Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is a strategist episode 1848 C. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, who's present, and Corey Hogan, who's also present. Guys, what's going on?
Corey
0:13
launch day in the Liberal Party of Canada. A couple of launches. A
Zain
0:16
couple of things to talk about. Carter, so many things to talk about. Do you want to say anything or can I just get right into it?
Carter
0:21
I just want to say how happy I am to finally see you, Zain, and to have your toque on and everything. I mean, it's very Canadian.
Carter
0:28
Always my favorite. Thank
Zain
0:31
wasting everyone's time. Carter, let's get into it. Our first segment is also the only question and discussion point I have. The first segment is, Christopher Freeland's launch could have been an email.
Zain
0:45
Could it, Carter? I don't know. Let me see. Let me rephrase it. Carter, should it have been an email? I
Carter
0:51
I think that the launch actually was a quick Instagram post, wasn't it, on Friday? I'm in or whatever the language was. But this
Carter
1:02
this was a speech. This had protesters.
Carter
1:06
protesters. This had drama. This had applause
Carter
1:12
Every line, in fact, was an applause line. Every single line was an applause line. Well,
Corey
1:16
she thought so, based on the gaps in the speech.
Carter
1:18
speech. And she would, she'd stop speaking and allow the applause. And then she'd nod
Carter
1:24
nod her head like
Carter
1:25
like she's clapping, you know, that's how the clapping noise is made.
Carter
1:30
then she would wait for the clapping to subside before
Zain
1:35
Corey, Christopher Freeland launched her campaign in Toronto today. Not the only one that launched their campaign. No, we'll talk about Karina Gold also launching her campaign in Burlington today.
Zain
1:43
today. But I want to talk about Christopher Freeland primarily. She launches her campaign. I think she told us where she launched about seven to nine times in the speech. St. Albans Boys and Girls Club, she launches in Toronto. Protesters meeting her every five minutes at the top and then, you know, even throughout, one would argue, a speech that lasted a significant amount of time. About a
Carter
2:07
a third of my life is how long that speech seemed to last.
Zain
2:10
Carter just wants forgiveness for the – Carter's just like elated based on this. the carny lunch is looking like a master class at this point it
Corey
2:18
it occurs to me you're not like a neutral party here i'm gonna need you to put on your i
Corey
2:22
i will say her
Zain
2:23
her her visuals did look better the the the aesthetics of the human wall which by the way we both hate did look better than your human wall which uh if are you
Carter
2:31
you counting the kid that was like going back and forth and going back and forth over her left shoulder are
Corey
2:38
are you coming for the kid right now
Carter
2:39
now yeah for the kid the
Carter
2:41
the kid kid was like back and forth and back and forth he looked like he was on one of those like uh playground toys that you kind of flip around like wow you're going after a
Zain
2:49
a kid you're going after
Carter
2:50
after a kid this is the official stance yeah
Zain
2:53
yeah of the card campaign they're
Zain
2:54
they're going after a child damn
Carter
2:57
damn right we are we had our kids were well behaved did
Zain
3:01
did you want to use another word
Zain
3:04
okay your kids were brown uh okay carter most of the kids you had were brown just to be clear
Zain
3:11
Christopher Freeland launched her campaign today. It was a rough go for her. Yeah.
Zain
3:17
Yeah, listen. Are we done? No, look,
Corey
3:18
look, I'll tell you. So I wasn't going to watch it live. I was intending to watch it a little bit later in the day. I wanted to get on top of it to deal with any questions you might take. In fact, I was about to pitch to you all that we just record tomorrow, right? Because I just didn't think there was enough going on to warrant
Corey
3:34
basically our third show in four days, right? right? But yeah, then
Corey
3:39
then all of a sudden my phone starts blowing up. Phone just blowing up with people saying, oh my God, oh my God, are you watching this? Oh my God, are you watching this? And
Corey
3:48
then my phone- What
Zain
3:48
What were they freaking out about? I'm curious. Tell me the story and then tell me what do you think they were freaking out about?
Corey
3:53
And then my phone starts ringing
Corey
3:55
with people who are not millennials who are saying, oh my God, are you watching this? You got to turn this on. And I thought, well, fuck, I guess I got to turn this on. And what they're freaking out about is the uh the official feed of the um of the campaign was pretty dodgy but whatever there's a cbc feed that was looking cpac and others yeah yeah yeah and then the protests started right and so like i'm watching like kind of escalating chaos and at first i'm like oh whatever it's just you know those things don't matter when it was just about like the the quality of the audio on the official feed but then it started to matter a lot because it's it was protests and then more protests and more protests and by the time i tuned in i'd already missed like three waves of protesting and i still caught two waves and just when i thought they were done and they'd settled into a speech no no more there's more and there's pounding on the walls and there's all sorts of stuff and just watching it was just giving me this sense of like well
Corey
4:49
well here's the problem with something like that there's not very many people who are going to watch in the middle middle of the day, a political speech like that, the people who are watching are the severely engaged, the organizer class, the kind of people that you actually need to go and do the next couple of steps for you in a leadership contest. And there is no way anybody watching that, no matter how they felt about how Chrystia Freeland handled it, and, you know, mixed reviews, I would say, not as good as I think that she thought she was doing in the moment. But there's no way you're watching that and you're thinking, oh, this is good. This is a good sign. This is exactly what I want for the Liberal Party. And that's going to be the top line and the bottom line. Like, one of the things that I'm curious to hear in a minute here is Carter watched it after, after hearing from you
Corey
5:35
you and me about everything that was going on. And I watch it
Zain
5:38
different. I was just listening to it. And in my experience, I'll just quickly interject for two seconds before you, because it's also kind of unique, was I'm listening to this in the car and I'm like telling my wife, I'm like, why is she not fucking saying anything? Like, is the audio dead? And then I realized she's just taking a break for protesters to get something out of their system. And it was so strange, just like having the audio on of this speech. So you and I watched slash listened to it simultaneously, but you were talking about Carter, who had a little bit of a delayed effect on this as well.
