Episode 1007: Pundit as Premier

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 1007. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what

Zain 0:09

what is going on? It is October 13th. It is a Thursday. We're recording on a Thursday because you know why? Time doesn't matter, Stephen Carter. I know you've got nothing time sensitive going on whatsoever.

Carter 0:21

Nope, nothing's going on. Just hanging out here with the raccoons in Vancouver.

Corey 0:29

tell me that wasn't

Corey 0:30

me think that you're actually not in vancouver that's what that

Carter 0:33

that i'm in surrey i'm in surrey and there's a lot of raccoons most of them are dead on the side of the road yeah

Carter 0:39

yeah now now i'm sure it's a metaphor yeah

Zain 0:42

yeah now i'm sure it's a metaphor you've dug yourself into a hole we've talked about we've talked about your your you know hey by the way did that did that large lawn sign guy ever deliver the lawn signs did that ever happened we never followed up on the no there was no

Zain 0:56

was no no follow-through which is there's

Carter 0:58

really a lot of accountability

Carter 0:59

zane i haven't noticed he

Carter 1:02

he calls the candidate at midnight and

Carter 1:04

and uh says oh he calls the candidate that seems like a

Zain 1:07

a campaign manager failure right there that

Zain 1:10

candidate's number he does not

Carter 1:10

not have my number he

Carter 1:11

he is uh not only call me okay

Carter 1:15

so no he calls the candidate at midnight says i just put out more signs and i go back and i count the signs and they're still the same number of signs so

Carter 1:22

i have no idea where he's getting the signs from but

Carter 1:25

you know what it's

Carter 1:27

it's all good we

Carter 1:28

we ran into the opposition's bus today uh

Carter 1:32

uh so that's pretty exciting they they've got a bus no they have their own bus is that

Carter 1:36

that a metaphor they're

Zain 1:37

they're running for mayor of surrey and they've got a bus yeah

Carter 1:39

yeah they have a

Zain 1:40

a bus is that a common thing is that is that to run over the raccoons is it just like the number three

Corey 1:45

and they're just going

Corey 1:46

up and down on it or

Carter 1:47

well i mean traffic is quite bad here so if you get your bus stuck in traffic a lot of people are going to see it so

Corey 1:54

okay you know i asked but i actually don't care uh zane how are you we missed you in the last episode yeah we did tell you something i'm doing great i am i

Zain 2:01

i am living the life of a white man i am in the rear morocco hotel um i'm on the ninth floor it is a it is a very nice floor uh the ninth floor for those who know it's the top floor um you know i'm doing well i'm doing well i could i couldn't make last episodes because i'm doing important stuff that's once again but i did want to get i also left the previous episode early because i had more important stuff to do in this podcast that is actually almost like

Zain 2:25

like i'm better than this podcast i don't know that's that's what people have been saying okay well we are selling posters with my face on it so it's not like my ego is inflated at all just

Zain 2:34

it's not it's not like you guys are contributing to the problem what

Carter 2:38

well we know your bet

Corey 2:40

last time when steven wasn't on

Corey 2:42

Yes We gave him a chance to weigh in And kind of do a lightning round Yeah

Corey 2:46

So I'm going to list Eight topics

Corey 2:47

topics that we went through And I'd like you to say Expand on that For each of them So we don't miss the Zane Velji experience

Zain 2:55

Wait After the fourth I will make A quip about Flair Airlines Just so you know Okay perfect Go

Corey 3:00

Go on let's do it It's

Zain 3:01

It's good alright Daniel Smith

Corey 3:06

Oh you're like God you're even too slow Like this is too ponderous

Corey 3:09

ponderous Come on let's go Yeah

Corey 3:10

Yeah Come on we gotta go Go go go Can we unpack

Zain 3:11

unpack that that can we unpack that a bit okay

Corey 3:13

okay kenny ghosted her henshaw

Corey 3:15

henshaw was fired on that promise

Corey 3:17

promise to overhaul ahs wait

Zain 3:18

wait wait tell me more

Corey 3:24

right i'm done with this bit i don't think it was it wasn't funny from the start that's what i yeah player

Zain 3:30

player airlines not funny from the start uh let's move it on to our first segment our first segment fine fabulous or fucked guys we are here

Zain 3:39

much to talk about it is a classic um we we do this this uh three prong scale fine everything is fine with this strategy fabulous this is a masterstroke this is political genius at work note it down in your little black book uh replicated in your future campaigns this is this is fabulous fucked this goes in the trash bin this is this is political strategy at its worst this is uh not playing your hand well uh carter there's so many things going on in canadian politics but i have to start with Alberta politics. Let's start here.

Zain 4:13

Fine, fabulous, or fucked. Danielle Smith, on the day after, correct me if I'm wrong, guys, I don't have it in front of me, on the day after talking about the most discriminated group in her lifetime being the unvaccinated, comes out with an apology, put that in air quotes, and a clarification. Carter, the strategy to apologize and the apology itself, fine,

Zain 4:32

fine, fabulous, or fucked in your mind, give it to me.

Carter 4:37

think it's fucked. I mean, I think that, you know, when you apologize like that, first of all, you're dragging a story. You're much better off to do a channel changer than an apology.

Carter 4:47

So she managed to drag the issue forward, but I guess she was getting killed anyways. But the apology itself also was pretty fucked. I don't think that it actually achieved what she was trying to achieve, which is to put things behind her. I think that instead it inflamed a group of people that

Carter 5:02

that still think that she's completely wrong. I mean, Evan Solomon, your friend Zane, Evan Solomon, the man that you've modeled your entire life after, tweeted that, you know, what about the 47,000 people who passed away? What about those people? And that

Carter 5:16

that had had, I mean, I thought I got a lot of traction, you know, 2

Carter 5:22

But Evan had like a gajillion retweets. His was huge. Yeah, what happened to the people who died? Why are we suddenly focusing

Carter 5:31

focusing on those people who wanted to carry the virus around with them? And the misinformation is staggering. The number of responses I had to my own tweet of people just absolutely

Carter 5:42

absolutely losing the plot. And the fact that Danielle wants to appeal to them.

Carter 5:48

Man, talk about emboldening the wrong people.

Zain 5:51

Corey, I'm going to read a segment from this letter put out by the premier the next day after those comments were made at our press conference. I want to be clear, this is quoting Daniel Smith, that I did not intend to trivialize in any way the discrimination faced by minority communities and other persecuted groups, both here in Canada and around the world, or to create any false equivalence to the terrible historical discrimination persecution suffered by so many minority groups over the last decades and centuries. talking in the past tense apologizing trying to in a sense cory

Zain 6:23

cory find fabulous or fuck the political strategy the messaging strategy of danielle smith putting out this letter the day after um

Corey 6:33

um look i think it's fucked i think on it's like let's just strip away everything else and say after her very first press conference within 24 hours she needed to walk it back i don't even and need to provide additional details for people to know that was a bad day for

Corey 6:47

for daniel smith but

Corey 6:50

a fine case that i think i've already undercut by telling you i think things are actually fucked but but why this may actually still work out for daniel smith depending on what the ndp does next depending on how the public moves with this particular issue um

Corey 7:04

this is a move of daniel smith's that i think that her opponent should take note of which is um she kind of just says like oh shucks sorry but not sorry you know like it's it's a very similar approach to when there was um you know uh footage

Corey 7:19

footage that was brought up or i guess audio clips of her saying oh yeah you can cure cancer just by having a better diet before it's stage four or

Corey 7:27

the comment she made trivializing smoking she'll say yeah like yeah geez that wasn't good of me um maybe not a full full apology, but moving on. And the problem I think that opponents will find, and

Corey 7:40

and again, I don't want to overstate it, is that for

Corey 7:44

for a certain percent of the population, that'll be good enough.

Corey 7:47

And so when you spend the next three days demanding a sincere apology, a lot of people will say, okay, enough. She walked it back. She clearly realized it was a screw up. You don't need to continue running on this. And you're sort of leaving the door open for her to say, look, I said said that I shouldn't have said that, but here's why I believe X, Y, and Z. And if you get pushed on it, she says, yeah, I said I was sorry. It doesn't matter if she actually said sorry, but here's why I think X, Y, and Z. And I just don't think it's going to be particularly a fruitful line of attack.

Corey 8:16

However, she's also sown some seeds that can grow carnivorous

Corey 8:20

carnivorous plants that attack

Corey 8:21

attack her. I don't know, this metaphor is already in trouble.

Zain 8:25

it the second you opened your mouth, but it's fine. You

Corey 8:27

You kept going. I just rattled off very quickly three things where she said, oops, sorry. And I'm not even talking about some of the big things like the floor crossing. Oops, sorry. Shouldn't have done that.

Corey 8:37

of fire. Oops, sorry. I shouldn't have done that. Climate change denial. Oops, sorry. I shouldn't have done that.

Corey 8:42

Denial of climate change denial. Oops, sorry. I shouldn't have done that. Now that I've become more extreme in my views again. And there really is kind of this, this thing that she's done where she's created this pattern of gaffe and apology. And I think she's vulnerable on that. And people saying like, what, what is this? Like, you know, what will Danielle Smith be apologizing for tomorrow?

