmentalist, it's not hippies, it's not hard labor, it's Calgarians and Edmontonians who want a center left government, right? And

Corey 25:13

And it was tailored towards that. And it was tailored towards a political environment and a political constituency and made sense in that context. I think that generally, the way everybody kind of tagged on in Me Too tells me made sense. the

Corey 25:28

other jurisdictions many of

Corey 25:30

of those parties are somewhat similar right they're they're going for a broad-based political constituency jagmeet

Corey 25:35

jagmeet singh going for it though does make me scratch my head a bit because that is a party of environmentalists and labor and hard left and to just turn your back on carbon pricing without immediately having something else maybe that'll play in a couple of seats in edmonton maybe that'll play in a couple of seats in downtown toronto i don't even even know elmwood transcona don't don't know but i'll tell you this doesn't doesn't immediately resonate with me in this multi-party uh democracy that we have in canada and the idea that okay you're the ndp you've got the 19 most to the left there's a group with carbon pricing that's a little more moderate that's the liberals and there's the block and they're going to be okay with it too in certain ways and then you got the conservatives who hard against it i just don't know that he's carved out any space for himself there i want to find the voter who

Corey 26:21

who is thinking you

Corey 26:24

you know i would vote for the ndp but for their position on carbon pricing and

Corey 26:29

and i'm not saying such voters don't exist i am saying i'm deeply skeptical that enough of them exist that it's a net positive when there's so many environmental voters in the ndp who will see this as is like just an absolute sellout doesn't it kind of play into the lend us your votes as liberals like as liberals please so

Corey 26:46

so we we can protect the environment.

Zain 26:47

You use the term there as an absolute sellout, though. But you know, and I'm not saying that you're accepting my frame of the two options I gave, but I think I am. Before I go to Carter, a question for you, Corey. We talk about this, and I get the frame you're talking about. And I also appreciate the question you asked, right? I want to meet the voter who says I support the NDP if it were not for their position on the consumer facing carbon tax. I I think it's a really helpful frame, not just on this question, but every question to ask yourself when you're a political practitioner to say, you know, is anyone asking this question? And sometimes that nets out a result where you're like, oh, fuck, that actually this person doesn't exist. They're either like a myth, or they're a fiction, or they're just not voluminous enough in terms of a population. So I appreciate that.

Corey 27:31

that. Yeah, well, and you're going to lose people the other way too, right? Don't

Zain 27:35

Don't we also talk, but don't we also, and I want to make sure why

Zain 27:38

why this example falls into that versus the other sort of case we talk about, which is we

Zain 27:43

we often try to fuck over our base in order to grow it.

Zain 27:47

We often kind of say, you know, like, you know, fuck, they're not going to love this, but where else are they going to go? And I need to do this in order to galvanize

Corey 27:54

galvanize more people. Where else are they going

Zain 27:55

going to go is the

Corey 27:57

right? So if you're in Alberta,

Corey 27:58

Alberta, if you're in Alberta, just to go back to that example, right? And you're sitting there and you're the Alberta NDP and you're trying to be more moderate, the only option that the Alberta to ndp's base has is the ucp it's not gonna fucking happen but if you're the federal ndp and you're saying well maybe we'll just bail on this progressive idea yes and and look i myself have said many times i'm not i have no idea how a carbon tax became the left-wing idea but you know there's something to it there they

Corey 28:27

they can go to the liberals yeah they can go to the liberals like that that's

Carter 28:31

the green party or

Corey 28:31

or the green party greens depending on where you are options that that do not exist in some of these other jurisdictions. And

Zain 28:37

And that's perhaps part of the calculation there. And I wanted to make sure we cleared that up. Carter, I'm going to give you a shot at this. Thank you. Let me go right at the top of the list. Okay. Is this a sellout move or is this a strategic move? Corey has walked us through why it's a sucker's move. I want to give you the same shot.

Carter 28:53

It's a suck-ass move.

Carter 28:55

What he's done is he's just tried to find a way to suck up to the general population that has now decided that this carbon tax isn't for them. But I just – I don't see – you know, we've talked about blue-orange switchers, right? Blue-orange switchers, people who switch between the Conservative Party and the orange – We're

Zain 29:09

actually seeing that in one of the by-elections, to be clear, in which I want to talk about in Winnipeg. Oh, yes. Away

Carter 29:14

Away from the NDP, right?

Carter 29:16

right? Like, is this going to actually win the NDP any of those votes? I honestly don't think so. I don't think that these – the orange-blue switchers are currently moving from blue to orange. And I don't think opposing the carbon tax, giving in to your opposition's primary piece – like this is the other thing the person that he's following isn't raki pancholi i mean that's a nice story that cory tells the person he's following is pierre polliev well

Carter 29:42

well that's who he's following well that's what he's doing

Carter 29:47

he's giving the he's giving the whole fucking policy so now is is is it sing that's going to be known for his opposition to the to the carbon tax or is it Pierre Palliev. It's Palliev. The guy's a strategic moron. He doesn't belong in a place where he gets to make decisions for a political party. This is an asinine joke. First thing he does is he spends three years sucking up to liberals and propping them up in an environment that hates the carbon tax. It's not like it came around last Thursday that we suddenly didn't like the carbon tax. The carbon taxes existed the whole time that Singh has said, you know what? I prop you up, buddy. We got an agreement. Then he fucks off on the agreement. Not only does he fuck off on the agreement, he fucks off on the carbon tax. What does this guy stand for? What did his last three years, what do they even mean? This is one of the worst politicians I've ever seen in Canadian politics. And yes, I'm counting Stockwell Day.

Zain 30:47

Corey's taking notes and saying, yeah, Corey, that was a howitzer by Stephen Carter.

Zain 30:53

I mean, there's a lot Carter said there. There's a lot what Carter said there that I think a lot of us are feeling. And I think a lot of us are sensing even from like, even if you aren't able to put the words to it, right?

