Why Is Donald Trump Picking a Fight with Canada?

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3:14That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash newyorker. Use our link so they know we sent you. One day this summer, I was in an Uber, and I was about to cross the bridge, and I was looking down on my phone, and then I looked up, and there was a gigantic, newly gilded, and massive statue right in front of my eyes, I yelped out, this is where he's also going to be building this arch. Everywhere you look in Washington, there's just some new golden monstrosity. Can I just make a minor edit there,

3:48Jane Mayer:which is they're gilded. They're not golden, which I think is a powerful difference. That's what Mark Twain taught us. Gilded is just on the surface means it's fake underneath. Susan, I remember when you went by the Memorial Bridge, you sent me a photo of it. You were so I did. So shocked. I mean, it's blinding. It's like, it's kind of like Oscar statue gold, you know? I call it Timu gold. I think that's the color.

4:15Jane Mayer:Welcome to The Political Scene from The New Yorker, a weekly discussion about the big questions in American politics. I'm Evan Osnos, and I'm joined, as ever, by my colleagues Jane Mayer and Susan Glasser. Good morning, Jane, and good morning, Susan. Hey, guys. Hey, so great to be with you guys. And we are back after a few weeks off, and a lot has happened. Trump has spent the summer, in effect, picking fights on one front after another. And now a lot of those fights seem to be backfiring. There's the trade war with Canada, of course, where tariffs were supposed to give the United States leverage, he said, but they have in fact done the opposite.

4:57Jane Mayer:it. There's the war in Iran now in its seventh month with no end in sight. And then, of course, there are his fights closer to home over data centers, over affordability, which are about to collide with the midterm election. So on today's episode, we're looking at Trump's many wars of choice, both the real ones and the political ones, because for the first time in a very long time, It seems as if Trump is starting to face the consequences of the fights that he has picked. What do these wars of choice tell us about where this presidency stands? And as we head into the fall, how should we be thinking about what comes next?

5:38Jane Mayer:And to start off, Susan, you know, we are, as I mentioned a moment ago, inexplicably in a trade war with Canada. Longtime friend to the north, ally. To use a technical term, what in God's name is going on here and why do you think Trump is pursuing this? There's sadly a lot to unpack there, Evan. But I think this is actually, I'm glad we're starting with this because in my view, this is sort of one of the like er fights of Trump 2.0. It's like a decoder ring to understand the particular crazy patchwork quilt of obsessions that makes up Donald Trump's policy. And, you know, there's no clearer through line for Donald Trump than this lifelong tendency to go after allies and praise adversaries.

6:33And Trump has spent the last couple years since he came back to office alienating this country, uniting them against him. He's created essentially the political career of Mark Carney, the prime minister, who would not have been prime minister if it weren't for Donald Trump's threats to turn Canada into the 51st state. But I have to say, this is like what's happened in the last couple of weeks, guys. I feel like it's a whole new level of Trump obsession where he's untethered from any political constraint. And OK, we do have to talk about the whole Lake Ontario, Lake of America. We will.

7:12Jane Mayer:We absolutely will. But Jane, help me understand this week. Why Canada? What is going on here? Why does he have this particular obsession with this one? Well, actually, this is my question. I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you. But usually with Trump, there's some kind of ulterior motive that gets back to him lining his pockets. And in this case, there isn't that that I know of. And so why Canada? Except that he does like to create an enemy, and particularly one that he picks on the weak. You don't see him taking on Putin, for instance. You don't see him taking on Xi in China. You just see him taking on Canada and expecting that he can bend reality to his will.

7:59I mean, the truth is nobody dislikes Canada that I've ever been. I mean, it's like maple syrup. We're OK with it, you know. So, I mean, there are, you know, trade issues that like there are always some trade issues. But they are, as Susan said, the nice neighbor that you really hope for. You know, it's actually very interesting that you say that. I was discussing this last night. I even reached out to famed Trumpologist Maggie Haberman and was asking her this about the Canada thing. There's no origin story about Trump and Canada that anyone has reported or is aware of. But I will say this. I strongly recommend that you listen to, if you haven't, and to our listeners.

8:42There's a six-minute clip of Donald Trump from just a couple days ago this week going off about Canada. I mean, going off about it for six full minutes in the Oval Office. He's asked by a reporter about the trade war. As you know, Canada's been ripping us off for a long time on trade, very sadly. Even the military. You know, we defend Canada for nothing. We don't get anything. They don't pay us to defend Canada, but we defend Canada. And they understand that. And half of the rant, Jane, is about, this goes to your money thing. It's about a rich friend of his and other people complaining to him about Canada not certifying Gulfstream jets.

9:24And really, he goes on for minutes and minutes about private jets and like oligarch friends of Trump's who are mad about Canada and the Gulfstream jets. So that's one little oligarchic golden data point for you. I love the oligarchic golden data point.

