EZRA LEVANT ｜ We're getting to the truth about what's really going on with Russia's war with Ukraine
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Summary
Rebel News reporter Jeremy Lafredo talks to Ezra Levant before his trip to Russia about the risks he faced, including the potential risk of being arrested, and Ezra's heart to heart with him before he left for the country.
Transcript
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Hello, my rebels. As you may know, we have sent a reporter to Moscow, Russia, which is dangerous
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from a number of points of view. And I really had a heart to heart with our reporter, Jeremy
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Lafredo, before we sent him over on the risks he faced, including the potential risk of being
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arrested. And before we sent him over, we brought him up here to our headquarters to talk to him
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about how to do this story, how to be careful, not to get in trouble physically through arrest,
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but also to get in trouble politically. We don't want anyone on either side of this war
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to say that we are in league with one country or the other, that we don't want anyone to think that
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we're propagandists or shills. So I want you to listen to the half hour conversation I had with
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Jeremy Lafredo before we sent him over, because it's where Jeremy and I outline our philosophical
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principles for how we're going to cover our trip to Moscow. But before I do, let me invite you to
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become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. Just go to
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rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month, but you get so much content you
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just won't get anywhere else. This Russian reports is a perfect example of that. All right,
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Tonight, a heart-to-heart conversation with our reporter filmed before we sent him to Russia.
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Russia. It's December 8th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
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Hey, did you see the news? I sent it out by email. We did something a little bit dangerous,
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dangerous physically and also dangerous politically. We sent a reporter to Moscow, Russia.
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Here's his scene setter report that he filmed right when he landed.
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I'm Jeremy Lafredo for Rebel News, and I just touched down in Moscow, Russia. I'm going to be
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here all week to try to bring you the truth on the most important geopolitical issue of our time.
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I'm going to speak to Russians, Ukrainians, soldiers, professors, and I'm going to try to get
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you guys the truth. Now, between visas, translators, and transportation, this trip was not cheap. And
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these finances have acted like a financial censorship mechanism that have stopped independent media from
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coming here and reporting the truth. So you can support my work in Moscow and Rebel News at
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RussianReports.com. That's RussianReports.com. For Rebel News, I'm Jeremy Lafredo.
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Well, today we released the first substantive report. I had some questions for him, and he had
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the same questions. What's it like being an ordinary Russian? Have the sanctions made life
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miserable? Can they still get affordable groceries? What's the ruble doing? Are they all poor? I didn't
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know any of these things. What's the price of gas? So one of the first things Jeremy Lafredo,
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our reporter, did, well, he went to buy some food at a grocery store and fill up with gas. Take a look at
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this video. We just released it today. I'm Jeremy Lafredo for Rebel News in Moscow, Russia. We've
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been told that the Western sanctions against Russia are bringing the economy to its knees. Well, one
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marker of that is the price of food. Essential goods like cheese, milk, bread, and meat are all markers of
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how well the economy is doing. Well, I'm going to go to a grocery store in Moscow and see if the
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shelves are bare and see if things are expensive or not.
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...leveled against Russia by the U.S. and its allies are the harshest ever handed down.
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The Russians are dealing with some hefty international sanctions levied against the
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country. And their effects are being widely felt in Russia. After touching down in Moscow,
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the first thing I decided to do was get some food. But I wondered if that would be easy. The New York
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Times reported that the Western sanctions against Russia are leading to essential goods scarcity.
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And the Washington Post went as far as saying that Russia is facing, quote, Soviet-era shortages. So I
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went to a grocery store here in Russia to get the whole story and some food and to experience
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firsthand the reported scarcity and Soviet-style shortages. The grocery store I went to in Moscow
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was located inside of a shopping center. And to my surprise, the shopping center was filled
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with both regular consumer and luxury stores, all stocked. But this doesn't mean that the
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grocery store has food. These are separate types of goods from different places and different
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sanctions affect different things. Upon walking in, I was surprised. It seemed like not only a
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normal grocery store, but it was absolutely full of food. Marilla pasta, which you can get at any
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grocery store in the States, was stacked so tall that I would need a ladder to reach the linguine.
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But I remained skeptical because surely the New York Times and the Washington Post
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wouldn't be lying. And of course, the seemingly full store could be a facade.
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There could only be one item in front of the shelf and nothing behind it. A classic move.
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Another question was, how expensive is everything? Russian stores could have food,
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but with inflation and shortages, items could be so expensive that no one can afford it.
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First, I went to the milk aisle. Kefir, 1%, 2%, 3%, and even 4% milk. Yogurts and fake dairy
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alternatives. They had a lot of options. I got a liter of regular milk. It was 89 rubles or $1.41.
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Then I went for some bread. Nothing fancy, just a loaf of whole wheat. It was 60 rubles or 95 cents.
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They also had an entire bakery making fresh baked goods. Then I made my way to the meat section. They
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had beef, chicken, turkey, pork, and even rabbit. I settled for a pound of ground beef, which was
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175 rubles or $2.78. I then decided to get some eggs. Strangely enough, the eggs were not kept
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refrigerated, but they did have dozens of choices. I got 10 eggs for 99 rubles or $1.47. Then I decided
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to get some vegetables for my meat, a container of mushrooms for 79 rubles or $1.25. And then I went
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to pay for everything. In rubles, of course. The total for milk, eggs, beef, bread, and mushrooms
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was 499 rubles or $7.92. Surprisingly, it seems the mainstream media is not being entirely truthful
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in regards to the effects sanctions are having on the prices of essential goods in Russia.
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Despite my experience, a few people I spoke to explained that the sanctions have had an effect
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on them in one way or another. This lady from a rural market outside of Moscow is selling produce.
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She explained that while most prices have stayed the same, the prices of some foods have actually skyrocketed.
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And this man, who sells cranberries at the market, spoke to me about the prices of berries.
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They buy the cookies. In fact, nothing changed. I didn't see the difference. Everything was just as it was,
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This young woman told me that the idea that Russian people are suffering from sanctions
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is simply not true. But the uncertainty of everything has made people more serious
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about financial planning and financial literacy.
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Another essential good pretty much all people use is gasoline. The
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prices of gasoline in the US have skyrocketed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The US refuses to
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buy oil from what they call a belligerent regime. But these policies actually fell hardest on the
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American people since they're the ones paying more at the pump. So I went to a gas station in Russia.
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Gas was about 47 rubles per liter. Converted to US metrics, that's about $2.75 per gallon.
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I spoke to a man from Moscow, who drives for a living.
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In the last year, I think the difference is not big. It's about 45 rubles to 48 rubles.
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That's about 2 rubles. There's a difference between 1 rubles.
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That's what happens. And it changes. Well, not to say that it's often, but once in 3-4 days,
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there's a difference between 1 rubles and 2 rubles.
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For Rebel News in Moscow, Russia, I'm Jeremy Lafredo.
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Now, what do you think of that video? Would you say that's a pro-Putin video?
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I don't think it's pro-Putin or anti-Putin. I think it's just a video
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asking the question, what's it like in Russia? Are the sanctions having a bite?
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Are ordinary people feeling the pain? I don't know. I thought it was a pretty good test.
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What's a grocery store like? It looked pretty full to me. And by the way, the prices paid for milk and
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eggs and other things in Russia, many of them are cheaper than here in Canada. For that,
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you can blame many things, including that we have marketing boards. So you have expensive eggs and
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dairy and chicken in Canada no matter what. I think they're actually, I mean, that looked like an
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amazing grocery store. One of the amazing things about it was it was cheaper there than it is over
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here. And the ruble, the Russian currency is actually stronger now than at the beginning of
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the war. So is it propaganda to show that? Or is that just actual, just the facts reporting?
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I think it's just the facts reporting. Aren't you glad you know that? And doesn't that confuse you a
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little bit based on what we were told about the sanctions pushing Vladimir Putin to the tipping point?
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I don't know. I find it confusing. But this is a dangerous mission, not just because there's the
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risk that a reporter could be arrested, but also that people could say, well, you are just agents
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for NATO, or you are just agents for Putin, or you're just a propagandist from one side or the other.
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That's why before we sent Jeremy Lafredo over to Russia, we had a heart to heart with him in our
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boardroom here at our world headquarters in Toronto. He's based in New York. He came up
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and it was actually the first time I had met him in person. As you know, we hired a number of people
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around the world during the lockdown. So we just weren't allowed to travel and weren't allowed to
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travel here. So Jeremy and I talked and I'm going to play for you about a half an hour of that video,
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because I want you to see my thinking and his thinking about how to do this trip to Russia
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right. All right, stick around. I'll come back after the video. Take a look.
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Jeremy, when you told me you wanted to go to Russia, I thought that's dangerous. That's a risky idea.
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But I thought about it and I thought maybe that's a great idea. If our motto at Rebel News is telling
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the other side of the story, I don't think we've heard the real story from Russia.
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I don't think we've certainly heard from the Russian people. Do they support the war? Do they
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support Putin? How are they doing economically? Have they heard the Ukrainian case? What's their
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answer to it? I'm worried about the risks of going to Russia, but I think it could actually be amazing
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journalism. Yeah, I think that with the most prominent geopolitical strategists in the world
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all explaining that this could end up in nuclear catastrophe, but there's no independent media on
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the ground. I think that's a giant problem and something that Rebel News can fix.
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You know, it's hard to find out what's really going on. I'm very interested in the truth about
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this war. I believe that there's disinformation on both sides. That's always been a weapon in war,
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a weapon of war on both sides though. And so I think that to find out what's going on on the ground in
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Ukraine is probably too dangerous for us to do. You're not a war correspondent. I don't think we have the
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resources or the know-how to get you onto the battlefield. I don't think that's what we would do.
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But to send you to Moscow, which is an information battlefield, I think we can do that if we're
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careful about how we conduct ourselves, if we're careful that we don't get you arrested, and if we're
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careful not to fall into traps of reporting on a war in an authoritarian regime. I think even Russia's
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supporters would acknowledge that it's authoritarian, they have extra legal arrests and imprisonments.
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We have to be careful that we don't get you arrested, but we also have to be independent enough
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that we're not just echoing Russian propaganda. It's a very delicate project, but I think we can do
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it. I think it's delicate, but I think at the same time, if people see that what we're doing is we're
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putting microphones to the Russian people and we're not editorializing. It's important to know
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what they believe, whether they support the war, whether they're against the war, what they think
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of the US, what they think of NATO, whether they are scared that they're going to get drafted. Whatever
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they might think, it's important to know what that is and show a Western audience because the Russian
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side, whether it's coming from Russian media or whether it's coming from prominent US journalists,
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it's been demonized and censored and banned on social media. So we're in a dangerous situation
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in terms of a political landscape and media landscape. You know, it's hard to go over there.
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And I think it's, you know, again, that's a weapon of war is making it hard to interact with the enemy.
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There are no direct flights that I know of between Canada, the United States,
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or Russia. I think there were in the past. But as far as I can tell, there are none. You have to
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go through a third country. It's hard to pay for things over there. We wanted to hire a Russian
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criminal lawyer in case, God forbid, you got arrested. We wanted to find one, get him briefed
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now, get him ready now. In case, God forbid, you're arrested, we have someone on the ground already.
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Even paying that lawyer, you can't send money from a Canadian or American bank to a Russian bank.
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So there's a lot of ways it's difficult to get there. And even in the West here,
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they make it difficult for us to hear the Russian side of the story. For example, YouTube has deleted
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Russia Today's channel. And I'm not saying that I would follow Russia Today uncritically. I knew it was
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government messaging. But I would like to know what the government messaging is. So I know how to,
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I know what they're thinking about. I know what I might need to rebut or research. I think, I think
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it is hard to know what's going on. And being on the ground may be the one way you can find out
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certain facts with your own eyes. Like, I'm curious, what's the mood in Russia? Are young men worried
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about being conscripted? Is the economy devastated, which you might expect from sanctions or as you're
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doing well because of oil? Are people afraid to criticize Putin or do they do so and they don't
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care? I think those things you can only know by being there. Yeah. I mean, the mainstream media,
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they do lie all the time. Could they be telling the truth right now? Yes, it's possible. So let's go
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there and let's see what the feeling is like in one of the biggest Russian cities.
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One of the tools we do a lot of Rebel News, and I know you do it as well,
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is what we call streeters or man on the street or vox pop. And that's, it's not a sophisticated
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form of journalism. It's just, let's just talk to normal people or at least people we find on the
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street who are willing to talk to us. And, you know, there's sometimes a goofy question you can ask
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or just a quick reaction. The trouble with doing streeters in an authoritarian regime is that people
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might be afraid to speak on camera because they might fear retaliation of some sort. So I think if you
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were to send a cameraman to Russia 40 years ago when it was under the Soviet Union,
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the only people willing to talk to you on camera would probably be Communist Party members who were
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praising the dictator. So I don't know if that's a function today. If people are so afraid of Vladimir
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Putin that they would not criticize him on camera, maybe some people would have to be interviewed with
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the camera not pointing at their face, just pointing at their shoes maybe, or maybe we would have to
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obscure them. But we have to think, how do we do journalism in Moscow that is so legitimate and
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objective and just basic, nothing too tricky or fancy, just who, what, where, why, when, basic meat and
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potatoes journalism that it can withstand scrutiny of anyone, whether they're a pro-Russian shill or a
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pro-Ukraine shill or someone from NATO or something. Like, I want our journalism to be so, speak for
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itself honest and so ethical that no matter where, what side people are on in this war, they'll say,
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that was real journalism and I learned something and I can trust that it was not disinformation.
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It, that's going to be very tough to do. I think that, um, when we see disinformation right now,
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it's, you know, it's been through three different organizations. It's, it's, many people have touched
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it, many different, uh, conflicts of interest. And one of the, um, one of the pluses of being on the
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street is people can say whatever they want. It's the Russian people who are speaking. So, you know,
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whether you think that they're lying or whether you disagree with them, it's a fact that this
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person said this thing. Um, so I think it'll be hard to criticize as being pro-Russia or anti-Russia
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when we're just letting people speak and I'm not going to editorialize.
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There's something to be said for citizen journalism and, and every person in the world
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can be a journalist today. Do you have a smartphone with a camera? Surprise, you're a journalist. I mean,
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that really is probably more, if you turn your cell phone on, on the streets of Moscow and ask
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people how they feel about the war, that is more journalistic integrity and more honest and
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interesting journalism than half of the homogenized, pasteurized, processed journalism going through the
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big companies that I don't think are allowed to deviate from the official line. And, and I think
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everyone is against war and I think everyone wants this resolved peacefully. No one more than the
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Ukrainian people whose countries, you know, has become this battleground. I think this giant proxy
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war between the East and the West, um, we don't have the ability to go to Ukraine. So can we go into
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the heart of the antagonist and, and see is Putin supported? What do his people say? We just don't
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know that because like, I can't think of a single mainstream media journalist in Canada, the United
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States or the United Kingdom, who has actually talked to Russians on the ground. A lot are going
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to Ukraine, but they feel very stage managed. Um, do you know of any journalists have gone to Russia
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and asked real questions in an unscripted way? No, I don't. And you said, um, Russia today was,
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was taken off the internet and it's obviously we, we know that Russia today is propaganda,
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but it's a different scenario and a different political climate when we have professional
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U.S. journalists who are simply questioning the government narrative regarding this war
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and they're being, um, criticized and being asked to be investigated by U.S. politicians,
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um, U.S. intelligence agencies. So yes, obviously we don't want Russia today, but the fact that regular
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independent journalists are being demonized for just asking questions is, is really, um, disheartening.
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And I think, um, some of that can be fixed by simply going there and explaining exactly what's,
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what's the feeling in the air of Moscow. You know, that's one of the tools for stifling
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any criticism of American policy, criticism of Canadian policy is to call a critic, a disinformation,
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um, spreader. And in Canada recently, there was a professor at the University of Calgary who did
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a study. It was not peer reviewed, obviously. And one of his tests for being a Russian agent,
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I'm not even kidding, was if you sowed distrust in Justin Trudeau and the liberal government.