Zain 31:07

right? Because I think the part that resonates with me the most, Carter, is doing this for the short term and making a calculation. Let's say it's a calculation for the by-elections or to say that this is, or it's to prove the point that he made in his video, that the next election, Carter, is between conservatives and new Democrats. Okay, let's just say that that's his strategic thought. Roll

Zain 31:30

with me for a second. Sure,

Zain 31:33

The point that I think really speaks to me is your point where you said, but then what does that mean? What did you stand for for the last three years?

Zain 31:43

right, because on one hand, you were taking credit for all the nationalization of these big big programs that you were saying that you pushed the liberals to get into place, which frankly, I'm one of the sympathetic people to say, I'm happy to give you credit for that. And I think that's a real, I was maybe one of the few people that would say that's actually a nice little badge of honor for the NDP. But now I'm even questioning that in terms of who are you, what you believe, what you did. This actually has the opportunity to undercut past accomplishments that someone like me is even willing to give you credit for. Well,

Corey 32:12

Well, let me ask, let me throw this one on the table. Like the question that I want to put to Jagmeet Singh is, when

Corey 32:18

when did you decide you were against the carbon tax and why? You know, like it's – like what – Very classic, like Watergate-y questions.

Zain 32:27

What happened? When did he know and why? Like very Watergate 1970s.

Zain 32:33

No, but it's a fair point, right? It's a fair point. And I don't even know if there's a good answer that one can give to that. I truly

Corey 32:39

truly don't believe there's a good answer. I believe like the last one, the best, the quote unquote best answer is there's a by-election tomorrow, right? And he's going to lose. And he's going to lose. He's going to lose

Carter 32:49

lose both by-elections. He's going to look like, he's going to look as weak as Justin Trudeau, except now he's as weak as Justin Trudeau and he sold his principles. I mean, the carbon tax is unpopular, but the carbon tax is mostly unpopular with conservative supporters. The carbon tax is supporting, it's not like there's not 50% of the population that's made up their minds that supports the carbon tax 50 of the population that opposes it pierre paliev has chosen to go for the group of people who oppose it very clever strategy very smart very well thought through sing has decided to go after the same people like you you you may you say you made this premise zane that that uh maybe singing you know it's a it's a blue versus orange election well then why the fuck would you pick the same flagship policy right

Carter 33:38

right at the very least You stand up and say that you don't support something, you know, important, something that matters that is not supported by your

Zain 33:45

your – Your point is even if you're saying it's blue versus – blue versus orange, you don't have to compete the election on blue's turf, which is what this is.

Carter 33:55

You can't. Anytime you compete on the other guy's turf, the other guy wins.

Zain 33:59

That's not what a blue versus orange election would mean. I get what you're saying.

Zain 34:03

I've got two lines of questioning here. Do we want to move on from the analysis and the strategy aspect of it? here are you are you do you got anything else to say hey because my next part is what would you do if you had the week of time that jagmeet singh did between breaking this agreement and last thursday uh

Zain 34:19

uh which i believe was roughly a week what

Zain 34:22

what would you have done in order to create some distance and separation do

Corey 34:26

do you know what i just realized that this as you were talking that i now don't understand why

Corey 34:31

why why he did it why he didn't do it in the other order Yeah.

Corey 34:36

was going to be the second part of it, which is – and

Zain 34:37

and to the order of – Why didn't he – Or simultaneously. I no

Corey 34:41

no longer support the carbon tax. And let that be the thing that – Or have

Zain 34:46

have done it simultaneously.

Corey 34:47

I no longer support it. Well, he didn't have an excuse. He didn't have a reason for ending the supply and confidence agreement. Well, that the liberals are weak and the liberals are whatever. If he said – Rhetorical reasons. I've been talking to Canadians over the past several months. Over the summer, of course, I did a really big tour. or there's

Corey 35:01

there's just no getting past the fact that people are opposed to the consumer price on carbon. And so I am pulling out of the confidence and supply agreement because I can't support it either. Like the New Democrats exist to support Canadians. Like I'm not even saying that's good. I'm just saying maybe that's better than what we are seeing. Is

Zain 35:19

Is that better, Carter? Is that better? Let's go down that hypothetical path, because I like what Corey's trying to do here.

Carter 35:24

It's only better if you don't know how economics works. And it's very clear to me that Jagmeet Singh doesn't know how economics works. If you put on a producer tax, the producer tax may be hidden from Canadians, but it's still going to be passed on to Canadians. It does absolutely nothing to reduce the cost of carbon to the average Canadian. It's just that instead of paying a carbon tax on everything, now you're just going to pay carbon tax on everything that is produced that has high carbon levels. So you're going to pay a ridiculous amount of money for gasoline. You're going to pay a ridiculous amount of money for your plastics. And maybe that's a a good thing but it's still going to be passed on to the fucking consumer because that's how you that's how high costs work if i pay

Carter 36:05

pay more if i pay a higher cost i charge my clients higher well

Corey 36:09

well that's economics but that's not psychology and i think one of the challenges that the carbon like i mean we don't need to relitigate the whole carbon tax but the whole point was you see it you feel it and you make decisions to avoid it right yes yes and so by doing this and moving it elsewhere, they're going to an entirely different strategy, right? They are no longer asking people to be rational economic actors. They still will be to a degree, but they're no longer asking them to be rational economic actors. They're saying, we'll

Corey 36:36

we'll pick it up on the back end. We'll rely on companies trying to be more efficient. We'll rely on governments creating subsidies and so on and so forth. And I do have to say, cap

Corey 36:46

cap and trade has been accepted as a comp in Quebec, and it works out to a way lower equivalent price on gasoline than the direct carbon tax that's the federal backstop. I just wouldn't be so over the top with that. I think that there's- I

Carter 37:02

I would be over the top. There's some

Corey 37:03

some arguments to go the other way

Carter 37:04

way too. Let's go. I'm over the top the whole show.

