Trump policies won’t change despite outcome of US midterms;

With control of Capitol Hill hanging in the balance, President Trump is making a final, controversial pitch to voters. If Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, I am going to give all adult citizens in the United States $5,000. There's a lot at stake for Donald Trump in Tuesday's midterms. The results will determine how much power he can wield in his final two years in office. But how might he react to losing control of Congress? And could that result in some tariff relief for Canada, or make the trade war even worse? For some Republican reaction, we spoke with the head of Republicans Overseas in Canada, George Ann Burke, thank you so much for joining us here on the West Block. Great to see you. It's my pleasure. So we've had a pretty consistent stream of opinion polls now for many weeks, suggesting that the Republicans after the midterms are going to lose control of Congress. If that happens, if it's a bad beat, how do you think the president might respond to that? So I actually have a theory about how he would respond if he lost, but I will preface it by saying I'm not sure that he's going to lose. I don't actually think he is. I think he's going to at least keep the Senate. And I think there's a very good likelihood that he'll keep the house too. But let's say he does lose. First of all, people who think it's going to make a huge difference in how he does things or his policies or anything else are really not correct. And I'll tell you why. He's not in his first term, midterm. He's in his second term, midterm, which means after that, after that. Regardless of the outcome, he's basically a lame duck president for the next two years. He's not going to be reelected. He is not running again, despite all of the hair on fire on the left of, you know, oh, he's going to run again and become the king or make the army take us over or whatever. So he's not, his policies are not going to change. He doesn't have to. He has a lot of power in the executive branch, which is a co-equal branch to the legislative branch and to the judicial branch. A lot of things he can continue to do. Without the approval of Congress, and if they think that he won't, I think he'll double down and do even more of the things that he believes in. So an example of that would be the tariffs. Canadians, I know, are thinking that, well, we'll just wait for the midterms, and if he loses, the tariffs will be gone. No, actually, they won't. Congress would have to actually take over tariffs. They have some authority to do that, but I don't think they'll get away with it. How prominently are tariffs and the trade war with Canada and the United States, how prominent has that issue been on the American side going into the midterms? So I would say that in the last little while, I've heard more about it than that I heard when I first moved down here in January. And that's because there's been so much hoopla about it, especially since August, when everyone kind of thought there was a deal, and then there wasn't. Like, within three days, it was turned on its head. I think Americans were surprised. But again, unless you live in either a border state, which is heavily impacted by Canadian cross-border commerce, or you live in a state like Kansas or some of the other states that do a lot of trade with Canada, mostly people don't think about it. Now, for example, I know Kansas complained loudly to the president about the Bombardier situation because Bombardier does a lot of business with them. With Kansas, and it didn't really change anything from the president's perspective. It did change something from Bombardier's perspective. perspective. They are now doing $270 million more business in the U.S., within the U.S. borders with Kansas. Hi. How are you doing? And they plan to do more. I'm fine, and how are your friends? How's it going? So the end result of this is that Canada's got to make this deal. I'm doing really well. And we're in Kansas right now. I'm just in Kansas, so. You're in Kansas? The U.S. doesn't feel compelled. Yeah, yeah. Really good. And most Americans, therefore, Lots of people, you know, people who are in Kansas, you can hear them. Okay, so, thank you for that. it doesn't, it's not top of mind to them. It's really nice seeing you all, and of course, thank you so much,CP for bringing that, the debate, and the conversation that it's really important for us to have, uh, It is in places like Michigan, as long as we are here. where a lot of their industries are deeply intertwined Yeah. I wanted to know, uh, do you have a couple of questions that you would like to see shared? with Canadian industries. I think you guys have a question that would be really helpful. Oh, you want to see the one of you go up there? And that's a big problem. I've been harping on this for over a year to anybody who will listen. And apparently... Nobody in Canada is listening in the government, but a lot of Americans have heard it and said, yeah, you know, you're right about that. So, and some of those people on the border, too. How would you assess the prime minister's handling of President Trump throughout all of this? I mean, in the past, you warned not