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And he literally said the name Justin Trudeau and the liberal government, that's the name of the party.
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So any dissent, any criticism at all, any opposition, any public interest skepticism of our government
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would automatically be put in the category of foreign disinformation.
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They, they actually accused rebel news of that, which is insane.
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There's no way that you can stop malicious bad faith critics from saying that,
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but it is my desire that you go to Russia and your journalism is so even handed, so objective.
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And so just follow the facts wherever they lead. Let people say what they want to say. If they want
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you to shield their face while they say it, let them, give them that anonymity. It is my goal that
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you go to Russia and come back with journalism that any fair-minded person can say, that was real journalism
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from Russia. You're never going to please these professional disinformation accusers.
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They get paid to make accusations and they will certainly do this because they don't want
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reporters going to Russia. I do not know what the answers will be to your questions. I don't know
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if there is why. That's the beauty of it. Yeah.
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For example, I hear that 100,000 Russians, there's 100,000 casualties in Ukraine. That's a staggering
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number if it's true. The entire Vietnam War for its entire duration cost 55,000 lives in America,
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which is a huge number. To double that number in such a short period of time would be an enormous
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blow. I would have to think that that would touch almost every Russian family. Is that true? Have
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people lost friends or loved ones? Are young men worried about being conscripted?
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I think that, I don't know if we'll ever know the actual casualty count, but I think one way of
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measuring this war is our mom's grieving. Yeah, anecdotal evidence. Let's go there and collect
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some. There's other things. I mean, the economy, we were told that the sanctions would break Russia,
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and I think they've made interaction between Russia and the West harder. One thing I think
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you can only see by being there is what's business like? Is it prosperous? The ruble has not been
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shattered because of the sales of oil and gas. How are people getting along? Are they using Chinese
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banks? Are there Chinese businesses taking over the American ones that moved out? A lot of American
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retail companies. I think McDonald's even left. McDonald's was one of the first Russian companies
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in Russia that tried to liberalize trade. If it's being pulled out now because of sanctions,
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who took over those McDonald's restaurants? Did some Russian chain? Did the Chinese company?
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As the West freezes out Russia, has Iran moved in? I don't know. I would like to know. What is a
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Starbucks like there? What's a McDonald's like? I think those are small little colorful vignettes
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that being on the street could show you. That's not interviewing the defense minister or the foreign
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minister, but that's a little observation that may give us a window into larger issues.
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I mean, we're told that Western capital has completely pulled out of Russia and they're
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really hurting. We're told the death count is X and it is the mainstream media. We don't know what to
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believe. So that's why it's so important to go there and walk around and really see,
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is there a McDonald's there? Is there a TD bank there? We already know that our banks,
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my card won't work there. There are sanctions on Western banks. We know that my plane has to go around
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Ukraine. It's going to take an extra three hours to get to Russia. So we already know that there's
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policies in place that stop Western companies from behaving like they normally do. So what is that?
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Has that taken a toll on the Russian people? We'll find out.
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I think we know the Ukrainian argument. The Ukrainian argument is this was uncalled for,
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violent aggression by a foreign country violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine
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against, um, the Budapest member and them against treaties, against international norms.
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that what's one of the Ukrainian arguments that this is Russian imperialism. This is Vladimir Putin,
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the ex KGB agent who wants to seek a greater Russia, uh, a grandiose scheme. Um,
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those are some of the Ukrainian arguments and I don't think I'm caricaturing them. I think that's
00:25:08.780
some of the language that you see on the Ukrainian side and on the NATO side,
00:25:14.140
that all Ukraine wants is to be free and independent and it needs to defend itself.
00:25:20.060
Those are some of the Ukrainian arguments and I think there's more.
00:25:23.340
I want to see if Russians have heard these arguments. I want to see how they would react to
00:25:28.380
these arguments. Are they persuaded by them? Have they ever heard them before? In Russia, do they get
00:25:34.140
news from the other side? And do they have any sympathy for the Ukrainian side? Do they think that the
00:25:42.060
war was excessive? So I want to, if possible, I want to put to Russian people the Ukrainian case just to
00:25:50.620
I think that would be very interesting. Maybe they've never even heard the Ukrainian case.
00:25:53.900
I know that many Russians, um, well, I'm told, um, that many Russians see, you know, most Ukrainians,
00:26:02.380
uh, who speak Russian as Russian. So like, what does that border mean to Russians? I want to know.
00:26:07.980
And, um, have they heard these arguments, um, that we hear often in the West and what are their
00:26:13.340
feelings about them? You know, there's a lot of complicated things. I don't prefer to be an expert
00:26:18.300
in Ukraine. I know there's parts of Ukraine that are ethnically Russian and that feel an affiliation
00:26:23.340
for Russia. Again, you and I are sitting here in North America and we're discussing something
00:26:28.060
where neither of us have been. And it's hard for us to know we can, we can study the world through
00:26:33.900
the media and through the internet, but there's a blockage here, I think on purpose. And I think
00:26:38.860
it's our mission to find out. Now, one of the things is, and this is one of the very first things I
00:26:42.940
said to you is it's physically dangerous. Our reporters have been arrested probably a dozen times,
00:26:49.260
but we've been arrested in places where there was the rule of law and we just had to get a lawyer
00:26:56.380
and our reporter would be out within hours and we could probably get the charge dismissed because
00:27:01.580
it was overheated police in the moment. I'm never truly afraid for our journalists. We've sent journalists
00:27:07.580
to, uh, partly free countries like Iraq and Morocco before, but we had some sort of safety for them.
