1 00:00:04,200 --> 00:00:07,200 Speaker 1: Well, let's continue the conversation as our next guest has 2 00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:10,520 Speaker 1: written and spoken out against the Trump tariffs. For over 3 00:00:10,560 --> 00:00:13,760 Speaker 1: ten years, Steven Smith ran Republican campaigns and war rooms, 4 00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:17,000 Speaker 1: including those for George W. Bush and John McCain's presidential bids. 5 00:00:17,239 --> 00:00:20,080 Speaker 1: He has since left the Republican Party and has founded 6 00:00:20,120 --> 00:00:23,440 Speaker 1: a sub stack called The Warning with Steve Schmidt. Steve Smith, 7 00:00:23,440 --> 00:00:24,320 Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. 8 00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:27,400 Speaker 2: My pleasure, happy to be with you. 9 00:00:27,800 --> 00:00:30,520 Speaker 1: So as I said, you have written and essentially come 10 00:00:30,560 --> 00:00:34,239 Speaker 1: to Canada's defense by criticizing Trump's languaging around making this 11 00:00:34,280 --> 00:00:37,360 Speaker 1: country the fifty first state. Why did you decide to 12 00:00:37,400 --> 00:00:37,760 Speaker 1: do that? 13 00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:45,559 Speaker 2: It's a moral outrage and every American should feel outraged 14 00:00:45,680 --> 00:00:51,600 Speaker 2: by it. Canada is a charter member of the nations 15 00:00:51,680 --> 00:00:56,840 Speaker 2: that rebuilt the world from the ashes. Canadian boys landed 16 00:00:56,880 --> 00:01:00,960 Speaker 2: on Juno Beach next to American and Britain and French 17 00:01:01,040 --> 00:01:05,959 Speaker 2: and Poles and Dutch and all of the members of 18 00:01:06,040 --> 00:01:12,320 Speaker 2: the United Nations that together came to a redwood grove 19 00:01:12,720 --> 00:01:18,240 Speaker 2: in Mere Woods outside of San Francisco to remember the 20 00:01:18,319 --> 00:01:24,280 Speaker 2: life of Franklin Roosevelt, and the plaque there commemorates in 21 00:01:24,440 --> 00:01:28,160 Speaker 2: his life a behalf of the United Nations that he 22 00:01:28,319 --> 00:01:33,840 Speaker 2: founded as an apostle of peace. Roosevelt and Mackenzie King, 23 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:38,399 Speaker 2: the Canadian Prime Minister, late at night in the nineteen 24 00:01:38,560 --> 00:01:42,920 Speaker 2: forty four nineteen forty five timeframe, are imagining the world 25 00:01:43,040 --> 00:01:47,919 Speaker 2: to be, and Roosevelt says to him that he hopes 26 00:01:47,960 --> 00:01:51,600 Speaker 2: it will endure for as long as everybody who is 27 00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:55,760 Speaker 2: alive on the day the war is one is still alive. 28 00:01:56,360 --> 00:02:00,280 Speaker 2: The youngest of those people are eighty years old. Donald 29 00:02:00,320 --> 00:02:05,560 Speaker 2: Trump is smashing is the Atlantic Charter, is the agreements 30 00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:11,760 Speaker 2: in Quebec, in Tehran and Yalta that laid the foundation 31 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:15,680 Speaker 2: for the greatest period of prosperity in world history. And 32 00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:19,560 Speaker 2: as an American, one of the great blessings we have 33 00:02:20,520 --> 00:02:23,920 Speaker 2: is the great nation to our north that we are 34 00:02:23,919 --> 00:02:30,600 Speaker 2: intertwined with by family, connection, by blood, connection by sacrifice. 35 00:02:30,760 --> 00:02:36,800 Speaker 2: And Canada, the oldest bilingual democracy in the world, the 36 00:02:36,960 --> 00:02:40,240 Speaker 2: second largest land mass in the world, is a great 37 00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:44,680 Speaker 2: force for good. And America is blessed to share the 38 00:02:44,760 --> 00:02:49,960 Speaker 2: longest undefended boundary in world history with Canada. And the 39 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:53,680 Speaker 2: American people and American presidents all throughout our history have 40 00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:58,120 Speaker 2: recognized this relationship and its