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The Monocle Daily
Trump terminates trade negotiations with Canada over ad criticising tariffs. Plus: Monocle’s November issue
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You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 24th October, 2025 on Monocle Radio.
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US President Donald Trump flounces from trade talks with Canada after getting upset by something on television. The immediate and long term future of Gaza remain maddeningly unclear. And the latest issue of Monocle magazine is on a newsstand near you. I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts now.
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Foreign.
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Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Tomas Lewis, Leila Mollarna, Alan and Julia Jen will discuss today's big stories. We'll drop in on Art Basel Paris and we'll have our weekly wrap up of what we've learned stuff. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller. And we will start in the United States where President Donald Trump, Trump rather, has arguably not for the first time embarked upon the maintenance of a fuming grudge over something which could scarcely matter less. Trump has declared an immediate cessation of trade talks with Canada, only America's second biggest trading. So no worries there. Over a television advertisement sponsored by the province of Ontario, which not only criticizes the tariffs Trump has imposed upon Canada, but uses the words of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan to do so. Reagan said in 1987 that such trade barriers hurt every American worker or consumer. Well, joining me now is Thomas Lewis, Monacle's Toronto correspondent. Thomas, to the ad itself, why did the province of Ontario think that right now was a tactful moment to air it?
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Well, the province of Ontario is currently helmed, Andrew, by the premier Doug Ford, and sort of colloquially here in Ontario for quite some time, he's sort of been characterized in some ways as, as Canada's answer to Donald Trump. He's a conservative, he's a populist. And ever since this, these tensions with the US Began as Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, it's Doug Ford, really, that has been the bluntest publicly in his criticism of the tariffs that the Trump administration has put on Canada's economy. And because Ontario is Canada's largest provincial economy, lots of two way traffic economically between the US And Ontario. In terms of the timing now, I think it's just part of the longer process of pressure and anger, really, and the kind of tone that Doug Ford and his provincial government here in Ontario likes to take. Now, I think the issue is here with this ad, Andrew, is that it doesn't seem as though the Ontario government asked for permission to use this Excerpt of a 1987 radio broadcast by Ronald Reagan. They edited up, it seems the speech kind of put the sentences back together out of order and kind of didn't really put the context of what Reagan was talking about. He was sort of explaining to the American people back in 1987 why he felt he'd had to put tariffs at the time on Japan during an economic standoff there, but ultimately coming to the conclusion that he was aware that he didn't feel that tariffs would be beneficial to the US Economy or Americans more broadly. So the presidential foundation, Ronald Reagan, has said it might be looking at legal action about using this material without permission. And that, it seems, is what the president, Donald Trump, has seized on and of course, is now penalizing Canada's federal government, the nation at large, for the actions of just one of its provinces.
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Well, on which subject does Canada's prime minister, Mark Carney, seem to have been somewhat blindsided by both the ad and Trump's response to it?
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He does, it seems. And again, you know, Mark Carney, who won an election back in late April, you know, throughout the sort of ups and downs of this, which is putting it lightly, since he took office, you know, he's really sort of managed to keep a sort of cool head publicly while keeping language fairly sharp. Just this morning, he was about to embark on a on a trip to Asia over the coming days, and he made a point of stopping to speak to the press, reiterating this phrase that he has become quite famous for here in Canada, the idea of controlling what we can control in Canada. And for him, that means trying to forge new partnerships worldwide, which is what he'll be doing over the next couple of days in Asia. There's a potential perhaps for even a meeting with the Chinese president, which would of course, be a major moment for him. So I think, you know, when you look at kind of maybe the difficulty Canada's economy in the past has had in forging new economic relationships because a lot of those trading partnerships were so settled, a lot of trading partnerships, ships everywhere are now pretty unsettled and lots of potential customers are looking for new places to buy or to trade to. So that's the message that Carney is sticking to. But again, it's no doubt a frustration that something like a political ad from one part of the country has now caused such a disruption to a national set of negotiations that he says were moving forward but were no less tricky. And as I say, that's putting it slightly lightly, Andrew.
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Well, especially because, and I don't know, and please do tell us if this is an angle that Canadian media has picked up on. Carney actually seemed to be getting on quite well with the president, certainly relative to his predecessor, Justin Trudeau.
