Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Harvard study compares how badly the lockdown has hit the richest people vs. the poorest

00:00:00.000 Hello, my Rebels. Today, I take you through a study from Harvard, of all places, that shows how

00:00:05.600 the poorest of the poor, the working poor, the true blue-collar class, has fared under the

00:00:12.160 lockdowns compared to how the wealthiest have fared. You won't be surprised, I don't think.

00:00:17.900 The lockdown has been very good to some people and very bad for others. That's ahead. Before I

00:00:23.060 get to that, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's the video

00:00:27.040 version of this podcast. It lets you see all the work we put into the visual elements, including

00:00:32.180 in this case, lots of very interesting charts and graphs. It's only eight bucks a month. Go to

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00:00:54.080 here's today's show.

00:00:57.040 Tonight, a Harvard study compares how badly the lockdown has hit the richest people versus

00:01:15.480 the poorest. It's June 21st, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.

00:01:19.340 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:25.300 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:29.360 The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publisher, is because it's my bloody

00:01:34.240 right to do so.

00:01:40.020 I'm going to show you a study on who's losing under the lockdowns and who's winning.

00:01:43.620 It's a Harvard study, not exactly a group of wild-eyed right-wingers. It's heartbreaking.

00:01:49.780 You know, it's June 21st today, the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the

00:01:53.280 Northern Hemisphere. Not quite the middle of the calendar year, but pretty close. So yeah,

00:01:57.520 we're pretty much at a year and a half of our lives being consumed by the pandemic panic.

00:02:02.260 Not by the pandemic itself, mind you.

00:02:04.640 Here's Theresa Tam's page on the Government of Canada website. Look at figure 1b, selecting for

00:02:10.700 the moving average of deaths per seven days prior. So it's a weekly count. You can see a bunch of

00:02:16.060 graphs under that for each province. Canada had a wave of deaths right near the beginning

00:02:20.700 in April 2020. Then another wave over Christmas, the flu season. Slowly scroll down province by

00:02:28.820 province. Most places haven't really had an issue in months, really a year. The other day,

00:02:34.520 I showed you the Statistics Canada report that said the excess deaths in Canada in 2020 were

00:02:40.820 for seniors dying from COVID in the spring of 2020. But by the time the end of the year came

00:02:47.040 around, the excess deaths, that is more deaths than were expected, were amongst young people,

00:02:52.700 drug overdoses, and suicides. It's not from a coronavirus. That's from abusive politicians

00:02:58.760 who were much deadlier. You know, every day we hear a new way to terrify us.

00:03:04.740 This new variant, or that new variant, or a new mutation, whatever. It's like they have a

00:03:09.320 thesaurus that they keep going to, to be scary. To explain why they aren't keeping their earlier

00:03:14.640 promise to end the lockdown on whatever day they're promising now. Even today, both Ontario and Alberta

00:03:22.400 have their roadmap out of the lockdown. Both provinces have already exceeded the conditions

00:03:28.380 that the politicians themselves set for being led out of the lockdowns already. As in, the politicians

00:03:33.500 promised it was only until certain counts, like the hospitalizations or whatever, were under control.

00:03:38.960 Well, they are, but the lockdowns haven't been lifted. Oh, I'm shocked. Today was literally called

00:03:44.780 Freedom Day in the United Kingdom. It was going to be the day that the last of the lockdowns were lifted.

00:03:50.080 The UK is pretty much back to normal. I mean, they have a huge soccer games, thousands of fans in

00:03:55.760 the street. Everyone's acting like it's life back to normal because it is. Here's the UK stats. Look

00:04:02.020 at deaths within 28 days of positive tests by date of death. Those are for the UK country of nearly 70

00:04:10.920 million people. Some days there's only five people in the whole country who die from the virus, or to be

00:04:17.040 more precise, die and happen to have a positive COVID test in the previous month. As in Canada,

00:04:24.120 the average age of death is around 80. The average victim died with multiple serious other diseases.

00:04:29.920 COVID is pretty much over in the UK, and I wouldn't even blame them for the counts there. I mean,

00:04:34.680 if you have three or four comorbidities, did you really die from COVID?

00:04:39.340 But not for the politicians. It's not over for them. It's just too good to give up.