Carter 37:07

That's why it's a political mastermind, baby. Oh

Zain 37:10

Oh my God. Oh my God. By the National Post editorial board, every single member signed off and they carved it and chiseled it in stone. Carter, here's a question for you. What would you have done if you had a week? If you had a week and change and they brought Stephen Carter in and said, Carter, give us our first separation from the liberals. You may have said, fuck, this agreement was shitty. You should have never done it in the first place. Glad you got your senses back. What would your first NDP move have been, Carter, if it wasn't this carbon tax announcement on Thursday? day. I'm

Carter 37:40

I'm going to go and I'm going to stop the creeping privatization of healthcare in our country. Dive back into traditional NDP territory where people are feeling the pain, they're feeling the hurt. People across the country cannot access their general practitioners.

Zain 37:56

practitioners. Take a provincial issue in this case. Just take a provincial issue, even if it's not in your jurisdiction. We've talked about this. No, it is in

Carter 38:01

in their jurisdiction. The Canada Health Act

Zain 38:03

Act was brought in to

Carter 38:04

to ensure sure that creeping privatization couldn't occur. And a creeping privatization, I mean, the two provinces with the highest creeping privatization are Quebec and British Columbia. The next one is Alberta. And now we're seeing Saskatchewan, Manitoba, everybody's creeping up. This is something that we need to actually stop. Ontario, and under Doug Ford's leadership, no one has confidence in the healthcare system. I would go back to what people care about and that I can make a differentiation on um health care always is there for the ndp yeah

Corey 38:39

yeah i could i mean i again i second time i've had to agree with steven here like why do people vote ndp right they vote for government services they vote for things like health care they vote for things like education and they vote for things like environment which is part of why i think what

Corey 38:55

what are you doing right right? But it's not crazy.

Corey 38:59

crazy. It's not sexy.

Corey 39:01

sexy. It's not dramatic, but it's right. It's right to say, well, we've got to focus on the bread and butter issues that people elect us for. Support of labor, healthcare, making sure that we've got a more just society. And it's not to be conservative light. If they want conservatives, they'll go to the conservatives. And so if you were sitting there and you were thinking that was your deciding issue, that's not a ballot question question that helps the ndp in any way shape or form you've got to move the focus to things that do help you and so agreed

Carter 39:31

yeah can i just correct you on one thing cory you've

Carter 39:34

you've agreed with uh political mastermind stephen carter two times you've

Zain 39:38

with that twice as well so this is actually number four yeah

Zain 39:41

i just want to i'm sorry i'll keep it i'll keep it to count next time yeah if you don't

Zain 39:43

don't mind like pti yeah is that still a show i

Carter 39:47

i don't know god no

Carter 39:48

no one sees any corn heiser

Zain 39:49

heiser was so much better than wilbon wilbon was just trying to float it by. It's crazy, Corey, that Wilbon even was on that show. I have long believed that

Corey 39:56

that PTI's format is perfect for politics. There should absolutely be a political PTI.

Zain 40:01

PTI. Here's the thing, Carter. What if the leader or the principal strategist in there said, thank you for attending this week-long summit, Stephen Carter. We really appreciate your being here. The leader has instructed us that we actually need to do something that will have an impact on the by-election. I love healthcare, but we're in this thing where we got to defend in the seat and it's in Winnipeg. And he's really keen that whatever the first thing we do also has solid

Zain 40:28

solid ramifications for us in the by-election. What would you say?

Carter 40:33

You're screwed, man. If you're looking to influence the outcome of a by-election with six days left out of the leader's office. Come on.

Carter 40:40

Like, what are you going to do?

Corey 40:42

But this is the thing, because I actually can accept that you might want to find a way to get the carbon tax off the table. I think there's more artful ways to do it. I still don't know that it's even wise to do it, but I can accept you might want to. Want to do it, sure. You're going to do it. If this is an attempt to affect the by-election in any way, shape or form, you're going to do it now?

Corey 41:02

This is your plan? Let me ask you this,

Corey 41:03

Scott. Do you feel like it was?

Carter 41:05

I think they tried to. I think that it was part of their calculation, but it was done by political naivete.

Corey 41:12

It's just like they should have done it a month ago if they wanted to do it for the by-election.

Zain 41:16

Can we talk about these by-elections? And I'll get back to my final line of questioning, which is Trudeau. And I want to throw you some Trudeau quotes and Trudeau framing on this issue and what this post-conscious decoupling or uncoupling has meant for him. him. But Corey, let's talk about Elmo Transcona. This is the Winnipeg by-election. There's two happening tomorrow, September 16th. This is the Monday. One is happening in Montreal. One's happening in Winnipeg. The Winnipeg one, the incumbent is the NDP. It's incumbent after Daniel Blakey. He resigned to work in provincial politics. This is a close race between the NDP and the conservatives with the conservatives surging. And then the second one, it's in in Montreal. This is former Justice Minister David Lemedy's seat, and this has a few more players in it, the Liberals, Craig Sauveway from the NDP, the Bloc Quebecois, also competitive in this particular seat. Yeah, and

Corey 42:08

and arguably in the poll position based on limited polling that we have, yeah. What we're seeing in all these. Who's on deck, Corey,

Zain 42:17

Corey, to be the biggest loser tomorrow night?

