ANDREW CHAPADOS ｜ Election Special with Mikhaila Peterson, Ben Benkas and T.J. Laramie (UFC)
Summary
In this special episode of The Andrew Yang Election Special, host Andrew Yang sits down with Ben Bankus, TJ Laramie, and Michaela Peterson to talk about the Canadian election, the debates, and much, much more.
Transcript
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Welcome everybody to the Andrew Says election special. Thanks for joining us. We are hot on
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the tail of the Canadian 2021 election. Joining me now in non-specific order, we've got comedian
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Ben Bankus. Ben, you're a podcaster. You are a social media extraordinaire. How are you doing
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today? Pretty good. Very lively answer. Question? Generic answer. TJ Laramie, UFC featherweight,
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at LaramieTJ on Instagram, or TJ Laramie on Instagram, at LaramieTJ on Twitter. TJ, how
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are you doing? You got a fight coming up, don't you? How is everything going? Good, man. I feel
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great. I fight November 6th at Madison Square Garden. Ben Bankus can't help himself, you guys.
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He's performing at a small bar next week. Our third and last but not least guest is
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Michaela Peterson. You know her from her podcast and, of course, her website and Michaela Peterson
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on Instagram. Michaela, how are you doing? I know you're very happy to see Ben Bankus. What's new
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with you? I'm fantastic. I'm moving out of the country, so I'm doing great. We got a lot of
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questions about that before we even start. A lot of people want to know how and why you're moving
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and they probably want to know where. You don't have to tell them that, but what made you decide
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to want to move to the U.S.? I don't like Toronto anymore. Toronto used to be cool. It was one of
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like the greatest cities in the world, I think, and it's in chaos right now and I don't see it improving
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and so I'm going to spend at least the winter in Nashville and just wait it out and see what happens
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in six months because we either fix what's going on or everything gets much, much worse. So, I'm
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hoping things don't get worse, but I'm out of here for the winter. Is this a subtle move of you getting
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hired by the Daily Wire out in Nashville? No, not at all. Okay. Ben Bankus, did you get a chance to
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watch the debates? We had two French ones, actually, and an English one. Did you get a chance to watch
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them? What were your takeaways from that, Ben? Well, no, because I have a life. I like how you
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asked Michaela how she's moving, like plane, train, automobile. No, I watched my friend send,
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my friend sent me Snapchats of the debates and he put the face filter of my face on Rosemary Barton.
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So, that's what I saw. That was pretty funny. That's the highlight for you, the whole debates
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is your face being put on Rosemary Barton. Yeah, he put a fire beard on Jagmeet. Ben really saved his A
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game, his A material for us. Jagmeet, Firebeard, Snapchat filters. TJ Laramie, how did making the
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How did watching the debates make you feel? Do you have hope for Canada after what you saw?
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Are you enthusiastic about going and voting? Or what was your response like for yourself when you
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heard all their questions being answered? I'm going to be honest, the debate didn't really
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interest me too much because the party I support most wasn't invited. So, I didn't really take too
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much interest into watching that. Michaela Peterson, do you think a lot of hope was given
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to Canadian citizens after the last two debates? I mean, we saw politicians getting angry. We saw
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them avoiding questions, arguing with each other. What was your biggest takeaway from the debates
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overall? In my opinion, the platforms are almost identical. And the person that we should have
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seen debating was Maxime Bernier, and he wasn't invited. So, that's an issue.
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A lot of Bernier loving here, I feel like, today. Ben Benkis, if you have to make a prediction,
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do you think we're going to go into lockdowns again if Justin Trudeau wins? Do you think we're
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going to have more border closures? What do you think happens if Justin Trudeau wins the next
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election? Jordan Peterson might win. Jordan Peterson will be the next Prime Minister of
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Canada. No, I think Bernier is going to win by a landslide. Bernier. I'm kidding. Okay.
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Yeah, I mean, we're all with lockdowns forever. I mean, what do you think? You think he's just
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going to let up? You think Trudeau is going to win and be like, we're all free now? He's going to win
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and be like, lock it down. And then, you know, there'll be another election in 18 months. But I
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think that's the importance of, for people who are like, I don't know, I feel like it's a wasted vote
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to vote for PPC. It's like, well, you're showing the establishment. And, you know, if anything, you're
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pissing off Eric O'Toole, because if he can't win because you voted for PPC, then that should be a
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wake-up call for everybody. Like Michaela said, you know, Bernier wasn't at the debates, so people are
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going to vote for him, I think, even more. TJ, did any of the leaders come off as like realistic
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human beings who you thought they were giving real, honest answers to the questions they were
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posed? With all the leaders, like Michaela said, the platforms are pretty similar. And like you were
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saying with the lockdowns, their lockdowns are among all the platforms too. They support everything.
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conservatives, liberals, NDP alike, they all pretty much support the same thing. So you don't really
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see too much difference between the two, or between all of them. You just see mainly just
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nitpicking at one or the other. It kind of gets boring to watch. I think the other problem is that
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we're actually in a situation where a lot of people want lockdowns. And that's the issue, more so than
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the government's wanting them, is they've already convinced people that they're a good idea. Look
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at Australia. And, you know, I know a lot of people are pissed off there, but a lot of people are
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happy to get money and not have to go to work and not have to commute and stay home with their families.
