EZRA LEVANT ｜ Two opinion polls that the media party doesn’t really like
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Summary
In this episode of the Ezra LeVant Show, Ezra takes you through a couple of opinion polls that the media doesn t like, and then Ezra interviews Peter Thiel, the great Silicon Valley entrepreneur, about the value of a college education.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Great show for you today. I'm going to take you through a couple of opinion
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polls that you might find surprising, and then we have an interesting interview. But before I
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get to that, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's the
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video version of this show. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe, eight bucks a
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month. You get the video version. I do the show every weekday. Sheila Gunn-Reed does the show
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behind the paywall every week. But more than that, you get the satisfaction in knowing that
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you're supporting Rebel News because we don't take any money from the government, and it shows.
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Tonight, two opinion polls that the media party doesn't really like. It's May 17th,
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Peter Thiel, the great Silicon Valley entrepreneur, one of the few conservatives in
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that city, which is why he left it, actually. He had a question that he would ask in job
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interviews, and we often ask that same question in job interviews here at Rebel News. This
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is an excerpt from Thiel's book called Zero to One, as summarized very well by Farnham Street
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Blog. I've got the book, two copies of it, actually, but here's the succinct summary that
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I'll quote from on this treatment of it. When Peter Thiel interviews someone, he likes to
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ask the following question. What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
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This question sounds easy because it's straightforward. Actually, it's very hard to answer.
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It's intellectually difficult because the knowledge that everyone is taught in school is by definition
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agreed upon, and it's psychologically difficult because anyone trying to answer must say something
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she knows to be unpopular. Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is even shorter supply than genius.
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Isn't that true? I'll just keep reading a little bit more because I love this.
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The most common answers, according to Thiel, are our educational system is broken and urgently needs
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to be fixed. America is exceptional. There is no God. These are bad answers. The first and the second
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statements might be true, but many people already agree with them. The third statement simply takes
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one side in a familiar debate. A good answer takes the following form. Most people believe in X,
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but the truth is the opposite of X. I'm going to come back to the news of the day in a moment,
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but let me read this insight. And it's an insight into technology, which is where Peter Thiel is,
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and it's Thiel's repeated entrepreneurial successes into progress, but also into the field of ideas and
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politics, which is what we're concerned with here. What does this contrarian question have to do with
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the future? In the most minimal sense, the future is simply the set of all moments yet to come.
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We hope for progress when we think about the future. To Thiel, that progress takes place in two ways.
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Horizontal or extensive progress means copying things at work, going from one to N. Horizontal
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progress is easy to imagine because we already know what it looks like. Vertical or intensive process
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means doing new things, going from zero to one. Vertical progress is harder to imagine because
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it requires doing something nobody else has ever done. If you take one typewriter and build 100,
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you have made horizontal progress. If you have a typewriter and build a word processor,
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you have made vertical progress. At the macro level, the single word for horizontal progress is
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globalization, taking things that work somewhere and making them work everywhere. The single word for
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vertical zero to one progress is technology. Isn't that great thinking? That is so true.
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And when we interview people here at Rebel News, I'm of course interested in their background and if
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they have a resume, sure I am. They typically tell me that they went to school and what they studied.
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That's interesting enough if they learn something real, especially a technical skill.
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But if anyone has a general education, I'm interested more in their ability to think critically and not
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just to conform to a big bureaucracy, which is what a university or a college is. I thought Jordan
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Peterson got it right when he talked about the real value of a fancy university education. Sure,
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you're going to learn things, of course you are, but it's really just a proxy for can you pass an entrance
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exam? Can you follow rules for a few years and please assist them? He says, and I think he's right, that
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the biggest value of going to university might actually be just finding a spouse that is socially
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and intellectually and economically headed in the same direction as you. Here's Professor Peterson when
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he spoke about this last December at the Democracy Fund event. So why pay $150,000 to go to university?
