Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates.

Rudyard and Janice discuss the social and political fallout from right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk's assassination. What does the country's online reaction reveal about the state of American culture and democracy? We are living in a climate of heated language which is becoming more and more violent. All signs point to a democracy in trouble. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to Israel's strike this week on Hamas officials in Qatar. Janice argues that the attack was a massive misstep damaging the credibility of Trump who had given his word to Qatar that they would be protected. Netanyahu approved this strike against the advice of his senior military team, knowing it would infuriate his last and most supportive ally, Donald Trump. Rudyard disagrees with Janice's take, making the case that Israel had every right to strike Hamas in Doha. Why is Qatar - one of the largest funders of terrorism in the world, including Hamas - not a legitimate target? And finally, how does this week's events affect the plight of the remaining Israeli hostages?

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Donald Trump's AI image to threaten "war" on the city of Chicago is further evidence that he is stuck in a spiral feedback loop with his followers, in which he has to get more outrageous to keep generating shock and attention from his supporters and the media. This will lead to a long term deterioration of the standards of public life, legitimizing corruption and cruelty unbound by constraints. Rudyard and Andrew then turn to the upcoming Canadian federal budget. They both agree bold policy changes are needed, including tax and competition reform, to reverse years of slow growth and address the future cost of caring for aging boomers. Andrew offers some new fiscal policy ideas that could help turn things around. In the final moments of the show Rudyard and Andrew debate the backlash to the Temporary Foreign Workers program. What is the difference between bringing in foreign workers and outsourcing production to developing countries? Are we just replacing local labour with cheap, imported labour? And is this program to blame for high unemployment rates among young Canadians?

This week's SCO summit in China projected a series of powerful images about the rise of China and the cleaving of the world into two power blocs. Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong Un watching the military parade at Tiananmen Square was a performance of a great power, as was Narendra Modi's public display of friendship with Xi and Putin. Donald Trump's treatment of US allies is turning away in-between countries and offering China a historic opportunity to step up to the plate. The world of the US is becoming a minority compared to the countries circling China's orbit. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to Canada's upcoming federal budget and Mark Carney's bad messaging, as the PM warned of austerity followed by investment. In an economy that is slowing, will Carney wrack up more debt? Will these be investments, or expenditures? And does our Prime Minister have a real plan to get Canada back to a fiscal balance?