Bruce Anderson

I don't think it lands with Canadians.

I don't think they believe that that's what's going on.

I'll kind of finish on what I do think is that...

I think Trump, I think it was Thomas Friedman in The Times this morning, wrote that he doesn't have the cards that he used to have.

You know, Trump likes using this metaphor of who has cards at the poker table.

Trump has fewer and fewer cards.

This situation in Iran is eroding his already extremely fragile economy.

public opinion support.

I saw one Ipsos study this week that pegged his favorability at 34%, which is a horrifying number if you're trying to raise money for a Republican race in the fall.

There's no evidence that Iran needs to capitulate anytime soon.

Trump just keeps on pumping out these social media posts, which seem increasingly unhinged and a bit irrational and certainly disconnected from...

the price of gasoline and the cost of living for Americans.

So for Canada to be able to say, we've tabled proposals, we'll go back to the table when they're ready to come back to the table and have a conversation about a comprehensive Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, but we're not going to go back to the table to talk about one thing or another thing that might be of interest to the Americans.

For the average Canadian voter who's following this, that sounds like an eminently reasonable position.

The Conservatives haven't figured out that the best place for them to be right now is to hold their tongues or say that is an eminently reasonable position and we stand behind it.

Yeah, if we try, I agree with that.

I think if we try to imagine the Americans, you know, Republican HQ kind of thinking this through in terms of their political situation, they...

And you say, well, let's imagine that there are two broad theoretical choices.

One is to start, again, pounding on Canada as a kind of recalcitrant, bad neighbor, bad friend, leeching off the American economy.

Let's describe that as kind of door number one.