00:27:14.780
That's not the case here. There's a prominent American WNBA player who's in prison, hard labor
00:27:23.180
in Russia right now. And all the diplomatic and political efforts to free her have been to no
00:27:29.020
avail. Legally, she hasn't been rescued. Russia is a different ballgame. If the Russian government
00:27:38.460
thinks that you are, if, if they think you're undermining that country, if they think you're
00:27:44.460
engaging in some sort of sedition, you are beyond the help of us. I mean, if Joe Biden can't free that
00:27:51.260
American prisoner, there's no way that little rebel news can free you. And, and I don't think the
00:27:58.540
Canadian government would be much help, frankly. So I, I've tried to emphasize to you the personal
00:28:05.660
risk. And I know you don't have a wife and kids. Um, that makes me feel slightly better.
00:28:11.180
And I know you're not going to provoke, but you never know what some local cop takes as a provocation,
00:28:18.540
especially in the state of a war. They might say, who is this American who is here doing journalism
00:28:25.340
to stir up trouble against the leader and against the army? This is unpatriotic. This is treason.
00:28:32.620
Throw them in jail. And there'll be a hearing in a month. Like if that happens,
00:28:36.460
we are pretty much powerless to rescue you. I'm just telling you.
00:28:41.420
Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm hoping that, you know, I'm going to be as, you know, um, neutral as possible
00:28:48.060
and just let Ukrainians speak. And if Ukrainians feel comfortable speaking, then I think I should
00:28:51.260
feel comfortable with Ukrainians. I think you mean Russians, but we'll talk to whoever we see that.
00:28:56.060
And who knows? It'll be interesting to see what other people are there. I mean,
00:28:58.860
Ukraine and Russia have a lot of, uh, back and forth. I wonder if there's still,
00:29:03.020
I wonder what it's like to be a Ukrainian in Moscow. I wonder what, what other, I mean,
00:29:07.900
Moscow is a fairly metropolitan. It's an enormous city. There's a lot of expats. That is the place
00:29:13.180
to be if you're a foreigner in Russia. It'll be interesting to see if you've seen the Ukrainians.
00:29:17.340
Yeah, of course. I'd love to talk to them. But I, but I, I know you meant Russians.
00:29:20.060
Yeah. No, what I was saying was, um, if Russians feel comfortable speaking to me,
00:29:26.700
then I, I feel that I should feel comfortable listening to them. And if they, you know,
00:29:31.900
didn't feel comfortable speaking to me, then maybe I shouldn't be around asking questions.
00:29:35.500
Um, but based on the people that we know in Russia that I've made contact with before I went there,
00:29:40.220
it seems like, um, you know, I, I should be allowed to ask questions.
00:29:44.300
You know, if, um, if you go there and come back safely, all of this, we'll have a good chuckle
00:29:49.180
about it. But there is a chance, I don't know if it's 1% or 10% or 20% that you will have trouble.
00:29:56.620
And I just want our viewers to know, and you were part of this,
00:29:59.100
we hired a lawyer, a criminal lawyer in Moscow and explained to him our mission.
00:30:05.420
And he is on standby to help in case God forbid, you get into trouble.
00:30:09.580
We're following Russian rules in terms of getting a visa and applying at the consulate. And you've,
00:30:15.740
you've received that visa. In fact, just yesterday, you were at the Russian consulate in New York
00:30:20.620
and you are approved for this trip. Yeah. I got my visa.
00:30:23.660
And we're following the rules as much as we can. We're not, we're not going to,
00:30:29.420
we're not going as activists. We're going as journalists. So I want viewers to know that we've
00:30:33.500
been very as, as diligent as we can be. And we've even taken that precaution of hiring a local lawyer
00:30:40.860
in case we need one in the middle of the night. We don't have to start our search from scratch.
00:30:45.100
We've got a Russian lawyer in the city who has met you over Zoom and is ready to go.
00:30:51.100
And I just want our viewers to know that because we're not being cavalier.
00:30:54.940
I think it's a, I think it's a risk that you understand. I wrote you a letter before you
00:30:59.260
came to visit me listing every possible danger I could think of, every possible thing that could
00:31:04.140
go wrong. And I told you to talk to family and friends and even to consult outside legal counsel.
00:31:10.380
I just want to hear you say it, that you're comfortable in incurring this risk.
00:31:15.020
I'm definitely comfortable incurring this risk. I think that what will come of it will be really
00:31:21.820
I think so too. And it's strange that a tiny little company like ours, like we're tiny
00:31:26.460
compared to any other major Western media. And I think the reason we can do this is precisely
00:31:32.060
because we're small. We're not owned by some conglomerate that is worried about getting off
00:31:37.420
side with some other conglomerate. We're sort of impervious to that because we're 100%
00:31:43.420
grassroots sponsored. We were demonetized on YouTube. Like we're only one step away from
00:31:49.340
being given the RT treatment and nuked altogether. I think, I think it's because we're grassroots
00:31:55.100
sponsored that we can do this. If there was some big bank behind us or big, you know, CBS or Disney,
00:32:00.860
there would be no way we could do something so contrary to the official narrative.
00:32:04.780
I mean, many of these, you know, corporations that own our media have,
00:32:11.020
you know, entered the war, essentially. They've said, you know, we're pulling out of Russia.