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Well, I think this is what's so confusing, Andrew, to lots of us sort of looking on at all of this, is that, you know, get these statements that Trump, Donald Trump, the president makes about Canada, the 51st state talk, of course, which has quietened down, but he did resuscitate it a little while ago, briefly. You know, he'll talk quite negatively about Canada essentially being this freeloader on the US Economy. But when it comes to Mark Carney, he's got nothing but these sort of glowing words. After that first meeting between the two in the White House a couple of months ago, just as Mark Carney was sort of stepping out the door of the White House effectively after that meeting, the White House published this incredibly sleek, kind of pretty poetic kind of video of the meeting, very glowing about how much Trump respected Carney and how great a partner Canada was. So it's really confusing, and I think. I think it makes it quite hard for Canadians who, if you look at the polling, are pretty sort of negative about what they feel about the prospect of these talks will be. I think a lot of Canadians, despite still being incredibly, you know, supportive of Canada's efforts to try and get a good deal there, may be slightly more resigned now to the fact that the deal may not be as good as it was. But I think that's why it's so confusing, is to have these very warm words and images towards their leader at one side, and then these acts that seem, at best, erratic, really, and that can come at very, very short notice, like this announcement that Donald Trump made on Truth Social last night about this television ad featuring Ronald Reagan.
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Andrew, in the meantime, though, and for all Carney's reminders that. And he's right, of course, but for all Carney's reminders that you can only control what you can control, the world is full of other countries with whom Canada can quite happily trade. Has it had a noticeable impact on Canada, the tariffs that have already been imposed?
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Well, there have been a lot of impacts, particularly in the auto industry. You know, a lot of government support has been put in place because, of course, you know, a lot of these car plants, especially, you know, close to cities like Detroit, for example, along the US border, a lot of those parts will travel back and forth from Canada to the US Back to Canada again during the assembly process. So that's been a real sort of headache really, I think, you know, you can look at, for example, the ban on the sale of American alcohol, for example, here in Ontario, Ontario, the sort of government licensed alcohol stores that are still in place. And if you walk into one of the shops, you'll still see lots of them with maple leaf flags sort of draped everywhere. So and things like tourism too, Andrew, you know, you've I was traveling over the summer to the east coast of Canada and some of these places were full of Canadian tourists, but from elsewhere in Canada. And some of the operators there were saying that they'd never really seen as many sort of Canadians, if you like, coming on holiday to different parts of Canada as they were seeing this year. So there are a few, both good and bad, I suppose. But I think, you know, the Carney government has been very public and open and explicit each stage of the way about the support it's trying to give to those sectors that have been impacted so far as these trade negotiations continue. And he has said today, just briefly, Andrew, that Canada is ready to start talking again when America is ready. So it's this kind of calm approach that he is trying to convey to Canadians, even if it feels like the tumult has returned.
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Thomas Lewis, Monocle's Toronto correspondent, thank you for joining us. Listening to the Daily. You're listening to the Daily on Monocle Radio. And to Gaza now, where although the recent ceasefire is holding more or less as well as might have reasonably been expected, the important question and now what languishes unanswered on a number of fronts? The future governance of Gaza, the insertion of any kind of foreign peacekeeping force, delivery of aid and access by media. Well, joining me now is Monocle's Middle east correspondent, Leila Malana Allan. Leila, you have recently been traveling in the vicinity. How close to Gaza can independent foreign journalists get now?
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It's still exactly as it's been for the last two years. We can go up to the border with Gaza and southern Israel and into that border zone with the permission of the Israeli military, only ever entering Gaza in an embed with the Israeli military, something that has not happened now in months. And when it does happen, it's with very severe restrictions.
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I mean, is there any sign of that shifting? Have the Israeli government been drawn on it at all? Because they I mean, I know two years is a very long time, but surely even they don't think they can keep journalists out of Gaza literally forever.
