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166. Evan Solomon: Trump Assassination Attempt, The Deep State & Trust in Media
Aaron Pete and Evan Solomon delve into politics, discussing the impact of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Democratic unrest, the "deep state," balancing freedom and security, and trust in government funded media.
Evan Solomon is a seasoned Canadian journalist and political commentator, known for his work with GZERO Media and as a former host of major political programs on CBC and CTV, where he provided in-depth analysis on national and international affairs.
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, aaron. There is a lot going on in global politics, with assassination attempts, new candidates, voices like Elon Musk sharing their political perspectives. Today, I'm speaking with a famous Canadian journalist about American politics, canadian politics and government-funded media. My guest today is Evan Solomon. Evan, you mentioned this at the beginning when we logged on. Nothing's really happened since we last chatted, right, right.
Evan Solomon:You know, thank goodness it's been an eventless summer. The US election has been quiet and no surprises, nothing happening around the world. So, yeah, I really don't know what we'll talk about, because the media environment just seems so dull, I couldn't agree more.
Aaron Pete:Very briefly, would you mind introducing yourself, just to make sure everybody knows who you are?
Evan Solomon:Well, first of all, great to see you again. I'm Evan Solomon. I'm the publisher of GZERO Media, which is based in New York City. We're a subsidiary company of Eurasia Group, which is a global political advisory firm founded by a guy named Ian Bremmer, so I'm on the senior management team of that as well, and so we're nonpartisan and we do analysis of political risk and policy around the world and we obviously have television shows and newsletters and we do live events and show on PBS. So we do a lot of media and then we do a lot of advisory work for different clients.
Aaron Pete:Let's go all the way back to, like a month ago, the president, the former president, of the United States of America, was nearly assassinated, and I do feel like this 24 hour news cycle it's kind of hard to go all the way back then. Would you mind giving us your reflections on what took place?
Evan Solomon:Yeah, I think actually we should start even a little further back, because the momentous events, as you say, keep causing a kind of mild form of media amnesia. Remember, trump wins the nomination or he's on the road to winning the nomination and yet he's convicted of 34 felonies. I mean you might think that would become a major topic. We don't even reference it. It's not a baseline reference, it doesn't even exist. It's baked in. He's got a series of other trials. For a long time Trump's trials were going to be the kind of shadow campaign of this. That's gone, that doesn't exist. It doesn't exist, no one talks about it, it's just baked in to the circus. Then Donald Trump survives a horrific assassination attempt and political violence not new in the United States but not diminished in its horror and how we should never normalize it and the shooter almost kills other people, almost kills the former president. And then Trump's reaction is remarkable His defiant blood on his face, fight, fight, fight as he gets off stage. We think this is it. I mean the campaign's over. Joe Biden at that point was doddering. We've forgotten. By the way, remember his debate had been beyond bad. He's trying to run to be president for four years. He didn't think he was going to make it through 40 more minutes. And you know Biden Democrats, enthusiasm was low, biden was doddering and Trump looked triumphant.
Evan Solomon:Cut then after the remarkable response to the assassination attempt, and Donald Trump kind of presides over the RNC in Milwaukee at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The Republican National Convention really well done convention. He picks JD Vance, the bestselling author of Hillbilly Elegy, the junior senator from Ohio, 39 years old, interracial marriage, yale Marine, survivor of the assassination. They put them together. You've got Trump at his, at his peak moment and and this, this kind of mega, not just as a Trump movement, but suddenly it's got a generational side. Here's someone that may be able to wave the torch and meantime Democrats are in disarray, they're infighting about Biden and the campaign at that moment is all Trump and he's pulling away in the seven swing states and he's pulling away and all. Everything looks good, they're raising money, they look unified and it was a flawless RNC.
Evan Solomon:But there were some signs that it wasn't. What were those signs? The seeds Day one of the RNC convention was the Heritage Front Platform 2025. Was they spent the whole day? The first day was all about that. It's like, oh, what's that? That's getting interesting that started to get.
Evan Solomon:This is a kind of you know 30 odd former staffers of Trump who had worked really hard to put together what a 900 page policy book. That was really about remaking the government in a very much more radicalized way, probably outside of disbanding the Department of Education, the FBI and other things. Probably the most important thing is that they want to get rid of check and balance systems, of the bureaucracy and just essentially replace what they consider one deep state allegedly with very much openly another which would be a Republican one, but that kind of no one paid attention to it. But hang on, something was happening. Jd Vance looked good but no one had vetted him and all of a sudden afterwards, suddenly things start changing. Biden gets pushed out. The democrats have had enough. They've seen this movie. They know the end of thelma and louise. The main characters go off a cliff and they saw that as biden and harris. They did not want them to fly off, go ahead erin, yeah, sorry, sorry.
Aaron Pete:very briefly I just want to ask like trump was almost assassinated, and do you think that changed how he thinks about this whole process? Like that's a a monumentous moment for anyone to almost die on national television and I'm just curious as to whether or not you think his approach changed after that, if that changed his own kind of thinking about the stakes. There had been moments previously where the Secret Service didn't let him go on stage or rushed him off stage out of a concern something might happen, but this was moments away from almost losing his life. Do you think that that actually had an impact on him?
Evan Solomon:First of all, the Secret Service. It was a huge failure. And we should also say we should forget partisanship just for a minute. You know, political violence? There's no place for it. It's disgusting, it's disgraceful, it's antithetical to the democratic experiment and we shouldn't normalize it. And nor can we blame, as some partisans do. Oh, this is the culture of violence and division that so-and-so was responsible for. I don't Set that aside.
Aaron Pete:Let's come together and just say no matter how much you dislike someone or how polarizing, the answer in a democracy is not this Did it surprise you at all that some people, even people I know, were kind of like he missed or too bad, like I'm sure? You saw a little bit of that.
Evan Solomon:I saw it.
Evan Solomon:I mean I just there's not a, there's nothing, there's not a molecule of me that has any sympathy for people that wish political violence on anyone it is. Once you do that, then you've opened the door. Then then then you are no longer someone who supports democracy and the peaceful transitions of power. And, yes, when I saw that it was disgraceful. So it actually pains me when I, when people would joke about that, oh this, I don't understand that these some of the very same people that would crack wise about that are the same people that then would give you an operatic sermon on January 6. And how political violence. There's no place for it. I'm like you know, pick a side. So let's set that aside.
Evan Solomon:I think most fair minded people Democrats, republicans, independents, whatever you are recognize how gross it was your question about. Does it quote change? I'm not a psychologist, so you know journalists have to always be very wary of playing some pop psychologist on TV where reporters were trying to observe and report and then talk to people and maybe get some perspective and insight. That is fair. Would it affect you, and I Probably Like, would you have PTSD or would you be impacted if you were almost assassinated? Yeah, so would it be hard to you know? Again, I'm not going to pretend I know anything about Donald Trump's psychology, but would it be hard to imagine that this had no impact? Yeah, I'm sure it did.
Evan Solomon:The media stories, though, that Donald Trump has changed that this will mellow him. I never bought that either. I think maybe he's got some residual issues. They're, by the way, now going to have bulletproof glass around him when he's back out on the trail, which is sad but probably necessary. But he's not changed.
Evan Solomon:There's no evidence since the assassination attempt that Donald Trump has changed. You know, at the convention he said I will only speak about this once and I'll never speak about it again because it's too painful. He literally speaks about it at every opportunity. He goes into great detail about it. It is a campaign speech. The blood, the ducking, the chosen by God, but fine. But it's not like as if he's said I don't want to talk about it. It's now a political rallying cry, as his fight, fight, fight to it has not mellowed him or made him seem like we should take the temperature down. That lasted for, you know, you know, shorter period of time than this podcast. And and now he's back on the trail, calling her dumb and stupid and questioning her race. And I mean, I mean there are no, there is no signs that this has shaved the aggressive side and the personal attacks of Donald Trump. So he seems like the exact same guy as before.
Evan Solomon:But I'm with you, it is hard to imagine, and maybe hard to appreciate, um, how impactful an assassination attempt that actually the bullet hit him. It's anyway, it's, it's, it's awful. But I I'm not a speculator on the psychology of it all. I see. All I can tell you is watching him very carefully. There's no change on the stump. What does appear to happen is he can't find his sea legs with Kamala Harris. He is discombobulated. He is searching for a way. He has his rhetoric now. Everything's terrible, like his crowds are the biggest in history, the country's the worst in history, everything's at the farthest extreme. You know the economy is going to go into a Great Depression, we're going to have a third world war, the country will be destroyed. I mean, he's now into his American carnage, apocalyptic exaggerations on almost everything, and, and maybe that's because he feels like he's in some kind of life and death battle, because he kind of was right, you talked a little bit about how biden was pushed out by democrats.
Aaron Pete:I'm just curious how the democrats have really pushed themselves, as democracy is on the line. We fight for democracy. The process to how she was selected and how biden was pushed out what are your reflections on where we're at? Because it doesn't feel like the population was able to kind of put forward the names they might have recommended or proposed. How do you think about that transition over from Biden being pushed out? He had a letter put forward and then a few days later he then agrees to go on camera and then he shares the news. It does sound like some reporting suggests that there was a meeting that took place that basically asked him to consider stepping down and then, if he's not fit to run in the next election, should the 25th Amendment be invoked.
Evan Solomon:Yeah, you've asked two different questions. On the first question, it's a nothing burger wrapped up in a nothing bun. It's a nothing burger wrapped up in a nothing bun Because in a parliamentary democracy like ours we have mechanisms to get rid of leaders. The party look at the UK the Conservative Party in the UK were going through leaders before the last election like they're going through lettuce. So we get that. You know the caucus can turn.
Evan Solomon:Look when the British conservatives in the Second World War were sick of Neville Chamberlain you know 40, you know angry young men quote unquote they were in their 40s. Conservatives ousted Neville and put Winston Churchill in Worked out. Do you think anyone was like that is undep. No. And if Justin Trudeau, his caucus, said get out, someone else would run Now. So there's no.
Evan Solomon:In the United States it's different. He's got to be impeached. Or he can quit, like Nixon, or he can just say I'm not running again, like Johnson and Truman did. So it's not like there's, of course, internally the party. He didn't have party support, so he's not like there's there's there's of course, internally the party didn't have party support, so he's not going to run. That's not anti-democratic. It's not like they said you're no longer the president, you're in charge. He just said you know what His party looked at him I actually think is great. I think this should happen more. I think there's lots of parties in Canada that could look at their leaders right now and say we like you, we appreciate you, but we don't think we can win with you anymore. So you know, stand down.
Aaron Pete:And the temptation to name those people.
Evan Solomon:Well, I mean, Trudeau is facing that all the time, of course, Joe Bidzinski is facing that all the time and Aaron O'Toole faced that, Like the Canadians. Kind of pearl clutching about what happened to Joe Biden is kind of comical because we talk about this literally all the time. Now we have a different system, so I don't think that. I think it's a big deal. You know, the Democrats realized Biden was old, he he originally promised to be a one term president and he kind of got over his skis and they were right to put him out. They were going to lose the election and this is not a. And when Joe Biden did that outside of the debate, when he did the interview, like how will you what if you lose? And he said well, you know if, as long as I gave it the best I got, you know, Democrats were like you know this, this ain't your math quiz, this is the presidency. So they were right to get rid of them and they've uncorked a massive amount of fundraising and enthusiasm in the polls have shifted to the question of invoking the 25th Amendment. There is literally no evidence that he does not have the mental capacity currently to do it. He didn't have probably the runway over four currently to do it. He didn't have probably the runway over four years to do it. He's already the oldest president, but under what auspices or proof is there that he is at this moment mentally incapable? I don't know. That's not for me to decide. But Democrats aren't going to invoke the 25th Amendment. They don't want to. They like Joe Biden's record. They like Joe Biden. It's just that they thought Joe Biden was going to be a one term president. He decided he wanted to go for a second coming there because he wanted to take on Trump again. It ain't happening. So I see this as not an issue. Now I think the bigger issue and, by the way, the fact that it goes to the vice president and people say, oh, they didn't have a. No one ran against her the delegates. That happened. So from a process point of view, I get it Not perfect, but if you're a Democrat, she's united the party. They've got 80 odd days. It's work and it's been the best month and the best transition I think I've ever seen in my life in terms of. You know, Doug Ford did a great job on when he came in on short run in Ontario, but it's a really, really impressive transition.
Evan Solomon:We don't know her policies as we're recording and talking today. Recording and talking today she did her first kind of policy speech about groceries and housing and cash. Welcome to politics. Now that the champagne corks have popped and they're starting to go flat, we're starting to take a little deeper sip of this stuff. We'll find out if he's got any policy jam here.
Evan Solomon:She hasn't done a serious interview yet, she's just done, you know, set pieces. They haven't sat down for a press conference yet. So they're smart From their point of view. They're protecting her, they're rebranding her, they're reframing. And, by the way, when the other guy's losing and Donald Trump has had a terrible month, Donald Trump has had a terrible month you let the you never, you never. You know. If the other guy's losing, the political maxim is get out of the way. So you don't say, hey, we should do some huge policy announcement, as Donald Trump is out there, you know, showing pictures of two tic-tacs to explain inflation and rambling on about Obama. You know he's got issues, but she better get serious soon. We need a press conference. We need to show she's got to be vetted and you don't win elections in August, you win them in November. So all the Democrats should maybe put a little paper bag over their mouth and start stop hyperventilating a bit, because they're getting a little dizzy.
Aaron Pete:I only wanted to speak about with you about these types of issues because you're really understanding them. You're right near there. You're understanding them kind of from a closer lens than I'd say so many Canadian leaders or journalists are able to. So it's a pleasure to speak to you about American politics. I don't cover them very often. You just wrote a piece about Elon Musk and the political power of young men. Could you summarize that piece about?
Evan Solomon:Elon Musk and the political power of young men. Could you summarize that? So this? I wrote this after Elon and Donald Trump did that two and a half hour conversation on X and it was a conversation, so we it was not an act of journalism. Elon Musk is an open endorser and supporter of Donald Trump. He's raised money through a political pact that he's helped start. He's offered to give $45 million a month, although now he's saying he may not do that, but not an insignificant announcement to make. He has openly endorsed Donald Trump on the X space. He offered to work for Donald Trump in a government efficiency committee to help cut workers and then Donald Trump cheered him because he cut his own workers. I don't know how that's going to help in the heartland. It already blew back on them with the head of the unions in swing states like Michigan. So I think that was probably not the wisest way to endear yourself to the working union person in swing states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, but nonetheless, after that it was pretty remarkable. Still, it was like two and a half hours. I mean Elon Musk for all his eccentricities, he's a pretty compelling guy. He's a genius. He's like the modern day.
Evan Solomon:Thomas Edison and Donald Trump's can hold a microphone, so everyone listened. How would I describe it? It was a mess. I mean, it was a ramble fest. Like two and a half hours of anyone Like think about it, tom Cruise is pretty good. Like he does a two-hour movie and he'll spend $200 million, because it's hard to hold people's attention for two hours. These guys are like what, if we just chat, it's like they did a pretty good job, but it was pretty messy, it was delayed, but why did they do it? The question is, why do it? Like? For Trump, it's a crazy thing, right? Because he's got a public company called Truth Social that he's trying to raise money on and it's tanking right now tanking. And then he goes on his competitor X, like why bother joining Truth Social if the same guy's going to X? So why would Trump undermine his own business? Remember, in 2022, donald Trump called openly and I put the clip in my article. He called Elon Musk a bullshit artist and Elon Musk snapped back, saying Donald Trump should be sail off into the sunset. Like they hated each other. Now the bromance billionaires are back together for lots of reasons, but one reason is.
Evan Solomon:The most important thing here is that this election is about young men and suburban women. For the Democrats, suburban women are their secret sauce. The salience, or the importance, of the abortion issue after Roe v Wade was overturned is profound, and Democrats saw that Donald Trump and the Republican Party had a real setback during the midterm elections about a year and a half ago. Why? Because of the importance of the abortion issue. And then JD Vance comes along and the sheen goes off that rose because he starts talking about childless cat ladies and families and it's and it's hurting him. It's really, really hurting him. And you know Vance was badly vetted and all this stuff and these are not minor things, these are haunting them and Vance can't shake it and he's not great on the stump and even though he was a Marine and a bestselling author and grew up like great story on paper. But you know the clips about him talking about postmenopausal women and the family and the child. Like women are like allergic to this stuff and that's not good because suburban women come out and vote and they vote Democrat and that's been a problem for the Republicans. So they need to appeal to suburban women in swing states and they ain't doing it and JD Vance has been an anchor, not a sale, then you've. So they.
Evan Solomon:But they do over index on young men. Young men 18 to 29, are a big constituency and the whole idea of masculinity is a big part of the Republican campaign and it works. And I was writing about a poll done by a YouGov poll, done by a group called the National Research into Young Men, and they actually do research into you know who do young men like? And Elon Musk is the number one over it by a mile. They love what he does, they love being an entrepreneur, as they're. You know when you this survey pulled, you know over a thousand Americans. So you know plus or minus three in July of this year, so it's recent Elon Musk, one of the number one guys being an entrepreneur. They like Joe Rogan, jason Peter or Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate, the far right guy, sort of misogynist far right guy in England, which is surprising because you'd think it's a British thing but Elon Musk is very involved in the kind of violence that's gone on in England. So the young men that they like don't often vote. But actually of the young men that do vote, it's kind of a 50-50 split. But the young men that don't vote heavily indexed Republican for Trump and Musk and if Musk can recruit those folks, that is a big swing at the bat for the Republicans. And this was about Elon bringing young men into the fold and trying to drive up the numbers for Republicans and you know it's going to be young men versus women, suburban women, and then beneath that and this plays out Aaron real quick.
Evan Solomon:In Canada too, there's a subtext about what it means to be a man Like the left have been dismissed as woke soy boys who are weak and all those kind of expressions. Right and the right has kind of a hyper masculine where soldiers were aggressive, were tougher. You get that and you saw at the RNC, like look at the masculine figures. Hulk Hogan was there ripping his shirt off Right, like like literally, they're leaning hard into a kind of masculinity. Dana White, the head of the US, is speaking and Hulk Hogan from the former WWF is speaking and Kid Rock is speaking and Donald Trump who's you know? You know sleeping with porn stars and like this is, these are, these are that. These are like unapologetic forms of a certain type of masculinity and the Dems have had a big man problem masculinity and the Dems have had a big man problem. They're, they're wokey and they're lexury and they're weak and that that you know. That's so.
Evan Solomon:Kamala Harris Appoints or asks Tim Walls, the governor of Minnesota, to be her running mate. Why? Because she's trying to shore up the masculine ticket. He wears Carhartt jackets and it doesn't look like Michael Ignatieff wearing plaid. It looks like he's actually worn them for his whole life. Right, he's a football coach. He was a 24-year vet of the National Guard. He's a teacher. He looks like like you could not like him, you could not like his policies, but for Democrats he's like a unicorn. He's like a Carhartt wearing camel hat, wearing hunter, veteran football coach of a state champion who's standing for trans rights. Oh my God, they're like. Bring him on to shore up support. Will it work? We don't know, but certainly the Elon Trump. This is a war about, not just for the young men. But what does it mean to be a man in 2024 and what are those values?