Corey
6:08
Yeah, well, and my big challenge was, because it's in the moment and you don't know what's going to happen, and there's almost that adrenaline and almost on guard feeling you have even as an observer saying, what the fuck's going to happen next? My ability to hear every word after the first 30 minutes of chaos was fucking zero. And I'm sure it was for everybody else who was watching it too. And while I could clock on style points, and while I've gone back through and I've watched it again since, or at least portions of it since, I could tell you what she said. In the moment, my ability to process what she was saying did not exist. All I could think was, Chicago, 1968, chaos, people who think Canada's broken watching this will say, yeah, there you fucking go. Canada's broken. Like, we're not talking one moment of protest. We're talking rolling protests over a bit here. It was about as bad of an image as the Liberal Party could possibly have. Now, that doesn't mean it was as bad of an image as Chrystia Freeland could possibly have, but it was about as bad as the Liberal Party could have, if you think about the kind of image they want to present going into the next election. Carter,
Zain
7:16
Carter, what do you think? Any reaction to that before I jump into what I want to, I actually got to divide this up because we can, we can spin our wheels and lag and restart multiple times. Like I want to actually talk about the security aspect first and foremost before I get into the content of the speech. So react to Corey and then let's talk about security in terms of how
Zain
7:32
how this could happen. Why did this happen?
Carter
7:34
Well, I mean, I watched it late.
Carter
7:37
So I came in knowing it was a gong show and
Carter
7:39
and I knew that it was the first 30 minutes or so that most of the protests happened. And so I would
Carter
7:44
would quickly jump ahead.
Carter
7:46
You know, I'd watch 10
Carter
7:48
10 seconds, move two minutes ahead, 10
Carter
7:51
And if the protesters were still protesting, I
Carter
7:53
I just kept moving ahead. If she wasn't talking, I just kept moving ahead.
Carter
7:56
So for me, the protest bit, the 30 minutes was three minutes.
Carter
8:03
once I got through that, then
Carter
8:05
then I got to focus on the speech. And
Carter
8:07
And I focused on the speech. Now, I
Carter
8:09
I listened to it at one and a half speed, not
Carter
8:13
one and a half speed was
Carter
8:14
was what you needed to listen to that speech at in order to get through that
Carter
8:18
that speech because even with um
Carter
8:20
um 30 minutes of uh of chaos um
Carter
8:24
um it still went on for a good 45 more minutes and
Carter
8:29
i just could not get over how like
Carter
8:33
read the room like literally read that room they They were exhausted of
Carter
8:37
of doing the applause and the clapping all
Carter
8:40
all the way through. I mean, it was just like they
Carter
8:44
they wanted to get the hell out of there. And she kept waiting for them to do more applause. And that's
Carter
8:48
that's no way to treat your audience.
Zain
8:50
Corey, can you hold your thought on how she dealt with it for a bit? And can we talk about security right now? Can
Zain
8:56
Can you hold your how she dealt with everything and how her speech maturely was? And Carter, can I come back to you for a second? Yeah.
Zain
9:06
how does something like this happen you
Carter
9:09
tell people where it is it gets out and people show up that weren't expected i
Carter
9:13
mean it is a double-edged sword whenever you hold an event the
Carter
9:16
the first edge is you need to have people there you need to fill the room so
Carter
9:21
so filling the room becomes your primary objective the
Carter
9:24
the second edge is if you're filling the room you may not know who everybody is in the room now
Carter
9:28
now you know at the carny event it was a small room we knew who who everybody was but
Carter
9:32
but even then we
Carter
9:33
we had to keep people out there you know you guys were making fun of my bald head uh
Carter
9:37
uh playing the role of security uh we had no paid security
Zain
9:41
security it looks prescient at this point not to give you a compliment but i'm um but yeah
Carter
9:45
yeah well no i mean because if
Carter
9:47
if you weren't on the list you couldn't come in and
Carter
9:50
the the media outlets that came media air quotes um they were they
Carter
9:56
weren't on the list they weren't on anybody's list they couldn't come And that was the same of we had one guy who wanted to protest Danielle Smith.
Carter
10:05
We didn't want him in there. We had a number of people who, you know, just wanted to create shit.
Carter
10:13
We didn't let them in. You had to be on the list. And it was a private event. And I think that. Wait,
Zain
10:19
Wait, can we talk about that in a bit more detail? And are you comfortable talking about that in the sense of on the list? Was that just for media or for any attendee who wanted to show up and watch Mark launch his campaign?
Carter
10:31
We put out an invitation to people that they had to RSVP for. Yes.
Carter
10:37
And we did not tell anybody what the time or the location was in that RSVP information or in the information prior to the RSVP. the day before or just a few you know the the night before that's when we sent out the where is this going to be to that
Zain
10:54
that yes or to
Carter
10:54
to the yes only right
Carter
10:56
um so we knew that they'd been invited we knew that they were invited because they were existing members we knew we had we had some controls right because you can't just put out in the in the local uh internet um hey we're going going to have an event here and not expect your house to be trashed and christia freeland you know unfortunately for her her house was trashed
Zain
11:20
cory what the question simply was give me an understanding of how this could happen any any insights on on that side of things well
Corey
11:28
carter's got the right of it the more people you want in a room the less control you have over the room your your controls start to shrink very quickly like the safest room is a room where you've invited everybody and you know them personally and you can vouch for them the next safest is the people that you vouch for can vouch for the people in the room and you've got almost a chain of custody of everybody who's there and ultimately you know that at least the person who invited the person has enough skin in the game that they are not going to fuck it up and they're not going to play games and they're not going to cause trouble by even pushing that invite out further to a group that might ultimately end up being protesters or otherwise trying to disrupt the the event there So I think that that is, you know, I'm not sure how much that was an active conversation in your campaign there, Stephen. You can tell us if you want, but that obviously makes a little bit of sense. But I got to tell you,
Corey
12:19
Carter, hearing you didn't have security, I also feel like you just got fucking lucky, right? And I will say this. oh hey listen police though you
Corey
12:28
you just got lucky because the police are not going to do some of the things that you need to do if protesters show up right like they're not going to necessarily be the bodies that you need doing the things i'm assuming they were pay duty or was it real like on duty real
Carter
12:41
real on duty they did do the job that we asked them to do well
Carter
12:45
well here's the thing
Corey
12:47
this is for somebody who wants to be the prime minister of canada and this security this is a dangerous fucking world we're in right now. And it's a disrupted world. And there are people who have made it very clear that they are going to not just push boundaries, but they're going to knock them right the hell over. And especially if you're Chrystia Freeland, and doing the things that Chrystia Freeland's done over the past several years, she has been the staunchest advocate of Ukraine, arguably in the Western world, right? I mean, you can make arguments for other people, I will certainly entertain them. But there has been no, no weakness from her on that particular killer matter she is one of russia's top foreign enemies in terms of government she is one of donald trump's least favorite people and i think that security should have been a massive consideration for the freeland campaign and i am in some ways the thing i'm most floored about
Corey
13:39
it took as long as it did to deal with it and that there were as many security holes as there were and i gotta say if
Corey
13:46
if you're a leadership camp and you're listening to this
Corey
13:49
triple your security budget get fucking serious about this because we are in a world where these things need to be considered very very carefully well
Zain
13:57
well i think but hold on but i want to actually get some clarity from cory before you jump in when you say how long it took to deal with it do you mean each wave of incidents how long it took or the fact they couldn't root everyone out all at once what do you mean by that cory
Corey
14:11
well i guess i mean both zane and specifically i mean this
Corey
14:14
this this rolling protest right where there was just protest yeah protest yeah like how the hell even if you were feeling a little bit looser at one point did you not say okay well now we've really got to understand this room we got to pull forward but then there's the pounding on the walls afterwards like they did not they
Corey
14:30
they did not have a good day on the maintaining control of their space front they didn't and you know carter mentioned um the the wall behind wanting to leave the audience not wanting to applaud can you imagine how on edge those people were Like, I would be so insanely on edge if I was in the audience.
