Trump tried to phone Trudeau on Monday — but Trudeau refused to take the call
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Summary
Donald Trump tried to call Justin Trudeau on Monday, but Trudeau refused to take the call. Why would a Prime Minister of Canada refuse to take a phone call from the President of the United States about a trade deal with Mexico?
Transcript
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Tonight, Donald Trump tried to phone Justin Trudeau on Monday, but Trudeau refused to
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take the call. Does he actually want a trade war with America? It's August 29th and you're
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
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You come here once a year with a sign and you feel morally superior.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my
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Let me show you something shocking. You know that on Monday, Donald Trump revealed that
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he has negotiated a very detailed bilateral trade agreement with Mexico. Bilateral just
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means two sides, the U.S. and Mexico, as in Canada's not part of it. Well, Trump wanted
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to talk to Justin Trudeau about that. I don't know what he wanted to say, to invite Canada
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in to tell Trudeau the details, just to take a reading of Trudeau's views on things. I don't
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know, whatever. I mean, it's a successor trade deal to NAFTA, the huge treaty that Canada,
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Mexico and the United States are in right now. It was at the very least a courtesy call to
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Trudeau. But a leader to leader call like that, who knows what would have been said?
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What leader in the entire world would not take a phone call from Donald Trump, even if that
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leader hated him? In fact, especially if that leader hated him. Wouldn't you want to hear
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what he wanted to tell you? I mean, China's President Xi, Russia's Vladimir Putin, North Korea's
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Kim. Even if you have a disagreement with Trump, actually, especially if you have a disagreement
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with Trump, wouldn't you want to hear what Donald Trump thought was so important for you
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to hear that he wants you to hear it from him himself? I can't imagine turning down such
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a phone call. I can't imagine anything being more important or urgent, especially if, like
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Canada, we are dependent on the United States for trade. We are so intertwined with America
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in every way. Well, Justin Trudeau refused to take the phone call. He refused. Trump called
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Trudeau wouldn't come to the phone. I'm not kidding. Of course, I only learned about this
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from the foreign press. Our own state broadcaster, the CBC, would never report something so embarrassing,
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so revealing about our dear leader. This is from Bloomberg's White House reporter. Look at this tweet.
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Trump had wanted to speak to Trudeau this a.m. before the Mexico trade deal announcement at 11 a.m.,
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but Canada said Trudeau had a schedule conflict at the requested hour, sources told me and Josh
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Wingrove. A scheduling conflict? But that's not true. Every day, Justin Trudeau publishes his schedule.
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This is his entire official schedule from Monday. It's just, you know, private time.
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He's got some meetings, maybe, or maybe that's just code for him taking another day off work.
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He's had more than 20 vacation days so far in 2018, and he calls those personal days,
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on top of regular weekends and statutory holidays. But it's not like he was at an incredibly important
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function. He had no public functions. He was not at some critically important summit meeting.
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He was not even in the House of Commons. He wasn't traveling. And even if he was doing any of those
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things, could he not really step out of another engagement for 10 minutes, just pretend he had to
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go to the bathroom or something? I don't know. Sir, I know we're having an important conversation,
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you know, Youth Council of Papineau. I know we're having an important conversation,
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dairy farmer of Quebec. I just got the president of the United States on the other line.
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How about you take a coffee break and I'll be back in 10? Who on earth would say no to that?
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Who on earth would be more important? And even if they were more important, who on earth wouldn't
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understand the need for Justin Trudeau to talk to Donald Trump for 10 minutes in the middle and
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after negotiation? It is obviously not a real excuse. Even if he were on a plane, which he wasn't,
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the prime minister's plane can take phone calls. It is a lie that could not possibly be true.
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The truth is that Trudeau was snubbing Donald Trump. Well, Trump returned the favor pretty hard,
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I'd say. This is what Donald Trump said at his announcement from the Oval Office on Monday
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with the Mexican president on the speakerphone.
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Canada will start negotiations shortly. I'll be calling the prime minister very soon and we'll
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start negotiation. And if they'd like to negotiate fairly, we'll we'll do that. You know, they have
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tariffs of almost 300 percent on some of our dairy products. So we can't have that. We're not going
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to stand for that. I think with Canada, frankly, the easiest thing we can do is to tariff their cars
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coming in. It's a tremendous amount of money and it's a very simple negotiation. It could end in
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one day. And we take in a lot of money the following day. But I think we'll give them a
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chance to probably have a separate deal. We could have a separate deal or we could put it into this
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deal. That's stunning, but it's not surprising. It's stunning because our best friend, the United
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States, is no longer our best friend, but not surprising, though, because for nearly two years,
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Justin Trudeau's liberals, with the full support of our state broadcaster, the CBC,
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have done their best to pick fights with Donald Trump. It's nuts. Trump never really paid attention
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to Canada before, which was good. He just took us for granted, which is good. Like we take America
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for granted, I guess. Trump always instead focused his ire on China and Mexico when it came to trade
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irritants, because we Canadians more or less have balanced trade with America. That means we buy as
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much from them as they buy from us. So Trump never really cared about us until Trudeau just started
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irritating Trump again and again so gratuitously. Sometimes it was just personal attacks. Remember
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I think, however, I've been very, very clear in my approach as a feminist, as someone who has stood
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clearly and strongly all my life around issues of sexual harassment, standing against violence
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against women, that I don't need to make any further comment at this time.
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That was Justin Trudeau more or less accusing Donald Trump of physical violence against women. A bit
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ironic now that we know that Justin Trudeau himself groped women. But that's politically insane. That's
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pretty much how every liberal in Trudeau's office thinks and talks, though. And they haven't really
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muted it at all over the past two years. Most of the time, Trump just didn't pay attention. Or if he did,
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he didn't show it. It's like a little mouse nibbling at an elephant's toes. Trump did raise some
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objections about our 300% dairy import tariffs. But that's not huge in the whole scheme of things.
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He raised objections to cheap, subsidized Chinese steel being dumped into the U.S. by coming through
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Canada. But again, that's not even our problem, really. It's just a small thing. We just have to
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cut out the Chinese, which is Trump's real rivals. But Trudeau was so irritating so often. And
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Chrystia Freeland, our foreign minister, was so irritating so often. It had to be on purpose.
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Like that speech that Chrystia Freeland gave earlier this year in Washington at the Foreign
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Policy magazine in a real in-your-face way when she won a Diplomat of the Year award.
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When people feel their economic future is in jeopardy, when they believe their children have
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fewer opportunities than they themselves had in their youth, that's when people are vulnerable to the
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the demagogue who scapegoats the outsider, the other, whether it's immigrants at home or trading
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partners abroad. So you're in a trade negotiation with Donald Trump and you fly down to his capital
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city. You meet with a room of chattering class Washington insiders, lobbyists, pundits to bash
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Trump. Not very veiled bashing of Trump. Was it really worth it, though, being called Diplomat of
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the Year? It's sort of like those World's Best Dad mugs. You know, you can buy it any souvenir store.
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World's Best Dad? I mean, it's not a real contest, right? It's a joke, right? I mean,
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if you're the World's Best Diplomat, first of all, you probably aren't known
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because the best diplomats achieve their goals for their country, not for their own celebrity.
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You know who might actually be the World's Best Diplomat, now that I think about it? This terror.
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Sergei Lavrov. You know that guy? That's Vladimir Putin's foreign minister. Putin invaded Georgia,
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and there were no real penalties against him from George W. Bush. So Putin invaded Crimea and annexed it
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with no real penalties from Barack Obama. Putin shot down a jetliner over Ukraine. Remember that? No
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real penalties. Putin managed to get Angela Merkel to agree to buy a third of Germany's energy from
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Russia. Putin managed to essentially take over Syria from Barack Obama. Sergei Lavrov did those things.
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He doesn't care about giving preening speeches. He gets things done for Putin, awful things sometimes.
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Can you name anything Chrystia Freeland has got done for her client that is us? In fact, other than Iran
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or Cuba, is there a single country in the world that you can name that is more sympathetic or more
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supportive or more allied with Canada today than when Trudeau and Freeland took over?
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I mean, just think of the big ones. Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United States. Can
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you name a single country that we have stronger ties with now than before Trudeau and Freeland took over?
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Well, our Diplomat of the Year was in Germany on Monday, giving the same anti-American speech. Isn't
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that funny? While Mexico and the United States were celebrating their new agreement, you know,
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as I mentioned the other day, the Mexican foreign minister has visited the White House 45 times and
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visited the house of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, 10 more times. That's 55 visits. No wonder he got a
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great deal. In fact, I'm not sure how Mexico's foreign minister could really have been doing
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anything else with his time. If he literally had 55 meetings in Washington, I bet he's got to have
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an apartment in Washington. He's probably, maybe he even lives there. Obviously, this was the most
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important thing in his life and for his country's prosperity. And he acted like it, don't you think?
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I haven't heard of him giving any speeches bashing America or getting a Best Diplomat mug. He got a
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deal instead. And I think it's a good deal for Trump if I read it right. It keeps out cheap Chinese
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parts from Mexican-made cars being sold into America. It requires higher labor costs at Mexican
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car factories so that they don't deeply undercut American factories. That helps Mexican workers,
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but it obviously helps American factories be more competitive. These are interesting deals.
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And complicated deals and detailed deals. And there are other parts of this deal too,
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including on intellectual property. And it goes much beyond cars. And Trump said he's getting
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along so well with his Mexican counterparts now. They're talking about continuing their talks on
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other sensitive issues like border security. And if you've met someone 55 times,
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you probably get along with them pretty well by now. I mean, how many times have you met
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any friends in your life? You know, both sides are obviously getting something positive out of it.
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You know that it was a success for Mexico when that crazy Trump hater, I don't know if you know this
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guy, he's the former Mexican president, Vicente Fox. He is a kook on Twitter. And here's one of his tweets,
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this is translated by Twitter automatically into English. He was tweeting about how important a deal
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this was for Mexico. Today, there is much to celebrate. Great triumph for Mexico for President
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Pena and his great negotiating team. Bravo. Great win. You know, it's, we all win. Trade is always a win.
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So, this guy hates Trump. He has in the past condemned this same Mexican government for dealing
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with Trump. But then Mexico pulled a rabbit out of a hat for both sides. I guess Trump has done
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enough deals in his life to know the best ones are ones where both sides can say they won something.
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So, Chrystia Freeland saw this and she hopped on a plane and flew from Germany where she was giving
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her Trump bashing speech. She flew to Washington and listen what she had to say when she landed there
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yesterday. Really paved the way for what Canada believes will be a good week is the fact that Mexico
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has made some significant concessions, particularly in the area of labor and of rules of origin on cars.
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For our government, good jobs for working people in Canada has always been our priority. And these
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concessions really are going to be valuable for workers in Canada and in the United States who have
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been concerned for some time about their jobs going to lower wage jurisdictions.
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So, she's really trash talking the deal that Mexico got, implying that they really got taken
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advantage of by the Americans. Boy, they were so dumb to do a bilateral deal instead of having Chrystia
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Freeland there to help them with the hard parts. I think that's what she was saying there.
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Well, here's the Mexican ambassador to Canada on TV the other day. He sounds pretty happy,
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sounds pretty confident. He's not spiking the football or anything. I don't think so.
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He's just saying, yeah, his country got a deal. Take a look.
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Actually, the Canadian government, the prime minister just a few minutes ago has said
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and yesterday global affairs that they welcome the progress made. We hope that these
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that these breakthroughs that Mexico made with the U.S. will be positive and will be good for Canada.
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So, today, this morning, Chrystia Freeland was finally invited for a meeting with the U.S. trade
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representative. Now, that's a special office with the top negotiator in America, Robert Lighthizer is
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his name. He's not elected like Chrystia Freeland. He's appointed. All he does is do deals. He's a pro.
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He's not an ex-journalist like Chrystia Freeland. So, Freeland finally gets a meeting at his office.
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And you know who else is coming? Jared Kushner, the consummate Trump fixer is there too. And as you
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know, he's also Trump's son-in-law. In some ways, he's being Trump's secret weapon. He's like,
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they call him the Trump whisperer. He's the guy who gets tough deals because he's family. He can
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speak candidly to the president in ways that no one else can because you can't really fire family.
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And here's how that went. Let me quote. Jared Kushner just walked in for the meeting with Canada.
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The Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs is not here. She is late. Late. But, but we know she was
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in town. She, she flew in yesterday. She was late. How? Did she get lost? We saw the clip of her
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standing in front of that same office on, on Tuesday. So she knows where it is. Did she just
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hit the snooze button on her alarm too many times? And maybe her staff forgot to phone her
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at the, at the hotel. Did she have a more important meeting like Justin Trudeau claimed to? Was this not
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the most important meeting in her entire public life? And oh, also for the lives of, I don't know,
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160,000 people who work in Ontario's auto industry who will get smacked by Trump if we get a trade war.
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Late. Late for a meeting with Jared Kushner and the trade rep. You know, that's a psychological tactic.
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That's a dominance play. I'm making you wait. I'm more important than you so you can wait for me when
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I'm good and ready. It's the same bizarre move that Canada played last year. Remember this trade
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deal in Vietnam when all of our other allies were there? Remember Australia? And you see that empty
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chair there with the Canadian flag in front of it on the left, bottom left of the screen there?
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Canada just didn't show up. We didn't just spite America. We spied, spited all those countries.
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See the Japanese flag there? No notice, no warning, no courtesy, no diplomacy, no explanation.
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We just didn't show up. By we, I mean Trudeau and his cabinet. You know,
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you can do that kind of power move, I guess, if you're Donald Trump himself. But not even too often,
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because then people think you're just unreliable. Your word doesn't mean anything. You're not a promise
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keeper. Whether people love you or fear you, they have to know you mean what you say. And not showing up
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at a scheduled meeting. That's actually not a sign of toughness. It's a sign of unreliability,
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of unseriousness, of capriciousness. And that doesn't work if you are Chrystia Freeland,
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who is already known for all of those flaws, and whose boss, Justin Trudeau,
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just refused to take a phone call from Trump on Monday. In the past, when negotiating with teeny tiny
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Belgium, you know, the country that's famous for making chocolate, Chrystia Freeland thought
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crying would get her a trade deal. Remember that?
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Canada has worked really hard. And I personally, I've worked very hard.
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But it seems evident for me, for Canada, that the European Union is not capable,
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now, to have an international agreement, even with a country with such European values as Canada.
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And after negotiations, Freeland didn't go for the tears. She thought sending cute little
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email emojis, you know what I'm talking about, those little smiley faces? That would do the job.
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The European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom and I call each other sisters in trade.
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We sometimes send each other smiley faces in particularly difficult moments.
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Yeah, that didn't even work with the chocolate-making superpowers. I don't think that's working with
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Donald Trump. You know, that looks weak and pitiful, but even that was better than the pure disrespect
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of not taking phone calls and not showing up for a meeting. Hey, let me ask you something.
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Do you think Donald Trump actually means it when he says he wants to put tariffs on our auto industry?
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I think he means it. Manny Montenegrino convinced me of this this week.
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Trump has already put tariffs on Canada for certain things. He's in a huge trade war with China.
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That's why he smacked our steel for the Chinese steel that's being put through Canada. Trump just,
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I think it was today, his last quarter's GDP growth was revised upwards to 4.2% on a quarterly basis.
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His economy is so strong right now. Remember, they're 10 times larger than us.
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He won't even notice a bump in the road if Canada retaliates.
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I think Trump actually wants a war. Manny convinced me of this so that Trump can bring
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our Canadian auto industry back down to the United States. And once you move those factories there,
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they ain't ever coming back. I actually think Trump wants a trade war to relocate those factories.
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The crazy thing is Trudeau is behaving like he wants a trade war too. Justin Trudeau already killed off
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Canada's oil and gas and pipeline industry with the help of Rachel Notley. A hundred billion dollars gone.
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Now he's gunning for Ontario's auto industry, Trudeau. I think his strategy is exactly what
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Stephen Harper warned us about. Trudeau wants to run against Trump in the 2019 Canadian election.
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If that really was your strategy, you would refuse phone calls. You would show up late for meetings.
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You would give insulting speeches too, wouldn't you, if you were trying to scupper the deal. I'm sorry,
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my friends, unless something changes, in the next 48 hours, which is what Trump says the deadline is,
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I think we are heading into a deep recession in this country, courtesy of our Diplomat of the Year
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and her man-child of a boss. Stay with us for more.
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Well, I am loathe to criticize the Catholic Church. And you know why? It's because it's a hobby of the
00:22:12.540
left. They hate the Catholic Church. At least when the Church lives up to its creed, Church morality,
00:22:19.980
such as on abortion or other matters touching on social issues, the left hates the Church. And my
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view is if they're doing something wrong, they don't need me to pile on. More often, it's the reverse.
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Christians are persecuted. It's one of the reasons we went to Iraq last year to help those Christians
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there. But there is a scandal within the Christian Church, within the Catholic Church, and it is
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growing. And when Catholics who love the Church join the criticism, I think perhaps it's time to
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give them a listen. And one of those is Michael Knowles, the host of the Michael Knowles Show on
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the Daily Wire. And he's an ally of our friend Andrew Claiborne. He joins us now. Michael,
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great to see you again. Thanks for coming back on the Ezra Levant Show. It's nice to have you.
00:23:02.860
Good to see you. Thanks for having me. You know, I really don't like criticizing the Catholic Church
00:23:06.620
because it's criticized so often and in such bad faith. But you have a very interesting article
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today about the 11-page letter written to Pope Francis by the former nuncio, that's the Church
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ambassador to Washington. So a senior member of the Church, I think by any measure, he doesn't have an
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ax to grind. This is not some scheme or scandal mongering. And he outlines some serious accusations
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about sexual molesters in the Church. But worse than that, what appears to be a cover-up at the
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highest levels? Why don't you tell our viewers what the facts are?
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So this is a little opaque, I think, to people who are not within the Catholic Church. And it's
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probably opaque to people even who are Catholics. The way to think of this is this ex nuncio,
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Carlo Viganò, is an archbishop. He's a high-ranking official. He's retired. So he's not a member of the
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College of Cardinals. He doesn't have anything personally to gain from this. But this was the
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Vatican's representative to the United States. The United States and Germany fund the Catholic Church.
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This is a major, major position. And what he has said in this 11-page testimony is that the Pope
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covered up for an abusive priest, Cardinal McCarrick, who was thrown out in disgrace just
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a few weeks ago. What the testimony outlines is that the abuse of McCarrick, McCarrick's abuse
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against other priests and seminarians was brought to Pope Benedict. Pope Benedict basically isolated him,
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took him out of public ministry, said, live your life out in prayer and penance. Then when Pope
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Francis was elected, he restored the prominence of Cardinal McCarrick, sent him as an envoy to China,
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and put him back out in public. It is worth pointing out that what the testimony alleges is that Pope Francis
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knew of his abuse against other priests, not against minors, though the Cardinal has been accused of
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molesting minors as well. What's amazing about all of this, an analogy would be, say, if Nikki Haley
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made these accusations about the president or John Bolton or Secretary of State or something like that,
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it's that high a post. Not many things are unprecedented in the history of the Catholic
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Church. 2,000 years of history means everything has precedent. This is unprecedented. A high-ranking
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official, not only accusing the Pope of knowing about this, but of calling on the Pope to resign.
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And the Pope, just as he has done with all of the other criticism during his pontificate,
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is refusing to give an answer. He is dismissing the concerns of very high-ranking, very credible,
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serious people. He's dismissing them. He's referring to answer. And another appointee who seems to have been
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backed for Cardinal by that disgraced Cardinal McCarrick, a man in Chicago named Cardinal Cupish,
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has responded on the Pope's behalf and said, the Pope has other things to talk about. The Pope has
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bigger plans for the environment, for illegal immigration. He doesn't want to talk about all
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of the abuse and the cover-up that he's implicated in. It is outrageous. The statement from Cardinal
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Cupish on the Pope's behalf is stunningly tone-deaf. It is perhaps the most tone-deaf
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statement since Marie Antoinette's apocryphal let-them-eat-cake statement. And this demands
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an answer, and this demands that heads must roll. It's funny you mention the Pope's other priorities.
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And again, I'm Jewish myself, and so I don't like picking on Catholics because, I mean,
00:26:38.580
they're picked on too much in my view. But when I was in Iraq, I thought, where is the Pope?
00:26:44.740
He's talking about the environment. He's talking about global warming. He's talking about
00:26:49.220
political matters. There's this one image I can't get out of my mind. I'll put it on the screen right
00:26:52.820
now. It's the Pope meeting with Muslim migrants in Europe. And here's a picture that Pope Francis
00:26:59.780
kissing the feet. Now, I know enough New Testament, even though I'm Jewish, to know that Jesus washed the
00:27:06.900
feet of travelers hot in the desert. And that would be just a real
00:27:11.860
mercy because it's hot and dry and sweaty or whatever. But I don't think Jesus kissed
00:27:18.900
the feet. I think he just washed them. Here's Pope Francis kissing feet, but not of a
00:27:24.500
Christian martyr, not of a Christian refugee fleeing the region, but of a Muslim migrant.
00:27:29.620
And I thought, you know, there's a billion Muslims in the world. There's more than 20 Muslim countries.
00:27:35.460
There's Saudi Arabia. The Pope should focus more on Popish things. I don't know. When you say the
00:27:42.020
Pope deferred to environmental concerns, that pricked me because that frustrates me.
00:27:48.100
I think this is a matter for the Pope, this Cardinal McCarrick.
00:27:53.460
Yes. You know, this pontificate has bred a lot of confusion. It's very frustrating because we need
00:28:03.940
clarity now more than ever. And it's bred a lot of confusion, not just on certain matters of state,
00:28:09.300
not on certain political matters, but on matters of 2000 year old doctrine. There were a litany of
00:28:14.740
examples of this and the Pope has been very unclear. I don't mind the Pope humbling himself
00:28:21.860
and making a humble gesture toward Muslims. I think that's all well and good, but it has to be more
00:28:28.180
than a performance, you know, or is it a performance or is it the real thing? This Pope has called for
00:28:33.780
transparency. This Pope has called for an end to clericalism. This Pope has said that bishops should
00:28:39.140
retire and leave when it's time for them to leave. And yet, what are we getting from the Francis
00:28:43.620
pontificate? We're getting obfuscation. We're getting what appears to be the height of clericalism,
00:28:49.460
the height of bishops covering up for one another, of refusing to speak to the media,
00:28:54.180
of refusing to answer, not just questions from the press and secular authorities, but refusing to
00:28:59.380
answer questions raised by their own cardinals, the height of clericalism and a refusal to engage with
00:29:06.020
critics. If, if the Pope wants to make these gestures, that's all wonderful, but they have to be
00:29:11.620
backed up with reality. They can't just be a performance for the cameras. And there is a lot
00:29:16.580
of confusion and a lot of answers are being demanded right now. The Catholic laity are up in arms. This
00:29:22.820
is absolutely horrifying. And the behavior has not gotten any better. It's wonderful to go around to
00:29:29.140
Ireland and say, please forgive us, please forgive us. You have to put a seriousness behind those words,
00:29:35.300
or else they're just words, words, words. We're not getting that from Pope Francis. And I wish he
00:29:41.140
would answer it because what, what the rest of us in the Catholic lady are seeing is nothing but
00:29:45.860
stonewalling and the Catholic lady are going to vote with their pockets. You know, I think it's
00:29:51.300
perfectly fine to keep contributing to your parish and keeping the lights on. But I don't think a
00:29:56.260
Catholic should donate a single penny to bishops appeals, to the various charities related to the
00:30:01.620
U.S. Council of Catholic bishops until we get answers, and until people are held accountable
00:30:06.980
for this. Wow, that's heavy duty. You know, not all of our viewers, I mean, only a certain portion of
00:30:12.580
our viewers are Catholic, and only a certain portion would probably be regularly practicing Catholics. But
00:30:19.620
I think there are wider implications. And my proof of that, let me show you, it's the New York Times
00:30:24.340
weighing in on the subject, in defense of Pope Francis, criticizing conservatives who were pouncing.
00:30:33.300
It's almost a, it's almost a comical headline. And the New York Times is not a particularly Catholic
00:30:39.380
newspaper. It's sort of their religion is secular liberalism. They are standing with the Pope. I think
00:30:45.780
it's like their support for John McCain. They liked John McCain when he was an enemy of Donald Trump.
00:30:51.460
I think the New York Times hates the Catholic Church, but they're standing for Pope Francis
00:30:57.300
because they don't like his more moral or conservative critics. That's my theory. What do you think?
00:31:03.380
It's amazing how they weigh in. It's also amazing because of their blithe ignorance,
00:31:08.340
which I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at, at this point. They're trying to portray Archbishop,
00:31:13.860
rather, Ex Nuncio Vigano, as a conservative, as though this were a civil war in the church that is
00:31:20.260
strictly along partisan lines like we have in the United States. That isn't the case. There are
00:31:25.140
theological disputes with Pope Francis and more traditional Catholics might be called conservative
00:31:31.700
or something like that. But the question here is about rank corruption in the highest echelons of
00:31:37.700
the Catholic bureaucracy. That's what this is about. This is not fundamentally about theological issues,
00:31:43.220
though it is a strange coincidence that all of the, virtually all of the high-ranking prelates who have
00:31:48.980
been involved in these cover-ups seem to issue, or seem to rather put forth, a progressive
00:31:57.540
Catholic theology and sense of the liturgy and sense of the church that goes against 2,000 years
00:32:04.740
of teaching. Another aspect that the New York Times might want to point out, they talk about the
00:32:08.580
conservatives and the progressives in the church as though these are two equal parties, as if they have
00:32:14.740
moral equivalence or something. When you're talking about an institution that we Catholics believe was
00:32:21.380
divinely instituted with the immutable teachings of the incarnate Lord, there is not a moral equivalence
00:32:28.660
between people who want to conserve that and people who want to change that. You know, when it comes to
00:32:33.060
the Catholic Church, really, there ought only to be conservatives, because we are conserving our
00:32:38.180
institution and our doctrine. Of course, the New York Times doesn't know any of that, and so for them,
00:32:42.980
the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But it really makes a great point, because for how long did the
00:32:47.940
New York Times hit on the Catholic Church, beat up on the Catholic Church for sexual abuse scandals,
00:32:54.100
and for not being clear enough, and for not being transparent enough? Now, the Catholic laity, and some
00:33:00.180
as high-ranking as the ex nuncio vigano, are calling for that transparency, and what do they do? They play
00:33:06.100
petty politics, because they don't care about the sex abuse scandal, they don't care about transparency,
00:33:10.980
they don't care about justice for victims, what they care about is that pushing their own left-wing
00:33:15.620
agenda, and it's repulsive. Well, there's a lot to chew over there, and I am an amateur of this
00:33:23.140
subject. It's not something I immerse myself in, so you've certainly given us a lot to think about.
00:33:26.820
For those who want to delve a little deeper, may I recommend Michael Knowles' column on the subject,
00:33:31.060
which you can find at dailywire.com. Thanks so much for being here today, Michael.
00:33:35.220
Thanks for having me. Good to see you again. All right, likewise. Well, there you have it,
00:33:38.660
Michael Knowles. He's the host of the Michael Knowles Show on the Daily Wire. Great people there,
00:33:43.700
Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan. He hosts that show every Monday to Thursday. Stay with us. More ahead on The Rebel.
00:33:51.380
First of all, why are we still fighting against certain veterans groups in court? Because they're
00:34:11.060
asking for more than we are able to give. Well, that was Justin Trudeau telling a wounded veteran
00:34:17.540
that veterans are just asking for more than he can give. I mean, come on. Well, news comes of
00:34:24.180
someone that Veterans Affairs under Justin Trudeau has all the money in the world for. The strange
00:34:30.740
thing, though, is he is not a veteran. I'm talking about a convicted killer named Christopher Garnier.
00:34:37.620
He was convicted of second-degree murderer, but he's not a vet. He's not a soldier. And yet,
00:34:44.100
he is receiving payments from a veterans affairs program for soldiers with PTSD, post-traumatic
00:34:54.260
stress disorder, which is by virtue of the fact that someone else in his family was a veteran.
00:35:03.220
Joining us now to talk about this incredible story is our friend, Lee Humphrey. We've had him on the
00:35:09.300
show before, of course. He's the president of James International Security Consulting,
00:35:12.740
and he's now a Conservative Party of Canada nomination candidate for Calgary Center. Lee,
00:35:17.780
welcome back to the show. This is so crazy. Can you confirm the facts I've just read to our
00:35:24.260
viewers here? Because I just want to make sure I'm not getting this story wrong. It sounds too crazy to
00:35:29.140
be true. A non-veteran is getting PTSD money meant for veterans, and he's a murderer. How? How?
00:35:37.220
Yeah, well, what they've done, Ezra, is they've taken an incredibly important program, which was set
00:35:44.740
up to ensure that the families of veterans who are suffering from PTSD, and often it's the families
00:35:51.780
who bear the brunt of the outrage and of the anger a veteran may display as he's working his way through
00:35:58.500
his PTSD issues that would allow those those family members to get treatment as well and to help them
00:36:07.540
deal with understanding the veteran and understanding the issues he's going through.
00:36:13.940
They've twisted that in the sense that the gentleman that we're talking about, the convicted murderer that
00:36:20.580
that we're talking about, his father served as a military policeman, and I understand was diagnosed
00:36:28.100
with PTSD, which I must presume was service-related because that is the criteria. And as part of that
00:36:37.220
treatment, somehow they extended it to his son, who is now claiming to suffer from PTSD
00:36:45.620
PTSD for the nightmares he's experiencing related to killing a Halifax police officer,
00:36:53.700
strangling her to death. That's not PTSD. That's called grief.
00:36:57.700
Yeah, or remorse. Or maybe it's remorse or something. And that's the craziest fact here. So the murderer,
00:37:06.980
not a veteran, murders a cop, and his own murder is his own source of stress. Am I getting that? Because
00:37:17.060
that is the cherry on the icing on the cake of crazy. So it's his own murder that has caused him
00:37:23.540
the stress for which he is being paid by the veterans. Is that just the final chain link of crazy,
00:37:31.540
hearly? It is in the sense that this does not belong in the realm of Veterans Affairs Canada,
00:37:38.900
which has a very limited budget that is very much needed to deal with legitimate cases involving
00:37:45.860
veterans and their families to help them recover from service injuries and wounds, mental or physical.
00:37:53.060
What we have here is something that, you know, Corrections Canada does involve
00:37:58.500
counseling to help prisoners come to grips with the fact that they have committed a crime
00:38:07.220
and to help them get to that point where they can be remorseful and they can understand the feelings
00:38:14.980
that they have and how wrong they were and what they did was wrong. And I guess as part of the
00:38:20.900
rehabilitation, move on from that. But this has nothing to do with Veterans Affairs in any way,
00:38:26.100
shape or form. It only takes money away from actual veterans and actual veterans families that need
00:38:32.180
this money and this help desperately. Yeah, that's so frustrating. You know,
00:38:36.020
I was reading some media stories, including on the CBC. Now there's been various versions,
00:38:40.740
but one of the stories I was reading on the CBC, and it may have been updated since that moment.
00:38:46.180
I searched for keywords, liberal, Trudeau, Seamus O'Regan. That's the Veterans Affairs Minister.
00:38:52.980
I think it may have been added in a subsequent version, but there was no mention of this when
00:38:57.460
I first checked it. And this happened. I mean, the murder itself happened in 2015
00:39:03.460
and the Veterans Affairs payments subsequent to that. So this was under Trudeau's watch. And we
00:39:07.940
just saw Trudeau saying, vets are asking for more than we can give. And if this had happened under the
00:39:14.660
tenure of Justin Trudeau, excuse me, of Stephen Harper and the conservative government, Lee,
00:39:21.700
I am absolutely certain that the word Tory or conservative or Harper would have been in the
00:39:27.220
headline. And it would have, the blame would have been placed on the political decision maker,
00:39:32.340
the cabinet minister, the prime minister. But because this is under Justin Trudeau, this is my own
00:39:38.980
theory here. The state broadcaster is just saying, Veterans Affairs made the mistake. They're not
00:39:44.180
even calling him to say, Veterans Affairs made the decision. The government made the decision.
00:39:48.900
And they're doing their best to, like the headline I see here in the CBC, Veterans Affairs stands by
00:39:54.340
policy paying for PTSD help for murderer who never served. And I see now that in a subsequent version
00:40:02.740
that Seamus O'Regan's name is added lower down in the story, I find that frustrating, that there's
00:40:08.900
the political nature of this has been bleached out of it.
00:40:11.700
Absolutely. I mean, the CBC, you know, loves to use the word government when there's a negative
00:40:18.340
story as if we forget who is in charge of that government. It is Prime Minister Trudeau. And in the
00:40:24.340
case of Minister O'Regan being added, his name is only added in the sense of the Conservative Party
00:40:34.020
critic calling on him by name to intervene in this case and review it at the very least. But this should
00:40:43.700
be cancelled immediately. Veterans Affairs is not responsible to fund the mental rehabilitation
00:40:52.340
of a murderer who didn't serve with us. And twisting this program, you know, which was meant as if this
00:41:02.020
young man had been somehow influenced by his father's PTSD, which which would be a legitimate use of
00:41:08.340
those funds. That just isn't the case. And we need to be really clear about this, Ezra. The Trudeau
00:41:15.060
government made a decision to provide limited Veterans Affairs Canada funding
00:41:21.780
to a convicted murderer, while at the same time denying that they have sufficient money to give
00:41:31.060
veterans what they actually need. That's all this is. It's plain and simple. And they can dress it up
00:41:37.620
any way they want. But it doesn't change the hard facts. Yeah. You know, earlier this year, I went on a
00:41:45.300
short speaking tour. And I did it in various Legion halls across Canada, which is great. I love going
00:41:50.580
to the Legions. And in every single Legion hall I went, they were a little bit run down.
00:41:55.940
And we were talking about Omar Khadar getting the $10.5 million payment from Justin Trudeau. And I
00:42:02.180
thought, I mean, I remember going to the Legion hall in Mississauga. I thought this place hasn't had
00:42:07.780
$10.5 million spent on it by any government, conservative or liberal, in the last 20 years.
00:42:14.340
Like the building was fairly run down. I just wish one day, Justin Trudeau and the Liberals would treat
00:42:20.260
our own Canadian forces and vets as lovingly as they treat Christopher Garnier, second degree murderer,
00:42:27.940
and Omar Khadar. I find it very frustrating, their priorities. Last word to you, Lee.
00:42:32.500
Yeah. Well, I have to agree with you there. I mean, I founded a Facebook page called Veterans
00:42:40.260
for the Conservative Party of Canada. And we have about 32,500 odd supporters now. And next to the
00:42:48.100
Omar Khadar settlement and the video of Mr. Trudeau admonishing the young PPCLI corporal in Edmonton,
00:42:59.700
this has really hit a nerve with our supporters. They are viscerally angry about this misdirected
00:43:09.620
use of funds that are clearly meant for veterans and their families. And they want it stopped and
00:43:15.220
they want it stopped now. And I hope Mr. O'Regan and Mr. Trudeau are listening. Mr. O'Regan has a
00:43:23.300
Veterans Town Hall tonight in St. John's. And I'd be shocked if this is not brought up and he is
00:43:30.420
forced to address this because people are angry about it. Very interesting. We'll have to keep our
00:43:34.980
eyes peeled. Hopefully, there'll be some video footage of that. I bet someone in the audience
00:43:39.140
will have a cell phone camera at the very least. Well, Lee, it's great to have you back on the show.
00:43:43.060
Thanks very much for your time today. All right. Thank you, Ezra. Anytime. All right. There you have it.
00:43:47.620
Lee Humphrey, of course, has been on the show many times as an expert commentator on matters of
00:43:53.060
international security and counterterrorism. And he is the Conservative Party of Canada nomination
00:43:59.060
candidate in Calgary Centre. Stay with us. More ahead on The Rebel.
00:44:02.980
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about Senator John McCain passing away and why the left
00:44:18.820
suddenly likes him now that he's dead. Robert writes, you have to admire the fact that McCain
00:44:24.100
had the guts to strap himself into his jet and fly over Hanoi, risking being shot down by Vietnamese
00:44:29.700
surfaced to air missiles. It is a pity that he spent his final days as a vengeful, sore loser.
00:44:35.220
That's my take, too. We must salute the most heroic thing he ever did in his life, which I would
00:44:41.140
say is not even flying a jet into a war. But when he was captured and tortured to willingly decline
00:44:49.380
to be let go early. As you remember, his father, the admiral, was actually the
00:44:54.340
commander-in-chief of the entire war in Vietnam. So the Viet Cong wanted to release him early.
00:45:00.260
Imagine saying, no, I will stay and continue the beatings and torture and starvation that I have
00:45:05.620
because I'm not going to let myself out earlier than these other guys. That, I think, showed
00:45:09.860
character. But once he got back to America, he was just a typical politician. Not even typical,
00:45:15.780
I think he was worse than most. But let us remember his finest hour now that he has passed away,
00:45:21.220
and that was what he did in Vietnam. On my interview with Anthony Feary about Donald Trump's trade deal
00:45:27.380
with Mexico and Canada being left out, Paul writes, Trudeau's strategy of running against Trump is a
00:45:32.740
very stupid strategy. I also don't think Canadians hate Trump as much as the left think they do.
00:45:37.700
The auto industry will only be the first to go. Count on that. Well, you know, I think you're right.
00:45:44.500
I have some liberals in my family. I'm not going to name names. We all have the black sheep in our
00:45:53.940
family. And I always say, I don't bring up Trump because it's just going to lead to an argument,
00:45:59.700
but I always say, other than his personality, can you name a single thing that you object to?
00:46:07.220
And they stammer and they can't because, oh, well, he said this and he said that and he was mean here.
00:46:14.260
They don't have a substantive argument. And it's just that they've been conditioned through repetition
00:46:23.060
by the media party to say, Trump, bad. I hate Trump, drumpf. You know, I think Canadians have it worse
00:46:30.340
because we get all the late night talk shows from America that's completely anti-Trump. We get the
00:46:34.900
CBC completely anti-Trump. We're supposed to be anti-Trump. So people just say, oh, I'm anti-Trump.
00:46:41.540
I don't think they could tell you a reason why. And I think that to be pro-Trump in Canada is to
00:46:46.580
invite being punched on the street. And so I think that number is a false number. It's telling
00:46:53.700
pollsters what they want to hear. Are you against Trump? Oh, yes, I'm against Trump. I think
00:46:57.460
Trump is fighting for America first. So he, in fact, may come to be an enemy of Canada. He may,
00:47:05.860
in fact, throw us into a recession, but it's not through hostility. It's through defending his
00:47:09.700
own interests. And if Trudeau insists on standing with the dairy cartel, I remind you that Donald
00:47:13.860
Trump is the one who has revived the Keystone XL pipeline, the only pipeline to the oil sands that
00:47:18.500
will be built during Trudeau's tenure. Keith writes, what if Andrew Scheer gets into the PM's office and
00:47:25.220
is as liberal as Trudeau? Voting him in just to rid ourselves of Trudeau is not a plan. We keep
00:47:30.580
doing that and we never get good government. Well, I think that even a left-wing, wobbly
00:47:38.740
Andrew Scheer would be better than Justin Trudeau. I just think so. Not just because Andrew Scheer
00:47:44.420
himself is not as corrupt as Trudeau. We don't emphasize how corrupt Trudeau is. Remember,
00:47:50.100
he's the first prime minister to be convicted of breaking the conflict of interest laws four times.
00:47:56.260
His whole party is full of graft and corruption in small and large ways. I think how Gerald Butts
00:48:03.540
billed more than $100,000 just to move from Toronto to Ottawa. You can't even, I don't even know how you
00:48:10.420
do that, but that's how much he charged for the move. So there's all sorts of corruption. I don't think
00:48:14.340
you'd see that with the conservatives. I don't think that Scheer would be as insanely left-wing.
00:48:20.340
But yeah, he would, if he is what he is now, he would be liberal compared to Stephen Harper,
00:48:25.940
for example, certainly compared to Maxime Bernier. But my beef with Andrew Scheer is not that he would be
00:48:34.260
worse than Justin Trudeau. He would not be. It's that he won't win as a half conservative.
00:48:40.500
I was watching the other day, and we should put it up in full on our website, Doug Ford's speech at
00:48:46.260
the Federal Conservative Convention. And he had a whole section on don't let the media
00:48:52.100
scare you. Don't let the media bend you from your path. That was Doug Ford's secret to success.
00:48:58.020
That's what he told the delegates. My objection to Andrew Scheer being so soft on things is not
00:49:04.420
just that I don't want him to be soft on things. It's that I know he's not going to win if he is.
00:49:10.100
All right, folks, that's the show for today. I don't understand what kind of weird game of
00:49:15.300
chicken Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland are playing with America. I just don't think it's
00:49:19.860
going to end well for Canada. I just don't think that we're a big enough dog in the fight to survive
00:49:26.500
a fight. And I tell you, if Donald Trump called me, I just, I would never be able to come up with an
00:49:36.420
excuse powerful enough to explain not picking up the phone call. What possibly could Justin Trudeau
00:49:44.340
have said? And don't think Donald Trump missed that message. And I think he's going to wreak
00:49:49.460
his vengeance on our economy. And I think we're all going to hurt. And I say that with no glee.
00:49:54.820
That's the show for today, folks. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World
00:49:58.740
Headquarters to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.