Aaron Pete:and that's actually a really interesting discussion that will resonate in canada as well there's two big questions that come out of your article that I'd like to discuss, and one of them is around this idea of the deep state, and it's a complicated topic, but I'm just wondering from your perspective, what is the deep state?
Evan Solomon:I don't know, because this is a term that is. I can tell you what it's used to describe. Whether it exists or not is a different debate. The deep state is a term that is used to describe the permanent government, the so-called bureaucracy that the conservative right alleges is fundamentally stacked to the left and that, under the guise of nonpartisan bureaucrats who are supposed to advise and consent to whoever is in power, the argument is actually no. There's a permanent status quo, the swamp, the deep state, whatever you want to call it and fundamentally it is not only resistant to change because it's a protector of the status quo, but it's resistant to change because it's fundamentally a progressive left wing, maybe radically left, institution that needs to be dismantled for freedoms to flower. That's the theory. Does it exist?
Aaron Pete:No, Can I modify your theory a little bit? Yeah, yeah, go ahead please. From everything like I consume. I've watched Joe Rogan, patrick, bet-david, tucker, carlson. I view I'm very interested in like how we come to these things and how things become more extreme and become more divided, and the only change I'd make is that I don't think it is far, far right or far left, I think it's establishment that are pro-military industrial complex, pro-big pharma, pro-big business, and those are the priorities.
Aaron Pete:When you look at some of the politicians, particularly in the United States, how much money they've made, despite the fact that they have salaries that should explain and we should be able to understand it yet they've made so much more money through their family or through connections over their life, and you see the homes that they end up in. Those are, I think, what people are referring to. It's not that they are pro-left or pro-right or really strong on an issue. It's that it seems to have such financial benefit for these individuals and then they go on to other businesses like whether or not they're private sector that then end up going very, very well for them and it doesn't seem like they're held accountable for the mistakes they make. It seems like they just seem to move on and find bigger and bigger opportunities from there. So I think that would be the only change I'd make.
Evan Solomon:It's a good discussion, of course. That's why I love coming on, because you always raise great, great points. Look, I actually disagree with you that it's not left or right. Clearly, the deep state is a very much today a, an idea that is central to conservative, republican, conservative thinking and I use that term conservative slightly in brackets because I don't believe Donald Trump is a true conservative, you know. I believe he's a cult of personality. That is a populist, you know. You know there are populist conservatives and conservative populists. He is 100 percent not a conservative popular. I don't think he's ever read any serious conservative philosophy. I don't think he could, I don't think he would know if Edmund Burke hit him on the head, like I just don't think he's a conservative in any way, shape or form. He is what he is.
Evan Solomon:That doesn't mean Republicans aren't, but that party has been radically altered under Trump, agreed, and I think to that group the deep state is central to their kind of drain, the swamp that and I think you're talking about when the left was really interested in this is kind of in the 60s and 70s, when they were paranoid about the industry, the military industrial complex, which they thought was run by the right. So they were like ah, you know which is, by the way, ironically an Eisenhower term from a Republican president but the military industrial complex was a kind of left construct. Look, people in government, when you become a senator or a member of Congress, you're going to get a good job afterwards. I think what you're talking about is let's try to just be a little more nuanced. The deep state to me is a political construct to rally a certain form of populism. That doesn't mean that within that kind of malformed hot rhetoric there are not some interesting points to pick up.
Evan Solomon:Corruption in government and the left and right are you know on this? Yes, is there corruption in government? Are there insiders? There's a lot of political pork and the disparity between the. This is frustration, because the average person is like I pay a lot of tax and I'm just not seeing results, you know, and we're coming out of a period of low growth, environment scarcity, post pandemic, lots of distrust. There's lots of things going on. So you're right. I just don't think that the term deep state is is. Is it a helpful way to try to understand it? I actually think it's a completely non helpful way, because it's a cheap bow around, a kind of conspiracy around government, where you know, when you say oh big business, like what does that even mean? Like, of course, like we want big.
Aaron Pete:I mean like the coke brothers big business, like certain voices who pay think tanks a large amount of money to kind of control the political discourse in a way that like, have you seen have you seen those mashups of videos of everybody calling JD Vance weird? And it just becomes like I can, like there's pages and pages and pages of it. And then you see the same thing on the right, like the right will come up with a slogan. But like these things I think I've watched like mashups of people across news rooms across the country all saying the exact same thing. That starts to freak out the people, because then it's like is this a high? Like what is going? That makes people very, very uncomfortable, because it doesn't feel like the news you're consuming is somebody speaking freely. It feels way more controlled than you would think it is. When you turn on the tv and you go I'm just watching my local newscaster who lives in Vancouver or lives in Toronto Then it becomes like what's controlling this thing?
Evan Solomon:Yeah, but just, I think I think before you, I think there's a lot of stops on this subway car before we get to. You know who's controlling the Wizard of Oz, like, like, there's a lot of things that are pretty normal, right, like, there's a lot of things that are pretty normal, right? You know, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. You know, people are always looking for a lens through which to see the world and make sense of it, and politicians' job is to frame it. And you know you have the freedom of expression to start a think tank and to fund a think tank and to hope that your meme or your framework fits right. Michael and Matt, if you're just visiting, everyone's like, yeah, he's just visiting, he's just visiting, or you know it doesn't. You know how we all talk collectively, with a series of shared vocabularies. Remember, part of this is that the world has atomized. You know, you and I. You know I'm on your podcast. It's a great podcast, but 10 years ago there's no such thing, right, you couldn't broadcast your voice. Right Now we've got millions of people like you doing this, fantastic, but we had like three channels in the world that even when I was doing that, and so you know the people were had a common book. They read the same newspapers and watch the same TV and read the same newspapers there's like six things. And then they had their local news and that's it. So there's like 10 forms of now. There's 10 million and there's no more shared realities. There's different realities. So I think, occasionally, when something breaks through, the word woke culture, don't totally know what it means. Deep state Don't totally know what it means. Jd Vance is weird, don't totally know what it means, but of course they're memes, they're media viruses. We've studied this stuff. Does that mean there's a deep state controlling it? Probably there's less control. I think my contention to you who are worried about overt forms of secret control is that the's, the center, is totally busted. There's no control People, there's no consensus, there's no trust. There's a thousand pieces of information and, in fact, people don't trust anything anymore. There's no. I mean Donald Trump, I mean, think about this, aaron. Like this is. This is again not a partisan comment. These are just what Donald Trump On Twitter, on true social, came out alleging that Kamala Harris's crowds are AI generated and they don't exist.
