Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2019

The Current Transcript for September 27, 2019

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Protestors chanting]

LAURA LYNCH: Around the world they're taking to the streets today, brandishing their signs, raising their voices, urging immediate action to fight climate change. We're looking at the power of protests, as well as the toll the issue is taking on the emotional health of young people. We're also speaking with Green Party Leader Elizabeth May as part of our series of interviews with federal leaders during the election campaign. After that, a loyal soldier left Donald Trump's side late last year. Today James Mattis talks about impeachment and his differences with the US president.

SOUNDCLIP

Whistle blower complaint can actually be a large part of creating change of disciplining internally the organization. Democracies go through a raucous periods and you see some of that going on right now.

LL: I'm Laura Lynch and this is The Current

Back To Top »

Climate Strike

Guests: Rachel Plotkin, Zeynep Tufekci

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

CHILD: My Name is [unintelligilbe] I'm eight years old. I'm excited that young people are making this big protest.

LEAH: I'm Leah Howlett. I'm 14 years old. I'm going to the climate protests because I think it's an extremely important problem that needs to be prioritized.

CHILD: Because of climate change there has been more affecting people's houses and stuff like that.

LEAH: Climate change doesn't just affect one group of people. It affects all of us and it affects the entire planet. And if the people who do care don't show their concern then how can we expect things to really change.

LL: Just two of the thousands of young people expected to hit the streets today in climate strikes across the country. As Leah just said they're hoping to prompt change, just like protesters who have gone before them.

SOUNDCLIP

[Protestors chanting and cheering]

We are happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of [unintelligible].

LAURA LYNCH: From Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement.

SOUNDCLIP

[Protestors chanting] Idle. No. More.

LAURA LYNCH: To Idle No More here in Canada. Making signs and marching through the streets has been a sure way to get attention. But does it always lead to lasting change? Two people are here with me to talk about that. Rachel Plotkin is a longtime protester who works as program manager at the David Suzuki Foundation. She's with me in our Toronto studio before she heads out to the climate strike with her seven year old daughter. Zeynep Tufekci is a techno sociologist and associate professor in the School of Information at the University of North Carolina. She's also author of the book Twitter and Teargas: The Power and Fragility of Network Protest. Today, she's in Hong Kong. Hello to you both.

RACHEL PLOTKIN: Hi there.

ZEYNEP TUKEKCI: Hello.

LL: Rachel Plotkin we'll start with you. How are you feeling on this day of the Climate Strike?

RACHEL PLOTKIN: I always look forward to hitting the streets. And it's especially a privilege to do it with my daughter and my partner will be joining us as well. And I really think that one of the things that I get when I march with other people is just a sense of collectivism that the things that I worry about are a shared concern among thousands and thousands of people and in millions, actually at this point, around the world.

LL: What do you hope to get out of this, though?

RACHEL PLOTKIN: Well I hope to have a fun day. I always enjoy seeing the creativity of people's science and the fun of marching. And I enjoy seeing people empowered and I hope that the people that have the courage to get off of their couches or take the day off work and come to the streets to show their concerns about climate change, also become empowered themselves to go from this march and to go on to do other things to fight for climate justice.

LL: Zeynep Tufekci, do you share Rachel's optimism?z

ZEYNEP TUKEKCI: Well I mean I share the optimism in the sense that it's very good that people are out there trying to make themselves heard and trying to sort of get together. My optimism is slightly tempered by the fact that protests are just one way of trying to get social change. And sometimes they manage and sometimes it's a little harder. It's quite complicated whether or not they do end up with lasting change but they're a very important part of that effort.

LL: What are some examples that have made you a bit sceptical about the effectiveness of protests?

ZEYNEP TUKEKCI: Well let me put it this way. The way process work, if you think about it from the position of someone in power. The question is do these people in the street have a threat to me, my power my election, the way I do things? And one of the things that has gotten me most sceptical lately is that it's quite easy, compared to the past, to get people out in the streets because we have these tools which are in some ways wonderful to organize the social media to get the word out. But it doesn't necessarily signify the same level of threat if it's easier to take to the streets. That doesn't mean taking to the streets is not meaningful or that it's not a good first step. But it used to be the last step before long organizing process. Right now it tends to be the first step or the first big step of a question mark. And as she was saying what the outcome depends on what else people do after work. Whereas in the past sometimes by the time you saw something like the civil rights march in Washington it signifies decades of very long deep organizing. Whereas right now it might just be like a Facebook page that was created three months ago that's getting people out there as a first step rather than a consequence of longer organizing.

LL: If I can summarize there right Rachel I think that what Zeynep is saying that it's deluded the power of protest. What do you say to that?

RACHEL PLOTKIN: Well I agree with her that it can be a first step and I know for myself it was one of the first steps that I did and I remember standing on the sidewalk across from my first protest. And it was for me a part of my kind of coming into being an activist in general and the idea of not standing on the sidelines but joining a movement. And I agree that our social networks have changed the dynamics of it. But what I hope is that people recognize that it can be a positive feedback loop that the second you take the moment to become active, and you realize that there's power in that and that it's a positive experience it can even be a joyful experience, that you can then use social media to find your people so you can come back home and you can say that felt great. I want to do more about it. And you know you can go through Facebook and you can be like The Sowers for Solar Panels or the pPuppeteers for a Better Planet. You can you can find your people through social media angles if you don't already have your people that you can work collectively to try to fight for climate change.

LL: But what change do you get out of that? I mean you seem sensed to say you come together with people who are like minded. But if protest is about effecting change how do you measure success?

RACHEL PLOTKIN: Well again I think it's the first step of collectivism and what we're hearing from social scientists is that in the face of disaster the there is kind of the three Fs, fight, flight or freeze. And that there is a new phenomenon known as forming friendships or the fourth F. And I think that it's too it's too scary to take on all of the changes that need to happen by yourself. But once you feel like you're part of a community you can look to environmental organizations, like the one I work for, the David Suzuki Foundation. Or you can just group join your own group of people and we do have to call upon politicians for making change. And that's one of the things thatGreta Thunberg is saying very clearly is that there needs to be change. We need to call on politicians for change.

LL: Based on your own experience what would you say is the most successful protest you've ever been engaged in and what was the measure of that success?

RACHEL PLOTKIN: That is a good question. I don't know that I evaluate my protests that way. I think that I I protest more for my own mental health. Like I think one of the early protests I did was actually a quite a failed experience where we were protesting against Marine Land.

LL: Whales I imagine.

