Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Ezra Levant attends Vivek Ramaswamy's Iowa trucker townhall

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. I'm actually at a truck stop in Iowa. Can you believe it?

00:00:03.800 I'm here reporting on the U.S. presidential primary campaign. I was invited to attend a

00:00:09.640 town hall meeting by one of their candidates, and I went. And it was very interesting. I'll

00:00:14.020 share with you what we did, but I also want you to see it because it was a feast for the eyes.

00:00:18.780 So please go to rebelnewsplus.com. That's the video version of this podcast. It's eight bucks

00:00:24.160 a month. I know that's not a lot of ton of money to you, but boy, it sure adds up for us. It's

00:00:28.440 how we pay our bills. That's rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's show from Iowa.

00:00:48.580 Tonight, a day on the U.S. presidential campaign trail. It's December 22nd, and this is the Ezra

00:00:55.120 LeVant Show. I'm standing at the Iowa 80, known as the world's biggest truck stop, and indeed it is

00:01:17.520 in Iowa, a U.S. state. What am I doing here? Well, it started a few days ago when I got a direct message

00:01:24.080 on Twitter out of the blue directly from one of the candidates running to be president. Of course,

00:01:30.520 he has to run to win his party's nomination first. I'm talking about Vivek Ramaswamy, a name that I

00:01:36.400 don't think most Americans had heard of a year ago, but in the last few months, he's really caught fire

00:01:42.300 in large part due to his high-energy debate performances and his very strong Trump-like

00:01:50.080 policy portfolio. I just want to give you a taste of him. There were some incredible moments,

00:01:56.060 not just sparring with other Republican candidates like Nikki Haley, but also taking it to journalists

00:02:02.940 in a way that we haven't seen well since Trump. Let me show you a few of those debate performances

00:02:08.600 and a few of those media scrums right now. I love it how he doesn't shy away from the press. Take a look.

00:02:15.080 You want somebody who's going to speak truth to power, then vote for somebody who's going to speak

00:02:19.420 the truth to you. Why am I the only person on the stage, at least, who can say that January 6th

00:02:25.020 now does look like it was an inside job? That the government lied to us for 20 years about Saudi

00:02:30.500 Arabia's involvement in 9-11? That the great replacement theory is not some grand right-wing

00:02:35.640 conspiracy theory, but a basic statement of the Democratic Party's platform? That the 2020 election

00:02:42.340 election was indeed stolen by big tech. That the 2016 election, the one that Trump won for sure,

00:02:49.620 was also one that was stolen from him by the national security establishment that actually put

00:02:54.520 up the Trump-Russia collusion hoax that they knew was false. There's a reason why I'm the only person

00:02:59.140 on the stage who can say these things. That's what it's going to take, not people who are licking his

00:03:03.060 boots one time and now Monday morning quarterbacking and criticizing when it's convenient. Foreign policy

00:03:08.240 experience is not the same as foreign policy wisdom. I want everybody at home to know that

00:03:14.200 I was the first person to say we need a reasonable peace deal in Ukraine. Now a lot of the neocons are

00:03:19.440 quietly coming along to that position, with the exceptions of Nikki Haley and Joe Biden, who still

00:03:24.260 support this, what I believe is, pointless war in Ukraine. And I think those with foreign policy

00:03:29.460 experience, one thing that Joe Biden and Nikki Haley have in common is that neither of them could even

00:03:34.120 state for you three provinces in eastern Ukraine that they want to send our troops to actually fight

00:03:39.940 for. Look at that. This is what I want people to understand. These people have, I mean, she has no

00:03:45.000 idea what the hell the names of those provinces are, but she wants to send our sons and daughters 0.62

00:03:49.200 and our troops and our military equipment to go fight it. So reject this myth that they've been

00:03:53.820 selling you, that somebody had a cup of coffee stint at the UN and then makes eight million bucks

00:03:57.360 after, has real foreign policy experience. It takes an outsider to see this through. Look at the blank

00:04:01.940 expression. She doesn't know the names of the provinces that she wants to actually fight 1.00

00:04:06.620 for. And there's a puppet members right there, the donors, the donors right there that are playing

00:04:11.620 her like the puppet members. Well, that's Vivek Ramaswamy. And I know that some people have

00:04:16.360 disparaged him as being, well, he's just like a debate club candidate or he's too precocious or he's

00:04:22.300 too snarky. Well, so what? I mean, I like the fact that he's a good debater, that he's quick on his

00:04:28.560 feet, that he has facts at his fingertips. I like the fact that he pushes back against the media.