00:04:42.380 Well, it's been too much excitement, too much of a safe emergency. By that, I mean, not a real

00:04:47.840 emergency. The UK's had emergencies before. They had a real war. This is not a real war. This is not

00:04:53.360 a real crisis anymore, at least. There are those crises in the world that are real wars, an earthquake,

00:04:58.620 a tsunami, whatever. But for this COVID panic, it's all upside for a crisis for those in authority.

00:05:05.860 Spend money, borrow money, pass regulations without parliament, total media obedience,

00:05:09.580 police powers against any dissidents. All the upside for a politician without, you know,

00:05:14.760 the actual Luftwaffe coming to bomb London. So yeah, Freedom Day is postponed. Of course it was. 0.94

00:05:22.720 Same here in Canada. It's going to get worse. It's over. But here come the vaccine passports. There are 1.00

00:05:28.940 nine new pharma billionaires since the pandemic began. You can imagine the lengths they will go to

00:05:34.080 keep the gravy train coming. Same with the next nine men who think they ought to be 0.99

00:05:39.820 pharma billionaires because of it, too. They're not done yet. But it's not just the ultra-rich,

00:05:45.460 the Jeff Bezos's of the world. Look at this study from Harvard. Take a look at this. I came across it

00:05:51.960 in an article from the Foundation for Economic Education. New Harvard data accidentally reveal

00:05:57.600 how lockdowns crush the working class while leaving elites unscathed. That's a good headline, 1.00

00:06:02.540 but I want to make sure you know they're not talking about the billionaire class when they

00:06:06.420 say elites. They're just talking about sort of average well-to-do, the professional class,

00:06:10.960 upper middle class kind of thing. Not zillionaires, not one percenters. Let me read a bit.

00:06:17.240 A new data analysis from Harvard University, Brown University, and the Bill and Melinda Gates

00:06:21.280 Foundation calculates how different employment levels have been impacted during the pandemic to date.

00:06:26.820 The findings reveal that government lockdown orders devastated workers at the bottom of the

00:06:31.420 financial food chain, but left the upper tier actually better off. The analysis examined

00:06:36.280 employment levels in January 2020 before the coronavirus spread widely and before lockdown

00:06:41.060 orders and other restrictions on the economy were implemented. It compared them to employment

00:06:45.560 figures from March 31st, 2021. The picture painted by this comparison is one of working class destruction. 0.97

00:06:53.640 So this is Harvard and Bill and Melinda Gates, for heaven's sakes. But here's what they found.

00:07:01.980 Employment for lower wage workers, defined as earning less than $27,000 annually, declined by a

00:07:07.320 whopping 23.6% over the time period. Employment for middle wage workers, defined as earning from

00:07:13.340 $27,000 to $60,000 a year, declined by a modest 4.5%. However, employment for high wage workers,

00:07:19.920 defined as earning more than $60,000 a year, actually increased 2.4% over the measured time

00:07:25.760 period, despite the country's economic turmoil. So that's a summary of it. Here's the study itself.

00:07:33.780 This is the Harvard website, tracktherecovery.org. Look at the graph on the left.

00:07:39.780 Recession has nearly ended for high wage workers, but job losses persist for low wage workers,

00:07:45.080 while employment rates have rebounded to pre-COVID-19 levels for high wage workers,

00:07:50.040 they remain significantly lower for low wage workers. And you can see the graphs. More than

00:07:56.540 $60,000 a year, so we're not even talking about one percenters here. There's a boom on for those 1.00

00:08:01.640 folks. They're fine now. Bad year, but they're through it and back to normal. That's the green

00:08:06.500 graph. It's actually up a little bit, 2.4%. But what about the poor? Folks making less than $27,000 a

00:08:11.920 year. Those jobs are slaughtered. We're talking Great Depression stuff. Number of working class 1.00

00:08:16.380 jobs down 24%. Makes sense. If you're a lawyer, you just work from home. If you're a government

00:08:22.740 sector union, you probably didn't even work for the first six months, but you still got paid.

