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The Current Transcript for November 8, 2023

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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The latest New York Times Santa College survey shows Donald Trump leading President Joe Biden in five of six battleground states.

MATT GALLOWAY: Donald Trump will spend a lot of time between now and next year's election in courts defending himself against a series of criminal indictments. If the polls are to be believed, though, the former president could very well end up back in the White House after all that. Now, you might ask yourself, how is something like that possible? We will unpack the political mood in the United States in an hour. Also this morning, when the Jewish-American author, Nathan Thrall, wrote his new book about the lives of Palestinians on the border with Israel and the system they live under, friends told him now was the time to have those hard conversations that people often shy away from. Days after the book was released, Hamas attacked Israel and throws book tour. Events around the world were cancelled in 30 minutes. Nathan Thrall on what can and can't be said in the heat of War. The Complicated Road to Peace, and why, despite everything, he still feels drawn to Israel. And later, the humble sandwich.

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Could put anything between the bread. You can make it as inexpensive as you like or as expensive as you like, and it's portable.

MATT GALLOWAY: Every day, Barry Andrew posts a video about one sandwich in history to his 170,000 Instagram followers in an hour. How two slices of bread and the stuff in between can teach us about a place in time. But we begin on the road out of Gaza. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is the Current.

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Families terrified for Canadians still stuck in Gaza

Guests: Jouliette Touma, Hany Elbatnigl, Sama ElSabbagh

MG: For more than a month now since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, many Canadians inside Gaza have been trying to get home. Yesterday, some were finally able to leave. According to Global Affairs, 75 Canadians and family members crossed the border into Egypt. Hani Albertini was one of them. He lives in Ottawa but was in Gaza to sell his family home when the war broke out. I spoke with him while he was on the bus after crossing the Rafah border yesterday. Tell me how you're feeling. I mean, you're now across the border out of Gaza.

HANY ELBATNIGL: So I'm to leave that area. Yesterday, I was coming to the border because we have to come to the border every day to check if the border are open or not. So day before yesterday, I was coming to the border waiting for a taxi to pick me up under the building where I stay, and the building in front of me got bombs right away and exploded. I fell to the ground. I have pressure in my ear. Blood come out from here. I told him that I have a pain in my back and have pain in my ear. So they bring that paramedic to the bus. It shook me out. And then he said, As soon as you arrive tomorrow, we have to check your head.

MG: That's that's an unbelievable story. I mean, you must feel incredibly relieved to to be out.

HANY ELBATNIGL: Really? I'm really I'm really happy that you.

MG: When you were at the border, was there any guarantee that you were going to be able to get across?

HANY ELBATNIGL: Yes, because when I came to the border, I checked the list on the paper. I find my name is there.

MG: But we know that some people have gotten there and the borders cross their borders closed once they've gotten there as well.

HANY ELBATNIGL: As example, I have my cousin, his wife and daughter. She's 11 years old. She's a Canadian, too, but her name is not on the list. She went back. She came every day on the border, but she don't find a name on the list. I give her some money because she's don't have the money. She had. A house is bombed completely.

MG: It must be really difficult to leave family there who can't cross the border yet.

HANY ELBATNIGL: Yeah, they can't cross the border because it's very hard to get to. 11 years old. She's crying every day from scared because she lived too far. And then she came to Rafah area to live with some people she could not, even though and they put her in the house to be close to the border because she could go walking. She's going to have no money to pay for. She go for sent back about since last Friday. I suddenly I find her to be in the building.

MG: How helpful has the Canadian government been through through all of this?

HANY ELBATNIGL: It's frustrating for me because since the Friday last Friday, I'm trying because my nephew is American passports. And then they came the Thursday and Friday, they picked them up. They were like by the Canadians very hard since Friday. I'm trying to go for that. But what brought them back? My daughter called and my wife Goldie, my kids called, my nephews and my nieces. We tried to get me out of this. I'm 71 years old, so I this is the first step. I came to Gaza since 1967. Who are. Yeah.

MG: And so the last few weeks must have just been I don't know how you would describe it, Just waiting to try to get it. What has that been like for you?

HANY ELBATNIGL: First stage. I moved 6 hours, 1:00 at night, running, walking. There's no cars. We stayed there with the people we did. We don't know, Bob. Every night I never sleep with to have the plane around me all night. And then when you hear that plane, they are, Bob.

MG: Really scary. It sounds incredibly scary. I'm going to let you go because I know you're on the bus, but what happens now? You're on the bus heading to Cairo and then what happens now?

HANY ELBATNIGL: I've been I have to go from Cairo to Canada and I want to go back once I have my wife and my kids.

MG: What's the first thing you'll do when you get back to Canada?

HANY ELBATNIGL: First thing I have to kiss my kids for- all I have to give is 12 years old. Everybody calling me crying. Then come back, Baba. Come. But it the heart. Yeah.

MG: I'm glad you're safe.

HANY ELBATNIGL: Thank you. Thank you so much.

MG: That's Hanyy Elbatnagli, a Canadian citizen on the bus on his way to Cairo after leaving Gaza yesterday. Global Affairs says they are in contact with more than 600 Canadians, permanent residents and family members in Gaza. Samar Al-Sabbagh's Father Akram is still in Gaza. The 73 year old was visiting his siblings there when the war started. Samar is in London, Ontario. Samar, hello to you.

SAMAH ALSABBAGH: Yes, hi, Miles. How are you doing?

MG: I'm okay. How is your father?

SAMAH ALSABBAGH: Oh, my father is still alive. That's you know, that's that's the ultimate question. But I just before I speak about my father, I'd like to tell you that I know Uncle Hadi, and it's just a relief to hear that he was able to cross. So, Uncle Hand, he's been a friend of my dad for many, many years. He's a close family friend. I call him uncle because he's like a brother to my father. And we were we just lost connections with him in Gaza. We didn't know anything about him. So I'm so glad that you guys had him on the show. At least now I know that he's that he's okay and he was able to cross. But unfortunately, my father is not yet able to cross.

MG: Where is he? Where is he? In Gaza?

SAMAH ALSABBAGH: He's he's in the north. He's in Gaza City, up in an email. And we've been just pleading to the government to try to help him get from the north to the south, because we're hearing a lot of mixed messages about the the road from the north to the south. And all the messages are horrible. They're just horrible. It's a death road. There's checkpoints. There is other there are airstrikes all the time. And people are asked to get to a point with the car and then they have to leave the car behind and they have to walk a certain distance around six kilometres from one point to the other. So it's going to be a very, very long and hard process. And to be quite frank, that we're very we're very scared for my father and we've pleaded for help to get him from the north to the south, but nothing has come out of it, to be honest. Global Affairs keeps saying there is nothing we can do on the inside. He's going to have to find his way and and assess his risks. And that word itself, assess his risks, means that he's going to take it upon himself. He's he's taken this death road, basically.

MG: And he he's 73, as you said.

SAMAH ALSABBAGH: He's 73. Yes, he's 73. It's it's it's been crazy. It's been really crazy for my dad, for ourselves. My father was also just like Uncle Hani. He was he had to move four or five times from one house to from one area to another area, running away also from bombings. My father has been a Canadian for 32 years old, so my father has and hasn't really lived under wars and under harsh conditions. And he's a retired man. He's 73. He's retired and he lives a quiet life. And, you know, his his view was to go for a vacation, meet with the family, see his sister, who's who's calling to say to to wanting to see him and and his brothers. And this whole thing turned into a huge nightmare.

MG: Have you heard have you heard much I mean, because part of this is about who is on that list, the list that circulates of the names of the people who will be allowed to cross the border. Have you heard from global affairs about when your father might get out?

SAMAH ALSABBAGH: The last time we've actually got a phone call from a global Affairs or an email was last Saturday telling us that he will be able to leave on the first of all, it was he was able to leave on Monday. And then and then they they called us again and said no on Tuesday. But then but then even on Tuesday, his name wasn't on the list and nobody communicated with us. It's just been chaotic. The communication with global affairs. So I called them just just half an hour ago before before getting on this show. And they assured me that his name is on the list to leave on Thursday.

MG: But for him to leave, he has to get from the north to the south, as you said.

SAMAH ALSABBAGH: Exactly. So my father is now going to take that risk on his own.

MG: How will he do that? I mean, I can hear you. I can hear it in your voice. I mean, it is so hard.

SAMAH ALSABBAGH: We're we're so. We? I don't know. There's not a word that can describe how we're feeling. There's not a word that can describe. I don't know how he's going to do it. He's a 73 year old. He's a he's on his own. He travelled on his own. But we're just, you know, we we keep our fingers crossed and and we just pray that he's able to make it safely to the other side.

MG: You're here so far away from where he is. I wonder what is. What's the last month been like for you? Are you sleeping at all? Is this how has the how has this consumed your life?

SAMAH ALSABBAGH: It's it's been terrible. We're not sleeping. We're not sleeping. I'm barely getting three or 4 hours of sleep a night. Barely. I have four kids to take care of here. I have a job as well. And and I haven't been able to focus really, with the kids, with my job, with anything. My father situation has consumed our life. It's consumed our. Our our emotions, our mental health. It's been a crazy, you know, ride. It's been a crazy ride for all of us here. My mom is here. She's she's very she's getting really sick. She's she's worried to death. It's my dad on one side and also her brothers and her sister and her family that's there. So it's been just a really, really rough month, to be honest. I never wish for anyone to live the month that we lived.

MG: The Canadian government has said that they don't determine when or how many people can leave through the Rafah crossing each day. We've been speaking with a young woman who is at the border crossing today and and she's been waiting and it's unclear whether she's going to be able to cross because it's unclear whether the border is now open or closed. What is it? What is it that you're looking for? What action do you want to see in the position that you're in? What action do you want to see from the federal government here?

SAMAH ALSABBAGH: To be honest, Matt, it's just this is just mere incompetence. The conduct of Global Affairs Canada staff and the leadership has not only failed to alleviate, but but has increasingly increased the risks for Canadians, Canadian citizens in Gaza right now. So for us families who are here, who have loved ones there, no longer have confidence in global affairs, you know, we're happy. Thank you very much that his name is finally on the list. I don't know who gets to decide whose name is on the list, but my father is 73 and his name was not on the list of first people to leave. He has friends who are Canadians, who's 75 and above, one of them on a wheelchair, and her name and her husband's name weren't on the list for her to leave yesterday. But I heard also from friends hear from her from their children here that their name is their parents name is on the list on Thursday. So they'll be able hopefully to leave. My dad that has given up. My dad is able to make it. So our demand is it's clear that the prime minister's office should take direct control of evacuation efforts to ensure the safety and expedited return of Canadian citizens. And we call upon the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, that she needs to hold an emergency meeting with the family members in Canada. She has to acknowledge the failure, the weight that we have endured. And also the Minister of International Development, Ahmad has said, needs to coordinate with the United Nations to transport Canadians from the north to the south. And this hasn't happened. None of this has happened.

MG: So I can't I can't imagine what you and your family are going through.

SAMAH ALSABBAGH: [Unintelligible]s so our loved ones can stay alive.

MG: Please do keep us posted. I wish you and your father the best. And thank you. I'm really glad to have the chance to talk to you. Thank you very.

SAMAH ALSABBAGH: Much for much. Take care.

MG: Samah Elsabbagh is in London, Ontario. As you heard, her father, 73 year old Akram, a Canadian citizen who is stuck in Gaza. He is in the north. He has to get to the south. His name is on some sort of list. But it's a matter of trying to get through that very dangerous territory to try to get across the border. As we're hearing as well. We've been speaking just off air with a young woman, Isaiah McCaw, who Canadian who has been trying to get out of Gaza. We've spoken with her before. She's at the border. She's been waiting for hours, but it's unclear whether she's going to be able to cross. We did request interviews with the Foreign Affairs Minister, Mélanie Joly, as well as her parliamentary secretary, Rob Oliphant. Neither were available to speak with us since the beginning of this war. Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 10,000 people in Gaza, about 40% of them children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Juliette Touma is director of communications at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, commonly known as UNWRA. This is the U.N. Agency for Palestinian Refugees that provides humanitarian resources to Gaza. And Julia Touma is in Amman, Jordan. Juliet, hello to you.

JOULIETTE TOUMA: Hi.

HANY ELBATNIGL: Hi. As you were for having me.

MG: Thank you for being here. As you understand it. And this changes day by day. But what is the humanitarian situation in Gaza like right now?

JOULIETTE TOUMA: I mean, if I had the words to do just this, I would do something. But I don't think I do anymore. It's been one month or more than one month of a very, very tight siege, a very, very brutal war. More than 10,000 people have been reported killed, including many, many women and children, including 92 of my colleagues. 92 of my colleagues at UNWRA were killed.

MG: I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry that we heard about this yesterday from the secretary general, Antonio Guterres, who said that this is an immense tragedy for everybody who's who's there on the ground. But also, as you mentioned, for your own colleagues. What can you tell us about the situations that they were in?

JOULIETTE TOUMA: Things in different parts of the Gaza Strip. So not only in the north or in Gaza City. Many were also killed in parts like the middle areas or the southern areas. Some were killed with their own families with them. Some were already displaced. We had one colleague my age. She was. She had disabilities. We have another colleague, Sami. He was killed in his own home with eight of his children and his wife, all with children. The whole family wiped out Amram family. We had another colleague who was killed while he was queuing for bread outside one of the bakeries. These were mainly teachers. We had also school principal. We had a gynaecologist Syrian. We had a support staff. They are the backbone of our operation and they're all gone now. And we are never, ever going to be the same without these kids.

MG: The United Nations is one of the organisations around the world that has been calling for a cease fire. What are you concerned about if there isn't a cease fire? What are you most concerned about?

JOULIETTE TOUMA: Now humanity will. Think further. Think further. Basically, every single day that this goes on with this fund further down into have further down. So if we want to save whatever is left of our humanity, that's all we do. We have a cease fire. Got to have a cease fire for the sake of our collective humanity globally.