00:04:34.360 As I've always said, the media party is the real political party to worry about, not the Democratic

00:04:38.800 Party in the States or the Liberal Party in Canada. So Vivek Ramaswamy sent me a direct message saying

00:04:44.540 he was having an event at this truck stop about truckers. And would I come on down? And I said,

00:04:50.260 well, what do you mean? I'm not an American. I mean, I'm interested in things. They basically said,

00:04:55.600 come on down to take in our town hall on truckers. And I said, well, can I get a one-on-one

00:05:01.800 interview with the candidate? And they said, yes. So let me show you a little bit about my day. As I

00:05:07.600 say this, it's just after 10 p.m. Eastern time. I started my day this morning at around 5 a.m.,

00:05:15.500 got up, went to the airport, flew to Chicago, which is the closest international airport here,

00:05:20.760 drove for three hours. We got here a little bit early, but that was fine. We had a chance

00:05:26.480 to visit some interesting things at this truck stop. There's a lot going on at the truck stop,

00:05:31.880 not just, you know, rest stations and things like that. For example, there's the world's,

00:05:38.220 well, I don't know if it's the world's largest truck museum, but a very large truck museum

00:05:42.840 that I went through, which was very interesting. I got here a few hours before the town hall. So that's

00:05:48.560 what we did, Lincoln, our videographer and myself. And then there was like an everything store for

00:05:54.940 everything and anything you could ever want as a truck driver, from fancy steering wheels to beds

00:06:00.640 for the little sleeper compartment to all sorts of chrome. It was pretty cool. And you got into the

00:06:07.620 trucker vibe. They really love truckers here. But then we made our way to the theater. Yes,

00:06:13.800 they actually have a theater here. And Vivek Ramaswamy came in and he gave some remarks and

00:06:21.160 it was about trucks. I'll tell you that there was a lot of truckers, some teamsters in the audience.

00:06:27.020 There were people asking about truck policy and truck regulations and government rules about trucks.

00:06:33.280 Some of that was interesting enough because I'd never heard it before, but holy moly, did he get my

00:06:38.180 attention when he started talking about the Canadian truckers and the freedom convoy?

00:06:45.800 All right. Let me show you unedited every word he had to say about Canadian truckers.

00:06:50.360 To have an open conversation with you all about what we're able to do to address certain foundational

00:06:55.200 issues in this country. I want to start with one of them, which is actually honoring and respecting

00:07:01.360 the Canadian envoy, the freedom envoy, who frankly a year ago was in the front lines of exposing a lot

00:07:11.660 of the corruption, not just in the United States, but in the West. You all remember that? When you had

00:07:17.260 a number of Canadian truckers, cross-border truckers included, who stood up against the unjust COVID-19

00:07:23.940 vaccine manuals, who stood up against a lot of the unjust policies, locking down our economy and

00:07:29.900 otherwise, and had the courage to do what many of us in this country otherwise did, to actually take

00:07:35.280 a stand and say hell no to a government that had reached far beyond its legal scope. They were penalized

00:07:42.400 for it. Remember what happened is actually they locked the bank accounts. They locked access to the

00:07:48.500 financial institutions of many of those truckers and used the financial system to weaponize through the 0.77

00:07:53.560 back door what the government could not properly do through the front door in Canada under the laws

00:07:58.660 and in this country under the laws. I think that that was a moment, though, for me, that actually

00:08:03.020 probably for me was the moment that woke my eyes to say that these are the guardians of freedom

00:08:07.320 in this country, not just in this country, but in the West, in Canada and the United States alike.