Evan Solomon:That she's talking to like 10 people and a thousand people. Aaron, it's madness. You know that right, like I don don't care, I have no skin in the game here. I don't care whether her crowd's bigger, I'm reporting it, but this is not a normal.
Evan Solomon:This is like a crazy thing to say because it's so obviously not true. It's such an obvious crazy thing to say but a lot of people believe it. People would tell tell me, oh yeah, we believe it. They believe that pizza parlors are pedophile, fronts for QAnon.
Evan Solomon:So your sense of there's a mass control, my sense would be there's no control and people. I'm a GK Chesterton guy on this, which is hilarious when he said when people stop believing in God, it's not that they believe in nothing, it's that they believe in everything and people believe everything. Now, so your concern about total control from some secret, deep state, which in mine is countered by like there's no control. Good luck, you know, yeah, a couple people say weird on TV. That's not control.
Evan Solomon:So I think our institutions and our coherence as a society and our ability to think differently and debate is under deep threat, because people don't even want to disagree anymore. They think if you say something, you're controlled. Like, like you know, I'm, I was a journalist for years in Canada and people would say, oh, they tell you what to say. Trudeau must tell you what to say. Or CTV tells you what to say. I'm like literally no, like this is never, but they believe it. They believe I'm some government. So so I would just say let's be careful before we think that I mean I get that's out there, but let's just ask practical, pragmatic questions and try to avoid sort of hardcore generalizations that don't really illustrate and help us see what's going on. But to your point, the influence of big pharma or big business, yeah, was ever thus. That's politics. Government's job is checking balances against the overexpression of power of the powerful, to make sure that the powerful don't exploit the less powerful.
Aaron Pete:I mean, that's why we built a democracy agreed and I think a lot of this comes from so many different failures. If you look at 2008 and how obama handled the financial crisis, you can argue that you can look at everything in hindsight in a different way, but he bailed out the big banks. And then you start to go who do you work for? Because it certainly wasn't in very impoverished people's benefit that that happened and you can make certain arguments, but that was very uncomfortable for so many people. And then you start to see rises in people wanting to camp out on Wall Street and argue against what's going on and talk about financial crises. And argue against what's going on and talk about financial crises and we never really got to the bottom of some of these things in a way that the general public felt like we had proper closure. Then, when you look at COVID and what we were told in 2020 versus two years later or three years later, people don't feel comfortable that we started here and we ended up here and people weren't very clear that we didn't have all the facts here. And now they're saying well, now, looking in hindsight, or we have more evidence or the science has changed. People don't feel comfortable with these conclusions.
Aaron Pete:So I do feel like it forces people to start to try and come up with some of the ideas. That's why I really enjoy speaking with people like yourself, because there's so much information coming at us and if you listen to this person and that person, then you're starting to come to these conclusions. But if you listen to this person and that person, you start to come to different conclusions and we start to. You're right, I think we're more divided than ever. But to counter that, I'm curious as to what you think of people like Joe Rogan, because he has trust from his audience in a way that I don't think Elon Musk has, or Donald Trump, and there are certain people building a foundation that really do have trust in a way, I think legacy media would have loved to have had and did have at a certain point, but now he seems to, in my opinion, have taken that over.
Evan Solomon:Okay, I'm going to just try to take a couple of slices off. Let me just go back to 2008. The financial crisis, which I think you're right to point out, that a lot of distrust Occupy Wall Street yeah, by the same token, we have to be careful that we can't be what they call counterfactual, like what if it didn't happen? So I'll give you an example what if it's true? It is horrible for people to think we bailed out the big banks, so the big banks screwed up, and then you took taxpayers money, the very people that got ripped off and took their money and bailed out the very people that did the ripping off. Then they benefited and now everyone else pays the price. So it's like, oh my God, it's so frustrating and disillusioning by the same token, if those banks failed, if they didn't do it right. So this is the thing when you've got cancer and there's two alternatives, you are going to feel absolutely shitty, if I can say that when we give you chemo and radiation treatment, it's going to be awful, there's going to be tons of side effects. You're like I don't want to do it, but the option is worse. So 2008 was like a really bad series of choices, really bad for everyone, the too big to fail and we're going to have to bail out these jerks. So they did. Now I don't know what the other path was. It's easy to say we should have let everyone fail and let the banks run, but we've seen a movie like that in the 30s before, and it's 10 years Now. Remember just. I'll add, in the UK they were so frustrated with all the post that and what was happening with the EU and that sense of local that they did Brexit. Is there anyone out in the world that thinks Brexit was a smart economic term? They've blown their feet off. They're the slowest growth economy in Europe. Right, it was a disaster for the Brits, a disaster. So you know that frustration and that distress can lead to actions. It doesn't make it better, right, it doesn't necessarily. Just because you're frustrated that your mortgage payment is too high, burning down your house is not necessarily the best solution. So I just want to say 2008,. You're right to point it out, but it doesn't necessarily mean that that was wrong, and I want to take that to the pandemic, because you know you and right to point it out, but it doesn't necessarily mean that that was wrong, and I want to take that to the pandemic, because you know, you and I talk a lot about this. The pandemic is. We're still feeling the political resonances and impact of the pandemic.
Evan Solomon:When was the last time and I'll ask an honest question, because I ask this to people because we hear a lot about we got it wrong. We over-indexed on the lockdown, we shut down our kid I have two kids. They were in high school, like they were in school. It was like a nightmare. Okay, we hurt the kids and the kids weren't targeted and we blew it and we'll never have a lockdown again and vaccine mandates are an infringement on freedom. And then the trucker thing happened and that's all we hear about.
Evan Solomon:When was the last time someone said to you how many people died in Canada of COVID? Don't say with COVID, or of like my uncle died. He got COVID and died in a hospital as a doctor. People say, well, he was old. I'm like, yeah, he was alive and walking around for five miles a day. Then he got COVID and he died. You're like, well, did he die of COVID or with COVID? I'm like he died. You're like, well, did he die of COVID or with COVID? I'm like he died. When he got COVID. He went to the hospital and he drowned in his fluids on a lung machine. So that's COVID. How, when was the last time someone mentioned the people that died of COVID? I mean almost never, I would argue. I bet you. No one said to you what's the? I'll ask you how many people died of COVID.
Aaron Pete:Did I know?
Evan Solomon:No, like what's the number? What's the number? Like, not the number that you trust? Or people say I don't trust that number. The numbers are all. How many people this was a deadly virus that was killed. Do you remember the early days when there was no vaccine and we were seeing those pictures of New York and we were seeing those pictures of Italy and people were dying? It was scary man. And then we finally got vaccine. Thank God, we got some vaccines. I was so happy. Now a lot of people now say we shouldn't. Maybe we got 100 percent. A lot of things were wrong, but of course you're getting things wrong. It was a virus we've never seen. People were dying. It was terrifying. We have forgotten this. It's like the Vietnam War happened and in America they never spoke about it for 10 years because they were too ashamed of it.
Aaron Pete:Look, so I agree with you on all of that. The only thing I'll say is nobody was as honest as your being now. When it was happening. You were attacked, you were called out, you were accused of terrible things. You were accused Like there were posts going around if you walked into a building without a mask, on that you're killing somebody's family member.
Aaron Pete:Within my own university there was a question of like if you don't get a vaccine and then you take the bus or something, whether or not you're contributing to somebody's grandmother's death, like the conversation was not reasonable and there were a lot of very, very reasonable people trying to have a conversation and then we were like those people were being accused of being anti-vaxxers, hating science, not following it. There were changes around mask mandates and so, like I think the reflection now is not that did we get some stuff wrong? Because like, not like, even if you have the perfect plan going into it, like lots of things are going to rise. I think that's all willing to be accepted.
Aaron Pete:The people I still hear from who are upset about it are much more concerned that there was this kind of militant follow this and if you don't, you're an extremist, and I don't think that was reasonable, and the people protesting, the truckers, were treated like they were extremists in a lot of circumstances, when a lot of them were like hey, the the, we understand a lot of this. Now I just need to cross the border, and this is a part of my job. I'm just sitting in my truck alone. Do I need a vaccine passport in order to go down and drop off supplies, when I'm just going to be in my truck this entire time? Not interacting with people like that was an unreasonable thing to ask for during it. But now now, looking back, we can kind of go. Well, that's a reasonable conversation we should be able to have, and so I think the frustration is the voices were so loud and so military about it. That that's the concern I think so many people have.
Evan Solomon:I hear you what I'm trying to do and the reason I'm pausing is it's hard to go back right, because you know, like hindsight's, 20-20 and we have all these. But you know, remember, when you're playing with a full deck you're a much better card player than when you're playing with two cards and we were playing with just a couple cards. So there were some over-enthusiasms on some governments card player than when you're playing two cards and we were playing with just a couple of cards. So there was some over-enthusiasms on some governments. Every government had a little provincially that had different things. You know.
Evan Solomon:I would just say this there's an old maxim in the law that says hard cases make bad laws. So if you try to build a law around the one crazy extreme case, you're kind of probably going to get some bad laws. If you try that build for the kind of regular experience that all of us have on a day-to-day basis, probably you know, more or less it works. Covid was an extreme emergency. I think something like 60,000 Canadians died in that period and for almost 5 million people got it and recovered. And you know, hard to say, if we didn't have vaccines how many more would have died. I don't know, you don't know. Some people point out oh, all the people who had vaccines?
Evan Solomon:Obviously, that's not true People. I mean, you know, the world was Facing a crisis. By the way, remember, it wasn't just Justin Trudeau who was overreacting as a kind of political form of control. You know, I remember Donald Trump, tucker. I wrote an article about Tucker Carlson. I mean, Tucker Carlson was one of the first to point out what was going on in Italy. Go back and look. He was like this administration is not taking it seriously enough. Guess what happened? Aaron Tucker Carlson went to the White House and met with Donald Trump and openly said you've got to take this more seriously. This is deadly. You've got to get vaccines. Tucker doesn't talk about that. I've written about this. I'll send you the links of this. There's many, many stories about Tucker Carlson. Now Mr Anti-Vaccine. Now he's on sale. Vaccines are poison. Tucker Carlson was the guy that was telling Donald Trump this is really serious, serious.
Aaron Pete:No one's talking about it, so like let's let's not just very quickly him saying that doesn't mean he was pro, like the vaccine didn't exist at that time, so like that has no relationship to what he said at the beginning. That this is, it should have been taken seriously, no matter what. That doesn't impact his later comments about my point is not everyone knew everything like.
Evan Solomon:His view today is radically different than what his view. So when you've got tucker carlson trekking his butt to the white house to lecture donald trump about the seriousness, and then donald trump remember he was the guy that had mandates, he was the guy that was had, you know, people were worried, scared, and so of course, there's going to be all sorts of things that didn't work out. Going back now and picking at scabs, one of the big issues was the. You know what happened in Ottawa. I was very involved with it. You're right, there's lots of people that can't. I spoke to them every day.
Evan Solomon:Really, when people accuse journalists of doing like, I just know I was there, I was out there every single day. I talked to people, I put them on camera. I never used them as background. When I was live on camera, they all spoke. There's lots of video about it and it's really. Look, you're right, there's people there that were scared and they were worried and there weren't bad people and but there there was a ton of bad people there too, that were using COVID for their own ideas about democracy, and that was radical.
Aaron Pete:So here's my question, I guess, is how do we make sure that the people who were reasonable and thoughtful and respectful but disagreed with the processes are somehow vindicated now? Because I do. I do understand the argument of like let's not go back to every issue three years ago.
Evan Solomon:What do you mean vindicated? Pierre Polyev disagreed with everything and he's he's 20 points ahead in the polls and he's leading the kids. Like, like, what's, what's this big? Like like, what's happened to these people? They have power, they run. This guy looks like he'll be the next prime minister. I mean the idea that there's like, if you disagree with the government, you've been disempowered. What are you talking about? I mean, probably the most influential person in the country right now is someone that was serving coffee to the truckers. Like, again, I just I'm always trying to avoid this notion that there's some grand conspiracy. There's a couple of people that are up on charges, you know, tomorrow, each and all that stuff. I get that. That's different. Ok, there's legal processes You're going to. We can debate whether they should or they shouldn't. I get that, but the idea that everyone that disagreed is somehow needs to be vindicated.
Aaron Pete:No, I don't think that and like perhaps that is the answer. Perhaps the correct answer is that we vote in the person that we believe reflects those values and that's a fair answer. I'm just thinking of, like I again know a few people who chose not to get the vaccine. Justin Trudeau, at the very beginning, said I won't do a passport, I won't have that type of requirement because it would be divisive. Then later on chooses to proceed with that. Those people were not allowed to go into restaurants, not allowed to go certain places, and it was to put pressure on them to do that.