00:32:15.580
They've backed the government policy on whatever the government says. So there's only independent
00:32:20.940
media left to go there and tell the truth about what's going on, whatever that is.
00:32:24.620
You know, and it's hard to do that because you're going to be demonized by the other guys. Some other
00:32:28.540
journalists will be jealous that you're allowed to go and do real journalism and they're not.
00:32:32.620
Some others will be in some way on, you know, getting a government contract or a bailout. In
00:32:38.060
Canada, most of the media takes government money. I want to talk a little bit about how it's going
00:32:43.180
to happen. So you're flying from New York City through Turkey, I understand. Istanbul to Moscow.
00:32:50.540
That's a fairly long journey. And do you know what the price of that ticket was? It was about
00:32:55.740
$3,000. It wasn't cheap. It wasn't cheap. And then we have a hotel for you in Moscow.
00:33:02.140
And then there's the legal help. And then on the ground, you don't speak Russian.
00:33:07.420
So we have two people who will accompany you. One of them has worked as a journalist there for
00:33:14.620
a foreign broadcaster before. So she's completely fluent in Russian.
00:33:19.500
Will help, you know, interpret. If you encounter people who don't speak good English, she'll be
00:33:26.300
she'll be accompanying you, driving you. She has a vehicle. So she'll be driving around the city,
00:33:30.620
which is good because, you know, it's an enormous city. And we also have a cameraman who will be
00:33:36.300
helping. And we're not going with very big conspicuous cameras. We're going to keep it pretty
00:33:41.020
modest. We just don't need to attract extra attention. So in addition to your journey from
00:33:48.620
New York through Istanbul to Moscow, we've got two people that we are hiring. And we've talked to
00:33:53.900
them both over Zoom. And we've gotten to know them as well as you could get to know someone over Zoom.
00:33:58.780
I mean, we have to take them at their face value. But the fixer interpreter, I feel very confident
00:34:05.580
with her because she really, in fact, she was telling us about Vox Pop interviews she did just
00:34:09.900
the other day. So she's very, very familiar with the news culture and how to produce a segment.
00:34:14.860
Yeah, I feel I feel good about that. But those are costs, too. Yeah, of course.
00:34:18.780
Between the fixer interpreter producer, I'm going to call her, and the cameraman,
00:34:23.980
I think we're looking at about, well, I mean, I don't want to disclose their
00:34:29.740
per diem online. But between the two of them, it's about $4,500, plus the $3,000 for your flight,
00:34:38.540
plus hotel, plus food, plus we're giving you a little bit of spending money. I think the cost of
00:34:43.580
this trip all in, if we don't have to engage the lawyer, and I hope we don't, is going to be about
00:34:49.500
$11,000. And that sounds crazy, just for a one week trip to Moscow. But it's because we have all
00:34:56.220
those parts there. Because we just need a lawyer, and we need an interpreter, and we need someone
00:35:01.420
who drives you around. It's the bare minimum to make everything work perfectly, and as it should.
00:35:06.700
I think it's going to be very interesting. And I mentioned that the reason we're able to do this
00:35:12.540
is because we're independent. I really think that if we were a big, wealthy company for whom flying
00:35:17.980
you to Moscow was no problem. Well, actually, we couldn't do it then, because we would have
00:35:23.740
pain points on our organization that someone would say, you're not really going to Russia.
00:35:30.060
You can't tell that side of the story. I think it's precisely because we are crowdfunded. I mean,
00:35:37.580
you're fairly new to our company, but you know that we're not owned by a corporation. I'm the owner
00:35:41.900
of Rebel News. I'm not independently wealthy, but we crowdfund all our projects.
00:35:47.980
And so I want to ask our viewers if they would crowdfund this. I think we've outlined pretty
00:35:52.380
clearly what we're doing, how we're doing it, the steps we're taking to keep you safe,
00:35:57.420
and God willing, we'll never need that criminal lawyer. It's around $11,000. And the way I hope
00:36:04.940
to pay for that is through a dedicated website we're setting up called RussianReports.com. And what
00:36:11.660
we're going to put there is we're going to put all your videos from Russia so people can go to that
00:36:17.340
one spot and find them all. And if they feel compelled to chip in, whether it's $100 or $50
00:36:23.180
or even more, they can just do that right there on the website and they can donate in different
00:36:27.980
currencies. So that's how we do it. That's our business model. You know, we were demonetized
00:36:32.460
by YouTube, so we don't make money from them. We don't receive government money, obviously,
00:36:37.500
although most Canadian-based media do. So where does it come from? Well, it comes from our
00:36:42.220
grassroots viewers, which is a pain in the neck because we don't have all that free money from
00:36:45.660
YouTube. But that actually set us free. You know, if we were getting ad money from YouTube,
00:36:52.060
maybe we couldn't do this trip. Maybe they would hold it over us and say, well, if you do this trip...
00:36:57.260
Yeah. I mean, they already nuked us for something we said about Donald Trump a couple of years ago.
00:37:03.260
So they've already pulled the trigger on that. They have nothing more to hold over us.
00:37:07.500
I'm just looking at my notes here. I feel like we covered the basis. We know why this is important.
00:37:16.860
This is a huge war between two superpowers and Ukraine is the place where the battle is happening.