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How about to find a wife or a husband? Right? That might, just that alone, because you have a select pool
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then, of people who are roughly your, say, intellectual and social peers. The universities
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for a long time did a pretty good job of screening applicants, and so it might be worth $150,000 in
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four years if one of the things you accomplish between the ages of 18 and 22 is you meet the person
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you're going to spend the rest of your life with. That's a big deal. Well, it gives you four years to
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mature. It gives you four years to learn how to be independent. It gives you four years,
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it allows you to purchase a socially sanctioned identity for four years that you have to make
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some sacrifices to maintain. Let's say you have to go to class and study, but while you're doing
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that you can actually think a little bit, you can learn to be a citizen, you can contemplate your
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future, you can experiment, and you can all do that while you're becoming more mature and independent
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looking for a partner, and the universities do provide all of that. Anyways, here at Rebel News,
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I want to know if someone has the courage to think differently, to be a contrarian, a non-conformist,
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not for technology reasons, but for idea reasons, to keep our democracy strong. This was especially
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valuable during the pandemic, wasn't it? When the entire world was saying the same thing, reading from
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the same talking points, it was very difficult and very valuable to be a dissenter and to be a dissenter
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in public. How rare was that? Being a Rebel News staffer, especially on camera, means saying unpopular
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truths every day. To me, that's more valuable than someone telling me they got a degree in humanities
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from an Ivy League university. In fact, your ability to get through four years of indoctrination and get a
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validation from that place after four years, get a degree, it actually plants some seeds of doubt in me.
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Were you able to keep your own opinions through it all? Were you able to stay true to yourself through
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it all? Or did you just comply for compliance sake? Then it would impress me. Contrarianism,
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individualism, freedom of thought, the right to dissent and make use of that right, that's valuable
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to me. That's why I like Teal's question. Thanks for letting me tell you about that. Of course,
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I have a dozen answers to that question myself, as you know. I'm very contrarian. But in Canada,
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in politics, what important truth do very few people agree with you on?
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It's almost impossible for a politician to answer, isn't it? Because by definition, if only a few
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people agree with you on it, you're not going to win in a, you know, first-past-the-post raw vote
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situation, which is what an election is. But here's the trick, and it's something we've learned. When the
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establishment tells you that very few people agree with you on something, they're often wrong.
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The media party may think everyone is in agreement about something. Trump is evil. We need more gun
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control. Global warming is going to do much. They think everyone believes that. Of course,
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you've got to take your booster shot. But they're just talking in their own echo chamber. Everyone they
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know says that, but that's just because they know a very closed loop. In fact, in many ways, the media
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elites are the fringe minority they accuse us of being. The truckers proved that, didn't they?
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They proved that millions of Canadians actually dissented. They weren't happy with what was happening.
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Do you know what issue is a double Peter Thiel, as in it's tough to say it in public for fear of
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being marginalized? But in fact, it's actually quite popular. Well, mass open borders immigration
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and pumping the brakes on it. That's the answer to the double Peter Thiel. Here, take a look at a new
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Leger poll in the popular Journal de Montréal. That's the largest selling newspaper in Quebec, actually.
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Let me show it to you first en français. This is how it appears on the website. Sondage.
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That means an opinion poll. I'll click the translate on the page so you can read it in
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Google translated English. I mean, it's not a huge survey, but it's about immigration.
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Survey. Immigration targets set by Ottawa. Quebecers want to have their say.
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But this is more than just a poll, but having a say or who gets to decide. With all due respect to
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the initiative of the century lobby, a majority of Quebecers want to have a say on federal immigration
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thresholds before opening the doors of Canada wide. Now, that century thing they're talking about,
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there's a crazy proposal to triple Canada's population to 100 million people. That's the
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century part in just a couple of decades. Why would you do that? Why would you bring 60,
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70 million people here to just do it? Sure, Canada is the second largest country in the world,
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but most of it is uninhabitable. Those migrants they're talking about, often from
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tropical countries, they are not going to live in Inuvik and even if they wanted to, they couldn't.
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It can't sustain it. They're going to go to Toronto and Montreal and Vancouver and other big cities. So,
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imagine 20 million person metropolises, the majority of whom will have just arrived. What a terrible idea
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in terms of housing and hospitals and schools and traffic and policing and cultural fit and jobs,
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everything. It's just a crazy idea. That's this sensory initiative thing. And here's the reply of
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Quebecers. Indeed, 73% of respondents to a recent Leger Le Journal survey believe that
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Quebec should be consulted regarding the federal government's immigration targets.