Aaron Pete:Now I think Fauci just recently came out and said he's got six shots and he's still got COVID and he's had it a few times and like that makes people go. At the time I was told this is going to be effective, it's going to protect me. That makes people go. At the time I was told this is going to be effective, it's going to protect me, it's going to protect other people and it's going to have all of these effects. Those people who chose not to, who went through all of those things, I think are looking for a little vindication Now. Maybe it is best through going to vote for Pierre Palliev and reflect that value. But I do think the more we suppress those people and say, move on, scab, let's just forget about it, the more we suppress those people and say, move on, scab, let's just forget about it, the more we build like political anger or political frustration. And again, maybe that's let out through the voting process, but that worries me because there's still so many people who are animated by these issues.
Evan Solomon:Yeah, I think my response is twofold. My response is twofold Democracies. The fundamental dynamic of a democracy is the line between individual freedoms and security, and we trade off forms of freedom for forms of security. Right, you can't run into a theater and yell fire, even though you have free speech. So we have free speech with, in Canada, reasonable limits right, that's our term. So then we negotiate reasonable limits.
Evan Solomon:Now you and I may say well, I am a libertarian, I should be able to streak naked into any place. I mean, like this, is it? These are real things. I want to take my clothes off Because I'm an individual, and I want to sunbathe in in the park naked, screaming, and then I want to go into a theater and scream fire. And then I want to say kill the Jews. And I want to say all these things, this is my individual freedoms. Don't now, in Canada, you can't say kill the Jews, because that's inciting hate speech. You can't run around naked because, because you know that's indecent exposure and all, because you know. Guess what my freedom to do that is. You know, as the old saying goes, my freedom to swing my fist ends at your nose, right. So we have reasonable limits.
Evan Solomon:The Americans have a different series of limits. You know we have limits on giving money to our political process, right on political funding. The Citizens United case in the state said money is a form of free speech. So every country is going to decide. But let's just talk about Canada. The debate between when a government's job is to protect you and your freedoms Right Today, with the Gaza war, there's lots of debates Should protesters be allowed to come to your neighborhood and come out with their flags, their Hamas or Palestine flags or whatever, and scream at Jews? Or should Jews be allowed to do like then people are negotiating hey, the police should stop that. Get them off campus.
Aaron Pete:Get them on campus get them out of my neighborhood, get them in my neighborhood.
Evan Solomon:We are always negotiating freedom of speech and freedom of individual rights with security, and that is beautifully difficult to figure out. The system we've devised is to negotiate that publicly, through democratic institutions. Sometimes you go too far. One way the state overtakes you know the 1970 FLQ crisis and the War Measures Act, the truckers. Maybe some people say too far. Maybe some people say not enough, let's negotiate. But when the state overtakes, there's consequences. Sometimes individuals are hurt. That's why when individuals like you were talking about get hurt, when the state overextends their power in the name of security and crushes individual freedoms, right there's a backlash and there should be an accountability for it. And that's been happening now, politically, legally, and maybe there'll be some civil issues with it. But the state is always going to try to negotiate what level they're supposed to protect you.
Evan Solomon:During the Second World War they interned the japanese right. Yeah, gotta protect these people because they're double agents. Protect the rest of canadians. In retrospect, not cool. At the time a lot of people felt like so you're right, time allows us, but let's not again. I just again I hate sound like. Let's not pretend that we're shocked, that we're debating the extent of the powers of the state and the limits of individual freedom. That's literally the fundamental core and this is why I'm so. I love our jobs, because this is literally why I want. I think debate is so important Because if we don't, if we lose trust in everyone and we, you know, like when I was on television every night, I wanted people on to debate this shit because Canadians got to see it that we're really genuinely like.
Evan Solomon:I remember having the justice minister. I remember David Lamedi on there. I'm like how dare you do this? How do you justify doing it? I had Lamedi on, I had Mendicino while I. These are important discussions.
Evan Solomon:Now, whether you and I agree where the line is, we shouldn't In Canada, everyone's free to have their own view and then promote it. But when the state goes too far and crushes your rights, or my rights, or Tamara Leach's rights or Joe Smith's rights, we've got to pay attention to that. Some people may agree and some people may not, but so what? Like the peaceful disagreement is the course on democracy.
Evan Solomon:So I know you're up and I know it's it's an issue, but, like I know you well enough to know that, that I just don't want to pretend that something that's very normal, that is a feature, like the mistake that I think is happening not you're making that is, that we think the feature of democracy, which is to debate the limitations of the state and the role of individual freedoms, that's a feature of democracy. But when we talk about it like this, it's like it's a bug in the system, like I can't believe the state overdid this and it's like how could that ever happen? I'm like that's going to happen every single day. That's why we're on the watchtower, you and I. That's our job. So it's a feature of our system, not a bug, that's all.
Aaron Pete:I couldn't agree more. I definitely think it's important. Also, like from my perspective, I try and bring those voices of people I've spoken with, because it de-escalates the political tensions, I hope, so that people feel like their voice is being heard and those conversations are taking place. I promise one last question. It's something that I spoke with steve pate was speaking about, so I'd love your thoughts on it. Can we trust government-funded media?
Evan Solomon:gosh, you know what this whole interview? First, I love your, our chats and and and I'll tell you what I really resent about you. Resent, yeah, Resent. That's what I resent about you. Get me in these great conversations and we never have a beer because we're far away. So it's like we have these conversations. I was like where's, like I've always ready to like it's like my favorite discussion. I'm like, ah, I just feel like I'm with my buddy and I'm like, no, we should have a drink. And then, you know, go do a game. But anyway, we're sitting here in our houses, far apart, and all we get is this I only resent that we're not doing this face to face and having a good time. So, because you just, I love your questions, OK, so let me just be a fuss budget for a sec.
Evan Solomon:I don't know what you mean by government funded media, because there's two ways to interpret it. One, the government owns you and is telling you what to say. And two, the government has a pool of funds that people apply to to support an industry and the government. So one is the CBC, therefore the state broadcaster that just basically parrots what the state says, or the no, I mean, I know I used to work there. No, and you know they don't do it under Trudeau any more than they did it under Stephen Harper, Do they? By the way, are they perfect, or do they have propensities that are left or right? Yeah, sure, you should criticize them all the time, but they're not a mouthpiece of the state, because there's an ombudsman and they're and nor is companies that have, you know, over the years, availed themselves of certain government support systems, subsidies or other. Are they state government? So, yes, I do, I think you can have funding coming from governments to industries and those industries still being objective and criticizing. Yes, because we have decades of proof that that can happen.