dignity, and there are a 41 00:02:58,160 --> 00:03:01,480 Speaker 2: lot of American to ours out raged as Canadians are 42 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:03,680 Speaker 2: about the attack upon it. 43 00:03:04,480 --> 00:03:07,680 Speaker 1: Why do you think Donald Trump is so obsessed with 44 00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:11,800 Speaker 1: Canada and this languaging of aneking our country is Is 45 00:03:11,840 --> 00:03:14,520 Speaker 1: there actually something he wants out of Canada or is 46 00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:18,240 Speaker 1: this political distraction for what's going on in the United States. 47 00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:22,799 Speaker 2: I think Donald Trump's threat should be taken very seriously. 48 00:03:23,320 --> 00:03:27,160 Speaker 2: He waited for two hours on a phone for Vladimir 49 00:03:27,240 --> 00:03:30,880 Speaker 2: Putin to pick up. I can't explain to you what 50 00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:35,120 Speaker 2: his fetish is, what it may be. I just know 51 00:03:35,800 --> 00:03:40,560 Speaker 2: that Donald Trump admires every strong man in autocrat It 52 00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:44,720 Speaker 2: seems to have fantasies that day together will divide up 53 00:03:44,760 --> 00:03:48,040 Speaker 2: the world. That he's some sort of Caesar, a new king, 54 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:52,480 Speaker 2: that Elon Musk is his duke, his prime minister, freed 55 00:03:52,600 --> 00:03:55,960 Speaker 2: to roam the planet, spending hundreds of millions of dollars 56 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:00,960 Speaker 2: here and there to destabilize democracy, while delivering Hitler salutes 57 00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:04,760 Speaker 2: that he says are not Hitler salutes, and so on 58 00:04:04,960 --> 00:04:08,880 Speaker 2: and so forth. The reality is that Donald Trump is 59 00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:13,480 Speaker 2: a predator who sees riches in Canada, does not see 60 00:04:13,560 --> 00:04:18,520 Speaker 2: our shared values and ideals, He sees things. He looks 61 00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:21,919 Speaker 2: at the ground, he sees gold, and he says, that's 62 00:04:21,920 --> 00:04:27,640 Speaker 2: what makes us rich. Not our ideals, not our values, 63 00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:34,040 Speaker 2: not what Thomas Payne talked about. A quality that is 64 00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:39,720 Speaker 2: celestially priced and priced high, indeed, which is freedom. Donald 65 00:04:39,720 --> 00:04:43,599 Speaker 2: Trump doesn't understand the concept, doesn't appreciate it. When you 66 00:04:43,760 --> 00:04:48,120 Speaker 2: talk about pluralism, you talk about democracy, when you talk 67 00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:52,480 Speaker 2: about equality, he thinks those are weak and wishy, washy words. 68 00:04:52,839 --> 00:04:55,760 Speaker 2: He's a man who looks at Vladimir Putin and he 69 00:04:55,920 --> 00:04:59,400 Speaker 2: sees strength, and he believes that might makes right. And 70 00:04:59,440 --> 00:05:02,880 Speaker 2: he's a So he looks at Canada and he says, 71 00:05:03,279 --> 00:05:07,160 Speaker 2: what can I take from our friend? Because he perceives 72 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:11,479 Speaker 2: Canada as weak and doesn't see the hidden beneath. The 73 00:05:11,520 --> 00:05:15,359 Speaker 2: benign nature of the Canadian people is a great strength, 74 00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:19,679 Speaker 2: and that strength is bound by the commitment to maintain freedom. 