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24 turns · 23 minNone of his comments make any sense at this point. It almost seems as if as he gets closer and closer to these midterms, which are not looking good for him at all, he gets more and more extreme and erratic. I give no weight to what he says. Amazing comment about a president of the United States, but I just don't.
Rudyard Griffiths here, chair of the Munk Debates. We've got your Friday Focus on Tap. It's the 18th of September, and I'm joined by my co-host, Janice Gross-Stein. Hey, Janice.
Good morning to you, Rudyard. Did you smell a little fall in the air this morning when you got out of bed?
Yeah, nice and cool in the city. I'm trying to train for the Toronto Marathon in October, so this colder weather is truly a blessing for long morning runs. But enough about me. How about your beloved Jays, Janice? How are they looking this season? Are you down there at the Dome catching
these
games as they go for this wild card spot?
You know, Roger, I am a really true Blue Loyal fan, as you know about me. I watch every game I can. I was so mad this week in the middle of a second game that they lost that I slammed the TV and turned it off. Wow.
Okay.
But we're still in it. You can't give up hope. You cannot give up until the last inning of the last game here, until we're out.
Well, we've got the Maple Leafs home opener, I believe, next week. So talking about hopeless causes, there's another one. you know, Torontonians and Canadians can happily jump on. I want to jump around a bit with you this week because one of those weeks where it feels like, you know, a month is compressed into a few days or a few months into a day or two. And just to start with the latest news, the last 24 hours, comments out by the president that he has to make a consequential decision soon as to whether to annihilate, annihilate Iran and that he will do this, it seems like, in the context of discussions around UNGA, I love saying that acronym, the United Nations General Assembly meeting next week in New York where heads of a variety of the Gulf states will be in attendance and the president will take a bilateral approach. meeting with them. What do you make of this, Jazz? Is it just the latest string of a series of kind of a puffery from this president where he loves to threaten? I guess it excites him. He gets a certain frisson of, you know, being the big guy, but it seems like he's almost setting himself up with these talks on Tuesday to say, oh, they held me back. You know, I'm not going to annihilate Iran by this time next week. It's all very confusing.
Roger, just like we talked about the Jays, there's a discount factor finally with Trump. If you look at his week, he made the comments about annihilating Iran, which are frankly preposterous. They're just preposterous. and went on when he got upset that our prime minister was in the European Union parliament to say this was a hostile act and he was going to cut all trade with Europe, right? None of his comments make any sense at this point. It almost seems as if as he gets closer and closer to these midterms, which are not looking good for him at all, he gets more and more extreme and erratic. I give no weight to what he says. Amazing
Episode notes
Trump says he is weighing whether to "annihilate" Iran next week. Is this another empty threat? We have reached a point where it is increasingly difficult to know how much weight to put behind his threats. The bond markets are beginning to speak, inflation is rising, and U.S. military capabilities are under strain. Trump pays attention to all three. The constraints on both sides are far tighter than they were nine months ago. So why continue with maximalist rhetoric that risks eroding American credibility and deterrence?
This week also saw Mark Carney and Ursula von der Leyen signal a much closer relationship between Canada and Europe, including the possibility of Canada becoming the EU’s first associate member. What does that actually mean? And why pursue this partnership when the world’s growth and dynamism are increasingly shifting toward Asia and the Indo-Pacific?
In the second half of the show, Rudyard and Janice turn to AI and a growing chorus of warnings from the industry’s own leaders, who are calling for stronger safeguards to limit the potential damage if AI systems break out and cause serious disruption to the systems that underpin our everyday life. How much weight should we put behind the argument that regulation and inspection could handicap American AI development and allow China to pull ahead?
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