00:08:11.900 And so since then, I've taken an interest in a lot of the policies affecting our truckers.

00:08:17.320 You know, people don't show up to do something like that unless they actually have a

00:08:20.840 properly motivated reason to do it. So why the heck were these truckers properly frustrated on

00:08:26.940 behalf of the rest of us? Part of it was the COVID-19 mandates, but part of it was a deeper

00:08:32.060 failure to stand for the backbone of our economy. Wasn't that interesting? He really followed the

00:08:39.580 Canadian trucker situation and he really grasped it. I get the feeling he actually follows Rebel News.

00:08:45.780 How else would he have known to send a direct message to me if not? He also had some comments

00:08:51.600 about globalization and the World Economic Forum, and I could tell he had some deep knowledge. Here's

00:08:56.660 a quick sample of that. But that's the kind of conversation we need to have. The ideas I'm

00:09:00.100 sharing with you, these aren't black ideas or white ideas. These aren't even Democrat ideas or

00:09:05.780 Republican ideas. They shouldn't be. These are fundamental common sense, not controversial.

00:09:11.480 This is common sense. American ideals to say that every person should be free from regulatory

00:09:17.920 overreach, that every person should be free to achieve the maximum of their potential without

00:09:23.060 anybody standing in their way, and know that truckers of this country should not be an exception

00:09:27.540 to that standard. That we will say no to the World Economic Forum's standards of 2030 zero emission

00:09:34.760 standards for truckers. Zero emissions by 2030, says the World Economic Forum. Truck no. That's what I

00:09:42.640 say. Forget that. We're not going to have some globalist standard imposed from on high for a made

00:09:49.360 up climate change agenda when we have actual real problems to address right here in this country.

00:09:55.080 Well, that was pretty exciting, but it wasn't really my place to get involved there. That was a real sort

00:10:00.720 of town hall for Iowa truckers with a presidential candidate. It was very interesting, but I spoke to

00:10:08.280 Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign team, and they said, well, I could ride with them in the candidate's bus

00:10:15.320 from this event, which was his sixth event of the day, to his seventh event of the day,

00:10:21.880 and that I had a chance to interview him in that bus ride. I have to say, after six events,

00:10:27.620 I would be tuckered. I would be misspeaking words, tripping over my tongue. He was as sharp as he was,

00:10:34.620 well, I can imagine. At the beginning of the day, he certainly seemed high energy to me.

00:10:39.200 Here, without further ado, here's my 15-minute heart-to-heart with Vivek Ramaswamy. We talk

00:10:44.900 about everything from Justin Trudeau and Klaus Schwab to Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. Take a look.

00:10:50.960 I'm Ezra. This is my colleague, Lincoln. I don't know how you keep your energy high. Six events,

00:10:56.660 you're going to event number seven. It's got to be a blur. How do you stay high energy?

00:11:01.100 You know, I'm guided by my purpose. I mean, if you're guided by why you're doing something,

00:11:05.380 you're guided by the why, then you know what? The energy comes naturally, and seven events,

00:11:11.640 that's not a particularly heavy day. Come on. We've gone up to 11. What? Yeah,

00:11:17.140 11 events in a day is our peak so far. Well, you're keeping remarkably lucid for 10 events a day.

00:11:25.140 I see you have one of your kids with you. What's that like?

00:11:27.820 It's great. I usually will... So my wife, she's a surgeon at Ohio State. She's a throat surgeon. 0.99

00:11:32.520 She'll come out here Fridays through Mondays or on the campaign trail, wherever we are.