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So, you know, unless you're doing something like we're doing, or comedy, or, you know, fighting and
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traveling, or doing something interesting, if you're working a boring job, why not? Why wouldn't you want
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to be at home, right? So I think that's the bigger issue is kind of motivating our populations to not
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to strive for above mediocrity. Michaela, you talked to a lot of people on your show. Did anybody
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message you at all from overseas from the United States about the stuff that was happening during
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the debates? There was a couple clips that we'll get to, one of which got viral with Justin Trudeau
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having a bit of a meltdown. Did anybody ask you what the hell is going on in Canada right now?
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I think people have just written Canada off. To tell you the truth. Sort of. I don't think
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America cares. Yeah, sort out Australia. I mean, Australians have enough to be concerned about
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being in Australia. Americans don't care about Canada. So no, the only people who are showing
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interest in Canada at the moment are Canadians. I didn't get messages other than that. And I would
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say Canadians are concerned. I also don't know if I agree with Ben, or I'm just in a different group of
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people. But do you think people actually want the lockdowns to continue? I find it very difficult to
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believe that people actually want this to continue.
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Well, I am pretty outgoing. I walk around and I'm doing sober September. So I just talk to strangers
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now. I've been walking up to strangers and some people you'll walk up to them. It's more specifically
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around the Vax Pass. But I ask people, are you going to vote against the Vax Passport or vote for
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somebody who's against it? And a lot of people say, against it? Against it? We need it. And those
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are the same people that if lockdown happened, they'd be like, well, we need it. And they would
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blame, you know, if they are upset about it, they're going to blame the unvaxxed, you know,
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and then we'll move towards banning them from healthcare, which is pretty funny, because then if
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the hospitals are full and the unvaxxed can't get healthcare, then who the heck is in the hospitals
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Michaela, where are you getting the feeling that you think people are not for extended lockdowns?
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I would say from Uber drivers, mostly, or people on the street. I don't know. It might just be
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people I associate with, but there are a lot of Uber drivers and a lot of immigrants, specifically
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immigrants that are not happy with what's going on. So most of the people I've spoken with are...
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They don't. I've been informing them. And like, they're like, wow, we're screwed. One Uber
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driver I had, he came from, he was from Somalia. And he had had a pretty rough time in Somalia. And he
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was like, this is worse. I was like, I'm so sorry, you came to Canada in 2019. That was really bad
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timing on your part. But PPC, I've been explaining that party to people. I think it's just a matter of
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people don't understand what the party is, what the differences are, and how to vote for them,
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Politicians officially worse than pilots. Here you have it, folks.
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TJ, you're pretty outworked with your beliefs there and some of your political views. I mean,
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you're not putting out dissertations or anything, but I think we can decipher who you're supporting.
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What kind of feeling do you have in your circle of friends? I'm sure you talk to a lot of different
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people, whether it's trainers, nutritionists, that sort of stuff, UFC staff. What's your feeling
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around the people that you talk to? Are they about done with all this? Or do you think they would
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continue with it if the government put forth the request of the people to continue to lock down?
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A majority of people I actually hang around with don't support the Vax Pass and all that. But
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I do get like, I'm pretty vocal on social media. So I get a lot of opinions from just people I don't
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really know. And it's just like they're waiting for the next step. They think the next step is
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going to be what eliminates all these lockdowns, what eliminates all these restrictions. But
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that's how it's been since the beginning of just two weeks to flatten the curve. And then it's just,
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oh, now it's a couple months. Now we just got to hit these vaccination numbers. And then it just
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goes to, oh, now it's got to be 90% to 100%. So it just keeps going on and on and on. And they
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always pick somebody new to blame. Like last year, when the school season started, they blamed the
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kids going back to school. Like, it was like, they have a scapegoat every time something goes wrong,
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you know? So most people I know are getting pretty fed up and tired with it. People in my personal life.
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But as far as the political parties go, what I see a lot of in my friend group is, oh, we got to just
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get Trudeau out. Let's vote conservative, you know? But I'm like, man, it's the same thing. You're
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voting for the same party, essentially, right? So that's why you got to educate these people on what
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PPC is. I mean, they've only been around for three years, right? So some of these parties have been
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around for 100, right? So it takes a while to build up. I don't expect to win, obviously, this
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election, but to get a few seats is a substantial gain. So just to inform more people. And obviously,
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they're not giving Maxine much of a platform other than what he has on social media. So he's already
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at a disadvantage. But I think this election will definitely show a lot more numbers for PPC,
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which I'm pretty excited for. Andrew, what I think is interesting is that, you know,
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this is like my friend here just said, what's your name again?
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TJ said that, you know, they keep moving the goalposts. So you have these people basically
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lying effectively about, you know, different statistics or what, you know, what we need to
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be at so we can open society. And then they look at us, the citizens and go, why don't you listen to
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the medical experts? It's like, because the medical experts just are making things up. The medical
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experts don't believe the medical experts. If they believe them, then we would just not even,
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we'd be talking about somebody else, talking about baseball right now.
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They've been wrong on almost every mark they've said so far.
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Yeah, they just say things that are wrong. And then they're like, why wouldn't you believe what
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Michaela, I'm going to ask you about a lot of what TJ said there, because I think that echoes a lot of
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what I see in my inbox mostly is, why don't you support Aaron O'Toole? We have to get Justin Trudeau out.