to poke the bear. Thank Where is the line there? I mean, in terms of how to handle the U.S. president? So it was interesting today, again, I was listening to a rally that he did for Darlene Graham in Carolina, and he brought up the Mexican president. you. And that's a good comparator because these are the other two parts of the USMCA deal, the USMCA arrangement. And he talked about how he said she's beautiful and she has a beautiful voice. He said, I know I'm going to get in trouble for saying that about a woman, but it's true. She is beautiful and she has a beautiful voice. Then he talked about how when they named the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, she actually called him and she wasn't happy about it. But, of course, we haven't really heard anything in the media about that, right? They don't talk about it in Mexico. They just went ahead, and they've been continuing to negotiate their deal. They're running into some issues now around steel and stuff like that, the 232 tariffs, just like the same problems that we have. That being said, they've been very quiet, and they're very close to a deal. How she's handled it is how our prime minister should have handled it, which is he should have said to all of his premiers, do me a favor, stay in your lane. And don't go down and start talking to people out of turn, okay? And I would apply that to even though she was very positive in her outcomes, Danielle Smith, even though he was very negative in what he did, Doug Ford. Or it's not the. They're not in charge of trade. That is a federal job. You've lived on both sides of the border. You've worked in politics on both sides of the border. You know, as a Republican who until recently lived in Canada, what's been your reaction to the Canadian reaction to President Trump's rhetoric, to his politics, to all of that? So in general, I would say I'm kind of lucky that. My friends, regardless of whether they like him or not, are either, either they love me, they respect me, or they're afraid of me, and they won't talk in a horrible way. I mean, I have friends who say, I don't like Trump, I don't want to talk about him, and that's fine. I can totally go along with that. That being said, I also had a death threat from someone who thought it was appropriate, an appropriate way to handle political difference was to threaten my life, and was somebody I didn't know. Didn't know him from Adam. By the way, a former Toronto district school teacher, who I wouldn't want anywhere near my children. Thank you very much. But so there's been that, you know, that wide gap between people who don't like Trump, either just saying, you know, I don't want to talk about him, to people threatening my life. However, what is interesting, and I think very few people realize this, there are a lot more people that... Don't hate him, and you might think. They're just afraid of the social isolation, I think that's being polite, that they would experience if they actually said, he's not so bad, or I don't disagree with everything he says, or I wish we could make Canada great again. You know, if they said that, people would lose their minds, and their hair would go on fire, and they would go crazy, and these people would be subjected to unbelievable abuse. So they don't say anything. It is a very toxic environment, and it's actually quite surprising. I never had that reaction to me being a conservative up there, or a Republican, until Donald Trump. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope that's not why you moved out of Canada and back to the U.S. earlier this year. Why I moved was my family insisted. The death threat was a year ago, March. I was here for Passover. I came down to spend Passover with my two sons, my husband and their families and some cousins and whatever. And I was sitting at the table and I mentioned it in passing that this lunatic had sent me a threatening email, death threat email, after a series of escalating emails. And my husband looked at me and he said, so have you had enough yet? I said, what do you mean? He said, like, don't you think it's time to move back to the U.S.? And my two sons, one of them said, you're moving back. Like, this is enough. This is insane. I actually had pressure from my family to move back. As Americans and Canadians, do you see us finding our way through this? I hope so. I just I think it's up to the Canadian people to say to their government. Guys, you need to, like, just sit down and get this resolved. We don't care about the Donald Trump thing. We don't care. He's going to be president until January 20, 2029, and then he's gone. We don't know who's going to take his place. It doesn't really matter. It's not our country. He's not our president. But we have to deal with them because they're our big trade partner. What they should do when they finish the trade deal is find a way to reduce their dependence on America. Not eliminate trade, but find other trading partners. Yes. You know, diversify your portfolio. Anybody will tell you, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Georgianne Burke, thank you so much for chatting with us. Really appreciate it. And I hope you'll at least come back to visit. I will be back. I promise.