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Well, one begins to question that. So the Foreign Press association inside Israel has had a court case running against the Israeli government for this with the Supreme Court for nearly two years now. And they've resubmitted again another complaint. Just a few days ago, the Supreme Court came back and said, essentially the Foreign Press association had said, you know, the ceasefire is now in position. The excuse that Israel's military has used for two years is that it's too dangerous for foreign press to go in. And of course, we have seen 270 nearly Palestinian journalists killed by the Israeli military, some intentionally, some through simply being in their homes over the last two years. But what the Supreme Court has now come back and said is they've given the Israeli government 30 days to give a reason why they are still not allowing foreign press into Gaza, even though there is now a ceasefire and it should now be safe enough to work there. Of course, the reaction of the foreign press is, throughout the last two years, has been that we are war correspondents, we work in very dangerous war zones around the world. We have the right to enter and freely report and that it is not. While the Israeli military has an obligation to secure our safety and to not attack us and allow us us to do our work freely, it's not within their purview to forbid foreign journalists from being able to do their work freely. And of course, we have watched as many, many of our brave colleagues have been killed and injured while doing that work, unable to support them or relieve them.
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You are of course able to travel to the west bank, which I understand you have also done. How have things there changed, I guess, since the ceasefire? Is there now a concern that what is relatively speaking, good news for Gaza might turn out to be less good news for the West Bank?
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Well, exactly that. And I must just say that I have covered this part of the world for 15 years and I have never seen trust in the Western media as low as it is right now in the West Bank. People there told me, particularly in the northern west bank, where horrific things have been going on in recent months, that they haven't seen hide nor hair of a Western journalist in months. Many people were saying to me that a lot of the Western media is sitting in Jerusalem essentially acting as the court stenographer. And of course, the problem is that while all eyes have been on Israel and the hostages and on Gaza and the bombing, as rightly they should be, there's been complete ignoring of what's been going on in the west bank for the last few years. There has been A massive crackdown since October 7th in many different ways. One that many rights organizations are calling essentially an act of collective punishment. That's in multiple different ways. As I say, prisoners inside the prisons have been routinely abused. They report being starved, they report being beaten. They report being deprived of medical attention. They all say that they realized something had happened, even though they weren't allowed to watch television after October 7th because the behavior of the prison guards changed towards them so markedly. And all that has come out from the prisoners who were released as part of this ceasefire deal. Meanwhile, across the west bank, of course, there is a very strict apartheid system in which there are different roads which Palestinians and settlers are allowed to use. The roads Palestinians are allowed to use are already very difficult and secure to some covered in checkpoints. But that's been made even worse. There used to be just shy of 500 gates across the west bank that the Israeli authorities could shut when they wanted to restrict movement of Palestinians. That has been doubled in the last two years, as well as many of the more direct routes being bulldozed and changed. The camps in the north. Three of the biggest refugee camps in the north of the west bank have been bulldozed and cleared by the Israeli military. Nearly 40,000 people displaced from those camps. I met a lot of those families. And the Israeli military now continues to occupy those camps. Camps. No one knows when they'll be able to go home. And of course we are seeing hugely violent rampages from violent settlers. Attacks that used to happen perhaps once or twice a month now, daily, as Palestinians try and collect their olives in what's peak olive picking season. Olive groves are being burned. Palestinian farmers, very elderly, defenseless Palestinian farmers being beaten by settlers wielding truncheons and sometimes guns. I watch. The Israeli military legally does not have jurisdiction and cannot interfere, but they can document and they are supposed to call the police who are supposed to come and stop it. That very rarely happens. And when it does, generally the police at the moment are siding with the settlers. So there are a huge number of very worrying issues going on. And many people in the west bank feel completely ignored, particularly by this idea that for many people now that there's been a ceasefire in Gaza, as though this situation is. Is somehow over and peace has been achieved, when in fact none of the issues that they have been struggling with for decades have been tackled in any way.
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But you did get to speak to the son of arguably the West Banks. Well, indeed, Palestine's in general's most famous prisoner.
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I did indeed. And that in itself was A battle because, of course, as I say, so many Palestinians are deeply mistrustful of the Western press. Now, Arab Barghouti is the son of Marwan Barghouti, who is called. Called the Palestinian Nelson Mandela. That's because he is really the one man, and for two decades has been the one man who Palestinians continuously vote for as their most popular candidate for a leader who could unite them and could lead them towards statehood. Now, he has been in jail for 23 years. He was arrested in 2002 in the second intifada and convicted in 2004 for being involved in an attack that killed. Killed five Israeli civilians. Many people say that that trial was a complete sham. Now, it was very, very likely and much hoped for that he would be released in this ceasefire deal. Everybody thought that would be the case. He is recognized by the international community as the man who could also unite Palestinians. He managed from prison in 2006 to unite all the different factions behind a plan that, among other things, agreed to the 1967 borders and made a promise that none of them would attack civilians, that attacking civilians in any form would be considered completely out of bounds. And he also has significant experience working alongside Israeli politicians to try and achieve peace, which he did for many years during the 90s working for the Palestinian Legislative Council, of which he was the youngest elected member before he was imprisoned. So 23 years he's been imprisoned, everybody thought he'd be released in this deal, and instead, it turns out they moved him to a different jail. And during that move, this man is 66 years old. The guards took him to an unknown location and beat him senseless. They beat him unconscious, which the family was then told by released prisoners who saw his state when he was taken to the medical wing and he was not given treatment after that. Now, this story has gone around, people are incredibly angry. People are also incredibly concerned. I was speaking to a longtime Palestinian political analyst who advises diplomats the other day who said, said, what a waste this deal was the one chance to get him out. And he is not a young man and he really is the one hope the Palestinians have for a uniting, a peaceful peace advocating and Western sort of accepted he is the man that all Western leaders want to lead this and that Western leaders must campaign for his release. Now, it came out today that Donald Trump is considering demanding his release from Israeli authorities. So we'll see how that proceeds. But right now, people feeling, feeling extremely frustrated and accusations from Arab and other Palestinians I spoke to in the west bank that the Israeli authorities don't want a partner for peace, they said. They said this government doesn't want a man who could actually lead towards a peaceful negotiation of a two state solution because as long as they keep him, it and others who could be part of a Palestinian parliament in jail, they can say that there's nobody who can properly lead Palestine and hence there can't be a two state solution.
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Leila Milana, Alan Monocles, Middle east correspondent, thanks for joining us. You are listening to the Daily Leaf. You're listening to the Daily on Monocle Radio. On a newsstand near you now is the latest issue of Monocle magazine. And joining me right now with a copy of it is Julia Jenn, Monocle writer and researcher. You have it right there, Julia?
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I do. I'm flicking through the pages right now.
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Well done. That is, that is live verite audio of the pages being flicked. Can we get some live verite audio of it being dropped on the desk with a satisfying wump? Yeah, that's a satisfying one. That is a, that is a chunky magazine.
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Chunky, yeah.
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What's in it? I mean, loads, obviously.
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Well, tons. I mean, if we're looking just at my pieces, then there was the affairs lead for this issue which involved me going to Poland no less than three times to report this story and looking at sort of Poland's rearmament kind of drive, what's happened since the invasion of Ukraine started back in 2014, actually, because that's kind of when the polls say they sort of woke up to things, but kind of Russia's goings on in the region. So. Yeah, so that's one. So that's one piece.
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Were you surprised by the scale of it? Because I do think this is a big story which has been somewhat slept on, the degree to which Poland is quietly turning itself into a superpower. And I've spoken to a lot of Polish military, Polish politicians over the last few years, and every single time I've thought, wow, these people really aren't kidding.
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Yeah, absolutely. So I think if you look at, you know, European representatives who jet off to the White House, for example, to talk to Trump, we had that meeting of European leaders a few weeks or months ago. And obviously today we had the coalition of the willing here in London. You won't see Poland there or even really the Baltic states, actually, interestingly enough. But I guess what they're involved in instead is instead of this kind of negotiating this, talking this hashing details out of things that might never transpire, really, they're actually doing things. They're building things they're buying things, they're solidifying their kind of defenses on their eastern flanks and they're really pouring a lot of money in and they're building new partnerships. For example, I mean, this is something we've talked about and I cover in this piece. Here is the partnership between Poland and South Korea, how Poland is buying up masses of South Korean technology, but also South Korean companies are coming to Poland and opening factories there to enable kind of domestic production so that you can quickly scale that up in case of a threat growing. So, yeah, so absolutely, I completely agree. You know, it's the action versus the words. And I think the words are dominated by the Western Europeans and actions, maybe by Eastern.
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I mean, yeah, the words in this context that stuck with me were from a. It was a sort of informal conversation with a very high profile Polish politician a couple of years ago who I was talking to about this, who just said we have absolutely had it with being invaded, was his line. I know as a Ukrainian, this must have seemed, I don't know, reassuring to you or at least somewhat comforting that the country next door is actually taking this stuff seriously.