RACHEL PLOTKIN: Yes. We put out a press release the day before. There's people who'd come from all over the world and this is what Zeynep talked about like in the old days. Well we planned for months for this protest and instead everyone got arrested. When we tried to enter Marine Land. And I thought it would be a really depressing experience. And at the end I came back to my colleagues with which we'd planned and I felt this weird sense of elation. And I later read a Wendell Berry quote that I would do poor justice too but it says something like we protest not only to change the world, but to not acquiesce to what we know in our hearts is wrong. And I think there's something about our spirits. It's uplifting to actually put our bodies into motion to stand up for what we believe in.

LL: Okay Zeynep you heard Rachel's definition of a protest and what what makes it successful for her. You have been witness to a lot of protests around the world. What do you think makes for a successful one?

ZEYNEP TUKEKCI: Well it's not just one thing in what she is talking about. Protest is a place where you find people where you invigorate your sense of what's right and what's wrong. I think those are very very important because if you don't have those you don't have a social movement. The question once again as you put it is that the streets have been diluted in their power partly because it's easier to take to them. I have a vivid memory of marching, not as a researcher, as a protester, against the war that was about to happen in Iraq in February 2003. And thinking, look, there's millions of us in the streets. And this war is war and it is a flawed movement but it surely cannot go on. And just a couple months later it went on and George W. Bush even got re-elected he didn't even electoral prices. He said Why should I pay attention to a focus group. So he called the protesters a focus group that he could ignore. And I remember getting really upset about that when I heard that because there's millions of us in the street. We're not a focus group. And then it turns out while he could afford to ignore us. So that's the question: like in terms of school the social change part, what can a movement do so that it can not be ignored and dismissed as a focus group? And not just sort of the people out there feel good about it, which is very important. I'm not at all dismissing that people find one another and feel like what's right and what's wrong for their personal sense of well-being. But the quite the political power question is the open question. And especially with today's protests that tend to be- the climate protests are slightly more organized that way but of course they're tackling a huge problem which is a challenge. A lot of today's protests tend to be more diffuse, more spontaneous, more leaderless which makes some powerful in some ways but it also makes them weak in other ways because they can't sit down at the table and necessarily negotiate. They don't necessarily have the power to threaten politicians with their elections, with their pocketbooks, to make corporations feel like 'oh no we're going to face some real pressures on our bottom line' or on regulation. And the connection between being the street and having political power, effecting political power has dramatically changed because of the technology and how easy it makes it to be in the street. So that's the part I would put in as an asterix, without dismissing any of the gains - In fact I write about it myself in my book, I've excused myself - of being in the streets for oneself.

LL: Okay Rachel then what do you say if the protest is just the beginning? Especially with something like this. What's happening today with climate change, what will it take to keep the momentum going after today?r

RACHEL PLOTKIN: Well I think in Canada we're at an opportune moment because we're about to face a federal election so hopefully people will carry this forward and bring to bear their concerns about climate change to the voters booth and make a commitment. I think that's one form of activism to make a commitment to go to the polls find a buddy and have a date to go to the polls. But I agree. I'm a full time activist and a protest is something that I do that I find empowering and I think the millions of people around the planet are showing politicians that it is a global issue it is the number one issue facing the federal election here in Canada. And I also think the fact that there are so many young people and that young people are playing a leadership role in a lot of these protests is different than protests in the past, and is something that politicians should take heed of.

LL: Now I'm curious to ask both of you this. I'll start with you Rachel. Have you ever been arrested at a protest?

RACHEL PLOTKIN: I have been arrested at a protest and I actually found that to be a very empowering experience too. I think you know part of it is just my shift from a real mainstream kid who kind of didn't want to step apart from the status quo to someone who challenged the status quo. In my experience of being arrested at a protest, it was done again with with fellow protesters.

LL: What was the protest? What happened?

RACHEL PLOTKIN: It was in Ottawa against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. And then we were in jail for eight hours and we weren't charged. But when I came out of jail I think Food Not Bombs had prepared like a vegetarian chilli and there was just like a sense of community when you came out. And I left the protest and went down the street I was about to go home and I actually stopped in a pay phone and called my parents. And I said Mom. Dad. Like you'll never believe it. I just got out of jail. I was arrested.

LL: Were you smiling at that point?

RACHEL PLOTKIN: I think I was feeling really elated but I certainly wasn't expecting them to celebrate that. But my mom surprised me and said, Honey, I'm really proud of you. When. Things that I regret is that I feel like I should have marched in the Martin Luther King march and I didn't.

LL: So obviously that galvanized you. Zeynep, what about you?

ZEYNEP TUKEKCI: Well I mean I want to talk- if you want to talk about the risk profile. I think the thing that I think about more is rather than the arrest is the tear gas. Because that's sort of the quintessential protest experience in many countries around the world, including in Hong Kong where I'm here where we've been tear gassed repeatedly. And one of the things that she's talking about in terms of the camaraderie of that sort of risk taking, the moment everybody gets together. People like help each other wash their face. I've been through that in many countries. You know both as a researcher and sometimes as a protester when I was younger. And it's a bonding moment for sure. It's absolutely a bonding moment. But I want to go back to the risk profile question. The kind of arrest she's describing, it's important like she does something that is very significant. And you had eight hours in jail. You know a lot of places but not enough to scare the politicians either because they kind of know that people can afford to do this. Whereas right now in Egypt currently there are protests in the streets. And so we have to kind of look at what that signifies too in there. It's not easy at all. So everything I said about protest being easier these days in some places is absolutely not true in Egypt. They are, in their own words, they're carrying their shrouds with them. Meaning they're like expecting not to just tear gas, not just arrest like our experience, but potentially to be shot at and to back. I'm giving that example to try to explain that you should look at this. First off you know it looks like we're doing the same thing when we're marching in the streets. But we're not doing necessarily the same thing. It's the power, underlying power, that you display. So when I get teargased or when Rachel gets arrested we're not necessarily doing the same thing as what the Egyptian protesters just marching down the street is doing. And in terms of how to analyze protest I think that's kind of important to look at. Now in the global climate crisis and the youth movement I think it's fascinating because it's unlike any of these things we also talked about. It's the young people who don't have the power to vote with futures on the line. And they've really putting a lot on the line in terms of [unintelliglbe] skipping school. They've been defying parents. They've been defying schools. Sometimes they're lucky and they're you know supported by their parents as we just heard. So this is the reason I say all of this is to start of step back from you know the arrest or the tear gas where did you march down, and look at it from the position of power and say which one threatens them more? In what context? And sometimes it's just the act of marching down that street, like right now in Egypt, that's signifying real power. And sometimes you know even something really risky and big and like getting tear gassed is not necessarily threatening the people in power. And that's kind of the analysis that I'd like to emphasize.

LL: You make a good point that protests in authoritarian states, that they are obviously taking more significant risks but they've also made significant difference during the Arab Spring, I can think of. So it has had real impact there , Zeynep.

ZEYNEP TUKEKCI: That's exactly what I'm saying. I mean in that particular case they got crushed. They got crushed very brutally but sometimes we focus a little bit too much on like how many people were on the streets. And I'd like to focus on what did it take to get there. And so what did it take to get there is a better indicator of what kind of power that protests signified. I think the youth strike it took a lot to get there. I mean these are kids. And we now have a generation of kids who've been at it for maybe a decade and so are just in their early 20s. And that took a lot to get there. Authoritarian places, it took a lot to get there. In a lot of more democratic places. I think our politicians have learned that they can ignore just a day of marching. And I don't say this to belittle a day of marching, there's nothing I like more sometimes personally, but they've learned that we don't necessarily threaten them if we just march, and then go home, and then they just go on as business as usual and they don't pay a price. And I think we've seen that a lot too.

LL: Rachel after you leave the studio today, you said you and your daughter and your partner are going out to march. What are you hoping your daughter gets out of marching today?

RACHEL PLOTKIN: Well I hope that she is inspired by seeing other youth in a position of leadership but also parenting is hard. And I'm you know I'm fumbling along like many other people. And I know that some people have made accusations or have suggested that kind of burdening our children with the idea of climate change can be debilitating to them and causing anxiety. And that's you know my own decision with my partner about parenting is that I try to show her it's a beautiful world, but there's a lot of sad things in it and there's a lot of hard things in it. And she does know about climate change and she knows that I work on them. I work on species at risk, so wildlife populations in decline. And I think that it's really important that if she has that knowledge that she also has an opportunity to put her body into motion. And even part of the creative part to make her sign and to march around with her sign that showing the world the things that she cares about.

LL: All right. We will leave it there. My thanks to both of you for talking about this today.

RACHEL PLOTKIN: A pleasure.

ZEYNEP TUKEKCI: Thank you for inviting me.

LL: Rachel Plotkin is a program manager at the David Suzuki Foundation. She was in our Toronto studio. And Zeynep Tukekci is a techno sociologist and an associate professor at the University of North Carolina. She's also author of the book Twitter and Teargas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. She's in Hong Kong. Well the CBC News is coming up next. Then:

SOUNDCLIP

It's not that we can say look under your bed there's no monster. There is a monster under the bed.

LL: The monster is climate change. And for young people hearing doom and gloom messages these can be scary times. We will talk about what parents can do to help their kids cope with that monster lurking under the bed in about six minutes. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

Back To Top »

Current Obsession

Guest: Liz Hoath

LL: Hello I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May will be my guest in about 10 minutes. But first, when climate warnings turn depressing.

[Music: Theme]

LL: So we've started a new and occasional feature on the program called The Current Obsession. It's a chance for producers to bring us issues that have been on their minds this week. Today the current's writer Liz Hoath is here from Vancouver with her current obsession. Hi Liz.

LIZ HOATH: Hi Laura.

LL: So what are you obsessing over right now?

LIZ HOATH: Well it's actually kind of a personal thing because it does involve my kids, well one of my kids my teenage daughter to be specific. But it's also a global issue because it involves climate change.

LL: And we've been talking about climate change a lot this week. So how did that become an obsession involving your kids?

LIZ HOATH: Well I mean I was cutting a lot of tape this week like this from Greta Thunberg.

SOUNDCLIP

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire school systems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all do you can talk about is the money and favourite tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

[Cheers and applause]

LIZ HOATH: Have stolen my childhood. That's pretty bleak.

LL: It is. It is. It's quite chilling to listen to her say that even after I've listened to it a few times.

LIZ HOATH: So now I'm going to go from there into my kitchen on Wednesday morning. So here's the scene. My teenagers grabbing a Rice Krispies. One is eating and studying for the big chemistry test. Of course because I work at The Current the radio is always on in the background.

SOUNDCLIP

RADIO: A 100 scientists have a new warning. It's in a new climate report described as the most dire to date from the U.N.. The CBC's...

LIZ HOATH: Okay so under that whole backdrop my 15 year old daughter Charlotte says this.

SOUNDCLIP

CHARLOTTE: I don't think I would necessarily say I think about a future because. It's going on like right now and I feel like the kids these days don't feel like they have a future. So they feel like what they're doing is not for anything. And they're just working and going to school to get an education, even though it doesn't really matter in the end of the day because are you even going to be around to work that job that you've been in school for so long?

LIZ HOATH: Do you think that like you really have that pessimistic view?

CHARLOTTE: Yes, I think it's realist if you really think about it. Because there's been a bunch of reports saying even in 17 months climate change will be irreversible, and there's lots of things that can happen from climate change that will kill you, not even just from the entire world being over just from like natural disasters like hurricanes and that's just going to get worse by every year. So I don't think it's realistic to say that I'm necessarily going to have a future.

LL: Liz, that must have been so hard for you to hear it's breaking my heart listening to it.

LIZ HOATH: Right? There's your kid telling you they're not sure they have much of a future. And I hear from other parents who are seeing the same thing that their kids have similar outlooks and that kids are saying they don't want to have kids of their own because they don't know what kind of world they're bringing them into. It's hard to measure how much this is affecting young people. And I remember being a teenager. It wasn't easy. I mean we were pretty bummed out at the time about nuclear annihilation. I mean don't you remember issues in the world going on that were freaking us out?

LL: Oh yeah I remember .I remember the alarms that used go off air raid, sirens that would go off when I was quite young. I had bad dreams about that. I can remember how threatened I felt back then.

LIZ HOATH: Right and I mean I think there's always something, right, that is threatening the human race. But I think there is something particularly frightening about what we're going through right now. And Lise Van Sustern agrees with that and she's a psychiatrist. She's got actually a special interest in the psychological impact of climate change. So she's the co-founder of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance that's a new group. She's also on the Board of Physicians for Social Responsibility. And here was her reaction to what Charlotte had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

LISE VAN SUSTERN: It just it is exceedingly painful to hear you report about your daughter. And I wish I could say that it was uncommon, but for kids who are sensitive and smart and aware they hear what's being predicted by scientists. They know. And you almost have to shrug your shoulders and think, well, gee why wouldn't they be in turmoil about what's happening now. That's not where we stop with the conversation. We've got to lead them to safer ground. But nonetheless I think it's exceedingly understandable that they are feeling some of these sentiments.

LIZ HOATH: And she actually thinks that this kind of despair is probably more common than adults might think of course she sees it in her own practice. And she talks to colleagues in hospitals and they'd like to start having the numbers of kids coming into emergency counted, kids that are saying that the climate crisis is part of why they're there.

LL: So in other words the climate crisis is causing them emotional crisis.

LIZ HOATH: Exactly.

LL: So is there something about teens in particular that actually makes them more vulnerable to all of this?