Corey 9:04

It would not necessarily be a bad line of attack on her. And she's leaving it open to people through these constant streams of actions and walkbacks. and it's it's sort of rooted in her personality she talks to somebody she hears something she repeats that comment you know she believes it but she's taking their rhetoric and

Corey 9:21

and then and then she's got some cleanup to do because this is not a radio show anymore it's the province of alberta and it's the government and

Zain 9:27

and this and cory you and i were chatting about this you know this this week which is exactly to your last point um this is how a radio show host operates right like you You have six minute segments, you plan out the segment roughly in your mind, you kind of throw something out there, you lob a few grenades into the mix, you see how the calls and the texts are going, and if they're not going too well, you abandon, and if they're going great, controversy's not a bad thing, you extend the segment, right? Like,

Zain 9:56

I've had to fill in for shows, that's kind of how it works, you've got eight segments over two hours, you plan six of them, and you keep a couple flexed based on what's up. I could see that vibe. I could see that shock, shock vibe from her in this first week. To your earlier point that both of you have made, we haven't really seen her lead anything. We haven't really seen her lead anything in the past. She's taken on, her

Zain 10:19

her persona might be a bit of a reach, but she's taken on that radio persona that many would be familiar with and has extended it to the premiums chair in some way.

Corey 10:28

I think one of the things that is

Corey 10:31

is going to be interesting to see is if the same tricks that worked for her in opposition and radio actually have that currency going forward.

Corey 10:39

part of that will require the other side not falling for those tricks,

Corey 10:43

right? And not getting distracted by the thing that is ultimately the petty grievance rather than the major grievance. Like her apology not being good enough is a petty grievance. And I saw Rachel Notley was talking about it today. I don't have a problem with that. Obviously, she should demand a sincere apology for one day. But if she's still talking about this two days from now i think that's a bit of a mistake by the ndp if you're not talking it in you know laddering it into a bigger attack on daniel smith's character or or something along those lines because like it's

Corey 11:10

it's only going to take you so far to say the apology wasn't good

Zain 11:14

carter i'm going to i'm going to keep on daniel smith but i'm going to go with something different um fine fabulous or fucked daniel

Zain 11:20

daniel smith in pundit mode talking

Zain 11:22

talking to rick bell talking about her pathway pathway to victory, right? And you've been someone, to be totally clear, who's been a big advocate of open source strategy, right? Like being very clear about your pathway to victory. So I'm asking you first for a reason. She tells Rick Bell saying, listen, the way I win the next election, I'm paraphrasing here, right? I don't have it in front of me. I win rural Alberta and I win half of Calgary.

Zain 11:46

Now, to be clear, the UCP have more than half of Calgary right now for those from outside of the province. And even from those inside the province, that's where the current math Math shakes down in terms of seats that they hold.

Zain 11:56

Fine, fabulous, or fucked? Danielle Smith kind of entering a bit of pundit mode back to maybe back to our radio shock jock sort of commentary earlier. Fine, fabulous, or fucked, Carter? Danielle Smith in this particular interview and with this particular message.

Carter 12:10

I think it's fucked. She's not the campaign strategist.

Carter 12:13

She's the premier. And, you know, it's not even like she's the opposition leader. I can almost see, you

Carter 12:21

Notley sitting down with Rick Bell and explaining her path to victory. And and

Carter 12:26

that almost makes sense to me. When you're the premier and you currently hold, you

Carter 12:31

you know, 75 or what, like 90 percent of the seats in Calgary, which

Carter 12:37

which seats are going to go away?

Carter 12:39

And I'll tell you something. The people who are sitting in those seats currently, they know which seats are going to go away. They know which seats Jan-Neal is talking about. And they're not real comfortable, I think, at this stage. They know that they're being written off in order for MLAs in rural Alberta to hold onto their seats. And that does not promote caucus unity. opportunity. When you have a caucus, you are at the very least pretending that you're going to win every seat. You have to pretend that because all those caucus members are going to fight for you. They're going to make sure that you have the victory in the end. And you can't predict which seats you wind up with. There are seats that I thought for sure we would hold in 2012 12 that we didn't hold and certs seats i thought for sure that we would lose that we kept so

Carter 13:30

so you've got to be able in a position especially if you're the actual leader to

Carter 13:34

to say this isn't you

Carter 13:35

you know we are going to fight for we know the battleground is calgary um i have a path to victory in calgary and that means winning every sink that we can win and

Carter 13:44

and i think that that would have been a better strategy discussion if someone needs to talk to rick bell off the record and color in the the the color by numbers that he requires in order to understand election strategy, then someone else can, can do that afterwards.

Zain 13:59

I'm going to, I'm going to ask you the same thing.

Zain 14:00

Just there, just this like drive-bys in a candidate bus, Carter.

Zain 14:08

day, I hope your candidate gets a bus. Maybe, maybe it'll be. One day. Maybe it'll be on one day. I

Carter 14:13

I was on the bus with Richard Joe Clark. That was a pretty good one. pretty

Zain 14:18

I hear the stories do

Zain 14:20

all your stories involve driving or mothers against drunk driving Corey over to you fine fabulous or fuck Danielle Smith in pundit mode talking about her electoral pathway her electoral map Carter I will loop back to you on the campaign strategies versus candidate role but Corey to you fine fabulous or fucked Danielle's take here yeah

Corey 14:39

yeah it's it's fucked because of many of the things that Stephen said but I want to expand on them government

Corey 14:46

government government always has a formula for government. It's to win the same things. And so sort of walking back from that and saying, actually, we're going to try to win a little bit less. I think it's just, you know, it's, it's not showing a lot of strength for starters. It's, it's interesting, right? But

Corey 15:00

But even if you're not in government and I have some experience with this, there is an expectation that you compete and you fight and you win and all of the seats that you previously held. And I think in 2012, I was, I

Corey 15:11

was running the campaign for the Alberta liberal Liberal Party, which at the time had won

Corey 15:15

won nine seats the previous election, but there'd been a couple of floor crossings and all of this. And ultimately,

Corey 15:21

I think at dissolution, there were six or seven.

Corey 15:27

we knew we could only win five on a great day,

Corey 15:30

but we had to compete in all of the nine that we'd previously won. That was an expectation. It wasn't just an expectation of caucus, because in some cases, caucus wasn't there, but also of the members in that organization, right

Corey 15:42

right it's this idea that you you've

Corey 15:44

you've got political parties are so supposed to self-perpetuate they're supposed to be growth and yeah i mean sometimes you go into an election you know you're going to lose a few but even in those cases you put on a brave face you go out there and

Corey 15:54

and i mean i agree with steven the

Corey 15:57

the people who are at jeopardy know they're at jeopardy i mean you could basically take out a map of calgary and say anything

Corey 16:02

anything touching the edge of the city maybe maybe as in danielle's plan anything not is basically being ceded to the new democratic party and that's an an awful lot of the city at this point.

Corey 16:13

And I just don't know, like I'm having trouble putting myself in the seat of like a UCP MLA from one of those ridings that's at risk. It's like, can you imagine a Calgary caucus meeting, Danielle Smith's there and she says, look to your left,

Corey 16:28

look to your right, one and a half of you won't be here after the next election.

Corey 16:36

just one. I don't foresee like an instant problem. I've actually been been pretty clear that i think that these people ultimately bark a lot more than they bite but

Corey 16:45

but at a certain point uh between kind of the disrespect to calgary on the by-elections the sort of disavowing of your calgary roots saying like you're a rural operator you're a rural gal and um and

Corey 16:56

and then seeming willing to seed rural seat or uh calgary seats and maintaining a strong rural base like at a certain point do the calgary mlas not say hey hold on a minute here i didn't sign up to be cannon fodder i'm

Corey 17:11

i'm just a bit surprised in some ways that it's even gotten this far yeah

Corey 17:15

yeah it just seems really brazen of daniel smith to do

Zain 17:18

carter would you say the same thing you just did both of you right like you guys are in the same lane here so to

Zain 17:27

would you say the same thing if if her chief campaign strategist said

Corey 17:33

um so i would i bet you carter wouldn't but i would like

Corey 17:37

like when i think back to that same same 2012 election, if

Corey 17:40

if the media had asked me where the liberals think they're competitive, I would have said all of the nine ridings where we were there.

Corey 17:47

there. But behind the scenes, like in the campaign office, we knew three

Corey 17:51

three of those for sure, probably four, there was not a chance in hell.

Corey 17:54

And so you just kind of put

Corey 17:56

put on a brave face and do the good fight and you just try to make sure they don't bring you down and you don't allocate too many resources to it. But But

Corey 18:04

but yeah, for for like a public perspective, like you can't, especially

Corey 18:09

especially with incumbents in it. I mean, that's the most damning thing.

Corey 18:13

hard for me to imagine doing that.

Zain 18:14

Because what I'm trying to tease out here is, is was this a messenger error or was this both a messenger and message error? Right, Carter? So talk to

Zain 18:23

to me about this. If this was you leading this campaign, you've always advocated open sourcing strategy. You've also advocated a bit of honesty. Christy, didn't

Zain 18:31

didn't this hit both of those marks for what her chief strategist or her campaign lead should have said seven months before an election, or no? Yeah.

Carter 18:38

I mean, there's 26 ridings in Calgary, Rick. What I'm aiming for is to win all 26 ridings. But I think that that's going to be a stretch for us this time.

Carter 18:46

We have excellent MLAs running in every riding. We are going to pick up a few new faces through retirement. I can't wait to see what they can do. But

Carter 18:56

the math is simple. If we We won half, we will win the election, but our goal is to win each and every seat.

Zain 19:03

That's what you'd say as a campaign strategist.

Carter 19:05

Well, keep in mind that in 2012, we were down to 34 seats in our internal projections.

Carter 19:11

I didn't run around and tell everybody, hey, we're 34 seats in our internal projections. I told people our strategy for winning the government because that was the end game. You don't handicap

Carter 19:23

handicap yourself, especially at the beginning of the race by saying, you know know what yeah

Carter 19:27

becoming six that's going to be amazing for us um

Carter 19:30

um you know you you've got to be in a position where you at least have a strategy to win um this

Carter 19:37

this this game that you're playing and danielle has now given away half you

Carter 19:43

you know half the seats in in calgary um

Carter 19:45

um which i think is a

Zain 19:49

is there any strategy in that

Zain 19:51

pressure on your opponents um Um, and pressure on your, I'm not saying it's good strategy, but is there any strategy in there? Uh, pressure on your opponents? I'm

Zain 20:01

I'm just kind of throwing these out there, right? Um, maybe lowering the bar for yourself, surprise and delight, lower expectation. You know, what, what do you kind of think of, of, of schools of thought in that direction? Carter, you're, you're, you're, you're shaking your head. No, but I'll let Corey go first and then we'll let you jump in there on Carter. Carter?

Corey 20:16

I mean, I think this is kind of a common thread for the past couple of months for me, and it will probably be a common thread going forward, which is I

Corey 20:25

I sometimes think we should be a little bit more charitable about what she's doing because it has worked to date. And if I'm trying to look for the method in the madness here, it's, well,

Corey 20:35

well, it is honest and it is pretty frank and it is a straight shooting politician who's saying it like it is. Everybody knows the The UCP is not as popular as they were before the last election.

Corey 20:45

Do we really think they're going to go up in seats? No. Which are the ones that are going to come off? Probably these ones. And in a way, doesn't

Corey 20:51

doesn't it avoid some of the bullshit that you often have to put up with if you're a campaign director? Like, I think back to my campaign, actually, as I was giving my last answer and I was saying like, yeah, we had to give resources to seats we didn't think we had a chance in.

Corey 21:03

That's not optimal. That's not a very good idea. But I had to do it because of some sort of sense of party unity, right? And this idea that you got to fight for the things you got to fight for. And

Corey 21:11

she's just saying, fuck that. That's not necessarily a good idea. And part of me says, yeah, that's not necessarily a good idea. Now, if she can manage the internal dissent, I'm

Corey 21:22

I'm not. But I have to say, it's not like it's 100% downside.

Corey 21:27

I think that the

Corey 21:28

the party dissent thing is just too much of a hill for me to get over, especially because those seats had incumbents or

Corey 21:36

they have incumbents. But, you know,

Corey 21:38

know, let's not pretend there's not some potential upsides here. And it is very keeping with Danielle Smith's strategy of just kind of ping,

Corey 21:46

ping, ping, moving on to the next thing. And frankly, we've spent an awful lot more time talking about this than her apology slash non-apology.

Carter 21:53

in on this. Because we spent the last episode talking about her faults. I mean, this is ridiculous, though, Corey. I mean, what was her weakness in the last time, right? What was her weakness when she was the leader of the Wild Rose Caucus? It was caucus management. management.

Carter 22:06

it was a blindside

Corey 22:07

blindside to their needs, yeah. Yeah,

Carter 22:08

Yeah, her very first action as the leader of this new caucus, before they've even gotten together as a caucus, is to essentially say to half of the people that she needs to win in the next election, well, you guys are fucked.

Carter 22:20

You know, how's that going to do for caucus morale as

Carter 22:25

as they get ready to fight an election that they know is going to be tough, that they already knew they were coming from behind the eight ball because they ditched their last leader over it. They said to the last leader, you're not going to get us over the top. Get the fuck out of here. We're getting a new leader. New leader comes in and says, well, half of you guys are screwed. Good luck

Carter 22:43

luck to you. I mean, basically, take a look, take a look. Jason Copping, Nicolaitis, like there's a ton of people in the in the in the north, cabinet ministers, Tyler Chandra. Are these people going to be cabinet ministers? She's also not not just saying she's not just saying you're going to lose your seats. She's saying you guys I have a privilege of being cabinet ministers, and I'm going to take some of that away, too. I'm going to take away $60,000 a year from your paychecks. I'm going to take away your car. I'm going to take away your responsibility. And then I'm going to say to you, good luck getting elected, because half of you are going to go, half of you are going to die.

Corey 23:22

not wrong. It's good we got our episode title, Half of You Are

Zain 23:24

Are Going to Go, Half of You

Corey 23:25

Die. It is a recipe for dissent, right?

Corey 23:28

right? You are taking away their privileges that they're afraid of losing. potentially and

Corey 23:33

and uh if you kind of have a venn diagram then with people who think they're going to lose the election what

Corey 23:38

what reason do they have to kind of maintain the party whip and toe the party line it

Corey 23:43

becomes one of those things where you say well fuck you too i've only i've got this job for a good time not a long time so

Corey 23:48

so i might as well go down on my own terms and that's that's dangerous right you only have so many levers as leader one of them is dance

Corey 23:55

dance if you're premier it's dance for for the cabinet seat it's

Corey 23:59

it's being dismissive and i shouldn't be

Corey 24:01

you know it's performed it's

Carter 24:01

it's totally what it is you can be dismissive and

Carter 24:05

and then the cabinet's going to come they're auditioning for cabinet it at their retreat yeah

Carter 24:11

like this is actually going to happen next week or and uh

Carter 24:16

they all know it too they all know that they're auditioning for cabinet

Corey 24:20

well and then the very next thing there is if you don't have that then you at least try to have have the fear of you're going to lose your seat if you don't keep it together because

Corey 24:30

they do like government has a blueprint for winning you do the same thing you stick together where we're as good as last time you're going to keep your seat and when you abandon that i

Corey 24:39

i mean there's just there's not a lot to lose right and that's nothing left yeah

Zain 24:44

carter what was the quote again half are you gonna what half are you gonna die you're gonna die what's

Zain 24:48

what's the first part you're

Carter 24:51

you're gonna lose your

Carter 24:51

your Your car, your... Half you're going to lose,

Zain 24:53

lose, half you're going to die. Corey, here it is. Okay, it's a shirt. In the middle, half of the people are losing, and then the other half, the people are dead, but they're actually raccoons. Okay? And then we put it up on the strategist. That's it, okay? I'm just giving you a golden idea. That's great. They're just dead raccoons.

Zain 25:10

Maybe front and back. Maybe we could do a... I mean, whatever we need to do. Whatever we need to do. I

Carter 25:15

I don't like to brag, but I actually put money

Carter 25:18

money is the currency of politics in a news release this week. in surrey and i put the little tm for trademarked beside it you

Carter 25:26

you don't know what really sucks

Carter 25:28

not one journalist in surrey got the reference not one you

Corey 25:32

you know but it's trademarked

Corey 25:36

hyperlink to the mug

Carter 25:38

you don't hyperlink to the mug what that's

Zain 25:41

that's that's the mistake uh can

Carter 25:43

can i stick in alberta for

Zain 25:43

for a sec are you guys tired of alberta because i was

Carter 25:46

was you know what you're you've got the reins man we just just follow you we just follow or you find

Zain 25:50

find fabulous or fuck let's let's focus on danielle smith on one final thing and i think this is an interesting conversation on lines of attack and messaging she's

Zain 25:58

she's got a meme out there she's got several memes about um the the trudeau uh notley singh alliance this one is interesting this one is about rachel notley saying that she's afraid of danielle smith and what albertans are afraid of is rachel notley and her alliance with jagmeet sing yeah i saw this one yeah fine

Zain 26:18

fine fabulous or fuck that messaging strategy from danielle smith you know we've seen the playbook of they

Zain 26:26

they he she whoever is afraid of me it's desperate like you know um they're they're look at look at how desperate they are look at how panicked they are they're they're afraid uh what do you kind of think of that message given the political dynamic now given the seven months of the election your take on that fine fabulous or fucked

Corey 26:46

Yeah. So this particular meme

Corey 26:49

or whatever that she put together, this post that I think you're referring to had three pictures of Danielle Smith just doing kind of normal things like smiling

Corey 26:57

smiling with kids and at a barbecue. And I can't remember the third

Corey 27:01

Yeah. With a pumpkin, with doing a Star Trek hand gesture, I think. Oh, that's right. It was at Vulcan. That's exactly what it was. And then Vulcan's a city or a town in Alberta, for those who don't know. There's a Star Trek statue there. And

Corey 27:13

And then the other one was underneath and it says what Albertans are afraid of. And it showed a picture of Rachel Notley with Justin

Corey 27:20

Justin Trudeau and a picture of Rachel

Corey 27:23

Rachel Notley with Jagmeet

Corey 27:25

Jagmeet Singh and then a picture of Jagmeet Singh with

Corey 27:30

And the implication being this is all part of that alliance they're talking about. Notley-Trudeau-Singh alliance. I

Corey 27:36

I thought it was very funny, by the way, that there was no picture of all three. So they had to cobble it together with pictures of two of them in multiple different

Corey 27:42

sections. They had to use

Zain 27:43

use the transitive property.

Zain 27:45

It's the Stephen Carter. If you won't endorse me, I'll endorse you. I'll endorse you if you won't endorse me. Good point, though. Yeah, because they haven't been seen in a room

Corey 27:56

room together. Because of course, because it's not actually a notly Trudeau-Singh alliance, not to state the blindingly obvious here.

Zain 28:03

the thank you for smoking, where the merchant's a death at the back table. That does not happen

Zain 28:08

with these three. I agree.