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Do you get a lot of complaints about the vote splitting argument, and that the first goal should
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be getting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau out of office, and then worrying about the, you know,
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specifics of policies that should be in place after the fact? Do you hear a lot of that from your
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Yeah, and I actually had Maxime Bernier on my podcast, and I asked him that directly, which was,
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aren't you worried about splitting the conservative vote and then having Trudeau win? Because that would
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be terrible. Like, isn't that a concern of yours? And his response was, there is no conservative
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party of Canada. They are the liberals. And I was like, well, yeah, okay, but you probably just want
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to win. So maybe that's not quite accurate. But then I started looking into Aaron O'Toole's platform
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more, and he wants a vaccine passport. Like, almost all of his policies are very, very, very similar
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to the liberals. So he basically moved the conservative party over to the left to steal
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liberal votes. So there isn't a conservative party. So I'm a bit, actually, no, I've made my
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decision, and I'm voting for Maxime Bernier, the PPC. And that's because...
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Just step down and let Bernier do it? That'd be sick.
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Yeah, that's definitely not happening. Hopefully he wins, and then the PPC gets seats. But I don't
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think there is a conservative party of Canada at the moment. The conservative party of Canada,
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led by Aaron O'Toole, certainly isn't conservative.
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Caleb Pearson taking a dark turn into the realm of no hope, I think. I want to show some videos
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here. Justin Trudeau, he's been... People have been pointing out that he's been very angry on the
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campaign trail. Now, he said people have a right to be angry not more than a couple months ago.
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And then when people started showing that anger towards him, the heckling, the blocking his bus,
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and what have you, he said all of a sudden, no, those other people out there protesting this,
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they need to stop with the anger. It's not who we are. And I should have said that my best Ben
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Bankist, Trudeau impersonating. It's not who we are as Canadians. So, producer Justin, can we go ahead
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and play that video of Justin Trudeau, Justin and Justin there, talking about how you can't get on a
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plane or a train, or you shouldn't, unless you're vaccinated, because of how dangerous it is.
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You deserve better. You deserve a government that's going to continue to say,
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get vaccinated. And you know what? If you don't want to get vaccinated,
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that's your choice. But don't think you can get on a plane or a train besides vaccinated people
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and put them at risk. We need to be strong in the decisions we're taking going forward,
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and we need to put people first, which we have always done.
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Like, nobody's that passionate about anything, even politicians.
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Michaela Pearson, do you think this is going to create a two-tiered society,
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putting this many people? I mean, it's 25% of the country of Canadians who wouldn't qualify
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to be on a plane or a train. Is this creating a tiered society system like we see in some other
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100%. I watched a clip yesterday of a university professor. It was this woman who's been a tenured
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university professor for 20 years, and she's an ethics professor. I can't remember the university,
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but she got fired. Western, yeah. She got let go because she wouldn't get vaccinated because she
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said it was unethical to force, you know, vaccines or vaccines that haven't been around for a while
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on people. So I've had people, one of the guys I had on my podcast, his name's Rav Aurora. He's a
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journalist for New York Post, and he got fired from his job because he's not vaccinated,
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and his parents are potentially being fired because they're not vaccinated. So yeah, this is
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a huge problem, which is why I'm going to be wintering in Nashville.
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Ben, does this set a precedent for the ability for people to ask, mainly, I guess, government places,
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to ask medical history for other things? Are we going to go down the road where people need to
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prove that they're disabled, you know, to use a wheelchair? Are you thinking this is going to set
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a bad precedent for the future of this country? Well, I think people with herpes shouldn't be
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allowed in nightclubs. I don't know. Well, digital IDs are coming to Ontario. That's going to be linked
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to everything. But my thing is, when you go to a government agency to get even your passport or
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anything, they're just so slow and unorganized. And it's, you know, even with this vax passport rollout,
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it's going to be a disaster. The 22nd is going to be hilarious. There is just going to be people
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clamoring over each other. There's going to be fake passes left, right, and center. They're creating
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another, all of these restrictions from lockdowns, quarantine, all this stuff, it just creates more
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and more black market. And, you know, my one friend who's a lawyer said this, that basically the
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population is being trained, like the rule of law is being eroded. Because everybody's breaking the
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rules at all times, you know, and if we have Bill C-10 and C-36 come in, every, you know,
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a casual, every golf course conversation will be a federal crime. So what are we doing here? We're
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just making everybody a criminal and we just get to pick, you know, like in Soviet Union, you just pick
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who are we arresting today because everybody's guilty. TJ, as I mentioned, 26% of the population
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would not qualify to be on a train or a plane. That's one dose to people and people who haven't
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been vaccinated at all. How do you think this type of messaging, and I think it's clear that Trudeau
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has gotten angrier as his campaign has gone on. There's no doubt about that in my mind. How do you
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think people who are unvaccinated or unqualified to go on a plane or a train, how do you think this
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sounds to them? Well, I think it's pretty obvious that you're just putting these people at a lower tier
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in society compared to other people, you know, based on a vaccine status. And then we go back
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to the point where it's like previously, if you were flying internationally, you needed a test to
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fly. You needed all these things. You needed a test to come back. So my question is like, okay,
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do you trust your vaccines or do you trust your tests or do you trust neither? That like, if there's
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not other measures put in place to possibly whatever, like curve COVID or whatever's out there,
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then I'm not sure what to really believe. You know, everybody's, all these politicians are going
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back and forth. Medical professionals are going back and forth and they're not being really too
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direct with what works or what they trust or what they believe in. And as far as Trudeau goes in that
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video you just played, he's just starting to sound very desperate. And they pretty much coerced most of
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the population to get the vaccine. So most people aren't really against vaccine passports because it
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doesn't affect them. Right. So that's part of the master race now. Exactly. So they, they,
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they, if you can give someone a chance to maybe feel a little bit better, a little bit higher up
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than somebody else, they're going to take it, especially, you know what I mean? It doesn't,
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it's no nuisance to them at this point, but it's all, it's all about liability, right? Like it's
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really just businesses and companies just being like, how, what, what do we do so that we don't get
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sued if somebody gets sick? Yeah. And then, you know, and the people are like, it's not about science.