Zain
14:48
audience. It is such an interesting point because I ultimately watched it. I heard it live. I watched it. Yeah. Delayed. And my reaction was very much knowing that nothing, there's
Zain
15:00
there's no major incident that happens.
Corey
15:02
Right. Right? But you don't know that when you're watching it. No, I don't
Zain
15:05
Yeah. So then I'm like, well, Holland looks pissed off. What the fuck? Like, Holland, man, you got to realize you're a seasoned pro. you should realize that you're at a launch of a candidate you just gave an endorse you know a pastor style endorsement to what you so and then of course your your
Zain
15:19
your explanation makes a lot of sense right like why why you know at one point it seemed like RF Varani the the justice minister is on his phone texting and I'm like dude bad look but
Corey
15:29
saying what the fuck is going on yeah dude that's a
Corey
15:32
bad look also justice minister might legitimately be wondering about security
Zain
15:37
100% 100% There's a question to either of you, and Carter, I want to give you an opportunity. I guess she's not in cabinet anymore, so does any of her, like,
Zain
15:47
like, standard security, if she were deputy PM, would
Zain
15:52
would that have shown up? I guess in a hypothetical world where she would not have taken the exit ramp she did.
Corey
15:59
Do either of you know that?
Corey
16:01
Well, I don't know what the federal protocols are. I'll say you've got security at the provincial level. And Carter can expand on this too.
Corey
16:08
You know, their job is to protect the principal and they assess risk through that. And yeah, there is, if they think that this is creating a threatening environment, they may take some steps, but they're not crowd control. Like that's not their job, right? And so you've got to rely on the apparatus, the structures, the police forces of the people you're around to be partners on that. And yeah, you're calling the overall shots if you're in one of those roles for the safety of, because your safety concerns Trump, most people's. But they're not going
Corey
16:39
going to be like, okay, they might, if they think there's an imminent risk or whatnot, move somebody out, but they're not going to just deal with somebody shouting over in another corner. That's not their job. right carter
Corey
16:52
cory puts a recommendation out
Zain
16:52
out on there oh two things he says a your campaign may have gotten lucky b triple your security budget anyone listening who's on a leadership campaign thoughts he's
Carter
17:01
he's wrong um as always about both points
Zain
17:05
points or just one it's
Carter
17:06
it's change your tactics yeah
Carter
17:08
change your tactics because we were talking about uh
Carter
17:11
uh earlier on maybe it was maybe it was episode a which is available on patreon yeah
Zain
17:16
yeah sorry just to be clear this is uh 1848 c c yeah um and so 1848 a banger of an episode uh available on on patreon um b was for the public are we doing is this c public i have no idea cory this c is public okay yeah this is yeah yeah so this this the c is here's
Carter
17:34
here's the thing uh we said in that episode whether it was that episode or another one that the
Carter
17:40
uh the person who's doing the campaign that looks that looks like they're winning may not be actually winning because
Carter
17:46
because the actual campaign tactics that should be used in this leadership are
Carter
17:50
are small ball tactics you
Carter
17:52
know people keep calling and they're asking me well like well what can we do well
Carter
17:56
well you have to sign up members and you have to you
Carter
17:58
you know recruit other people and sign up more members you
Zain
18:01
you got 45 minutes to do it yeah
Carter
18:03
yeah like like like let's go like fuck quit asking me questions like what should we do you're
Corey
18:08
time on the phone right
Carter
18:09
can i hang up on you and call six other people that have to sell sick you know memberships that's That's all there is to this. So, you
Carter
18:17
know, organizing a rally, organizing a major event like this, especially with the security concerns that come through, is a significant problem.
Carter
18:28
Mark Carney's campaign, they went and had another event in Richmond the
Carter
18:31
the night of the event, the
Carter
18:34
the night of the launch.
Carter
18:36
And they posted on social media that
Carter
18:39
that they had 300 people instead of 60. And
Carter
18:42
And my heart sank. And I thought, you know, they
Carter
18:44
really need to have 60.
Carter
18:46
They really don't need to have 300.
Carter
18:48
The 60 people that were in the room would all be known. They'd all be faces that you can trust. And so you don't have to worry about that security issue that we're worried about. And they are the ones who are actually going to do the work.
Carter
19:03
I'm quite certain that those extra 240 people aren't doing the same heavy lifting that the 60 people that would have been in that room
Carter
19:09
would be doing. that's
Carter
19:12
my advice is to not just you
Carter
19:14
you know hire security but
Carter
19:19
your tactics have to shift so
Zain
19:20
so so to be clear carter you're suggesting that no and i'll let you get in on this cory uh that no campaign should be doing something as public or as large as their launch again i
Carter
19:32
i think the launch would be the largest event uh for any camp
Zain
19:35
camp that would be your
Carter
19:36
for at least two weeks and and even then i'm gonna i'm gonna recommend really small ball scale small ball small scale events you
Zain
19:43
you know the the whole premise of my joke was could this and should this have been an email was was rooted in that which is christia freeland just i've launched how she did and just fucking powered through and not done today this hindsight being 2020 cory i'll let you react to what carter's put on the table well
Corey
19:58
well i think he's right that you can do it for the next couple of weeks but i don't think you get away with not having events in the weeks after but let's be really clear there's
Corey
20:06
there's one thing that maybe makes you feel better if you're a political organizer and one that should make you feel a lot worse the one that should make you feel better is that the launch is the high stakes event the launch is the one where you really have to worry about somebody disrupting the optics in the way that christian freeland just had to deal with right now in in a very meaningful way that you know is going to lead to a lot of people not just us talking about holy cow what happened but
Corey
20:30
bad optics is not your worst case scenario here the fact of the matter is you had half a dozen people slash small groups get into a room who were hostile to the individual and that's dangerous that is dangerous that you managed to fail on so many fronts and to be clear they like at least one of those
Zain
20:48
those waves came with a very large sign that that that said something to the extent of like blood's on your hand chrysophilus it was a paraphrasing but like well yeah and how they got that in
Corey
21:00
in and everything is also part of the equation this is exactly my point like you get a sign in like that what else could you potentially have been bringing into an event like this at a time like this you know i'm going to go back to the dangerous times that we're in here and i'm not saying that any of those individuals were violent individuals what i'm saying is oh my god if a violent individual tried to get in i now have no confidence that you had any ability to stop them based on the situation that we just saw today and and that is very concerning to me that's very alarming to me and i that's part of why i think campaigns
Corey
21:30
campaigns need to take the security very very seriously going forward is
Carter
21:33
is it is it campaigns now or is it we as a society and and we as a society i mean do we need to start thinking about like the united states put secret service on the candidates once they reach a certain point do
Carter
21:48
do we need to be putting the close protection unit of the rcmp onto
Carter
21:53
mark carney uh katrina goulds and and christia freeland's yes for this campaign because the winner the winner is going to become the prime I'm happy to pay for that
Corey
22:01
that as a taxpayer. Yeah, not
Corey
22:03
even a doubt in my mind.
Carter
22:04
Because I'll tell you something, no one's going to be talking about it except us on this podcast.
Carter
22:09
You don't think? No.
Carter
22:10
I don't think so.
Carter
22:11
I think after today,
Corey
22:11
today, a few people are going to be talking about it. I
Carter
22:14
I don't think that anybody in the halls of power are going to be talking about how we need to make sure that these politicians are protected. Because in Canada, we have a very laissez-faire style of political protection. And, you know, even Joe Tegondek here in Canada. What do you mean
Zain
22:30
mean like laissez-faire? Just like casual? Like if you need it, we'll give it to you? Or like
Zain
22:33
like reactionary? If something happened, then we'll let you
Carter
22:36
you know. We'll be monitoring it and we'll see how it ends. But for
Carter
22:40
for the most part, it's pretty laissez-faire. It is too
Carter
22:45
laid back for my taste. I
Carter
22:47
think that we should be strengthening up our
Carter
22:50
our protection because the
Carter
22:53
the rhetoric continues to go up. And rhetoric is the bellwether. Like, this is how we tell whether or not we're starting to see a
Carter
23:05
I'm not able to reconcile. You're not able to reconcile the fact that we need to have... No, I'm not able to
Zain
23:11
to rectify two of your points. One, which is this one, which I agree with, that we need to up our game on security. And two, campaigns need to change their tactics. Well, they're not mutually exclusive. No, but I'm also trying to get your sense of it in terms of like, not to put you in an awkward spot, Carter, but like, has Corey sold you on advocating for more security for your candidate?
Carter
23:34
Okay. After what happened. But my security is going to be a lot different. Like, the security is going to be vetting.
Zain
23:41
versus like body people and such okay okay gotcha gotcha yeah that's fair that's fair uh can we move on to the politics i know it's a hard pivot to like her
Zain
23:49
her speech and how she dealt with protesters but it is it is a part of it and i think it's worthwhile mentioning and i think one of the things when i made the comment of i don't want to lag and restart cory it seemed like christopher friedland lagged and restarted a lot some
Zain
24:01
some of it some of it was due to the protests and and and a lot of it i don't know if it was and at some point i was very confused when she She started talking about, like, they're not going to stop us. We're going to keep fighting. Well, that's the thing.
Corey
24:14
thing. And I'm like, are you talking about the protesters? Or are you talking about Donald
Zain
24:17
Donald Trump? Are you talking about the conservatives? I was extremely confused if she was conflating these people as being anti-democratic or if she was talking about the conservatives and the Trumps of the world in that vein. So it got pretty confusing to me. That was my read. What was your read of, let's just deal with this one at a time. And I know you used the term not mutually exclusive. it isn't because her speech and and these two things are connected but let's talk about how she dealt with the protesters first and then let's get into the content of the speech and carter's already talked about applause lines and stuff yeah
Corey
24:48
yeah i you know i didn't think that she dealt with them necessarily badly right at the start like the way she said hey listen like people came here to listen to speech you can't get in the way of our democracy i can't remember her exact words. My
Corey
25:02
concern was she said it, she repeated herself like five times every time she made that particular point. And it was almost as though, and God, I have a podcast, I'm so familiar with this, where you're almost feeling your way to the best way to articulate this particular point.
Zain
25:19
I do that with questions. I don't know if you noticed.