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The majority is confirmed as much among Francophones, 78%, as among non-French speakers, 58%.
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So Quebecers don't want some lobby group to make a decision. They want to be asked about this
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decision. But look at the question about raw numbers of immigration itself. The issue of federal
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thresholds has come back in the news since the publication of our file on Ottawa's willingness to
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welcome 500,000 new permanent residents annually from 2025, double the number received in 2014.
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However, only 22% of them want to raise the thresholds for Quebec.
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By adding up the people in favor of the status quo, we still get 51% of respondents opposed to a decline.
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Indeed, the idea of a decrease only gets the support of a minority with 41%, despite the many debates on
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the subject during the last election campaign. Did you see that trickery there? Did you see that trickery
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though? That's editorial commentary. They're trying to fudge things. Why did they add status quo people
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to the same chunk as people who want to raise immigration? Why wouldn't they add it to the lower
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it and say 78% want the numbers the same or low? Obviously, to spin the fact that by a ratio of two
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to one, people prefer lower immigration to higher immigration. Do you see the trick they did there?
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They added the, oh, I don't knows, to the, yeah, we want mores. And they say, oh, it's a majority.
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They're tricksters there, aren't they? There are other points about Quebecers' desire that their
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immigration speak French. Of course, they want that. They want to preserve their cultural heritage.
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I'm not sure it's possible to add 60 or 70 million people to Canada through immigration without swamping
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French as a language. There are only 67 million people who live in all of France total. You cannot
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bring in tens or a hundred million people to Canada and expect French to have a future. Just
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saying the obvious. Like I say, Peter Thiel's question, what is the truth that few people agree
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on with you? Well, reducing immigration is actually a demand by quite a few Canadians, including Quebecers,
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even if the Journal de Montréal doesn't believe so. And for good reason. In the country of a hundred
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million people, eight million French speakers, which is approximately what there is now.
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That's a rounding error now. It's not a founding nation anymore, is it? Okay. I want to show you
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one more poll. This one's in English. It's by Angus Reid. It's a different subject altogether.
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Canada's global image. Half of Canadians believe nations' international reputation is on the decline.
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Now, before I go further, in some ways, I don't really care what other people in the world think
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about Canada. This isn't high school where you want to be popular to fit in. We are who we are. We're a
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country. That said, if our friends and allies think less of us, it behooves us to ask why. And if our
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enemies like us more, we should ask why also. Why would we want dictatorships like China to praise us?
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Here I'll read the preamble to the Angus Reid press release. A cache of leaked Pentagon documents
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recently confirmed a secret that many have suspected for years, as Prime Minister Justin
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Trudeau reportedly admitted that Canada is unlikely to ever meet the two percent military defense
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spending target recommended by NATO. Amid this, a new study from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute
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finds Canadians less enthusiastic about their perception of the country's international
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reputation than they have been in recent years. Half of Canadians, 51 percent, say Canada has a
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good or very good reputation abroad, while one quarter say it is poor or very poor, and one quarter
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say it is average. Notably, there has been a 33 point drop since 2018 in the proportion offering a
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positive view. That's incredible. I remember when Canadians were amongst the best loved people in the
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world. In fact, some Americans used to sew a little Canadian maple leaf on their backpacks when they
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traveled through Europe. Not sure if that's happening anymore. Not sure Canadians as citizens are
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disliked. I don't think we are. But our government, especially Trudeau, is giving us a bad reputation.
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It's sometimes shocking to see it. But whether it's the New York Post or the Daily Mail of London, England,
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or the European Parliament, a lot of people see right through Trudeau. And unlike our mainstream media,
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they're not afraid to say it. And I think it's shocking because we're so used to apologies from the
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media party. We're shocked to see things like this. That it would have been more appropriate
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for Mr. Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, to address this House according to Article 144,
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an article which was specifically designed to debate violations of human rights, democracy,
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and the rule of law, which is clearly the case with Mr. Trudeau. Then again, a prime minister who
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openly admires the Chinese basic dictatorship, who tramples on fundamental rights by persecuting
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and criminalizing his own citizens as terrorists, just because they dared to stand up to his perverted
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concept of democracy, should not be allowed to speak in this House at all. Mr. Trudeau,
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you are a disgrace for any democracy. Please spare us your presence. Thank you.
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All right, back to the Angus Reid survey. Let me read a little more. Let's start with a pretty basic
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question, pretty easy one here. Overall, what kind of reputation would you say Canada has internationally?
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That's an easy question. As you can see, the question was asked in 2016, 2018, 2020, last year,
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again, just this month. Until a few years ago, it was steady. In fact, it briefly went up in Trudeau's
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first term. Canadians, I guess, were feeling pretty good about themselves. Our belief in our world
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reputation actually climbed a bit from 79% to 84%. And then Trudeau's obsequious dealings with
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communist China took hold. His mocking insults to India, his general buffoonery started to get noticed,
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blackface. And of course, his inner tyrant shone through during the pandemic, the lockdowns and the
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banana republic style martial law invocation. That was spooky to a lot of people. Look at that from 71%
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to 62% to 62%, plunging to just 51% this year, saying we have a strong international reputation.
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They're right. Trudeau is deluding himself. He only goes to tightly scripted, tightly controlled events
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where people are curated to love him. But real people see through him, both at home and abroad.
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Let me show you one more graph. Look at this one. All things considered, do you think Canada's
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reputation around the world is better or worse now than it was? And then they check different
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times, 10 years ago, last year, whatever. Massive, massive. That red line is the people who say it's
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gotten worse. That blue sliver is better. Only 7% of people think it's gotten better over the last year.
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That is crazy. Here's another image here. Even liberals aren't exactly thrilled with Trudeau's
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reputation abroad. That's amazing. But people are starting to see through Justin Trudeau.
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But not just through Trudeau. Through him and his media courtiers who decide what we can and can't
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talk about, or can and can't even think. Canadians are embarrassed by Trudeau's international antics,
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not impressed by them. And Trudeau's plan to triple Canada's size through mass, open borders,
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immigration, is unpopular, including with other new immigrants, and especially in French Quebec.
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I wonder if Pierre Polyev will ever find the courage to talk about these things.
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Well, Twitter has been in the news. It always is in the news, and it is the news itself, but never
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known more so since Elon Musk took it over. Removed thousands of dead weight staffers, many of whom were
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in content moderation and other euphemisms for censorship. And in the process, Elon Musk has
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become an even more avid Twitter user himself. And he sometimes says the most amusing or entertaining or
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provocative things in just a few words. I mean, just today. Soros reminds me of Magneto. That's just so
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funny. And it tweaks the nose of George Soros, and it's a reference to pop culture, and it's apropos
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of nothing. Are you not entertained? Well, that is one of the purposes of Twitter. Information is another.
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And of course, Elon Musk has plans to turn it into an important commercial app. He seeks to expand its
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utility beyond just political chat and sports and entertainment. He wants to make it like some
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Chinese apps like WeChat, WePay, where there's so many other functionalities there. It truly becomes
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an everything app. We'll see how he does it. One of the things he did is he finally hired a new CEO
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that is not himself or his dog. Linda Iaccarino is her name. And immediately,
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people on Twitter who are concerned with the restoration of a censorship elite found that she
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was active at the World Economic Forum and had talked about content moderation before. Was Elon Musk
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really going to go back to that way? Well, joining us now to talk about it is a man who knows Elon Musk
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better than most. He is an extremely online guy. You can follow him on Twitter at Still Gray, G-R-A-Y.
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His name is Ian Malestrong and he works with Rebel News. Great to see you again, Ian. Thanks for joining
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us. Happy to be here. Happy to be here. Well, I think Elon Musk is the world's most interesting man.
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And he is an outstanding entrepreneur and industrialist, but he's a very clever thinker.
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And so help me understand his thinking behind hiring the new Twitter CEO. Some people are worried
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worried that she is a retrenchment of the old, you know, elites know best, you can't say mean things
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censorship squad. What's your take on it? So my take on it is, well, first of all, don't worry,
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right? Because she may be CEO, but her job title doesn't matter because at the end of the day,
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his job title is owner. And so the reason he hired her is because of her wealth of experience
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in the advertising industry. She was responsible for building NBC's Peacock online streaming service,
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where she got a bunch of advertisers for them. So clearly she knows the people who can monetize
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Twitter. And bear in mind, Twitter cannot survive without advertisers as much as, you know, as a nice,
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as I said, a deal as it would be for Twitter to simply survive on its own. It can't, right? We live in
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a world in which Twitter needs money to survive and advertising is the only way to do it. And, you know,
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she knows her stuff, right? I think her track record proves that. So he doesn't have to deal with
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advertisers. And furthermore, and this is probably more important, he doesn't have to travel down to
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Washington DC to meet with the regulators every week because that certainly takes up a lot of his
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time. And his job as a CTO, which is chief technical officer, will allow him to work on Twitter as a
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product, meaning, you know, bringing new features, tweaking the algorithm, things that, you know,
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the CEO doesn't really have a say in. So keep in mind that Twitter is a tech company, first and
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foremost. So the CTO typically, in all these companies, has more power than the CEO who,
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in this case, is only responsible for advertising and for dealing with regulators. So I wouldn't worry
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too much about it. The policy at the end of the day is still dictated by Elon Musk and his
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commitment to free speech appears to be unwavering. And I think you can see that in
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his tweets about George Soros. As inflammatory as they may be to some people, he's willing to
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say them. And if this were any other platform, I don't think you'd be even allowed to criticize
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George Soros. I think you're probably right. And more seriously, there is an election in Turkey
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right now. And it is heavily contested. Turkey is an authoritarian regime and a democracy at the
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same time, and a NATO ally. It's a very unusual place. And they have been telling Twitter to censor
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hundreds of tweets that are critical of the regime. Twitter must comply with the local laws in every
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country in which it is situated. That's why it doesn't operate in some countries like China. But
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that's why in other countries like Germany, it takes down certain Nazi material that it wouldn't
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in another jurisdiction. To his credit, Elon Musk has fought back against many of these Turkish
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censorship actions, including in court. And they published a variety of these fights.
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I think that's a sign of dedication to freedom of speech. But we'll know. I mean, we will know soon
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enough if the people who were revived by Elon Musk after having been suspended are resuspended. I think
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that's the canary in the coal mine. Simply that someone worked for the mainstream media or the
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regime media before. I don't think that's on its face a disqualification. If so, you would never hire
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anyone with any experience. I mean, if you're the head of ads at NBC Universal, you know ads, and you
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know all the biggest brands. And it's not actually surprising that you went to the World Economic Forum
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where the other titans of the universe are. So I'm going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt,
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Elon, when he hires her. And I'm going to notice that she actually served on a Donald Trump council.
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I think it was on sports or something. And you had a fitness council. Yeah,
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the fitness council. And, you know, that may not be politically spicy, but doing anything in
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association with Donald Trump when he was president was a black mark against a liberal,
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especially in California. So if she were to have done that, I think that shows some independence
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of mind and some nonpartisanship. I, to me, that's actually proof of her contrariness that she was
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able to be on a Trump council, despite the fact that Hollywood hates him. What do you think?
00:24:48.720
Yeah, more importantly, she follows me on Twitter. And she follows lips of TikTok. She follows Jack
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Posobiec. I mean, these are accounts that by all, you know, well, by the left's measure would be
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considered far right. Now, granted, we're not far right. But the fact that she's willing to step out
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of the boundaries that they've locked her in, you know, she is a member of the establishment,
00:25:11.520
after all, shows that, you know, she's willing to leave her echo chamber. And that makes her very
00:25:17.600
interesting as a person, right? I mean, how often do you see an establishment figure even speaking
00:25:23.680
to a member of the conservatives, right? I mean, they just don't do that. But she's willing to do
00:25:28.800
it. And looking at her Twitter account, I can see that she is actually a conservative. So I think that
00:25:34.720
people are fine to criticize her and they're fine to be apprehensive of her. But I would say,
00:25:38.560
give her a chance. And obviously, if things don't work out, then Elon can always fire her. So there's
00:25:44.320
always that. It's not like she owns the company. Yeah, I agree with you on all those things. And
00:25:48.240
she may be following you and Jack Posobiec and libs of TikTok to know, not so much out of personal
00:25:54.640
interest, but to know where Elon Musk's lines are. Because if he is interacting with those accounts,
00:26:00.000
and if he supports those accounts, that way she can, okay, so what's the four corners of acceptable
00:26:07.200
discourse, according to the boss, following those accounts shows that she's, even if she doesn't
00:26:12.480
believe in them herself, she at least is very attentive to what the boss thinks on
00:26:17.680
censorship. So I didn't know those details, but I'm encouraged to hear it. Well, here's the thing
00:26:22.880
that worries me the most, is that when you tweak the nose of George Soros, it was just a joke
00:26:29.920
comparing to Magneto. It's not that interesting. But boy, he says tough things about issues that you're
00:26:36.720
not supposed to. I mean, the man donated 100 million dollars worth of internet to Ukraine,
00:26:41.680
but he criticized some Ukraine policies he's sworn at by some foreign minister, defense minister of
00:26:48.320
Ukraine. He, you're not allowed to dissent from the military industrial complex there. He did. He's
00:26:55.200
skeptical of so many sacred cows from transgenderism, as we talked about, to
00:27:00.640
even climate extremism, even though he's in a green company. The guy,
00:27:05.680
I think he's hostile to the deep state. And more importantly, he recognizes the deep state. He
00:27:10.320
even, he says its name. And so here's my worry, Ian. I don't care how rich, powerful you are,
00:27:19.920
you are still vulnerable, God forbid, to whether it's, I shouldn't even say it, assassination,
00:27:27.920
I shouldn't say that, but it's a possibility, to blackmail, to extortion, to some, like,
00:27:35.760
it is very difficult to fight the kind of titans who are on the other side. As I think it was Joe Biden
00:27:44.640
who said, don't fight with the deep state, they'll get you six different ways. Or I figured,
00:27:48.720
or maybe that was Obama who said that, I can't remember.
00:27:51.840
If you fight against the CIA, the FBI, you fight against the big censors,
00:27:58.560
they're going to get their vengeance. I'm worried that they might come for him in one way. And one
00:28:04.000
way is to try and implicate him in, for example, the Jeffrey Epstein matter. Tell me a little bit
00:28:10.320
about that subpoena and what you make of it. They're trying to subpoena Elon Musk about Jeffrey
00:28:16.080
Epstein. What's that all about? Yeah, I mean, it's not super clear what the subpoena is about,
00:28:21.360
but it's the U.S. Virgin Islands, so it's not the U.S. as a whole. Clearly, they want attention
00:28:27.040
to their case, and they're going after J.P. Morgan because J.P. Morgan allegedly financed Jeffrey
00:28:33.120
Epstein and helped to cover up some of his misdeeds. And I guess the subpoena for Elon Musk is because
00:28:39.520
they claim that Jeffrey Epstein helped put Elon in touch with J.P. Morgan. I mean, it's patently
00:28:46.720
ridiculous. I mean, you can just read news articles showing that J.P. Morgan had invested in Tesla
00:28:53.040
two decades ago, right in the 2000s. They didn't need to go through, I mean, he didn't need to go
00:28:57.680
through Jeffrey Epstein to get in touch with J.P. Morgan. They're just a phone call away. It's
00:29:01.840
complete nonsense. And he himself responded to the reports on Twitter in which he said,
00:29:06.960
that cretin, referring to Jeffrey Epstein, never advised me on anything whatsoever. The notion that
00:29:12.800
I would need or listen to financial advice from a dumb crook is absurd. Yeah, I mean,
00:29:17.120
this is a titan of industry. He doesn't need to listen to Jeffrey Epstein, who wasn't a titan of
00:29:21.920
anything. He was, if anything, a con artist, in addition to being a predatory criminal. And finally,
00:29:28.480
J.P. Morgan let Tesla down 10 years ago, despite having Tesla's global commercial banking business,
00:29:34.400
which we then withdrew, I have never forgiven them. So clearly, he has no ties to either Epstein or J.P.