00:08:27.460 If you're a politician, well, in Canada, our MPs and senators gave themselves two raises,

00:08:32.040 last April and this April. So you're loving life. Government has grown this past year,

00:08:38.080 in case you didn't notice. But if you're a waiter, a waitress, a bartender, a retail shop clerk,

00:08:44.360 a mom and pop shop of any sort, a barber, a hairstylist, tough luck. Now this is an American

00:08:50.420 study, but really it's the same in Canada. But worse, I would imagine, since our lockdowns up here

00:08:55.060 are worse than any in America. Seriously, the lightest Canadian lockdown is heavier than the

00:08:59.840 heaviest American lockdown. Let me show you the graph on the right here. Low income employment down

00:09:04.820 in affluent areas. Declines in high income spending led to significant employment losses

00:09:10.280 among low income individuals working in the most affluent zip codes in the country,

00:09:15.120 as shown in the map below of employment declines in early June in New York City.

00:09:20.020 That's another way of saying, if you're in the service sector, a helper outer, an odd jobber,

00:09:25.140 tough luck for you. Landscaping, construction, housekeeping, do your work by Zoom. Yeah,

00:09:30.920 no, it doesn't work that way. Now, if you click the button that says, explore the data,

00:09:35.200 you can see some more details. On the right, the three graph lines. You can see middle-class jobs

00:09:39.920 that are still down four and a half percent. And what's worrying is that those trends are

00:09:43.080 still declining in 2021. It's actually getting worse in America. And look at the left, a little image

00:09:48.240 showing all 50 states. Hover the mouse over some of them. California, the biggest state in the union,

00:09:53.020 one of the worst lockdowns. Look at that, down 38.3% in working-class employment. How is that even possible?

00:09:59.120 More than one in three working-class jobs is gone. Still gone. In Massachusetts, it's 51%

00:10:07.860 more than half the working-class jobs in that state are gone. Texas is down a bit. Florida is

00:10:14.280 actually growing. And do you know what's making all this worse? That is, if you're a low-income,

00:10:21.040 blue-collar worker. Open borders. Under Biden, hundreds of thousands of low-skill, off-the-books

00:10:29.160 workers are streaming in from Mexico. It's because Biden and Kamala Harris have just opened up the

00:10:34.720 southern border, just stopped building Trump's wall, stopped enforcing the law. Here in Canada,

00:10:39.140 we don't overwhelm our low-income workers with illegal migrants. I mean, Roxham Road is still open,

00:10:44.780 but it's not hundreds of thousands through there. No, we invite in low-skill, low-income

00:10:50.040 competitors legally. Seriously, record immigration numbers planned in the middle of the Great

00:10:55.100 Depression. Record numbers and record numbers of low-skill or no-skill workers to drive down the 0.60

00:11:01.640 cheapest wages. Housing prices in Canada have never been higher. Well, let's add a million people to

00:11:06.500 that. Inflation is back. Unemployment is still high. It's been devastating for the working class.

00:11:11.060 And here come a million new migrants. And you're a racist if you object to those economics. Yeah,

00:11:16.960 it's not the virus I'm scared of.

00:11:30.400 Well, for those of you old enough to remember the Brady Bunch, you'll remember there was a refrain,

00:11:34.500 Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. Well, during the Trump administration, it was Russia, Russia, Russia.

00:11:39.780 Everything was proof that Russia helped steal the election in 2016 for Donald Trump. It was a

00:11:47.020 cockamamie theory. There was no one more capitalist than Donald Trump. He's no commie. In fact, it was

00:11:52.860 Bernie Sanders that took his honeymoon in the Soviet Union when it was still under communist rule. But it

00:11:59.720 was such a hot meme in the media that it actually became a multi-year, multi-tens of millions of dollars

00:12:08.640 investigation by Robert Mueller, who in the end found no proof of collusion whatsoever.

00:12:15.200 Well, Joe Biden has been president for not even six months. How has he done with Russia? Has he been

00:12:23.080 tougher with Vladimir Putin? Or has he done what the media alleged Donald Trump did? Give things away to

00:12:30.740 Russia? Well, let me show you a headline. You know, I've just got a couple of stories in front of me here,

00:12:35.120 just incredible. This is a story from Joel Pollack in Breitbart.com. I'll just read one headline.