LIZ HOATH: Well she says that kids can be more sensitive than adults. Like they're not able to block out some of the messages that they're getting in a way that we are, because we've been hearing them for so long and we can sort of sort through what we want to take in and what we want to reject. And teenagers are always the ones who are questioning the system too, right? So now they're seeing that science says climate change is real. Their peers are saying it. So it's upsetting for them to not see anyone really doing something about it.

LL: All right. We just heard are the psychiatrist say that you could lead them to safer ground. So that gives a clue that there is something that you can do.

LIZ HOATH: Right. I mean there's always something you can do and first she says of course you just have to listen, except that this is a real thing that they're feeling because we cannot gloss over it.

SOUNDCLIP

LISE VAN SUSTERN: You do have to admit, or they will never trust you, that there are many things in the world that have us on a dangerous course. It's important to underscore that nothing is over yet. And then you can say that's why we're talking about it in newspapers and on television. That's why we're in the streets because everyone is now addressing this problem so that we can restore the health to the planet and to everything that we love about it.

LL: So she's saying that solutions are key here.

LIZ HOATH: Sure. So even if it's just saying look here's what we're doing in our family we're riding bikes. We're taking transit. Maybe we'll get an electric car. We'll turn out the lights when we leave a room, whatever little things you might be doing to do your bit to try and help.

LL: So is that what you are doing?

LIZ HOATH: Well I mean sure. I'm trying. Of course I think we all are. But I just I do have a confession to make in that that morning, that I was talking to Charlotte about all of this. She actually begged me to give her a ride to school. She usually walks. And trust me Laura, the irony is not lost on me that here she is really afraid of climate change and still begging me to drive her to school instead of walking. But anyways here we are in our reality and we end up picking up her friend Isabella. We're still talking about the climate issues. And it's interesting for her friend Isabella that she is one that's quite plugged into a lot of different clubs in the school. And for her that's really helpful.

SOUNDCLIP

ISABELLA: When I hear like other kids coming up with like at environment club I hear so many kids coming up with ideas. I'm like, what posters space to make to get more people to go to the strike and just like innovative ideas that are great. It's like oh. You might actually have a future.

CHARLOTTE: Like when we get to the age where we are able to implement things I think it will be better because of how much we think about it now. But it can also cause people to lose hope.

ISABELLA: Especially when it's just us doing stuff. Now the strikes are like open and more adults are coming. But like if it's just our generation it's kind of sad. Like there was like the headline the other day that was like you know 'U.N. turns to children for hope'. And. It's like, well the U.N. has so many super informed people like why are they turning to children who don't even have like a grade 11 education.

CHARLOTTE: Yes. Like we've grown up in this place where we see what's going on around us and see how it's affecting the planet. So I feel like we get older we will be able to implement actual change. But at this point it's hard. There's not much we can do but to like have climate strikes and get people more aware of it.

LIZ HOATH: So off they go to that climate march today.

LL: And do you think that that's going to help? When I say that I mean help them feel better.

LIZ HOATH: Yes I think it actually does and that's actually something Lise Van Sestern said, that in fact doing things as a group has quite an amazing impact it can be healing and they've had brain scans that prove it, it just makes you feel like you're part of something bigger and maybe you're actually taking some kind of action. So you know all we can do is hope, right, that all these little things can help these kids get through this.

LL: I hope we can talk about this again and that Charlotte's feeling better, Liz.

LIZ HOATH: Yes. Thanks Laura.

LL: Liz Hoath is a writer and producer on The Current and you can let us know what you think on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC or me @LauraLynchCBC or find us on Facebook. You are listening to The Current on CBC Radio One and Sirius XM.

Back To Top »

Canadian industry is 'addicted to fossil fuels,' but the Green Party can change that, says Elizabeth May

Guest: Elizabeth May

LL: During this federal election campaign we've requested interviews with the leaders of all of the major parties. Today Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is in Montreal where she'll be participating in the climate strike. And she's with me from our Montreal studio. Hello.

ELIZABETH MAY: Good morning Laura.

LL: You heard that conversation between Elizabeth Hogarth and her daughter. Did you ever have that kind of conversation with your daughter when she was growing up?

ELIZABETH MAY: We talk about climate change a lot, my daughter and I. She's 28 now and I think our conversations were less bleak because she really believes in what I'm trying to do. But these kinds of conversations are happening a lot because the news is quite bleak, but because it's not hopeless we hang onto hope.

LL: All right. I want to pick up on something that you told the CBC yesterday. You don't see the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion as part of a green future. But you said that you won't prop up a minority government that moves forward on the project. And I listen to you say that, I wonder why you decided to lay your cards on the table so early without seeing what you might be able to achieve, including a chance to show Canadians the Greens understand what it takes to govern.

CHARLOTTE: Because we're not a political party that cares about advancing our party above the number one priorities that we answer that eco anxiety of our youth, what Charlotte was saying. I don't want our children to think that we've abandoned them and I don't want to abandon them. And to say that we can support on a single confidence vote any form of coalition or parties or whatever that is actually prepared to increase greenhouse gases now, when the imperative is to dramatically reduce them and fast. And you can't build the Trans Mountain pipeline without a commitment to keep increasing greenhouse gases.

LL: Even if that means that you eliminate yourself from any possibility of having a say in what government does?

ELIZABETH MAY: Well of course because especially if we should be so fortunate as to have enough Green MP is elected that we hold what my British Columbia Green colleagues called the balance of responsibility. It is our responsibility and we're not interested in these terms around propping up. If our votes are needed for any government how could we ever vote confidence in a government that's working against our children's interests?

LL: Okay. Why say that and then turn around and support things like the construction of oil refineries?

ELIZABETH MAY: We don't. The need for refineries to do more oil within Alberta had they- We've reached absolutely whatever we need for the short term as we go off oil. We shouldn't be exporting raw bitumen to any other country. We don't need a single additional inch of fossil fuel infrastructure. In fact it's exactly what we don't need.

LL: All right but you still want to, as you said, ban the import of foreign oil and start refining oil here more oil, bitumen.

LL: We have enough fossil fuel infrastructure at this point, in terms of pipelines, in terms of upgraders, in terms of refineries there's few upgraders that are still being built. We wouldn't stop the upgraders that we're already committed to seeing them come on stream because that's for domestic use and domestic production. Now a lot of that is being built for export right now. But we're looking at a carbon budget. We've released our fiscal budget. But the one that's boss and can't be budged around is the carbon budget and we're near the ceiling global of what we can ever emit from burning fossil fuels. So it's clear that most fossil fuels have to stay in the ground, and in the period of time where we're helping workers make a transition making sure that we have an east west and reaching North Canadian electricity grid, and make sure it is 100 percent renewable green electricity and that we then get rid of the internal combustion engine. There are steps to be taken and as the renewable energy ramps up, all fossil fuel use in Canada has to come down quite dramatically. We've worked really hard to have a plan that can actually work with. Call it Mission Possible. It requires doubling Canada's current target because the current target is the one left behind by Stephen Harper. And back to Charlotte and back to my daughter Kate and back to Greta Thunberg, there is no way that we can give our kids any kind of chance of a secure future in which human civilization is intact that requires that we hold global average temperatures no more than one point five degrees Celsius. The goal here isn't to come up with something politically palatable, it's to do the right thing.