9:40Jane Mayer:Go ahead. But yes, the oligarchic golden data point. But more broadly, in this six minute rant about Canada, he does the thing that I think is so important about actually hating allies more than adversaries. And he tells the reporters, he says, listen, you know, people think who's the toughest in the whole world to deal with? Is it China? Is it Vietnam? No, it's Canada. And I think that's to Donald Trump in some way that we haven't really understood. The enemies are the people who stand up for him, like in Europe, like in Canada. They're not Russia. They're not China. The more loyal, the more vulnerable in his mind.

10:22Jane Mayer:Well, that's I mean, and to your point, Jane, when you were saying, you know, he picks on in some ways weaker, but in some ways he picks on the people who are trusting of him. And now he's beginning to find out there are Canadians are many things, but weak is not one of them. This is, I think, one of the things that's coming through. You know, if you've been listening to the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, talking about the idea that, you know, he's underestimated Canada, that we're now in this. He's given them something very specific to rally around. They're talking about the idea of cutting off electricity to places, cutting off critical minerals.

10:53Jane Mayer:We'll see what happens. But, you know, this has been an organizing principle for Canadian politics that I don't think any American, frankly, was thinking about. And Susan, there's a piece of this that's interesting, which is now part of their response is they've announced counter tariffs that, as one economist put it, seem to be pretty deliberately oriented towards swing states, places like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Those are the places that are going to get hit here. That's interesting. Is this a new technique? Have we seen other places go after specific Trump territories in the run up to an election like this?

11:30Yeah, I mean, actually, I think we have. I mean, you also saw like Europeans who were targeting investment in swing states. Now, Canada has a lot clearer ability to do that, right? Because they share a massive border with the United States. Think about Michigan as a great example of that. Their two economies are intertwined. They share a bridge, which, by the way, fascinatingly, we worked on this new bridge project. Canada spent billions of dollars doing it. And somebody told me about a friend of theirs who ran a race. I think it was a marathon in Detroit recently where the route wove between the two countries.

12:06And when the runners were running across the bridge, the Canadians were holding signs saying, like, you know, welcome from Trump territory. Do you want, you know, refuge here? Do you want asylum here? And I think the integration between these two countries, of course, does give Canada leverage. The other domestic election I was thinking about in this context, of course, is the Maine Senate race. Maine is our state right on the border. We're talking about seafood. Let's not even talk about the entire alcohol ban, right? Whiskey producers everywhere can't believe that the one thing Donald Trump has succeeded in doing is making sure that Canadians don't get drunk on American alcohol.

12:46What did you call it? The golden?

12:48Jane Mayer:Oligarchic golden data point. The OGDP. This is kind of savvy, but I do want to make one more Canada point, and it is whatever is the opposite of an oligarchic golden data point. Have you guys seen, you probably have seen at some point over the last few years, Come From Away, which is the Broadway show that is about 9-11 and Gander, Newfoundland, and all the planes that landed in this tiny town of a few thousand people in Canada. and those Canadians took in the people and, you know, took care of them in the middle of this national and actually international trauma of 9-11. Obviously, I'm thinking about that because next week is going to be the 25th anniversary of 9-11.

13:37But interestingly, you know, this to me sums up why Donald Trump's war in Canada is so freaking insane. Back in Trump 1.0, you had Justin Trudeau, who at the time Donald Trump didn't hate, what did he do to try to sort of lobby the Trump family to make the point that immigration is a good thing? He took Ivanka Trump to a Broadway production of Come From Away. And again, it's like you see this and you realize we're the luckiest people in the world to have neighbors like this and to burn through that in a way that I suspect there is and will be lasting damage is really something remarkable. In a post 9-11 world, you would think that one of the lessons that the United States should have taken from that is you need friends in the world.

14:33And instead, we're burning up our friendship.

14:35Jane Mayer:Well, as my friends know, I'm a longtime, very poor hockey player. And I think that America has misjudged Canadians on this one because you don't want to be staring across a trench at some former defenseman from Moose Jaw. That's all I'm saying. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, the war in Iran and the Pentagon purge. The political scene from The New Yorker will be back in just a moment.

15:04Jane Mayer:If you've been enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and a review on the podcast platform of your choice. And while you're there, don't forget to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening.

15:18Comprehensive. Witty. Speculative. Critical. Insightful. Profound. Wide-ranging. Hopefully doesn't take itself too, too seriously. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, my colleagues and I try to make sense of what's happening in this chaotic world. I hope you'll join us for the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts. Thoughtful. Exquisite. Just, you know, real.

