Rebel News Podcast - June 16, 2021


EZRA LEVANT ｜ America’s late night liberals are now mocking the Wuhan virus narrative


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

163.34662

Word count

5,494

Sentence count

440

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

8

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Jon Stewart mocked the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and now America's late-night liberals are mocking it too. What was once regarded as a conspiracy theory that would get you cancelled is now spoken by the most establishment of Democrats. I have some thoughts.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Today, I marvel at a Hollywood liberal icon, Jon Stewart, the comedian,
00:00:06.560 basically ranting for 10 minutes last night about the Wuhan Institute of Virology
00:00:12.180 and mocking anyone who thinks that the virus was naturally occurring.
00:00:16.720 It was quite something, and I try and figure out what it means
00:00:20.100 that what was once regarded as a conspiracy theory that would get you cancelled
00:00:25.400 is now spoken by the most establishment of Democrats.
00:00:30.320 I have some thoughts on that.
00:00:33.300 Before I get to that, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
00:00:37.040 That's what we call our video version of these podcasts.
00:00:41.080 It's $8 a month, $80 for the whole year.
00:00:43.180 Just go to rebelnews.com and click subscribe.
00:00:45.300 I'd really appreciate it because it's how we pay our bills around here
00:00:47.980 because we sure don't take money from Justin Trudeau.
00:00:51.120 All right, here's today's podcast.
00:00:55.400 Tonight, America's late-night liberals are now mocking the Wuhan virus narrative.
00:01:12.360 How far will they be allowed to go?
00:01:14.320 It's June 15th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:18.800 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:22.320 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:26.640 The only thing I have to say to the government, the Wuhan publisher,
00:01:30.420 is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:01:37.160 I think the lockdowns and the shutdowns and the quarantines
00:01:39.980 and the harm done by politicians in the past 18 months
00:01:43.420 rivals any war in terms of sheer devastation.
00:01:47.780 This isn't a new idea or a conservative idea.
00:01:51.100 Here's a liberal newspaper, the New York Times, a year ago,
00:01:54.480 just a month into the crisis.
00:01:56.820 That was when people were still open-minded to what was happening
00:01:59.520 and what the response should be.
00:02:01.100 That's when some people still believed two weeks to flatten the curve
00:02:04.060 really meant that this would just be a quick bump in the road,
00:02:06.680 not a permanent change in our lives.
00:02:08.560 But there was just too much at stake for that naive possibility to happen.
00:02:12.440 I mean, there are nine new pharmaceutical billionaires
00:02:15.720 who each have about a billion reasons to keep the panic going.
00:02:20.200 And the public health experts, none of whom any of us had even heard of before,
00:02:25.000 but all of whom were immediately turned into celebrities
00:02:27.540 with high priest-like secret knowledge,
00:02:30.940 they had big plans too.
00:02:32.200 Donald Trump looked unstoppable before the pandemic.
00:02:34.940 The U.S. economy was booming.
00:02:36.880 There were no wars in which Americans were dying.
00:02:39.680 I mean, the pandemic was not only a reason to shut down the economy,
00:02:43.620 but also the key excuse to change the voting rules mid-campaign.
00:02:48.460 I'd have to do the math.
00:02:49.700 I think proportionately the Black Death plague killed more people in the 14th century.
00:02:54.220 The entire world's population back then was only about 400 million
00:02:57.800 and up to 100 million died.
00:03:00.800 There were plagues in other eras too.
00:03:02.360 But I'm not talking about diseases or pandemics here.
00:03:05.440 I'm talking about the man-made side.
00:03:07.440 The comparison here would be more like world wars.
00:03:11.440 If you believe the World Health Organization, then I don't recommend it.
00:03:14.980 3.8 million people have died in the entire world because of COVID-19.
00:03:18.900 That's not good, but that's nowhere near the health calamities of the past.
00:03:23.340 And you have to be skeptical about those stats.
00:03:25.220 How many numbers in the West are inflated because of how a COVID death is counted?
00:03:30.220 In many places, including in Canada,
00:03:32.180 it's anyone who dies who tested positive for the virus less than 30 days before they died.
00:03:37.380 So you actually didn't die from the virus.
00:03:39.700 You died and you had the virus.
00:03:42.560 If you need an illustration of this,
00:03:44.200 here's a PGA professional golfer having the best game of his life,
00:03:48.500 leading by six strokes, being literally interrupted on the golf course,
00:03:51.980 and being told he tested positive.
00:03:54.400 He's too sick to continue.
00:03:55.840 He didn't even know it.