LL: Your target is a 60 percent cut in emissions by 2030 net zero by 2050. What would that mean for the Canadians who are most directly affected especially in Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan?

ELIZABETH MAY: Well that's why we completely support the findings of the task force for a just transition that this task force which was co-chaired by a prominent environmentalist from New Brunswick; Lois Corbett and by Hassan Assaf from the Canadian Labour Congress. We've endorsed it. We put four hundred million dollars in our budget for the coal sector workers, because the way we have to address just transition is to include the workers, include their communities and work towards- because these are workers with really good skills. Those skills are transferable. There are more jobs in the transition to a green economy than we now have workers to fill them. But it's important to make sure that no worker feels that there's sort of a trap door under them and they don't know when it's going to open.

LL: This week you released the costs and benefits of your party's election promises. You became the first party in the campaign to do it and had most of it evaluated by the Parliamentary Budget Office. So that office is saying that of those 23 of the proposals that were costed 13 year rated to have high uncertainty in their words and 10 to have moderate uncertainty. Beyond that the Institute for Fiscal Studies and democracy at the University of Ottawa has had a look and given its own verdict giving the Greens a failing grade saying the costings are filled with errors. What do you say to that?

ELIZABETH MAY: This is not a final grade I can assure you of that from the Institute University of Ottawa. Number one, the uncertainties to which you refer are the uncertainties that the Parliamentary Budget Office identified in their work which we've adopted. That's the 24 things that we asked the Parliamentary Budget Office to study. Their own report says this is our best analysis. Now in the case of Kevin Page and the Institute University of Ottawa, we're quite confident that within, well, probably by sometime early next week with the additional background papers that we neglected to include in a summary of the budget. But we are as of course the first party going through this process with PBO . I'm confident that we will get more than a passing grade once they see the background document.

LL: You're proposing a Guaranteed livable income, what's the cost of that?

ELIZABETH MAY: We didn't ask PBO to cost that because it's something that requires negotiation with the provincial and municipal governments and with Indigenous leadership, because what we will be doing is being able to end quite a lot of programs that are at other levels of government, other orders of government. So a Guaranteed livable income will over time. The cost is one where we need to negotiate province by province with what's the right income for a specific area.

LL: You have to make cuts to make that revenue neutral.

ELIZABETH MAY: No absolutely not. And this is something we'll bring in within five years. It's nothing you can do on day one because you actually have to negotiate with each province to find out what where you're programs are if you wrap those up, where do we save the cost there. Administering guaranteed livable income is very easy it's just basically a check to every Canadian. But determining the right amount for each area and rolling up existing programs that you no longer need, and getting the cooperation from provinces that the savings that they will receive from a federal guaranteed livable income can be negotiated into other aspects of a federal provincial transfer.

LL: A couple of other aspects of your plan. There's also 26 plus billion dollars for Pharmacare and 16 billion for free tuition. Is it too easy for the Green Party to make all of these promises because you don't have a realistic shot at forming government?

ELIZABETH MAY: Listen that's why we did a budget to show. Listen, we are making promises. PBS costing on pharmacare was far more than we expected to see based on reports like the Hoskins report and the report done by a number of Canadian universities, because there will be net savings as a result of pharmacare. The first few years for sure you don't see savings. We're making promises prepared to form government and that's why the new sources of revenue that we've listed make it possible for us to balance the budget within five years. This is real stuff and we are going forward more transparently more openly than any other party in this country with here is where we find the money. This is what it will cost.

LL: Ms. May, despite growing protests and science Canadians are still driving and flying every day. Most are in favour of the Trans Mountain pipeline project.

ELIZABETH MAY: I don't believe that.

LL: There is a robust fight against the carbon tax. Why do you think there's a disconnect?

ELIZABETH MAY: I don't think there's a disconnect. I drive. I fly. Our society is currently hard wired to fossil fuel use and this argument which has been put forward endlessly that the individual Canadian isn't ready yet. I worked in government in the 1980s and we didn't know poll to find out if individual Canadians were ready for us to ban leaded gasoline, because we knew leaded gasoline was actually dangerous for health particularly for children's health and intellectual capacity. We never asked you know are people ready to have us protect the ozone layer and ban these chemicals. There's a reason that Canadians in by large numbers, above 80 percent of Canadians, know we're in a crisis. They want action on climate change. It's very hard for an individual to take action in a system that's still subsidizing fossil fuels, that's still promoting the idea that we can expand the oil sands. It's time for - when you have actual leadership and create the programs to say to people do you want a solar panel on your roof? Would you rather plug your car into your house than stop at the gas station? These are really good choices for the future but almost impossible for the individual to do. Against all the pricing signals and against a structure in society that says we're addicted to fossil fuels and we think that's just fine we're going to keep doing that. It's not fine. We have to stop doing it.

LL: I'm sorry I keep stepping on you only because I want to make sure we get as much in as possible with the time we have. You held two seats in Parliament, your party, before the election was called. What Would you consider a good outcome for the Green Party this time?

ELIZABETH MAY: The important thing is what's a good outcome for Canada. It will not be good for Canada if either the Liberals or the Conservatives are able to somehow cobble together another false majority where thanks to First Past The Post which is a dysfunctional voting system which separates the way the popular vote fell from the way the seat count assembles after the election.

LL: But you need to get more than two this time to show that your party actually has growth within the country.

ELIZABETH MAY: I don't know how to say this more clearly than this law, Laura. I think I've said it before in this interview. My goals have nothing to do with whether people think the Green Party is growing. My goals have to do with what's required to ensure that my daughter's future and Charlotte's future is protected against the extraordinary damage that will happen to the global society and Canada. If we shoot past one point five and shoot past two and shoot past three degrees Celsius we're currently on track to do.

LL: Understood but you're in the political arena. So how do you translate that electorally?

ELIZABETH MAY: Into, as I said, it will be a disaster for the country if either the Liberals or the Conservatives get a majority of the seats. In a minority parliament, it's not a matter of how many seats. It's a question of do the Greens have enough MPs elected so as to be able to say to either of us all three of the other big parties, listen we won't let you get past the very first confidence vote unless we see absolute evidence, a change in our target, a commitment to real action to ensure that we avoid going above one point five degrees Celsius and that's a global issue. So Canada has to get our own house in order to play a global role.