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16:53Jane Mayer:All right, guys, let's turn to the war in Iran. Trump's playbook on this has been, in effect, unchanging for months. He'll threaten, he'll attack, he'll declare victory. He'll escalate again when Iran doesn't capitulate. But that leaves him now in a corner. And so it feels to me, guys, that even after all these months of of rinse and repeat, that this feels especially frozen now. Susan, where where is this war at this point? If you sadly had gone to sleep at the beginning of the summer and were just waking up now, it would feel pretty familiar, honestly. You know, there was the fake ceasefire memorandum of understanding historic agreement interregnum, but of course it was not real.

17:46And I think you're looking at a situation where the prospects from a long-term meaningful peace that is written down, codified, is extremely remote. So the real question is, is the U.S. going to remain on this war footing, this incredible expenditure of time, money, materiel, to have this posture in the Middle East and the periodic, episodic eruptions of actual fighting between the U.S. and Iran, including just this week a horrific incident in which it appears, according to Times reporting and others, that the U.S. is again, made a mistake and struck a wedding, a civilian wedding party echoing that horrible mistake at the beginning of the conflict six months ago, which the U.S.

18:37struck a school. And so on and on it goes. And I think this goes to the point like Donald Trump is in a box, in a war of his own choosing, no way out. And the election is around the corner. You know, now two thirds of the country is against this conflict. Two thirds of the country close to it disapproves of the job that Donald Trump is doing. This is not how Republicans wanted to be going into this midterm election. And I, you know, he's stuck. And there's been some incredible reporting just recently about the backstory behind the resignation of Dan Driscoll, who was the secretary of the army.

19:23And apparently he resigned after telling Trump, you're losing the war. It's draining the stockpiles dangerously of weapons for the United States. and that Pete Hegseth, the so-called Secretary of War, who is actually still the Secretary of Defense, is hollowing out the Pentagon to such a degree that it's really weakening the upper ranks of the Pentagon and sending out a terrible message all across the country that he only wants a certain kind of person to be in the military in this country. And so altogether, it is really sort of a warning sign that's been brought to Trump. We don't really know yet what his reaction is to that.

20:11Jane Mayer:I do think this is one of those stories that is not announced clearly in the moment, particularly in the sort of end of the summer. People weren't really paying attention to the news. It is astonishing. You've now had the commanders overseeing the big parts of the world, basically, each of the different theaters has more or less formally said to the Pentagon leadership that they disapprove of these extended deployments, that they believe the United States is diminishing its capacity. And so, you know, were something bad to happen, we would look back on this and there would be this very clear paper trail that the signs were becoming obvious.

20:49Jane Mayer:I have to tell you, Susan, I thought that the resignation of Dan Driscoll as secretary of the Army was especially notable because of the what it also suggests about the politics. Help us understand here. Driscoll, of course, is an old ally of J.D. Vance's. He's not exactly somebody who was a never Trumper. And he is now and, you know, this is a little bit of the ecology of reporting. You guys know, as I do, that when, quote, somebody close to Driscoll reveals the contents of a meeting that he had with the president, this is a very clear strategy to say to put some distance between this record and himself.

21:30Jane Mayer:So how do you read this? What does this suggest about the interior politics in the administration? Well, that's exactly right. You know, you definitely have Hegseth who, because, you know, we've all remembered Jane's fantastic reporting when Hegseth was nominated. The truth is, it's a guy who's in way over his head, who is a very insecure, prickly fellow, former weekend Fox News host, not exactly qualified to be the major wartime leader of the Department of Defense geopolitical strategist. So, you know, I wouldn't underestimate the factor of insecurity and rivalry that might be fueling his long-term conflict, by the way, with Driscoll.

22:12You know, I've done some reporting among some of these fired commanders. It was clear they were expecting Driscoll to leave for a long time. The only difference is the acceleration of the timetable and the fact that it's happening in the middle of this war with Iran in the Middle East that no one expected. Donald Trump, the president who campaigned on ending wars and no new wars to be in the middle of. So I think some of it probably is MAGA positioning, you know, is the Republican Party the party of no new wars or is it the party of Donald Trump's neocolonial conquests around the world, wherever the hell I feel like it party?

22:48You know, those are very, very different visions of America's position in the world. J.D. Vance and Driscoll seem to be, you know, still sticking with a notion of the America first ideology that Republicans have been selling us for the last decade, Donald Trump and some of the others around him seem to be leaning even farther into the kind of neocolonial, you know, we haven't talked about the seizing Venezuela's oil kind of party. And so those are very starkly different visions of foreign policy, I think, that we're seeing played out in one of these inter-Nicene feuds like this one, the Driscoll-Hegseth one.

23:29I also think there is a kind of nonpartisan, non-ideological readiness crisis that the war in Iran has exposed. And so you're seeing the dangerous spending down of stockpiles of crucial things like anti-aircraft. Patriot missiles and things like that. Exactly.