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Yeah, I think there's a lot of interesting stuff to unpack between Poland and Ukraine. What lessons Poland is picking up from Ukraine also, unfortunately, and this is something that's referenced in the article is growing division in Poland about Ukraine itself and about support of its eastern neighbor. A lot of kind of sabotage, specifically targeting Ukrainians who live in Poland, refugees or men of military age. There was actually a story today in the Polish newspapers about how sabotage or sort of kind of arson attacks on Ukrainian linked property in Gdynia, which is a Polish port city, how that's growing massively. So if you have a Ukrainian number plate on your car, it's very likely that it will get bombed sort of thing. But yes, so I think, and I think, you know, from the Ukrainian perspective, it's such a nuisance kind of having this invasion happening in terms of like the economy, education. I mean, it's just disrupting life so much. And I think the polls are so keen. But one thing that came out, the article is that Polish civil defense, and I think that's where basically most European countries, if not all countries in the world really, and especially Ukraine as well, where countries fall short other than the Nordics, is actually, are citizens being communicated with properly? Are they actually being prepared for what to do in a crisis situation? Do they know what their role is going to be on that day when.
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If something happens before we move on to another thing? I just wanted to ask again, that's that overlap between Poland and Ukraine. Did you get the sense that the Poles are learning from the Ukrainian military and what they're going through? The. The way that Ukraine has adapted not just to its, you know, extraordinary use of autonomous technology, but the way that their military is structured. It's not nearly as. I know this was an evolution that was already in process, but it's certainly not as top down as an old school Eastern European military used to be.
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Yeah, I, that's a really interesting question. I think one thing that the Poles have really opened themselves up to is since that drone incursion that happened in September. So where Russian drones crossed over into Polish airspace, since then they've brought in Ukrainian troops to train Polish troops how to deal with shooting down drones. And actually that's something that's so pertinent for European countries because our airports have been massively disrupted by drones. So that's something that Poland is now open to and other European countries are, but especially Poland, they're really. And they actually want to deploy Polish soldiers into Ukraine to shoot down Russian drones or flying objects that are crossing through Ukrainian skies. So in western Ukraine, that's to protect Poland from any basically objects approaching their airspace. But it's very difficult to tell in other aspects. Polish army enjoys a lot of trust from the public, but there is still a sense that it's very hard to kind of understand really what's going on. There's so much secrecy. It was very hard to get a lot of acts access for this piece. So I had to work, you know, over months lobbying for access to different sites or to different people. So there's still, yeah, a lot of secrecy and a lot of fear. I think a lot of people not wanting their faces or their names to be published online or in print.
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Understandably enough to. There's no seamless pivot from this to the other story. You. You did so with just an invite our listeners to imagine an absolutely excruciating grinding of gears. Because you also spoke to somebody who does something else entirely for an entirely section of the magazine.
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Yeah, absolutely. Although geographically not that way.
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Could that be the length we could have done that?
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The Baltic Sea? Just hop across.
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We'll fix it in the edit.
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So yeah, so that's. This was talking to Rebecca Bay, who was the creative director of Marimekko, and talking about her commute where she is based in Copenhagen. So you know, Marimekko, this well loved, kind of internationally renowned brand and it was such an honor to sit down with Rebecca and talk about basically her day, how it's still starts kind of her morning routine. I'm very happy to report that, like me, she is not a morning person. And it's such a rarity.
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Morning people are the worst.
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Yeah, okay.
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Insufferable.
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Absolutely.
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Those weirdos on the Globalist, what is it with them?
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Absolutely. I completely agree. But yeah. So Rebecca was talking about kind of that's not something that she partakes in, that sort of frantic morning routine, but instead kind of leading me through her kind of guide to Copenhagen, all the lovely coffee shops, the places that she goes to buy stationery, and also what she's carrying around in her bag, all the kind of glossy magazines, color swatches, prints and samples, all of those fun things.
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All of that and loads besides in the new issue of Monocle on a newsstand near you. Julia Jenn, thank you for joining us. You're listening to the Daily. This is the Daily. And next we head to the French capital where Art Basel Paris has taken over the Grand Palais this week. There is plenty to see at the fair itself and there are exciting new exhibitions taking place all over the city. At the Musee d'. Orsay, Bridget Riley, Pointe d' E de Partes has just opened. The exhibition shows the British painter's work in a new light, looking at how she was influenced by French Post Impressionist artist Georges Seurat and how studying Seurat's work helped wryly define her own style. Monocle's Sophie Monaghan Combs visited the show and spoke to Nicola Gusron co curator of the show, to find out more. She began by asking what it was that Riley saw in Seurat's work that became integral as she developed her own practice.