00:29:40.800
Morgan at this point. So it's quite unclear why they would subpoena Elon Musk. It seems to me to be
00:29:47.600
political in nature, or maybe just to draw attention to the case, because no one seems to be super
00:29:53.120
interested in finding out what happened with Epstein. Where's the list? I mean, if anything,
00:29:58.960
Elon Musk is the one, you know, shouting from the rooftops saying, release the list, release the
00:30:04.000
list of the Epstein names. And yet, they're not releasing those names. We have the names,
00:30:09.360
so you occasionally see snippets of it in the Wall Street Journal. But give us the full list,
00:30:13.840
you know? I mean, I think that's important. If you're really interested in going after these people,
00:30:17.920
do that. The Wall Street Journal has done some important reporting lately showing a connection
00:30:22.800
between J.P. Morgan and Epstein. But the connection to Elon Musk is a laugh. The subpoena
00:30:29.040
says that Epstein, quote, may have referred or attempted to refer
00:30:34.560
Musk as a client to J.P. Morgan. As you say, there's no factual basis for that. I think
00:30:39.680
there's two things afoot. Elon Musk is newsworthy. It's like saying Kim Kardashian
00:30:44.560
five years ago. I mean, you say the name Elon Musk and you're going to get some media attention,
00:30:48.720
including from him, which happened. He responded to it. So you're going to get some attention on
00:30:52.960
a case that may not otherwise. And second of all, this goes to my fear. They're going to take this
00:30:58.000
guy down. And who knows? I mean, I don't know him personally. I know he has different kids by
00:31:03.040
different moms. I know he flies around. I know he's got so much money. There's got to be schemers
00:31:08.080
and scammers around him all the time. You know, I'm sure his conversations are tapped not just by
00:31:15.920
world governments, but by rival companies. I mean, it must be very difficult to have any privacy
00:31:22.560
if you're him. And my chief worry about Elon Musk is they're going to get to him in some non-business
00:31:29.280
way. And and I hope that doesn't happen because I think he has so much good to do, not just for the
00:31:34.720
world as an industrialist and a wealth creator. But I actually and maybe I sound naive for this. I
00:31:42.320
actually believe him when he says he cares about humanity and the importance of freedom of speech.
00:31:47.600
Maybe I'm just a sucker, but I like him. Last word to you, Ian, because I think you
00:31:53.760
I wouldn't say you're close to him, but you talk to the guy, you interact with them, you communicate
00:31:58.800
with them, which is something I think a lot of people wish they could do. What's your sense of the
00:32:04.560
man as a man? Have you had enough dealings with him to come to form some mental image of him?
00:32:09.200
I would say so. I would say that he is who he presents himself on the Internet. Most people don't.
00:32:15.360
I mean, well, maybe not most people, but many people put up a facade of themselves. They want
00:32:19.920
the world to think that there's something when they're really something else in private. Elon Musk
00:32:24.640
doesn't strike me that way. He strikes me as an honest man. And I think he can't afford to be
00:32:28.800
dishonest, right? Because he knows that he's being botched all the time. And so and this is Elon
00:32:34.480
his entire life where you can read him. I mean, he's as transparent as a book. Basically,
00:32:39.520
you can flip through the pages and recognize that he is who he says he is. He is who he presents
00:32:44.160
himself as. I don't think he tries to be anything different. I don't think he tries to manipulate
00:32:48.560
the public. And I think truth, if anything, is his highest priority. And that's commendable. If
00:32:54.480
anything, more people, more businessmen in particular could stand to be like Elon Musk and
00:32:59.840
be more sincere in the way they present themselves to the public, because he's got nothing to hide.
00:33:06.480
This is a man who is who he says he is. That's my read on it. And I think you can quite clearly see
00:33:11.840
that in his interactions online, where he will simply say the quiet part out loud, even if it's
00:33:16.000
unpopular, even if it gives him a lot of flack, calling George Soros, you know, Magneto has certainly
00:33:21.680
earned him a lot of attacks today. And so, you know, the fact that he's willing to say that tells
00:33:27.760
you a lot about him. He's not political. He's not playing a game with people.
00:33:31.040
Yeah. Well, to me, there were a few moments of truth. One of them was he bought Twitter and then
00:33:36.800
he very promptly released internal memos that were embarrassing to Twitter about how they
00:33:42.880
corrupted the process and how they were, you know, pawns of foreign and domestic intelligence agencies.
00:33:48.960
He released embarrassing things about his own company that he just bought. Who does that other
00:33:54.080
than a guy who actually believes in transparency? Well, listen, I hope you're right.