Corey 28:10

think it's fine because I think we know that there are a number of Albertans who will kind

Corey 28:16

kind of latch onto it. Now, social

Corey 28:18

social media is not everything. And

Corey 28:20

And in fact, it's not even a

Corey 28:22

a good thing most

Corey 28:23

most of the time. But one of the things I often check is kind of the ratio of comments to likes

Corey 28:28

likes on this. And,

Corey 28:30

you know, generally speaking, she's still got more people on her side who really like it than people who are coming at her. Although I think those ratios are not necessarily as

Corey 28:39

as good as you might hope when it's just your first days on the job. So remains

Corey 28:43

remains to be seen, but it's certainly red meat for the base. And I don't think she's going to lose any votes for it. I'm just not

Carter 28:51

not convinced she's going to

Corey 28:51

to gain any either. So

Zain 28:52

So I think it's great. Well, what do you think of the first part of the message? I found that to be the more intriguing part. The Notley-Singh-Trudeau alliance we've heard of before. What do you think of the, you know, Rachel

Zain 29:02

Rachel Notley's afraid of Daniel Smith?

Corey 29:05

You know, I think that

Corey 29:07

that wasn't actually what I kind of latched on to when I saw that. That's

Zain 29:12

Totally on the same. Okay, yeah, yeah.

Corey 29:13

yeah. What I latched on to was that she was trying to show how normal and nice she was at the top, right? Like, it's just her being a bit of a nerd in front of a Star Trek statue doing the Vulcan salute. absolute her hanging out with a bunch of people and

Corey 29:26

and she was trying to make the point i

Corey 29:29

i felt not that rachel notley was afraid of her but she's not actually scary is the point i thought she was trying to make it was almost like this eye rolling like oh yeah rachel notley's so afraid of me i'm so scary is

Corey 29:40

is the way i read that first half and

Corey 29:43

and i think you're going to see more of that in the next bit she's really going to kind of lean into this personality of hers which is kind of of like smiley

Corey 29:50

smiley and aw shucks and nicest person in the world like i'll tell you i have a lot of friends who worked with her in

Corey 29:55

in the um in the newsroom in

Corey 29:59

in the herald and like to a person they will say what a delight she was like boy raised

Corey 30:04

raised by wolves you know very conservative but super nice super nice and i think that's our three personal experiences as well on an individual level i

Zain 30:13

i read that a little bit differently but reading it again i i see cory's interpretation interpretation, like Danielle trying to perhaps normalize as much as she is her policies, her

Zain 30:25

persona to the public. In your take, Carter, fine, fabulous, or fucked, this message lane that the

Zain 30:33

the UCP have started, or at least Danielle Smith's UCP have started after her election?

Carter 30:40

Well, I think Corey's take, before we go any further, is truly fucked.

Carter 30:48

yes daniels is fucked because you

Carter 30:50

you know tell me what you're for before you tell me what you're against you know and maybe i'm old school on that but here's this woman who who's defined by the sovereignty act who's defined by uh tearing apart the institutions of alberta um who is really just the the moment she's been sworn in she doesn't even have a cabinet yet and all she's doing is just attacking attacking attacking and creating as cory indicated uh the only part of Corey's nonsensical drivel that I was able to actually grab onto.

Carter 31:22

She's trying to create this Jagmeet Singh, Justin Trudeau thing. Why would you do that? You don't need to tie

Carter 31:33

Rachel Notley to Trudeau. You

Carter 31:35

You just need to go after Trudeau. That's enough. We didn't tie Jeremy Farkas to Jason Kenney in the Gondek campaign. We just went after Kenney. It's

Carter 31:47

Because you're standing up for me. You're standing up for me. That's all I need. All I need is to see that the person who's on the political

Carter 31:58

political dais is fighting for me. That's a primary message in politics. Are you fighting for me or are you fighting against me? and danielle smith with her 20 with the 20 who love her the people who will retweet

Carter 32:11

retweet and like the things that cory's uh

Carter 32:14

uh going and checking on social media to determine whether or not something successful or smart um you know it's

Zain 32:21

coming from the guy who had a real retweet envy of evan solomon but keep going you

Corey 32:25

you literally just gave us your like like counts on your most recent post because it

Carter 32:30

it was mine and

Carter 32:30

and that matters to me because i'm a shallow shallow man and And, you

Carter 32:36

you know, this, that's fine. We all know I'm a shallow man. You know, I'm fine with that. But here's, you know, I just think, Corey, I just think that this is a huge mistake from Danielle, because it also opens up the field for Notley. And if you look at what Notley's doing, what is Notley doing? What's her response? You know, first of all, the pictures of all the volunteers going out in Calgary, or in Lethbridge, right? Or no, Medicine Hat. All All the pictures of all the door knockers going out in the twilight hours. For the most part, Rachel Notley is able to say, we're going to fight against the Sovereignty Act for you. We're going to fight against the shit, the crazy ass shit that Danielle Smith is doing. And Danielle is doing such a crazy attack on Rachel that it's just missing. It's just missing completely. So don't do that, Danielle. And if you're Rachel Notley, just keep doing what you're doing. Show people that you're willing to fight. this race down in medicine hatton brooks could be a much more interesting race than anybody would have given it credit for why

Zain 33:37

why do you want to do you want to jump in on carter's assault on your on your answer on my honor in

Zain 33:42

on your on your honor on your answer yes well

Corey 33:45

well i think what carter's brought up is an interesting question about how the ndp responds to these kinds of attacks

Corey 33:52

if at all and

Corey 33:53

and generally speaking i i think the proper approach is to ignore them them.

Corey 33:59

don't fault the NDP for what they're doing on this particular front, keeping their eyes on the prize, but

Corey 34:04

but that's going to be challenging and they need to continue doing it. Like one of the things they're going to have problems with, with the NDP is, or sorry, with Daniel Smith is she presents on just so many targets and

Corey 34:15

and keeping that a coherent argument

Corey 34:17

argument against her is going to be difficult. Right. And you, I

Zain 34:20

called it, what did you call it as, as relation to peer filling the pantry right like and and that same sort of uh

Zain 34:28

to have in some ways is do you not consider it to be the same i

Corey 34:30

i mean i think it's a little bit different in this context what i'm saying the ndp needs to sort of watch out for here carter's pointing at his head yes we see there's no hair there um

Corey 34:40

um been true for quite some time what

Corey 34:43

what what i think the ndp you know who does have hair there

Zain 34:46

there is uh evan solomon keep going cory oh

Corey 34:48

oh it's true what

Corey 34:50

what they need to keep in mind is that uh some of the things like your apology is not good enough like

Corey 34:57

like it can't register the same amount of outreach as the end of rule of law in the alberta sovereignty act and so that the challenge i think for the ndp is one of like there's just too many targets and they're not all equal and it's going to be hard not to be distracted along here and it's going to be hard not to have the hit of the day on

Corey 35:14

on daniel smith but actually the story of the campaign about

Zain 35:19

You wanted to jump in on a particular point. I don't know

Carter 35:22

know which one it was. Corian has had a remarkable recovery from his absolutely shitty post to coming

Carter 35:28

coming in. We need to introduce message discipline to the NDP.

Carter 35:33

We have three messages in Surrey, three. And everything that I'm doing fits into those three boxes. And if it doesn't fit into those three boxes, we're done. And the NDP needs to decide what its three boxes are and never, ever ever move out of them and when they think that they're talking too much about it when they've been repeating it for ad nauseum for too long and people must have heard this no one has heard it stay within your message box create a you know the three boxes you're going to be in and stay there until may you know until june 2023 do not leave your message box boy

Corey 36:08

yeah i want to build on that because the message box also i i think really can't be all all negative. The idea

Corey 36:16

idea of just two battleships blowing each other up and seeing which one sinks less, I worry about that for the province. I think that would just be sort of an ugly fight. And I do think the NDP need to think about their positive messages too. What does it mean to vote for NDP at this particular

Corey 36:32

We've always said the NDP are a brilliant opposition.

Corey 36:36

But one of the things that's going to add an interesting dynamic to this coming election is there's

Corey 36:42

there's just such a high level of known commodity. We know what Premier Rachel Notley is like.

Corey 36:49

we will know what Premier Danielle Smith is like, but we know Danielle Smith. I mean, people are coming in with kind of like high awareness numbers here and

Corey 36:57

people are going to want to understand how will it be similar to your first term? How will it be different from your first term for both of these candidates?

Corey 37:05

what I think the NDP need to be very careful about is to make sure that they go go in there and have like coherent, compelling answers to that question.

Corey 37:13

A way to talk about Alberta's future that,

Corey 37:16

that, that can't be thrown back at them as kind of the managed decline of this province. Cause this province is so bloody titchy about so many sensible

Corey 37:22

sensible things that need to occur around energy transition. So you got to paint a positive picture for the next 20, 40, 60 years. The thing I always say is like my kids, my youngest kids not retiring until 2083. I'd I'd like them to retire here. The hell are they going to be doing in 2083?

Carter 37:38

Paint me a picture.

Zain 37:43

Fabulous. Amazing. Or fucked.

Zain 37:45

I'm moving. I'm moving to

Corey 37:47

to Ottawa. Well, not really.

Zain 37:49

really. I'm moving to Pierre Polyev.

Corey 37:50

Polyev. And I want to

Zain 37:51

to talk to you about

Zain 37:53

in his critic roles for Pierre Polyev,

Zain 37:56

leaving out a very notable person in the conservative movement for the last, I could say, maybe decade.

Zain 38:03

I might need to asterisk that. And, you know, certainly maybe a decade elected and elected and unelected. Michelle Rample Gardner does not find herself in a critic role amongst 50. Fine, fabulous or fucked the move by Pierre Palliev as it relates to his electoral chances, the conservative movement and what we're seeing is centered out of Ottawa for him. What do you think? Fine, fabulous or fucked leaving Michelle Rample Gardner on the sidelines?