Corey
25:23
No, you know what? You've never
Corey
25:24
never betrayed it. Okay, good. Never betrayed it. Pro, pro. And so when she is saying it like the fourth or the fifth time to your point at a certain point i don't know okay well is this her bridging back in to talk about her political opponents what the hell's going on the other thing is even watching it i didn't have the situational awareness she would have in the room and there were a number of times where her parentheticals i thought were part of the speech to your point until it became more clear at a later point or when she made explicit reference to like the noise outside of the room where i'm like oh okay i guess i know what's going on again in here but
Corey
25:58
but i didn't know and it all added to that sense of being on edge there so i
Corey
26:01
i think that the words she said were fine i think that the tone she took was fine but she did it for too long and
Corey
26:09
allowed too much of the air to be taken by the sense of protest the sense of chaos and the way that she was jumping around was adding another level of of you
Corey
26:21
you know frenetic chaos you know i I just, I cannot stress enough that watching it live, not knowing what the hell was happening fully, and not knowing what the hell was going to happen fully, just did not give me any capacity to absorb what she was saying beyond that. And she was not assisting that in the way she was almost amplifying the chaos in the room with her extended attacks on the protesters. Kratner,
Zain
26:45
Kratner, did you just like flip through all the protests, asking you materially about, because I've got a different line of questioning for you, in particular, if you did. did yeah
Carter
26:52
yeah i just went zip zip zip zip zip so i'm not the least bit interested in what they have to say if they want to have a if they want to have an event of their own for them to get their message across i'm a big fan does
Zain
27:05
does dealing with protesters reveal anything about a candidate and
Zain
27:08
and i'm going to throw a few things on the table their agility their improbability their empathy their ability to pivot you could say no not really to any of these you could say of course to to all or some Some of them, you could, what does something like that show about a candidate? And I guess the deeper question here is, can you train someone for how to get back on track? Can you train someone for how to effectively improv and deliver a message? So the part A of that question is, what does it reveal? And part B is, what can you strategize and train with someone?
Carter
27:42
You know, does a stand-up comic have to have the ability to deal with a heckler? Yes.
Carter
27:48
Right? Does a politician have to have the ability to deal with a heckler or a protester or someone who disagrees with them? Absolutely. Do they need to be able to deal with a string of them?
Carter
27:59
That gets a little bit dicey. You shouldn't be in a position where you have to deal with three different sets of protesters over 30 minutes. That seems to be outside of the norm. yeah and
Zain
28:11
and like going going back to the comedian you can't use the same yeah like the same comeback through you know right so you look like you're the one who looks like a hack at that point yeah
Carter
28:20
yeah i mean sometimes some some some comedians look like they've got one they've got you know they're they're heckled a little bit and they're able to manage it and deal with it uh others you know like jimmy carr they make their whole career off of being of off of being able to, uh, say your mom, uh, to every, every heckler. Such
Zain
28:41
Such a good point. Very good.
Zain
28:42
Corey, Corey, I don't know if you're appreciating what Carter's doing, but it's, it's, it's good work. It's good work. But
Carter
28:49
end game for a politician is if you can't do that, if you can't deal with a heckler, you're going to look really bad. I'm not sure. Have you trained someone on that before? Oh
Zain
28:59
you have, really? I've
Carter
29:00
I've heckled people in
Zain
29:02
That's so funny. In
Carter
29:04
In training? Oh, yeah. You have to.
Carter
29:07
If you don't train them to do it, then they're not going to know what to do. And you write little lines for them. And there's two or three lines, you know, because you're anticipating the same heckler is going to say two
Carter
29:19
two or three things, right?
Carter
29:21
What you're not anticipating is three, four, five, six hecklers, right? But it's
Zain
29:25
it's not necessarily like I need to quip back at you. It's more so I need to compose myself and get back on track, right? So in that way, it's different. It's not like I need to be the wittiest person in the room, using the comedian example. It's like I need to show control of the situation. No,
Carter
29:39
No, but you have to study the audience.
Carter
29:41
Forget about you. Forget about the heckler. Forget about the response. It is about studying the audience.
Corey
29:47
Fucking brilliant point. Absolutely. The
Carter
29:49
The audience is the organ. When a heckler happens, so you're sitting next to the heckler. how do you feel? Like you just shit your pants, right? You don't want to be there. You don't, you know, you're behind the fucking speaker. You're the human wall right now. And you've got a fucking protest going on.
Carter
30:06
Chrystia Freeland's job is to make sure that those people who are behind her and
Carter
30:11
the rest of the room are comfortable again. Look
Zain
30:14
with that fine arts degree. Making use of it, Carter. I
Carter
30:17
I didn't get the fine arts degree. Look at Carter
Zain
30:20
Carter with some of those fine arts courses. Yeah.
Zain
30:23
Look at you, Carter. Corey, you want to jump on Carter's point? Because I also react positively what he's saying there. Because I think that is often the forgotten component of this. This dance is the people you're trying to persuade, which is those watching and those in the room and their comfort level.
Corey
30:38
Yeah. When I teach people what I call controversial communications or contentious communications, there's basically two streams. One is like a very hostile questioner and the other is somebody who is actively trying to fight your point and whole new streams of how you have to act come into it but a common thing to any kind of contentious controversial communications where you're dealing with an opponent a quote-unquote opponent yes
Corey
31:03
is you need to constantly remind yourself that you are now a gladiator and everything you say is for the benefit of the audience not the counterparty you're not trying to pulverize
Corey
31:13
pulverize them you're not trying to knock them in the ground you're not trying to be the wittiest you're not trying to make yourself feel the best You were trying to make sure everybody watching this thinks that you pass a reasonable person test, that you come off best, and they feel better about you at that particular moment. And Stephen's point is such a very, very essential one when you're talking about hecklers in a political context, right? She doesn't need to be right in that moment. She needs to make everybody in that audience be on her side at that moment. And that is not the same thing. and i think that the nervousness that was almost emanating through the screen i suspect even emanating through the radio zane yeah
Corey
31:50
as we were going forward like including like the weird cadence of applause like these things are symptoms of an audience that was all of a sudden really on edge didn't know what to do and when to do nervous
Zain
32:00
nervous exhausted arguably like
Corey
32:02
like yeah all that stuff
Corey
32:03
well her her job is not to just keep running it out running it out running it out like that you know she should have instead of being like angry and being like this is a fight for democracy democracy i think she needed more energy of turning around to them and being like you know folks live theater right uh we'll get back to this show and i i'm not even saying these are the words but i'm saying this is the vibe like i'm not stressed by this you shouldn't be stressed by this and i think that christia freeland did did fail on that one a little bit because she was clearly very stressed by it and
Zain
32:31
and she and she can this carter is a transition to the to the speech And she kept powering through.