00:33:58.240
And I think you're right. And in the meantime, it's a hell of a show along the way. Ian,
00:34:01.760
great to catch up with you. Thanks for taking the time. And we'll keep following you at
00:34:21.200
Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me on Rachel Notley kicking out Akean Bexty from a press conference.
00:34:26.120
Frosty Knight says, if the owner asks you to leave property, then you have to leave. I am not a
00:34:31.180
supporter of any of the main parties, but I do support private property rights. I agree with
00:34:35.820
you. And I'm not sure if you saw my conversation with Adam Sosa and Sheila Gunn-Reed on the live
00:34:41.500
stream the other day. Here at Rebel News, our rule is if you're on private property, you know,
00:34:47.020
conduct yourself in a good manner. But if you are asked to leave, you have to leave. You don't have
00:34:53.500
to run off, but you have to leave at a reasonable pace. That's our rule of thumb here at Rebel News.
00:34:57.900
It's very different if you're in a public place, like let's say outside City Hall or on a sidewalk,
00:35:03.100
then hold your ground. There's very few rules that allow authorities to kick you off a public
00:35:09.400
sidewalk, for example. In this case, Kian Bexty said he was invited there and he argued with the
00:35:18.240
NDP official for a while. I agree with you that when the property owner told him to get out, he should
00:35:25.200
have get out and that would have been what rebels would have done. In the end, police did kick him
00:35:28.800
out. But I think he made the point that Rachel Notley is extremely intolerant to journalists he
00:35:33.900
doesn't like. Someone with a nickname Three Cracked Cheeks says Russia and Ukraine are like two
00:35:39.340
fighting motorcycle gangs. Both sides are odious and cannot be trusted, and there will be many
00:35:43.800
innocent victims. All the billions sent there by the West will simply vanish into this black hole of a
00:35:47.860
war. What a mess. I want to distinguish between the government and the people. I think this is an
00:35:54.780
absolute human disaster. It is a tragedy. We know from leaked information that over 100,000 Ukrainian
00:36:03.620
soldiers alone have died. That's just soldiers. I've got to think the civilian casualties are similar.
00:36:11.540
Russian casualties are smaller, and I would imagine that their civilian casualties are very close to zero
00:36:16.880
because the fighting is being done in Ukraine. But what really irks me is when armchair generals in
00:36:23.460
the West talk about fighting to the last Ukrainian. They never say that out loud, but that's really
00:36:27.660
what they mean. When I saw that clip of the U.S. spokesman saying they are absolutely adamantly against
00:36:34.780
a ceasefire, I thought you wouldn't be saying that if the battlefield was somewhere in America. I found that
00:36:40.560
deeply depressing. I hope that war ends. Of course, I want it to end justly. But after a
00:36:46.860
certain point in time, the losses are so massive, you should at least sue for peace, don't you think?
00:36:54.060
Someone with a nickname Enoch was right, says the failed comedian knows his time is up. Ukraine is
00:36:58.280
losing approximately 800 men every single day. That's why this supposed spring offensive has been
00:37:03.480
delayed repeatedly. Their military has been completely gutted. The Donbass is firmly in Russia's
00:37:07.900
hands, which is what the majority of the people living there want. Look, I don't know about those
00:37:12.380
statistics. If it's true that 100,000 people, soldiers have died on the Ukrainian side, given
00:37:19.160
that the war has been going on for about 14 or 15 months, you can do the math on that. I think your
00:37:25.340
number is a little bit high. I think that there are countries that want to broker a peace deal.
00:37:33.720
From what we heard from Israel's former prime minister, Ukraine and Russia came close to a deal,
00:37:41.280
but America vetoed it. That's what the former prime minister actually said. We know that countries like
00:37:47.160
Hungary, which are pro-Ukraine, have proposed a diplomatic settlement, and so have old foreign policy
00:37:57.320
hands like Henry Kissinger himself. I just, I'm frustrated by the fact that there doesn't seem
00:38:05.080
to be a diplomatic track at all. And if the desired effect is to grind down Russia's military, all right,
00:38:13.420
mission is being accomplished, but at what cost in human life, especially civilian human life,
00:38:18.580
I find this war terrible. Those are my thoughts for today. That's the show for tonight. Until tomorrow,
00:38:25.360
on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.