MG: The Israeli Prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that there will not be a cease fire. He said that that would would allow Hamas to rearm and re-equip itself. He says that he will consider, quote, tactical little pauses in the fighting. How hopeful would those pauses be in getting aid to the citizens in Gaza that your organisation is working with?

JOULIETTE TOUMA: It's time for a humanitarian cease fire for the sake of humanity. It's sponsoring humanitarian cease fire.

MG: So you need a full cease fire. The little pauses in the fighting that Benjamin Netanyahu has talked about don't go nearly far enough.

JOULIETTE TOUMA: We need a humanitarian cease fire and we need humanitarian supplies that flow into the Gaza Strip on a regular basis without interruptions and unnecessary inspections of these humanitarian supplies. We also need fuel to come in because we are at the end of the barrel and no fuel has come into Gaza since the beginning of the war. And we also need to access everyone in need across the Gaza Strip, including in the north, including places like al-Shifa Hospital and others.

MG: Is your sense that the aid that is trickling in, is it getting to those so-called safe areas that the many Gazans are fleeing to because they've been told to flee areas around Gaza City, for example? Is the aid getting to where where they're going?

JOULIETTE TOUMA: No, but this is a myth. This is a myth that I'd like to debunk. And now there is no safe place across the Gaza Strip. There is no such thing as a safe zone. That's not true. No place is safe. Our own colleagues have been killed in other places across the Gaza Strip. Our own under facilities. Nearly 50 of them. They have been impacted across the Gaza Strip. No place. No place across the Gaza Strip is safe.

MG: Given what you've described, are your colleagues in Gaza able to make what is the difference that they can make now? What are they what are they able to do to provide aid to people in an incredibly desperate situation?

JOULIETTE TOUMA: Sandra is currently hosting 700,000 people, 700,000 in 150 shelters. These are mainly schools, but we also were forced to open places that are not fit for human beings, like warehouses, as one example. Right. And so what we're doing right now is our own staff, who themselves have been impacted, who themselves have been displaced. They lost loved ones. They lost colleagues from there. Their houses have been bombed out. They are on the ground in these shelters doing the little whatever they can with the little supplies that we have to give assistance to people. But our shelters are overcrowded. They're overflowing with human beings, with people, because people continue to flock into our shelters in search of protection under the UN plan. But even our shelters under the U.N. flag have not been protected. We've had 50 of our facilities impacted, damaged. Some of them were directly hit.

MG: You said that you were lacking the words to describe how serious the situation is. I can hear it in your voice. You sound. You sound shattered by this.

JOULIETTE TOUMA: It's it's beyond shattering. Look, it's been a it's been one month of hell of we're terrified every single minute about the fate of our colleagues. We keep getting these confirmation, but more and more colleagues are are killed. Our own staff are stretched to the limit. A fine for this to come to an end.

MG: Juliette Touma, I'm glad to speak with you. Thank you very much.

JOULIETTE TOUMA: You're welcome.

MG: Julia Touma, director of communications at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. She was in Amman, Jordan. Your CBC News is next. And then a conversation with the author Nathan Thrall, about building bridges between Palestinians and Israelis and how difficult that work is to do right now. I'm Matt Galloway. Stay with us.

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Journalist Nathan Thrall on breaking the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence

Guest: Nathan Thrall

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. It is not the book tour that Nathan Thrall expected to have. Nathan Troll is a journalist and the former director of the Arab-Israeli project at the International Crisis Group. His new book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, was released on October the third, just days before Hamas's attack on Israel. And among the many things the book is about is the death of abed Islamist five year old son Milad. Nathan Thrall joins me now from Chicago. Nathan, hello.

NATHAN THRALL: Good morning.

MG: These have been really difficult weeks for so many people right around the world. How are you doing?

NATHAN THRALL: I'm okay. I have a very dear friend who's in Gaza, and I'm worried about him and his family. My own wife and daughters have left our home in Jerusalem and have come to the United States to be with me. So everything feels fraught and and fragile. I'm just very much hoping this will end soon.

MG: I want to talk more about the moment that we're in. But this moment, as I say, finds you trying to do a book tour that is not like the book tour you expected. And this is for a book that is a. Really powerful book. Can you just tell me a little bit about about the book and tell me who Abe Salama is?

NATHAN THRALL: Abed Salama is a father who lives in a town called and that just outside Jerusalem, and that is actually partially annexed by Israel in 1967. So it's both within Jerusalem and outside Jerusalem. And the community that Ahmed Salama lives in is a walled off enclave. It has a 26 foot tall concrete wall on three sides. This is called the separation barrier. And on the fourth side is another kind of wall that runs through a segregated road around 4370, famously known as the apartheid road, with Israeli traffic on one side and Palestinian traffic on the other. And there are about 130,000 people who live in this walled enclave that is partially within the city. I live in Jerusalem, and the story of the book is of Abed's son, Milad, who is excited for a kindergarten class trip. Some of them have green West Bank IDs that don't permit them to enter Jerusalem. Some of them have blue Jerusalem IDs that do allow them to enter Jerusalem. And as a result, they are not able to go to a nearby play area. Just on the other side of the wall, a stone's throw away. They have to follow the winding path of this wall to a rather distant play area on the outskirts of Ramallah. And so these children leave on a class trip in a bus, about 50 kids on this bus, and they pass through a checkpoint and they are struck by a giant semi-trailer. The bus flips over. It catches fire. Six children and one teacher die. And the people who are left to help rescue the children on this burning bus are the ordinary bystanders who are who are at the scene of the accident. Palestinians who live on the other side of the wall. And this is an area of utter neglect. I mean, even the Israeli emergency services will not cross into the enclave where these parents and children live without a army escort. And when Abed rushes with other parents to the scene of the crash, he finds a crowd of people there. Who tell him that the kids have been taken in all sorts of different directions, some of them taken to an East Jerusalem hospital, some of them taken to a West Jerusalem hospital, some of them taken to a military base. Just a minute up the road and some of them taken to Ramallah. Abbott himself has a green West Bank ID. He can't go search for his son at many of these places. He certainly can't enter the Israeli military base a minute up the road. He can't enter the West Jerusalem or East Jerusalem to search for his son at the hospitals there. And he goes to Ramallah and looks for his son there. And it's more than 36 hours before he's able to find his son. And what the book attempts to do is through this tragedy, to tell the story of Israel Palestine in microcosm, through the lives of Abed and other Palestinian and Jewish characters who live these very separate and unequal existences, but who come together on the day of this crash.

MG: This is a story, as you say, that's told through the lives of people. It's also told through what you describe as the system. And you've kind of hinted a little bit of what that system is. Why did you want to tell that story now?

NATHAN THRALL: You know, I have been writing about Israel Palestine for over a decade, and I was quite frustrated with the fact that the whole world would pay attention to Israel Palestine only when there was a dramatic spike in violence, a war in Gaza, an invasion of Jenin, a suicide bombing. And that would have been the more natural journalistic subject for a book. But my goal was to draw attention to. The ordinary lives of Israelis and Palestinians. And to the situation as it exists when there isn't this dramatic spike in violence. So when we have a war in Gaza, as we do today, often what you hear is a call for calm. And what I wanted to do was to show what that calm looks like. That calm actually isn't so calm. It involves a great deal of violence to remain in place. It produces violence, in turn against a highly oppressive system. And I felt that unless we look at the system as it exists, not just when there is a spike in violence, we're doomed to keep repeating these terrible rounds of bloodshed.

