00:00Bloomberg White House correspondent Josh Wingrove is in New Jersey where the president is waking up this morning.
00:05Josh, where is the president's head on all this? What have you heard from White House officials?
00:10Is there a plan or is this the new normal for for the foreseeable future?
00:16Well, they're keeping it ambiguous. You know, there's some reporting that he's considering ramping up options.
00:22Axios, for instance, reporting that they've moved tankers, air tankers back into the region to prepare for a potential
00:29escalation of airstrikes. So he seems to be keeping options on the table.
00:33But where we'll see that go, we don't know. As you know, we have always been on guard on weekends
00:38in particular.
00:39It seems like that's really when the American attacks seem to peak up.
00:43So, you know, we'll see if we see something later today. It's too soon to say.
00:47I think more broadly, as we've discussed before, the president sort of has been deemphasizing this in his remarks
00:52and kind of appears, frankly, you know, focused on other things right now.
00:58And he's we've seen this before, of course, with Ukraine as well.
01:00He sort of got bored of talking about that and has focused on other things.
01:03And so right now we just continue to be watching this day by day and there's no kind of end
01:08in sight.
01:09And it's unclear when if if at all talks may resume or talks for talks may resume.
01:16We just start continuing to watch it.
01:18Talking about the talks.
01:20Talking about the talks.
01:20Very diplomatic.
01:21Under the category of other things the president is watching or cares about, there is the run, Darlene, run matter.
01:28His embrace of Lindsey Graham's sister, now the interim senator from the state of South Carolina,
01:33the president in a post on Truth Social encouraging her to put her hat in the ring for the primary
01:38to get the seat permanently.
01:39What do you make of this?
01:40As I confess, I didn't know much about Lindsey Graham's sister before she was elevated to this position.
01:44But the president emphasizing his long relationship with her, his confidence in her.
01:48How is the president looking at her prospects and the importance of this race in particular, Josh?
01:54President likes loyalty in senators.
01:56And in her speech when she became a senator, she talked about the importance of upholding his agenda.
02:03So if she's a trusted ally, it's perhaps not a surprise that the president, who is, of course, primaried or
02:09supported the primaries against a couple members of this current Senate conference, would value that.
02:15And so if he's with his endorsement, I think he is sort of taking a bird in the hand approach
02:20with taking, you know, backing her.
02:24And his endorsements have, of course, been very influential, if not decisive across, you know, basically every state over the
02:31course of this cycle.
02:32And I think that's important to remember, too, because, you know, in other countries, maybe ones that are having trade
02:37tensions or whatnot, you're starting to see people talk, look over the horizon, right?
02:42Oh, well, you know, Trump will be gone in two and a half years and weather the storm until then
02:48and this and that.
02:49And maybe the Republican Party will shift.
02:50President Trump will continue to have a very, very strong influence over the party, over its primaries, over the actions
02:56its leaders take, whether he's president or not, for quite some time.
03:01And so I think we're seeing that with this.
03:02And there's some reporting that other major candidates are now sort of reconsidering or still considering whether they will jump
03:08into the race,
03:09because running against a Trump-endorsed candidate would be a significantly uphill battle.
03:13Josh, since you are our senior Canadian correspondent, I do want to go back to...
03:18I'm sorry. Sorry about the smoke.
03:20Of course. Of course you just did that.
03:22Did you guys plan that?
03:23I feel like that was a plan.
03:23No, no, no, no, no, no.
03:26I get so many texts, you know?
03:29Even though I'm still upset that David went to Aspen without me, he did talk to James and Greer there
03:34and talk about the trade policies.
03:35In the last hour, we were talking about kind of the incrementalism of having to negotiate one-on-one with
03:40all these countries,
03:41the way they're trying to do this next round of tariffs.
03:43And the president is now threatening new tariffs on Canada because of the wildfires.
03:47He posted, Canada has refused to engage in basic forage management and debris removal.
03:52Sounds familiar to what he said with California last year.
03:55Knowing that such refusal will lead to exactly this result, this is willful negligence that's capitalized
03:59and becoming a yearly occurrence costing the United States billions of dollars,
04:03which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the tariffs Canada is currently paying.
04:09It's a complicated clause, by the way.
04:11Yes, that's not easy to read.
04:13That's my second time, and I did no better the second time.
04:16Josh, what is going on here?
04:17Does the president really need another foreign policy fight,
04:19especially one that could impact how much Americans pay for things,
04:23including cars and other items that come across the border?
04:27I mean, the notion of Canada, you know, vacuuming the floor of its boreal forest or whatever,
04:34I mean, obviously, like, there's always so much you can do.
04:37To take this seriously, though, I mean, a Canadian national died fighting a forest fire this month in Colorado.
04:46Wow.
04:46This long-standing cooperation between these two countries.
04:49In those infamous California fires, it was Canadian water bombers you saw.
04:54Some of the stuff Trump says sort of goes off the back of Canada and Canadians.
04:59Other stuff they find particularly insulting.
05:01And I think this risks being in that second bucket because the country has spent so much time helping America
05:07fight its forest fires.
05:10The notion that this is sort of like their fault, no one wants to smoke over it.
05:15It's over Canada, too, of course, is, I think, going to prompt some blowback, frankly, is already prompting blowback from
05:21Canadian officials.
05:22And so whether we see this factor into these negotiations or whatever is unclear, just remember where we are on
05:26this.
05:27Much, most of the trade between Canada and the U.S. right now is tariff-free because it's exempted under
05:33KUSMA, or as the Canadians call it, and USMCA after the Americans call it.
05:38And so Trump could adjust that exemption.
05:40That's a big fear of industries in the U.S. and in Canada.
05:43He could raise the baseline tariff through these 301 investigations, one of which is done, one of which is still
05:48in the hopper.
05:51Or he could try to adjust the sectoral tariffs to crank up tariffs on autos or steel, which are the
05:56two ones that are biting the Canadian economy in particular.
05:58So he does have avenues here if he wants, but it's also true that Canada has one of the lowest
06:03effective tariff rates in the world right now when it comes to accessing the U.S. market.
06:06And so if the price of that is looking the other way when the president gets upset every now and
06:10then.
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