LL: Elizabeth May I thank you very much for your time today.

ELIZABETH MAY: Thank you, Laura.

LL: Elizabeth May is the leader of the Green Party of Canada. She was in our Montreal studio. Well next week The Current and Q are coming together for a live show in Toronto. Join me and Tom Power at Glenn Gould Studio here at the CBC as we talk to voters, artists and thinkers about why it's important to engage in this election campaign. Rick Mercer is going to be there along with musical guests; The weather station. Tickets are free but you do have to reserve them in advance at cbc.ca/thecurrent. That's The Current and Q coming together for a live show on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. That's October 1st. at Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto. Well coming up in our next half hour two different views about what's happening south of the border. We'll hear from a former U.S. Secretary of Defence and a conservative commentator about what's next for President Donald Trump and the impeachment process. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

Back To Top »

Trump's former defence secretary says whistleblower probe just a 'raucous' period for U.S. democracy

Guests: James Mattis, Charlie Sykes

LL: I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

We are going to appoint Mad Dog Mattis [cheers] as our secretary of defence but we're not announcing it till Monday so don't tell anybody Mad Dog. He's great. He is great.

LL: That is then U.S. President elect Donald Trump in December of 2016 announcing General James Mattis as his secretary of defence. The career Marine had overseen combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. He served as commander of U.S. Central Command until his retirement in 2013 but it was his resignation from the position that President Trump was announcing, Secretary of Defence, in 2018 that sent shockwaves through Washington and beyond. James Mattis discusses his career as a Marine and a wartime commander in his new book Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. He's in Washington D.C. Hello.

JAMES MATTIS: Hello Laura. Good to be here.

LL: What did you think now, just hearing the president announcing he had picked you to be secretary of defence, what went through your mind?

JAMES MATTIS: Well I'd gone up for an interview Laura and I knew that it would take an act of Congress desk to basically give me a waiver on the law that said you had to be out for seven years. So I was a bit surprised when he decided to go forward with my nomination. But it all turned out to work okay. I was on my way into a wonderful job and one I had never aspired to and never anticipated.

LL: Then you weren't lobbying for that position. Were you?

JAMES MATTIS: Not in the slightest, Laura I'm from the West and I was just getting in India enjoying life after a 40 year career in the Marines so I was having a lot of fun out west of the Rockies.

LL: Okay what did you think though about being called Mad Dog?

JAMES MATTIS: I think that was a name given to me on a slow news day frankly. My troops all laughed about it when they first saw it. They knew my call sign was chaos and questioned where that one had come from, and I just said hey guys it's a slow news day they needed something to sell advertising so that one caught.

LL: But it stuck.

JAMES MATTIS: Yes it stuck with some people my troops still call me chaos.

LL: You've come under some criticism for not giving your opinions on President Trump after the book's been published and as you've been doing interviews. Why did you make that decision?

JAMES MATTIS: Well, number one, the book was about what I'd learned in the military. I'd started writing it in the fall of 2013 and it was, I would say, on Version 5 and I thought along with my co-author ready to be printed when i got the phone call to become Secretary of Defence. At that point our federal ethics rules prohibit you from producing it, from spending time on it, writing about it, thinking about it. I think I couldn't even think about the book. And so it just languished for a couple of years. And then when I came out of office I read it, reviewed it. But the book was not about my time as secretary of defence. And I included my letter of resignation. But what I was doing there Laura was telling people how my career in public service ended. My book is about how it began how I learned to lead and from whom did I learn the operating principles that allowed me to lead in an ethical and effective way from the battlefield to Washington D.C. It was not about my time as secretary defence. It would have been dishonest I think to suddenly turn it into a political assessment of a sitting president.

LL: Right. But you've left government now and it's no surprise that people, journalists, would be asking you about your assessment of the president, now that you've left office. So why don't you do that? It has nothing to do with your book.

JAMES MATTIS: You're right. It has nothing to do with the book. But there's a larger issue that your question is quite appropriate to. The French call it a Devoir de reserve. When you leave an administration that you were part of - over a policy disagreement that I made very clear in a page and a half long publicly released letter of resignation - I'm still the former secretary defence. I'm still the former general and we have tens of thousands of troops and sailors at sea around the world. And the last thing I think you need to do at that point is to further embellish your reason for leaving and have the troops looking over their shoulder at the former secretary of defence, when I'm no longer responsible for the foreign policy. I'm no longer responsible and current on all the issues. And the president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defence who are responsible we do not need someone who is picking apart from outside the policy that are going on. I think you owe this period of reserve of quiet so that, in a very dangerous world, those who are responsible have the freedom to do what they believe necessary.

LL: We will get to that policy difference that caused you to resign in a little bit. But nevertheless, I'm going to plough ahead and try to get you to give some comment on the latest news because quite a few astounding things have been happening in Washington in recent days. A whistleblower's complaint released to Congress. Concerns on behalf of this whistleblower that senior White House officials had intervened to lock down records of a phone call between President Trump and the president of Ukraine in which he asked the president of Ukraine to investigate a political rival Joseph Biden. What do you think of that?

JAMES MATTIS: Well right now I know nothing more than what we've all seen in the press. But at the same time I would tell you in the Pentagon whistleblower complaint can actually be a large part of creating change of disciplining internally the organization. And I believe that way our government was set up, after our nasty argument with King George the third, was to actually make it so that there were internal competitions going on that for the power for the political power that those three branches of government and our [unintelligible] legislature would actually be jousting with one another. So this is you know democracies go through raucous periods and you see some of that going on right now. So this is the normal heave and Ho of democracies, their self-disciplining way to to align what happened and keep transparent government.

LL: You call this normal? This is only the fourth time in U.S. history that there's been an attempt to impeach a president.

JAMES MATTIS: Okay. I was talking about the whistleblower complaint right now. And you're right the impeachment is is significant. It's historically significant. But I would just say there's rough sledding ahead for everyone involved. This is an area that was intentionally left somewhat vague by the Founding Fathers with the idea that elections were how we would determine the president and what had to be high crime or misdemeanour. And those were left pretty much undefined. I think.

LL: If you felt that the president was a danger to U.S. national security would you say so?

JAMES MATTIS: I absolutely would. Right now. But remember there are strong institutions in your democracy, in our democracy, literally as we speak you see the U.S. Congress is holding hearings on the very issue that has seized every one today. And I have a lot of confidence in the hardiness of our Constitution and in the long term wisdom of the American people and the choices they make. It's up to the military and the Defence Department to defend this experiment. We call America. We don't need to get into political assessments of individuals.

LL: So what do you think is the biggest threat to U.S. national security then right now?