Zain
32:37
Tried to. Yes, in the sense that she kept, maybe not to script, but she certainly kept to, I want to finish my thoughts. She didn't truncate them. She didn't, you know, argue to clear the room. She didn't ask for, like, a big red reset button. She didn't kind of, like, say, you know, I'm going to take a few moments. We should all do something. She didn't actually show that level of, like, I'm going to navigate this. it was like, this is what I have in front of me, and I'm going to try my best to get through it. And when you look at the length of the speech, that plus another comment you made about the applause lines, which either could have been put into place as a strategy or could have been a symptom of the situation. There was even moments where she was asking people to like, please, like, you know, drown these folks out or like, you know, like support my point in my rebuttal against these protesters um how
Zain
33:27
how do you kind of how do you kind of think she dealt with it with with that kind of frame in mind i
Carter
33:33
i i would put it into two categories i don't think she dealt with it very well during the actual incidents i think that that was a little bit uh
Carter
33:40
uh she she seemed to be really quite put off her game but by the end i think that she had recovered i think that and
Zain
33:47
and and so yeah i'm talking about the content of the speech now like how do you feel like she kind of kind of dealt with getting
Zain
33:51
getting through her speech and and the vibe of the room which was your point which we could maybe not see the people behind the camera but we certainly see the human wall maybe another downside of the human wall because we're fucking reading facial expressions yeah
Zain
34:03
yeah of cabinet ministers who look angry confused angry i'm probably scanning the room yeah yeah really interesting maybe in some ways helpful because like maybe we should be vicariously living through through their emotions and the human ball about their level of concern. That's a great point. It
Zain
34:20
It was just like, anyways, your thoughts on her speech, Carter?
Carter
34:25
Well, I think that she started to fall in love with the reactions, right? When I was a kid in university and taking my fine arts classes, there was a number of plays, and we called them masturbatory theater because we were all very interested in how the audience responded, far more than anything else. and the audience it's like
Zain
34:45
like you at a live show it's
Carter
34:47
it's like what has changed
Carter
34:48
what has changed absolutely nothing has changed but when you fall in love with the response um then you just kind of keep seeking that positive affirmation right
Carter
34:58
and that little flippy flip that she would do beside the the you know beside the lectern sorry corey i almost did that incorrectly um
Carter
35:07
she would try and bring on more applause bring on more reaction and
Carter
35:12
think by the end she was was just so like
Carter
35:14
like she'd trained the audience to give her a reaction with literally every line and
Carter
35:19
she would milk each and every clap out
Carter
35:23
out of those applause lines and they weren't applause lines that's what made them so so
Carter
35:27
so exceptionally frustrating is is that the
Carter
35:29
the audience had been conditioned to respond
Carter
35:31
respond by the protesters being
Carter
35:35
being there and christia freeland seemed to fall in love with that response cory
Zain
35:39
cory what do you think of that yeah
Corey
35:41
you know i i do think that in general the the worst grade i'm giving on any of these launches is to just liberal party audiences like none of them have done a very good job of applauding when they should how they should that includes with the gold uh launch as well which i'm not sure how much we're going to be able to get into it but you know there's just not a sense of what's applause worthy and what's not Like, I swear to God, I
Corey
36:07
I wouldn't think it's nuts at this point if campaigns got one of those signs like you see on like a TV set that's like, clap now, applaud now, because nobody seems to be getting it. They're all coming in a beat too late. They're all stepping on candidate lines. It's just, it's excruciating to watch. part of it is because these lines are not spontaneous real applause lines they are the political this is when i want you to applaud i hope you can figure that out applause lines and it just speaks to the fact that we just clap too much like politics is the only business in the world where you get a standing ovation before you say a fucking word right like that's just how these things work but um yeah certainly christia freeland tried to make way too many things applause lines. And as a result, it did sort of break the flow. And when I was already not able to process things because of the fear of protesters, it was just another thing that affected my ability to absorb the content. But the content, Zane, to get back to the content, now we're at the 37 mark, right?
Zain
37:06
what she talked about? Because that's also a thing. Well,
Corey
37:09
Well, I'd be really curious to hear what Carter absorbed from it all. But what I heard is, I'm tough. I'm going to stand up to Donald Trump. Fight, fight, fight. Fight, fight, fight. And we're going to get this thing done. And that's fine. And that's good. But that's also part of the problem. I think with the protests at the launch, it made her feel like she needed to be extra tough about them, which is probably why she kept going back to the well and continuing on those lines.
Corey
37:35
Carter, what did you observe from
Zain
37:36
from the content of it? Because I agree, it seemed like I feel like it was a 30-second elevator speech tried out from 50 different angles to make an hour-long speech. Maybe that's not generous enough. But I do feel like she said the same thing 25 times. Well,
Carter
37:51
Well, I know there was at least it felt like there was at least two Trump sections. You know, like it was it was
Carter
37:57
was difficult to listen to and difficult to absorb. It felt like, you know, just
Carter
38:04
like it didn't have a through line. It didn't have a story to it and it didn't really resonate. It was, to
Carter
38:12
me, a very Trudeau like speech, because I felt I felt like Trudeau has been trapped into these speeches where he talks about issues, but he's not ever talking to me. And
Carter
38:25
And I didn't feel like Chrystia Freeland was talking to me at any point. And I
Carter
38:30
I really wanted her to. I thought that this would, you know, her having a good lunch, you
Carter
38:37
know, like, let's go. oh, that's fun for me. That's exciting.
Zain
38:41
Corey, you put your hand up when the Trudeau comparison was made, so I'll let you react to that, but maybe I'll tag on another question, which is, do you feel like she did enough or anything to distance herself from Trudeau, given that that's been at least a precursor of her argument?