MG: You've said that we spend too much time speaking in abstractions. I mean, that kind of hints at that. What what aren't we talking about when we talk in abstractions?

NATHAN THRALL: You know, so much of the conversation in the diplomatic community and in the media about Israel. Palestine is about one state or two states or confederation. And those are all potential hypothetical futures. But the discussion of them comes at the expense of the day in and day out reality of 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians all living under Israeli rule. And the vast majority of those Palestinians don't have basic civil rights. At one point, Abid even chooses a marriage partner on the basis of the colour of her ID because he has a higher paying job in Jerusalem that he is at risk of losing because he himself has a green West Bank I.D. and he needs to find a way to get a blue I.D. through marriage in order to keep his job and to support his family. And that's just one of many examples of how how far the system reaches into the most intimate details of these people's lives.

MG: I had read that before this book came out. It came out, as I mentioned, on the 3rd of October, that you were told that this was the perfect time, that people were ready for a book like this. When the book came out in the days before the 7th of October in the massacre on the 7th of October. What were you expecting in terms of a response?

NATHAN THRALL: Many of my friends told me that this book is going to be a bellwether. It's going to show how far the mainstream has moved in its understanding of Israel-Palestine. It wasn't that long ago where quite centrist voices were afraid to say the word occupation. And by the time the book came out, you had quite centrist voices saying the word apartheid. You even had the former Mossad director who was appointed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, saying that Israel was practising apartheid. He said that in August, and I was expecting this book to be read by a lot of people who might otherwise or might just a few years ago have been unprepared to read it and to hear its message and to really put themselves into the shoes of the people who live under this oppressive system. And of course, you know, after October 7th, that changed radically.

MG: How's the book been received since then?

NATHAN THRALL: The book has been very well received and reviewed by those who have read it, but there has been a deep reluctance to engage with it by some of the very people I most hoped to reach. I had events for the book cancelled in five cities. The largest event that I had planned to do and was in London and that was shut down by the UK police.

MG: Why did they shut? Why did the police shut it down?

NATHAN THRALL: They were shutting down. Really anything with Palestinian in the title and citing public safety.

MG: Literally anything with Palestinian in the title.

NATHAN THRALL: Yeah. The night before a music festival, you know, playing traditional music in a church in London had been closed down. The UK Home Secretary had made public remarks a few days prior to my event saying that the UK police should consider arresting anyone with a Palestinian flag. The UK police didn't follow through on that recommendation, but that gives you a sense of what the atmosphere was like at that moment. And then in the United States, you know, I had the ad even radio ads for the book were pulled. And and even when I have had events that weren't cancelled, it was evident that the organisers or the higher ups at the organisations that were hosting the events were terrified that something could go wrong, that this would result in controversy, that donors would pull out, that they would make headlines that they didn't want to make, that they themselves could lose their jobs over having this event. So it's been an atmosphere of great fear to even engage with, with a work of narrative non-fiction that is, I think, empathetically showing the lives of both Palestinians and Jews in this place.

MG: You had an event at a synagogue in New York that was cancelled, and in an email they said the organisers said that they hope to reschedule sometime at a later date when hopefully some calm is restored and there will be more spaciousness in people's minds. Do you understand where they were coming from at all in that?

NATHAN THRALL: I do understand where they're coming from. You know, people are grieving right now. It's, of course, difficult for people who are in grief to have empathy for the other side or even to think about the deep roots, the deep causes of the violence that took away their their loved ones. So so I do understand it. But I also believe that there is no more urgent time to have these conversations and to attempt to have that deeper understanding.

MG: Tell me more about that, because there are many people who will say that. I mean, and these are the words that have been uttered, now is not the time. What do you say back to those people?

NATHAN THRALL: Well, I say that, you know, in we have had multiple wars in Gaza, and after each of these wars, we see a recurrence. And that recurrence is even bloodier than preceding wars. And that will continue to be the case so long as we have this attitude of not engaging with the deeper system that will exist after this war is over. And that must be addressed if we want to have any chance of ending this bloodshed.

MG: One of the things that's unfolding in the United States here in Canada, right around the world, is that there has been a marked increase in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. And you've said that you worry that anti-Semitism has taken a turn that you don't fully understand. What did you mean by that?

NATHAN THRALL: So pro-Israel advocacy groups have been trying for the last several years to limit criticism of Israel by promoting a definition of anti-Semitism that is unjustifiable, has absolutely nothing to do with hatred of Jews, which is what anti-Semitism is, and instead encompasses all kinds of criticism of Israel that even, you know, top Israeli officials, former ministers, the attorney general of the state of Israel, the kinds of criticisms that they utter all the time that Israel, the editorial board of Israel's most prestigious newspaper, Haaretz, makes regularly. So that definition has been one of the main tools. It's known as the I.A.E.A. Or International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. And it basically outlaws expressions of Palestinian nationalism. It makes it so that even describing a system of ethnic oppression by Jews over Palestinians to call that racist is considered anti-Semitic under this definition. And, you know, this is this tool has been very successful. And now after October 7th, it's going to have an entirely new life with even greater success. And as a result, we're going to find people terribly frightened of having honest conversations about Israel-Palestine because nobody wants to be called a bigot.

MG: How do you draw that line between what is legitimate criticism of the actions of a government and criticism that crosses that line in a moment where there has been a marked increase in anti-Semitism, where people feel they've told us this on this program, where they feel afraid to be, in their words, openly Jewish.

NATHAN THRALL: It's very clear to me. That criticism of the state of Israel, including describing Israeli policies of ethnic domination as racist, are entirely legitimate and have absolutely nothing to do with hatred of Jews and the expression of anti-Semitic tropes, the expression of hatred of Jews, of discussion of global Jewish conspiracies, the conflation of Jews with Zionism or with the action of the state of Israel. Those are all anti-Semitic. But but the criticism of Israel and the description of racist policies as racist is not anti-Semitic.

MG: What impact do you think the attacks on the 7th of October have had on the left in Israel?

NATHAN THRALL: The October 7th attacks have pushed the entire country to the right.

MG: The entire country.

NATHAN THRALL: The entire country.

MG: So where are where are those who were on the left? Those are the ones who are saying to you, before this book was published, now is the time. Where are they?