00:03:56.760 So yeah, Western death stats are unreliable in that direction.
00:04:14.460 And China claims it only had 4,600 deaths from the disease.
00:04:18.240 I'm not sure if I would trust a word they say,
00:04:20.580 but my whole point here is the pandemic was comparable to a bad flu season,
00:04:25.720 but it's the man-made deaths that are staggering
00:04:28.100 that really do rival the death hole of the Black Plague.
00:04:31.920 Not in the West, but around the world.
00:04:35.160 Obviously, a lot of that is in poor countries.
00:04:37.420 But look at this from Statistics Canada.
00:04:40.700 Provisional death counts and excess mortality January to December 2020.
00:04:44.620 What does that mean?
00:04:46.420 It means every year, a certain number of people are born and a certain number of people die.
00:04:50.580 And over time, we know what is normal.
00:04:52.740 And over time, we hope to improve things a little bit better every year through better health care, etc.
00:04:58.240 So there's an expected number of deaths every year and every month, really.
00:05:03.560 And excess mortality means how much worse were things in that period of time than was expected.
00:05:10.480 Let me read.
00:05:11.300 From January to mid-December 2020, there were an estimated 296,373 deaths in Canada,
00:05:20.520 representing an excess of 13,798 deaths above and beyond what would have been expected had there been no pandemic.
00:05:27.800 This is about 5% more deaths than expected in that period after accounting for changes in the population such as aging.
00:05:33.480 All right, it's not good, but it's not the Black Plague.
00:05:38.260 But look at this.
00:05:38.980 StatsCan says that while some of that is attributable to COVID-19,
00:05:44.540 a lot of those deaths, especially for young people, is the lockdown.
00:05:49.700 The supposed cure.
00:05:50.780 Let me read.
00:05:51.160 The direct impacts of COVID-19 could not fully account for the excess deaths observed in Canada in 2020,
00:05:58.880 particularly in the fall.
00:06:00.780 In the early months of the pandemic, the weekly number of excess deaths and deaths caused by COVID-19
00:06:05.440 were closely aligned and mostly affected older populations,
00:06:09.900 suggesting that COVID-19 itself was driving excess mortality in Canada.
00:06:13.960 However, more recently, the number of excess deaths has been higher than the number of deaths due to COVID-19.
00:06:22.320 And these deaths are affecting younger populations,
00:06:25.380 suggesting that other factors, including possible indirect impacts of the pandemic, are now at play.
00:06:30.620 In translation, at the beginning, senior citizens died from COVID in long-term care facilities.
00:06:35.440 At the end, it was young people dying from the lockdowns.
00:06:38.320 Let me read.
00:06:38.780 During the fall of 2020, younger people became more heavily affected by excess deaths,
00:06:45.800 as 35% of these deaths involved individuals under the age of 65, up from 14% in the spring.
00:06:52.220 The number of deaths was 24% higher than expected for men under 45,
00:06:57.380 followed by women aged 45 to 64, who recorded 14% more deaths than expected.
00:07:03.560 By comparison, there were 6% more deaths than expected among those aged 85 and older
00:07:07.760 during the fall period.
00:07:10.780 As these shifts imply an increase in deaths not directly caused by COVID-19,
00:07:15.840 it is important to note that some deaths may be due to the indirect consequences of the pandemic,
00:07:21.140 which could include increases in mortality due to overdoses.
00:07:25.600 For example, in British Columbia, the Chief Coroner's Office has reported an increase in deaths
00:07:29.160 due to overdoses since the start of the pandemic.
00:07:32.120 Similarly, Alberta Health Service has reported decreases in both the provision
00:07:35.280 and use of substance use treatment programs,
00:07:38.380 as well as increases in opioid-related emergency responses
00:07:41.760 and deaths since the onset of the pandemic.
00:07:44.400 Overdose deaths disproportionately affect younger men.
00:07:47.820 For example, according to a report by Alberta Health between January 1 and January 30,
00:07:52.300 79% of apparent unintentional fentanyl overdoses were among men,
00:07:57.440 with those aged 25 to 39 recording the highest proportions of such deaths.
00:08:01.500 That's all a careful way of saying the pandemic isn't actually killing a lot of people anymore.
00:08:07.720 The lockdown is.
00:08:09.360 Drugs, suicide, young people in despair.
00:08:11.780 That was 2020.
00:08:13.940 And you know what we didn't measure in 2020 in Canada?
00:08:18.100 Deaths from the vaccines.
00:08:20.420 Again, don't blame coronavirus-19 for that.
00:08:23.400 As you know, coronavirus kills old people.
00:08:26.260 The lockdowns kills young people.
00:08:29.220 How about vaccines?
00:08:30.060 Well, the thing is, they're not done being tested yet, so we don't quite know.
00:08:34.820 I've read to you before, and I'll read it now,
00:08:36.600 every single vaccine that's being used on this virus is experimental.
00:08:40.520 It's still being tested.
00:08:41.700 None of them are yet approved.
00:08:43.020 All of them are just authorized for emergency use,
00:08:45.440 which helps you understand why the emergency will never be over,
00:08:48.200 because then the drugs can't be sold anymore.
00:08:51.060 Here's Pfizer's warning.
00:08:52.260 It's the same for all of them.
00:08:53.280 The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has not been approved or licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,
00:08:59.740 but has been authorized for emergency use by FDA under emergency use authorization.
00:09:05.340 That's from Pfizer's own website.
00:09:07.800 So you can use it because we're in an emergency.
00:09:10.120 But every week, there's something we learn from this giant experiment treating ordinary people like guinea pigs.
00:09:18.140 Here's the latest news.
00:09:19.080 I mean, just, I pulled this out at random.
00:09:20.900 It's from the Hill Times.
00:09:21.840 CDC says vaccine linked to heart inflammation is stronger than previously thought.
00:09:30.620 Oh, you don't say just that, eh?
00:09:33.680 Well, the risk of the virus to people under 40 is negligible.
00:09:39.140 For people under 20, the risk of the virus is infinitesimally small.
00:09:43.360 But what's this heart inflammation business from the vaccine?
00:09:48.160 Myocarditis, is that the word?
00:09:49.740 That's a new one.
00:09:50.720 So young people are just dying from heart disease shortly after taking the vaccine.
00:09:56.560 Oh, don't worry about it, though, guys.
00:09:59.720 Here's a CNN story published on CTV.
00:10:03.000 You don't have to worry.
00:10:05.580 Doctors explain myocarditis and why teens should still get a COVID-19 vaccine.
00:10:11.740 The news about a potential link between the COVID-19 vaccine and a cardiac ailment in young people
00:10:15.980 may be striking fear in the hearts of some parents,
00:10:18.580 but pediatric cardiologists have a message for these parents.
00:10:21.920 COVID-19 should scare you more.
00:10:24.720 A whole lot more than the vaccine.
00:10:27.500 Yeah, I'm sort of done being scared by the things the media tells me to be scared about
00:10:31.340 and to ignore the things they tell me to ignore.
00:10:33.880 Actually, I'm scared of the media itself and their handpicked big pharma spokesdoctors.
00:10:39.640 Hey, little people, take your Bill Gates jab. 0.75
00:10:41.920 Come on, do it.
00:10:43.020 Sure, the pandemic is statistically over, especially for young people.
00:10:46.540 And we're trying to scare you about new variants, but you're not really listening to us.
00:10:50.540 What can we do?
00:10:51.420 I don't know, maybe a lottery will get you in the spirit.
00:10:54.420 Now your vaccine shot is also your shot at becoming a millionaire.
00:10:58.640 The time is now.
00:11:00.020 Get your shots and let's get Alberta open for a great summer. 0.95
00:11:02.960 Yeah, giving away millions of dollars to people in a lottery.
00:11:05.640 Well, I guess there is a similarity to rolling the dice.
00:11:09.640 How about we let people gamble with regular lotteries?
00:11:12.460 So if they lose, they're just losing a dollar, not their health.
00:11:16.140 I didn't know Alberta had so much spirit change.
00:11:18.440 Imagine that, a pandemic so terrifying that you need to tease poor people 1.00
00:11:22.620 with a million dollar payout to get a vaccine.
00:11:25.280 I just keep coming back to this clip, though.
00:11:27.580 Why don't the staff at the FDA and the CDC, Anthony Fauci's own staff,
00:11:32.560 why are they refusing to get vaccinated?
00:11:34.520 They know more than all of us.
00:11:35.840 Okay, this question, I'm going to go to Dr. Fauci, Dr. Marks, and Dr. Lewinsky.
00:11:40.980 What percentage of the employees in your institute, your center, or your agency
00:11:47.960 of your employees has been vaccinated?
00:11:57.780 You know, I'm not 100% sure, Senator, but I think it's probably a little bit more than half,
00:12:02.320 probably around 60%.
00:12:03.560 It bothers me when adults are bribed and insulted and scared into taking the vaccine.
00:12:08.440 But look, adults are adults.
00:12:09.800 It's the kids that scare me.
00:12:13.520 In Toronto, a few weeks back, kids were being offered free ice cream,
00:12:17.860 kids as young as 12, if they got the vaccine.
00:12:20.540 And no consent from adults was needed.
00:12:22.860 Their parents weren't told or involved.
00:12:24.560 So any kids could just get the vaccine on their own,
00:12:27.400 and an adult would be there to tell them it's all fine,
00:12:30.260 and you'll get a free ice cream cone.
00:12:32.420 I wonder if kids can pronounce myocarditis.
00:12:35.980 That's so cute when kids mangle words.
00:12:38.440 I want gazpetti instead of spaghetti.
00:12:41.560 Wouldn't it be funny to hear kids say myocarditis?
00:12:44.500 I don't think it'd be funny at all, but I don't think they were ever told about it.
00:12:47.500 Do you?
00:12:48.520 I got an email just this morning from someone who says a school on the Eskasoni Indian Reserve
00:12:53.720 in Nova Scotia is offering children a lottery ticket to kids.
00:12:58.780 You can win a free video game console if you just get jabbed.
00:13:03.020 I bet a lot of kids on that reserve would love a free video game console.
00:13:07.260 Indian reserves are typically poor.
00:13:08.820 I have no doubt that the local health authority is doing what they think is right.
00:13:13.640 It's just a bit of a strange juxtaposition in my mind.
00:13:16.760 We just went through a hurricane-level media coverage of an Indian residential school in Kamloops.
00:13:24.680 These residential schools, they abused indigenous kids. 1.00
00:13:28.400 They made choices for them and their family based on a paternalistic authoritarianism.
00:13:33.300 And here we are trying to bribe aboriginal kids as young as 12 to get jabbed for a disease
00:13:39.720 that is of no statistical risk to them.
00:13:42.900 Look, it's bad news everywhere, but I saw something just shocking yesterday.
00:13:49.280 I saw the most liberal, most snide, most glib, most cynical Hollywood leftist named John Stewart,
00:13:54.840 who for more than a decade dominated the late-night liberal political talk scene,
00:13:59.960 squisitly left-wing.
00:14:01.040 Actually, I think he made a $1 million donation to the Democrats.
00:14:05.320 Democrat all the way.
00:14:06.260 I saw him on TV last night, back after a very long hiatus.
00:14:10.560 And he just let it rip about the virus and how it's absurd to think it was natural
00:14:14.960 and how it's absurd to put all your trust in science.
00:14:18.180 I want to show you the whole thing, but for copyright reasons, I won't.
00:14:21.020 Let me show you a three-minute supercut of John Stewart last night just letting it rip.
00:14:26.040 Do you mean, like, perhaps there was a chance that this was created in a lab?
00:14:29.460 There's an investigation.
00:14:30.040 A chance.
00:14:31.560 Well, but if there was evidence, I'd love to hear it.
00:14:34.460 I just don't know.
00:14:35.180 There's a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China.
00:14:40.680 What do we do?
00:14:41.660 Oh, you know who we could ask?
00:14:43.320 The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab. 0.94
00:14:47.300 The disease is the same name as the lab.
00:14:52.560 That's just a little too weird, don't you think?
00:14:55.280 And then they ask those scientists, they're like, how did this?
00:14:57.700 So wait a minute.
00:14:58.560 You work at the Wuhan respiratory coronavirus lab. 0.85
00:15:01.780 How did this happen?
00:15:02.960 And they're like, a pangolin kissed a turtle.
00:15:07.080 And you're like, no.
00:15:09.400 The name of your lab.
00:15:11.040 If you look at the name.
00:15:13.080 Look at the name.
00:15:14.440 Can I?
00:15:14.820 Let me see your business card.
00:15:16.360 Show me your business card.
00:15:17.880 Oh, I work at the coronavirus lab in Wuhan.
00:15:24.360 Oh, because there's a coronavirus loose in Wuhan.
00:15:26.960 How did that happen?
00:15:28.380 Maybe a bat flew into the cloaca of a turkey.
00:15:34.400 And then it sneezed into my chili.
00:15:38.340 And now we all have coronavirus.
00:15:40.260 Okay, okay, okay.
00:15:42.000 Wait a second, wait a second.
00:15:42.500 What about this?
00:15:43.340 What about this?
00:15:44.160 Listen to this.
00:15:45.040 Wait a second.
00:15:46.400 All right.
00:15:46.880 John.
00:15:47.200 Oh, my God.
00:15:48.380 Oh, my God.
00:15:49.900 There's been an outbreak of chocolatey goodness near Hershey, Pennsylvania.
00:15:55.280 What do you think happened?
00:15:56.640 Like, oh, I don't know.
00:15:58.120 Maybe a steam shovel mated with a cocoa bean.
00:16:01.720 Or it's the chocolate factory.
00:16:05.860 Maybe that's it.
00:16:07.280 That could be.
00:16:08.140 It's a local specialty.
00:16:09.260 And it's the only place to find bats.
00:16:11.460 You won't find bats anywhere else.
00:16:12.900 No, but it's like saying why.
00:16:13.920 Oh, wait.
00:16:14.380 Austin, Texas has thousands of them that fly out of a cave every night.
00:16:19.140 Every night at dusk.
00:16:20.700 Is there a coronavirus?
00:16:22.460 An Austin coronavirus?
00:16:23.920 No, it doesn't seem to be an Austin coronavirus.
00:16:26.720 The only coronavirus we have is in Wuhan.
00:16:31.000 Yes.
00:16:31.780 Where they have a lab called...
00:16:34.260 What's the lab called again, Stephen?
00:16:36.040 The Wuhan novel coronavirus lab. 0.94
00:16:38.100 You can say that now, I guess, for a year if you said that you'd be canceled, laughed at in the media party, fact-checked, called a kook, conspiracy theorist.
00:16:48.480 On Facebook or YouTube, you would be deleted.
00:16:51.600 That's just a fact.
00:16:53.540 Here are all the things you literally can be banned for saying about the virus on YouTube.
00:17:00.960 But only about this virus.
00:17:02.340 You can say anything about other diseases on YouTube, but not this one.
00:17:05.820 Or you'll be canceled.
00:17:07.320 I'm not sure if they plan to cancel Jon Stewart.
00:17:09.480 Maybe.
00:17:09.720 I mean, he's big, but they tried to cancel J.K. Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter, for having the wrong point of view on transgenderism, too.
00:17:17.940 I actually think Jon Stewart will be fine, though, because the main purpose has been achieved.
00:17:24.660 China devastated the world's economy, especially America's. 1.00
00:17:28.360 Donald Trump was removed from office.
00:17:30.880 Big Pharma is bigger than ever, richer than ever.
00:17:33.840 And you, little citizen, are more compliant than ever.
00:17:39.560 So, sure, let the clown in Hollywood tell a funny story about a lab far, far away.
00:17:45.640 Vent a little bit.
00:17:47.760 You don't really think that's going to stop you from, say, I don't know, having mandatory vaccine passports, do you?
00:17:54.720 Yeah, let the clown tell jokes.
00:17:56.620 That's right.
00:17:58.200 Stay with us more.
00:18:03.840 Stay with us.
00:18:33.840 I'll give you the case of Dr. Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto, who is noteworthy in that he actually managed to survive the cancel culture. 0.95
00:18:43.320 But he's one of the few, so few you can count them on one finger's hands.
00:18:47.200 Today, we're talking with a very effective public intellectual who lives in the popular culture.
00:18:53.680 I first met him in New York City about 20 years ago.
00:18:56.180 Back then, he was writing scripts for the kids' cartoon series Veggie Tales.
00:19:01.380 He wrote the book Amazing Grace, the companion to the film of that same name.
00:19:07.080 He runs Socrates in the City, which is basically bringing public intellectuals to speak to crowds of hundreds of people
00:19:14.520 about subjects that would be forbidden in the woke culture of today.
00:19:18.740 And, of course, he has a very popular radio and video podcast.
00:19:22.460 I'm talking about Eric Metaxas of the Eric Metaxas Show.
00:19:26.660 I've been a guest on his show once, and I was shocked to learn in recent days that he was just nuked, deleted, destroyed,
00:19:34.440 at least in YouTube, by YouTube censors.
00:19:37.560 Eric Metaxas joins us.
00:19:39.400 Now, Eric, great to see you again.
00:19:40.940 I'm glad to have you on my show.
00:19:42.580 I've been on yours.
00:19:43.520 A very, very popular show with a huge audience.
00:19:46.200 I think that may be why YouTube just canceled you.
00:19:50.200 What do you think?
00:19:52.340 There's no way to know.
00:19:54.600 All I can say, Ezra, is that I cannot shrink from speaking truth, particularly in times like this.
00:20:03.780 The idea that we in the United States of America, which is where I am, are being told what we can and cannot say
00:20:11.100 is not only preposterous.
00:20:13.460 It's deeply offensive.
00:20:15.040 When somebody tells me I can't say something, I need to scream it in their face, because this is not the way to live in a free culture,
00:20:22.700 to have people telling us what we can and cannot say.
00:20:25.200 And YouTube, I mean, my goodness, I think of the show as a family show.
00:20:30.500 I would never say anything or talk about anything that I don't think a nine-year-old could hear.
00:20:38.320 And yet they, meaning YouTube, have somehow deemed what we talk about on the show as beyond the pale.
00:20:48.080 So can you imagine I had on a liberal, Naomi Wolf.
00:20:52.740 She is very liberal.
00:20:54.700 She is a feminist.
00:20:56.220 But she was talking about vaccine passports.
00:20:58.920 She believes in freedom.
00:21:02.580 And so she was talking about vaccine passports.
00:21:04.840 That was the last straw for them.
00:21:07.260 They actually went back two months, found her interview, and cited it as evidence for why we are no longer going to be tolerated.
00:21:16.160 In other words, we'd actually been playing patty cake with them and saying, OK, we won't post anything that offends you.
00:21:21.880 So they went back two months to find something that offended them and use that against us.
00:21:27.420 So we've been wiped off of YouTube.
00:21:29.860 It's a huge financial hit to us.
00:21:33.240 But if anybody thinks that I, who was raised by working-class European immigrants who have tasted communism in their lives
00:21:40.980 and taught me to despise it and to stand against it,
00:21:44.480 if anybody thinks that I'm going to be quiet because YouTube did that, I'm going to fight all the harder.
00:21:50.860 I'm grieved for my country and for the West.
00:21:54.180 But look, some of these things have to happen for people to wake up.
00:21:58.160 Yeah.
00:21:58.400 Now, I know a lot of our viewers know who you are, but I just want to say this.
00:22:02.700 There are some reasons that I think people should be kicked off YouTube.
00:22:07.560 There are some things that go too far.
00:22:09.920 Incitement of violence, I think, would be an example of that.
00:22:12.900 But just for those who are unfamiliar with the Eric Metaxas show,
00:22:16.360 it is so mainstream in terms of being PG-rated.
00:22:21.140 I mean, some of the guests you've had on, from Dick Cavett to Peggy Noonan,
00:22:24.700 you were the, you know, I know you spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast.
00:22:28.940 I think you introduced Barack Obama.
00:22:31.080 So you're not a fringe figure.
00:22:32.560 That's what I'm trying to say.
00:22:33.820 You're successful in the mainstream.
00:22:36.100 If you were some way, way, way out there troublemaker, okay, fine.
00:22:41.140 But I think the fact that they came for you and they dug through your archive of old shows
00:22:46.740 to find something, anything, I think that shows what they were on about.
00:22:51.360 Let me ask you this.
00:22:52.020 We've been demonetized by YouTube.
00:22:54.440 We had a one-week suspension by YouTube.
00:22:57.620 But we have not been fully canceled yet.
00:23:00.720 I think that's coming.
00:23:02.560 How did they do it to you?
00:23:04.140 Did they just cancel you at all at once?
00:23:06.160 Did they give you three strikes or an out?
00:23:08.920 Well, we had several strikes, several warnings.
00:23:11.540 And so that's when we said, okay, you know, we have to go along with their creepy Marxist
00:23:16.440 community standards.
00:23:17.380 So we would no longer post something that we thought would trigger them.
00:23:22.180 And so we wouldn't post anything on YouTube anymore that we thought would trouble their
00:23:27.340 delicate consciences, which, again, is ridiculous.
00:23:31.160 But we were trying to play along, as ridiculous as it is.
00:23:37.060 But they went backwards to find things.
00:23:39.480 They did this to us before, before the absolute ban.
00:23:42.000 They banned us for two weeks, I think, because of a video conversation I was having with my
00:23:45.900 friend John Smirak.
00:23:47.620 That was months ago.
00:23:49.140 They went back to find that.
00:23:51.240 So they're probably working overtime.
00:23:52.800 Listen, evidently, they consider me a huge threat.
00:23:54.920 And they should, because I got their number.
00:23:58.280 And I think most right-thinking people have their number.
00:24:02.720 They know we're living in strange times.
00:24:04.700 And we need to fight back.
00:24:06.100 And if you do not fight back, folks, if you do not speak up, you have inadvertently become
00:24:11.340 part of the problem.
00:24:13.500 How big were you on YouTube?
00:24:14.960 How many subscribers did you have?
00:24:16.460 We had 220,000 subscribers, which, for us, was huge.
00:24:24.540 I mean, that had been growing and growing and growing and growing.
00:24:27.820 A number of the strikes knocked us backwards so that we weren't growing as we had been.
00:24:34.760 But we had been blowing up.
00:24:36.280 And it's a huge hit.
00:24:38.400 As I say, it's a financial hit.
00:24:40.040 So I hope people will go to my website, which is ericmetaxas.com, and sign up for my newsletter,
00:24:47.100 because then we can send you the video, since you're not going to bump into them on YouTube.
00:24:51.740 We'll send them to you.
00:24:52.760 Most of them are on Rumble.
00:24:54.060 But please sign up at ericmetaxas.com, because there are fewer and fewer ways for us to communicate.
00:25:01.040 And we are zealous to communicate the truth at a time when, unfortunately, it's being censored.
00:25:07.520 Yeah.
00:25:07.620 Well, I'm glad to hear you're on Rumble.
00:25:09.340 And I think you're wise to ask people to give you their email addresses or mobile phone numbers directly.
00:25:14.960 That way, you're not reliant on a middleman.
00:25:17.160 I mean, we have 1.5 million YouTube subscribers.
00:25:21.600 I'm terrified that one day I'll simply be cut off from 1.5 million friends that we've been able to recruit over six years.
00:25:28.220 I mean, and if you don't hold your own data, I mean, that's how Amazon makes a go of it.
00:25:33.480 You mentioned Rumble.
00:25:35.120 I'm hopeful for some of these alternative platforms.
00:25:38.120 There's even a couple more besides Rumble.
00:25:40.120 How have you done there?
00:25:42.380 We noticed that once we started putting videos up on Rumble, we actually got an enormous number of views there.
00:25:48.900 It made us think, well, maybe we were actually being throttled on YouTube the whole time.
00:25:54.040 And we had this false consciousness that we were being treated equally when, in fact, being on YouTube was we were kidding ourselves.
00:26:01.560 They were de-boosting us, downranking us, shadow banning us.
00:26:06.140 We're getting as many views on Rumble with less than 100,000 subscribers than we get on YouTube with 15 times as subscribers.
00:26:14.140 What's your experience been?
00:26:15.460 That has not been our experience.
00:26:18.160 I think that a lot of the stuff that I do, you know that as much as I will talk about politics and this kind of culture war stuff,
00:26:25.080 I will also have, you know, very moderate, neutral kind of conversations with celebrities or musicians or authors.
00:26:33.380 We'll talk about history and a lot of the kind of stuff that we were putting out there was not, you know, typically conservative.
00:26:41.480 It's just sort of general information.
00:26:44.120 So we don't have that kind of a niche.
00:26:46.300 And I think that it's just going to be more difficult for us, which is why I say to people, please go to EricMetaxas.com,
00:26:53.160 because there's all kinds of other information that we just we don't have a way of getting it to you anymore.
00:26:58.060 All right. Well, you know what? I'm going to invite our team to embed some of your videos from the other platforms on our website.
00:27:04.060 I know we've done that a couple of times before.
00:27:05.780 Let me ask you one last question.
00:27:06.980 I know you're so busy. You're so productive.
00:27:08.900 I mean, if it's not your Socrates in the city, it's it's books and you're still doing your show.
00:27:15.120 Something happened last night that startled me.
00:27:17.420 I did my monologue on it today.
00:27:19.280 John Stewart, who is the snidest, glibest, most cynical Hollywood liberal, totally in the tank for the Democrats,
00:27:26.540 came back on TV last night and he basically and he was very funny, by the way.
00:27:31.580 I found him very funny.
00:27:32.840 He was mocking anyone who doubted that the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
00:27:39.700 He he he just went full tilt, making the case that this came from the Chinese government lab.
00:27:48.280 And he was really mocking anyone who would dare disagree.
00:27:51.380 And I watched that. It was actually the first time I found him funny in a while.
00:27:55.400 Well, it they didn't cancel it. They put it to air.
00:27:58.840 I was watching it on YouTube, so they haven't knocked it down yet.
00:28:02.740 And I got to say, Eric, you tell me a month ago, I would have said, yikes, they're going to have their channel next for that.
00:28:10.300 Do you think they're going to try and shut him up?
00:28:12.380 Because he sounds like you and me, at least on some issues point is that things have gotten so ridiculous,
00:28:19.940 so over the top that John Lovitz, the comedian from SNL some years ago, a lot of comedians who are usually truth tellers,
00:28:31.280 they're seeing how ridiculous it is.
00:28:34.620 And so now and again, I think, listen, I think many of the older school comedians, they see this stuff.
00:28:42.720 They're disgusted.
00:28:43.400 They might be liberal, probably they are liberal, but they're disgusted with the cancel culture, with the idea you can't say this, you can't say that.
00:28:51.800 Be careful if you say this.
00:28:53.620 I think they are fundamentally disgusted because many of them are old school liberals.
00:28:58.140 They're not leftists.
00:28:59.120 And so God bless John Stewart for speaking his mind, because I think anybody who is using reason and who has common sense is going to see many of the things that you and I would see.
00:29:14.500 But it takes a little bit more guts for somebody like that to speak up.
00:29:16.960 But I think he understands he's got the bona fides.
00:29:19.120 He can get away with it.
00:29:20.980 Thank God for him being willing to do that.
00:29:23.820 There are more out there.
00:29:24.780 And look, he was on Colbert, which is as anti-Trump, anti-most of what I believe in, as can be.
00:29:34.580 So it's very interesting.
00:29:36.380 Things are breaking differently.
00:29:38.400 Yeah.
00:29:38.820 Well, listen, I'm rooting for you.
00:29:40.860 I really enjoy your stuff.
00:29:42.840 I think you are a very important public intellectual.
00:29:45.720 And I say that not as an insult, but in admiration.
00:29:48.640 I think that ideas and culture is upstream from politics.
00:29:52.960 And so the work you do, whether it's in Hollywood or kids' books or the speeches, the idea speeches that you host, they're so important.
00:30:01.640 Folks, if you missed it, the website is ericmetaxas.com.
00:30:10.040 Check it out.
00:30:11.100 Sign up for his emails.
00:30:12.640 And we'll do a better job of embedding his stuff on our website, too.
00:30:16.600 Great to see you again.
00:30:18.200 It sounds like you haven't lost your fighting spirit.
00:30:20.760 That's the main thing.
00:30:21.700 Keep it up, and we look forward to seeing what you do next.
00:30:24.580 God bless you.
00:30:25.300 Thank you for what you do, Ezra.
00:30:26.580 We love it.
00:30:27.180 Well, thanks very much.
00:30:28.020 There you have it, Eric Metaxas, folks.
00:30:29.880 Stay with us.
00:30:30.480 More ahead.
00:30:42.440 Hey, welcome back.
00:30:43.240 On my show last night, Matt writes, even in the most liberal court, I don't see any way being convicted because they were laughing.
00:30:51.400 Do better, Dan McClain.
00:30:52.500 Do better.
00:30:53.400 You know, I was just talking to the team today.
00:30:55.000 I mean, that cop is going to be the key witness, I would imagine, against David Menzies.
00:31:00.280 He's the one who wrote up the report.
00:31:01.460 He's the one who put it all together.
00:31:02.680 And he spent 15 minutes talking with me about the case, explaining the theory of the case, arguing with me about the case.
00:31:10.520 How can he now go on the stand unless he has a, I mean, just from contradictory statements alone, from showing his motives and his excuses alone?
00:31:23.500 I think he bungled it.
00:31:25.680 I was, frankly, a little surprised he talked to me.
00:31:28.100 But he did.
00:31:29.420 There you have it.
00:31:31.180 Justin writes, I would have picked the two cops who threatened to tase Ocean Weisblatt as the worst in the country.
00:31:37.580 I see what you mean.
00:31:39.380 And in another show, I categorized Calgary's cops as, I think, the meanest.
00:31:45.100 I think that's what I said.
00:31:46.200 Violent Toronto, corrupt Montreal, dumb Aylmer. 1.00
00:31:49.500 I think I said Calgary's cops are the meanest.
00:31:52.180 The way they go after those pastors, the way they went after Ocean Weisblatt, and just pure unprofessional, threatening to tase him and swearing at him.
00:32:01.360 Just unbelievable.
00:32:02.880 There are terrible police across this country.
00:32:06.280 And that's why I started my show yesterday with five minutes on the best of police, because we've got to keep reminding ourselves, because I don't want to become one of these anti-leftists, these defund the cops leftists.
00:32:20.280 I want to keep remembering the best about police, and that that's what police were and could be and should be again.
00:32:29.480 It is not a natural place for me to be anti-cop.
00:32:32.560 But because the civil liberties crisis we're in has so overwhelmed my mind, it's when I see a cop now, my first thought is, oh, great, is he going to come after me because I'm not wearing a mask?
00:32:43.880 Oh, great, is he going to come after me and not even know the law he's implying against me?
00:32:49.220 That is the feedback I have, the mental feedback I have when I see a cop in the wild, and that's not a good place to be.
00:32:57.800 Hopefully, in time, we can get back to where we're supposed to be.
00:33:01.020 That's the show for today.
00:33:02.920 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.
00:33:08.060 We'll see you next time.