Corey
38:58
I didn't get Trudeau vibes. I think that Gold's speech felt more like the Trudeau successor speech to me for a bunch of different reasons. but one of the things that led to the length of the speech was not just that she was trying things from different angles but she was trying every angle of the launch speech so it had the you
Zain
39:16
you know okay that's a better way of putting it well yeah but
Corey
39:19
but like it had the long biographical components it had the long here's how i got to this moment components it had the long here's the story of what i'm going to do component like it had them all right by the way as a bit of an aside basically the only thing that the audience didn't applause for that was clearly an applause was when she said she was from peace river alberta yeah she also said
Zain
39:40
said she was a child bride at some point yeah
Corey
39:42
yeah that was a weird also did not
Corey
39:44
that was not a great joke that was that was that was not a great joke christian that was that was not a great joke um and i think as a result it just it felt a little overstuffed and it felt a little overstuffed even i suspect steven you you're the only one who kind of watched just the speech i watched it with the preamble it felt pretty overstuffed already and then when you throw on 30 minutes of this chaos and then you're on string it's just it's hard to imagine that we could have possibly put more into that particular political moment and i think that was a mistake i do think that this is a little bit of a less is more thing and i do wonder how she defined the audience in her own mind who she's speaking to and why because i do get the the desire to tell those biographical stories obviously makes a lot of sense. You're introducing yourself. But I will say both Carney and her in some ways treated this like it was the start of a general election. And I wonder if she regrets that with everything that's going on today.
Zain
40:43
Carter, do we want to talk about
Zain
40:47
how she moves on from this? What you would advise her? I know, of course, you're helping the Carney campaign, but like, whatever.
Zain
40:54
What would you advise her to
Zain
40:55
do to move on from this? It
Zain
40:57
was a rough day right
Zain
40:58
right and and i and i one thing i don't know and i don't i don't know you guys might have a better beat on this than i do is i don't know if she got the soundbite clips that she was looking for like
Zain
41:06
like i don't know if the protests have dominated the headlines and like and of course she's going to generate her own weather with the clips that she pulls from there uh but but you know with that caveat me not knowing how that's played out for her um
Zain
41:19
um what would you advise her in terms of moving on from this uh steven and then cory same to you three
Carter
41:25
three days of clips and then it never happened right
Carter
41:27
right then yeah then it never happened you just never refer to it again you never go back to it you just keep pushing because it's a remarkably short process and we're going to have remarkably short memories so create something three don't do it tomorrow don't try and cover this thing up tomorrow with some sort of you know smelling
Carter
41:47
smelling salts or something throw this away let
Carter
41:51
let it but let it have its two days three days of of life that it's going to have it still will be positive you're
Carter
42:00
you're still going to be talked about that's good then come out in three days with something really good to get everybody's attention again cory
Corey
42:09
yeah i trump's inaugurated tomorrow the public doesn't care that's a good point i think that one of the things that
Corey
42:15
that i started saying i i just want to turn back to is that i suspect that in some ways her audience was that organizer class trying to convince that the you know the more active liberals and the pundits and everybody who's going to watch it live that she's the person who can take the fight to donald trump and that seemed to be the general construction of things i i believe at least from a distance i don't know it's hard to read these things always what's going on in people's minds and the real shame for her is that that anybody watching it live is going to have to get through a lot in order to hear that message and feel those things and it's funny because i don't generally believe launches matter very much said as much on part b of uh 1848 here right i'll say it again said
Zain
42:55
said was said much better and much more eloquently in part a which you can get for only six dollars just six strategist patreon.com exactly yeah that's good that's good yeah so we call in content advertising but
Corey
43:06
but launches you know the reason i don't think you should put a lot of effort into launches is they seem to be low reward. But the Freeland launch has me now thinking they're also high risk. And this is not 100% my point. On the old strategist discord, Jeremy Farkas was asking if this was perhaps like the reality of launches at this point. And I kind of wonder if it is, because now I see a lot of potential. Like, here's the question I now have for the two of you.
Corey
43:35
Do you think her campaign would be in better shape if she just didn't launch at all? kind
Corey
43:38
kind of like the segment
Corey
43:41
Should this have just been... It should have been an email. No, no, no. Yeah, no, I know. Sorry
Zain
43:44
Sorry it took me
Zain
43:44
me so long to get to your title, but... No, but I think in some ways like the other aspect of it that's Freeland-specific perhaps is
Zain
43:52
is that her best political punch was in the written word.
Zain
43:58
And the op-ed that she wrote the other day also I thought was quite excellent. That's just me. I don't know if either of you read it. I
Corey
44:06
I thought it was a hell of a lot better than Carney's.
Zain
44:08
yeah yes i agree i i would actually agree with that and yet today should she have leaned into a non-controlled now no she probably never knew it was gonna be this non-controlled right like so i'm not like but this was a launch has dynamics that are not in your control even with the best of security even with this is the point yeah what
Corey
44:26
what was the upside
Corey
44:27
and she already did a video she
Zain
44:28
she already did a video summarizing this this one minute speech in
Corey
44:31
in 35 seconds well it goes back to to the point zane she tried she did the launch every way possible right uh but like all the launches she did all the launches all the ways and like upside downside risk it seems to me that having a live event like this in this way they're not always going to be like that but what is a perfect launch look like like if that speech had gone as amazingly as humanly possible what's the upside and this wasn't even the worst case downside and what's the downside but i do want to say like Like, this is my reaction. This is the reaction of somebody watching live. I believe that a lot of the audience was designed to be watching live, right?