75 00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:22,440 Speaker 1: Now you say, in fact, that Canada needs to be 76 00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:25,599 Speaker 1: a rattlesnake and strike back against Trump. What do you 77 00:05:25,640 --> 00:05:28,480 Speaker 1: mean by that? What should Canada be doing right now? 78 00:05:30,160 --> 00:05:36,800 Speaker 2: Well, the rattlesnake is a great animal to use as 79 00:05:36,839 --> 00:05:40,040 Speaker 2: a metaphor. The best way to avoid a snake bite 80 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:43,320 Speaker 2: is don't pick up the snake. This is a trillion 81 00:05:43,400 --> 00:05:47,360 Speaker 2: dollar trading relationship. And if Canada is to be pushed 82 00:05:47,360 --> 00:05:51,960 Speaker 2: into a recession by Donald Trump's madness, that what Canada 83 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:56,120 Speaker 2: needs to do is push America into recession. That the 84 00:05:56,400 --> 00:06:00,719 Speaker 2: politician who seems most to understand Donald Trump in Canada 85 00:06:00,839 --> 00:06:04,680 Speaker 2: is Premier Doug Ford, who appreciates that when a bully 86 00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:08,440 Speaker 2: puts a finger in your chest, you break it. You 87 00:06:08,480 --> 00:06:11,680 Speaker 2: don't take a step backwards. And if it comes to it, 88 00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:15,200 Speaker 2: the American people need to have the lights turned out 89 00:06:15,240 --> 00:06:18,960 Speaker 2: on them by the Premiere of Ontario to get their 90 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:23,560 Speaker 2: attention that Donald Trump's economic war, and it is an 91 00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:32,400 Speaker 2: economic war, will not be cost free for Americans, and 92 00:06:32,480 --> 00:06:37,640 Speaker 2: so Donald Trump has to be stopped. And what stops 93 00:06:37,720 --> 00:06:44,000 Speaker 2: Donald Trump is a quick cratering of the economy by 94 00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:49,360 Speaker 2: people escalating and not being pushed around, not being jerked around, 95 00:06:49,920 --> 00:06:55,880 Speaker 2: whim from erratic whim day to day, while forty million 96 00:06:56,000 --> 00:07:02,600 Speaker 2: people are made to feel anxious unsafe. Our democracies are 97 00:07:02,640 --> 00:07:06,839 Speaker 2: bound together by what Roosevelt called the four freedoms freedom 98 00:07:06,960 --> 00:07:11,280 Speaker 2: of speech, freedom of faith and religion, freedom from fear, 99 00:07:11,400 --> 00:07:15,440 Speaker 2: and freedom from want. And Donald Trump is using fear 100 00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:19,880 Speaker 2: as a weapon, and he's trying to destabilize the economy, 101 00:07:20,480 --> 00:07:24,000 Speaker 2: to weaken Canada politically. And what I would say is 102 00:07:24,440 --> 00:07:27,840 Speaker 2: to Canadians, do not spend a dollar in the United States. 103 00:07:28,400 --> 00:07:30,960 Speaker 2: Do not go on vacation in the United States. It's 104 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:34,800 Speaker 2: a twenty billion dollar part of the American economy. Take 105 00:07:34,840 --> 00:07:37,640 Speaker 2: it away. What I say to Americans who are friends 106 00:07:37,680 --> 00:07:41,480 Speaker 2: of Canada, go to Canada on vacation this summer, go 107 00:07:41,640 --> 00:07:47,480 Speaker 2: skiing Canada this winter. Stand by Canada as Canada is 108 00:07:47,680 --> 00:07:52,480 Speaker 2: under assault, an attack by an American president who seeks 109 00:07:52,520 --> 00:07:58,280 Speaker 2: to obliterate what generations of Americans and Canadians built together, 110 00:07:58,880 --> 00:08:05,040 Speaker 2: which is a for human dignity across a vast frontier. 111 00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:08,000 Speaker 2: And so the answer to all of this is no, 112 00:08:08,240 --> 00:08:11,600 Speaker 2: thank you. We have to hold firm and we have 113 00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:15,559 Speaker 2: to make clear that Donald Trump's White House understands both 114 00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:18,320 Speaker 2: the American side of the border and the Canadian side 115 00:08:18,320 --> 00:08:22,600 Speaker 2: of the border will not tolerate this insanity. 116 00:08:22,880 --> 00:08:25,400 Speaker 1: Steve Smith, I appreciate the time, thank you for the words. 117 00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:25,880 Speaker 1: This evening 118 00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:28,040 Speaker 2: My pleasure