00:37:25.500
I don't believe we're getting the whole story because there's lies on both sides and I want
00:37:28.860
to find the facts. You suggested this trip, which shocked me at first, but the more I thought about
00:37:34.060
it, the more I thought if we can mitigate the dangers, we'll be okay. The number one danger
00:37:38.220
is your safety. And I think we're doing everything we can. And I know you're not going to go looking
00:37:43.420
for trouble. I think the only thing I'm actually worried about is bad faith critics in the West
00:37:52.300
saying, you shouldn't even go over there. You shouldn't even try and find out what Russian
00:37:57.580
people are thinking. You are a shill for Vladimir Putin because you're even suggesting you'll talk to
00:38:04.460
the other side. I reject that as a bad faith criticism. I believe we can do excellent journalism
00:38:10.060
in Moscow. And we would go to Kiev if I thought we would be safe. Frankly, I know that they have
00:38:16.700
arrested or shut down independent media in Ukraine. I would be more afraid to send you there,
00:38:22.700
given some of the crackdowns on the media in Ukraine. I'm nervous enough sending you to Moscow.
00:38:29.420
But I believe that you and I, we've probably spoken about this half a dozen times now.
00:38:33.500
And I know you're committed to following the facts wherever they lead and just showing the facts and
00:38:42.700
showing the news, whether that puts Ukraine or Russia in a bad light or a good light,
00:38:48.140
that we're going to show the facts. Russianreports.com. I really think that
00:38:53.900
that website, once the reports start going up, will really be one of the most valuable places on
00:38:59.180
the internet to figure out what's actually happening inside of Russia. I think so. You
00:39:05.260
know, we talked to our fixer, our journalist who's been working there for 10 years. And she says that
00:39:11.820
she thinks she can connect you to what are sometimes called civil society organizations.
00:39:18.380
Not government agencies, but, you know, a think tank or an independent professor.
00:39:22.860
Sure. Because I, you know, it's great to get grassroots vox pop just from an ordinary person
00:39:28.620
on the street. And that's very useful for taking the temperature of the country, taking the pulse of
00:39:32.940
the country. Is Putin popular? Are people starting to feel like Vietnam and they're just, they want the
00:39:39.580
war over? Or Afghanistan might be the better example for Russia. But if there are institutional critics
00:39:48.060
of Putin, first of all, that would be amazing to learn. Because I don't know if there are any
00:39:54.300
critics of Putin that, who are still allowed to operate. Above ground, yeah. Yeah, I don't know.
00:39:58.220
So we have this preconception of what your trip will be like, doing lots of streeters, as we call them.
00:40:05.900
But again, follow where things lead. And you have two Russians with you, who, one of whom has been
00:40:12.300
doing journalism for a decade, if she can introduce you to an activist, to an independent commentator
00:40:20.700
or think tank, meet with them. Now, maybe that's where you might get in trouble with the authorities,
00:40:25.580
but I think you have to meet with them, especially if they are a critic of the government.
00:40:30.700
And we're doing that just because we want to show the other side of the story.
00:40:34.540
That said, if you can find someone on the government side who's willing to
00:40:38.060
give you an official hearing, take that meeting too, and put to them the most challenging cases.
00:40:43.820
You know, and you can do it, I think, and I know you're sophisticated enough,
00:40:46.700
you can do it in a way that's not attack. You can say, your critics say, the president of Ukraine
00:40:51.740
says, what do you say to that? So it's not even that you're, you're just putting to them the arguments
00:40:55.420
that we hear in America all the time. What do you say to Vladimir Zelensky's point about this?
00:41:02.620
Yes. What do you say? Like, put it to him, if you get an audience with some official of some sort.
00:41:08.940
I don't know if that's going to happen in the week you're going there. We're not trying to get
00:41:11.980
official propaganda. We have enough of that. We want to get real Russia. I'm excited about this.
00:41:20.220
You've got your passport, you've got your visa, you've got your lawyer, you've got your hotel,
00:41:23.340
you've got your fixer and interpreter and cameraman. We've got the website, RussianReports.com.
00:41:28.060
I think we're ready to go. Ready to go. All right. Well, listen, I want to thank you
00:41:34.860
for this mission. I'm excited. I hope that handshake is not our last. I hope that I'll see you
00:41:41.100
in a week or so when you're back. And I think it's going to be an amazing trip. There are a few more
00:41:47.100
things we didn't talk about for security reasons, like how you're going to have the footage and how
00:41:51.580
you're going to get it back to us. I think it's important that we get that footage exfiltrated from the
00:41:57.100
country as soon as possible in case your stuff is seized. And again, I'm not saying it will be.
00:42:02.860
I'm just saying we have to plan for those scenarios. I think this is great journalism in our
00:42:07.980
tradition. You know our motto. Telling the other side of the story. I think this is exactly,
00:42:12.860
we're exactly doing that to the fullest extent. We're risking some say nuclear war right now.
00:42:19.580
Yeah. So let's tell the other side of the story and go there and see what the people think.
00:42:22.620
Yeah. It's incredible to me, the kind of talk from both Putin and. Yeah, of course. Yeah.
00:42:27.340
Talking about nuclear weapons. And you would think that would be the front page news. Whether you're
00:42:32.780
for Russia or Ukraine at all, war between America and Russia would be a mutually assured destruction.
00:42:38.380
Yeah. That's what's kept us safe. That mutual threat has kept us safe for 70 years. And now it's
00:42:47.260
both sides seem to be treating it as cavalier. I do not. Well, Jeremy Lafredo, great to have you here.