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I think the poetic answer that she would give is to say that Seurat was her promise for the future. The idea that she saw in his work something of possibility for her to find her own voice and to later on be emboldened to strike out into the realm of pure abstraction. In 1959, Bridget Reilly, looking for her own voice, set out to copy Le Pont de Courbevoir by Seurat not from the painting, but from a reproduction. And when she imitated the placement of his dot of colors, she manages to understand the entirety of his message, called chromo luminarism or pointillism. And she managed to understand how colors work together. And this triggers a reaction where she understands what she can do with it in a language that would be entirely her own.
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And Riley is now in her 90s and she's been involved in this, putting on this exhibition. Could you talk a little bit about some of the key decisions that she made that went into the staging and how it was working with her?
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Absolutely. So at 94 years old, I can tell you that she knows very precisely what she wants. She was very moved by the idea of the show being called a point de. De pas. Point being, of course, a nod to pointillism and Despard being a quite double meaning word with the idea of Despard being a start as Seurat was a start for her, but at the same time a proper depart that would allow her to build a career that was in a body of work and visual language that is entirely autonomous to Seurat. There are many decisions that she made. The choice of work was of course, very closely related to her. But perhaps what I should tell you is that the bold decision came in the last room when she wanted to place two of her work on each side side of Le Cirque by Seurat. One of the six large work that Seurat has produced, placing cornflour and myrrh together in conversation. One of them uses a rather similar color scheme, bringing out an entirely new light on the painting, while the other one plays slightly with a nod of contrast, favoring some color rather than other. The two of them together together create a really a new light onto Cirque and allow us to see it once more with new eyes.
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And Riley hasn't always got her dues as a painter. Her work is so unique, but it was also copied very quickly. And I wonder how you hope this exhibition will let more people see her work, but also to see it in a new light. And I wonder how you, what you want people to take away from pitting her against Seurat in this way.
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That's a very interesting question. I guess we want to show her again in 2025 and for people to really see how profound and deep her influence in art history is and how she herself was influenced by the greats. I think Brigid is often reduced to being a woman abstract artist or to being an art pioneer. And I guess the point of this exhibition is to show that at the Musee d', Orsay, she is first and foremost a post impressionist. She has learned from Seurat and created her own works.
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That was Nicolas Gousseau from Paris, Musee d' Orsay talking to Monocle's Sophie Monaghan Combs. And finally, on today's show, our weekly calculation of what the last seven days have told us Tortoise we learned this week that firing live artillery rounds over a civilian highway is a bad idea. Oh, that blows my mind.
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No way.
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Blow me down. Verily, every day is a school day. We learned this via arguably ill advised celebration staged in honour of the 250th birthday of the US Marine Corps, whose hymn is presently popping away in the background and is not a bad tune as these things go. Let's hear it. Happy birthday, the U.S. marine Corps. We learned anyway that as part of the observances, a live fire exercise would be staged in the vicinity of Marine Corps base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, a proposal about which California Governor Gavin Newsom had reservations live artillery rounds, civilian highway, and so forth, and accordingly closed Interstate 5, which runs by the base. And we learned that even this elementary precaution was sufficient to prompt yet another of the inane culture war bun fights which have in recent years become a significant American manufacturing sector. Governor Newsom blasted the White House for having this tribute, saying firing artillery over the 5 freeway would be dangerous. The White House scoffed at Newsom and held the tribute anyway. Yes, we learned that the White House was going to go ahead and dismiss the Governor's concerns as the milk toast witterings of a sandal wearing, soy milk slurping, mung bean munching, tree hugging, ukulele strumming flower child. Because nothing, nothing involving the firing of live artillery rounds over a civilian highway could possibly go wrong. The 155mm shell was supposed to explode miles away, away inland on Camp Pendleton.
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The Marines were going to fire dozens to celebrate their 250th birthday and the visit from Vice President J.D.
