Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Canada’s worst finance minister is now working for Ukraine — what could go wrong？

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. I think I can prove that Chrystia Freeland was trying to keep it a secret

00:00:05.700 that she was hired by Ukraine while sitting as a Canadian MP. I'll show you the timeline. I just

00:00:12.820 can't get it out of my head. But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News

00:00:16.940 Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. I want you to see not only that monologue that I do,

00:00:22.520 but my interview with Alexa Lavoie, where we talk about what she saw on the streets of Miami

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00:00:43.920 You're listening to a Rebel News Podcast.

00:00:46.340 Tonight, Canada's worst finance minister is now working for Ukraine. What could go wrong?

00:01:01.180 It's January 6th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:03.720 You're fighting for freedom. Shame on you, you sensorism bug.

00:01:16.340 It's January 6th today for the Democratic Party of the United States. That's their

00:01:24.460 Pearl Harbor, or as my friend Gavin McInnes calls it, the great meandering as a number of

00:01:31.600 pro-Republican protesters walk through the halls of Congress, but abiding by the velvet ropes. It was

00:01:38.960 quite a thing. I don't know if I would call it a riot. The only person killed that day was Ashley

00:01:44.160 Babbitt, a protester. But an enormous number of people were arrested and kept in solitary

00:01:50.140 confinement for years. It was a significant proportion of the FBI was dedicated to punishing

00:01:56.160 those political trespassers. I'm not for breaking windows, and I'm not for trespassing. Let me make

00:02:01.200 that clear. But that was called by half of the Democratic establishment the worst day in American

00:02:07.180 history since, I don't know, some of them said since Pearl Harbor. Anyways, that's January 6th for you.

00:02:12.780 And I remember when the truckers started to muster in Ottawa four years ago, Justin Trudeau said these

00:02:19.480 are our January 6ers. This is our insurrection. Didn't turn out that way, did it? In fact, it was

00:02:26.140 the beginning of the end for him. Well, that just happens to be the date, and I thought I'd say a few

00:02:31.300 things about that. But today I want to talk about a Canadian scandal. I want to give you a timeline of

00:02:36.960 a scandal. And I think it's actually quite a serious one. Christia Freeland, the former finance minister,

00:02:44.660 former, she had various portfolios under Justin Trudeau. She was offered a job by the country of Ukraine

00:02:52.480 on December 22nd. Vladimir Zelensky, and I assume they're somewhat friends at least,

00:02:59.460 offered her a job as a senior economic advisor December 22nd. She told Mark Carney about it on

00:03:07.360 December 24th, which I suppose is quick enough. But they decided to keep it a secret. And I think I know

00:03:16.320 why. She was hired on December 22nd. She told Mark Carney on December 24th. And they kept it a secret

00:03:23.740 because three days later, on December 27th, Mark Carney and Christia Freeland gave another $2.5

00:03:32.900 billion to Ukraine without revealing her secret job. They didn't tell anybody on purpose.

00:03:42.140 It was Vladimir Zelensky himself who broke the news yesterday. And I think it was accidental. That

00:03:49.120 is, I don't think that Carney or Freeland knew that his office was going to tweet about it. They didn't

00:03:55.980 realize what was going on in Canada, that it was hush hush. It had been a secret. And I think it caught

00:04:01.980 a lot of people off guard. Here's what Zelensky said. He said, today, I appointed Christia Freeland as an

00:04:08.860 advisor on economic development. Translation, getting money from other countries in the world.

00:04:15.700 Christia is highly skilled in these matters and has extensive experience in attracting investment

00:04:21.300 and implementing economic transformations. Does she really? Is she an expert in attracting 0.93

00:04:28.740 investment? Can you think of any investment she's ever attracted to Canada? Economic transformations,

00:04:34.640 I suppose, if that means setting us up for a record deficit and not even bringing in a budget,

00:04:40.920 by the way. I think she was Canada's worst finance minister. Economic transformation, that's a very

00:04:46.580 neutral way of saying she wrecked the economy. Let me keep reading the tweet. Right now, Ukraine needs

00:04:51.440 to strengthen its internal resilience, both for the sake of Ukraine's recovery, if diplomacy delivers

00:04:57.480 results as swiftly as possible, and to reinforce our defense, if, because of delays by our partners,

00:05:03.160 it takes longer to bring this war to an end. I don't know what that means by delays by our partners.

00:05:08.840 I am grateful to everyone who is ready to support our state and our engagement with partners. Glory to

00:05:14.680 Ukraine. I don't, I can't think of any investment that Christia Freeland brought to Canada. I know she used a lot of 0.67

00:05:22.280 tax dollars to fire hose the money at a lot of automakers, most of whom have pared down their

00:05:28.120 operations in Canada. Anyways, they spent tens of billions of dollars on electric vehicle battery

00:05:34.040 plants, and those have just turned into disasters. I think maybe that's what she means by an economic

00:05:39.660 transformation. I think what she's most remembered for, besides the massive deficit and besides refusing 0.74

00:05:48.760 or failing to bring in a budget in her last year, is when she froze and seized bank accounts of her 1.00

00:05:56.440 personal enemies without any legal process. And when it was later challenged before the federal court,

00:06:03.000 it was found to be unconstitutional and illegal. Christia Freeland is a bit of a thug 1.00

00:06:10.440 who had her enemies debanked until a court overturned it. I think she's useful to Ukraine for one

00:06:18.200 reason only to bring in more cash from Canada. And maybe a secondary reason would be how to deal

00:06:24.840 with people who oppose the regime. Now this issue blew up and I think Freeland thought that she needed

00:06:31.960 to tamp it down because she wrote this obviously hastily drafted tweet. She said, Ukraine is at the 0.70

00:06:39.480 forefront of today's global fight for democracy. And I welcome this chance to contribute on an unpaid

00:06:45.720 basis as an economic advisor to President Zelensky. In accepting this voluntary position, she's

00:06:52.760 certainly emphasizing that, isn't she? I will be stepping aside from my role as the prime minister's

00:06:58.120 special representative for the reconstruction of Ukraine. So she hasn't stepped away yet. When she

00:07:03.720 made the $2.5 billion gift, she hadn't stepped away. She's using future sense. I will be stepping aside.

00:07:11.080 In the coming weeks, I will also leave my seat in parliament. Wait, why not now? Why not back on

00:07:19.720 December 24th or December 22nd? I want to thank my constituents for their years of confidence in me.

00:07:27.160 I'm so grateful to have been your representative. She really wants to emphasize it's an unpaid volunteer

00:07:33.400 position. That's not relevant. What's relevant is that she has two masters at once. She's riding two 0.99

00:07:41.640 horses at once. Whose side is she on in the negotiation? Canada's or Ukraine's? You have to

00:07:48.600 pick a lane, sister. I understand she actually has left Canada and moved to the UK because she has a 0.90

00:07:54.840 third iron in the fire. She apparently is in charge of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust, Cecil Rhodes,

00:08:01.640 the great industrialist of Africa, set up this enormous scholarship fund for Oxford.

00:08:06.840 And I think he would be appalled to know that Chrystia Freeland, a Marxist globalist,

00:08:11.480 is in charge of her. Anyways, I don't think that she really lowered the temperature by saying that

00:08:17.240 she was unpaid. In fact, I think she sort of looked really defensive about that. It's not if she's being

00:08:23.080 paid. It's what she's doing and whose side she's on. You have to pick a country. And especially if those 1.00

00:08:29.320 two countries are negotiating or working together, you can't be for both countries. And they both

00:08:34.760 might be noble countries doing a noble thing, but you can't negotiate with yourself. So here's Mark

00:08:40.520 Carney's attempt to mop the whole thing up. He said,

00:08:43.640 Thank you, Chrystia, for your important work as Special Representative for the Reconstruction of

00:08:49.560 Ukraine. By the way, there has been no Reconstruction of Ukraine. There's still a war going on. All that's

00:08:55.480 happened is Chrystia Freeland has helped liberate another $2.5 billion from Canadian taxpayers last

00:09:01.240 week. You are uniquely qualified for this important new role. It is a further credit to Canada's steadfast

00:09:08.120 support for Ukraine that a Canadian is taking on this role at this crucial moment for Ukraine's future.

00:09:13.560 Canada will continue to stand with Ukraine to ensure a just and lasting peace.

00:09:19.480 It's true. Canada has shoveled billions of dollars over there. I'm a little bit worried about that,

00:09:25.800 though. Here's a story from the Carnegie Endowment. It's about Ukraine corruption scandals.

00:09:31.960 Unfortunately, Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. So is Russia, 0.97

00:09:36.920 by the way. But especially when you put $100 billion with the donations in just three years,

00:09:43.960 that's so much money. That's such a staggering amount of money sloshing around. And liberal

00:09:51.080 newspapers like the New York Times, it's so bad that even they feel like they have to write about

00:09:56.680 it. Corruption surrounding Zelensky himself. If the New York Times is saying that, given how

00:10:02.120 advocates, how strong they are in advocating for Ukraine, you know it must be pretty bad. 0.94

00:10:09.640 Here's the point. You cannot have two masters, but Chrystia Freeland always has. She's always had 0.52

00:10:15.160 other loyalties, including she's serving for years on the board of the World Economic Forum.

00:10:21.720 You'll recall that before she was elected to parliament, she was George Soros' authorized biographer,

00:10:27.480 and she became Soros' man on the inside of the Canadian government. You might recall that she

00:10:33.000 set up the first meeting between Justin Trudeau and George Soros at the 2016 Davos World Economic Forum

00:10:39.880 meeting. She's always been working for the World Economic Forum and George Soros. It's no surprise

00:10:45.080 to me that she's abandoning Canada. Freeland was always too close to this Ukraine issue, I think.