Corey
45:08
my quick scan of the clips and how it's read, yes, the protests are present, but certainly the weight of it feels different. It certainly goes through all of her little lines and, you know, the specific things that her and her team have worked on to say specifically the way they want. That's all good. It's all working. But, yeah, I mean, if you were watching it live, you probably don't think great about her or the fortunes of the Liberal Party. or
Corey
45:31
or maybe even canada right now carter
Zain
45:33
carter play play a bit of hindsight and then we'll we'll move on
Carter
45:38
well i mean hindsight her launch if she'd just gone out on the thursday with a an email a week before she did do her her her instagram post she would have been a rock star but she chose instead to follow the traditional route and again i i come back to a point that we made many many episodes ago the whoever is following the traditional route is most likely to lose
Zain
46:07
cory any insights you want to provide to us for observations from the karina gould launch
Zain
46:14
i didn't tune into that other than just a a few well
Corey
46:17
well listen i'll say it's almost it's almost a shame and we owe her like a whole episode she's very talented she's a very talented political communicator and she's going to do really really well in a debate so if i am carney if i am freeland i am not taking that for granted she is a smart political communicator and um you know watch this space now i think my sense of watching her particular launch is that it
Corey
46:41
it was it would be a very well constructed campaign for after a liberal wipeout like i'm the leader who's going to rebuild for
Corey
46:48
for granted yeah i gotta say i'm not as convinced that it's what the liberals need need to avoid a wipeout. Because it feels like you need somebody who Canadians are going to sort of already know a little bit. Like, I think she'd do really well with time. Let's put it that way. Because I think that she will do well with being presented to Canadians. And yes, you can make the argument, you become prime minister, everyone's going to get to know you. But not quite in the same way, right? Like you don't come with the same like history and background here. And I'll also say, you
Corey
47:17
you know, Karina, I
Corey
47:19
I seriously doubt at eight years old, you watch Jean Chrétien shannon said this is a man who will stand up for my country no fucking eight-year-old in the history of eight-year-olds has ever done that maybe
Corey
47:29
maybe i would have stuck with a different story
Zain
47:33
let's let's move it on you know what there's two episodes we should spend some time on her and if you guys are game for it i do want to do an entire episode on the
Zain
47:43
the websites and the brands yeah
Zain
47:45
that they're out oh
Corey
47:46
oh me too great okay there's
Zain
47:48
there's there's some interesting stuff uh and carter you can comment to to whatever uh degree you're you're comfortable uh i'm
Carter
47:55
i'm always too comfortable yeah
Zain
47:56
yeah yeah no no who knows if the cardi care carter steven carter of the christa freeland campaign uh soon to be christa freeland campaign uh we'll be on the we'll be on the pod next time uh okay we'll do that carter we're gonna move it on to our over under in our lightning round uh carter i do this for you i still want to let you know that um even though you're um you're you're well past your bedtime at this point i'm
Zain
48:18
you've seen three launches I have. Construct for me in your mind, your dream launch in this context. What would it have been? Is it still the walk to the mic launch? But you've seen three of them. You've seen ups, you've seen downs, you've seen brands, you've seen colors, you've seen audiences, you've seen grassroots politician in Burlington, you've seen Edmonton Hockey Rink, you've seen the Toronto protest disruption.
Corey
48:42
These are just, this is just context for you.
Zain
48:45
What would the Corey Hogan dream launch look like? Put some pieces in place for me. My
Corey
48:48
My dream launch is the Wednesday before the Thursday where the rules were designed, you have Mark Carney's Daily Show appearance. The Thursday the rules are decided, that evening, the minute that news release goes out, within 15 minutes of that release going out, your release goes out that uses the Chrystia Freeland, I'm in.
Corey
49:10
And then you follow it up with a press conference a day later and you perform as capably as Karina Gould. That
Corey
49:15
That is my dream launch. And so the good news for the Liberal Party is that they do seem to have the raw components there.
Corey
49:22
Now, let's see if any of them can learn from each other. The bad part is that they're not in one person. That is a challenge. But now let's see if somebody with a campaign can put them together and see if they can push it to the finish line.
Zain
49:34
Carter, speak as much as you're comfortable. What's your dream lunch?
Carter
49:39
lunch um my dream lunch is uh
Carter
49:46
i can't speak very much about what my dream uh the
Zain
49:48
the dream lunch the correct answer is um the mark carney lunch because it was perfect and you guys nailed it carter carter this is like the shahal letter all over again letter all
Carter
49:59
all over again uh
Zain
50:01
uh carter uh uh this one you you may also also be a bit uncomfortable with um which of the following would you would you like would you like a hundred applause lines like christopher freeland or zero like mark carney which uh which would
Carter
50:17
not like an audience that knows the difference i'd like an audience that knows when it's supposed to happen it
Corey
50:25
well it was like it was like two you
Corey
50:28
you know what i actually think near zero is fine if you're not stopping waiting for applause for every one of them right if there's only three or four applause lines in a speech but they're legitimate applause lines and it kind of comes from the soles of people's feet and they do it that's
Corey
50:43
that's great but what what we seem to be doing right now where there's the audience is like oh wait has he done is this the time for the line oh i gotta do the line and the person is speaking and they're like oh i guess they didn't do the applause i'm gonna keep oh now they're doing the applause i guess i'm gonna stop just
Corey
50:57
just fucking it's butchering the english language butchering the french language just butchering language can we stop can we find a better way to do this i beg you i beg you humanity please that's
Zain
51:09
that's very nice cory that's a good appeal it'll go nowhere but it's a good appeal thank
Zain
51:13
cory overrated or underrated daniel smith has come out with a press release let's end on this saying she's not going to be attending the inauguration in person now because it is moving into the rotunda of the capitol so she won't be attending in person now there's a big deal made that she's going to washington she's doing all these meetings attending the the balls, attending governors, excuse
Zain
51:32
excuse me, association meetings, etc. It's a bit overrated or underrated that she's not going to be attending the actual events in person now that it's been moved.
Corey
51:41
I'll be honest, I wasn't even 100% sure she was going to be attending the actual inauguration before. Like, that's just sitting there. That's not of any value to anybody. I get that she wasn't one of the people that's invited into the rotunda, but did we ever think that she was going to be one one of those people i don't think it matters at all um it doesn't weaken it for me it doesn't strengthen it for me i
Corey
52:04
i still hate the visit down for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with where she's sitting when the fucking asshole is actually signed in so i don't care cory
Corey
52:14
cory carter i should say uh overrated
Zain
52:15
overrated or underrated for you uh
Carter
52:17
uh completely overrated it doesn't matter never mattered to her attendance didn't matter i
Carter
52:23
mean those things are so big it's not like trump Trump was going to go shake
Carter
52:26
shake everybody's hand that was there and have a picture with them and whisper a couple of words in their ear about tariffs. I mean, that's what happens at Mar-a-Lago. Totally different.
Zain
52:38
We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1848C of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we shall see you next time.
Corey
52:51
guys realize we might have tariffs tomorrow?
Corey
52:54
Yeah, okay, but we'll record tomorrow.
Zain
52:55
tomorrow. today was all about how how christopher freeland by the by the way free land which
Zain
53:01
which is what our website says free land which by the way that logo very fabric land very