Corey 42:22

Extraordinarily, it might be the NDP, and it should be the Liberals, right? But because the the NDP have made the moves that they've made and because they are potentially in the race in both races they could be disappointed in both places they could end up losing

Corey 42:36

losing badly even in one or both of them and after having ripped up the agreement and gotten rid of the carpet like these are big moves to get nothing out of them right and so if you think that you're in the hunt for these two races and within two weeks of of these races you make these these big moves you're going going to own a little bit of the strategic decision making at the end of the day if you lose them both now it's possible they win them both and everybody is saying wow sings made these big moves and he's won these things isn't that interesting i

Corey 43:06

don't know personally think that's likely to happen now i could be totally surprised it's hard to to poll and buy elections but the ndp may somehow end up being the biggest losers here which

Corey 43:16

which in itself is a bit of malpractice because it should be the liberals like we should be right now talking about government the whole The NDP, rewind

Corey 43:24

rewind two weeks and say the NDP didn't rip up confidence in supply. The NDP this week did not do the carbon thing. All

Corey 43:32

we would be talking about is the liberals going into this by-election.

Zain 43:37

him if he loses

Corey 43:38

loses this race? He could lose at the block, he could lose at the NDP. It would be house money for the NDP, in terms of Montreal at least. Nobody feels that that way now. Now we're all sort of watching this and we're looking at if we can read anything about the NDP in this particular race. I

Zain 43:55

I tend to agree with you, Carter. Are you three for three on this that the NDP might be the biggest losers on deck or have the most to lose tomorrow night?

Carter 44:05

No, I mean, you guys are overthinking it again. I think this does fall down to Trudeau and the liberals. The governing party, I mean, sure, they're only defending one seat, but it's in Montreal.

Corey 44:17

They have no business losing that seat.

Carter 44:19

seat. They can't lose Montreal the same way they couldn't lose Toronto St. Paul.

Carter 44:23

This is a big deal. And it's not like the New Democrats are noted

Carter 44:29

noted campaigners who are in the race for government. They're just not. So this boils down to, where can Trudeau expect to hold onto a seat? Compelling

Corey 44:44

Compelling argument. Corey, jump in. Yeah. So I think that from like lay public point of view, sure. Everything we've talked about is barely registering with the average person, right? But let's just sort of play that into the next day after the by-election where like two scenarios, like the same result happens. Block wins in

Corey 45:01

in Montreal and conservatives win. Let's just say that's what happens. Okay.

Corey 45:07

What happens in the liberal caucus the next day? What happens in the NDP caucus the next day? well i believe the ndp will be rife with did sing make some bad decisions oh my goodness now can we even go to the polls like that that all of a sudden makes it less likely they're going to pull the plug on the liberals like do

Corey 45:25

do you not think behind the scenes that the liberals might not come out of that a little bit stronger if the ndp lose everything because

Corey 45:31

because like who's going to bring them down at that point is

Corey 45:34

is the ndp going to bring them down i

Carter 45:35

i think that the liberal caucus caucuses is has given up i don't think they're going to do anything um but i don't think that the ndp caucus is going to do anything either i think that you know this these aren't exactly noted for being you know like neither caucus right now is it the political uh press you know the peak of their

Carter 45:52

political expertise and capacity at this so it's

Corey 45:55

it's insane and it's messy like it is yeah because i i do think this is really interesting i think it's worth talking about for just half a second here, which is the

Corey 46:03

the NDP lose these two by-elections. Yes.

Corey 46:06

They've done the things that they've done, which losing

Corey 46:09

losing the by-elections means maybe we don't want to go to the polls.

Corey 46:15

Getting rid of the confidence and supply agreement and saying we no longer support the consumer carbon tax, however it is, some people are saying overstated, right?

Corey 46:23

That makes it more likely to go to the polls. So when these two forces crash against each other, this is part of why I think Singh has has acted very amateurishly in this past couple of weeks because there is still a chance he comes out the winner here but he's he's gambling money he cannot afford to lose because if this scenario comes to play he looks he looks kind of pretty weak you know pretty rough it's

Carter 46:44

it's going to come to play too like

Carter 46:46

like there's just no way he's going to win a by-election this tomorrow he

Corey 46:49

he might i mean i don't know i just have no clue but no

Carter 46:51

no you're not listening to political mastermind steven You're not

Zain 46:55

not doing it. Actually, Blood Oathed was what I heard, Blood Oathed by

Zain 47:00

by the National Post Editorial Board.

Zain 47:02

Yeah, I heard that too. It was actually,

Zain 47:03

yeah, it was Blood Oathed.

Zain 47:09

What part of this, Carter, and this is now pure speculation because fuck it, what

Zain 47:14

what part of this is Jagmeet Singh saying i can do all of these things they can be amateur ish they can not land i can lose stuff

Corey 47:28

are they gonna get rid of

Zain 47:33

like how much of this is that there's actually no

Zain 47:37

heir apparent maybe that's not even the right term there's no real threat that it's just a loosey-goosey caucus and i don't mean to disparage these folks i i respect a lot of them i respect a a lot of their values and ideals, but they haven't gotten rid of the guy. They haven't pushed him out. They seem to be unhappy. We've heard verified reporting to that effect, but they haven't done anything in the past. And so how much of this do you think from Jagmeet Singh's strategic lens is that there's really not much of an internal threat?

Zain 48:02

And I'm happy to enter pure speculation for

Corey 48:04

for half a minute here. I mean,

Carter 48:05

mean, if they're not going to get rid of Justin Trudeau, they're not going to get rid of Jagmeet Singh. I mean, this isn't Survivor

Carter 48:10

Survivor where we're voting leaders off the island.

Carter 48:16

politics. And right now in Canada, the weaker the leader, the more likely they are to stay. That seems to

Carter 48:25

to be the way that it works here, right? So

Carter 48:28

this thing has got a job until at least after the next election.

Zain 48:35

is there any meat on the bone to what I'm saying or trying to articulate here?

Corey 48:41

Yeah, I think that there is definitely less of a sense of like a dangling sword over Singh's neck here. Like, of course, they're not going to get rid of him, especially now, in many ways, because of the conditions he's created, where it starts to feel that we could be in an election any day, right? right? That now exists in Canadian politics. Is it likely? Who

Corey 49:04

I still think that we are collectively underestimating the odds of a fall election at this point, just given all of the conditions that we are currently staring down.

Zain 49:13

Even just the accident condition. Yeah,

Corey 49:15

Yeah, exactly. I'm not saying it's for sure going to happen. I'm not even saying it's probably going to happen. I'm just saying, really

Corey 49:20

really could. Let's call it a three in 10 chance it happens as Polyev just pushes around and sing and all of that, right? Yeah. So

Corey 49:29

So I think that just that state of needing to be on ready is probably Singh's best asset.

Corey 49:36

asset. What I find an interesting

Corey 49:39

interesting thought exercise is what happens if Trudeau

Corey 49:43

Trudeau did step down?

Corey 49:45

Would the NDP not take the opportunity to change out their leader too? Leader as well. I was thinking about that this week as

Carter 49:51

as well. Or they just double down.

Carter 49:54

They just double down and keep them and say, you know, now we've got an experienced leader who can't lead us out of a fucking wet paper bag. But nonetheless, he's

Corey 50:01

experienced. Man, they don't even have a pen. They've accidentally put two coasters in front of their blackjack table.

Carter 50:08

Yeah. It's also CBC

Carter 50:10

CBC that called me a political mastermind.

Zain 50:13

Oh, was it CBC? As well as the national. Oh, as well. Oh, my God. Wow. Wow, I heard that was a tax-funded paid poll that

Corey 50:22

that they had to take amongst all of the internal employees. Yeah. They used an internal polling system to actually unanimous Stephen Carter political mastermind. Hey,

Zain 50:31

Hey, mastermind. Yeah. Question for you here. Sure.

Zain 50:34

Last one on the by-elections.

Zain 50:36

Tell me the strategic value, if any, okay?

Zain 50:40

Let's just assume the liberals are losing Montreal and they lose it. Yeah.

Zain 50:43

Tell me the strategic value, if any, to the Liberals, losing

Zain 50:47

losing not to the hands of your principal rival, but to the Bloc Quebecois.

Zain 50:54

There could be messaging value, strategic value. I mean, you've got to think about these things. And so tell me, what strategic value, if any, and you could just tell me, there's nonzane and fuck off, losing not to your principal rival, but another party, in this case, the Bloc Quebecois, which is, if they lose, it seems more likely to lose to them than to the NDP here. Carter? What do you think?

Carter 51:14

Yeah, I think they're going to lose to the Bloc Quebecois. And I think that that was, you know, this is the problem is that in Quebec, you can't lose to

Carter 51:24

to the Bloc Quebecois and give them strength because then lots

Carter 51:29

lots of other seats look all of a sudden. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're being if you're losing to the Conservatives, the Bloc or the NDP. As long as you just keep losing, you're

Carter 51:39

to be seen as weak and your caucus, the rabble

Carter 51:45

rabble-rousers as well as the supporters are going to feel threatened. And right now, it feels to me like the liberal caucus feels threatened on all fronts.

Zain 51:58

Corey, same question to you, right? What's strategic value of any losing not to your principal rival? You could think of it a couple of ways, right? right? Only the conservatives can beat you. In other ways, it's been like anyone can fucking beat you guys. You guys are that weak. So you might say, in fact, saying there's no strategic value. It's worse in that regard to lose to someone that isn't your principal rival. But your thoughts here? My

Corey 52:16

My thoughts are that in the context of Quebec, the bloc is the liberals' principal rival. And so it's exactly the thing that you're saying.

Corey 52:24

It is the thing. It's the the thing and so it

Corey 52:28

it also causes a bit of a situation where it will put it will embolden the block to bring down the government even beyond where they are right now right if you're sitting there as the liberals there's only so many dance partners available to you that are going to reliably provide you the votes that you need in order to survive any confidence vote and if the block is thinking man we can win in la salamart like let's go you know let's let's make this this happen we we can win all sorts of places in quebec then and if the conservatives are thinking man we can win i mean the conservatives have been there forever they just want to go right all you have that can reasonably prop you up is the ndp and the ndp have created themselves such a trap that

Corey 53:10

that every time they vote to prop you up it makes them look worse it makes them look weaker it drives them deeper into the hole and at some point they're going to figure that out no

Carter 53:19

no don't count on that don't and then we're going to be able to figure it out Yeah.

Zain 53:23

Let me move over to some comments by the PM on this particular thing of the Jagmeet Singh noncommittal nature for the consumer facing carbon tax. He sympathized with Singh. He said, I feel for the NDP and for Jagmeet. This is a hard moment. There are political headwinds. There are a lot of political pressures. I'm certainly feeling it. Everyone should be feeling it. And then he continues to say, I don't entirely understand the position of the NDP in pulling back from affordability measures and from the fight against climate change. But I can assure everyone that this government my government will continue to step up and fight against climate change we'll continue to put money back in the pockets of families i'm

Zain 53:59

i'm sensing a bit of swagger in justin trudeau's step maybe it's because the floor is so low but i'm curious what you guys would make of that in terms of like i pity jigmeet a bit you know he's got a lot of shit to deal with uh but then also the you know the reinforcing that we're going to be the party of fighting climate change in the in that regard taking that that um stance what do you think of those comments are you are Are you in on those comments, Corey? Do you like the frame that the prime minister is giving now that the NDP are trying to make this separation, which many will liken to not much of a separation from the conservatives in some way?

Corey 54:31

Yeah, I mean, I've been critical of a lot of liberal communications, but I don't hate that, right? Because you're managing to do a few things at the same time, right? One is you're diminishing your opponent by, you're not even looking like you're upset by this particular action, right? You're like, oh, geez, you know, I get it. things are tough right and and by the way there is a second part to that you don't need to say it because pierre pauliev saying it pierre pauliev saying you're fucking selling out you're a coward you know you're just going and you you can be the magnanimous prime minister saying i get it you know but i wouldn't do it doesn't make sense to me i understand he's under a lot of pressure and then you can go forward and look

Corey 55:09

look i'll never be particularly compelled by them talking about the carbon tax and the and the rebates as an affordability measure just to be clear Yes, I'm sorry. The government – like an affordability measure, I just think that ship may have sailed at this point. But yeah, the fact that you're saying, no, I'm going to keep standing up for the climate, for environment, that's pretty

Corey 55:32

pretty good. Good. That's the kind of thing that you want to do if you're facing down an election where in order to even kind of maintain some semblance of power,

Corey 55:40

power, I don't even mean government. I mean, just, you know, you look like a credible force. You're probably going to want to roll up as much of that NDP vote as possible. And again, Singh has provided you a bit of an opportunity here.

Zain 55:53

Carter, final thoughts on what Trudeau has kind of put on the table in terms of his comments here.

Carter 55:58

Well, I mean, I don't think they're going to, I think he went a little too far in the, the uh you know i i have sympathy and empathy for him it almost made it sound like you know these headwinds are so strong that uh maybe we should be listening to the headwinds but we're just going to ignore them because i'm i'm you know more committed to the environment you

Corey 56:16

i gotta say for the first time i think i can see what

Corey 56:21

what they're going to try to do next election like when he's taking that particular approach he's obviously i mean and look we've talked about this it's not like but the delton mcginty playbook i can actually see how he would make it work for him right now where he goes and he's like hey you know made tough choices but i stand by them and i did them because they help you uh you know yeah i'm not the most popular guy right now but it's because i delivered on the environment i keep taking care of affordability i'm gonna stand up to people like pierre pauliev on your behalf like i i actually see i won't

Zain 56:51

won't sell out you might be able

Corey 56:52

able to deliver that or

Zain 56:53

or i won't back out when it gets tough i won't back out when

Carter 56:57

I don't know. It feels a little tough

Carter 57:01

tough to me to see that actually working. Well, it's

Zain 57:03

it's not going to work, but

Carter 57:05

I can see. Oh, yeah. Okay, good. Okay. You can

Zain 57:06

can see why there's

Zain 57:08

there's been what? I can see how at least one successful. You

Carter 57:12

car crash that's about to happen. Okay, good. I can

Corey 57:14

can see the car crash, but he can buckle up the seatbelt. This is buckling up the seatbelt.

Corey 57:21

Five-star front impact rating.

Zain 57:23

Let's move on to our next segment. in our next segment, learning from Madam Vice President Stephen Carter. Yes. Kamala Harris kicked some ass at that debate. I don't want to do a whole summary episode of the debate. I actually want to go into lessons, lessons that other political practitioners and strategists can learn from what she did at that debate. Now, I watched this later than you guys. I was stuck in an aircraft. But you guys watched this real time, I suspect, seen some highlights, seen some analysis and commentary. A lot of ink has been spilled since the days that she had this debate with Donald Trump. Now

Zain 57:54

Now that we've had some time to reflect, Carter, start. Give me the first lesson that we can learn from Kamala Harris's debate performance. And I'm not saying it was a perfect debate performance, but

Zain 58:04

but it was a very good one. And I want to capture and codify some of the lessons learned. Give me the first one from your perspective.

Carter 58:11

Be prepared. The old scout model, be prepared. It was very evident that she'd done her homework. She knew exactly what the the questions were going to be. She knew exactly what her answers were going to be. She didn't stutter. She didn't question. She just drove those answers forward. And because she knew her stuff, she was able to be herself, which would probably be the second lesson. The laughing, the poking fun at Donald Trump and the absolute joy that she took in leading him around by the nose during the a debate, that's all a result of being prepared, of knowing exactly what's going to happen in the debate and having your answers absolutely dialed.

Zain 58:57

Solid first two by Stephen Carter. Corey, be prepared, be yourself.

Corey 59:00

add to the list? Don't swing at every pitch. She did a really, I mean, a much better job than I was doing armchair watching it saying, oh, she should say this when she gets a chance to speak, right? Because there were a number of things Donald Trump said that were outrageous

Corey 59:13

outrageous or self-evidently wrong, or there was a good factoid that you could throw back in his face about why you know his statistics are not exactly what they appear to be right and she didn't she didn't swing at them whether it was him talking about how good the stock market was under him where she could have said yeah it's even higher right now she didn't bother didn't need to right she the moderators did her work on like the babies aren't being killed stuff when he goes on like crazy rants about eating dogs she just goes wow that's pretty extreme right moves on oh yeah didn't try to refute it didn't try to go into all of those statistics when uh she was told by trump that she hates israel and she hates you know the implication jewish people didn't mention her husband being jewish didn't need to didn't bring up her race when he brought up her race in like the awkward ham-handed ways she didn't need to she actually did better i think than almost any politician i've ever seen in that kind of setting of saying that doesn't matter i don't like that's inflammatory and that's outrageous and i don't need to swing at it and and i wonder if part of why she did such a good job of it is because he did such a bad job of it right and so you saw almost like i'm sure in their debate prep there was all this conversation about hey let's bait him let's bait him let's get him to to react to his crowd size and let's get him to react to january 6th let's get him to react to his generals thinking

Zain 1:00:36

disgrace but the fact that when the crowd sizes are are big you should go you actually should go go attend them people get bored out

Corey 1:00:43

out of their minds i mean it's not even that it's like he he was like the simplest most childish machine ever he's like press a button get an output right yeah it's extremely linear

