Over the last week, as the exchange of missiles between Israel and Iran intensified, Donald Trump’s supporters have found themselves in two camps: the hawks, like Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz who support America joining Israel in its fight against Iran. And the isolationists, like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson, who urge the president not to plunge the U.S. into yet another protracted war in the Middle East. 

Now that the U.S. air strikes on Iran have been met with a retaliatory strike on a U.S. military base in Qatar, are the MAGA factions digging in their heels or falling in line with the White House?

Adam Wren, senior politics correspondent at Politico and a contributing author to POLITICO Playbook, breaks it all down. 

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Days into the Iran-Israel war, the United States has carried out a series of limited strikes centered on three Iranian nuclear sites. U.S. President Donald Trump has referred to the strikes as a “spectacular military success” and the Israeli government has made clear there was “full co-ordination” on the operation. 

Iranian officials claim to have removed enriched uranium from the facilities before they were bombed. 

Negar Mortazavi is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy, and the Host of the Iran Podcast. She joins the show to discuss the American strikes on Iran and whether this escalation from Trump was about addressing Iran’s nuclear capability, clearing a pathway to regime change, or something else.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Last week, Front Burner spent a few days in Three Hills, Alberta, a small town northeast of Calgary. We attended an event about Alberta independence, and spoke to a wide array of people about separation from Canada, and the possibility of an upcoming referendum on the issue. CBC Calgary’s Jason Markusoff came with us.

Why Three Hills? Because while separatist sentiment does exist in the province’s cities, it runs deeper in rural small towns, where people tend to feel more disconnected and frustrated with the federal government.

People in Three Hills will also be voting in a provincial byelection this Monday, where a separatist party – the Alberta Republican Party – is running a candidate. So in a way, separatism is already on the ballot.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Read Jason Markusoff's piece here: How voters in rural conservative heartland wrestle with Alberta separatism

For months now, agents working for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, have been carrying out raids, arresting people on the street, at work and at immigration courthouses. Often they are wearing plain clothes and masks.

As U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown intensifies, so have the instances of arrests and detentions by ICE, sometimes without warrants or due process. Despite mass protests and pushback from opposition politicians and immigrants rights groups, the Trump administration has vowed the arrests will continue as they aim for one million deportations a year.

But how, exactly, does ICE operate? How did the agency come to be and how does it compare to immigration enforcement in America’s past? To help us dive deep into ICE’s history and put it all into context, we’re joined by Adam Goodman, an associate professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and the author of The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In this politics roundup, we first check in with the CBC’s Aaron Wherry in the Alberta Rockies about the main takeaways from the G7 summit, which wrapped without Donald Trump after he left to deal with the escalating Israel-Iran conflict. 

Then, we speak to Toronto Star national columnist Althia Raj about C-5, an omnibus bill which is moving through parliament at breakneck speed. The bill’s intent is to speed up approval for resource projects, but it’s been panned by critics as dangerous and undemocratic.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Palantir’s technology has been used by everyone from the CIA and Mossad to Airbus and Morgan Stanley. The multi-billion dollar big data software company is at the centre of many of the major issues of our time. 

Michael Steinberger is a reporter with The New York Times Magazine and the author of a forthcoming book on Palantir’s CEO entitled ‘The Philosopher in the Valley.’ He joins the show to discuss Palantir’s wide-reaching technology, and what it tells us about the future of government and surveillance.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Longstanding tensions came to a head last week when Israel launched a missile attack on Iran, targeting the country’s nuclear facilities and killing several high-level military personnel and nuclear scientists. In the days following the two countries have exchanged missile strikes, killing at least 78 in Iran and 13 in Israel. 

As the conflict continues to escalate, what will it mean for the region? And as the bombardment derails Iran-U.S. nuclear talks, will the U.S. be pulled into an active war? To discuss this perilous moment and its dangerous implications, we’re joined by Gregg Carlstrom, a longtime Middle East correspondent with The Economist and author of the book “How Long Will Israel Survive? The Threat From Within.” 

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For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Starting Sunday, political and economic representatives of a world order that Donald Trump is intent on shattering are gathering in Kananaskis, in Alberta's Rocky Mountains.

That on its own would be high stakes. But add to it Mark Carney's aggressive national to-do list, and you've got two days that could show us how much Canada and the world have changed since Trump became president a second time.

Aaron Wherry, a senior writer with CBC's Parliamentary Bureau, joins the show to unpack what he'll be watching for as he covers the event. 

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

For years now Canada's been badgered to pony up, and spend more money on the military. Those calls have come from our actual military itself, our NATO allies, and more recently the U.S. President.

Well it looks like Mark Carney is going to pull out the credit card, and commit to spending an extra $9.3-billion on the armed forces by March, bumping our military spending up to two per cent of Canada's entire GDP.

Carney has also pledged to end this country's reliance on the U.S. for equipment by diverting billions of dollars in spending to Canadian manufacturers.

The timing awkwardly coincided with news about an embarrassing foray into Canadian military procurement: our plans to buy a fleet of F-35 fighter jets from America that the auditor general reported was billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

So, what is Carney's vision for the future of our military? And how serious are the threats against Canada?

David Pugliese, defence reporter with the Ottawa Citizen, talks us through it.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

As many as 40,000 Canadians are out of their homes right now with evacuation alerts and states of emergency in effect across much of western Canada, from B.C. through northern Ontario. Many, especially those from Saskatchewan and Manitoba, have been away from home for weeks, with no indication of when they'll return.

CBC Thunder Bay's Sarah Law brings us the story of evacuees from Sandy Lake First Nation, making their way to Thunder Bay, Ont., as fire bears down on their fly-in, fly-out community.

Then, Chief David Monias of the Pimicikamak Cree Nation in Manitoba tells us about the struggle his community has had getting the resources to effectively fight the fires and support its community members through the ongoing evacuation.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The city of Los Angeles has been embroiled in protests for days after a series of ICE raids rounded up dozens of people. Now, after President Donald Trump sent in 2000 members of the National Guard, the city finds itself in the middle of a fight between the White House and state and local governments over the rights of undocumented immigrants.

Jeannette Zanipatin is a lawyer and the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), an L.A.-based organization that supports immigrants. The group has been involved with some of the demonstrations. She explains how this situation came to be, what the community has been dealing with and the legal and political implications of Trump’s crackdown. 

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts