Episode 907: The Attempted Coup of December 37, 2020

SPEAKER_00 0:02

This is Strategists episode 907. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, how are you doing?

Corey 0:10

Well, it's been four days without a coup attempt, so I think things are looking up.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Yeah, that we know of. I mean, it's only the mainstream media that reports on the coup attempts. We don't know. There could be coup attempts happening right now.

Carter 0:23

we wouldn't know about it on twitter would we we

Carter 0:25

we have no idea we'd all have to be on parlor and and trying to figure that nightmare out can we

SPEAKER_00 0:30

we can we hold on before we move on parlor or parlay

Corey 0:34

well it should obviously be parlay but i'm fairly certain they're pronouncing it parlor okay

SPEAKER_00 0:39

okay well i thought there was more complexity to that answer than i got

Corey 0:44

well this is not like an unknowable question i can't we just sort of watch 30 seconds of news coverage about this parlor people

Carter 0:50

people have been what

SPEAKER_00 0:50

what do you not what do you What you don't understand about this podcast, Corey, we don't prepare. I know you've had your goody-two-shoes approach to the podcast the last few episodes, but no, no research, no preparation. If we don't know it amongst the three of us, it's not an important fact. That's what we've decided. That's for the general cadence and culture of our podcast.

Corey 1:11

Could there be anything more representative of the U.S. right wing than just saying we're going to use this French word and we're going to pronounce it like we've never heard there's a language other than English? like that's what

Carter 1:21

what do you expect so on brand what do you expect from people who identify as meal team six i mean like this is this is who they are it

SPEAKER_00 1:29

it is funny that you bring that up it is it is the similar but opposite approach of the colbert report because his name is colbert uh but of course for being a right-wing hack he changes to colbert uh so the world is upside down i don't know what the fuck is going on by the way speaking of the world being upside down uh this is my uh part of the show where I announce another Presidential Medal of Freedom. This time to, drumroll please, Stephen Carter, Bill

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Bill Belichick. Yes, indeed, Bill Belichick.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

He did not make the playoffs this year, but so glad that the always haggard-looking coach of the New England Patriots, who are nothing without Tom Brady, is going to be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Corey, I'm waiting for your reaction as a fellow football fan.

Corey 2:13

I don't know. always a he is a he's a you

Corey 2:17

you know a trailblazer in fashion i don't

Corey 2:20

don't think anybody was wearing the short sleeve sweatshirt before he came along and then let's not forget he um he's

Corey 2:27

he's he's deeply connected to a guy who was uh caught in a rub and tug in florida and that's the kind of proximity to greatness that donald trump has always appreciated carter

SPEAKER_00 2:34

carter as a fan of questionable ethics i'm looking for your response as well well i

Carter 2:38

i mean have you ever seen a more under underinflated football than donald trump i mean oh

Corey 2:47

nicely we just got one factor that's

SPEAKER_00 2:49

that's good nicely done carter uh you're getting some help with your material okay let's move it on to our first segment our first segment win on tuesday and storm on wednesday it's

SPEAKER_00 3:00

it's almost like we forgot what happened on tuesday which is is that the Senate had two extra seats added in the color blue with John Ossoff and Reverend Warnock winning in Georgia. I want to start there before I move into Wednesday. I know we're itching to talk about the Capitol, but Carter, give me your thoughts on Wednesday. Did the Georgia win surprise you? We were, of course, having someone on the show made a prediction. Predictive. Double down on his prediction. Yeah, okay. Double

Carter 3:27

I won. I won. I am the best predictor in the world. So, yeah, I mean, we expected the two seats and we got the two seats. So, I mean, I'm happy. I don't mean to take them for granted by any stretch of the imagination. And people have already credited Stacey Abrams a thousand times over. More

SPEAKER_00 3:44

you? That's so, that's shocking. But there's, but my

Carter 3:49

friends in politics have all been talking about it. But this is, this is huge. And the organization that went into it, especially in the in the

Carter 3:57

the face of real voter suppression, the type of which we can't even really imagine here in Canada. It

Carter 4:04

It was amazing. And to pull it off and have it go blue for the presidential and then to have it go blue for both Georgia seats.

Carter 4:13

It was monumental. Now, I'm quite certain that the Democrats will find a way to fuck it up. but for now let us you know bask

Carter 4:20

bask in the glory of of the of the victory on on tuesday cory

SPEAKER_00 4:25

cory looting leffler gone chicken purdue by the way always always a great name even if purdue chicken's a real thing chicken purdue which i am trademarking no that makes

SPEAKER_00 4:35

it a greater it does indeed both of them gone were you also surprised well

Corey 4:39

well um i don't think i was surprised by the time we were within about a week of the election. That was pretty clearly in the cards when you looked at the polling, when you kind of considered the general trend of things. When you step back though and you say, is this something that a reasonable pundit would predict in November, right after the election, when it went to a runoff? No, absolutely not. I would have said, I would have bet that the Republicans win both, because that's what they usually do in such situations. And I sure wouldn't a bet that the democrats win both that uh that seems crazy unlikely but uh we've had a pretty crazy unlikely past 60 days and well

Corey 5:17

well it's pretty tough to not

Corey 5:20

not talk about a coup attempt when a coup attempt occurs here like this was a tragic tragic fuck up by donald trump um that that led to this there's there's basically no way in my mind i can get past the fact that if donald trump had had either A, just conceded right after the election, or B, everybody in the Republican party said, no, Donald, you lost and didn't indulge him in this. I think for sure the Republicans would have won at least one of those seats, probably both of them, and held the Senate. So, I mean, we've got all sorts of Donald Trump cautionary tales this week. This one would be the hugest within years in each direction, were it not, of course, for Wednesday's situation. But But, yeah, the fact that the

Corey 6:03

the Republicans managed to blow this one,

Corey 6:06

like this is big. This has serious consequences. I've

SPEAKER_00 6:09

I've got a few political items to follow up on in Georgia before we move it on to Wednesday. But, Carter, Corey's question is a good one. Or actually, Corey's assertion is a good one for me to ask you about. Do

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Do you also feel

SPEAKER_00 6:19

feel like this is Donald Trump's to wear, the Georgia loss?

Carter 6:22

Absolutely. I mean, I think that, you

Carter 6:24

know, any other president would have managed things much differently by moving on and acknowledging the loss. Then you have a lot more to play for in Georgia. Right. As long as you've got the president's seat, you don't have to have the Senate because the president, the vice president cast a deciding vote. There's not much to play for. There's not the stakes fundamentally changed. Plus, he cast all the doubt on the voting process itself. Why would I even bother going vote if I can't be 100% certain that my vote counts? Now, we

Carter 6:55

we say that, but it was kind of record Republican turnout for a special runoff. In normal circumstances, I think people would have been super impressed to get those numbers of votes. And I think that if, again, in Corey's hypothetical of the pundit that would be asked about this right after the election on November the 5th or 6th, they would say, you know what, if the Republicans get a turnout like the one that they got on Tuesday, there is no way the Georgia Democrats can win. So they did win. Their people were more organized. They were fighting the different fight that Donald Trump took off the table for the Republican Party.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Okay, so I could spend some time talking about Warnock and Ossoff, and I'm not going to do that because I want to talk about two other people, two women, in fact, rather than the two men that won. And the first person I want to talk about is Stacey Abrams. Carter, you mentioned her off the top. Many people across North America, especially in democratic political circles, are crediting her for this victory in Georgia, her two organizations, and frankly, just energy and efforts and mobilizing grit. Britt, even after losing the Georgia race for governor a few years back, has kind of led her to this moment. Corey, what do you think her national ceiling is right now? And are you surprised that she hasn't been tapped for one of the national positions or the federal positions that Stephen Carter has even suggested in the past that Biden float to Georgia voters prior to the runoff as, you know, Stacey Abrams in my cabinet, so to speak? So kind of what is your comment on on Abrams national profile?

Corey 8:28

it's it's huge right now and she's moved into kind of this folklore status of political strategist which is funny because she's she's a politico who became a strategist you you often see it the other way but you don't often see a politician become a a strategist and um i

Corey 8:43

have to assume one of the reasons why she my assumption is that she is not in cabinet because she doesn't want to be that in two years she's going to be running for uh governor of of georgia and it's It's a hard thing to do to take on a job like that for two years. And if anything, she's proven those can be very valuable years. You can organize. You can get all

Corey 9:02

all of the people you need registered. You can get the job done. You know, this is fascinating because there are only so many political strategists who kind of move into this legendary space I was talking about here. And I don't

Corey 9:17

don't know what her next play is, but talk about a well-rounded political operator. If she does manage to pull off her aspirations to be governor of Georgia, if she has done this deep organizing play that's managed to turn

Corey 9:30

turn a red state blue, it's not a purple state, right?