NATHAN THRALL: They are in a state of shock and grief and rage, and they are in quite large numbers supporting policies of collective punishment against more than 2 million people in Gaza who had absolutely nothing to do with Hamas's attack. That is where the bulk of the country, including the left, has has moved. I will say that in a in parallel, there is also a new appreciation of the fact that this system, which has existed for decades, cannot continue because it resulted in October 7th and nobody wants to see another October 7th. And there is a new openness to imagining a different kind of arrangement for Jews and Palestinians in Israel, Palestine in the future, what that might look like. Nobody knows. But the very fact that the Palestinian issue now is at the forefront of everybody's minds is a is itself an enormous change for the last several elections in Israel. The Palestinian issue was at the bottom of the agenda when you had these massive protests on a scale we hadn't seen in decades in Israel against the judicial reform. The Palestinian issue was entirely marginalised. And today, when those protests resume and I think they will resume, that there will be no denying that the Palestinian issue is the most important issue for Israelis to address. And there will be no denying that the system as it existed on October 6th cannot continue.

MG: I was going to say part of that is about the response to a book like this in Israel. You've been travelling around the world and you talked about the events that aren't happening in Europe, in the United States. What about in Israel? I mean, how. Have people been engaging with you in the midst of grief and and anguish about what happened on the 7th of October? Have people been coming to you and saying that that your ideas have place and purchase in that country right now?

NATHAN THRALL: Yes, they they have. There are, of course, you know, voices on the left that have remained steadfast in their principles of seeking equality for all people living under Israeli rule.

MG: Well, I'll show you beyond people reading it, which I hope they do. What we'll show you that they have taken up those ideas.

NATHAN THRALL: I think the key test is going to be whether there are calls for a an end to more than half a century of ethnic domination of Jews over Palestinians. Now that what that call for an end to it might look like will vary. There will be some who might call for two states. There might be some who call for a confederation or something else. But the key test will be if there are serious calls for an outcome that would be just and that would give equal individual and collective rights to all the people living between the river and the sea.

MG: You mentioned that your family has left Israel and joined you in the United States. Will you return it? You've lived there for for a number of years. Is that still home for you?

NATHAN THRALL: It's still home.

MG: And you'll go back.

NATHAN THRALL: And the plan at present is to go back. But I have to say that I am questioning whether I can responsibly raise my three daughters there, six, nine and 12 in that place. And if even if we ignore the issue of personal safety, just the environment in which they will live, the amount of hatred and racism that is going to be all around them when we do return. That's something I cannot really protect them from. And for the first time in our lives in Jerusalem, my wife and I are having conversations about whether we really should be raising our daughters there. Why would you go back? It's my life's work is to be trying as best I can to bring about a different future for the people in that place, for my daughters. And there's really nothing more meaningful in my life. I don't want anyone I love or my daughters to pay a price for that. But I also don't want to abandon it. I have a sense of personal responsibility for it. I'm an American Jew and Israel is doing what it's doing in the name of the Jewish people. That's what it claims. As an American citizen, I'm paying for the bombs being dropped on Gaza right now. And so I feel a tremendous responsibility to remain engaged in this in the search for equality and justice in this place.

MG: I'm glad to have the chance to talk to you about your work and about this book, but also the time that the book lands in. Nathan, thank you very much.

NATHAN THRALL: Thank you very much for having me.

MG: Nathan Thrall is a journalist and former director of the Arab-Israeli project at the International Crisis Group. He lives in Jerusalem. We reached him in Chicago. His new book is A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy. Coming up after your regional update, we will turn our attention to the United States. It's a year away from the American presidential vote, and a new New York Times poll has created all sorts of discussion and more. It shows President Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump in key battleground states. That has some people wondering about Joe Biden's future on the ticket. We'll hear more about that. And we'll talk about sandwiches. The art of sandwich making throughout history, how the sandwich that you eat, perhaps in history can give you a window into a time and place in the past. That's coming up. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current from back in 90 seconds.

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Making sandwiches from history; and U.S. voters mull Trump or Biden for 2024

Guests: Ruth Iglienik, Barry Enderwick

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. Perhaps where you are, you're starting to think about what you're going to have for lunch. Maybe it's lunch already. Maybe you're thinking you might have a sandwich, but perhaps you're tired of the usual.

SOUNDCLIP

Welcome to Sandwich History Today from the up to date sandwich book of 1909, the one that started it all. We're going to be making the fish and egg sandwich so we start things off with cooked fish. I did some poached cod here we had in hard boiled egg yolks, and it says to add a little mayonnaise dressing.

MG: Berry Enderwick looks to history for sandwich inspiration and then post the recipes on tik-tok, Instagram and YouTube. He has made more than 700 sandwiches. Some of them are good, some of them not so good.

SOUNDCLIP

Today from 1001 sandwiches of 1936. We're going to be making meat bran a sandwich. You know, we start things off naturally enough with bran and we add in an egg and salt, of course. Welcome to Sandwiches of History today from the American Woman's Cookbook of 1939. We're going to be making the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So I'm using all natural peanut butter that's unsweetened and creamy because... Welcome to Sandwiches, A history today from Festive Foods that was put out by the Milwaukee Gas Company in 1959 and sent in by Austin Cliff Thank you. Austin We're going to be making the Walter Winchell sandwich. Walter Winchell was the...

MG: The Walter Winchell sandwich named after, of course, the famous gossip columnist. Don't you wonder how that turned out.

SOUNDCLIP

Not bad. So the Swiss cheese goes with the pickle. The fish has a strong, smoky flavour to it. It's hickory smoked, and that's working really well with the bread. This is pretty tasty.

MG: Hmm. It's a lot on sandwiches, isn't it? You might be thinking, Barry, under historical sandwich recipes, say a lot about the times in which they were published, but they also say a lot about what makes a delicious sandwich. Barry joins us now from San Jose, California. Barry, good morning.

BARRY ENDERWICK: Good morning. Very happy to be here.

MG: I will admit that some of the things that you were describing there did not seem particularly appetising at all.

BARRY ENDERWICK: Yeah, that's one of the things I've learned that you can't really judge a book by its ingredients list, if you will, or a sandwich by its ingredients list, because some of them have been absolutely, amazingly, surprisingly good that didn't read like they would be good. And others were exactly what you thought they would be when you read the ingredients. So it's it's kind of a toss up.

MG: Tell me about the inspiration behind this. How do you end up looking at old recipe books, perhaps ones that were sent by the gas company or otherwise, for inspiration on which sandwich you should make and eat?

BARRY ENDERWICK: Well, I mean, I've always been curious about cooking and eating and exploring. And a friend of mine sent me the up to date sandwich book of 1909, a pdf of it, and it was just interesting to see the variety of sandwiches, some of them pretty straightforward them, some of them quite odd. And I thought this would be fun to explore, to kind of like take a look back and you know, in 1909, what did someone expect when they ordered a sandwich? What were they looking for? What were the flavours involved? What were the textures involved? And how is that different from now?

MG: What did somebody expect when they ordered a sandwich in 1909?

BARRY ENDERWICK: Well, I'll be honest with you. And the up to date sandwich book of 1909, it was a crapshoot because I.

MG: Like the fact that it's also called the up to date sandwich book.

BARRY ENDERWICK: I know, but I love that name because the second it's published, it is immediately not no longer true. But you know, they had sandwiches in there that are pretty good. That might be roast beef sandwiches with the blue cheese and that kind of thing, which is like, All right, that sounds pretty good. But they also had the oyster sandwich, which was chopped up raw oysters mixed with olive oil and Worcestershire sauce between buttered bread, which was just a slimy mess.