Zain 38:28

I'm going to say fabulous.

Corey 38:34

have enough that's spilling out of the conservative caucus that we know that things are not all good with Michelle Rempelgarner and her relations with the rest of her caucus. So this is consistent with what the caucus would want, but it is still a lot of inside ball, all of that disagreement

Corey 38:50

disagreement between Michelle Rempelgarner and the caucus. Yes. And when it spills out into the public, which seems inevitable, just given the amount of stories that have been heard, even the fact that it's bleeding into things like QP and her rolling her eyes at Garnet Genuis, right?

Corey 39:05

Well, now it looks like sour grapes. Now it doesn't necessarily look principled. It's not somebody who's powerful in the party and up and coming star. It looks like somebody who's mad that they were left out of the shadow caucus or cabinet and has been given clear indication that they don't necessarily have a future in a Pierre Poliev government.

Corey 39:25

what's not to like? Caucus is going to like it. It nerfs somebody who might otherwise be a critic of you from the inside, which is always kind of a difficult critic to put up with.

Zain 39:38

Carter, is it fabulous for you? Michelle Rempel-Gardner on the sidelines of a conservative critic role. There was several, I was going to say several of them, several dozen handed out, arguably. She's not one of them. Fine, fabulous, or fucked? Moved by Pierre Paglia,

Carter 39:51

Paglia, what do you think? Who am I playing in this game? Pierre and

Zain 39:54

and his viability and electoral chances. Fine, fabulous, fucked.

Carter 40:00

for Pierre. He gets rid of, you know, Corey's right. Oh, this is really painful for me. Corey's right. Right. I didn't. Oh, man, it's hard to say. You don't you

Zain 40:10

you don't think there was anything he could have done with as an overture to bridge building to either of you since I know where you're going now, Carter? Well,

Carter 40:18

no, because you don't you bridge. You build bridges. He built bridges with all kinds of different people within the caucus. Right. He built bridges from his opponents. He brought in people who who are who matter in the in the in the future of the Conservative Party. And he's sending a signal to Michel, you

Carter 40:37

you don't matter in the future of the party. And you know what? That happens sometimes. We saw, what was his name? The finance minister who left here, you know, Trudeau's- Morneau. How quickly we forget. How quickly we forget. You know, we did whole episodes on Morneau and he's gone. And that was because of, I think, because of dispute between the prime minister and

Carter 41:05

his finance minister and the prime minister always wins. The leader always wins. And if Michelle's not prepared to get in line and follow the leader, then Michelle needs to not be there. And I think, actually, Michelle should not be there. She should leave this. This is a great signal for her. This is a great time for her. There's other opportunities for her. Rona Ambrose has landed on her feet, done great things outside of politics. politics, Michelle Rempel-Gardner can do great things outside of politics as well.

Zain 41:34

So I have to ask you now that you brought this up, map

Zain 41:39

What does the off-ramp look like for Michelle Rempel-Gardner, right? If you were advising her right now, what would you tell her on a phone call? How would you tell her to leave? Would you tell her to leave mid-stride? Would you tell her to leave quietly as nominations are being filled for the next election? Give me your take, take, Carter? What would you tell her if you were talking to her tonight?

Carter 42:01

If I was talking to her tonight? Yeah,

Zain 42:03

Yeah, if you were talking to her. Yeah.

Carter 42:07

There's a world of opportunity, Michelle.

Carter 42:09

That's all I would say. There's a world of opportunity. I mean, this is a very fluid field right now. And I do believe that Danielle Smith and Pierre Polyev will be the last of this generation of a combined conservative party.

Carter 42:23

would let them i'd let them go straight into their uh into the death spiral that will become from their inadequate leadership and just stand by and wait because

Carter 42:33

because shit's going to get real very quickly and and i would tell her you

Carter 42:37

you know have a great time carter

Zain 42:39

carter you're being cryptic but let me tease it a bit unpack it a bit more as i as i said up front i've got many phrases for the same same thing um you

Zain 42:48

you think progressive conservatism is coming back don't you

Carter 42:53

think the center always

Carter 42:54

always does and always will prevail oh

Zain 42:57

oh what's the okay what's the advice what's the well what's the advice you're giving michelle rample garner on on an off ramp

Corey 43:06

my advice would be maintain a range of motion keep your options open and doing that That means not going out in a blaze of glory and antagonizing caucus members who might otherwise support

Corey 43:17

support you, but just don't want to see that kind of strife

Corey 43:20

strife and drama within the Conservative Party. So take this as your signal to exit, for sure. I think this, plus all of the other reporting we have in terms of her discord with her caucus, is good enough reason to say, okay, time

Corey 43:35

time to take a bow.

Corey 43:36

Leave now, but don't leave in a fury. fury find yourself a job get yourself that job leave your mla position or mp position and um

Corey 43:47

and then move on to the next thing be nice say nice things about pierre polliev i really hope he's the next prime minister you know i'm rooting for this team i was a member of this team this is how i'm going to contribute to society society for the next bit you

Corey 43:59

you ever going to run for something like this well i'll never say never but you know i want to have time to spend with my family and i want to connect back with my community and geez i know that sounds funny being like an mp but i I didn't want to be a career MP, and so I'm going to go out and I'm going to do these things, and we'll see where life takes me.

Corey 44:16

And that's also probably a good way to get better opportunities because, frankly, if

Corey 44:21

if you go scorched earth on Pierre Poliev, that is going to affect your employment opportunities because people don't want to hire somebody who's picked a fight with the potential next prime minister. Hey, Carter,

Carter 44:32

Hang on just a second, Zane. I just wrote all that down because I'm actually going to write a book called How to Sound Like a Complete Pussy. and uh i'm gonna open with that that's

Carter 44:45

great that's really good thanks cory i'm gonna read

Corey 44:47

read this this is an accounting textbook and

Carter 44:53

and it will tell

Corey 44:53

tell me how to kind of balance sheets and and make sure that things make sense at the end of the day and that's the kind of uh you know insight that i bring you

Corey 45:01

you bring the pugilism them i

Carter 45:03

do one of us is one of us is the fighter and uh the other one is you right

Zain 45:09

right i'm gonna ask an impossible question but it won't be impossible for you because you're never afraid to tackle these sort of questions nope daniel

Zain 45:15

daniel smith is one week into her premiership michelle rempel garner was contemplating running for the leader of the ucp seeing what happened with the result of the ucp seeing what happened to michelle this week being left out in the critical should she have run carter uh

Carter 45:30

uh should she have run no because it had she won and i guess that it's still up in the air whether or not she would have run um

Carter 45:37

um had she have won she would just find herself uh in in the spot where she's trying to figure out which of the mlas to kick out of her caucus because they don't all fit um i mean maybe that's the signal that danielle smith is saying through i'm going to lose half of my mlas is that she doesn't want them all to fit into into her caucus but man this is an an impossible group to lead and watching uh

Carter 46:00

danielle try and do it is going to be interesting enough watching michelle try and do it from um

Carter 46:05

um from the from i'm

Carter 46:07

i'm going to say the left center which is hilarious given given michelle's uh kind of history um but man she she would really have a hard time so

Carter 46:15

so i think that she

Carter 46:16

she made the right decision the mature decision and uh stayed out of that fight that it

Carter 46:21

it really wasn't hers to win boy

Zain 46:24

boy fine fabulous or fucked the

Zain 46:26

the governing governing liberals federally, are entering a six-week review

Zain 46:31

review slash inquiry on the Emergencies Act, right? This is the mandatory review that now begins. Fine, fabulous, or fucked for the liberals? We're going to see a lot of testimony, a lot of strategy, a lot of positioning as what victory looks like, the fact that it's happening now, the fact that it's under these preconditions. fine, fabulous, or fucked for the liberals?

Corey 46:54

I think you've papered up a prediction question as a fine, fabulous, or fucked. I think it really depends on what comes out of it. It depends on what we learn in terms of what the liberals knew or didn't know when they made the decisions they made about invoking certain authorities and the way that they were invoked. So really

Corey 47:15

really too soon to say. I think in general for the country, this is going to be a pretty fucked six weeks because You think so? This

Zain 47:21

This is what I kind of wanted to get to. Yeah. Yeah.

Corey 47:23

It's going to bring the carnival back to town. And we are going to see under kind of the auspices of the

Corey 47:31

parliament and all of the trappings that come with this, the same kind of lunacy that we saw in Ottawa, but it's just going to be lunacy now in a suit inside some nice wooden rooms with velvet floors. And that's going to unnerve me, frankly. But I'm also a little bit unnerved by the way the liberals have applied some of their authorities in this case. And some of the reporting coming out of it makes me a little bit concerned that the liberals did take some steps that were

Corey 47:59

were done for politics rather than public safety under

Corey 48:02

under the name of public safety. And that's not good

Corey 48:05

good either, because what's going to end up happening is you're going to give ammunition like true credibility to

Corey 48:12

people are just going to say, oh, my goodness, maybe they were wrong if some of this reporting comes out the way it has the potential.

Zain 48:19

you seem to agree with Corey's response to my question around this overall framing of fine, fabulous, or fucked for this inquiry. What do you think? For the Liberals, as

Zain 48:30

as it stands right now, does it lean in any of these directions without the six weeks being unpacked or have happened thus far? What's

Carter 48:38

What's our constant criticism of the Liberal Party under Justin Trudeau? They

Carter 48:42

They do not know how to respond to crises. This is a crisis that is, you know, of their own making, in some regard. You know, they have not come out strong

Carter 48:54

strong enough, in my opinion, for the support of the Act. act.