00:10:51.960 I mean, I understand she's ethnically Ukrainian, and frankly, I don't know if you know this about me,

00:10:56.600 but I'm originally from Ukraine four generations ago in my family, too. I'm not hostile to Ukraine at

00:11:02.920 all. But her advocacy felt personal, not national or public. She bought a condo in Kyiv a few years

00:11:10.840 ago. It just felt like this was a personal project, and she probably lost her bearings a bit. Let's be

00:11:16.440 honest. She's not an economist. She has no training as an economist. She's not a banker. She is actually 1.00

00:11:23.960 terrible at managing her own finances. When she moved back to Canada, she had to borrow money from

00:11:28.760 her parents to buy a house. She was in her forties. I'm not making fun of people who can't afford a 1.00

00:11:33.080 house. I'm just saying to call this woman a master investor economist banker is not true. She has one

00:11:39.000 skill to get money from Canadian taxpayers to Ukraine. Vladimir Zelensky has identified that's

00:11:45.640 a very valuable skill from Zelensky's point of view. But it's illegal for a former cabinet minister

00:11:52.520 to lobby her government, especially if her job in Canada was the Ukraine file, which it has been under

00:12:02.280 Mark Carney, to now lobby Canada for funds. That's actually against the law. There's a cooling off period.

00:12:09.160 Before lobbying, she didn't even wait until she was done work for Canada. I mean, that cooling off 0.95

00:12:13.880 period starts when you leave the Canadian government. It didn't even contemplate someone being a foreign

00:12:18.120 lobbyist while working for Canada at the same time. And then there's that minor matter that her own

00:12:24.680 constituents have no MP and they were kept in the dark. Don't you think it's gross? She disclosed to Mark

00:12:29.960 Carney that she had this new job in December, but they kept it a secret from her own writing. You know,

00:12:37.880 Carney likes that because he's trying to reverse engineer a majority government. So she,

00:12:42.840 he doesn't want Chrystia Freeland to leave. I think that they would have kept this secret

00:12:47.080 a lot longer if they could have gotten away with it. This whole thing is so gross and it's so

00:12:52.040 Canadian as a scandal. It's so liberal party corrupt, isn't it? You know, we're doing something

00:12:57.240 about a rebel news. We got a petition and last I checked, we had 8,600 people who signed saying

00:13:03.080 that Chrystia Freeland must be fired. And we're deploying our billboard truck with in, I don't 0.96

00:13:09.160 know if you know this, but her riding, which is called University Rosedale is not too far away from

00:13:13.800 our office. We're going to have the truck going around her riding, pointing out that she has actually,

00:13:19.160 it's an absentee MP doesn't even work for Canada anymore. She works for a foreign nation. If you

00:13:25.000 want to sign our petition, go to firefreeland.com. It's just a disgrace though. I wonder how long

00:13:32.200 she'll be able to stick around in parliament. If I had to guess with the CBC's help, she'll stick

00:13:38.840 around as long as she likes. Stay with us more ahead. Well, Saturday morning, I woke up early

00:13:53.800 to the news that Donald Trump had ordered the US military to do a daring raid to go straight into

00:14:00.360 the heart of Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, right into the heavily fortified presidential

00:14:07.000 palace, go right in and scoop up, raid, snatch. Trump's enemies would say abduct or even kidnap

00:14:16.520 the tyrant dictator of Venezuela, a man named Nicolas Maduro and his wife,

00:14:22.040 and to bring them back to America to face criminal charges for drug trafficking. Understand that they

00:14:28.920 went in not to conquer or to defeat or to invade, but to grab the guy who called himself president.

00:14:36.440 Now that was a point of contention right there because of course the United States, both under

00:14:40.760 Republicans and Democrats, Canada, the European Union, and most countries around the world

00:14:46.040 had concluded that no, Nicolas Maduro was not in fact the president. He was a usurper. He was

00:14:53.000 a false president who lost the election, but simply refused to leave the palace.

00:14:58.440 The country remains under the governance of Maduro's cadres. His deputy was sworn in as his successor,

00:15:10.120 and Maduro's own son was there to market. The Iranian, Chinese, and Russian diplomats

00:15:16.840 were among the first to congratulate his successor. It was not a regime change yet that might happen.

00:15:24.440 It was very complex. It's very difficult. And there's so many things happening behind the scenes

00:15:31.080 we simply don't know about. It's also a situation that we can't send reporters in. There's no way

00:15:37.720 that we would risk sending reporters into Caracas. By the way, it's one of the most dangerous cities in

00:15:42.360 the world from a simply crime point of view, let alone political crimes. And one of the things we

00:15:47.960 learned after the snatch raid of Maduro was that his security was completely made up of Cubans,

00:15:56.440 which is very odd. Venezuela has men who can have firearms. But of course, there's two reasons

00:16:02.040 to have Cuban bodyguards if you're a Venezuelan president. The first one is you might not be able

00:16:06.920 to trust Venezuelans because they might think we've got to get rid of this tyrant. And a Venezuelan might 0.99

00:16:13.240 have a greater emotional connection to Venezuela rather than to a usurper dictator. The second

00:16:19.400 reason is a Cuban reason, because while you're protecting Maduro, you're also have him on a leash.

00:16:27.000 You are also telling him what to do. He's your puppet. And for decades, Cuba has provided the muscle 0.88

00:16:33.400 in Venezuela. Armed militias called collectivos would go around and do the dirty work of the regime.

00:16:39.400 Cuba has deep interests in Venezuela, especially oil. Very, very interesting times. I think a moment

00:16:45.960 will come when Venezuela will be free and we will send rebel reporters to Caracas to talk to the

00:16:51.400 people. That time is not yet. But what we did do, as you saw, is immediately send down Alexa Lavoie,

00:16:59.320 our reporter based in Montreal, and Efrain Oswaldo Flores Monsanto, sometimes known as Efron,

00:17:06.040 who is our head of video. And those two went straight down to Miami and both of them know Spanish.

00:17:13.960 And they were able to talk to the Venezuelan community, the exile community in Miami. We've

00:17:19.160 been running reports since Saturday on the subject. I'm delighted to be joined now by Alexa Lavoie,

00:17:25.640 who is now safely returned to the snows of Montreal. Alexa, great to see you again. Thank you for going down

00:17:31.880 to Miami. Of course, it looked like a nice break from winter, but you were there to work.

00:17:38.360 Yeah, it was short and sweet. And what we did, we went straight in the heart of the Venezuelan 1.00

00:17:46.520 community exile in the wrong. So I didn't even see the sea. I didn't see the water, nothing. 0.66

00:17:54.360 I'm just joking around because, of course, I was in Toronto freezing my tush. But there were so many

00:18:01.640 heartwarming and heartbreaking interviews you did. Tell us your impressions. You interviewed probably

00:18:10.040 a dozen people. More than that, you were just surrounded by hundreds of people. Who were they?

00:18:15.720 What was their mood? Were they hopeful? I mean, Venezuela is not yet free. The tyrant is in handcuffs,

00:18:22.680 but a new tyrant has sprung up sort of like a many headed hydra where you cut off one head

00:18:29.000 and two heads reappear. So they're not quite free yet. But tell me how they felt. Were they

00:18:35.240 excited? Were they hopeful? Were they exultant? Were they worried? What was the feeling?

00:18:40.120 During two days, we saw a celebration. What I heard so far is that early morning on Saturday,

00:18:52.600 as soon as they heard the news, they took the street to celebrate. They celebrated all day long. And

00:19:00.760 that celebration continued on Sunday. And everybody are unanimous. They are so happy. They are happy to

00:19:12.120 see what is going on. And what they say is like they voted for this. They wanted this to happen.

00:19:19.400 Because mainly we see leftists and Democrats saying that, oh, it was a violation of federal and

00:19:25.720 international law. And also we see the leftists saying, oh, this is a selfish act. They just wanted

00:19:32.120 to have the oil. But everybody on the ground, what they say, we never touched our oil anyway. It was

00:19:41.880 either China or Russia or other foreign country who wanted our oil and we never touched any penny from

00:19:50.760 that. So if we receive freedom in exchange, we will take it and we will be more than happy

00:19:58.200 to give our oil to the U.S.

00:20:00.760 Trump was the only one who helped us. And well, if we have to recognize him, we have to thank him

00:20:07.640 too, because he took us into account. There are other countries that live in

00:20:11.640 dictatorship and they still haven't been able to leave. They gave us the opportunity and we have to

00:20:15.800 take advantage of it. Venezuela has many intellectual resources. There are many professionals,

00:20:20.360 doctors, engineers, architects, who are outside of the country. And that is going to be part of what we are going to

00:20:26.520 reconstruct the country. This is untrue when people are saying, oh, you know, like it's a selfish act

00:20:32.200 because it's not only for oil, it's also for foreign influence. As you mentioned, um, the land of

00:20:42.040 China, Russia, Hamas, Ebola, who is, uh, touching the ground in America. But the thing is people have

00:20:51.000 still some family over there. They are worried about them. Uh, some of them flee their country under

00:20:59.400 Chavez or Maduro. And most of them, it's because they were critic of the regime. And there were some

00:21:08.680 people who actually refused to collaborate with Chavez when he wanted to spy on either employee or on

00:21:19.480 the population. So because of that, they had to flee because, uh, if they didn't flee, they will be

00:21:26.120 in jail as at the moment. What I've been told so far, more than 800 political prisoners are still in

00:21:34.920 Venezuela. Actually, uh, we were living pretty good in Venezuela, uh, many years ago. We have been here,

00:21:41.080 what, 20 years. And, uh, we were doing good until Chavez came. And then, uh, the army in particularly,

00:21:50.840 I worked for the oil industry and they came after me. So I had to leave the country. And after a couple

00:21:57.480 of years, I had to bring all my family. That's the reason. Otherwise, I didn't have any other reason.

00:22:04.760 What was the main reason why they came after him?

00:22:06.840 I was a manager in one of the oil industry companies. I was the IT manager. And they wanted

00:22:15.400 me to allow them to listen to all of the fun conversation. And I said, no, you're not going

00:22:20.600 to do that while I'm the manager. I'm not going to allow you to do that. And that's, you know,

00:22:26.280 brought a lot of problem to me. And after a couple of years, I had to leave. They came after me

00:22:31.800 because I didn't allow them. Yeah. They, they, you know, that's communists. They don't, they don't

00:22:38.760 care. And I told them, you're not going to listen to the conversation. The people that I know,

00:22:44.200 I know the people here, I know how honest they are. I'm not going to allow you to listen to private

00:22:49.240 conversations, but to find out, oh, you know, there's nothing here. No, that's not going to happen.

00:22:54.200 You have to, to come to some other way, but not through me. And that's, that's why, I mean,

00:23:00.280 they went after everybody. That's what they've been doing for the last 26 years.

00:23:05.880 So what is the option? You are in the street, you don't critique the regime and you starve and you

00:23:12.840 might be killed by the armed force. So everybody's pleased and they thanks Donald Trump for what he

00:23:22.120 did. And when the mainstream media is saying otherwise, it's actually untrue. It's, it's just

00:23:28.920 lie. You know, the French language version of the CBC called Radio Canada had an atrocious tweet.

00:23:35.960 Uh, on France, it, it said that Maduro was a man of the people. And it reminds me of the super gross,

00:23:45.080 uh, you know, um, obituaries that, that we had from the CBC and from Justin Trudeau when Fidel Castro

00:23:54.040 died and that man of the people you put that and you put other comments like that Zoran Mandami,

00:24:00.040 uh, uh, had criticized Trump's move, calling it illegal. You put these things to the Venezuelans.

00:24:07.160 Um, they must've been furious that liberals in Montreal who had never set foot in Venezuela

00:24:14.360 called this tyrant, a man of the people when he had 800 political prisoners. How did they react to

00:24:20.200 that? I mean, I guess it's not just Canadians and this New York mayor, a lot of leftists,

00:24:25.880 they sort of loved Venezuela because it was anti-American.

00:24:31.720 The people reacted as, did those people live on their dictatorship? Did those people actually

00:24:38.920 live in Venezuela, Cuba or other dictatorship country? So they cannot say anything if they

00:24:46.040 didn't actually experience what it is to search for food, to sometimes have no electricity,

00:24:53.240 to have no freedom of speech or no freedom of opinion. Um, so those people who are on the street,

00:25:02.680 are they pay? Are they friend of the regime? Or are they just ignorant? Because you know,

00:25:09.960 sometimes a virtue signaling is, uh, something that the leftists like to do, but in the same time,

00:25:17.960 what we are seeing right now, they side with the oppressor instead of siding with the oppressed.

00:25:25.160 So the reason we're here, it's representing all political prisoners in our country, Venezuela,

00:25:29.560 who have been tortured. And right now they're, as you can see, there are more than 300 political

00:25:35.720 prisoners, which we don't, we don't have communication with them. Now you interviewed a lot of

00:25:40.440 people and, and I haven't seen all of your interviews yet. Some of them I really liked,

00:25:44.600 like there was this beautiful young girl almost looked like a model and she was talking passionately

00:25:49.640 about freedom and I couldn't help but think, and I know it's not about looks, looks aren't everything,

00:25:55.160 but it made me think of when I was at, um, Columbia University in downtown New York and I went to their

00:26:02.200 encampment, their pro Hamas encampment. And it was sort of crazy. Um, the people with, you know,

00:26:09.400 every transgender activist was there, people with every color hair and piercings and like,

00:26:14.040 it was really radical and people were displaying themselves in radical ways. And, and it just felt

00:26:20.840 like a real con, and by the way, I'm not against people having the freedom to style themselves in

00:26:26.280 any way, but it was such a contrast with this young, beautiful woman who was talking to you about freedom,

00:26:33.000 as opposed to these anti-social people at Columbia who were anti-America, anti-freedom, and of course,

00:26:39.800 anti-Israel, anti-Semitic. I just want to play that one clip. And I thought to myself, that's in,

00:26:44.840 you know, to have a beautiful young woman so inspired by about freedom, that is appealing.

00:26:50.920 I don't know. And I don't just think it's because I'm a man. I just think, um, everyone of every

00:26:57.480 background, of every race, of both sexes, of every nation, I think they want to be free. And I think

00:27:03.080 they want their home to be a safe place. And this woman seemed to crystallize it. Here's that

00:27:08.440 interview that I really liked. The happiness all of our Venezuelan people have inside,

00:27:13.800 and have been wanting to celebrate for all these 24 years. Definitely, I think it's something we

00:27:20.600 not only have to celebrate, but thank our President Trump, because if it wasn't for him,

00:27:26.040 nothing would be possible. But yeah, I'm super grateful and thankful we're all here celebrating

00:27:32.120 and united. I thought she was great. But who was your favorite interview? You talked to the mayor.

00:27:37.720 In fact, I heard you just bumped into the mayor by coincidence. Tell me a little bit about that.

00:27:43.320 And she's a daughter of, I think, refugees from Cuba, if I'm not mistaken.

00:27:47.880 Yeah, so we were marching into the crowd. And we realized that the woman in question was wearing 1.00

00:27:58.280 the mayor shirt. And so I asked nicely if she was a mayor. And she said yes. And I say,

00:28:06.600 do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions? And really friendly, she said yes. Like,

00:28:13.640 there were no like, okay, I'm just going to check with my, you know, media relation or anything.

00:28:20.040 She just agreed that it was just something. So you see that they are there for their people.

00:28:26.280 They are there for showing their support. And it's what I really appreciate. And she's obviously,

00:28:33.320 she's born in the US, but her family is from Cuba and had to flee to Cuba. And she kind of recounted a

00:28:46.120 little bit her story. And as well, she, she hope the same thing happening in Cuba, because Cuba has been 0.87

00:28:55.960 in this situation longer. But it's really more complex than Venezuela. And also because Cuba has been

00:29:08.520 the school for dictatorship, Chavez and other dictator. I've learned a lot from Cuba.

00:29:16.440 Right. That's terrifying. Here, let's play just a moment of that interview. Again, I found this woman

00:29:22.120 very appealing, very compelling. I just felt that she spoke from the heart. And it was sort of a

00:29:28.520 family feeling. That's how it felt. It almost felt like people were there from an extended family.

00:29:34.440 And some of them were family members, of course, with each other. Here's just an extract of your

00:29:38.360 mayor of your interview with the mayor of Doral, which is a suburb of Miami. Take a look.

00:29:43.640 And what is the next for Cuba? Because there's so many Cubans that went out in the streets,

00:29:49.000 has hope. Do you think Cuba is next? I do. I think that, first of all,

00:29:53.000 we're living vicariously through the Venezuelan people, because we wanted this for our country

00:29:56.840 for so long. And it's been 70 years of oppression in Cuba. I was actually born here. I'm a first

00:30:03.560 generation American from my family. But I've heard the stories that my grandparents have told for years.

00:30:09.720 They left, you know, 65 years ago and have never been able to go back. You know, they lost family

00:30:15.400 members they never got to say goodbye to. It's very sad to think about those things.

00:30:20.200 I do believe Cuba could be next in a very different way. I don't think there's going to be military

00:30:23.960 action or anything like that. But I think that the restructuring of Venezuela is going to dry up

00:30:28.760 the economic resources that were being fed to Cuba by the Venezuelan government. And that is going to

00:30:35.400 make that last leg fall. And I think it will allow pressures to be put for a real change and for a real

00:30:41.240 democratic election so that the people of Cuba can also have an opportunity to rebuild.

00:30:47.480 This is the weakest the Cuban government has ever been. And it's because the Venezuelan 1.00

00:30:53.560 resources have dried up to give to Cuba. So we do have to take advantage of this moment.

00:30:59.400 And Trump made it very clear that this was the opportunity to do that as well. They weren't going

00:31:04.360 to stay behind. I don't think much many dictators are going to be able to continue through the last

00:31:13.240 three years of Trump, you know, in those situations. And again, I think that especially in the western

00:31:20.360 hemisphere that has been ignored for so long, the priority has been shifted because it does affect

00:31:25.720 our national security. They've allowed new players to come into their into this region that are not

00:31:31.960 friends of the United States. And and I think that the president and our state, our secretary of state

00:31:38.120 who understands this issue very, very well, have their eyes on them. Well, listen, there's still a lot

00:31:43.960 so much to be done. I was reading in The New York Times that the winner of the last election, in fact,

00:31:51.160 one of whom won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, that the Trump administration is worried that they

00:31:57.320 don't have the authority and, you know, leadership to simply just take over the government. And thus,

00:32:05.000 Trump is still dealing with the tyrannical regime. I mean, it's a very complex thing.

00:32:11.160 How do you affect regime change on a large country with a with a powerful executive? Like I say,

00:32:18.680 they just took that one guy out. So all the henchmen, all the secret police, all the torture,

00:32:24.920 all the all the bad things are still in place. And Trump is trying to negotiate a regime change,

00:32:33.000 which I don't know if it's ever been done. I suppose it has been done before. But to do it

00:32:38.600 without a massive occupation on the ground, like I I was recently watching a show about the surrender

00:32:45.880 of Japan and the great military general Douglas MacArthur, who became sort of the governor of Japan

00:32:53.560 and worked with the emperor and rebuilt Japan, it was run by Americans run by a general. But there 0.67

00:33:00.120 were thousands of American soldiers on the ground. Trump doesn't want that. Trump doesn't want to

00:33:05.560 put 100,000 soldiers in Venezuela. He wants to have a regime change to move towards a liberal democracy

00:33:13.480 without that. I don't know if it's possible to do it, but I'm certainly rooting for him. And I guess a lot

00:33:18.920 of people in Miami are too. Because first of all, there's still terrorists. There's still a lot of gangs,

00:33:26.680 as Trendy Aragua. There's still the Maduro regime in place. There's The Sun. There's so many people

00:33:36.520 that we need to comply to Trump's demand. I don't know how you do that with so many different groups,

00:33:45.560 so different gangs. But that remains to see. But everybody on the ground, it's unanimous. They all won

00:33:54.520 Marina Manchado as the next leader of Venezuela. Because as they say, she won the last election,

00:34:07.320 but she had to leave Venezuela. And it's not safe for her to come back since the regime is still there.

00:34:14.920 Right. Well, it's a diplomatic challenge, but Trump has been known to solve extremely difficult

00:34:21.800 challenges. I point to the Abraham Accords, where Israel, in an agreement negotiated by Trump and his

00:34:28.680 staff, there's five or six countries now, Arab Muslim countries with a peace treaty with Israel,

00:34:34.440 which was thought to be unthinkable. So I think if anyone can do it, Trump can do it. And that was

00:34:40.520 a theme also. Well, listen, thanks again for going down on such short notice. I remember calling you

00:34:45.320 up on Saturday and say, get ready, go to the airport. And you did right away. Thank you for

00:34:49.880 doing that on behalf of Rebel News viewers. And folks, if you want to help chip in to cover the

00:34:54.520 costs, I have to say it was a little bit more expensive than we thought it would be buying last

00:34:58.120 minute tickets. I have to tell you, everyone in Miami, that seems to be quite a vacation hotspot

00:35:04.600 for Torontonians. So those flights were a little more expensive than we would have liked.

00:35:08.040 If you can help us cover that, please go to VenezuelaIsFree.com. And we're going to keep 0.70

00:35:12.840 an eye on the story because we, you know, how I end my show every day, I said, keep fighting for

00:35:16.760 freedom. Well, here's Venezolanos and Cubanos fighting for freedom with all their hearts. And

00:35:22.760 I'm really glad that you were there. And through you, I really felt the emotional warmth of these

00:35:28.200 people and their hope. And boy, I hope the story ends well. Thanks again, Alexa. We'll keep an eye on

00:35:33.880 this story. And I just want to mention quickly my flight for going to Miami. I was sitting next to a

00:35:42.440 family from Colombia and they were so happy. They were so happy. And them too, they hope that this will

00:35:51.880 impact Colombia. So let's see what the future will hold. But thanks for sending me over there because I think it was

00:36:05.000 something really revealing. Revealing. Well, you were a great ambassador for Rebel News and you made so many

00:36:11.880 friends, including a mayor, a city councilor. You talk to everybody and those will be good contacts

00:36:17.720 if we go back on the story in the future. Take care of my friend. Thank you very much.

00:36:21.480 Thank you. All right. There you have it. Alexa Lavoie, who went down with Efrain Monsanto 0.59

00:36:26.680 to cover the story. I'm glad we have people who had the ability to communicate. I mean, obviously,

00:36:30.840 a lot of these folks spoke English, but also in Spanish where required. Stay with us. Your letters to me next.

00:36:41.880 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. The first one is from Brett who says, what comes next? Invade

00:36:51.960 Canada and make Canada great again? Invade Greenland? Take a lunch break? Save the world? Well,

00:36:59.800 Donald Trump is certainly feeling his oats. I mean, he's stretching his arms and his legs.

00:37:04.600 It was a pretty awesome military maneuver. And remember, the United States has had a foreign 1.00

00:37:09.800 policy doctrine called the Monroe Doctrine for two centuries, which basically says no foreign powers

00:37:16.200 allowed in the Western Hemisphere. And he referred to the Western Hemisphere as our hemisphere.

00:37:23.000 And I'm sure other people didn't like that. I mean, we would be saying, hey, we're here too.

00:37:27.560 Yeah. But in terms of great powers, there's only one great power in the hemisphere in America.

00:37:32.120 Here's Bob Ray just squawking about this the other day. Bob Ray, who prefers the talk shop

00:37:38.360 of the U.N. But when push comes to shove, talk and paper doesn't stop. You know, it's like the game

00:37:45.880 rock, paper, scissors. Rock defeats scissors, scissors defeats paper. If you're in the real world,

00:37:51.960 you can have Bob Ray yap, yap, yap, yapping at the U.N. Or you could have the Iwo Jima, the U.S. naval

00:37:58.280 vessel and 150 aircraft that got Nicolas Maduro. Only one of those things is real when push comes to shove.

00:38:05.640 The State Department put this out on social media today saying this is our hemisphere.

00:38:11.480 So you see that. I mean, that is not just our country, our self-interest. It is the whole

00:38:16.040 geographic region spanning multiple continents. Yeah. But with great respect to the State

00:38:21.000 Department, David, this is our hemisphere. I could put out a little thing on YouTube saying this is my

00:38:28.920 hemisphere. This is our hemisphere. What the hell is this? You can't you can't unilaterally declare

00:38:37.320 that you have unique jurisdiction over an entire half of the world and all the people who live in

00:38:44.040 that half of the world just have to put up or shut up. And that's not how the world works.

00:38:50.520 Yeah. Bob Ray liked it when he could tie up the mighty American giant just with words. But that's not how

00:38:56.600 the real world is. That's certainly not how Russia and China and Iran play. They're not waiting 0.96

00:39:02.200 for the rules-based international order. They're just doing things. And I think Trump

00:39:07.080 is in the mood to do things too. You may not be joking when you talk about Greenland.

00:39:11.960 Pablo Picasso says, in terms of actual combat effectiveness and global strike capability,

00:39:16.840 a conservative estimate is that the U.S. military is two to three times more powerful than Russia,

00:39:21.240 China, India, South Korea, and the United Kingdom combined. I'd be willing to bet 99%

00:39:25.800 of the people in the world would be shocked by this fact. Well, I don't know if they'd be shocked

00:39:29.640 by it. I mean, I think most countries have really demilitarized and they've relied on

00:39:34.760 the United States to defend them. And I put it to you that Canada is a perfect example. I remember when

00:39:40.920 the Chinese spy balloon came over from China, it went through Canada first and we didn't take it down.

00:39:46.840 I don't know if we even had the ability to. I remember when there was a hostile plane detected

00:39:52.040 in the Vancouver airport, or maybe it was Victoria, and the Air Force jet that was scrambled to intercept

00:39:57.400 it was not from the Canadian Forces base in Comox. It was an American jet coming up from,

00:40:04.200 I think it was Washington state. So we are already under America's defensive ages. We literally could

00:40:11.560 not defend ourselves. Trump was on Air Force One the other day joking about Dane Denmark protecting

00:40:18.280 Greenland. And he said, Oh, they're increasing their support. They've added a dog sled. Here's Trump

00:40:25.240 saying that. I will say this about Greenland. We need Greenland from a national security situation.

00:40:32.520 It's so strategic. Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.

00:40:39.560 We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. And Denmark is not going to be able to

00:40:45.560 do it. I can tell you. You know what Denmark did recently to boost up security in Greenland? They

00:40:53.240 added one more dog sled. It's true. They thought that was a great move. You know, it's actually true.

00:41:00.120 There are more U.S. servicemen in Greenland now than there are Danes. Trump is serious about foreign

00:41:07.160 policy. He really is focused on it. I wouldn't say to the detriment of domestic policy. Look at how hard

00:41:12.520 he's going on immigration and other things. I think Trump is trying to do everything on his to-do list,

00:41:19.240 a 100-year to-do list. He's trying to do it in four years. It's incredible to watch

00:41:23.160 and it's making some people uncomfortable. Next letter from Andreas Vogeli who says, Okay,

00:41:29.800 so Maduro is actually lawfully elected and he is not hated by the people. Rebel News is dropping one

00:41:35.480 lie bomb after another. It's so sick. Well, Andreas, I'm going to disagree with you on both of your points.

00:41:42.040 He was not lawfully elected. And it's not just my opinion. That's the opinion of pretty much every

00:41:49.480 international observer. It's the opinion of the United States, both Republicans and the Democrats.

00:41:54.440 It's the opinion of the European Union. I think really the only countries who like

00:42:00.440 Nicolas Maduro are the other dictatorships, China, Russia and Iran. I think he is hated by the people.

00:42:08.680 I think millions of Venezuelans have fled the country, some out of terror and some just out of

00:42:14.600 poverty and starvation, frankly. I think the fact that they have to have abusive Cuban 1.00

00:42:21.880 colectivos, these Cuban militias holding down the people is because Venezuelans would not participate.

00:42:28.760 Venezuela is colonized by Cuba, Iran, China and Russia. Anyways, I disagree with you,

00:42:37.240 but we'll find out soon enough. This is a very interesting situation and I'm glad we had people

00:42:41.080 down in Miami. Well, that's our show for the day. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at

00:42:46.360 Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home. Good night and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - January 07, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Canada’s worst finance minister is now working for Ukraine — what could go wrong？

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