MG: That sounds horrible.

BARRY ENDERWICK: It was. It was. And I like raw oysters. That was all that was on them.

MG: Can we ask why? Sandwiches of all the things. I mean, there are old cookbooks that that would lead you to cuisine from any different angle. But why? Why the sandwich?

BARRY ENDERWICK: Well, for me, the sandwich is interesting because it's universal. Nearly every cuisine has some sort of sandwich in it. And you could put anything between the bread. You can make it as inexpensive as you as you like or as expensive as you like, and it's portable.

MG: Aside from some of the specifics and you hinted at some I mean, how do those sandwiches of the past compare to the sandwich that we might enjoy in love now?

BARRY ENDERWICK: Well, I can say for sure, in America, we used to butter our bread. Every sandwich calls for butter bread up and through about the 1960s or seventies when something changed. And that's no longer the case. And the earlier recipes, of course, are more simple, and some are probably born of the the era in which they were created like the Great Depression. Then you get into the mid-century and the sandwich. You start to have things like processed American cheese and canned corned beef and a lot more processed stuff, and they get a little bit wild with their ingredients, ingredient combinations.

MG: What's the oldest sandwich that you've made? I saw one on the Instagram feed. There was some kind of nut sandwich from 1885.

BARRY ENDERWICK: Actually, the oldest one I've made is from China. It's a rose Yama, which is from 200 B.C. It will develop on the spice route and it's, you know, right now, if you were to talk to someone in China, they'd probably know it made with pork. But originally they used beef and tons of spices and it's just a delicious, delicious sandwich.

MG: Where are you getting the recipes? I look at this feed and some of this is from the book, but you're getting them from all over the place. Where are you getting the recipes for these sandwiches?

BARRY ENDERWICK: Well, I've got access to about 40 physical books in my house or cookbooks that I've acquired through various means, people sending them in and, you know, inheriting them from books. Then I access a lot of the cookbooks. Old cookbooks are at the Internet Archive. As I mentioned, folks send in recipes as.

MG: Part of this. I mean, self-perpetuating as well. You start to talk about sandwiches, you post up videos of it, sandwiches, other people, other sandwich lovers begin to send you their sandwich stories.

BARRY ENDERWICK: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's well, one of the things I've expanded it to is to include sandwiches of our history, and that is to try and capture sandwiches that are being passed down like my grandpa used to make or my grandmother made. And they also reflect the age in which they were created, which is pretty fascinating to see as well.

MG: You have guest sandwich makers as part of. Your feed as well. And the guests that we're going to hear was making people's pronouncements in different ways, but it barbecued giblet or giblet sandwich. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

Hello. I'm Sandwich dad in for Barry today? You know, when Barry asked me what kind of sandwich I would like to make this video, I said something weird bordering on terrible. And as he always does, Barry delivered. He has all of history at his disposal after شمl. Let's go. Now this recipe calls for a pound of giblets. I'm going to pare that down significantly. What are giblets? Well, they're chicken livers. Chicken hearts and chicken gizzards. What's a gizzard, you might ask? Well, it's. Whatever this is.

MG: Sandwich Dad, A.K.A. John Ostrander. He's Canadian, And so he's on the line with us now because we had to include him in this conversation. John, good morning to you.

JOHN OSTRANDER: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Is that generally your flavour? Weird but terrible. Is that kind of what you're looking for now?

JOHN OSTRANDER: Not necessarily, but those are always my favourite sandwiches, that Berry post. And so like I said there, when he when he asked me, you know, if I had a preference for sandwiches, I wanted to find me something that was maybe slightly distasteful, a little strange, something, something that would be interesting, something I hadn't tried before.

MG: Tell me about that sandwich we just heard. It's got organ meat in it. What else?

JOHN OSTRANDER: Yeah. So the best part about that sandwich was that no matter what, even if it was good, which it wasn't, it still would have been awful. And that's kind of my brand is the-

MG: It was it was awful.

JOHN OSTRANDER: Well, it was. It was it was awful because I knew that the flavour was actually nice. You know, what had it was it was just sort of chopped giblets. I realised that it was pronouncing that incorrectly. But the comment is like, you know, you know, and it had barbecue sauce and I added berries a plus up with some, some processed cheese melted under the broiler. And the problem was, I think not necessarily the flavour of the sandwich, but the, the giblets were just way too chewy and so that it was a textural nightmare, I think.

MG: A textural nightmare. Barrie, Are there recipes that I mean, as you said, you can't really judge the recipe by what's written on the paper, but something that you might have gone. I don't know that this is any good and then you make it and you eat it as you do on camera. And it turns out that it was actually pretty great.

BARRY ENDERWICK: Yeah, well, actually, I have a recent example. It's the peanut butter and vegetable sandwich from 1936. And yes, a peanut butter and vegetable. Now, of course, peanut butter gets used in savoury applications, for example, and Thai food settings and such. But this one I wasn't 100% sure about. It was basically the trinity of Cajun cooking bell pepper, onion and celery. And you mix the peanut butter with some water and then you mix that into some mayonnaise, and then you put in the vegetables and you put it in the bread. But what ended up happening was the peanut butter just became this back note, this sort of nutty back note. And it dawned on me, this is what happens when you cook a roux for a gumbo. Basically, the nuttiness of the roux is the back note to those vegetables, so it lets it up with Cajun seasoning blend and it was quite tasty.

MG: Does the bread matter? This aside question and maybe bread is just a vehicle for what's in between, but does the type of bread matter?

BARRY ENDERWICK: So for the bread, I personally believe that bread makes a huge difference in a sandwich. But what I try to do is make a speech as written, and if they don't specify a bread, which many do, but if they don't, I tend to default to just white sandwich bread because that was the most ubiquitous and widely available at the time. So, you know, I do have people saying like, Oh, I would use a rye bread. And it's like, well, then you're redo it, you're rewriting the recipe and I need to make it as written first, and then we can add stuff and see if we can make it a little bit better and more enjoyable. Something we want to eat today.

MG: That's the blessing it up it.

BARRY ENDERWICK: That is the blessing in a bit.

MG: John Tell me about being the sandwich, Dad. Where did that come from?

JOHN OSTRANDER: Oh well, so for for me, I was just, you know, I've always been a big fan of sandwiches. You know, even back when I was a sandwich bachelor, I was always making a sandwich instead of a birthday cake for my birthday. And so I started writing about, you know, sandwiches I liked on a blog. And then I started posting photos to Instagram. And then all of a sudden on TikTok where that started to kind of take off. And so I did that sort of around the time my my youngest child was born. I have three kids, but really added the whole sandwich dad thing was just trying to make the sandwiches of the world and a new flavours at home were at the time I was I was living in in the Yukon where, you know, budget was definitely a concern as was, you know, having time, having kids running around and just trying to make the best possible versions of worldly sandwiches at home.

MG: Or were you making in the Yukon?