00:12:40.580 Joe Biden got nothing in Geneva summit with Russia's Vladimir Putin. I just want to read the

00:12:46.440 first sentence or two, and then we'll bring Joel in. President Joe Biden gave Russian President

00:12:52.240 Vladimir Putin almost everything he could have wanted at their summit. And the degree to which

00:12:57.440 the summit was a disaster became evident when Putin emerged for his press conference alone with a

00:13:04.300 forum all to himself. Joe Biden did not want to be seen on a platform with Putin, lest the relative

00:13:11.540 strength and mental acuity between the two became too easy to compare. Joining us now is the author of

00:13:17.320 these two items, our friend Joel Pollack, senior editor at large at Breitbart.com. Joel, I tell you,

00:13:21.940 I want to jump right into these stories. There's so many terrible anecdotes and vignettes canceling

00:13:27.380 $100 million in aid to Ukraine, approving Russia's Nord Stream pipeline. Everything the Democrats said

00:13:35.160 Trump was bad at for Russia, Biden just did it. Right. It's amazing how Democrats just don't seem

00:13:43.060 to care about appeasement with Russia when they're the ones allegedly doing it. I don't think Donald Trump

00:13:49.160 appeased Russia at all. I think Trump was very tough on Russia. He tried to block the Nord Stream 2

00:13:54.020 pipeline. The U.S. forces in Syria wiped out Russian mercenaries there. He also interfered with

00:14:00.600 Russia's alliance with Iran and other troublesome countries. And he slapped more sanctions on Russian

00:14:07.220 officials than had ever been done before. So this idea that Democrats had that Trump was somehow a puppet

00:14:12.480 of Putin had nothing to do with reality and everything to do with their excuses for losing the 2016

00:14:17.720 election. Anytime Trump was simply cordial to Vladimir Putin, the Democrats portrayed it as

00:14:23.800 some betrayal of national security. Yet not only was Joe Biden more than cordial to Putin in their

00:14:29.920 summit in Geneva last week, he gave him an entire summit. I mean, the G7, that's just seven leaders

00:14:35.820 from a bunch of other nations. But Putin got a very special meeting all to himself, and he got it

00:14:41.440 before Biden met with the president of Ukraine. And so Biden elevated Putin even before he arrived

00:14:48.220 in Geneva. When he left Geneva, he had nothing to show for it. All he really had was the Russians 0.87

00:14:53.160 allowing the U.S. ambassador back to Moscow. Well, big deal. I mean, it wasn't as if we kicked out the

00:14:57.840 Russian ambassador. The Russians withdrew their ambassador several months ago. So that is now

00:15:03.100 restored, okay, for whatever that's worth. What Putin has been able to do is to get a five-year

00:15:09.140 extension of the New START Treaty, which is a one-sided treaty of disarmament favoring Russia.

00:15:13.420 He just asked for one year. Biden gave him five. Russia also gets the Nord Stream 2 pipeline supplying

00:15:19.180 natural gas to Europe, which not only makes Europe dependent on Russia, but also circumvents Ukraine.

00:15:25.300 Ukrainians were the conduit for a lot of the natural gas going to Europe. Now they are going to be cut out

00:15:30.300 of the picture. So they lose leverage and they lose billions of dollars in revenue. Plus, you add to that

00:15:37.160 the fact that Biden is allowing Russia to cooperate with Iran to protect all sorts of bad actors at the UN

00:15:45.560 and in other places. And Biden is actually appeasing the Russians while lifting sanctions on Russian

00:15:52.020 officials and playing footsie with Putin in Geneva. So this is really astonishing how the media and the

00:15:58.880 Democrats have decided that all of a sudden it doesn't matter how nice we are to Russia. Russia doesn't

00:16:04.940 really matter. And isn't it wonderful? In fact, CNN was talking about how fantastic it is that Biden

00:16:10.040 was cordial to Putin. If Trump was cordial to Putin, they accused him of treason.