00:42:52.460
I do. And I wish you a safe journey. I look forward to your speedy
00:42:55.100
return with excellent journalism. And folks, you can see all of the reports from Jeremy's trip to Moscow on
00:43:02.220
Russianreports.com. And if you feel like this project is worth your support,
00:43:07.980
please chip in whether it's 10 bucks or 50 bucks, because you're not going to find this on CNN. I
00:43:13.660
promise you that you're not going to find it on Canada's CBC state broadcaster. This is
00:43:18.860
a perfect project for a citizen journalist like Jeremy. What do you think of that? Do you think
00:43:24.060
that's fair? I mean, I suppose the safe thing to do is just not go there. The safe thing from Jeremy's
00:43:30.060
point of view, we don't want him to be arrested, although we have a lawyer in Moscow on standby for him.
00:43:35.100
The safe thing is not to get too embroiled with that. As you know, we're already fighting Trudeau's
00:43:40.300
disinformations are because he claims we're Putin's shills. Maybe going to Moscow and asking Russians
00:43:45.980
what they think is somehow passed off as being pro-Russian. I don't think so. I think asking
00:43:51.820
Russians if they like Putin is actually an act of defiance. We just have to make sure that people
00:43:56.700
aren't answering under duress and saying, oh, yes, I like Putin. I like Putin. Let me put that on the
00:44:01.100
record. But I don't know if that's what it's like. We'll find out in the days ahead.
00:44:05.340
I'm proud of this. And I think it's only the kind of journalism that independent citizen
00:44:09.500
journalists can do. I don't know why the CBC doesn't do it. Maybe because they might be arrested
00:44:14.380
by Putin. Could be. Or maybe they're just too in lockstep with Trudeau's government,
00:44:20.460
which has a very special message track when it comes to Putin. I've never seen Justin Trudeau
00:44:25.500
be so bellicose in his life before. His statements are very warlike, which is ironic given that the
00:44:31.100
sanctions don't really seem to be doing anything against Russia. And as you know, Trudeau lifted
00:44:35.980
the sanctions so that Canadian firms could work on Russia's gas pipeline turbines. They shipped
00:44:43.420
those turbines to Montreal for SNC-Lavalin to work on them. And Trudeau, of course,
00:44:47.580
he would do this for SNC-Lavalin, lifted the sanctions. So I find it confusing.
00:44:52.460
Our goal is to tell the other side of the story, which is just to tell the story, the story that
00:44:57.580
we could find on the streets of Russia. What do people feel about conscription? Do people
00:45:03.180
think that the war's casualties are too high? Do people think that the war is justified? Do they,
00:45:08.780
as sometimes happens here, oppose the war but support the troops? I don't know.
00:45:13.580
And I hazard the statement that you don't know either, because no other journalists are telling us
00:45:19.740
what we're going to do our best to tell the story and to make sure the story can withstand any good
00:45:24.620
faith scrutiny of being objective journalism. You can see all of Jeremy's reports at RussianReports.com.
00:45:31.580
Well, that's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,
00:45:37.900
to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.
00:45:40.940
Katie Davis Court reporting for Rebel News, bringing you the latest insanity coming out of Seattle,
00:45:46.460
Washington, as a taxpayer-funded organization has decided to award non-profits owned by black,
00:45:53.340
indigenous people of color with more than $1.3 million to give their leaders each
00:45:59.580
$60,000 of taxpayer funds to take three-month sabbaticals and vacations.
00:46:05.900
The BIPOC Executive Directors Coalition, a multicultural collaborative of 240-plus
00:46:11.660
non-profit executive directors across Washington state, announced the funding in a press release
00:46:17.020
that states 20 leaders and their organizations will receive $60,000 for three-month sabbaticals to
00:46:23.660
cover salary and benefits, individual sabbatical expenses, and organizational developmental support.
00:46:30.060
In addition, 12 applicants will receive one-month respite awards to cover salary, benefits, and
00:46:35.180
individual expenses. Jody Nishiaka, the co-founder and co-executive director of the BIPOC Coalition,
00:46:42.540
said in the press release that BIPOC leaders were being rewarded with these funds for much-needed rest and
00:46:49.260
restoration in order to heal from multi-generational trauma and years of non-stop working on behalf
00:46:56.700
of their communities to recharge for the work ahead. The release also detailed how the grantees will be
00:47:03.260
spending their paid vacations and sabbatical time. Brenda Rodriguez Lopez from the Washington Immigrant
00:47:11.260
This sabbatical will support me in healing from the trauma I have endured doing this work as an
00:47:16.860
undocumented queer woman of color during the most violent times of our generation. My vision is to
00:47:23.580
show up for me as I have showed up for others. Jamie Marsh, executive director at Food Empowerment
00:47:29.820
Educational Sustainability Team, will be taking herself on a trip to Mexico and the French Riviera,
00:47:37.180
and when she returns, will be remodeling her living space. Hamdi Adul, the executive director of the
00:47:43.740
African Community Housing and Development, says that she will be using the funding to go on a lavish trip
00:47:50.780
to Mecca and Dubai. Well guys, you can't help but wonder if this is a good use of taxpayer dollars,
00:47:58.780
giving non-profit organizations taxpayer money so they can give their employees three-month-long
00:48:05.100
sabbaticals and paid vacations to anywhere they want in the world and some are even remodeling
00:48:10.860
their own homes. Wow, at the cost of taxpayers. So if you would like to support Rebel News and
00:48:16.540
believe in our mission of telling the other side of the story, please go to rebelnewsusa.com and
00:48:21.740
consider making a donation. We are 100% viewer funded, that way we stay uncorrupted. So again,