Corey 1:00:54

simple but i'm sure that as she's thinking about the things that might bait him and be disadvantageous for him she's taking a more sophisticated approach even and thinking about the own things that she's i'm I'm sure there were conversations even of advisors saying, Hey, just like he can't be baited on that. Don't be baited on that. That's not what we're talking about. You're talking about the middle cut. Your whole message is you're talking about them, not you. You're talking about them, not you. The more you talk about you, the more you're undercutting that message. Fucking just keep moving on and changing that message. And so I

Corey 1:01:21

I was quite impressed by her ability not to react to everything, which was in such phenomenal contrast to his inability to, you know, he had to react to everything carter

Corey 1:01:31

carter throw another one on the board for

Corey 1:01:33

me what else you

Carter 1:01:34

i think what else i got is just um she

Carter 1:01:38

she neutralized the the kind of the male female dynamic uh just again i think by being herself these what do you think of the hand can i ask you more specifically

Zain 1:01:48

specifically the handshake the walking over the intro handshake that i think is also being reported on and would you not to shoehorn that into your point but do you think that's part i think

Carter 1:01:56

think that that's a very big part I'm glad you brought that up because it was the moment, I think, where she really defined herself and said, OK, I'm going to be in control of this debate from from moment one. And I'm not going to let your reputation I'm not going to let you know, your behavior dictate my response to anything. And that became very clear all the way through. She, right from the moment, like, I knew the moment that I saw Joe Biden walking to the podium in the first debate that it was over.

Carter 1:02:29

And I knew the moment she walked across and shake his hand, it was over.

Carter 1:02:33

It was amazing. Really?

Corey 1:02:35

You thought even on the, even on the common law side, you thought. Yeah. I don't, I didn't know it was over then, but it was a start. Allow

Carter 1:02:41

Allow me my revisionist history. I am a political mastermind. That's

Corey 1:02:45

great. Of course you are.

Corey 1:02:46

Yeah. It's so true. Yeah. It's so true. Corey, you got another one to add for me? Yeah. a huge

Corey 1:02:49

huge percent of communication is non-verbal and when you have the split screen that is that is magnified times a billion like there was some stuff online where uh you know republican

Corey 1:03:00

republican luminary frank luntz was talking about oh you know she's she's reacting in a way that i don't think will help her it's falling in trap about female candidates fuck you frank couldn't disagree with you more she a she understands the culture she lives and she was so fucking memeable like Like that, you know, her putting her hand on her chin in an exaggerated fashion of the, oh, do tell me more, almost like the Willy Wonka meme.

Zain 1:03:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That became –

Zain 1:03:25

Keep burying yourself into this hole, buddy. Yeah, that's

Corey 1:03:27

that's now like just part of internet lexicon. Like that's used whenever somebody says something where they're so out in front of their skis and full of shit, you can just reply with that image and everybody is going to know what you mean, right? The way that she laughed, she smiled, she engaged when she wasn't even talking. talking she meanwhile donald trump is just staring forward and twitching and eyeballs expanding when she says things that are clearly getting under his skin yeah

Corey 1:03:54

owned that split screen medium in a way that i didn't i didn't even know was possible and um and it was just a great like that's part of it's almost part of the don't swing at every pitch she didn't need to swing at some of them because she had already reacted to it and we all saw her react to it at various So she had such a strong command of place

Corey 1:04:13

place and space and body, right? And this goes to what Stephen was talking about with the handshake. She walked over and she shook his hand on his turn. He didn't even meet in the middle. She walked into his space and shook his hand and said, let's have a good debate tonight and walked back. And from there, she owned the whole fucking room. It didn't matter where the camera was. It didn't matter who was talking. She was the center of attention. And so to me, I think that's more of the lesson of that handshake.

Zain 1:04:40

Carter, do you got anything else to add here before we move on? No, let's move on.

Zain 1:04:44

Let's move it on to our over-under lightning round. Stephen Carter, we're going to actually get to keep this topic going, but I want to ask you a question that's a lot more specific rather than adding some lessons for fellow practitioners on the board. I want to ask you this.

Zain 1:04:55

Kamala Harris won the debate.

Zain 1:04:57

Carter, Donald Trump was

Zain 1:05:01

He had the funnier lines. He said the funnier things. Yeah, was he crazy and wild and all over the place and xenophobic in parts? Absolutely.

Zain 1:05:13

But he had the funnier lines. He had a sense of wit to him that she didn't bring to the table. That's just not part of the package that she brought to that debate.

Zain 1:05:22

Overrated or underrated, what Donald Trump brought to that table, despite maybe taking the L?

Carter 1:05:29

overrated and i would also say that a sense of humor is the ability to laugh right like it's not always about making the joke it's about laughing at the joke and

Carter 1:05:37

kamala harris uh laughed at all the jokes and all the jokes were donald trump so

Zain 1:05:43

so no it's just stephen carter i like it yeah cory i'm gonna give you the same shot i was just gonna get you out of like that's good yeah cory overrated underrated trump just being funnier just having Having the funnier lines. The one that just made me chuckle was waking up Biden at 4pm. I thought that was great.

Corey 1:05:59

Yeah, look, I think that that is part of Donald Trump's superpower. It's part of why he does get those big crowds. And it's part of why people are willing to get into his corner. It's because he actually is

Corey 1:06:12

pretty funny. My wife says this all of the time. She says, man, I hate that he's such a monster because he's really funny, right? But

Corey 1:06:20

part of his, you know, his humor is uh i

Corey 1:06:23

i think for me it's gotten to the point of off-putting i think for a lot of americans like it's just too tied to his nastiness and i think that there's a bit of a challenge i think sustaining that over eight

Corey 1:06:33

eight nine years aging roast comic yeah

Corey 1:06:35

yeah exactly aging roast comic is the perfect description of donald trump there um yeah yeah but you know i think that is one of the things he does really well if he didn't have what you're talking about there that wit and that that humor. Which, love him or hate him, and God knows I hate him,

Corey 1:06:53

got to admit he does, right?

Corey 1:06:55

He wouldn't be where he is today. That is such an important part of the Donald Trump formula.

Zain 1:07:01

That's fascinating. Corey, I'm going to stick with you with our next one. The Kamala W, overall

Zain 1:07:06

overall at the debate, is it overrated or is it underrated? And give me a long tail perspective. You can define long tail in your mind how you want, but is it overrated or underrated in your mind?

Corey 1:07:16

I think it might actually be, I'm going to take the underrated. It'd be pretty easy to make the case overrated, right? Yes.

Corey 1:07:22

If this debate is so early, debate bumps tend to fade.

Corey 1:07:25

But I think that there is actually something really important about what came out of this debate. There's two really important things that I want to talk about. Let's just take the simple one first. She managed to do what absolutely nobody has managed to do, which is actually make Donald Trump look like the guy who got his ass kicked, right? She just shoved him around. She made him look like a fool in a way that nobody else has really been able to do. We've seen people attempted in the Republican primaries and mostly just look like idiots, right? When you have, for example, Chris Christie go out and start to say, he's Donald Duck now. That's my great line. He's now Donald Duck. Or Marco Rubio in 2015, 2016 saying, I'm going to bring the fight to him and start insulting Donald Trump. It never worked. Never worked. This time worked. Donald Trump looked small. He looked diminished. He looked beaten up. He looked bullied. And I can already hear people say, that's not bullying. Kind of is, right? She picked on a vulnerability and she was relentless at it and she picked on him and she hit it and she just kind of used her words to get exactly what she wanted out of him until he was just like a mess on the stage. And I think that's really, really important because it showed an end to the Donald Trump formula. So even if now something were to happen, we know how to beat Donald Trump now. Somebody has done it and I actually think that's very important and shouldn't be underestimated. underestimated and it will pay dividends in a lot of ways down the road but the other reason why i think that the w is actually more significant perhaps than people are appreciating is people

Corey 1:09:01

people didn't know who kamala harris was people

Corey 1:09:04

people didn't know if donald trump was right when he was saying things like frankly i don't think she's a very smart person you know and yeah and so radical left

Corey 1:09:14

radical leftist not very smart these were the ways he was framing him going into it with an electorate that I think about 50% were saying, don't know her. Don't know who she is, don't know her.

Corey 1:09:27

I don't know, 70 million people watch this thing, minimum. That's not counting the streaming numbers. That was just on television.

Corey 1:09:33

Yet 70 million people watch that. She came off way smarter than the guy. She came off way, way more moderate than she's been painted here. What I think people fail to appreciate and why I think this was a more important W than you would normally have in a debate is they

Corey 1:09:49

they don't know her. They don't know her. She was picked as candidate like two months ago, not even two months ago. And that was one hell

Corey 1:09:56

hell of an introduction to the American people.

Zain 1:10:00

are you going to take the overrated or are you going to take the underrated on the Kamala Harris W? I

Carter 1:10:03

I think it's underrated. And for one reason, and it ties into Corey's, and that is that I

Carter 1:10:09

I keep hearing these political commentators say, say, oh, we didn't know who Kamala Harris was and we still don't know who she is. She didn't take the time to define herself, tell us what her policies were, tell us what her vision for the American public was. She didn't need to do any of that shit. She's now defined as the woman who kicked Donald Trump's ass. That's enough. That's the definition that she needs. She doesn't need to be like, here's my policies. She's the one who kicked Donald Trump's ass. And that's going to pay dividends as we move into November, I

Corey 1:10:46

Well, because look, Hillary won the debates with Donald there in 2016. She didn't embarrass him. I truly believed around probably the 30 to 40 minute mark, there was a non-zero chance Donald Trump storms off the stage. He was getting his ass kicked so badly. Right? Like from 20 minutes to 40 minutes, he was in an absolute tailspin. All of his answers were crazy. It was chaotic. It was so- I think that's where dogs

Zain 1:11:12

dogs and cats- It

Corey 1:11:14

It is absolutely where dogs and

Zain 1:11:15

and cats came in there,

Corey 1:11:16

there, right? But actually, if there had been one more round on the lessons from the debate and it wasn't the Harris lesson, he did manage to get himself back out of the ditch a little bit and his closing statement was even half cogent, right? He didn't let past become prelude and he reset partway through the debate.

Corey 1:11:34

um and that matters too but like he was mostly embarrassed during that debate and nobody has embarrassed him like that and her brand is now the

Corey 1:11:43

the woman who embarrassed donald trump the person who embarrassed donald trump nobody's done it let

Zain 1:11:48

let me let me move back to the canadian context and in light of tomorrow cory hogan who wins the winnipeg by-election uh

Corey 1:11:55

uh the opposite of what stephen says unless stephen says the ndp are going to win in which case i say the conservatives are Carter

Zain 1:12:02

Carter is going to win the NDP by Who's going to win the Winnipeg by-election Conservatives

Zain 1:12:07

Carter who's going to win the Montreal by-election Block

Zain 1:12:11

Corey going to say the Liberals No

Carter 1:12:13

No Corey has no strength he's going to follow me

Zain 1:12:17

Corey are you going to follow him

Corey 1:12:19

think it might be the

Corey 1:12:21

Yeah I think it is the I'm going to say Liberals because he's always wrong So I'm going to say Liberals and I'll tell you We're going to leave

Zain 1:12:26

What are you going to tell me It better be fucking useful because people would have been able to get back to their kids kids to have been able to get back to doing something really important. So guys, folks, here it is.

Zain 1:12:38

We're going to leave it there.

Zain 1:12:39

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1824. The Strategist. My name is Zane Belger. With me, as always, Corey Hogan and political mastermind Stephen Carter. And we'll see you next time.

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