Carter 48:58

You know, the base question seems to be, you know, how should this act, you know, could this have been brought under control without the act? Well, it wasn't brought under control without the act. And I think that, you

Carter 49:11

you know, you don't want to necessarily put a big political spin on an inquiry, but, you know, at the same time, put a little spin on the ball. I mean, these guys

Carter 49:20

guys just seem to always want to fall on their own sword, like this is going to come after them and they they don't have a political strategy to stay out of it. Instead, what they do is they wait and they're very honest about it.

Carter 49:33

What's going to happen to us? Oh, Corey thinks we shouldn't have done anything political within the act when this is a political action. The reason the act needs to be invoked in the first place is because the politics of this are front and center.

Carter 49:48

It's a political action coupled with violence. And frankly, I don't like my politics with a the side of violence, Corey. I'm an old fashioned guy who likes my politics with rhetoric and ideas and sparring. I'm painfully being disappointed today. But in other, you know, more intellectual groups, you can have a back and forth on ideas and not bring violence into it. And then when people do bring violence, it needs to be met with law and order. And law and order was brought, law and order was brought, and the government should be standing up and saying, If this could have been dealt with without this act, we would have dealt with it. But obviously, it couldn't.

Carter 50:30

Corey looks pained. Go ahead,

Corey 50:32

ahead, Corey. If the liberals take this exhausting, rambling approach that Stephen Carter has just demonstrated

Corey 50:38

over the past – You mean just wear

Zain 50:40

wear out the shot clock? Yeah.

Corey 50:42

Let's just – I don't know. Was that three years or four years? It's hard for me to tell. This is what the NBA was without

Corey 50:49

the shot clock, just so people know.

Corey 50:51

What Carter did right now, it

Corey 50:53

it was just a bunch of

Zain 50:54

white guys dribbling for like 45 minutes. Yeah. Which is exactly what Carter just did. Just old, bald white guys just dribbling out for eight to 10 minutes at a time. It's the

Carter 51:05

the glory days, all right.

Carter 51:07

Zane, you're taking his side because I nailed it. Nailed it. That's what happens. Everybody knows. I

Zain 51:12

I mean, it's so

Carter 51:13

so exhausting. Everybody knows when I

Zain 51:14

Corey. The one hand dribble. The left hand would get no work whatsoever. You

Carter 51:19

You cannot believe you say the left-hand drivel on public radio.

Corey 51:22

Let's be fucking clear. There has been an awful lot of revisionism that

Corey 51:26

that has bled into more mainstream conservatism over

Corey 51:32

over the last bit here,

Corey 51:33

where people have said things like,

Corey 51:36

you know, if you look at polling about how Canadians felt during the convoy versus how people think about the convoy now, you're actually seeing, you know, some

Corey 51:43

some support increases for the convoy. here. Because

Carter 51:46

Because the liberals aren't telling the story, because the liberals have given up.

Corey 51:50

Because it is starting to move into this idea of myth. And there is with time past, that urgency, the reason the liberals took those actions in the first place, and maybe there's some of your point here, people are forgetting that. And so the liberals have to tell a story of urgency. Okay. I'm not disputing that. What I'm saying is what we might find in an inquiry is is that it's not a story of urgency. We may find that the moment of maximum crisis passed

Corey 52:16

passed before some of these decisions were made. We may find that some of the financial moves were actually significant overreaches. And by putting it back into the window for six weeks,

Corey 52:27

it may exacerbate this kind of historical revisionism that we're finding about this because people will forget the anxiety about the borders and people will forget the idea that Ottawa was a place you couldn't even get a night's sleep for

Corey 52:40

for days and weeks. And they are going to remember the government overreach and it's going to retroactively make these people look less wild and less anti-democratic and less crazy than they were. And that is the big risk of this inquiry. And if they go into this with kind of that classic liberal bloviating

Corey 52:59

bloviating that you put on display here, they are going to get fucking crushed. They need to have terse answers, smart answers, sharp answers, make

Carter 53:09

Did you know why the hearings in the US, the January 6th commission, where they brought forward all the violence, they brought forward the things that had been done in the name of this perverted sense of democracy and showed the violence and showed how their system of government was at risk. This is the opportunity. This was what was happening. Do you think they're going to do that

Carter 53:31

Carter? That's the thing. No,

Corey 53:32

No, no, no. I love this. this i love this fucking example because the january 6th committee hasn't done shit to public opinion has

Corey 53:40

done shit to public opinion it is i

Zain 53:43

agree with cory i mean the the we're gonna get to it but the subpoenaing of trump like weeks months late like hasn't done i i kind of agree with court i mean nice television style production and holding back the best shit for six months right talk

Corey 53:58

talk to the base and the republicans are gonna win the house i mean that's what we're looking at right now. Maybe the polls will be wrong on that front, but if the Republicans don't win the House, it won't be because of January 6th. It'll be because of Roe v. Wade, okay? Put a pin on it for a second,

Zain 54:11

pin on it for a second, Carter. I want to talk to Corey for a sec.

Zain 54:14

So, Corey, the amount of energy that

Zain 54:16

that the Liberals should spend on bringing Canadians back to the severity and the unprecedented nature of that moment, is

Zain 54:27

is there any risk by doing doing that. And I think you may have mentioned one, which is that they may have been late, that they may have been caught flat footed and that their actions were on the downswing rather than the upswing. And a lot of that is hindsight is 20-20. But talk to me about how much effort you would put on storytelling that reality we all lived, but so quickly forgot in some ways.

Corey 54:51

Yeah. So I think this is actually the Stephen Harper playbook that needs to be done.

Corey 54:57

Less is more say the one line that you need the media to report and say nothing else because they will have very little choice but to use that if that's the only quote that's provided and i what i will often tell

Zain 55:09

give me an example like like like say one

Zain 55:10

one line to describe the past like i'm

Corey 55:14

so in the in the inquiry the uh you know chief of staff said um

Corey 55:19

think of what the line would be here but it's got to reflect actual facts too but like um we

Corey 55:25

we had lost control of the situation in ottawa and after conversations with the ontario government we decided this was the only course of action that was left for us

Corey 55:35

and just repeat that time and time again or whatever your line is zane like it requires a better understanding of the facts on the ground right of course

Corey 55:43

but then um and just don't afford a lot of like ruminations on this keep your answers tight and as i always say to clients in in kind of media relations especially like crisis communications and contentious communications it's you know there's an art to being quoted and there's an art to not being quoted now

Corey 56:00

now our friend steven carter is very good at being quoted damn

Corey 56:03

damn right but sometimes words

Corey 56:09

you just want to shut the fuck up which

Corey 56:11

which our friend steven carter is not particularly good at and um and this is a situation where the liberals just need to get through this six weeks they need to they

Corey 56:21

they need need to make sure their messaging is tight i'm not saying that they don't put a message out there i'm saying they only put the message out there and they don't start ruminating on a bunch of tangential things they give the four facts that make their case and they say very little beyond

Carter 56:37

thanks you always wind up where i start cory it's always nice to you wind up where i start yeah

Carter 56:42

yeah okay what a show today let's

Zain 56:46

this off let's go to new brunswick and then let's go to british columbia let's go to new brunswick steven carter you want to go to new brunswick do you know what i'm going to talk about we'll talk about the

Zain 56:55

education minister resigning we talked about blazes of glory i

Zain 56:59

i mean this letter by the the education minister resigning from the higgs government um a blistering resignation letter in which he says change requires care not a wrecking bowl that the premier as initiatives have not included i have included things that are not in in the throne speech not shared or approved by us in cabinet or caucus um you know saying that that the premier is effectively lied uh on on on his commitments um you know uh saying i've worked tirelessly to prepare education systems for changes many are accomplished but some stall because of this your micromanagement like directly to the premier government is not the same as building oil tankers.

Zain 57:44

Carter, A, have you seen anything like this? And B, fine, fabulous or fucked going out in a blaze of glory like the New Brunswick, or I should say the former, because this resignation letter, I suspect, was accepted. The former

Zain 58:00

education minister, Dominic Carty in New Brunswick, fine, fabulous or fucked. And then, Carter, tell me if you've seen anything like this before.

Carter 58:09

I don't think I've seen anything. I mean, the closest I remember is, uh, Lloyd Snellgrove, uh, basically resigning from, uh, Alison Redford's cabinet saying that this woman shouldn't be in charge of anything.

Carter 58:22

Um, and, uh, wow. Did he ever prove to be right? Anyways, he, he, he left and

Carter 58:28

and that's the closest I could recall. I mean, and I was, you know, it was hard to respond to, but it was, that's the closest I can come to. I think that this

Carter 58:40

this is fucked. I mean, the idea that he said, I look forward to staying in the back benches of the PC party. I mean, I almost laughed out loud when I read that part.