Corey 9:34

right? This is a red state and obviously major assist by Donald Trump. I think a lot of that record Democratic turnout is because there's record antipathy towards the president of the United States. But you

Corey 9:46

asked me what her ceiling is. She's absolutely in play for, well, again, if she wants to be governor in two years, maybe president in 24 is too fast, but maybe not. Maybe in 24, she's in the mix to be president of the United States. Maybe 2028, she is. But that's her ceiling. Her ceiling is she has no ceiling. Like she's managed to pull off two

Corey 10:06

two miracles here. or she's one away from sainthood. So

Corey 10:09

So why the hell not? Why not President Abrams? Carter,

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Carter, with the table that Corey set about her, what unsolicited advice would you be giving to her? Corey, you make a very good point, right? Politico turned candidate turned politico again, almost like, you know, it's just really interesting texture of what she may represent to the electorate and to the country and what she does represent. Carter, what unsolicited advice are you giving her right now, agnostic of what position she wants to pursue one day? I'm

Carter 10:36

I'm not giving her any advice. I'm taking advice from her. I think that her advice was to say she's not going to be put into the box of being the black female candidate. She's expanding the group of people that she

Carter 10:51

she wants to appeal to. She found a coalition that was much broader than the traditional. One of the things that the United States, it's their greatest weakness, I think, is that people stay in their in their racial boxes. Right. You're a Hispanic candidate. You're a black candidate. You're a white candidate. You

Carter 11:09

You know, this this is somebody who said, fuck that. I'm going to bring in all of the different all of the different groups

Carter 11:15

groups and coalitions that I think I can appeal to, whether they be progressive whites, or they can be the

Carter 11:21

the black Democrats, the black Christian Democrats. She's brought them all together underneath hers. I mean, I'm just looking at her and saying, I don't want any candidate that I'm working with to say, you know, what's the box, but instead to say, how do we break the box open? Because that, that is the learning for me from the Georgia experience.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Carter, you have reached a new level of wokeness uh i was gonna say i repeat no i'm just gonna take advice

Corey 11:47

oh wow never words i've heard from you people yeah that is this

Carter 11:51

this has been me all along if you guys would pay attention on twitter you would see this is who i am uh

SPEAKER_00 11:57

uh that was uncomfortable we apologize for our listeners for that low quality content usually we want stephen carter we have him here i'm

SPEAKER_00 12:05

mansplain to women of to racialized women and and this is just this is this is unfortunate carter i'll give give you another shot at it uh i want to talk about by a president-elect vice president-elect kabla harris um and i'm getting to the coup but guys by the way just i'm getting to the coup we're

Carter 12:20

we're just waiting here waiting along she has

SPEAKER_00 12:22

has a position right now of course as vice president-elect but will also be the deciding vote on the senate carter talked to me about um what that means for for her uh this new position she's going to be thrust in the tie-breaking vote in many cases What sort of political pressure does that apply to her on a day-to-day? And perhaps give me the larger term, what sort of political pressure does that apply to her future political ambitions? Because now she will outright wear everything that the Senate does, you know, should we have this 50-50 balance, and she's a tiebreaker. What do you think that kind of does to her political ambitions, so to speak?

Carter 12:57

Well, I think, now this one I'm going to give advice on, and I'm going to get into lots of trouble. Thank

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Thank you, thank you. Yeah,

Carter 13:03

Yeah, just reverse things. I think that if I was Kamala Harris, I would try to never have to cast a vote. I would be taking what Joe Biden said, which is we're going to try and reach across the aisle and try and find a way to get to 52, 53 votes on every issue. I think that there are going to be Republican senators who are going to have seen what happened and are going to be up for reelection in four years, not two years, or maybe in two years and outside of the Trump cycle where they think, you know what? but this is not going to work anymore. People are going to be looking for a reasonable solution. And having just survived a coup attempt at the worst case scenario, or having my office place ransacked by hooligans at the least statement, I think that they're going to be open to a little bit more civilized discourse, and they're not going to be so strictly under McConnell's thumb. Keep in mind, McConnell didn't bring these things to a vote And then have an iron fist with his caucus and controlling his caucus, as we would see with a whip situation, right, where you're just whipped as a caucus to vote the way that the whip wants you to.

Carter 14:11

Instead, he said, I'm not gonna let this come to a vote.

Carter 14:14

So a lot of these issues, we don't actually know how the Republican senators would have voted if they were given the chance. And I think that Kamala Harris needs to be the 51st senator and and operate on that level instead of, for example, being as,

Carter 14:27

as, you know, the the international vice president and traveling around. You know, he's got John Kerry to do the climate stuff. Biden can send out other people to do that type of outreach. He doesn't need Kamala Harris except for that one rule. 51st senator making sure she never has to cast a vote. vote.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Corey, do you agree with that strategy advice for Senator, for I guess I should say former Senator Harris and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris? Not

Corey 14:54

Because the minute the Republicans figure it out, then you've no longer got a Senate majority. It's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. Hey, pop quiz hotshot. How many tie-breaking votes did Mike Pence have in his tenure?

Corey 15:05

13. How many did Joe Biden have in his tenure?

Corey 15:10

That is is correct nobody gives a shit nobody follows these things it doesn't matter remotely what matters is you actually have the votes and they now have the votes so they're going to continue to use them as they would they don't have

Carter 15:22

have the votes joe mansion you don't think joe mansion's going to be begging for all kinds of shit you don't think that west virginia is going to have highways going wherever the fuck he wants one federal infrastructure gains anytime he needs it Like at some point, you have to give Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and

Carter 15:39

and Mitt Romney the opportunity to be reasonable human beings. Mitt

Corey 15:43

Mitt Romney is not the next most left-wing member of that Senate. He just happens to hate Donald Trump because he's a somewhat principled human being. You're talking crazy here. And yeah, you're right. Manchin's going to have a ton of power. Moderates on both sides are going to have a ton of power because that's how you get to 50. But the reality is, if you're trying to get to 51 on every single vote, you're fighting with one hand tied behind your back. So she's going to have to do some tie-breaking votes here. She's going to have to bust some heads in the Senate, as she should. Good for her. Corey,

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Corey, what's the implication, if anything, for her future candidacy in 2024? No,

Corey 16:17

nobody remembers who's voting for what in a tie-breaking sense in the Senate. The assumption is if it's a Democratic proposal, the vice president's going to vote for it. They don't wear these. They don't skate on them. Joe Biden, despite having never cast a tie-breaking vote, still wore the legislative agenda of Harry Reid in the Senate. That's just how these things work. So don't worry about it and don't overthink this thing. One iota. Vote when you need to vote and consider yourself very lucky you're in the situation where you actually get to cast tiebreakers as opposed to just being steamrolled on every single one as the aforementioned soon-to-be ex-majority leader would come in and not even allow your things to get to the floor.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Carter, I'm going to give you your final shot on this too, which is implications for 24 or 28 for Kamala Harris.

Carter 17:09

Being the vice president means you're probably going to be the nominee for the presidential race in in twenty twenty eight. So, you know, and I think the speculation is, is it going to be earlier? You know, she will face off against some some spectacular challengers. But I think it's fair to say that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders aren't going to be those challengers. So it will be a markedly different field. And I think that she's going to be ridiculously strong in it unless she does some sort of major screw up, which I don't expect from her because she's in a great spot where there's not a lot of mistakes made from the vice president's office unless your name is Spiro. So there you go. Those people can look for that one. OK,

SPEAKER_00 17:52

OK, let's move it on to the coup, Corey. I'm going to have to start here with it, which is it was one of those moments. And I think we've had a bit of time to digest it. This happened on Wednesday. we are now recording on Sunday evening. There's been a ton of commentary, a ton of conversation in between then. But to you, maybe I'll start here much more higher than I would have perhaps if this was any other story. Did you kind of remember where you were when you first heard about this? Because to me, this is one of those stories, at least in my mind. And I'm curious to hear if you even agree with that analysis, where were you when you heard about this because of its novelty and weirdness and just everything about it. So I want to ask you that question. Yeah,

Corey 18:29

Yeah, I mean, I'm smiling because I was the same place I've been for the past nine fucking months. We were at home, Zane.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yes, I was at

SPEAKER_00 18:39

That was a way for me to try to unearth whether you had taken a trip to Hawaii. You passed.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Congratulations to the two of you.

Corey 18:48

No, listen, it was an incredibly – I feel like it was a – it

Corey 18:51

it had that punch. There's a recency bias, and we'll see where I feel in 10 years here. But I remember I was sitting exactly where I'm sitting right now, which is at my home office, and I was doing – it was a work day, so I was doing work, but I was keeping half an eye on the speech that Mitch McConnell was giving in the Senate where he effectively said this wasn't actually that close and Joe Biden won the election. And I don't know if that was the last speech before this all went down, or if I just hit refresh next, and I saw all of a sudden the Capitol had been stormed. But it was kind of this holy fuck moment. And then over the next, I'd say hour, as I got texts from other people who were doing work, but then kind of just being made aware of this, who texted me and said, holy fuck. And as this situation evolved, there was that same kind of 9-11 feeling of you didn't know what was fact and what was fiction. And the craziest fucking thing, almost in a reverse of 9-11. You remember on 9-11, there was all of this suggestion that there were bombs outside of these different places turned out to be fake. Here, nobody's talking about the fact there were bombs outside of all of these places that actually turned out to be real. And, you know, a woman was shot. People died.

Corey 20:05

Some of them in kind of like very strange ways. ways there's the the gentleman who tased himself there's some suggestion it was in the genitals gave himself a heart attack uh

Corey 20:14

uh but it was it was one of those things where like you just had kind of these this

Corey 20:19

this data stream coming at you you didn't know what was real you didn't know what was fake but you knew it was significant you knew every bit of it was significant and that there wasn't going to be a way to go just back to you

Corey 20:29

know you knew what you were going to be talking about for the next week you knew it was going to be the subject on the strategists on sunday because this is not something you just walk past.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Carter, same question to you. What kind of initially

SPEAKER_00 20:42

initially hit you when you saw this?

Carter 20:45

Well, I remembered back to the other times that I remembered feeling that way. For me, it was 9-11, obviously, and also the start of the Iraq War. The start of the Iraq War, I was in university. We were watching

Carter 20:56

watching it live, basically, on little TVs that were pushed out into the university that we could all watch this as it all unfolded. And that's what it felt like from the beginning. And Corey's analogy with 9-11 is really interesting because at 9-11, everybody was kind of playing up what else was happening, right?

Carter 21:16

Like the whole freaking world was ending. When you were watching network news, every rumor was reported as fact. And it greatly overestimated,

Carter 21:24

overestimated, I think that, I mean, obviously 9-11 was tragic. And I don't mean to take anything away from that, but it overestimated all

Carter 21:30

all the other things that were going on. I mean, I think the U.S. thought they were truly

Carter 21:33

truly under attack from another world power or something. It was significant.

Carter 21:39

This one, I felt like everything was under-reported, under-emphasized. I

Corey 21:43

I totally agree. It was the strangest feeling. It was like you'd hear a bunch of people died, and then you wouldn't be focusing on that for the next two hours. And,

Carter 21:50

And, you know, it just – everything came out very, very slowly. I mean, how would we have felt in the moment had we known that

Carter 21:57

that a police officer had been bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher?

Carter 22:01

How do we feel about that now that we know it, right? Like we

Carter 22:04

we were, the three of us, collectively shaken by this, you know, everything that was happening on our screens

Carter 22:12

screens and on our Twitter. And I know that it wasn't my most productive day. It was hard to watch because while I didn't expect them to take the lawmakers and turn turn them into hostages. Certainly, it becomes evident afterwards that this was far more planned than just, you know, 350 people being told by the President of the United States to march upon the Capitol. They knew what they were doing. They brought their equipment. And they did what they said they were going to do, which is try and take over the Capitol. And ideally, I mean, if they'd had their chance, they would have hung Vice President Pence, and they would have taken taken hostages from the Senate and the House. And the fact that they didn't is more good luck than good management, because Lord knows the Capitol Police and all the various police forces that should have been involved weren't there, which is maybe something you'll ask us about in a moment.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Well, you know what, Carter, you bring up a good point, because there's so many minor details related to this, everything from how did they get in, was it an inside job, the role of the Capitol Police, why were they not staffed enough once they got in, How do they know exactly where to go? The just iconic but horrifying images of some of these rioters inside the chambers, the stealing of the lectern, the Confederate flag, you know, the woman being shot, the police officers struggling to get through the reporting. I mean, there's so many elements to this. I almost want you guys to kind of guide the conversation for me, because I want to know what amongst all of this kind of led that emotional sort of holy shit for you. Or was it just the fact that all of it was compounding together? Was there something that just made you go, wow, I can't believe this is happening? And Corey, maybe I'll start with you, is what kind of stood out to you? What do you think was the most either underreported or even overreported, but just the part for you that really kind of resonated?

Corey 24:11

Well, I want to pick up on this 9-11 parallel and just take it one more round here in answering your question here. The big difference, of course, is 9-11, the United States was attacked by somebody externally, and everybody in America got on the same page. And, you know, arguably they went way too far with things like the Patriot Act and everything that followed that. But, you know, there was there was this sense of like, you know, I think George W. Bush's approval rating shot up to like 80, 90 percent. But this was different. And, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about it in a minute. But right now, like in the most recent Ipsos poll, only I think 13 percent of Republicans hold Donald Trump accountable as opposed to like huge majorities of the rest of the population. But there was a partisan divide here. And so immediately you saw a big chunk of the population downplaying, minimizing, distancing. And that to me is the thing that we need

Corey 25:05

need to talk about here.

Corey 25:07

56 officers were injured, right?

Corey 25:10

right? The so-called law and order side of this conversation, right? The people who are really mad whenever you talk about defunding the police are

Corey 25:18

are suddenly losing words when we're talking about assaulting

Corey 25:21

assaulting the police. A police officer, as Carter mentioned, was bludgeoned to death. There were five people who were killed. There were many, many more injured. And, oh, by the way, it was an attempt to overthrow a legitimate democratic process. Say what you will, who knows what, you know, there's a lot of reporting going on right now on the plans, but a lot of that reporting is being downplayed. And there's suggestions that maybe this is, you

Corey 25:45

you know, almost false flag. It's Antifa who's in there doing these things. And I think

Corey 25:50

think we need to talk about the fact that a good chunk of the United States has not come to terms with what the hell happened on Wednesday and is actively in denial about what the hell happened on Wednesday. Because as much as I would like to believe this is finally the thing that makes Americans kind of shake out of their stupor and stop supporting people like Donald Trump,

Corey 26:11

13 percent of Republicans blame him. That's it. Now, that's a smaller group, Republicans, all the time because of the great work of Donald Trump here. but that's

Corey 26:21

that's a lot of people who don't hold him accountable a lot of people and this is a guy who invited them to washington told them to march on congress quite literally did a rally beforehand quite literally did a rally beforehand and by all reporting was actually kind of a little excited and a little happy when they first stormed the building what

Corey 26:39

the fuck are we doing here the fact that uh he's not going to be impeached doesn't greatly offend me he's only there for a a few days and i think that in general you don't want to rush these processes um i do think he probably should have been removed with the 25th amendment but the what are we doing here like what are we fucking doing here that this guy continues to like the consequences are not enough given what happened here and far too many people are sitting there downplaying what happened uh you know going to the exact opposite way of what was going on at another time carter

SPEAKER_00 27:10

carter what do you want to pick up on on whether it's what Corey said with the underplaying and the downplaying of the story itself, the consequences, the fact that there's a partisan divide. What struck you, either from what Corey put

SPEAKER_00 27:22

put on the table or from your own analysis of the situation?

Carter 27:26

I want to do this in three parts. Okay. And then I'm happy to have either of you ask questions or jump in at either point. First, the

Carter 27:34

the planning. This was planned. We can't pretend that it wasn't. And even before it it happened you had rudy rudy giuliani standing up at the lectern saying that we had to do trial by combat um these guys their dog whistles aren't that dog whistly anymore uh they're straight

Corey 27:50

straight up fucking whistles they're just not dog whistles

Carter 27:53

whistles they're screaming it they're screaming it and and i couldn't help but think i just watched the chicago seven uh on netflix and i couldn't help but think you

Carter 28:01

you know if those those guys face charges let

Carter 28:04

let let us see some charges come second

Carter 28:07

second Second point, execution and defense. So the execution of the plan. Fortunately, these guys aren't great at this, but some of them were. Some of them had all their gear. Some of them had their weaponry. Some of them had the things that they needed to actually do what needed to be done. And someone made

Carter 28:26

made some really bad defense choices. The way that they tried to defend the Capitol with the barriers and the barricades up, I mean, it was laughable. I think back to the G8 that was held here in Calgary and the work that was done by our police services to keep, first of all, to keep the protesters safe, right? So forget about everybody else, but they enabled the protesters to have their own space and then kept them in that space. Why didn't that happen in this case? Why didn't they keep the protesters safe? It's not lost on me. The four of the people who died were the protesters themselves. That's a failure of our police services because that's not supposed to happen. I may not feel the same degree of empathy towards their lives, but I do value them nonetheless. And then there's the actual defense. When things start going wrong, you call in reinforcements. This is a rather standard police procedure. That's been done with the Black Lives Matter protests early, very early in the process, arguably far too early with far too much force. course um we

Carter 29:27

we have not spoken about the fact that it we don't know who ordered the national guard to actually stand down to come in to the capitol it sounds like it was vice president mike pence who exists not at all not at all on the hierarchy of this the vice presidency is one of those little offshoots that goes off to the side only the commander in chief uh the national the secretary of defense uh and perhaps maybe the secretary of homeland security could

Carter 29:52

could have had that that that potential. I guess the Secretary of the Army as well. But it sounds like it was ordered by some guy named Mike. And the problem I have with some guy named Mike making an order is that he doesn't exist. And as much as we think that the coup was the guy storming, the

Carter 30:09

the powers have to be followed in a delineated fashion. It sounds like the 25th Amendment was implemented without it actually being implemented. And then the last one is the response. My third point is the response. wants. Immediately, immediately, you saw a Republican standing up and saying his Antifa, right? Antifa, however you want to say it. It wasn't Yal-Qaeda, it wasn't vanilla ISIS, it was Antifa. I don't understand this. I don't understand how we can't look at this and say this is Yokel Haram, or this is Yehudists that are actually jumping in to try and attack and take takeover but instead it's always it's always antifa or it's blm and the only reason they couldn't go with blm is the pictures showed a bunch of white fuckheads doing this uh there was like maybe five black guys proving that stupidity is not any part of any one race this is just it was lunacy and the response to me has been as devastating as the day it's the day it happened well

Corey 31:12

it is interesting because this was their own house right and i think that was the thing that made me hope it would be different this time this was personal

Corey 31:21

personal safety that all of a sudden those republicans who were playing with fire like they got burned you know their offices got i doubt their offices got ransacked but that space you would not feel comfortable in

Corey 31:31

in that let me tell you something i uh i

Corey 31:34

i do not imagine that they are walking through those halls feeling the same sense And so I thought perhaps this will be the moment that breaks with them. But, you

Corey 31:44

you know, you still had all of those members of the House, those Republicans, casting their votes to override the election. And yeah, the Senate was a little bit more composed. But my goodness, and that was that night. And now with every day that passes and as you start seeing things like Ipsos polls that say actually Republicans are feeling OK, you're going to see that incentive yank the Republicans back. And I don't

Corey 32:11

don't know. I mean everybody is acting breathlessly about the fact that two senators have said – one has said he should be impeached and the other said probably should be, but I'm not sure this is the time for it.

Corey 32:23

government. And you've got two senators saying maybe.

Corey 32:28

That's not good enough. I mean it's just not good enough. Carter, to your point about the acting defense secretary getting

Corey 32:36

orders from Pence and then the guard being called in, I think that the line everybody has decided on is that the defense secretary consulted with Pence. Like that seems to be the story that they're telling. yeah like i'm going to consult with the what do

Carter 32:49

mean we've lost the congress i mean should we bring in the national i got these guys with guns what do you think they're prepared we had them on standby they were ready to come but we just didn't pull the trigger as it were yeah

Corey 33:02

yeah so i mean you know there's uh but you're right i mean we've got now a really strange situation where a lot of the u.s government seems to be actively avoiding

Corey 33:11

avoiding or ignoring the the the president and that is also not

Corey 33:15

not okay like you know the america is very vulnerable right now and if i'm an opponent of america i've

Corey 33:21

i've got a strategic advantage uh knowing that government is not just divided government is broken

Corey 33:26

right now government is going to be broken for the next 12 days yeah

SPEAKER_00 33:30

yeah so we have what 10 days until the 20th um right carter a question for you and thank you for putting out your context as well um question for you right now why are the republicans standing standing with their ideological sort of lane that they've picked for themselves? Why do you think they're not being more vocal now, knowing that the clock, it's up, the gig is over, like he's leaving? It's, you know, from one way, shape or form. Is it the fact that there is this rich vein of voters that they want to appeal to? Is it as Machiavellian as that? Or do you feel like it is tribal loyalty? And perhaps that's a cousin of the former. But I'm curious to get your Your read of the tea leaves as to why the calls for impeachment, the calls to distance, the calls of, you know, not being harsher with your words and downplaying or actually playing up the story to its credibility and to what it is, have not been louder by some Republicans. Well,

Carter 34:26

Well, I'm going to generalize and simplify because I think that it's easier. In general, what we've seen is two different types of Republicans step forward over the last little while. I'm going to ignore the Mitt Romneys and the Lisa Murkowskis for a moment. These are the Republicans that stood with Trump and never raised their, you know, anything, right? These are the people who fell in line. And one set is Lindsey Graham and McConnell. Those two immediately

Carter 34:52

immediately made statements kind of pulling us back a little bit, right? Right. McConnell's speech in the Senate after the initial rejection of the Arizona delegation of votes would have

Carter 35:07

have been great. You know, three years ago, he stood against Trump in the in the dying hour and he's prepared to stand against Trump because, you know, at some point McConnell

Carter 35:17

is horrible, but he doesn't want to lose his republic. I mean, he doesn't want to lose the country and Graham's in the same boat. But

Carter 35:22

then you also have Matt Gaetz out

Carter 35:25

out of Florida, the Florida congressman who believes every word. Right.

Carter 35:30

Right. He believes every single word. It's like Drew Barnes here in Alberta. Drew Barnes isn't playing at this. This is who Drew Barnes is. And there are a group of people, approximately 130 congresspeople and about six or so senators for whom this is who they are. are uh tommy tuberville is not there because he's an intellectual giant he is there because he is a trumper and uh he will be a trumper in the senate for six full years and he will continue to say these words as long as he is an elected representative of the good people of was it alabama um you know and and uh same with matt gates he's going this is who he is so let us not be surprised by the fact that the people who uh have been elected are in fact who they said they were.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Corey, same question to you. What do you kind of read as to why the response

SPEAKER_00 36:23

response has been so lukewarm at best from some Republicans?

Corey 36:27

Because it's existential for them. And they worry that if they go after Trump, what they're doing is validating all of the Democratic charges and that they will destroy the Republican Party that way, right? They feel as though they're in a rock And a hard place situation where if they if they

Corey 36:43

they turn on Trump, they are going to have, you

Corey 36:47

you know, all of America sort of realized that this was a really bad idea. And if they stay with Trump, they're going to go down with Donald Trump. And, and you're seeing now splintering within the party with them deciding different ways to go. But what's really helping them, I think, come back to this notion of we stand together or we fall together is the Democrats

Corey 37:04

Democrats really are, I think, probably trying to push the event. And I get it. Like they're furious and they have the fury you should have in this moment. But it's hard to miss that there's a calculation to their fury right now. And I do think that is ultimately probably

Corey 37:20

probably not in the interests of the republic. Well, it may be interests of the Democratic Party. And this is kind of standard counterinsurgency stuff, right? Whenever somebody – whenever there's a change in government in kind of one of those quote-unquote shithole countries that Donald Trump always talked about here, decisions have to be made. You know, there are people who are working with the previous regime, who enabled the previous regime, who stood with them. And you've got to make the decision, or is it better to destroy them and condemn them the same way the previous leader was? Or do you try to find them and bring them on side? And it's so distasteful to bring them on side. But fundamentally, you need to bring some of them on side. As much as they don't deserve it, some Republicans are going to need to be given a pass here. And I know nobody likes to hear that. And they're going to think it's putting water in the wine and fuck those guys. but you know eye for eye we all go blind you know forget that triteness this is just simple you know we've seen this story hundreds

Corey 38:12

hundreds of times across the world like you've you've just got to decide at a certain point to turn the other cheek you have to even though you don't want to and even though you shouldn't have to because otherwise this thing is going to be perpetuated forward and some shitty people are going to get a pass but the democrats have to realize that some shitty people need to get a pass if they're going to bring their country back together let's

SPEAKER_00 38:33

let's talk talk about perpetuating forward, Corey, because I'm glad you brought that up. As a sentiment to that, you know, Carter, one of the things you I think you mentioned it earlier, was some of these writers, you know, were in the Capitol, yelling to find Lindsey Graham yelling to find Mike Pence, wanting to hang these two, of course, Lindsey Graham, then further assaulted and harassed at an airport thereafter.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

This movement seems to have gotten out of hand in some ways. And I I want to kind of put your prognostication hat on a bit. What do you kind of see as the future of, if I can call it, this movement beyond, you know, January 20th? Because it seems like it's found its own legs. It has loyalties only to one individual, while it may be different streams and lanes that have effectively brought this group together. It's not like they're, you know, allies of the Republican Party, so to speak. They seem to have one guy that they, you know, kind of bow to. What scary movement.

Carter 39:32

Well, let's go all the way back because we can't forget how this was formed, right? One of the notes that I've been really interested in is people have been going all the way back to 2008 and the financial crisis of 2008. And the fact that no one really faced charges afterwards, there was no consequences to that significant financial crisis. And real people got hurt. Real Americans, real Canadians got hurt, real people around the world got hurt.

Carter 39:59

And no one paid a price. There was no consequence for it. That anger bubbled, right? Barack Obama was asked to fix it, and I think he did an admirable job, but it certainly wasn't seen by a lot of people to be enough. And then that anger found its voice in things like the wall, right? The Mexican wall or the Muslim ban, some very ugly moments in American history in 2015, 2016. 2016. And

Carter 40:29

And then the man who embodies all of that gets elected, and he doesn't really do anything. I don't think that the average person's life in the United States of America is much better than it was in 2016. So the vehicle of Trump, the vehicle of Trump may have allowed a lot of that anger to kind of come together and push forward. But it hasn't dissipated any of the anger. It's It's it's it's catalyzed the anger and it has allowed the anger voice and focus. And

Carter 41:02

the problem with anger is

Carter 41:04

is you can't really focus it sometimes. You know, like if you talk to athletes, you know, a boxer or something like that, or a wrestler, they don't get angry. They can't take that anger into the combat. They have to bring a calmness to them because the anger is so unfocused. The anger can actually wind up getting them, you know, overexposed in some way. And that's what's happened here. The anger has gone too far and it is no longer controllable. If Donald Trump was to have stood up on Wednesday and told everybody to go home, I don't think they would have.

Carter 41:37

I don't think that they would have left. I think that he as long as he continues to point the anger in the direction that the anger wants to go, he will have power. The second that he stops pointing the anger in the direction he wants it to go, his power will dissipate.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

Corey, do you agree with that? What do you kind of make of this movement and prognosticate a bit? What happens beyond January 20th with this movement?

Corey 42:01

Well, you can't negotiate away a movement. Stephen Carter is exactly right. Donald Trump may be riding it right now. He may even see it as his movement, but you've even seen when he made the statements that he did, you had a number of people condemn him for it from his base and a number of others who immediately said it was a deepfake, right? Because they just couldn't countenance that. But the reality is he was not in the driver's seat in those conversations. Those conversations were happening where they were happening. And, yeah, I mean, you can pull this thread back much further than 2008. How did we get to 2008? Well, it was the deregulation in the 90s. How did we get to that? Well, that was, you know, an effect of the 80s, you know, and the Reagan booms. How did we get to that? Mass

Carter 42:40

Mass incarceration. I mean, we can't forget mass incarceration, right? You

Corey 42:44

You know, like I think there's a lot of blame to go around here. I think most of it, you know, I tend to blame the people who are most proximal and most directly involved, and I blame the Republicans. Let's be very clear on that here. And Carter raises an interesting kind of corollary with like the 2008 and the financial crisis here. Because what happened with the financial crisis is they, you know, ultimately the government came in in such a big way because, in my opinion, they absolutely had to to keep the economy from collapsing because

Corey 43:14

because real people were going to get hurt. but

Corey 43:16

but it for sure creates a moral hazard right you know a moral hazard is this idea that you're going to act in a way that

Corey 43:23

that is you know that is different and usually bad because you feel protected from it right and so yeah

Corey 43:29

yeah i mean you can't allow those to happen and that's been a lot of the debate in the finance circle since you should have just let some of these people fail blah blah blah easy to say outside of that moment it's

Corey 43:39

it's very similar debates right now when we talk about going forward and with Trump, like some people have to be held to account. Otherwise, you're creating this moral hazard, people can start a coup and just sort of walk away.

Corey 43:49

And yeah, I mean, it's, it's not a binary, in my opinion, somebody does have to pay a price, but you can't have everybody pay a price. So as this movement continues to live, past the 20th of January, as it takes on new leaders, what are you going to do? What are you going to do to stomp it down?

Corey 44:07

But not in such a way that that it just begets the next movement because

Corey 44:11

because that's got to be the concern right now is

Corey 44:14

is that this is just a prelude to something even bigger stupider and more dangerous than we've had to deal with carter

SPEAKER_00 44:19

carter finishes off here well

Carter 44:20

well i think that we're in a really difficult position and really dangerous position because you know if we learn from history then what history tells us is that the people who cause the the crises need to be punished in some fashion so does that mean we take president trump and punish him in some fashion what happens do we persecute him do we Do we persecute, you know, senior cabinet ministers? Do we persecute senior government officials? That

Carter 44:45

That type of behavior could create a much worse crisis. But so could letting them off. Well, you know, President Biden is in a very, very difficult position. And, you know, he's just named his attorney general, Merrick Garland. You know, that to me is going to be an impossible job for the next two years is because crimes have been committed. Crimes have been committed for sure. We saw Rudy Giuliani. Rudy

Carter 45:14

Rudy Giuliani incited that crowd. He incited a riot, and he should be prosecuted.

Carter 45:21

But what happens then?

Carter 45:23

What happens then? Because these things, there's

Carter 45:27

there's always an unintended consequence. Is the unintended consequence greater for the action, or is it greater for the inaction?

Carter 45:36

And I think that the great minds around these microphones tonight, we

Carter 45:40

we don't have the answer. It is far too complex, and we'll just have to watch as it unfolds in time.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

We're going to leave that segment there and move it on to our next segment. It's an oldie but a goodie. Fine, fabulous, or fucked. Guys,

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Guys, there's so much else to cover, both in the United States and here in Canada, so we're going to pick up the pace a bit. If you're new to the show, here's what happens. I'm going to list an item that has happened in the news. I'm going to go both to Corey and Stephen. They're going to tell me if it's fine, fabulous, or fucked. And there's no better way to explain it than to just get started. And, Corey, I'm going to start with you. You talked about some of the new leaders that might take on a movement like this. Well, one of them that was certainly angling for it was Josh Hawley, the U.S. senator. Now, he had his book deal with Simon & Schuster canceled for his efforts to overturn the presidential election. If you're Josh Hawley, is this fine? Is this fabulous? Or is this fucked?

Corey 46:34

This is fabulous. If you are looking to make yourself a martyr and become the new leader of this movement, you've just been handed something much better than a book deal. Now, that

Corey 46:44

that doesn't mean that this was the wrong decision by the publisher because ultimately I don't know if you necessarily want to be platforming a guy who attempted to overthrow an elected official. official but um but he's he's very clearly decided that he's going to lie down uh with these dogs and he will get fleas but in the meantime there's nothing that will make him more of a martyr to this movement than to be essentially given this scarlet letter by the mainstream media and and you know mainstream publishers carter

SPEAKER_00 47:18

carter same question republican senator josh hawley uh book deal canceled by simon and schuster fine fabulous or fucked if you are him uh

Carter 47:24

uh he is fucked He's going to be signing copies of his self-published memoirs at a table

Carter 47:31

table that he sets up in garage sales and flea markets across the country. I think that he's – first of all, I think that if he was really – he doesn't look like the movement is his problem. So he's going to try and get people to follow him, but he's not the brand. Did you see his little fist salute and his skinny suit and with his tight button – his button done up? I mean, this guy is not going to play well with the Talabundi, right? Like, it's not going to go very well.

Corey 48:01

It makes much more sense that a billionaire from New York is the guy who's going to really, you know,

Carter 48:07

know, resonate with— They love the billionaire because of his hair.

Carter 48:09

I'm just throwing that out there.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

Carter, I'm going to stick with you on this. Let's move very quickly on to the next one. Twitter, deplatforming Trump. If you are Twitter, is this fine, fabulous, or fucked?

Carter 48:23

Oh, it's fucked for Twitter. I mean, but they had no choice. They have to make they have they had to make a decision about whether or not they were going to allow their platform to become a vehicle for right supremacists and and for sedation or sedition. Sedation also, when I'm reading it,

Carter 48:45

know, this is they had to make a decision, but it's not a good decision. In a perfect world, everybody's on their platform and they don't have to worry about freedom of speech because freedom of speech regulates itself in these people's minds. Of course, it doesn't. But we come from Canada where regulated free speech is our norm. But in the United States, it's not. And it's going to be very difficult for that platform to come back.

SPEAKER_00 49:08

Corey, fine, fabulous or fucked if you are Twitter for deplatforming Donald Trump. It's

Corey 49:12

It's fine. I can't say it's fabulous and I can't say it's fucked. They obviously wanted to do this for some time. They obviously felt they couldn't. And this was the opportunity. I mean, this was such a shocking moment to call it an opportunity and suggest they were being opportunistic is maybe not giving them enough credit. But this was, I think, where they said, OK, we don't need to stand with this guy anymore. They obviously weren't. they were going to do this on january 20th or shortly thereafter is my opinion but they saw like okay we can't we've got to we got to go now this is getting crazy and in fact he got his temporary ban and he had to delete a few tweets

Corey 49:45

tweets and come back and then he made two tweets that were arguably read on their own fine but what twitter said and i think twitter is a hundred percent correct is we're looking at the context around here too and this could destabilize the situation further because he was saying like you will not essentially disrespect these 75 million people or whatever it was and so they dropped them so i mean good for them in that sense um it

Corey 50:10

it will obviously have some business challenges but they have you know maybe it's not even a lucky break uh but their

Corey 50:17

their biggest risk was from an alternative like parlor parlor

Corey 50:21

parlor ain't gonna be online as a they might not be online now you know and it's you know once the intensity passes here there'll always be a new thing in social media but are we still online like

Carter 50:31

like are we still available people can still download this wherever they get podcasts i

Carter 50:36

mean do we even know

Corey 50:38

we have not i mean we have not been deplatformed yet okay

Carter 50:41

okay i wanted to check

SPEAKER_00 50:41

check no yeah and let's just be clear we we collectively

SPEAKER_00 50:44

have not been deplatformed

SPEAKER_00 50:46

we're not we're not making individual strands here because that'd be an entirely different story cory i know you're middle of the answer but i i think i got the gist of it and i'm gonna listen no no no see what i

Corey 50:56

whenever you ask us to be short with our answers i feel almost like i am compelled then to go long for. How

SPEAKER_00 51:01

How about I do some good transition material? Parler may not as of midnight tonight may not have a web server to keep them alive. They of course have the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store rejecting their app to be downloaded even further for them. You know, it's there seemed to be some heat that they would actually gain some popularity on the heels of Twitter banning Trump, but literally quite literally on the heels of that happening, being dropped by by Apple and Google for them this reality fine fabulous or fucked they're

Corey 51:32

they're fucked this is this is um you know they had such an opportunity here people would be coming in now they can't download the app now

Corey 51:39

now they can't even go to the web application because guess what that is now not going to be hosted and it's going to take them a week maybe two weeks to get back online people need to appreciate that when you have all of your hosting on a system like aws it's not turnkey to just move to a different system you've probably built it with some of that functionality in mind and um yeah

Corey 52:00

yeah i mean they're they're gonna miss the opportunity and what's gonna happen is this right-wing audience who are rage quitting twitter are going to be split in a dozen different directions they'll realize all of these individual forums on 8chan or whatever fucking suck they're gonna come back to twitter and and they're gonna be real quiet about it you could probably go through a list of people who said they quit twitter and i would bet that of the prominent ones

Corey 52:25

50% or more will be tweeting again within two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Carter, it seems like fucked is the obvious answer for Parler, but I'm curious to get your take. Fine, fabulous, or fucked for them?

Carter 52:35

I think they're fucked. I mean, losing your hosting services is a big deal. But I don't know. So, Corey, clarify this for me. They are no longer able to be downloaded from Google Play or from Apple Apps, whatever the hell it is now. Now, would my Parler app still work on my iPhone?

Corey 52:57

Yeah, it should. I don't think that they're generally in the habit of yanking it off of a computer. But the thing is, next

Corey 53:04

next time you update your phone, it's gone. Yeah, so it's moderately fine. It can't be updated anymore. But, Corey,

SPEAKER_00 53:11

doesn't the AWS situation just override everything, which means that even the mobile app would have no hosting service? Oh, absolutely. And these two

Corey 53:18

two actually may be combined. it really depends on how they coded the app not to get big here for a minute but if if

Corey 53:24

if they're you know if their servers if they were dumb enough to say hard code pointing towards aws's servers which doesn't actually make any sense as i say it for a bunch of reasons but like you know they might need to push an update to the app they might not be able to push an update to the app you know going off aws may force changes to the application which they can no longer push i guess is what i'm saying okay

SPEAKER_00 53:45

okay well that was that was a lesson for all of us carter why do you ask ask questions why why do you ask questions i just i wanted

Carter 53:52

to know more i'm

Carter 53:54

i'm moving to canada i'm staying

SPEAKER_00 53:55

staying here i'm moving to canada we've talked a lot about the u.s uh amid uh vaccine criticism here in canada for our slow rollout uh the trudeau government is saying that canada doesn't need to approve other vaccines to meet our goal and committing to a september goal to getting canadians started uh to getting canadians vaccinated uh from what you see right there the The Trudeau government, fine, fabulous, or fucked based on what you heard there?

Carter 54:18

I think they're fine. I would like to see them, of course, any more vaccines that come online, I'd like them to approve, and I'd like them to be buying them. We've committed to, what is it, eight or nine vaccines per Canadian. Let's get as many in as quickly as possible. While I'm very pleased that by the end of the summer, every Canadian who wishes to be vaccinated will be vaccinated, And I'd be fine if it was by the end of April. I see no reason to delay, especially with these new variants that are coming on that seem to spread much faster, have a much higher R rate, R-naught, which is something that we never knew how to use in a sentence before. This is a scary situation. And frankly, I'd like to get out of my house and even see you two. So it's a dream. It's a dream. So I think they're fine.

SPEAKER_00 55:14

Corey, same question to you. Amid the criticisms for the vaccine, they're saying we don't need to approve another vaccine to meet our September goal. They're putting out that September goal again. Fine, fabulous, or fucks from what you see?

Corey 55:25

a political strategy point of view, it's fabulous because they obviously feel that's an expectation that they can manage and push forward. And now any vaccines that come online are just going to move us closer to that April brunch with Stephen Carter that we now have to subject ourselves to, apparently, when we're vaccinated.

SPEAKER_00 55:42

Trust me, it's not something I look forward to. It's

Carter 55:45

It's really upsetting. I'm sitting right here still.

Corey 55:51

That's good news. And given how we've had a bit of a rocky start to vaccines, the fact that they are not letting that slide, but they're actually confidently saying, yeah, even if nothing else happened, we'd be able to do it, I think should, well, it gives me some hope.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

We're going to stick here, but we're going to also stick on the federal scene. Let's move to Aaron O'Toole. So, Conservative Party leader Aaron O'Toole tweeted earlier this week, quote, no one, no, not one, I'm sorry, not one criminal should be vaccinated ahead of any vulnerable Canadian or frontline health care worker. Corey, I'm going to stick with you on this. O'Toole's comments, are they fine? Are they fabulous? Or are they fucked? The

Corey 56:30

is fucked. It is fucked for reasons I will get into. The politics of it is fine. I think that's actually unfortunately a sentiment many Canadians would agree with, especially the way that O'Toole very weasely, you'll note, combined vulnerable populations and healthcare workers together. They should be ahead of prisoners, right? Because, of course, people in prisons can be vulnerable populations. But by creating this kind of superset over here and saying they've got to be first, you've given yourself this weasely who can object. Of course, healthcare workers should be first. It's fucked. Listen, we abolished

Corey 57:07

abolished the death penalty in the 70s in this country. Going to prison should not be a death sentence. If you are a vulnerable member of a prison population, you should not die just because you happen to be incarcerated for perhaps a very minor crime. And these actual – the situation, the prison is a bit of a petri dish. We all know this. We know that things are more likely to travel around a prison and that means that they are going to be more vulnerable almost by default. fault and let's not forget people work in prisons you know the ratio of guards to inmates is actually pretty significant and you are putting them at risk too and they are on the front lines they are you know correctional officers who are who are putting their lives on the line daily especially in some of these max security places right and now you're saying fuck you go get the coronavirus right i mean it's such a shitty shitty thing to do uh it's a shitty thing to do as a human being uh you know how we treat uh the least advantaged of us and the worst of us is is how we should be defined as a society it makes me beyond mad um but tragically i think the politics of it will play just fine carter

SPEAKER_00 58:13

carter same question to you the the o'toole tweet fine fabulous or fucked

Carter 58:17

i think it's i mean it it's

Carter 58:19

it's fucked on its face because of the uh uh the

Carter 58:23

the the all the reasons that cory said i just think that the the the

Carter 58:29

problem with it is that it will play with an audience, right? Because you get to say, yeah, that's just terrible. How dare they? How dare they? You know, all the reasons that Corey expressed, not the least of which is that we don't sentence prisoners to death in our society. And you should be taking care of others. You know, should they be lining up before long

Carter 58:51

long-term care workers? You know, we're seeing the long-term care workers and healthcare workers get vaccinated in a quick way. But let us not forget that we have They have aging prisoners as well. And those prisoners, those convicts, you know, those criminals, they deserve care as well. I mean, would we withhold AIDS medications? Would we withhold cancer medications? Like, fuck off at the end of the day is the response. But I think, sadly, the announcement itself will be fine, because an audience that he wants to speak to will listen.

Corey 59:25

No, worse than that, I think it wanted to bait the very response that we've just given here, right? Because people will say, yeah, but they're criminals. Screw them. Fuck them, right? And you are going to have all of a sudden the Trudeau liberals defending what is both humanitarian, defensible, and by the way, a very Christian thing to do, you know, religious right. But what you're going to see is just kind of this knee-jerk, screw them, they're criminals reaction to it. And I think that's really unfortunate.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

We'll go from Canada back to the USA. Carter, I'm going to stick with you on the Nancy Pelosi strategy. She's saying the House will impeach Trump unless the VP forces an ouster of some kind, which more specifically means unless Pence invokes the 25th. Carter, what do you make of that political strategy by Pelosi? Fine, fabulous or fucked? It's

Carter 1:00:14

You know, I mean, go ahead.

Carter 1:00:16

Pass your articles of impeachment. The first president to be impeached twice. Fun. Great times. Won't go anywhere in the Senate. And it's not putting Pence in a position where he has to use the 25th. So, you know, whatever. I mean, again, the same reason that O'Toole found his statement found an audience. So will this. It'll find an audience and that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:41

Corey, same question to you. The Pelosi strategy, fine, fabulous, or fucked?

Corey 1:00:45

I think it's fucked if it ends up just being a party line vote, because all it's going to do is force people back to their corners, and you're going to have Republicans who are feeling squeamish about Donald Trump all of a sudden deciding they have to defend him. So if Pelosi has a way to pull this off where she gets roughly the same number of Republican votes to vote to impeach that she had saying that this election needs to go forward, okay, that's fine. Fine. Sorry, I should say that confirming of the count of the Electoral College. But if it ends up being all the Dems on one side, all of the Republicans on the other side, this is just this is not going to help this situation one bit. And yeah, Donald Trump will then be the guy who was impeached twice. So fucking what? What does that matter? Who cares? That's embarrassing for him. Does that make America better off in any way, shape or form in 10 days? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

I'm going to go from the U.S. to here in Alberta to our home province. In a recently released article, there was a quote from the Speaker of the House, Nathan Cooper, where he wrote in a private email to a constituent that his government's handling of the international travel scandal is a, quote, great embarrassment to the government, quote, unquote, right there. Corey, I'm going to stick with you on this. uh for jason kenney is this fine fabulous or fox to have your speaker member of your is technically i don't know if he's a member of the caucus is that i don't know how that works no not a caucus member but member of the party speaker of the house uh saying quote unquote uh the international travel scandal is a great embarrassment to the government fine fabulous or fucked that

Corey 1:02:15

that so many of my colleagues chose otherwise should be of great embarrassment to the government especially premier chase and kenny who chose not to sanction these senior officials and staff members until he was prompted to do so by widespread public outrage the hypocrisy of this scandal has clearly undermined this government's moral authority that

Corey 1:02:32

that is fucked that is fucked that is really damning and that's coming from the speaker of that of the house that's really really problematic and and it is apparently just a bit of a taste of the kind of emails that are going out from mlas all over the place here um i

Corey 1:02:48

i don't know what the pre the premier can't sanction the speaker i mean that's one of the fun things about being the speaker uh but zane what that tells us is that when you are kind of free from the threat of those sanctions this is your feeling and that should tell you a lot about what's going on in the ucp caucus right now carter

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

cory says fuck do you agree with them oh yeah and

Carter 1:03:08

and and this is just the stuff that's coming out that's public the the stuff that's going around you know the emails the the calls the the text messages um This is bad. We knew it was bad when we when we did our our two podcast back to back episode special. Make sure you download and listen. Subscribe if you haven't already subscribed. We knew it was bad then. And it's bad. It's it's it's I think it's even worse now. It's it's not going away. And the premier's efforts have done nothing to minimize this impact.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:42

carter i'm going to stick here with alberta i'm going to stick with you a new poll coming out a main street poll so for those listeners of the show and for us we know what that means but saying that the ucp is down now it says they're down 17 points um to the ndp in this poll with a significant chunk of undecided and a growing uh number of people i assume parking their vote with a wildrose independent party um carter question for you reading this poll right If you're Jason Kenney, you're probably taking with a grain of salt from at least a perspective of the pollster's track record in some ways, and I think for some context in terms of what we've experienced here in Alberta back in 2017. But if you're Jason Kenney right now, you read this poll. Is it fine? It's clearly not fabulous. Is it fucked? How concerned are you?

Carter 1:04:29

Well, he's not worried about this poll. He's

Carter 1:04:30

He's not worried at all about this poll. He's worried about the poll he's got in his hands that he commissioned that he's looking at right now going, oh, fuck, we are in deep crap. And it doesn't matter if it's one of those, you know, we did a special episode on a poll that was received by Albertans, one of the fine Albertans sitting across the way here from me.

Carter 1:04:53

This this the polls may, you know, even if it's just a government Alberta poll, that's one of the ones that's been put out into the field, just checking the general direction of the province he's seeing these numbers and these numbers are going they don't need to be about the horse race the horse race of who are you going to vote for in the next election is really irrelevant are

Carter 1:05:13

are we going in the right direction do you have confidence in this government the answer is no and a large number of people who used to vote UCP aren't planning to vote UCP in the future that is a significant shift and as soon as you break that bond because the number number one predictor of how you're going to vote in the next election is usually who you voted for in the last election. So as soon as you break that bond, it's gone. And the bond is broken.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:39

Corey, I'm gonna ask you the same question. If you're a Kenny reading this poll, or to Carter's point, reading a internal poll you've commissioned. Fine. Clearly not fabulous. Fucked.

Corey 1:05:49

Fucked. And I disagree with Carter. I think he's more worried about a public poll than he is a private poll. Zane, you've got a bit of an axe to grind and fair enough with Main Street because Because of the Calgary mayoral where the numbers suggested the right-wing candidate was doing –

Corey 1:06:03

listen, but it's important to put this on the table because what happened in that situation is they overestimated right-wing support. And now we have a poll that's come out from Main Street that has the NDP at 48% and the UCP in the 30s. That's really, really bad. And the reason why like a public poll is going to cause more heartburn than a private poll in these contexts is that there is a kind of a, you know, jump on the bandwagon phenomenon. Everybody loves a winner phenomenon. Call it what you will. But it essentially gives agency to people who are aware of the poll to

Corey 1:06:36

to be like, oh, actually, it turns out it's

Corey 1:06:38

it's fine. The NDP are fine. We all hate the UCP. I guess we all understand that now. Right, guys? And it changes the narrative pretty dramatically. And when you start seeing numbers as low as what you're seeing in polls like that, people start creating new, you know, back histories. They'll start saying things like, oh, the UCP lied to us or the UCP wasn't honest about this. And sooner or later, people start talking about the accidental UCP government. And they create this revisionist history where, you

Corey 1:07:05

know, they were led astray.

Corey 1:07:07

Jason Kenney misled them about, you know, Rachel Notley and she's actually fine. And this is the stuff that gets really problematic when you start seeing public polls like that, because it creates public

Corey 1:07:18

public license for this runaway effect to continue. And when your approval rating as a premier starts hitting the basement, there's no coming back from it. And that's got to worry everybody involved. So I think what Jason Kenney is probably doing, if I'm Jason Kenney, is scrambling to find another public poll that does not tell nearly as bad of a story to come out and bigfoot this poll because

Corey 1:07:42

because he's had a bunch of bad polls now. Good

SPEAKER_00 1:07:43

Good luck. Yeah, this is – and I'm glad you put that out there. Yes, I do have an extra grand a bit. But this is one in a series. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:51

Yeah, I forgive very easily. I think the words

Carter 1:07:53

words you use are, fuck you, you fucking fuckers.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:57

uh but you are right that this is a series of polls uh twitter user checker baker wants me to go deep dive on this and talk to you guys about what this means for for kenny what you'd advise him over two years i'm not going to do that today because i want to actually hold on to that notion and perhaps even do like a special segment of knowing this series of bad polls what your advice would be if you were stepping into that premier's office uh you know fresh in 2021 but We'll park that for today, but we'll stick in Alberta. Corey, I'm going to stick with you. Devin Dreeshan, Minister of the Crown here in Alberta, blocking anyone on Twitter for posting a picture of him wearing a MAGA hat. Fine, fabulous, or fucked?

Corey 1:08:38

It's fine. A lot of it has to do with how Twitter works. If somebody replies to your comments and you block them, those replies are not going to show up when other people go to the comments. And that's, I mean, it's as simple and technical as that. people can get righteous about it. And obviously, it's not a good look for politicians to start blocking people left, right and center. But the reason they're doing it is to try to control the narrative on what they see as owned content on social media.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:03

Carter, same question. Do you find fabulous or fucked with the activities of the minister?

Carter 1:09:07

I think it's fine. I mean, people often view Twitter as the only way that they can contact an elected representative. They can write a letter, they can make a telephone call. Twitter is just but one means So being blocked on Twitter does not remove your right of free speech or some sort of unfettered access to abuse your elected politicians. And abuse is in the eye of the beholder.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:32

We're going to end with two more. Carter, I'm going to stick with you on this one. Let's move to Ottawa and let's talk about the Liberals. They're weighing their options about whether to list the Proud Boys as a terrorist, officially as a terrorist organization and terrorist group. What do you think of this? The NDP have called for this on the federal level. the liberals are now weighing it. If they were to, fine, fabulous, or fucked from the political side of things?

Carter 1:09:53

It's just another white supremacy group for me. I think that they have to do it. And this is the business of being in government. I don't think it's fabulous. I prefer that there not be any white supremacist groups. But this is who we are, sadly, as a nation. And it's absolutely fine for me that they find themselves in a precarious situation.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:14

Corey, same question to you. The liberals weighing whether to put Proud Boys on a terrorist group marking them in as an official terrorist group fine fabulous or fucked in your mind

Corey 1:10:23

it's fine um i

Corey 1:10:25

think in general i i'm not wild about people politicizing this but the proud boys have sure fucking owned this label haven't they yep

SPEAKER_00 1:10:33

we're gonna we're gonna move it on to our last question and this one i want to focus on the politics rather than the public health because i do want to talk about pandemic politics quebec leading the way uh

SPEAKER_00 1:10:41

uh as the first province to to issue a curfew. Their 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew is now in place in Quebec, and it will be for the next month. It's been something that Doug Ford has been thinking about as well in Ontario. But the politics of it, as you see them in Quebec, I should say, Corey, fine, fabulous, or fucked if you are the Quebec government.

Corey 1:11:04

I don't know. I mean, it

Corey 1:11:07

it feels so outside of the character of Montreal, at the very least, I don't have a lot of familiarity outside of Quebec, but you know, it's got to be done. There's a pandemic going on here. And we can forget that because there's attempted coups and, you know, Senate races and polls with low approval ratings and all of that. And we can talk about these things. But the reality is, the United States, Canada, we're seeing record numbers right now. And we are seeing ICU creeping up. So let's call it necessary, necessary zane um it kind of transcends your your uh your scale well

SPEAKER_00 1:11:43

well look at that the righteous cory hogan strikes at the at the last question carter are you going to play the same note for me i

Carter 1:11:49

i haven't seen any i mean i went to the grocery store after eight o'clock last night i mean does that count like uh where are we going um we're all basically locked down anyways so uh anything that needs to be put in place to make the lockdown stick and the cases numbers go down is absolutely fine by me. Fabulous by me would be that everybody's immunized and we can get back to real life. But this is fine. My message to provincial governments, do what you need to do to get us to the place where we can go back to work safely and have our real lives back.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:26

We're going to leave that segment there and move it on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, are you ready? I'm

Carter 1:12:32

I'm always ready. I love the lightning.

Carter 1:13:02

I would say that this is a 3.0. I think that when Mitch McConnell votes for him, that will be a 4.0 troll. That will be the troll that I'm looking for. Mitch McConnell will vote for him in his confirmation hearing. Write it down. I predicted it here first.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:22

Corey, same question to you. The 1 to 10 troll meter for Joe Biden picking Merrick Garland to be the next Attorney General of the United States.

Corey 1:13:29

I'm just not that impressed. Come on. There's other names out there. Oh,

Corey 1:13:32

Oh, for God's sake. I give it a two.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:34

You're the worst. Come on, Corey. He's in a mood now. He's just in a mood. Well,

SPEAKER_00 1:13:40

Corey, let me stick with you and ask you this. Yes or no? Simple question. Hopefully you can answer it. I'm sure you'll probably tack on some qualifiers to it. Has Jason Kenney put Aloha Gate behind him with his actions last week and with the trickle or lack of trickle of responses this week? What do you think?

Corey 1:13:59

Well, no. Given the fact that we're talking about the speaker sending the letter out that he did, this is going to now spur a whole other line of everybody digging into all of that correspondence between MLAs and constituents, people reaching out to them, news organizations asking for comment. We've just found what the next round is here. And as long as that's going on, actually, I would say that round, talking to caucus members, greatly increases the risk of something coming out that says Jason Kenney knew about something ahead of time. Which could,

SPEAKER_00 1:14:28

could, to your point, kind of spur up the first round of the story.

Corey 1:14:31

Absolutely. Decidedly, we are not done with this one yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:34

Carter, has he put it behind him, yes or no?

Carter 1:14:44

don't know. I just like to be

Carter 1:14:47

Every once in a while, I just want to answer your questions with a simple yes or no, and

Carter 1:14:53

almost choose a random. them.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:56

Let's talk about another poll. Let's talk about Alberta. Another poll came out earlier this week that said the Alberta government lacks rest amongst provinces for public perception on the pandemic response. How much of a political concern is this to Jason Kenney? I mean, compounded with all of the other things he's dealing with Stephen Carter over under on six for this. I think

Carter 1:15:15

think it's under I think that the the everything

Carter 1:15:18

everything is going to be measured in new terms soon. And And to Corey's point from a couple of podcasts ago, the bureaucracy is kicking in. We are starting to see people do what they are supposed to do. People are getting vaccinated. I'd like it still to be faster. But, you know, climbing at five, seven, eight thousand people a day, we're seeing bigger and bigger numbers. That's how he's going to be graded in the future here.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:47

Corey, same question to you. The public opinion poll over under on six.

Corey 1:15:53

under there are different measurements of the same thing jason kenney is an unpopular spot right now and you are seeing that in horse race numbers you are seeing that it you could ask how jason kenney's doing on visiting his mother on the weekends and you would get a number in the 20s right now people are pissed off and and that tends to just lead into polling of all sorts as soon as you get into a situation like this so i wouldn't stress this one any more than i would would stress the others, but I would stress the others a fair bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:20

And we're going to ask the last question, Corey, I'm going to stick with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:23

Yes or no. Does Donald Trump get impeached prior to the 20th?

Corey 1:16:30

I say yes, it does feel like even tonight, we're seeing a bit of a runaway on that. But I will also just put an addendum here that will hurt him less than the fact that this This evening, the PGA Board of America, you know, the golfers decided to pull away the 2022 PGA Championship from Trump Bedminster. So that's

SPEAKER_00 1:16:51

that's serious stuff. Carter, yes or no?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:54

I asked Corey first for a reason. Yes or no, though? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:58

Yes. Donald Trump. He's going to get impeached.

Corey 1:17:02

Zane, I would like to change my answer.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:06

That is it. We'll leave it there. That's episode 907 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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