00:16:14.540 You know, I'm looking through your articles, looking at all the things America gave away,

00:16:19.220 and as you say, even more than was demanded. It reminds me of how much of a dealmaker and a

00:16:24.720 negotiator Donald Trump was. I mean, I can't think of any tougher industry and place in the world

00:16:31.240 than cutthroat New York State property development, whether it's dealing with,

00:16:36.540 I don't know, mafia in the construction unions or crooked, you know, state and city regulators,

00:16:44.060 just tough competitors, financial vagaries. There is no tougher business and you've got to be

00:16:50.100 extremely sharp. As the late Izzy Asper used to say, our Canadian nickel has a little beaver on it.

00:16:56.620 You know, you've got to shave the beaver off a nickel. You've got to be so, you've got to watch

00:17:01.000 every single penny. If you can survive a New York real estate, you can survive anywhere.

00:17:06.080 Joe Biden has never been in a real negotiation like that against a real enemy in a zero sum game.

00:17:12.720 So he goes over there and he just gives things away. I don't think he's ever,

00:17:16.120 I can't think of anything he's ever negotiated, any deal he's ever done, any person he's ever stared

00:17:21.500 down. I just don't think he has that skill set. And, and the people around him are people who gave

00:17:27.380 it all away under the Obama administration to Iran, for example. I, I just think this is the,

00:17:34.080 we feel the lack of Trump more than ever in these foreign affairs matters.

00:17:40.320 You're right that Biden doesn't have the skill set for that kind of tough negotiation. The U.S.

00:17:45.100 Senate is a place where Democrats and Republicans come together to agree to fleece the American

00:17:49.320 taxpayer. It's very easy to negotiate deals when your own interests aren't directly at stake.

00:17:55.440 Biden doesn't have the skill set to stand up in a tough negotiation,

00:17:58.700 nor does he really represent the American people. I mean, yes, of course he does. He's our democratic

00:18:03.120 leader. He's supposed to represent our interests, but Democrats, including Biden have for decades,

00:18:08.460 often sought accommodations with our enemies. They often view America as the problem.

00:18:13.180 They apologize for us. They feel sad that we have become involved in so many conflicts. It's

00:18:20.360 a nature of our system. It's part of our systemic racism, perhaps, or our arrogance or something,

00:18:26.460 but they are eager to reach an accommodation with countries that don't like us. And that's why he

00:18:32.860 returned from Europe triumphant in his own mind, because he proclaimed diplomacy is back. Of course,

00:18:40.340 Trump was very good at diplomacy. Trump was probably the least war prone of our recent presidents.

00:18:45.960 But with Trump, diplomacy meant standing up for American interests in a very serious way.

00:18:50.660 With Biden, diplomacy means going along to get along. And he was very pleased that the Europeans

00:18:55.300 liked him and they have a very favorable opinion of him. If you look at the opinion polls, there's

00:18:59.200 been this dramatic turnaround in European views of the United States since Biden took over. It's very

00:19:04.220 much a reflection of our media rather than reality. And I was told yesterday that quietly,

00:19:09.860 European governments are quite troubled by the Biden administration's stance because it is one

00:19:15.220 of appeasement on every front. We were told, for example, he was going to go to Europe and get the

00:19:18.940 European leaders and the G7 to agree on tough action against China. Well, that didn't happen.

00:19:25.500 I mean, Biden is not about defending American interests or the West. He's about reaching an

00:19:29.260 accommodation with those who challenge us in the hope that we won't offend them too badly. And then he

00:19:34.360 can come home and talk about diplomacy, sort of like Neville Chamberlain returning with a piece of

00:19:37.800 paper. I mean, diplomacy is fine. Anyone can use diplomacy. What do you use that diplomacy to

00:19:43.120 achieve? Trump achieved things like the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, and he did it by

00:19:47.760 being tough on our trade partners. Trump achieved things like the Abraham Accords, and he did it by

00:19:52.680 standing firmly with American allies, particularly with Israel. What's Biden doing? Biden's basically

00:19:57.580 giving away the store. He comes home and talks about diplomacy because they slapped each other on the

00:20:01.620 back in public, at least when they weren't obeying social distancing rules. But there's no real

00:20:07.300 achievement to his diplomacy. So not only does he lack the skill set, but he's not even really

00:20:11.200 representing our interests. Yeah. And you mentioned that the foreign opinion likes Biden. Now, it's

00:20:18.020 always bizarre when foreign opinion is reported back to Americans as if that is somehow more important

00:20:24.520 than American opinion about who the American is. I mean, yeah, I suppose every country wants their

00:20:30.460 country to be liked. But I think the purpose of an American president is to do the bidding of

00:20:36.200 Americans like the purpose of a Canadian prime minister is. I mean, we've lost that a long time ago 0.86

00:20:40.280 under Justin Trudeau. But I think, put aside the media love for Biden, which is so obviously a factor,

00:20:51.200 I think Europeans like to deal, any country likes to deal with a weak American president if that's a change

00:20:59.220 from, let's say, Donald Trump demanding that NATO countries spend more on military. One of the

00:21:05.240 constant refrains from Trump was that America's allies should pay their own defense bills. And

00:21:11.360 every time he went to NATO, he would really publicly shame them. He shamed Trudeau. It was it was

00:21:16.000 wonderful. He on the spot in a live joint presser, he asked Trudeau how much Trudeau was spending on

00:21:23.960 NATO and he knew the numbers and Trudeau didn't. Here, here's a quick flashback to that.

00:21:28.520 China does not meet the 2% standard. Should it have a plan to meet the 2% standard?

00:21:33.880 Well, we'll put them on a payment plan, you know, we'll put Canada on a payment plan, right? I'm sure

00:21:38.060 the prime minister would love that. What are you at? What is your number? The number we talk about is

00:21:43.880 70% increase over these past years, including and for the coming years, including significant

00:21:52.120 investments in our fighter jets, significant investments in our naval fleets. We are increasing

00:21:58.120 significantly our defense spending from previous governments that cut it. Okay. Where are you now

00:22:03.960 in terms of your number? We're at 135? 1.3. 1.4. 1.4. And, and continuing to move forward.

00:22:14.020 They're getting there. They, they, they know it's important to do that. So I think when you've got a

00:22:19.600 pushover, like Biden, who never asked for anything, who never embarrasses them, of course, they're going

00:22:24.480 to like him more. But I believe what you're saying, that they're a little worried while they may be let

00:22:28.380 off the hook for some bilateral thing. Who's on guard for the free West? Who's going to challenge

00:22:33.600 China? That's exactly right. And China, meanwhile, is advancing on every front. They have things that

00:22:42.260 the rest of the West wants. They have markets, they have money, and they have control. The irony is

00:22:48.320 they don't really have control when you look at the problems they're wrestling with. They've got

00:22:52.800 a huge coronavirus problem that's still raging over there. They've got environmental damage and

00:22:57.040 devastation. They've got a rising middle class that has aspirations that the Communist Party may not be

00:23:01.600 able to fulfill. And they're encountering increasing challenges. But instead of looking at China in that

00:23:07.280 critical way and seeing where can we make an impact so that our values line up with our foreign policies

00:23:14.360 so that we can encourage freedom in China and so that we can defeat China in the race for global 0.99

00:23:20.260 domination. I mean, China envisions a world that serves its own interests. It doesn't serve anyone else's 0.93

00:23:25.380 interests. And already they're exercising their will over our freedom of speech here at home. They're

00:23:31.360 stealing our intellectual property. They've cornered the market on rare earth minerals. They're changing

00:23:35.620 the way we live. They have an effect over our lives, which we don't really want. We don't do that to

00:23:41.440 other nations. I mean, the United States has never really sought dominion over other countries. It's

00:23:46.020 sought to create what Biden calls the international rules-based order. Well, Biden cares about it. He has to

00:23:50.840 defend it. But he's not doing that. He's basically seeking an accommodation with China. And he's unleashed

00:23:55.980 this hapless crew of career diplomats who've achieved nothing except weak deals like the Iran

00:24:01.700 nuclear deal and a North Korea deal that allowed the Kim regime to go nuclear. They don't know what

00:24:07.740 they're doing. And they make the same mistakes over and over again. And they never seem to learn.