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Vance. The CHP vehicle that was struck by shrapnel was actually part of Vance's motorcade. Vice President Vance was of course himself a US Marine Corps corporal, so we would appear to have learned that in his specific case, fragging is no longer strictly reserved for unpleasant popular officers. Sticking with the subject of unpleasant things being dropped on Americans by people who were supposed to have taken some sort of oath to defend them, we learned thanks to yet more of the internal monologue of US President Donald Trump, who, as millions of his fellow citizens exercised their first merit rights by peaceably assembling in protest against him, posted on social media a short video which had American broadcasters leafing urgently through their coy euphemism dictionaries, Billions of Americans took to the streets to protest the current administration and its policies. This was President Trump's response. The AI generated video features President Trump in a crown, flying a fighter jet emblazoned with King Trump on its side. The President then appears to dump raw sewage on protesters. We learned, however, that if anybody was more aghast than American newsreaders, it was the unwitting and indeed unwilling composer of the soundtrack of Trump's lurid scatological fantasy, Danger Zone hitmaker Kenny Loggins.
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Singer Kenny Loggins is demanding press President Trump take down an AI generated video that used his song Danger Zone. Loggins said if he had been asked, he would have denied permission to the President to use it. The President, you're seeing that AI video there. Posted that online after Saturday's no King rallies, shows him wearing a. Wearing a crown while flying a fighter jet and dropping what looks like feces on a crowd of protesters.
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B
Still, we learn, though cannot say we were surprised, that the very same people who clutched their pearls, collapsed onto fainting couches, dabbed their forehead heads with lacy handkerchiefs and pleaded limply for the smelling salts when this happened.
- [35:49]
G
You know, to just be grossly generalistic.
- [35:52]
A
You could have put half of Trump's.
- [35:55]
G
Supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.
- [35:58]
B
We're absolutely fine with the President of the United States daydreaming about slapping a crown on his head, commandeering a fighter jet and depositing the contents of a septic tank upon his hometown of New York City. And that among those people absolutely fine with it were House speaker and three dimensional Waylon Smithers. A Simpsons reference. Ask your parents. Mike Johnson.
- [36:21]
E
He is using satire to make a point.
- [36:24]
B
He is not calling for the murder.
- [36:26]
E
Of his political opponents.
- [36:28]
B
From which we learned that the President is not calling for the murder of his political opponents. Though we, for one whimsical news monologue, would characterise ourselves as intrigued that that of all places, was where Speaker Johnson went so close quickly. Still we learned, or were reminded once more that we are very much in hitherto mercifully uncharted waters. President wise, it being difficult to imagine, even had the necessary technology been available, any previous occupant of the office conducting themselves in such a manner. Except maybe Millard Fillmore. What a fool.
- [37:03]
A
Stupid 13th president only carried one state in 1850 and that was Maryland, which hardly counts. What a loser.
- [37:14]
C
What kind of a name is Millard?
- [37:15]
D
What kind of idiot idea was the.
- [37:17]
A
Compromise of 1850 anyway?
- [37:19]
E
Stupid couldn't get nominated for a second.
- [37:21]
B
Term by his own party.
- [37:23]
E
What a deadbeat.
- [37:24]
C
You know what? I really don't like him.
- [37:27]
B
Don't remember why we made that in the first place, but definitely do remember everyone moaning about having to do it. Like, how many uses were we ever going to get out of a chorus of derision about President Millard Fillmore? But who's the self indulgent prima donna wasting his busy colleagues valuable time now, eh? Just get on with it. We learned, anyway, that President Trump was not done recalibrating the dimensions of the office of president, either figuratively or literally.
- [37:55]
G
Some other dramatic video just into us, even live as we speak, as we're learning the whole East Wing of the White House, it is being demolished. It's being pulled down.
- [38:03]
B
We learned, yes, that President Trump remained as determined as ever to spare the rest of us the hassle of coming up with our own metaphor force swinging the wrecking ball at the White House, apparently with a view to replacing the East Wing of which with a ballroom. The plans for which he unfurled in the Oval Office still there as of this broadcast, amid a press conference with Mark Rutte, secretary general of NATO, who, to be clear, has absolutely no more pressing concerns at present. I brought these along so people could see, but it's, you know, there's a relative. Nobody's actually seen anything quite like it. Nobody who never asked Saddam Hussein for directions to the bathroom anyway. And that is all for this edition of THE Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Thomas Lewis, Leila Milana, Alan, Julia, Jen and also Sophie Monaghan Combs. Today's show was produced by Monica Lillis and researched by Joanna Moser. Our sound engineer was Mariella Bevan. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time on Monday. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend.