John Bolton - October 12, 2026


Powerful Rubio Speech Shines A Light On Canadian Mediocrity

Hosted by
John Bolton
Mentioned
Marco Rubio Mark Carney Roger Kimball Bruce Croxon Jeff Ross Acropolis
Independence Calendar (Episode #38) - October 11th, 2026

Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

156.6

Word count

2,155

Sentence count

172

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

8

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel 536 AM, Monday, October the 12th. I hope you're
00:00:08.760 having a great Monday. Thank you so much for being here. I do appreciate it. And I say
00:00:14.940 this on occasion, I am getting going a little later this morning. I've been up since about
00:00:19.620 2.30, for three hours I've been up. And I don't know whether I'm onto something here
00:00:25.520 or not, but I'm going to go with it, okay? I've been trying to put two things together
00:00:30.460 this morning, and maybe they're similar. Maybe they're two disparate things, but they both
00:00:37.400 deal with, I guess the word to use here is mediocrity, which I've spoken about on this
00:00:44.440 channel before. So what am I on to this morning? I've got a couple of clips coming up. I'm
00:00:49.320 going to take you back to, I think it was February the 28th when I did a video. I'm
00:00:53.960 going to play a short clip of what I said then. I've got a clip of this man right here in just
00:00:58.360 a moment. I woke up reading this article from Roger Kimball in American Greatness. The West at
00:01:04.340 a crossroads, excellence or mediocrity. Many of you will recognize the man on the screen here,
00:01:09.200 Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The little portion of the speech right now, you should
00:01:14.000 watch the whole thing. It goes only on for 24 minutes. He's at the Acropolis in Greece.
00:01:20.140 It's just remarkable the background he's got when he's doing this speech.
00:01:23.960 And I was going to say this later in the video, but compare Rubio's speech at the Acropolis in
00:01:31.320 Greece compared to what Mark Carney said at Davos at the World Economic Forum when he talked about
00:01:37.280 the middling countries, because Rubio talks about the strength of the West, the strength of the
00:01:42.060 United States, how we're becoming more mediocre. And this is the theme of this video. Just quickly
00:01:48.280 for Mr. Kimball. His speech was a statesmanlike but also steely, confident both in manner and
00:01:54.420 substance. Rubio was speaking on behalf of the greatest military and economic power on earth.
00:01:59.120 He knew it. So did his audience. He did not swagger, but neither did he make any apologies
00:02:03.900 for the potency he represented. Rather, he issued a series of clear-eyed affirmations.
00:02:09.140 What he affirmed were the struggles, political, intellectual, martial, that defined Western
00:02:13.840 civilization and made it a world-conquering and world-enriching force. And what was I thinking
00:02:20.060 about this morning when I read this? I thought about a video I did way back in February,
00:02:27.760 and this is it right here. This is the thumbnail from it. Escaping mediocrity,
00:02:32.860 becoming hopeful, the road to recovery starts with acceptance. And I also thought about this
00:02:40.360 article here. I don't know why, but I thought about how mediocre Canada was when I read this
00:02:45.480 article right here. More on this in just a moment. Supreme Court split over sentencing
00:02:51.640 when the offender and the victim are both indigenous. It's another sign of the mediocrity 0.99
00:02:56.940 of Canada. So what I want to do right now, again, I don't know whether I'm onto something here,
00:03:02.300 but it just goes to show you the mindset that we have in Canada now.
00:03:07.440 we have the most powerful country in the world directly to our south where we can't get a trade
00:03:13.540 deal with them right now which we desperately need it's not even being discussed meanwhile
00:03:17.760 Carney is shifting us over to Europe where there's a lot of mediocrity right now so more
00:03:23.580 on that in a moment but let's watch Marco Rubio just a couple of minutes of his speech
00:03:28.940 with this amazing backdrop the Parthenon Athens Greece here's what the Secretary of State had to
00:03:36.160 say
00:04:06.160 You don't have to do undercast, but not even a description or downscrai as you already know.
00:04:13.220 You know?
00:04:15.520 Then, you learn the black of white.
00:04:20.520 Like looking at?
00:04:23.040 dice summon the black thereoccaps, which are the worse minerals,
00:04:27.600 that are the way to in the dust, we know results Dealers and age 3 through the fire of the fire,
00:04:35.600 I'm going to go, just step forward with great solution.
00:04:39.600 I'm going to try the patients that was there going to fight,
00:04:44.600 or to strive, or to support.
00:04:49.600 I'm going to work from the best, just to know what's going on.
00:04:54.600 I'm going to try, and in the best,
00:04:56.600 I'm going to feel the same,
00:04:58.600 but the very things I've been in succession.
00:05:00.600 I've got the powers that I've achieved
00:05:02.600 the children who set us apart and are ready to grow our prosperity, somehow to be able to see a certain effect.
00:05:10.600 We might not be able to see a significant effect.
00:05:15.600 Our customers continue to thrive.
00:05:18.600 So we can forget our monuments.
00:05:20.600 We can't have our own history.
00:05:22.600 We continue to play in the corner of our children with a shame.
00:05:25.600 We can't seem to be able to help.
00:05:28.600 He says, quote,
00:05:49.380 We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average, the ordinary, the mediocre, unquote.
00:05:57.620 He goes on to say, the world nationalism became a dirty word. We taught our children to be ashamed
00:06:03.400 of the countries they would inherit. And I would suggest to you that this is part of that,
00:06:09.700 ladies and gentlemen. You're meant to feel guilty and ashamed because of things that happened in
00:06:15.380 the past that you really have no control over, that you aren't responsible for. But we get
00:06:20.980 articles like this. You know, I wrote down, I don't even know whether this makes sense. I've
00:06:24.700 read it half a dozen times, but I think it does. We discriminate against people based on their race, 1.00
00:06:30.220 which would be me and you because we're not indigenous, to virtue signal and show us we 0.61
00:06:35.320 don't discriminate against people based on the race. Supreme Court split over sentencing when
00:06:40.400 the offender and the victim are both indigenous. This is a sign of mediocrity in this country.
00:06:44.840 You know, do you know who Lady Justice is? This is Lady Justice right here. She has a scale 0.98
00:06:52.160 weighing both sides because each side gets a say when it comes to defending somebody in court.
00:07:00.500 This is the most important part. She has a blindfold on, which this story shows that the
00:07:05.100 court doesn't have a blindfold anymore, ladies and gentlemen. The blindfold means impartiality. 0.89
00:07:10.540 You don't see what the person looks like. You make your decision. Justice is blind, right?
00:07:17.040 and down here is the justice itself carrying the sword. I saw this tweet yesterday. This is the
00:07:24.180 mediocrity that is Canada in one little tweet from Cedar Grove Weather Hub. If an indigenous guy 1.00
00:07:30.820 beats your wife up, he gets a reduced sentence in Canada because he's indigenous. If he beats
00:07:35.480 up his own wife, he's supposed to get a longer sentence because she's indigenous, but he can't 0.99
00:07:40.460 because he's indigenous. Effing clown country. How mediocre is this? And this is the way we are 1.00
00:07:46.100 was so many things in this country. Let's go back to my clips. This is a three-minute clip of me back
00:07:52.020 in February. Now, it's fascinating that Rubio was in Greece when he made this speech a couple of
00:07:58.240 days ago. And what I'm referring to here started in ancient Greece, talking about the mediocrity
00:08:04.600 of Canada. Jeff Russ, there is nothing morally superior about a silver medal at the Olympics,
00:08:11.380 but it was the sub-headline that really got my attention. It's highlighted in blue.
00:08:17.560 Can we banish this cult of mediocrity? And when I read that, I did a facepalm.
00:08:25.000 Oh my God, finally somebody at a national level is talking about this.
00:08:29.880 Thank goodness they're pointing this out. It's something I've been talking about for quite some
00:08:34.600 time here. Canada, land of mediocrity, accept it, normalize it, perpetuate it, and vote for it.
00:08:44.400 Too many Canadians are comfortable with second place, even to the point of celebrating it.
00:08:49.320 In the final showdown of the men's ice hockey tournament at the Milano Cortina Olympics,
00:08:54.920 the United States beat Canada in overtime to take the gold medal. A normal mature country
00:09:01.380 rather, would recognize the game as a painful defeat, a source of short-term anger, possibly
00:09:07.060 long-term bitterness, and a cause for self-reflection. Some Canadians did that, but others tried to
00:09:12.940 pretend that a silver medal was some sort of moral victory for the country. Quote, I'd rather be a