Evan Solomon:Do you? I'll give you an example. Do you think that a police officer is going to function neutrally and enforce the law? Are they going to enforce the government that pays their salary? We never say that about a police officer. Oh, I guess you'll just that that cop is going to be a, you know, or the RCMP is going to do what Justin Trudeau says today or Stephen Harper says today? We hope not. Thank you, by the way. They tried, of course, but they shouldn't any more than the media should. So, number one. So there has to be arm's length. So yes, I totally believe it.
Evan Solomon:Is it great that the government? Is it causing distrust? Of course it's causing distrust, Like I get it. But I don't think the term government funded media is. You know every industry in this country the auto industry, the oil and gas industry, the renewables industry they all get government subsidies Right. The renewables industry, they all get government subsidies Right.
Evan Solomon:So I guess my question is is if everyone's availing themselves, like you know, I'll give you an example the most conservative person who hates the CBC and thinks that government funded media is a woke left deep state concoction of mouthpiece of Justin Trudeau and the soy boys state concoction of mouthpiece of Justin Trudeau and the soy boys Great. If they had a tax credit, a child benefit, tax credit that the federal government gives them because they had a child and they took that, are they a government supported family now? Do we trust their voice? Now to speak, they're availing themselves? No, because they pay taxes and they're citizens and they can avail themselves of a service and of the government and then criticize the government. I mean, this is not that hard. Like we have our jobs.
Evan Solomon:Every doctor who's operating on me is going to operate on me with the very same concern as a Jew that he would to another religious Catholic. I wouldn't. It wouldn't even occur to me that the doctor would be like well, you know what, let's mail this guy in. But you know, when the Catholic guy comes in, I'm really going to bring the 18 men. Of course we would. We God forbid that would ever happen right, People? We're decent people, we're trying to do jobs. There's check and balances systems. It's not not everyone's a meat puppet with an invisible hand in their back and their mouth is being moved when it.
Evan Solomon:We should be vigilant about it. That's just so. So you know you and I've talked about this before I'm not cynical, but I'm skeptical. We should be skeptical optimists. We should ask that question Is the CTC being biased?
Evan Solomon:And when it is, hammer the way? If CTV is the same, if Global is the same, if GZERO Media is the same, if they say that they're going to do X, they got to deliver it. If they say they're Y, if they're biased, if they're right or left, great. But if they say they're objective, act objective. And when you're not, you'll get your butt kicked, and you should. I have no issue. But that doesn't mean that, but that that just because you've taken a penny from the government subsidy, that you're somehow a propaganda voice. So I just don't buy that. And I look at Steve Paikin's TV Ontario voice. So I just don't buy that and I don't look at Steve Paikin's TV Ontario.
Evan Solomon:Does anyone in their right minds really believe Steve Paikin and TV Ontario, which has existed under conservative governments and liberal governments and NDP governments, is really a mouthpiece for any of those? Are they a mouthpiece for Doug Ford? Were they a mouthpiece for Kathleen Wynne? Were they a mouthpiece for Bob? No, Were they a mouthpiece for Kathleen Wynne? Were they a mouthpiece for Bob? No, they did their jobs and so this is not a hard question for me. But I do think you've pointed to something really great, which is distrust is at an all time high and the media can't just allege that they're fair. They have to show and prove they're fair, and if they're not doing that in this environment they will die and that's their own fault. They got to do their job at a higher level because it's more competitive out there. It's just hard. But you know, don't play violins. Get out in the field and kick some ass.
Aaron Pete:It is so surreal to me that I get to speak with you again. I was watching you on TV and you were speaking with Ellis Ross and I remember admiring what you do so much, and what you're passionate about is what I ended up becoming passionate about. So I appreciate you always being willing to sit down and do this. I do think we'll have to do one of these in person one day because it's so interesting and I have 15 more questions sitting in my mind. But it's always an honor to sit down with you and speak with you because you're so eloquent with how you think things through. But you also give the space to kind of walk through the process that you thought it through, for others to kind of walk through that with you. So I appreciate your time, as always.
Evan Solomon:Well, first of all, I love our chats. I'm dying to come out to Chilliwack. The thing I like about what you do, and I mean it is like people need to just have conversations right, like we're normal people in the sense that you know everybody, doesn't matter left or right, up or down. Like we want a house for our families, we want you know kind of, we want good neighbors, we want safe communities, we'd like to have the probability of prosperity right, and we don't want to be around boring people that agree with us all the time. We want to be around people who challenge us and make us grow and make us think, and so you do that.
Evan Solomon:You ask great questions. You're such a humane person, you have such a wide range of things to say and it's just a pleasure, and I learn a lot from your podcast, which is great. You and your team do just a superb job, so I can't wait for us to meet. I really do hope we can. I'm annoyed that we keep becoming better friends that we've never met in person, so that sucks, but we'll get there.
Aaron Pete:We'll get there. Thank you so much again. Can you tell people how they can follow your work?
Evan Solomon:Yeah, sure, you can go to gzeromediacom on the interwebs. You can sign up for our newsletters. They are nonpartisan and if they're not, you can send me a note and kick my ass. They're free. So just subscribe to GZERO Media. They're every morning. They're geopolitics. We have one on Canada, gzo North, and we have a show on PBS with Ian Bremmer. So, yeah, let us know. As you know, aaron, I love the conversations. When we fail, we try to do better, you know, and one thing I'll never say is we're perfect all the time. We blow it a lot, like everybody, but we give it everything we've got as open and as transparently as we can, and I'm really proud of the work that we're doing. So please jump on board.
Aaron Pete:You're the man. Thank you so much again for doing this. Go follow him. I always love reading your articles. It always gives me a new, fresh perspective, so I appreciate your time. You're the best man, so I appreciate your time. You're the best man you loved. That, didn't you? Absolutely yeah, he was just smacking me around with other perspectives. I could just feel you back there soaking it all in, being like he's speaking for me.
Evan Solomon:How does he form these sentences so coherently?
Aaron Pete:all of these things I'm thinking I can just feel you back there. I wish I had him said that that's what I meant to say on the trump stuff, on the, because we were just talking before invoking the 25th and he's like you loved it. You needed that. You needed a little bit of me just taking it on the chin right here. Yeah, that was amazing. Yeah, I could feel it. I could feel you smiling back there. Well, and you had. He was gonna just like 10 minutes into his monologue you're like can we just back up to this assassination attempt?
Evan Solomon:Yeah.
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