00:11:36.700 One of the things I found, though, is it's helpful to, for me in particular, and it's also good for

00:11:40.800 our kids to have this experience, but staying grounded as a family. So sometimes I'll bring the

00:11:45.980 older guy. Sometimes I'll bring the little guy, and then we'll reunite on weekends. That's how we've

00:11:50.400 been making this work as a family. And I wouldn't say it's always logistically the easiest thing,

00:11:55.360 but thankfully, we've been still doing it together as a one-team approach as a family. And it's been

00:12:00.720 actually an incredibly rewarding experience to have a shared project with our kids, and to be

00:12:07.100 able to do it this way is, I think, very grounding for me. Well, he seems very brave. He wasn't shy

00:12:12.240 about being out in public, and I don't know. I wonder if he understands the gravity of what's

00:12:17.920 going on. Yeah, I wonder too, actually. I think that my sense is, he could tell you I'm running

00:12:24.320 for president. He could tell you that I care about freedom of speech. He's learning the Pledge of

00:12:28.660 Allegiance. I think that he knows that we're doing something important, that his parents are taking the

00:12:35.760 time to do something that they value, that is important and worthy, and that he's an important part

00:12:40.520 of it. I think that much he processes, for sure. It was pretty great to see him. Hey, let me talk

00:12:45.420 about the subject matter. You had a trucker town hall where you really got into details. But for me,

00:12:52.400 the way you described what happened in Canada, and the Freedom Convoy of Truckers, and how Trudeau

00:12:57.360 cracked down on it, you had a lot of info about the seized bank accounts. Were you following it? Why

00:13:04.780 was Canada, which is normally sort of a boring subject for Americans, you knew more facts than I think

00:13:10.500 many Canadians did? Well, I was following it very closely at the time. Part of this is,

00:13:15.860 so I was pushing back against what's called the ESG agenda in the United States, and I don't know if

00:13:21.460 those words were going to be true. Sure, yeah. Okay. So the use of financial markets to do through the

00:13:25.680 back door what government could not do through the front door. I mean, I wrote two books about that in

00:13:30.780 the last several years, and I started a company in the U.S. called Strive to push back against a lot of

00:13:35.900 those ESG orthodoxies in corporate America. So, and I can go into, you know, my world and what I was

00:13:41.460 doing then. But when I saw what happened in Canada, first of all, I was dead set against any type of

00:13:47.020 government top-down mandates anyway. I think that there was, there's going on in the world what we,

00:13:53.140 you know, some refer to as the Great Reset, the dissolution of boundaries between the public and

00:13:57.620 private sector, and even between nations to impose a single hegemonic agenda that is in the design of

00:14:04.760 supposedly making for a better world and increasingly creates an autocratic dictatorial globalist hegemon.

00:14:11.240 And so when I saw that land in the doorsteps of Canada, I had just started taking an interest in

00:14:14.860 how some of the issues I was looking at in the U.S., like the ESG cancer, was really a transnational

00:14:20.940 phenomenon. And so I went, you know, I went pretty deep into what ended up happening there,

00:14:25.420 the weaponization of the financial system to be able to freeze bank accounts or access to bank

00:14:30.060 accounts. That's what Trudeau used in an unprecedented move. I think that is in some

00:14:34.880 ways a harbinger, a warning of what could come here to the United States if we're not careful on

00:14:38.720 issues relating to allowing the ESG cancer to spread, the use of a central bank digital currency,

00:14:44.300 something that's being debated in the U.S., has profound implications for us here in the U.S.

00:14:48.200 And so, yeah, you're darn right I paid attention to it. You mentioned in your speech today the

00:14:52.640 World Economic Forum, and I heard you just mentioned the Great Reset. That's one of the themes.

00:14:57.800 It was a book by Klaus Schwab. You know, I actually, I actually can't remember. No, no,

00:15:04.260 no, no. That was one of his, he wrote two books. One was called Stakeholder Capitalism and one that

00:15:07.600 was called The Great Reset. I actually wrote a book review for the Wall Street Journal,

00:15:12.260 they asked me to, of his book Stakeholder Capitalism. And so, you know, it was, let's just

00:15:16.900 say it wasn't a very charitable review. But I believe in being able to understand the best

00:15:21.860 arguments for the other side. And I can tell you, it is far more frightening than the way it's

00:15:27.440 caricature. The real argument is more frightening than the caricature. It's the desire to impose

00:15:32.500 effectively the old world European view, a rejection of democracy, a rejection of a

00:15:37.620 self-governing republic. To say the people can't be trusted how to sort out climate change or COVID-19

00:15:43.180 or racial injustice for that matter. That can't be left to the people. It has to be a small group

00:15:48.580 of aristocratic elites from the mountaintops of Davos that make that decision for everybody else.

00:15:52.720 And I think the right answer and the right response to The Great Reset is what I call

00:15:58.600 the great uprising on the other side, which says hell no to that vision. I'm a citizen of this

00:16:03.920 nation, not some nebulous global citizen fighting climate change. That's what I think those Canadian

00:16:08.540 truckers were saying. And I think that they were part of what I consider to be this transnational

00:16:13.160 great uprising. That's the response to The Great Reset.

00:16:16.660 You mentioned Trudeau in your remarks. You mentioned him again now.

00:16:19.840 What do you make of the man? He's been in power for eight years now, even though he has a

00:16:25.600 minority government, he's got a coalition. Is he a cautionary tale for Americans? I don't think

00:16:31.780 Americans follow Canadian politics too closely. What should an American know about Justin Trudeau?

00:16:37.580 This is a preview of coming attractions. I use that sarcastically, unless we course correct here.

00:16:43.040 He's like a Klaus Schwab Jr., sort of a Klaus Schwab disciple. And I think that he is somebody who is a

00:16:49.260 useful puppet. I mean, it's not that this guy is some sort of shining intellect that is somehow a

00:16:56.360 visionary in his own right. He's not. He's a pawn for a managerial class, both within and outside of

00:17:02.500 Canada, that uses people like him as a pawn to advance a transnational globalist agenda that has

00:17:09.000 a single hegemonic view that is fundamentally skeptical of self-governance, does not believe

00:17:13.740 in people's ability to govern themselves, believes in a worldview where people need to be told what

00:17:18.200 the right way is or isn't to live by a small group of aristocratic elites in the back of palace halls.

00:17:23.320 That was the old world European view. It's what's alive and well in Canada, unfortunately, today.

00:17:27.780 And the idea that Trudeau is actually the guy calling the shots is a joke. He's just a puppet,

00:17:32.300 a pawn for that deeper, what I would call permanent state. And I think that much similar to the United

00:17:38.360 States, I think that that's a big part of what you're seeing happening in Canada now as well.

00:17:41.980 I don't want to take up too much of your time because I can only imagine you want to keep your

00:17:46.220 energy for that last meeting. But let me ask you a question about the primaries.

00:17:50.400 And you're invited to the last one. You want to come to that last one and just join us. Why not?

00:17:53.200 Well, sure. We're on our way and then we'll...

00:17:55.780 I mean, you might as well. You're right here. Yeah.

00:17:57.380 Well, consider us accepting your invitation. You used the phrase America first, I heard in a little

00:18:03.960 gaggle afterwards. You talked about making America great. Those are slogans that Donald Trump

00:18:09.700 popularized in his first run. Trump has had very positive things to say about you,

00:18:15.560 especially your debate performance. That said, Trump is way ahead in all the polls. I mean,

00:18:22.620 the polls might be inaccurate, but it suggests he's out front. How do you run a primary where he is

00:18:29.740 nominally and on the ballot, he's your opponent, even though you seem to be carrying the fire,

00:18:36.040 carrying the torch for his ideas? Well, I don't think they're his ideas. I mean,

00:18:39.980 George Washington, these are George Washington's ideas. And it's up to each of us to carry the

00:18:43.820 torch forward, to take that further than George Washington did in 1796 when he left office.

00:18:50.340 And so, yes, Donald Trump, I give him immense credit for a lot of his accomplishments in this

00:18:54.020 country. But I think I'm going to be able to take that America first agenda that began with

00:18:58.460 George Washington, that continued through Ronald Reagan, through Donald Trump, now through me,

00:19:02.040 taking that to the next level. I think I have fresh legs. I think I'm able to reach the next

00:19:07.120 generation in a way that he's not. And I don't mean to be cynical here, but let's also get very

00:19:11.940 practical. I don't think this system, that permanent state, is going to let him get anywhere near that

00:19:19.800 White House. And I think that that may sound dark, but you look at what's happening in Colorado

00:19:25.420 or in California and other states. I think anybody who thinks that it's just going to be a

00:19:29.320 honky dory straightforward path that they even let Donald Trump get anywhere near that White House

00:19:33.340 again, that existing establishment. I think that's naive delusion, actually. And so it's my job

00:19:39.820 anyway to stand for this agenda, take our America first agenda to the next level. I'll honor Donald

00:19:44.480 Trump and his legacy. But I think there are forces at work in the United States that have determined

00:19:49.300 not to let him anywhere near. And it's my responsibility to make sure that we have standard

00:19:53.680 bearers who can take the America first agenda to the next level starting in 2024. That's what I'm in

00:19:59.200 this race to do. And I think next year is going to be a complicated and turbulent year. That's the

00:20:05.020 truth. Last question. Nikki Haley, who I thought was had no chance, seems to be rising. She seems to

00:20:11.440 be the establishment Republican candidate around whom the elites are coalescing. Yeah. Do you take her 0.99

00:20:17.600 seriously as a threat? And do you think she will be the anointed candidate of the official party? 0.85

00:20:24.880 I don't take her seriously in any sense. I mean, she's not really an independently thinking,

00:20:29.080 functioning agent. She's a pawn. She's a puppet propped up by what I think should be taken seriously,

00:20:35.560 which is a permanent state, the deep state. And there are cronies in the mainstream media that

00:20:40.300 have decided that this is going to be a useful pawn to advance their pro-war, corrupt,

00:20:44.980 pro-censorship agenda in this country. And I think that's actually the dirty little secret here.

00:20:49.840 Many of the people who were before propping up the left from Reid Hoffman to Larry Fink,

00:20:54.760 they're now propping up Nikki Haley. So in some sense, they say, who needs Democrats when you have

00:20:59.080 somebody like this running in the Republican party? Same people who are trying to keep Trump off the

00:21:03.320 ballot are the ones who are propping up Nikki. Interesting how that works. And so Nikki Haley's

00:21:07.280 more or less irrelevant as an individual and as a human being. She's just another, you know,

00:21:12.400 old school, corrupt class politician bought and paid for and looks to make money off politics.

00:21:16.980 That's a familiar story. There's nothing new about that in American politics,

00:21:20.820 but I think what is new is the level of aversion to Trump in particular that they've decided to

00:21:27.360 coalesce and prop up this puppet. But I think all the more reason, I think that's the way this is

00:21:31.320 going to go is they're going to try to, I mean, I think one way this could go is they effectively by

00:21:35.320 hook or by crook, by hell or high water decide Donald Trump, they're going to keep him out. You see

00:21:40.180 the entire system conspiring to make that happen, trying to prop up Nikki Haley, who I think in many ways

00:21:45.660 could be more dangerous to the future of this country than even many Democrats look at her 1.00

00:21:49.420 pro censorship agenda. Every social media account has to have your government issued ID tied to it.

00:21:54.760 Imagine that if that were tied to the Canadian truckers in a central bank, digital currency,

00:21:58.220 it's the worst world than Orwell could have imagined using our own money to set ship money

00:22:02.280 to Ukraine. So that some kleptocrat over there can buy a bigger house. That's not America. 0.75

00:22:06.720 And I think that I'm offended by what she and more or less the people propping her up

00:22:12.160 represent in this country. And I'm going to make sure that nobody like that comes near the levers

00:22:17.100 of power in Washington, DC. Unlike others, I could make a clear statement and tell you she will

00:22:21.920 nowhere, come nowhere near being my vice president or anywhere near my administration. I can be clear

00:22:26.400 about that. I'm not afraid to say that. And I think that that's a part of why I'm the proper

00:22:30.980 standard bearer for taking our America first movement to the next level, because I can say that

00:22:34.600 without hedging. What's what happened to Ron DeSantis? He was such a golden governor. He was world famous

00:22:39.740 as a freedom oriented governor, especially during the lockdowns. His campaign hasn't really caught

00:22:44.940 fire. What's your diagnosis? I think Ron's a good guy as a governor. I think he should remain. I think

00:22:51.700 it'd be good for the people of Florida if he remains as a governor. I think to be a president, you need to

00:22:56.920 have a vision for where we're going as a country, not just executing somebody else's vision. And so,

00:23:02.820 you know, I respect Ron has been a good executor in the state of Florida. But I think when you think

00:23:07.300 about who needs to lead this country, it needs to be somebody with an independent vision of who we

00:23:11.960 are and what we stand for. That's why I'm in this race. And I think we're going to be successful.

00:23:16.380 It's great to meet you. And we'll attend your next event. Thank you. Here we are, I think. Yeah.

00:23:19.900 What do you think of that? I did my best to ask short questions and listen more than talk. You know

00:23:24.400 my style. Sometimes I say, blah, blah, blah, blah. What do you think? Now, I didn't want to do that in

00:23:29.300 this interview. I wanted maximum content from the candidate. And when I asked him about Trump, I said, look,

00:23:35.420 your ideas sound Trumpy. Your style is Trumpy. You're even using Trumpy slogans. His first response

00:23:43.540 was, yeah, well, so did George Washington. Okay, good point. But then he said something that terrified

00:23:48.400 me and I can't dispute it. He said, what if Trump is not allowed to win? And as he pointed out, look

00:23:57.600 what they're doing. The Connecticut Supreme Court said that Donald Trump is not allowed to be on the

00:24:01.800 ballot because he participated in an insurrection. By the way, that's not true. Donald Trump has never

00:24:07.200 been charged with insurrection. It's simply a political blacklisting of him. And that's catching

00:24:13.960 on with other Democrat controlled legislatures or courts. And I've said this for a while and I don't

00:24:20.760 want to sound crazy about it, but I do know, I saw with my eyes, the footage of Jair Bolsonaro being

00:24:27.540 stabbed in public just days before the election in Brazil last time. I'm going to show you that

00:24:34.060 terrifying footage to show you what happened to a populist conservative leader that everyone

00:24:40.140 in the establishment wanted to stop. Remember this?

00:24:42.660 Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça!

00:24:57.660 Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça!

00:25:14.540 Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça! Vinci graça!

00:25:20.060 Do you doubt that there are some people who would do literally anything, including, God forbid, may it never happen, an assassination to stop Donald Trump?

00:25:28.640 And he was more modest in how he put that.

00:25:31.720 But I've said it the way I've just said it.

00:25:33.480 I think it's absolutely a possibility.

00:25:35.920 Four U.S. presidents have been assassinated.

00:25:38.640 I hate to say it.

00:25:40.080 And even if they don't physically assassinate him, will they jail him?

00:25:45.480 Will they bump him off the ballot?

00:25:46.760 And immediately the light bulb went on for me.

00:25:49.120 And if Vibhik Ramaswamy is the heir to Donald Trump, if he is Donald Trump, the next generation, if he's Donald Trump with pizzazz and very high energy and, you know, 35 years younger, and if he does not alienate the Trump base, in fact, if he pays them homage and if he treats them with respect and if he uses phrases that ring a bell with them and if he continues this way.

00:26:18.180 And by the way, Donald Trump returns the favor.

00:26:20.440 Here's Trump when he was asked to want to debate.

00:26:23.160 He said, uh, Vibhik did.

00:26:24.840 Well, we like Ramaswamy.

00:26:26.140 You know why?

00:26:26.900 Because he likes Trump.

00:26:28.060 I like him.

00:26:32.260 I tend, I mean, this is, this is probably a personality defect, but I tend to like people that like me.

00:26:38.660 So if Vibhik Ramaswamy tweets the Trump base with respect as he has, if he uses the language that resonates with them and with others, and if, God forbid, Donald Trump is stopped from running, where does that Trump vote go?

00:26:55.680 Well, some of it will go to Ron DeSantis, the governor.

00:26:59.480 Very little of it would go to Nikki Haley.

00:27:02.020 But how much would go to Vibhik Ramaswamy?

00:27:05.460 I think a significant portion would.

00:27:09.940 And maybe that's a possibility here.

00:27:12.240 If, instead, Donald Trump runs and becomes president, I think for sure he would appoint Vibhik Ramaswamy to some position, perhaps in cabinet, perhaps even vice president, perhaps an ambassador, perhaps a position involving technology or something.

00:27:26.780 I don't know.

00:27:28.660 If Donald Trump runs and loses, Ramaswamy is young enough, he's only in his 40s, I believe, that he could certainly be a candidate in 2028.

00:27:37.420 It was very interesting, and I thought for the first time I saw the path there.

00:27:42.940 I enjoyed spending 15 minutes one-on-one with him.

00:27:46.460 I enjoyed watching him at his truck stop event.

00:27:49.480 And then, because we rode the bus with him to his next event, we stayed for a few minutes at the next event.

00:27:55.640 And he had used similar messaging, which we would expect.

00:27:59.060 You can't do seven events in one day and change it up every time.

00:28:02.980 And why would you?

00:28:03.720 You're repeating the message to a new audience.

00:28:05.840 It would be strange, actually, if you changed your message.

00:28:08.560 So it was fascinating to see him give that message with the same energy again.

00:28:13.740 It looked like the seventh meeting of his day was for Indian Americans in Iowa, which was very interesting.

00:28:20.240 I didn't know there was a lot of Indian Iowans, but there certainly was enough to pack a room in a small town in Iowa. 0.88

00:28:28.720 Well, that's my day.

00:28:30.080 It's sort of late.

00:28:32.360 We've got to drive back to Chicago and then take the flight back to Canada.

00:28:36.120 But I think it was worth it.

00:28:37.800 I felt a little bit of excitement.

00:28:40.100 The rooms were not huge.

00:28:42.120 There was about 75 seats in the theater here in the truck stop.

00:28:48.160 It looked like there was probably double that in the Indo-American meeting.

00:28:52.520 And those aren't bad numbers, considering, you know, you're in small towns in Iowa and you have all the candidates stumping at the same time.

00:29:01.520 I have to say my opinion and my impressions of Vivek Ramaswamy increased tremendously.

00:29:08.660 And I'm rooting for the guy.

00:29:11.800 It was interesting to spend the day with him.

00:29:13.420 By the way, I reached out to both the Trump campaign and the DeSantis campaign.

00:29:16.760 The Trump campaign said that they could not accommodate me.

00:29:19.160 I get it.

00:29:20.280 The DeSantis campaign wrapped up today.

00:29:22.320 I was hoping to spend some time with them either today or tomorrow, but they're off for Christmas.

00:29:26.660 Hopefully I'll be able to connect with them in the new year.

00:29:28.980 It's interesting to watch politics at the retail level in America.

00:29:32.800 I think their system is more democratic than ours in Canada.

00:29:37.500 And in any event, theirs will certainly have an impact on us no matter what way it goes.

00:29:42.580 And I'll tell you one thing.

00:29:43.420 If Vivek Ramaswamy ever does become the president of the United States, we'll have in the White House someone who's very attentive to Canada and cares more for our Canadian civil liberties than Justin Trudeau ever did.

00:29:56.280 That's our show for today.

00:29:58.620 Until next time, on behalf of all of us at Rebel News, here in Iowa, at our world headquarters in Canada and around the world, good night.

00:30:06.280 And keep fighting for freedom.

00:30:07.920 We'll see you next time.

Rebel News Podcast - December 23, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Ezra Levant attends Vivek Ramaswamy's Iowa trucker townhall

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