00:24:11.700 But, you know, the Trudeau example is interesting. I mean, Canada is in a very bad situation relative to

00:24:16.680 the United States with regard to coronavirus. The Democrats often look to Canada as a model for

00:24:21.560 what they want to do domestically in the United States. And yet this problem of Canada's struggle

00:24:27.560 with coronavirus and the draconian enforcement of coronavirus restrictions is something that our

00:24:31.700 media didn't want to talk about. But Trudeau's closeness to China, his inability to chart a

00:24:36.520 different path, is basically the path the Democratic Party foresees for the United States. And yet we're

00:24:40.440 not asking ourselves, does that model actually work? I tell you, Joel, I bet your American readers would

00:24:45.980 be shocked to learn so many of the weird political decisions that were made. I mean, Justin Trudeau's

00:24:52.140 first vaccine move was to sign a deal with a vaccine company affiliated with the Chinese People's

00:25:00.220 Liberation Army. I mean, I think if your American viewers knew some of the crazy decisions made in

00:25:06.400 Canada, and even the fact that today we're under a strict lockdown, two-week travel, quarantine. I'm in

00:25:11.920 the world's most locked down city of Toronto, according to the BBC. I mean, indoor restaurants

00:25:18.400 have been banned in most of Canada for most of the last year. I think Americans would be shocked what's

00:25:23.320 going on up here. But let me get back to China. I don't know. I tell you, it's just so bad up here.

00:25:28.260 I wouldn't have thought we would be as bad as we are. Let me ask you a question about China.

00:25:32.760 I follow a lot of the Chinese propaganda outlets because I want to see what they're saying,

00:25:37.720 and I want to try and reverse engineer what they're thinking. There's this one outlet called

00:25:41.900 Global Times. It's in English. It's on Twitter, which is banned in China itself, which tells you a

00:25:48.320 lot. Global Times is saying every few hours that the shutdown of Hong Kong's leading democracy

00:25:57.000 newspaper called Apple Daily is imminent. The police have already arrested their editor and their

00:26:03.680 publisher and have frozen their bank accounts, but they're going to formally ban this major

00:26:10.280 newspaper. It would be like Trump arresting the editor of the New York Times, seizing their bank

00:26:15.840 account and shutting the New York Times down. It's that prominent newspaper. I have not seen a single

00:26:21.120 statement from the Canadian government about this. Is America paying attention to that at all,

00:26:27.020 to Hong Kong at all? Does anyone care? Has Biden or his Secretary of State Blinken talked about it at

00:26:33.820 all? They don't really talk very much about it. The American media are unconcerned about it.

00:26:39.760 I listened to most of the press briefing today at the White House. I didn't hear all of it, but

00:26:43.920 I didn't hear too many concerns being voiced there. I know that at Breitbart is something we've been

00:26:47.620 following, and we covered it last week when residents of Hong Kong stood in line for hours to buy

00:26:52.620 editions of the Apple Daily to show their support for it. But we don't seem to be taking any particular

00:26:58.240 interest in the freedom of Hong Kong. And it's something peculiar, but we're just not interested,

00:27:05.180 apparently, even though Hong Kong is certainly interested in us. I mean, even under the Trump

00:27:10.280 administration, which at first tried to finesse the diplomatic situation with Hong Kong, people in

00:27:15.260 Hong Kong were waving American flags as symbols of freedom, and they're big fans of Donald Trump because

00:27:19.760 they understand that Trump stands up to China and nobody else will. But, you know, we don't really

00:27:25.600 have an elite in this country that stands up for freedom in Hong Kong or here. I mean, when journalists

00:27:30.960 are attacked in the street here by Antifa thugs, there's no outcry. There's no one who says,

00:27:37.060 hey, this is not what we should be doing in a free society. In fact, there are people who criticize

00:27:40.840 him. So I think we're in a situation here where press freedom is taken for granted or actually

00:27:48.540 denigrated by those who ought to be benefiting from it. Yeah, I feel like this account of Global 0.94

00:27:54.500 Times is like testing the way like a stalking horse for the Communist Party, putting the idea out

00:28:00.220 there like every two hours, we're going to shut it down. We're going to shut it down almost to

00:28:04.260 gauge reaction to it to see because this is going to be a heck of a move. Like, I mean, they've arrested

00:28:10.780 Democratic politicians, they've arrested editors. Now they're going to close a huge newspaper. And I think

00:28:18.060 they're going to get away with it without a peep. I don't know. I know in the past, Donald Trump,

00:28:23.520 even if he wouldn't have actually done anything, there would have been a legitimate fear on the

00:28:27.720 Chinese side that he would have done something. He might do something. Even the body language.

00:28:33.300 I'll let you go, Joel, because you're so busy. But there's so much body language of Boris Johnson

00:28:39.740 and Emmanuel Macron getting right into Joe Biden's face, physical, like his, like getting in his face

00:28:46.240 physically pointing right near his face, touching him in a way that I know if they had done that,

00:28:51.660 they would never have done it to Trump. And if they tried, Trump probably would have grabbed their

00:28:55.540 hand or pushed them. Like even the physical contempt for Biden was palpable. Did you notice that?

00:29:01.520 Or am I seeing things?

00:29:04.560 It's hard to judge from little snippets and snapshots, but I don't think people have particular

00:29:10.260 respect for Joe Biden. And I don't think he conducted himself with particular physical

00:29:14.980 dominance or prominence. Donald Trump commanded a room. I think Joe Biden is lucky to survive these

00:29:20.320 meetings. He tended to forget the names of leaders and so forth. He is not entirely 100%.

00:29:28.420 He's functional enough to at least appear in public as the head of the administration,

00:29:33.820 but he's not really running things. And it's a group behind the scenes in the White House who are

00:29:37.880 really taking care of most of the business. So they feel relieved that he returned from Europe

00:29:42.480 in one piece. But I think you're correct. I don't think the other Western leaders are feeling

00:29:46.080 particularly confident in his leadership. They're glad that the pressure is off. Or as one of our

00:29:51.200 local journalists said, they're glad that they're no longer traumatized by the scars of Donald Trump

00:29:56.500 demanding that they live up to their commitments to pay 2% of their defense budgets to NATO. But

00:30:01.420 they're comfortable around him because he's not making demands of them. But I don't think they're

00:30:07.840 confident in his leadership. There was one moment where Biden called Putin Trump. I think that sort

00:30:14.680 of showed his cognitive state. Joel, it's great to see you again. Thanks for spending so much time with

00:30:19.020 us. Thank you. All right. There you have it. Joel Pollack, senior editor-at-large at

00:30:24.020 Breitbart.com. Stay with us. Hey, welcome back. On Rebel News and the other litigants losing our 1.00

00:30:42.620 federal court of Canada case against Trudeau's COVID airport jails, MK writes, the judge ignored

00:30:48.400 all the evidence and spewed out liberal talking points as a ruling. Well, I don't think the judge

00:30:53.540 ignored the evidence. I think he, as carefully as he could, tried to take a position to save the

00:30:58.860 government's case. I don't think he ignored it. I think he sort of gamed it. I think we've got a

00:31:03.860 strong case on appeal. I spoke with our lawyers again today, and we intend to appeal, and I know

00:31:09.200 at least some of the other litigants intend to appeal. Now, that's not going to say we're going to

00:31:12.820 win it, but we're sure not done fighting. Thor writes, it's not government's job to protect the

00:31:18.980 people. It's their job to protect the people's liberties. Yeah, I mean, the whole point of the

00:31:23.320 chart of rights and freedoms is to protect us from the state, and I don't think the courts have done

00:31:27.980 that. They just haven't. Show me a case in Canada where the worst civil liberties violations ever in

00:31:33.360 our country's history have been rolled back by the courts. I just haven't seen it. Pegwin writes,

00:31:39.580 necessary sacrifice. Yeah, but only sacrifices the small people, not the ruling class. Well, that's what 0.94

00:31:45.260 I just showed you in the Harvard study today. This has devastated the working class. I couldn't even 1.00

00:31:50.320 believe it. In Massachusetts, half of working class jobs just eliminated. But yeah, the $350,000 a year

00:31:57.500 federal court of Canada judge, he thinks we're all going to keep making sacrifices. I wonder what

00:32:01.960 sacrifices he's made. Well, that's the show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here

00:32:06.780 at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home. Good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

00:32:10.600 We'll be right back.

00:32:15.680 We'll be right back.

00:32:30.280 We'll be right back.

00:32:32.600 We'll be right back.

Rebel News Podcast - June 22, 2021

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Harvard study compares how badly the lockdown has hit the richest people vs. the poorest

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