00:09:20.080 Canadian with a silver than an American with a gold, unquote. A quote that Bruce Croxon, a former
00:09:27.020 CBC presenter approvingly posted on X as he tried to turn second place into a sort of deranged
00:09:33.520 sacrament. Let us be serious. Taking pride in being the runner-up is reserved for underdogs.
00:09:43.080 Look into my face. I don't know who said this.
00:09:48.380 If you come in second, you are the first loser. I don't even think at the original Olympics they
00:09:56.180 had second and third place. I think giving second and third place at the Olympics is akin to a
00:10:02.080 child's soccer game where you don't keep score and you hand out participation medals at the end of
00:10:07.060 the game. That's what second and third place is. But this is indicative of what Canada does.
00:10:12.680 We accept mediocrity. We do this with everything. I get it all the time online. Alberta wants to
00:10:20.200 excel, wants to be the best, can be a lot better, but we're held back by Canada.
00:10:26.320 What are you whining about, Albertans? The oil and gas industry made record profits last year.
00:10:32.040 Yeah, but if you'd have just got out of the way and let us become exceptional,
00:10:35.680 we'd have done a lot better. That's why I want Alberta independence. The same attitude creeps
00:10:40.320 into everything. And Canadians have this holier-than-thou, self-righteous, morally superior 1.00
00:10:45.720 your attitude. And I'm not saying this to be mean. It brings us to the message of hope here. 1.00
00:10:52.360 To get better, you have to acknowledge the problem. Are you acknowledging the problem?
00:10:59.500 Are you? I mean, Rubio had the sense to stand up there. Again, we hold the most exceptional
00:11:05.540 things among us hostage to the average, the ordinary, the mediocre. The Canadians,
00:11:12.700 Albertans are being held hostage by the Liberal Party of Canada. Pretty mediocre. You elected 0.64
00:11:17.780 them again. I mean, how mediocre is it to have to bail out people because they're losing their jobs
00:11:24.400 because of what the government is and is not doing? We have to feed people in this country.
00:11:28.700 They can't feed themselves anymore. We have to drop gas taxes because people can't afford
00:11:33.520 gasoline anymore. Our health care system is rather mediocre. Could be better. Mention that you want
00:11:38.820 more private care. You're talking about the American system. Bring up the Americans because
00:11:43.500 Canada is rather mediocre. Alberta has to accept begging to Mark Carney and the liberal government 0.83
00:11:50.020 in Ottawa to get a pipeline out here. Our premier is doing that right now. Pretty mediocre. We want
00:11:55.680 to be exceptional out here, as I said in that video back in February. You know, we're running
00:12:04.000 up deficits, $65, $70 billion right now. That was totally unacceptable. Not very long ago,
00:12:10.480 ladies and gentlemen, you're accepting it. You're accepting the mediocre.
00:12:15.880 I mean, this is a great quote, Alexis de Tocqueville, the American Republic will endure
00:12:21.620 until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
00:12:25.120 You can just substitute Canada into that. That's true. What is Mark Carney doing?
00:12:30.680 We've got the most powerful country in the world, represented by Marco Rubio in Greece at the Acropolis, making that speech.
00:12:37.560 Watch the whole thing. It's great.
00:12:39.340 We've got the most powerful country in the world with the biggest economy to the south of us.
00:12:43.520 Mark Carney wants to be part of the European Union.
00:12:45.900 He's getting the foot in the door. We might end up completely in the door before very long.
00:12:51.100 Von der Leyen's coming here at the end of this month.
00:12:53.040 most powerful country in the world or what you're seeing in this right here europe suicide pact
00:13:02.300 are the big three european powers and a couple of the smaller ones all collapsing at once this is
00:13:07.860 the reality of europe right now talks about germany france you know what's happening in
00:13:12.580 france and you're aware of what's going on in england right now let me know what you think in
00:13:17.880 the comments. I don't know whether I'm on to anything here, but it's a great speech. Watch
00:13:22.900 what Marco Rubio says. It's beautiful to see. The backdrop is remarkable. The sun, I believe,
00:13:29.880 is going down as he's doing this. It's just beautiful to see. And what he says,
00:13:34.900 it's so powerful. Thanks for watching. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up,
00:13:41.340 subscribe to the channel, ring the bell for notifications. I'll see you in the next one.