JOHN OSTRANDER: Well, everything really. You know, I started with just sort of my favourites, you know, going from, you know, childhood favourites to two restaurant sandwiches to international sandwiches I knew about to a poster I have that's in a lot of my videos, the encyclopaedia sandwiches, posters, there's 40 different sandwiches on that trying to get through all those. And then also once the sandwich community sort of formed, formed on Tik-tok, we started sharing recipes with each other, the endless permutations of sandwiches that can be created.

MG: Are we good in this country? At coming up with those permutations? We often will will live in an inferiority complex and say that, you know, culture from the United States or Europe or England, what have you, is much better than we could produce here. That's not the case. But people might think that are we good here in this country at creating sandwiches or honestly?

JOHN OSTRANDER: Yes. Yes. And I'm trying to expose that a little bit more. I don't think there's too many well-known Canadian sandwiches apart from, you know, Montreal smoked meat or, you know, Toronto's female bacon or don't air out in Halifax. But there are a lot of really great Canadian sandwiches. And that's one of the things I've been trying to do on my post is I have a a Sandwiches of Canada series. I've been trying to explore and get feedback on on some of the more regional sandwiches that maybe don't get as much attention as say, some of the the greater American regional sandwiches.

MG: Tell me about the grilled cheese sandwich that you had in Saskatoon.

JOHN OSTRANDER: Yeah, so Saskatoon's where I'm living right now and the grilled cheese sandwich, it's it's really something you got to try flavour coming through this way. It's the death by cheese sandwich at the Park Cafe on 20th Street in Saskatoon. It's been around for a while. It's a breaded and deep fried grilled cheese sandwich. It's on two thick slices of Texas toast. It's got, I think. Two big slices of Swiss, two big slices of cheddar. It has a imperial cheese spread on it. I can't remember what else is in it, but it is. It is. It's definitely something else. It's a regional speciality and a definitely a must have if you're ever in Saskatoon.

MG: Did you need to lie down after you ate it? That's a lot.

JOHN OSTRANDER: Well, when I've had it a couple of times, the last time I had it and I did the video, I went back to work afterwards. But it was a it was a bit of a slog.

MG: And I don't operate heavy machinery. Have you had this sandwich or something like that?

JOHN OSTRANDER: Well, and the owner too gave me a bit of praise. He said, Thanks for getting the onion rings with it instead of getting a salad like most people would. That didn't really help, but it was. It was still delicious.

MG: Delicious. Well-played, Berry. One of the things that you do in the sense it what John is doing as you look at the sandwich culture around the world. I think of I mean, some of the best it was in in Florence and had was it a Labrador sandwich which was like the lining of some sort of animal stomach or something. We bought it from a truck and it was delicious. Perhaps not something that I would have had other than being in that place, which speaks to the international flavour of sandwiches.

BARRY ENDERWICK: Yeah, absolutely. There's there's sandwiches from just about every cuisine around the world that are worth exploring. And they try to do that with the international sandwich sundae.

MG: Is there something from somewhere else that stands out to you?

BARRY ENDERWICK: Oh, I mean, too many to to to mention a Bond me is a glorious sandwich in the pen. Bana Is this basically salad? This was in bread that gets wrapped and waited overnight in the kitchen, in the refrigerator. And the next day is just this delicious amalgamation of dressing and tuna and eggs and salad. It's amazing.

MG: Your channel has 170,000 people on Instagram. And I mean, John has hinted at this in terms of the sandwich community. How big is this? Why is it that you think so many people would want to watch you make and eat a sandwich?

BARRY ENDERWICK: I have no idea. The only thing I can think of is that, you know, I am not dancing, I'm not doing stunts, I'm not doing tricks and I'm telling jokes. I'm not doing flashy things. I'm just like, Hey, let's make the sandwich from this old recipe book and see how it is. And my only this is a guess, by the way. My guess is that it's sort of like a moment of calm amidst the chaos.

MG: John, what do you make of that and why is there such a he's going to say an appetite but an audience out there for sandwich content?

JOHN OSTRANDER: I mean, the audience is there because of the appetite for for sandwiches, because it is such a universal food and because there are so many endless variations. And I think because also with Barry talking about the sandwiches of our history, everyone has a weird sandwich. Maybe they ate as a kid. Everyone has their own recipe that they want to share with us. The appetite is is a pun absolutely intended there because it is just so universal. Everybody loves a sandwich, but put some kind of ingredient on bread, a little bit of spread, a little bit of sauce. It's it's a delicious meal and it truly is a universal food.

MG: Barry, this is the I mean, everybody knew we were leading to this question, but what is the death row sandwich for you? The favourite sandwich, the thing when when somebody says, this is the last thing you get to eat, what's the sandwich that you make?

BARRY ENDERWICK: This is tough. It would probably be the Rubin.

MG: And why the Rubin?

BARRY ENDERWICK: Just the complexity of flavours with the caraway seeds and the sauerkraut and the cheese and the corned beef. It's so good.

MG: You're making me hungry, John.

JOHN OSTRANDER: Oh, geez. I was trying to think of it. Well, I was listening to various answer, but you know what? I think for me, it has to be just like a giant Italian hoagie, something that has, you know, several layers of deli meats or maybe even just like a move a letter or something like that with the olive salad, some nice greens on there and just Yeah. Layers of Italian deli meats. That's I think that's kind of where it's at for me.

MG: I think you'll be getting suggestions as well from people who will hear this and say, this is the sandwich you need to try that you haven't heard. In the meantime. Thank you both.

BARRY ENDERWICK: Thank you.

JOHN OSTRANDER: Thanks for having me. Nice to talk to you, Barry.

BARRY ENDERWICK: Likewise. John. [unintelliglbe].

MG: Barry Enderwick is the creator of the Sandwiches of History Account. You can find that on Tik-tok, Instagram and YouTube. He was in San Jose, California. John Ostrander is the sandwich dad. He was in Saskatoon. Sandwich suggestions, as I say, are welcome. Maybe the sandwich that your parent or grandparent used to make you when you were young that you still dream of maybe a sandwich that you ate while you were travelling that you try to recreate when you get back home the best sandwich that you have had. I mean, the answer clearly is the tomato sandwich that you have in the summer, which you can only have when the tomatoes are perfectly ripe and it's just got a little bit of mayonnaise and salt and pepper on it. Email us your sandwich suggestions, perhaps with a photo. thecurrent@cbc.ca. This is The Current. My name is Matt Galloway. Americans are a year away from their next presidential election. On Monday, the former president Donald Trump, was on the stand in a court in New York testifying in a business fraud trial. A New York Times Siena College poll shows that that former president is actually leading the current president, Joe Biden, in five out of six battleground states, states that are likely to be pivotal in determining who will be the next president of the United States. Ruth Igielnik is a staff editor for news surveys at the New York Times. Ruth, good morning.

RUTH IGIELNIK: Good morning. Thanks for having.

MG: Me. Thanks for being here. This poll arrives a bit like a hurricane. There were headlines that followed its release, in part because of what it shows in those six key states. Can you just break that down? What's happening in those states?

RUTH IGIELNIK: Yeah, absolutely. So we polled in six swing states that have been pivotal in the last several elections and in particular, five of those six states Biden Trump won in 2016 and Biden flipped in 2020. And what we found is in those six states Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that Trump is leading in five of those six states. The exception is Wisconsin, where Biden is leading just by a hair.

MG: How far behind would Joe Biden be, you say, by a hair and some of them. But how far behind would Joe Biden be?

RUTH IGIELNIK: You know, varies from state to state. One interesting thing that we've noticed is that in the most diverse of those states, Nevada, Trump is doing the best. He's up by ten points. Biden is behind by ten points. And it kind of goes in that order. So in the most of states, Trump is up by six or ten points in the least diverse states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. He's up by about four or five points. And then in that widest of our six states, Wisconsin, then Biden's up two.

MG: I mentioned that this created headlines because people were wondering what's going on in those states. How could those states be thinking in that way? Are the people who are saying that they weren't surprised at all by that? From your understanding, why has President Joe Biden's popularity dropped off?

RUTH IGIELNIK: You know, it's interesting. I mean, it really is both a mix of Biden's popularity dropping and Trump's popularity rising. For Biden, for a lot of people we saw over and over in the poll that they think he's too old, that they think he doesn't have the mental capacity to be president. We had asked people that in 2020 and then ask them again now. And those numbers shot through the roof. And then on the other hand, you do have a true rise in Trump's interest in Trump. I mean, to be clear, these are both deeply unpopular candidates. Nobody's popularity is rising, but voters are looking at the state of the economy in the U.S. They're not happy with how things are going. And we asked them who they trust more on the economy. And we heard a resounding Trump. They trust Trump on the economy. They're worried about the economy and they want him to try to carry them through.

MG: They go back just to the age thing for a moment. People have talked about this for a while, but certainly a poll like this and the questions that were asked will get people talking more about this. Joe Biden is 80 years old. He's only three years older than Donald Trump. But why are people saying, as you understand it, some people who are entering these polls, that he could be too old to be president or they're not comfortable with his age as he as he runs for a second term?

RUTH IGIELNIK: Yeah, it's a bit of a complicated puzzle because, as you said, there's only a few years difference between the two men, but it matters a lot more to voters with Biden than it does to Trump. It's really hard to unpack exactly why. But, you know, we saw this huge 40 point jump from 2020 to today in the share saying that Biden is too old to be president and that number is dramatically less for Trump. But 70% saying Biden's too old, only 39% saying Trump's too old. So there's a pretty big gap there. We also asked if they have the mental sharpness to be president. You've got 60% saying Biden doesn't have the mental sharpness, only 40% saying Trump doesn't have the mental sharpness. So, you know, it's hard to understand exactly why. Certainly, we've seen Biden have some public gaffes, though. There's been an increase in public gas from Trump to of late. But, you know, it's sort of regardless of why, this is clearly something that has struck with voters and really matters to.

MG: Them, Donald Trump, as I mentioned, is on a trial in a civil fraud case in New York. He has other legal cases, including criminal investigations, including criminal charges for allegedly attempting to overturn the last presidential election results. How much does all of that matter to the Americans who are polled?

RUTH IGIELNIK: You know, it's interesting. The actual ongoing trials and the sort of crimes at hand don't seem to matter that much to Americans. We've been asking them sort of consistently over the last several polls if they feel like Trump has committed serious federal crimes, if they feel like his actions after the 2020 election were a threat to democracy. The share saying that hasn't really changed and it doesn't have a huge impact on his support. We did, however, ask if Trump was convicted and sentenced to jail time, if people would change their support. And just enough. About 6% of Trump supporters said that they were willing to switch their vote. And that's just enough to switch things so that Biden would be winning these states. So, you know, it's hard to know if the trials will finish and one if he'd be convicted at all, but two, if he'd be convicted before the election. So it's hard to know if that scenario would play out. But there's reason to believe in this poll. There's some evidence that if that happened before the election, a small but potentially big enough share of Americans would switch their vote.

MG: One of the interesting wrinkles here is that there is a third candidate in Robert Alder. There are other candidates as well. But Robert Kennedy Jr is somebody RFK Jr is is somebody who's getting a lot of attention. He's running as an independent, was going to run as a Democrat, conspiracy theorist, anti-vaccine activist. What impact do you think he could have on the outcome of the election?

RUTH IGIELNIK: Yeah. There's no question that he's he's likely going to have an impact in our poll. He was polling fairly high, consistent with other people's policies, polling around 24% when we included him in the poll. But one thing that we noticed is so we asked a question with him and without him. And among people who picked RFK when he was included, a large share is 40% were saying that they actually were definitely going to be voting for Trump or Biden. So whether that's real support or sort of soft support, expressing their frustration with other candidates, it's hard to know. People are deeply unfavourable towards these two candidates. We have 20% of Americans saying they're unfavourable towards both Trump and Biden. And those people are sort of interested in Kennedy. So his support might be sort of overly high in these polls, likely higher than it actually is. That's not to say it won't have an impact to your question. And when we did see him included in the poll that sort of scrambled things, some states turned to Biden, some states stayed Trump. He pulls from different sort of groups in different states. So it's hard to know at this point how that would sort of settle the race and if this support is real or if it's going to go down as we get closer to the election.

MG: We just have a couple of minutes left. Let me ask you two quick questions. One is David Axelrod, Democratic strategist, former Obama adviser, tweeted on Monday saying, if Joe Biden continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise, whether it's in his best interest or the country's. Now, Axelrod then kind of backed off and said he wasn't saying that Biden should step aside. But is it a possibility that Joe Biden could not be on the ticket in the wake of a poll like this?

RUTH IGIELNIK: You know, I mean, it's hard for me to know what's going on inside internal campaign discussions. But certainly we've seen Axelrod and others come out and and raise that possibility. And I think, you know, if you're a Democrat and you're seeing this poll, you've got to be wondering what your options are. We asked we did this kind of experiment or we asked people if Biden was the nominee and there was just sort of a generic Democratic candidate. Would you vote for that generic Democratic candidate and that sort of fake imaginary candidate as a Democrat got more support than Biden? So, granted, this is, you know, somebody that doesn't have the downsides of any candidate, but there's some appetite for a Democrat. They just don't seem to want Biden.

MG: It would just very briefly, this is a year away. And so a lot can change in a year. We saw last night local and state election results coming in. The Democrats had key wins, including when they were running on the issue of abortion. What does that tell you?

RUTH IGIELNIK: You know, it's hard to say because some of these, you know, ballot initiatives and special elections, the people who vote are very different than the people who vote in a presidential general election. They're voters who are very motivated by whatever issue is at hand. There's no question that, you know, abortion is something that continues to drive enthusiasm on the Democratic side. One thing that I think is really interesting that we saw in our poll is that, in fact, abortion is not motivating people in swing states. So we'll see if that holds.

MG: This is fascinating to talk about. A year out. As we say, a lot can change, but a year may go by in the blink of an eye as well. Ruth, thank you very much.

RUTH IGIELNIK: Thanks for having me.

MG: Ruth Iglienik is a staff editor for news service at The New York Times. That is the current for this Wednesday. q is up next right here on your CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Wednesday November 8, 2023 Full Transcript

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