Carter 58:50

How? How do you expect to stay in the back benches of the PC party when you've literally just torn the wings off of their premier? And, you know, like, wow,

Carter 59:01

wow, it was beautiful. I mean, I loved it. Don't get me wrong. I loved it. but it was not it was not uh necessarily smart politics yeah

Zain 59:11

yeah i mean listen your behavior at a recent meeting where you refused to even read evidence you had specifically requested instead of choosing to yell data my ass like how

Carter 59:25

does that not go into the strategist's uh you know know merchandise shop like that's fantastic cory

Zain 59:32

fine fabulous or fucked like

Zain 59:34

like we've talked about how how range of motion this guy doesn't give himself a lot of he never had

Zain 59:40

any range of motion i mean this

Zain 59:42

he probably didn't want any so this

Corey 59:43

this is a crazy this is a crazy swing from an erratic individual like you know most people aren't as tuned i mean i'm not that tuned into new brunswick politics but he was like he was the new brunswick new democrat i think he might even even been leader and

Corey 59:57

and then he joined the higgs government he

Corey 59:59

he was never going to be the next in line because of some of that background and he's trying to create folk hero status for himself now now

Corey 1:00:06

now does he have a point yeah fucking probably right i mean i'm i'm guessing but uh

Corey 1:00:12

uh it's it's a situation i think is as much to aggrandize him as it is to cut down higgs and you know i i like carter sort of laugh at the idea of like now i'm just going to go quietly sit in the back benches is you fucking really is this what your plan is here i don't know maybe he's going to create one of those great centrist breakaway parties stephen carter's always dreaming about he'll go yeah

Corey 1:00:33

go do something else and create a vehicle create

Corey 1:00:36

create a vehicle like leggo did and try to try to get himself into government my suspicion is that it's going to be his next move because i don't i

Corey 1:00:44

don't particularly think the ndp is going to be that excited about him and i don't particularly think the pcs are going to be that excited about them but he clearly has bigger ambitions and he's trying to create for himself a space where he's this rational man who who can just sort of call

Corey 1:00:59

call bullshit on the premier is bullshit and you know like i have to say i have to say like the date of my ass comment was funny and it sounded damning but

Corey 1:01:10

carter you've been in government i've been in government there are times where you want to say this

Corey 1:01:15

this is bullshit data like what the fuck do you think you're handing me here this is like maybe the sample size is small maybe this was was an opt-in, you know, group that just, you know, all feel one way and using this as supposedly data. Yeah. And then you say data my ass, you talk to 30 people who think the same thing and they told you that, you know, this is what it's going to be.

Corey 1:01:34

So I, I mean, I just don't, that's not enough for me to crucify Higgs, right? Like I actually want to know more about that particular situation and what was the data that he found particularly suspect.

Corey 1:01:46

Although, you know, based Based on the context, and there's a lot of drama around French language education in Quebec,

Corey 1:01:53

or sorry, not in Quebec, in New Brunswick.

Corey 1:01:58

By default, I'm not inclined to sort of trust Higgs on this one, but I also don't think we have enough to condemn Higgs.

Zain 1:02:07

More yelling, less data. Okay. That's the first one. Alternative. Pillow. That's a pillow. A mug. That's a pillow. A mug that says data my ass, but in binary. okay i mean the ideas are endless

Corey 1:02:19

endless that's not bad that's

Corey 1:02:22

actually not terrible that's actually not

Zain 1:02:24

carter let's end in british columbia fine fabulous or fucked the

Zain 1:02:30

provincial ndp david eby is supposed to be the next premier of british columbia he's supposed to be the next leader of the ndp he's supposed to have a coronation but

Zain 1:02:41

but there's something going on in British Columbia because Anjali Aparuda, a candidate who, you

Zain 1:02:48

you know, late breaking into that race, kind of stopped the coronation, initially was seen by many, and those in British Columbia will probably be like, okay, you're reading this wrong

Zain 1:02:57

wrong in the sense, but let me baseline it for folks, was

Zain 1:03:01

was seen to be a candidate that might be able to, you know, create a little bump in the road for the coronation, soon

Zain 1:03:07

soon became a candidate that paid her dues to run very quickly and is now arguably, depending on the circles that you talk to, with

Zain 1:03:18

with the help of some environmental groups that she's, I'll talk about that in a second, has maybe signed up more members than he has.

Zain 1:03:25

And there is now a situation in British Columbia where she's being investigated times two.

Zain 1:03:33

And there's a possibility that she either gets thrown out of this race, not approved, or her members get thrown out of this race not approved or their memberships that have been sold based on support from environmental or climate groups that may have illegally helped to procure and sell some of these memberships.

Zain 1:03:54

this leads to the ultimate question.

Zain 1:03:57

For the BC NDP, is this fine? Bump in the road, internal politics. It happens when you're a government. Is

Zain 1:04:04

Is this fabulous? No, I doubt it is. Or is this fucked? Get

Carter 1:04:09

Get the fuck. What am I waiting for you? Well, I'm waiting for you to get the fuck. It's fuck. I thought there was a lane towards fine, but okay, it's late on me. If you are the Alberta party, if

Carter 1:04:18

if you're the Alberta party or you're the progressive conservative party after you've just been annihilated by the NDP, there is a chance that somebody could come in and take over your party, right? Someone could come in and take over your party. If you were the government in British Columbia, there

Carter 1:04:33

there is no way that anybody should come in and take over your party. This is a huge mistake. You've got

Carter 1:04:42

got to disqualify this candidate the second her paperwork comes in. Did

Corey 1:04:45

Did we not just literally see that in Alberta last week? I'm so baffled by your comments here. Yeah, me too. No,

Carter 1:04:52

No, but she didn't take over the party. She was the party. She is the party. That's the problem with the fucking party.

Carter 1:05:00

They should have disqualified her the The second her paperwork, the second, two things they did wrong. They didn't disqualify her the second her paperwork hit, and they wanted to do a coronation.

Carter 1:05:11

Do a fucking leadership race, and this doesn't matter anymore because she can't compete. She may be able to compete with one of you. She can't compete with five of you. And they just wanted to do a little coronation. This is the BCNDP trying to hand off between EB and Horgan, and it was a huge fucking strategic mistake that has just been exacerbated by the mistakes that have gone on. disqualify her early and she

Carter 1:05:34

she doesn't get the she doesn't get three months to make her point and turn out to be i think frankly a very solid candidate that's going to make the bcndp look like fucking morons as they go through this gory

Zain 1:05:48

fine or fucked i'm

Zain 1:05:50

i'm skipping out on fabulous this is it says fine or fucked for the bcndp uh

Zain 1:05:55

uh you know what i i think it's

Corey 1:05:57

it's it would be almost almost impossible not

Carter 1:05:59

not to say fucked right

Corey 1:06:00

right this is for many of the reasons steven said this was supposed to be one thing and it became a different thing and the cleanup job the bc ndp is doing is pretty rough pretty

Corey 1:06:10

pretty rough like the the idea of sending letters to these organizations asking for data on like whether they help i mean clearly they're getting pfo letters in return left right and center and of course they should like why and

Corey 1:06:22

and there's also the

Zain 1:06:22

the green party overlap so there's There's also, you know, asking if certain folks have held membership in the Green

Corey 1:06:28

Green Party. Yeah, can I see your membership list or can you give your membership

Corey 1:06:30

membership list to a third party and I'll give my membership list to a third party and we'll see if there's a bunch of overlap?

Corey 1:06:37

I mean, that's ridiculous. That's utterly ridiculous. And I think in normal political times, the NDP would actually be pretty excited about having a contest that's pulling in people who would otherwise be voting Green. Now it's terrifying because the context is entirely different. And

Corey 1:06:50

And I mean, the idea that the Green Party membership could somehow flood the NDP, even if 100% went over and change the outcome is also just really wild, right? Really wild. Doesn't make an awful lot of sense. And so it does sort of feel like an expedition to find a reason to have a problem.

Corey 1:07:07

Where I think we need to spend a little bit of time, even if it's not today, is say, all

Corey 1:07:11

all right, so federally in the conservatives, they

Corey 1:07:14

they decided they needed to disqualify somebody because they didn't like where it was going. And

Corey 1:07:19

in BC, it looks like that might be happening. And in Alberta, maybe there's a case that it should have happened at some point along the way here, right? Maybe, maybe not. Your mileage will vary on that.

Corey 1:07:31

Are we ever going to just sort of come clean with the fact that the people who run parties don't actually want one member, one vote systems? They actually see them as broken as I think many of us do. And is there ever going to be a movement away from these sort of membership

Corey 1:07:45

membership sales drive systems that we've got right now? Because it seems

Corey 1:07:49

seems like it's becoming impossible to ignore that you can take over a government if you can manage to get 50,000 people off their asses. That's

Corey 1:08:01

mental. That's pretty mental. And it's not like the greatest thing in the world. And so are

Corey 1:08:06

are we going to have this conversation at some time? Or have we just decided there's no way to ever do anything but one member, one vote?

Zain 1:08:13

Let's have that conversation. Let's not make it now. Now, but Carter, let me close out on a slightly different question, which is related

Zain 1:08:20

related to Corey's point, but it's the price that these parties pay for these sort of actions. Like

Zain 1:08:27

Like the Patrick Brown story was a max 72 hour story.

Zain 1:08:33

And then it was gone. It was not really brought up in the last two and a half months of that race. And so where I think there might be a lane towards fine here for the NDP, Carter, is If they do what they need to do here, which is, yes, mistakes were made, they get rid of this Canada. That's so different,

Zain 1:08:50

No, no. This is the nature of the question. This is the nature of the question, right?

Zain 1:08:55

Is there a broader price to pay here? How is this different? What do you think? Well,

Carter 1:08:58

Well, I think, first of all, that the full package, Ken Bozenkul, would tell you that he thinks that the Conservative Party of Canada has lost that voter segment for 10 years. That all the work that Jason Kenney put in, that all the work that has been done by Stephen Harper to build inroads with what was traditionally seen to be a liberal demographic has been undone by the by tossing Patrick Brown out. So that's what, and being close to, you know, being in Surrey right now and being close to the Sikh population here, there's an awful lot, you know, of people that used to be conservatives that have moved towards the liberals. So I think that this is going to be something that it may have only been a three-day news story, but it may have impacted the people who bought the memberships, the people who were politically active, much, much deeper. And that only time will tell.