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It's about control. Yeah, it is to an extent, but it's also just the law is like such that
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everybody's trying to protect themselves and this is their way of doing it. And it makes no sense.
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Yeah. It's not logical. It's, it just has to do with, well, we don't want to be sued. So we
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better make sure everybody has to be vaxxed or blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I mean, the, that theory would
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make sense if vaccinated people were completely a hundred percent safe, you know? Well, it doesn't
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make sense, but they're just like, it's just a, it's just paperwork, right? Yeah. Like how can we,
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well, it's as easy. They're, they're coming out with this digital QR code for the vaccine
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passport. It's as easy as screenshotting your friends and using that as a big one.
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Can I have one? You guys, we talked a lot about, um, the, the party's platforms not being
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dissimilar enough for it to matter without Maxine Bernier on the stage of the debates. I want to show
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a video of Aaron O'Toole on a news broadcast where they sort of ask him how he plans on getting out
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of debt with all the spending. Can we play that clip, please? We have a massive debt here. Um,
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how do you intend, if you are elected prime minister, how do you intend to have this paid
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off so that generations are not paying for this for years to come? Great question, Melanie. We're
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spending right now, $424 million a day more than we're bringing in. That's not sustainable and that's
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leading to inflation. So we have a plan to balance the budget over 10 years, focusing on help for
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families, help for small businesses, especially services and restaurants struggling after the
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pandemic, get them back on their feet, some funds for healthcare and for mental health. We've got the
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third pillar of our plan is, is a national leadership role on mental health, but we have to get spending
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down in a way that's fair and disciplined. I love the debit card B roll. That's my favorite part of
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the whole broadcast there. Um, I want to just go off a list off the top of my head here that I wrote
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down of the things Aaron O'Toole plans on spending more on mental health, childcare, uh, restaurant
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rebates. He wants to give people money back for eating in restaurants a couple of days a week.
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No tax in this. Yeah, that's a real thing. No tax in December, um, on purchases, funding for the
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reserves and increased, uh, healthcare. That's aside from mental health and childcare, increased
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healthcare spending. Ben Bank is this plan where it's over 10 years, which essentially is elect me
00:22:01.960
twice and I'll do what I promised to do. Uh, does this make any sense fiscally to you?
00:22:07.580
Yeah, I'm really the person to ask about financial responsibility. Um, I don't know. I mean,
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if you go on Aaron O'Toole's social media, he talks about these, these issues that, you know, people,
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if the world wasn't falling apart, people would be like, yes, great. Let's talk about that. Um,
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and, and like Michaela said, he's trying to get the liberal vote. He's trying to get the woke vote.
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Um, and the people who would regularly vote conservative or in the comments going, what
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about the Vax pass? Um, and, and what is that leading to? And that is, you know, every time he
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speaks, if he's not talking about that and he just, uh, brushes those questions aside, then,
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you know, he's going to lose core true conservatives. Um, you know, and some of them are maybe are more
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radical, that are more anti-vax versus they're just pro choice, but you know, that's just the
00:23:02.560
road he's going down. And sometimes I watch some of the things he says and I go, this guy wants to
00:23:07.720
lose. Michaela, uh, how do you think Canadians feel about this ever growing debt? Do you think
00:23:14.820
that is, I mean, obviously people notice when their, uh, cost of gas and their rents going higher
00:23:20.020
and everything's exploding into, into inflation, but do you think this is really top of mind for
00:23:26.020
Canadians spending more and more money and increasing our national debt?
00:23:31.380
No, I kind of agree with Ben. I think if we're not talking about COVID and reopening or closing or
00:23:37.840
getting vaccinated or not getting vaccinated or forcing vaccinations, nobody cares about anything
00:23:42.360
else right now. It's like, are you, when, when COVID inevitably goes up in the winter, are you going
00:23:49.960
to shut down the economy again? Like, that's the question people want to know. Are you going to
00:23:54.240
mandate vaccine passports? Which I think we have a clear answer on that, which is yes. I think from
00:23:58.560
both parties, right guys, I think they're both on, are on. Isn't Aaron O'Toole saying that he won't
00:24:05.900
mandate it? Yeah. He's saying he'll, uh, let the provinces implement their own vaccine passports,
00:24:11.580
but, uh, I, I think they would still probably keep a federal one in place if I had to guess.
00:24:17.900
All the provinces are already putting one in place, so it makes no difference.
00:24:21.480
Yeah. So he, he wants to sound like he's very, uh, pro provincial rights and that it's everyone
00:24:28.020
in like none of it. Like you can't go to Walmart and none of it. If you don't have like a,
00:24:33.560
somebody look up how many Walmarts are in one of it. I'm guessing it's under two.
00:24:37.400
Hopefully one. Hopefully at least one. TJ Laramie, you're a working class guy.
00:24:41.280
You fight for a living. You, uh, do contracting, you do haircuts. What is this kind of talk of?
00:24:47.000
We have unlimited amounts of money from the conservative candidate. How does that sound
00:24:50.920
to you? Uh, well, I mean, at the end of the day, uh, like, like, uh, Ben and Michaela were saying,
00:24:58.320
uh, everybody's concern right now is COVID and whether or not we're going to be in lockdowns
00:25:03.080
again, because industries like, uh, like for me, for example, if I'm cutting hair and barbering,
00:25:07.800
um, or even training, training has been extremely hard in Canada, uh, with all these lockdowns and
00:25:14.060
things shutting down. Right. So how are we going to ensure that these people are going to be able
00:25:17.640
to make money? How are these, how are we going to stay open? You know, and there, there's no answer
00:25:22.100
to that. And there's no, there's no definite answer on any of those, those topics currently it's,
00:25:28.020
oh, if the numbers go up, we're going to lock down and they're already playing. You can already tell
00:25:31.340
they're slowly retracting things back now. Uh, and we're moving towards a lockdown for sure
00:25:36.740
within the next month or two. You know, what I think is interesting is that they only talk about
00:25:40.420
who the vaccinated versus unvaccinated with hospitalizations, but they don't talk about
00:25:46.300
that with cases. So they'll be like, there's a thousand cases. And of that 300 people are in
00:25:51.320
hospital and of that, you know, 90% or whatever are vaccinated or unvaccinated. It's like, well,
00:25:57.120
who's, who's spreading it? Is it only the unvaccinated? Because let's look at the case
00:26:03.620
numbers, who's vaccinated versus who isn't. That's, I mean, is that stupid? No. And at the
00:26:10.860
end of the day too, I mean, if you like my haircut, by the way, Oh, that's great. Yeah. My girlfriend
00:26:15.400
at the end of the day, if, uh, if these people are vaccinated and it's supposed to show you less
00:26:22.100
symptoms, these people aren't getting tested. You know, they aren't going to be getting cops or
00:26:27.100
sneezes or losing their taste and smell. So they won't be going to get tested and they won't be
00:26:31.320
bringing in the numbers that we should be seeing if they want to stop the spread so bad.
00:26:35.480
And I think a lot of unvaccinated people aren't getting tested because right. Like, like generally,
00:26:40.960
I think people who get the most tested for COVID are people who are the most worried about COVID.
00:26:46.480
The people who are wearing masks, getting vaccinated. They're the ones who are like,
00:26:49.480
do I have it? I have a sniffle. People who are unvaxxed are like, I don't know. I had a cold.
00:26:53.320
I laid down and then I, you know, I played grand theft auto for two days. You know what? So
00:26:57.720
it's very, people also, people also don't want to quarantine. Right. So if they have a cold and
00:27:03.980
they're like, well, maybe it's COVID, they don't want to go get tested so that they're being checked
00:27:08.000
up on if they're, whether or not they're quarantining. So I would say a lot of people
00:27:13.400
aren't getting tested. It's like the logic of going to a restaurant and they like, they ask you those
00:27:19.980
first of all, going to a restaurant, if you're on a date and the first question is, do you have
00:27:23.780
diarrhea on like a, to, to see if you can come to the restaurant, but who, who's going to a
00:27:29.360
restaurant and they, Oh, you have a, a, a screening test. Oh, I do have all these symptoms. I better
00:27:35.000
go home. Like, like, it's just so stupid. I think that's a, comes from the liability thing against
00:27:40.420
Ben. But it's, but it makes, it just makes people go insane because they're just like, what am I
00:27:44.640
doing? No, no, no, no. Everywhere you go, you have to go. No, no, no, no, no. I assume they're going to
00:27:49.160
trick you. And you're going to be like, actually, one of the nodes was a yes. So you have COVID,
00:27:54.640
you have to go home. So the federal debates were lovely times. And a lot of the first debate seemed
00:28:00.240
to be focused around the leaders, not wanting to talk to rebel news or, you know, try to give their
00:28:06.380
latest cool quip and clever quip to, to one of our reporters. So I want to show Justin Trudeau, I would
00:28:12.160
qualify it as a meltdown. People like Avi Amini, Jack Posobiec said that he was on the verge of tears.
00:28:17.480
Take that as what you want for how it looks to you. Let's go ahead and play that clip. This is him
00:28:22.860
responding to a reporter, Tamara. I thought it was a fairly simple question. Let's go ahead.
00:28:28.980
The reality is organizations, organizations like yours that continue to spread misinformation and
00:28:39.460
disinformation on the science around vaccines, around how we're going to actually get through
00:28:46.160
this pandemic and be there for each other and keep our kids safe is part of why we're seeing such
00:28:53.360
unfortunate anger and lack of understanding of basic science. And quite frankly, your,
00:29:02.500
I won't call it a media organization, your group of individuals need to take accountability for
00:29:10.880
some of the polarization that we're seeing in this country. And I think Canadians are cluing into the
00:29:18.620
fact that there is a really important decision we take about the kind of country we want to see.
00:29:24.840
And I salute all extraordinary, hardworking journalists that put science and facts at the
00:29:31.440
heart of what they do and ask me tough questions every day, but make sure that they are educating
00:29:38.580
and informing Canadians from a broad range of perspectives, which is the last thing that you guys do.
00:29:46.220
I want to know what science he's referring to specifically. I mean, he mentions how dangerous
00:29:51.660
everything is for children. I have the stats right here. 12 people under 20 in the country died of
00:29:57.560
COVID, 70 people under 30 and less than one, and less than 1000 people under 50. So if you span that
00:30:03.880
over six months, that's one person per day under 50 that has died of COVID. So I'm not sure exactly.
00:30:10.660
It is. We don't want anybody to die. Obviously, that's an easy thing to say. But when you're going to
00:30:14.860
call somebody an organization anti-science and then just, you know, not have the correct terminology on
00:30:21.160
your hands about how dangerous it is for children, that's really strange to me. TJ Laramie, what do
00:30:26.120
you make of that? I know that's the first time you're seeing that. How does that make you feel
00:30:29.960
with the prime minister that, you know, he hates us so much that he can't answer a question about
00:30:34.120
something? Honestly, that video, like, it's not surprising to see that kind of response from him
00:30:39.340
because it's just, it's a one source of media that's going a little bit against whatever, or just
00:30:44.860
showing the other side of what people, what people are seeing in all the other mainstream medias.
00:30:49.780
And it goes against slightly what he's trying to promote and to support where, where, I mean,
00:30:54.500
he's, he's going into the morality of, oh, if you don't get vaccinated, you're hurting other people,
00:30:59.620
you're doing this, you're a bad person, you know, where it's like, oh, and then he brings children
00:31:04.300
into it. Of course, you have to do that, you know, cause that's a, that's the last straw, you know?
00:31:08.740
But like, like you were saying, if you're talking about science and you want to talk about numbers,
00:31:14.000
kids are a little, like, there's a little difference between this and the regular flu when it comes to,
00:31:18.860
uh, fatalities, uh, with, with this virus, right? So if he's talking about science, I mean,
00:31:26.200
you just show the numbers and people can decide for themselves. It's not hard to figure out.
00:31:30.140
Ben, a group of individuals doing media together, I would think is defined as a media organization.
00:31:36.480
Does the prime minister know, why does he think it's a victory to not call us a media or media
00:31:41.100
organization? I don't know, but I'm offended that he assumed your individuality.
00:31:46.200
Is that a gender thing? I don't know. Uh, I think he's just trying to like turn on woke
00:31:53.760
people or like women, they, whatever. Cause he does look good in a suit. Can we at least
00:32:00.120
admit that he was kind of hot in that video? Um, but not for me, but like, if you were like
00:32:05.420
believing in how evil rebel was and you saw him do that, you'd be like, yeah, he's sticking
00:32:10.540
it. So he's just trying to get people he's using, he's trying to use this anger, fear thing and get
00:32:17.480
people angry. And, uh, you know, they will, like, if you were to talk to people who support him and
00:32:23.640
they'd be like rebel, they, they to say, they just regurgitate what he says. They're evil. They're bad.
00:32:29.360
It's misinformation. I like how he says misinformation and disinformation. What is that?
00:32:33.680
It's like, what do you, what's the difference? He's saying that we're doing it on purpose and
00:32:37.760
by accident because we're too stupid, I guess. I'm not sure. Um, Michaela, you're not a big fan
00:32:43.480
of Trudeau. I take it. I know you're not a big fan of mine. How does, how does Justin Trudeau and
00:32:48.800
the other leaders, uh, Blanchette, uh, Jagmeet, the coolest guy in the world. How do you think this
00:32:54.160
looks to a person who's a fan of neither that the leaders just can't take a question because it's
00:32:59.020
from, from somebody they do, they don't like, excuse me. I'm a little bit concerned that most
00:33:05.120
of the population can't tell Trudeau is not very smart. So seriously, like if you haven't figured
00:33:11.640
it out by now, then when are you going to figure it out? So if it's, if you're someone who's attracted
00:33:19.060
to that kind of response and you can't see the kind of like Ben pointed out, he's, I wouldn't
00:33:24.260
necessarily use the word manipulating, but kind of manipulating people's emotions. If you can't see
00:33:29.740
that, you're probably not very smart. And if most of the country is like that, I don't see how we're
00:33:34.860
going to make it through the winter. Like we know what he did for a living before. It's not like it's
00:33:41.260
a mystery. It's like he was a board instructor. He was a drama teacher. I remember my drama teacher
00:33:47.360
and I failed. I actually failed drama, um, because they didn't go because it was so bad. Um, and I
00:33:53.000
guarantee you his, his class was no better. So it's pathetic. It's not like he has a PhD
00:33:58.260
or something. He's a PhD in love. I think you're forgetting that. Um, I want, I want to get
00:34:04.220
to some fan questions. I put up a post yesterday, if anyone wanted to ask any questions, and this
00:34:08.680
would be the, the thing that I think sends us into the Ben Bankist stratosphere here.
00:34:12.640
This is his time to shine. I'm really trying to set them up. Well, the first question is
00:34:17.820
from Philly boy hoops, who I think has been Bankist. Um, he wanted to, when is Michaela running
00:34:22.720
for prime minister? I think we can turn that into a question of, is Michaela Peterson ever
00:34:31.180
I think you probably have more influence depending on how big your social media game is.
00:34:38.200
Like look at somebody like Joe Rogan. So no, but I'm planning on getting bigger on social
00:34:44.980
media and trying to influence things that way. Like even having people on your platform.
00:34:48.680
Um, I hooked Maxine Bernier up with my dad. So he's going on dad's podcast next week. So
00:34:54.220
hopefully that'll change things. But I think that there are better ways to, um, how do I
00:35:01.320
put this? Better ways to have some power than necessarily going into office. Plus I don't
00:35:09.080
But don't you think it's a stepping stone nowadays? Like, you know, like how Trump, like, like getting
00:35:13.700
some sort of fame or notoriety first, I think could help. And then doing it. And then doing
00:35:20.060
it. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Maybe. The president of the U.S. in our lifetime, potentially. He might
00:35:25.260
just get that fed up and run. I could, I could get behind that. Well, we'll see what the future
00:35:32.060
brings. Maybe. That'd be bad. Maybe. Or I might stay in Nashville. That would be good. That'd be
00:35:38.020
badass. I like that. President Rogan, Vice President who, Ben Vankus? Michaela? Are you a citizen, Michaela?
00:35:45.540
Is that what the secret is here? No. Okay. No, I'm not. But that'd be cool if Michaela was Prime
00:35:50.740
Minister, Rogan was President. Wow. I can get behind that. If Rogan becomes, if Rogan becomes
00:35:56.880
President, then I'll consider it. Yeah. That's a fair trade-off. Okay. The second question is for TJ
00:36:02.400
from Rob Van Barnveld, 85. What would you say to Teresa Tan if you met her face-to-face?
00:36:10.120
Oh, man. Like, I wouldn't really have words. I would just have to ask her. Like, my biggest
00:36:16.960
thing with her is where she comes up with all these make-believe fake numbers, her predictions
00:36:21.180
on all these skyrocketing waves. At one point, she was predicting Canada to have over 60,000
00:36:26.240
cases a day. It's like she's just pulling these things out of thin air.
00:36:29.580
Okay. I wanted to ask Ben Vankus, but I don't know if I should.
00:36:38.580
Okay. No, I won't. I would just, I would ask her if she's seen my work.
00:36:45.640
Michaela, if you could have one of these people on, like, Justin Trudeau or Teresa Tam, maybe
00:36:49.900
even Doug Ford. What's your, what's the bare bones most simple question you think you're
00:36:55.360
going to ask one of these people? I assume that you disagree with the way they've handled
00:36:58.640
everything. I would probably ask them, okay, say vaccines don't spread the, don't stop
00:37:06.640
the spread of COVID. What's the plan? Like, say COVID doesn't go away and vaccines don't
00:37:13.160
work very well and people are still getting sick. What's the plan? Are we still shutting
00:37:17.800
down the economy? Like, at what, at what point do we say, okay, this is around, we don't have
00:37:24.060
a great solution for it and we need to just continue, like, open up the economy and just
00:37:29.660
live with it. So, that'd be my question is just, what does it look like when we say, okay, we're
00:37:35.260
done, this is here and we just have to get through this and this is life now?
00:37:42.180
Are Doug Ford's daughters going to come on your show? I think that would be a good move for them.
00:37:46.340
Do you think that's possible, Michaela? Probably. I could reach out and see. I don't know. I don't
00:37:55.260
know. If I were them, I'd probably be staying away from controversy.
00:38:01.740
I hear you on that and then I'm going to touch on that too. They're happy to do it on social
00:38:05.540
media, but wouldn't that sort of be like if Michaela Peterson refused to comment on the
00:38:10.860
Yeah, but I mean, my brother is not around. He doesn't exist on social media, so I can see why
00:38:20.340
families would want to stay not involved. I clearly wanted to be involved. I don't know how
00:38:25.360
to fix these things. I'm not very happy with Doug Ford either. Like, he's supposed to be
00:38:28.740
conservative and he just goes, feels like he goes in whatever direction whoever spoke to him last
00:38:37.340
Sounds like they're going to be on the Ben Banker's podcast as their first step.
00:38:40.860
That should go over well. This question is for Ben Banker from Wickwire. Ben, can you weigh
00:38:45.860
in on how Howard Stern is praising the establishment and vaccines?
00:38:50.920
I don't know. People get rich and then, like, if I was rich enough, I probably wouldn't be here.
00:38:57.020
I'd not come on this show. I don't know. Like, you know, people get to that point where they're
00:39:02.780
like, what do I got? What do I give me the, you know, like Biden, give me the list. What am I
00:39:11.540
I think a lot of people who would have said differently 20 years ago, how they feel are
00:39:20.180
now on the side that you're like, I can't believe Howard Stern or so-and-so is agreeing
00:39:25.380
to this. And it's like, cause I don't know, they probably just don't care anymore. But if
00:39:29.520
it was them 20 years ago, they totally wouldn't be on board with this. And that's why a lot
00:39:34.700
of conspiracies exist because it's like, I don't know, these, um, I don't know what
00:39:40.520
I was going to say. I had, I had a thought, but he had a joke. Yes. I promise you. Well,
00:39:45.080
I do think that Justin Trudeau is always, you know, he can't, he doesn't understand why
00:39:48.900
there's so many conspiracies yet. He legalized weed and made everybody high 24 seven. He's
00:39:53.860
like, so everybody's high now. Why are they have conspiracy theories? It's like you did
00:39:57.560
that. All right. I think it's time for our last question. I want to get some predictions
00:40:02.760
from you guys, maybe a comment on how Maxime Bernier was kept out of the debates. I know
00:40:07.680
I think most of us have, have spoken to him in person at this point. Um, starting with TJ,
00:40:13.500
what exactly do you think is the result going to be from this election? Do you think Bernier
00:40:17.340
makes a big splash? Do you think Trudeau gains or loses ground? What do you think?
00:40:20.680
Uh, I definitely think PPC is going to win at least one seat, uh, in Maxime's riding
00:40:25.940
for sure. Uh, seeing two to three would be ideal, but like I said, there's a, they've
00:40:31.960
only been around for three years. They're getting zero media push at all, you know, by the big
00:40:37.560
sources, uh, no spot in the debates. People really don't know who they are, but if they
00:40:41.900
can even have any showing in the, uh, in the house, that would be, that would be great.
00:40:46.800
Mikhail Peterson, same question to you. What's, uh, your bold prediction that we should all
00:40:54.360
I think the conservatives are going to win. There'll be a liberal minority.
00:40:59.740
Uh, and I think the PPC are going to see more votes. I think going on dad's podcast next week
00:41:06.540
will help. And then hopefully maybe next round, there'll be more seen as a legitimate party.
00:41:12.280
Uh, yeah, I think the conservatives are going to win though. I think everybody's kind of fed up
00:41:20.260
Ben Bankus, are you writing yourself in on election day?
00:41:29.120
All right. How about you just say it's a question and then it's dead.
00:41:34.780
The joke was, and I expect you to know these things are mean, but you're going to vote for yourself.
00:41:38.860
Oh, well let's leave the comedy to me, Andrew. It's like when I'm doing a show and I ask an
00:41:46.580
audience member something and then they try to be funny and I'm like, no, don't do that. Just
00:41:50.700
answer. Um, first of all, I want to say what I thought before that I forgot was I was saying
00:41:56.780
about the Howard Stern and these guys. It's, it almost feels like society waited for all these
00:42:01.740
people to get rich enough that they wouldn't care about all this going on. And a lot of people that
00:42:06.940
would have been outspoken about this are like dead and gone. So that creeps me out. That's
00:42:11.280
just my conspiracy. Um, but as far as what's going to happen, I don't know. It's going to be,
00:42:16.400
you know, Aaron O'Toole and Trudeau are neck and neck. That's what they keep saying. They're
00:42:21.640
neck and neck. It's like, well, one guy, isn't one guy kind of supposed to be like in jail or
00:42:25.680
something. And then the other guy's just bald. I don't know. Hopefully burn. It would be so cool
00:42:32.260
if all the polls were just wrong. Like it was like a Trump style, just sweet. But I think it's
00:42:38.940
possible actually that the, I think it's possible that Jagmeet could win because the PPC could split
00:42:45.600
the vote. So it could actually get higher. They're at 11% or 12% now they could get as high as 20%
00:42:51.340
when the, when, cause a lot of people are closeted PPC voters and kind of everybody's going to be in
00:42:56.960
that 20%. And, you know, so it's a toss up. I think it's a real toss up. People are, you know,
00:43:02.440
if you look at the polls, it's not, but like, like, and Michaela's has the more prudent view of it,
00:43:11.600
Signing time to be Canadian. Lockdowns, who knows if they're coming again? Hopefully not. I want to
00:43:16.080
thank all of our guests, Ben Bankus from the Ben Bankus podcast on YouTube and Instagram. And of
00:43:21.380
course his Patreon, TJ Laramie, UFC fighter, TJ Laramie on Instagram fighting. What day again,
00:43:26.420
TJ? November 6th. November 6th. I'm going to be watching Michaela Peterson,
00:43:30.820
the Michaela Peterson podcast. She's fleeing the country, but thank you for joining us.
00:43:36.200
Michaela, is everything okay over there? You seem a little depressed.
00:43:39.640
I'm not, I'm not depressed. I don't seem depressed. I'm, I'm fantastic.
00:43:44.680
This is, this is just what Andrew, this is Andrew's like flirting or something.
00:43:48.240
No, it is not. Okay. Thanks to our, thanks for shutting down Andrew.
00:43:52.500
Yeah. That's what I go for. I go for the bad joke and then Ben comes in and saves me.
00:43:58.060
It's okay if you're blushing because then you almost look tan.
00:44:01.640
Thank you to producer Justin and producer Efron. Even intern Mauricio, we thank you.
00:44:06.600
Thanks for watching everybody. We'll have to cut out most of Ben Bankus' jokes.