JAMES MATTIS: Well I'd break it into two parts. Externally, I would say in terms of just plain raw power right now and their cavalier talk of use of nuclear weapons and all, it would be Russia. Russia has mucked around in our elections. Russia has tried very hard to break the unity of NATO. They've invaded and changed borders in Europe for the first time since World War Two with military power. We're going to have to deal with Putin as he is not the Putin we want. In terms of long term will, we're going to have to find a way to deal with China and the differences between us and China. Two nuclear armed superpowers and figure out how to do that productively or that becomes a danger. In terms of urgency, your city of Vancouver British Columbia, hours of Seattle and Los Angeles within range of North Korean missiles. We're going to have to work the international community on this and by the way Canada has been wonderful actually leading some of this quiet effort. But internally we have dangers as well. One is this growing debt that the Americans have that we're transferring to the younger generation, intergenerational theft and my way of thinking. The other one is this lack of friendliness, fundamental friendliness, the willingness to listen to people we disagree with and accept they might actually be right once in a while. The willingness after an election, which is admittedly about dividing in order to get elected you come together to govern. That takes unity.

LL: Well let let's talk a little more about North Korea. During the time that you were secretary of defence the tensions between the U.S. and North Korea were heating up. Just how close did the United States and North Korea come to war?

JAMES MATTIS: There's no way of telling, Laura. I mean obviously that trajectory is wrong that the Obama administration had done a very good job of warning this was happening. Our intelligence agencies turned over their assessments. And so it was never in our mind something that came close to war. But I will tell you on numerous occasions I was sitting at a screen watching as test missiles were fired up and over the home islands of Japan into the Pacific Ocean. So I'm not in any way lessening the concern or the priority that the Obama administration passed loud and clear to the Trump administration which picked it up.

LL: But what about now? How concerned are you that war could break out now between the United States and North Korea or Iran for that matter because of a mistake or a miscommunication?

JAMES MATTIS: Well it's always a concern and you have to guard against it. You never get complacent on those and your question well placed because a lot of times in history people have stumbled into a war. And basically what you're talking about is how do we avoid that. But I will say that except for the short range missiles now we have not seen the other longer range missiles going up. And there's been some indication that there is some rollback on the nuclear effort. I don't put much stock in that frankly. So I think that diplomacy is going to have to be something that the international community uses in a very firm manner on Korea. On Iran I'm not sure where that stands right now in terms of stumbling into a fight. What Iran is doing is inexcusable. I'm sure you're aware that the Iranian leadership authorized the mission to try to murder the Saudi ambassador in Washington D.C. a couple of years ago. So you have an idea from that, Laura, just how murderous this regime is. We have to remember our problem is not with the Iranian people. It's with a regime that holds the Iranian people as much hostage to their revolutionary role as it is for a regime that threatens international shipping, that threatens to kill ambassadors who are men and women of peace, that has tried to shut down Saudi Arabia's oil pumping in a blatant attack. Now I have not seen any evidence of this by the way but certainly by a process of elimination there's probably no other country that had the capability and the will to take the attack. Right now I think that you're seeing the international community start to weigh in. This is inexcusable behaviour and Iran must cease at its own peril.

LL: And yet at the same time the United States flies to the defence of Saudi Arabia even though the Saudis pretty much stand more or less in the view of the world convicted of the murder of a journalist - the Saudi journalist living in the United States Jamal Kashoggy. How do you explain that kind of loyalty to a country that is flouting human rights?

JAMES MATTIS: Well if that was the only issue then you could make it a single issue and break contact with them. We have to look at how do we maintain a strategic relationship with a country that is critical to the stability in the region, critical to the world economy because as much as Canada and the United States Mexico may not need Mideast oil for their own economy, internal economy, the entire North American economy would suffer if our trading partners overseas for Canada the United States were to lose access to those oil supplies that are critical to other countries. We could not make up for all of that oil if it was taken off the market. So at times you've got to determine how to work with countries with whom you may not share all the values but you may have shared security interests. You may have shared economic interests. That means we should be unrelenting in standing up for human rights. We should make very clear that while we need. A strategic relationship it will be inhibited and even endangered if this sort of murder it becomes a characteristic of the state. And we're going to have to have held accountable whoever did this. I have not seen the link to MBS personally. I am telling you that.

LL: Mohammed bin Salman.

JAMES MATTIS: Excuse me. Yes. Their crown prince. I know that many people say that it all points to him but nobody can as come up yet with the actual link. So I think it's not as cut and dried as we would like it to be for those who see this one way. And remember that Saudi Arabia is liberalizing as we speak. It's not going to come quickly and turning Saudi Arabia from basically a consumer society to a productive society. This is not going to happen overnight. This is a culture that's very different. We have got to respect that.

LL: Let's turn the attention back to United States now because it was during your time as Secretary of Defence that the Pentagon announced its decision to ban transgender Americans from serving in the military. What was the thinking behind that?

JAMES MATTIS: Well first of all the book is about learning to lead. And as I go through much of my own history and what my mentors taught me it's very monotonous almost approach. Listen and then learn and then help and then lead. You don't just start out by issuing orders. And when I came in I found this was not something that better prepared for. We were going to dump it on the back to Sergeant and say you figure it out. That to me is an abrogation of responsibility. So I stopped what we were doing right then that had been decided by the previous administration. I said I want all of you to sit down together. We brought in a host of experts from combat experienced people, people who were experts on military policy personnel policy. And I said I need answers here before we simply say we're going to do this. And then we don't. We're not ready for it. So part of what you do in the military is you have to set subordinates up for success. I saw my responsibility is doing that. And so we commenced that process.

LL: But isn't it, in a free society, discriminatory on its face to ban a whole segment of American society from serving their country because of who they are.

JAMES MATTIS: Well I understand that's your position.

LL: It's not a position it's a question.

JAMES MATTIS: Well it doesn't sound like one. I understand what you're saying but I would just point out that combat is a very unusual circumstance, and that at times it's a good idea to pause before you change something that has been that way for hundreds of years and say we are first going to examine this and not immediately started holding congressional hearings about why did the policy fail in execution when it wasn't prepared for. So it's a matter of prudence and it's a matter of modesty for those who will never cross the line or departure but sometimes I think they sit in judgment over those who will actually face the enemy on the battlefield and the effects to combat cohesion.

LL: Let's bring this full circle. Share with our listeners why you decided to resign?

JAMES MATTIS: Well it's in the letter. I know that we need as many allies as we can have. And I thought there came a point where I was not a proper fit for the Cabinet.

LL: Because of the difference over the withdrawal of troops from Syria.

JAMES MATTIS: No it was broader than that. That was certainly an element. But it was also the broader issues of working with allies but also how we look at countries that muck around in our elections or an otherwise adversarial stances. And I don't forget my friends.

LL: You have been generous with your time sir. Thank you.

JAMES MATTIS: Thank you.

LL: Bye bye.

JAMES MATTIS: Bye bye.

LL: General James Mattis is a former secretary of defence under U.S. President Donald Trump. His new book is called Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. He was in Washington D.C. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

Back To Top »

Trump Impeachment

Guests: Charlie Sykes

LL: Well James Madison Edmund Randolph and George Mason had a thing about presidents and impeachable behaviour. So when they were helping to write the U.S. Constitution they made sure to get their thoughts down on paper. It was almost like they could see more than 200 years into the future.

SOUNDCLIP

Madison was concerned about a president who would engage in perfidy, deceit untrustworthiness. Madison was worried about a president who would be disloyal to our nation in dealing with a foreign nation, Ukraine. Randolph was concerned about a president who would secure emoluments from the office, profit from the presidency. Mason was concerned about someone who would tamper with elections or electors. He was concerned about a president who would tamper with investigations into himself. This is the presidency that the authors and architects of the impeachment language feared. This was the presidency they were worried about.

LL: That was former Florida Republican Congressman David Jolly running through what the architects of the U.S. Constitution considered impeachable behaviour for a president. Democrats have decided that President Donald Trump has checked off enough of those boxes to start an impeachment inquiry and Charlie Sykes agrees. He is the founder and editor at large of the bulwark and the author of How the Right lost its mind. He's in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hello.

CHARLIE SYKES: Good to be with you.

LL: Why is pursuing an impeachment inquiry the right thing to do.

CHARLIE SYKES: Well because under our system of government if Congress does not engage in a impeachment inquiry with the kind of conduct that we have seen, then literally the president the United States becomes above the law. We know that the president cannot be indicted while he is sitting in office. But this president has engaged in so much conduct and I am really glad you played my friend that David Jolly, little disquisition on impeachment. He's engaged in so much conduct that is seems to specifically fit the kind of the kind of issues and the kind of behaviour that the founding fathers recognized needed to have the oversight of Congress.

LL: But should it have come sooner?

CHARLIE SYKES: Well I actually do think that it probably should have come sooner. I'm one of those who believe that after the Butler report was issued Congress had more than enough information to begin an inquiry particularly in the area of obstruction of justice. But I also understand the political risks involved here a political calculation speaker Nancy Pelosi was engaged again and that's why I respect her her prudence about it. But there comes a point where if Congress does not act that it in fact emboldens someone like Donald Trump to believe that they are invincible that they are above the law. And it this way if Congress did not act it would basically render itself a constitutional melody.

LL: But what is it about this that makes it the tipping point? This particular episode.

CHARLIE SYKES: Well I think it is the cumulative effect of Donald Trump's misconduct, his arrogance and his contempt for the rule of law. From a political point of view I think that the latest revelations from that the transcript of the phone call and the whistleblower complaint is it is easily understandable. It is right there in front of you. It is the president himself using his office to encourage a foreign power to dig up dirt on a political opponent. All of the elements of Russia gate are right there in real time. So I think that the political calculation was that the Democrats decided that they could take this to the country. They could explain this and the public would understand it and that it would ultimately be indefensible. And there are some initial polling results that would suggest that that might be the case.

LL: Now you just heard James Mattis describing the underscoring the importance of whistleblowers enforcing a certain kind of discipline in the system. I wonder what you made of that.

CHARLIE SYKES: I thought that was that was fascinating. Particularly since the president has decided that he is going to attack the whistleblower yesterday during her breakfast speech. He compared the whistleblower and the sources of information in the White House to spies, suggesting that perhaps they ought to be subject to the death penalty that they were engaging in treason. And what General Mattis made very clear there is no these are not traitors. These are patriots. These are people who are acting within the system. And in fact doing their duty and that they play an important role in our system of government so I thought that was very interesting. In his own way he pushed back rather hard at Donald Trump's attempts to discredit the whistleblower.

LL: And wonder what you make of the way the details of the Ukraine story have come out, though, the White House releasing the transcripts for example.

CHARLIE SYKES: I find that remarkable because the transcripts I think were more damning than anyone thought that they would be. And perhaps it's a reflection of the fact that Donald Trump genuinely does not understand how inappropriate his behaviour is. I think you know that Donald Trump did not come equipped with a working ethical compass. But perhaps he was tone deaf enough not to recognize that he was releasing a transcript of a conversation in which he was clearly engaging in an inappropriate conversation.

LL: You already spoke about Nancy Pelosi the House majority leader's decision to wait until this point for her being hesitant to go forward with impeachment inquiries before. But what are the risks of going down the road toward impeachment now?

CHARLIE SYKES: Well there are multiple risks. Number one the Democrats could overplay their hand. I think that they've shown in the past that they are not as disciplined as they ought to be. Many of these hearings have gotten out of control. One of the risks of course is that that it causes Republican voters to rally around the president, that the base becomes completely inflamed, and that the president can exploit all of that. The other risk obviously is that swing voters are turned off by the process that they see this as an attempt to overturn an election. So there are definite risks. I mean up until today every major public policy poll public opinion poll I'm sorry has shown that the public did not like the idea of impeachment. So clearly by moving ahead with impeachment this is an uphill political fight nationally for the Democrats.

LL: So, yes, because in the piece he wrote for the blog you talk about the need for the Democrats to maintain a tight focus. Tell us what you mean by that.

CHARLIE SYKES: Well I think that they can't go all over the place. And by the way I do think that Nancy Pelosi understands that there are many things that upset them about Donald Trump. You know his is this cruelty and his indifference and his policy on the border, his his racism etc. None of those are there or those are political issues. They are not part of the impeachment process. They need to stay focussed on the specific issues of misconduct for which they have evidence. And I think there is room for some disagreement about this. There are some people who believe they should focus specifically on the Ukrainian story. I would suggest that they have plenty of evidence on the record involving obstruction of justice or the president's misuse of his office to enrich himself a violation of the Emoluments Clause. I do think the American public understands old fashioned graft. I also think that would be the general abuse of power and his obstruction of Congress's role is a fit subject for impeachment as well as lying to the public. I think it's interesting to note that in 1974 the Articles of Impeachment drawn up against Richard Nixon specifically included Nixon's lies an attempt to mislead the public.

LL: We will leave it there I'm sure we'll be talking to you again Charlie Sykes. Thank you.

CHARLIE SYKES: Thank you so much.

LL: Charlie Sykes is the founder and editor at large of the boardwalk and the author of How the Right Lost its Mind. He was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That is our program for today stay tuned to Radio One for Q and thank you for listening to The Current.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

Friday September 27, 2019 Full Episode Transcript

More Stories Like This