Carter 1:09:56

But that's what the full package Ken Bozenkul has been telling me.

Zain 1:10:00

Corey, you were interrupting as I was trying to make that point. You wanted to get in there. Why is this different?

Corey 1:10:07

the NDP is worried that Anjali is going to win the contest. It wasn't that they thought Patrick Brown was going to win the contest. They thought Patrick Brown could potentially affect

Corey 1:10:20

affect the outcome of the process. And that is actually different.

Corey 1:10:23

That is different. And you're talking about smaller percents and all of that. And so, well,

Corey 1:10:27

well, there are people who are lighting their hair on fire over both, right?

Corey 1:10:31

right? Like there were people who said this is unfair and this has changed the Conservative Party membership composition

Corey 1:10:37

composition and ultimately the outcome.

Corey 1:10:40

It's hard not to look at how much Polyev actually won by and sort of wash that away a bit,

Corey 1:10:45

right? And so nobody, I think, with the benefit of hindsight is going to say Patrick Brown was going to win, right?

Corey 1:10:52

right? And no one with the benefit of hindsight is going to say Patrick Brown could have thrown this to Sheree. It was a block. It was changing some dynamics, but it wasn't fundamentally changing the outcome.

Corey 1:11:03

And you see, we're talking about a heads up race where

Corey 1:11:06

where it appears from the outside that the BCNDP is terrified and pulling whatever levers they think are available to them to

Corey 1:11:14

to stop her from

Corey 1:11:16

from winning the leadership,

Corey 1:11:18

changing the outcome. come

Corey 1:11:20

that puts like a barry bond style asterisk on eb's premiership from

Corey 1:11:26

from day one it is different and it's the kind of thing that gets thrown back at you forevermore uh

Corey 1:11:32

uh you won but you won by cheating and you know you can argue whether you agree with that statement that is the statement that is going to be made

Carter 1:11:40

that's why they should have acted right away before

Carter 1:11:42

before she had anything vaguely resembling momentum because when she put her name in the vast majority of people were like uh i'm sorry we don't know who this person is now she's showing strength and now you throw her out terrible

Carter 1:11:53

terrible move throw her out early and enable the uh you

Carter 1:11:57

you know eb to take the coordination now he does look weak uh but it's better to look weak than to be weak we're

Zain 1:12:05

we're gonna leave that segment there i'm gonna move it on to our final segment are over under our lightning round steven carter of course we're gonna do it we do it today like

Corey 1:12:15

up we're really proud of you let

Zain 1:12:16

let me tell you something overrated or underrated the january 6th committee in its season finale so to speak under

Carter 1:12:26

changed american politics as we speak subpoena

Zain 1:12:29

subpoena for donald trump overrated underrated i

Carter 1:12:32

i already answered your question you

Zain 1:12:35

think you think the subpoena for donald trump is underrated cory why

Corey 1:12:39

why is it overrated oh

Corey 1:12:41

oh let me count the ways how about the fact that all of its work has not actually fundamentally changed people's views of donald trump um the the most significant jeopardy he finds himself in has to do with his actions after the

Corey 1:12:54

the actions on january 6 and it was taking some documents with him and then trying to conceal it afterwards in

Corey 1:13:00

in in a way it

Corey 1:13:01

it has been exactly the politicized exercise that was always the risk you had two republicans who don't like the guy and

Corey 1:13:08

and you have a bunch of democrats and it's allowed the republicans to sort of rally around this idea that this is somehow an illegitimate committee it

Corey 1:13:15

it has the composition it has the uh you know the production values but ultimately it doesn't have the power to change minds

Corey 1:13:24

it's something that is tuned out by the people that are with donald trump and

Corey 1:13:27

and uh they're talking to a small audience now today's big drama today's big drama of asking for a subpoena for donald trump is the second thing that i think is greatly overrated because, A, it's going to be court challenges about this, and it's going to push it past the midterms,

Corey 1:13:44

which means it'll push it past Liz Cheney being on there.

Corey 1:13:46

It's going to probably push it past, depending on, again, what happens with the House,

Corey 1:13:51

push it past control

Corey 1:13:52

of the House by the Democrats, and then there's, boom, it's gone. There's no committee. So what

Corey 1:13:59

does this matter? At the end of the day,

Corey 1:14:02

Stephen Carter is hitting himself in his own head. Is this the book? That's

Corey 1:14:06

not how you get information in there. is this the short

Carter 1:14:08

short answer section is this the quick let's go let's rock and roll hogan let's rock

Corey 1:14:14

rock and roll i was so inspired what's your answer

Corey 1:14:16

answer about what the liberals should say at committee that i just remember what they did have the

Zain 1:14:21

the shot clock and the half court line so these white dudes could just fucking dribble on their own side in little circles like geese you ever watch that shit it's it's the worst it's like listening to this podcast uh cory overrated underrated uh the love Nancy Pelosi is getting for looking like a leader on January 6th as part of the video archives that has now been rolled out.

Zain 1:14:48

looking like an adult doing her job, trying to keep the country safe. Overrated or underrated?

Corey 1:14:54

Overrated. You ultimately don't look like an adult if you're talking about wanting to punch someone in the face. I don't care how much of an asshole they are.

Zain 1:15:00

Start overrated, underrated Pelosi. And the heroism kind of revealed for and about Nancy Nancy Pelosi in these videos.

Carter 1:15:09

Underrated. I've started drawing her with a cape.

Zain 1:15:15

Over, under on seven out of 10, over, under on seven out of 10, the liberals and their political sort of attack on their Pierre Polyev story regarding the misogynistic tags on his YouTube videos. They seemed locked and ready, the liberals did, with their, with their lines overrated

Zain 1:15:34

overrated or underrated on seven in terms of how they hit on, on Pierre Polyev on these, on these tags for his videos. Um, and just to fill folks in, there was some tags discovered, uh, on some of Pierre Polyev's videos, uh, including, um, some of the ones he ran in his leadership con, uh, campaign with the MGTOW tag, which means men going their own way. this was a men's rights movement that these videos were tagged in long story short helps with the algorithm to target those videos in certain directions and certain eyeballs

Zain 1:16:11

over under on seven how the liberals dealt with this their political

Zain 1:16:14

attack their messaging under

Carter 1:16:15

under it's about a three i mean first of all i had to call cory and get him to explain it to me and that's always upsetting for me because it's one of these things that is technical

Carter 1:16:23

technical and difficult to understand and will go over 90% of the people's heads. And when I say 90%, I mean most of the journalists. So

Carter 1:16:30

So it didn't work. It's interesting. It's all of those things, but definitely

Carter 1:16:35

definitely under in terms of its own. But it is a stereotypical

Carter 1:16:41

perfect liberal attack, one

Carter 1:16:43

one that no one understands and doesn't lend.

Zain 1:16:46

So you're telling me the attack has possibility or did, did but they just couldn't translate this highly technical thing into plain speak is that is that why i'm hearing carter from you and what i'm hearing from you yes

Carter 1:17:01

i tried to translate it into his plain speak but even cory's language didn't get me there over

Carter 1:17:06

thanks again cory i appreciate your help you're

Corey 1:17:10

um look i don't actually think it's very complicated uh pierre polyev was trying to promote his videos to people

Corey 1:17:17

people who have misogynistic views that's that's not very complicated but carter's not wrong that when you start saying oh really how it's like well they use this hashtag and this hashtag is used by this group and this group has these views i mean it does require a couple of different connections and i

Corey 1:17:34

i think in general this is a pretty good illustration of um

Corey 1:17:40

you know something that that probably seemed really good to the war room but it's it's hard to imagine it being like this attack that really lands super hard

Corey 1:17:49

um but you know it's all part of like this view of pierre polliev and i'm sure it'll come back and like i can imagine it being more effective in a list of five things that are identical or

Corey 1:17:58

or you know similar misogynism we're

Corey 1:18:01

we're just not there yet so is it is it a one-off well i mean i

Corey 1:18:05

don't think it's a one-off just

Corey 1:18:07

knowing what i know about some of the people around him and some of the causes he's kind of rubbed elbows with but you

Corey 1:18:13

you know it's it's not Not enough right now would be my sense when we're talking about an election that is still years away.

Zain 1:18:21

Corey, final question. I'm going to start with you.

Zain 1:18:23

It's been one week since you replaced me with Dan Arnold on this podcast for episode 1006 when you did a live stream. It's also been one week since

Zain 1:18:32

since Danielle Smith was elected leader of the UCP. Corey, your letter grade for Danielle Smith, one week, I can't say into the job, but one One week since she was elected as the leader of the UCP.

Corey 1:18:46

It is a W for what in the hell is happening here. And do any of us have the stamina to get through the next eight months if they're going to be like the last eight days?

Zain 1:18:56

Corey gives it a W for the classic, what the hell is going on here? And do we have the stamina for all of this? And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Carter, the letter grade that you are giving Danielle Smith one week after

Carter 1:19:11

Dan Arnold was actually better than Danielle Smith has been this week. And that's almost unbelievable.

Carter 1:19:16

I didn't think that would be possible. Well,

Corey 1:19:18

Well, why are you taking a round out of Dan? Why?

Carter 1:19:20

I'm fucking taking a round out of everybody tonight. That's just where I am.

Zain 1:19:26

That's good. Let's wrap it there. Let's leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1007 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we'll see you.

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