Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Hundreds of thousands rally for free speech in Brazil with support of Elon Musk and X

00:00:00.000 I'm in Brazil, so I'm using a VPN to get on the internet. What's a VPN? It stands for a virtual

00:00:06.880 private network, and you get around these government firewalls. Suddenly, the president

00:00:11.680 of Brazil banned his whole country from going on Twitter. It was a political censorship news.

00:00:16.560 I've downloaded the VPN from a company called PIA VPN. We've teamed up with them at Rebel,

00:00:23.440 and it's a great deal. I got on the internet really quickly, safely, and even a bit of a

00:00:28.240 technophobe. I managed to figure it out with two clicks, and here's the great news. If you go to

00:00:33.440 PIAVPN.com slash Rebel News, not only do you get a big discount, but they pay us a bit of a commission

00:00:41.600 too. Everyone's a winner. Your freedom, your VPN, and a little bit of cash coming to support Rebel News.

00:00:48.960 I'm using it myself to get around the sensors in Brazil. You can use it too. That's PIAVPN.com slash

00:00:56.560 Rebel News. Tonight, I went halfway across the world to see the largest free speech gathering

00:01:03.520 I've ever witnessed. It's September 9th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show from Brazil.

00:01:12.640 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:15.360 Ezra Levant here for Rebel News. I am in Sao Paulo, Brazil, one of the largest cities in the world.

00:01:29.200 There's about 20 million people in Sao Paulo. It's really a whole country in the form of a city. I'm

00:01:34.720 here because I came in the night flight last night, landing early this morning, because I want to see

00:01:40.800 what's going on in Brazil, because there is a kind of civil war. It's not really violent yet, but it

00:01:47.360 feels like it could go that way. On the one hand, you have their authoritarian president, Lula, as he's

00:01:54.800 named, and his right-hand man, a crusading judge, Alexandre de Moraes. And the judge has decided to censor

00:02:04.800 and silence critics of Lula, and he does this through social media. He has secret trials of

00:02:13.280 political figures, of journalists, and orders that their Twitter account be silenced, censored, banned,

00:02:20.480 suspended, deleted. I'm sure he's doing that to the other social media companies too, like Facebook

00:02:26.800 and Instagram and WhatsApp. But the only reason we know about it is because when Elon Musk bought Twitter

00:02:34.240 and renamed it X, he decided to make it a free speech platform, not a censorship platform. And

00:02:40.400 so when this out-of-control activist judge started having secret trials and saying, you've got to

00:02:47.040 suspend this political opponent of Lula, but you can't say anything about this trial. We're having

00:02:53.600 a secret trial with secret evidence and the outcome is secret. Elon Musk said, whoa, no, that's not why I

00:02:59.840 bought Twitter. We're not going to go along with it. And we're going to publicize this. Well,

00:03:05.280 you don't defy authoritarians in this part of the world easily. And so they banned Twitter.

00:03:11.440 The only way I'm able to come to you by Twitter is I'm using something called a VPN, which if I'm not

00:03:17.520 mistaken, it's a virtual private network. It allows you to spoof the local internet and pretend that you're

00:03:25.200 in Argentina or America instead of Brazil, if I tried to use Twitter from Brazil, it wouldn't work.

00:03:31.760 I'm going on a VPN and it's working. And for a while there, they had huge fines for anyone caught using

00:03:38.960 a VPN. By the way, I don't usually do this, but I want to give a shout out to the VPN I'm using. And I

00:03:44.800 downloaded it in about 30 seconds on my phone. It's called PIAvpn.com. And they actually give us a commission

00:03:53.200 if you sign up for it. So I'm going to toot their horn as a kind of advertiser. By the way,

00:03:58.640 it works great. It was easy even for a technophobe like me. If you go to PIAvpn.com

00:04:06.160 slash rebel news, you get a big discount and we get a couple of bucks. Anyways, that's my commercial

00:04:11.600 picks. Thanks for letting me say it. Actually, the only reason I mentioned it is because I've never

00:04:16.480 had to use a VPN to get around censorship before. And if you're back home in Canada, you're probably

00:04:21.840 saying, well, what's the likelihood that I'll ever need a VPN to get around something that

00:04:26.720 Trudeau is doing? Well, what do you think the odds are? 10%, 20%? The answer is 100%. He actually is

00:04:33.440 already banning things for Canadian. Try going on Facebook or Instagram to see any Canadian news story.

00:04:39.680 It'll be blocked. You need a VPN in Canada to get around Trudeau's censorship. That's why I recommend

00:04:45.680 PIAvpn.com slash rebel news. I didn't know I needed it, but now I do. Let me talk about Trudeau

00:04:52.320 for one more minute. He is proposing a new censorship law in Canada called Bill C-63 that allows for the

00:05:00.160 kind of secret trials they have here in Brazil. The secret trials contemplated in Trudeau's law,

00:05:05.360 Bill C-63, allows the accuser to remain secret, allows witnesses to remain secret,

00:05:11.680 and allows people to make complaints against neighbors or rivals and actually get a bounty

00:05:18.480 of $20,000 per person that they rat out to the government. So what's going on here in Brazil isn't

00:05:25.280 just of interest to Brazilians. It's of interest to everyone around the world because I promise you

00:05:30.960 that other leaders, whether it's Keir Starmer in the United Kingdom, Kamala Harris in the United States,

00:05:37.120 or Justin Trudeau in Canada, they are all looking at Brazil to see what can they get away with.

00:05:43.680 Now, the good news is there is an opposition in Brazil. That's why we're here. Today is the

00:05:49.040 Independence Day of Brazil and the chief opposition figure, Jair Bolsonaro, the former president,

00:05:55.760 he's having a massive rally in this massive city of Sao Paulo. It starts in about 90 minutes and we'll be

00:06:01.520 there. Lula, the communist authoritarian who's doing all the censoring, he's having his own

00:06:08.080 counter rally in the capital city of Brasilia. So in Brasilia, you've got the big Lula censorship

00:06:15.200 rally. And in Sao Paulo, you've got the freedom rally for Bolsonaro. And it'll be interesting to see

00:06:21.200 how important Twitter is in that conversation. I look forward to finding that out. To sum up,

00:06:25.760 I made it into the country okay. As you know, I didn't announce I was coming until I was through

00:06:30.480 customs because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't kept out. I did disclose to them that I was here

00:06:35.840 as a journalist to cover the Independence Day rallies. I didn't get into the politics, but I was

00:06:41.360 very candid at the border and they were happy to see us come through. I hope that that is a sign that

00:06:46.640 things aren't quite as bad as I had feared. But we'll give you the straight goods. Sao Paulo as a

00:06:52.400 city is fascinating. The first thing that stands out is the graffiti. It's just astonishing. It's

00:06:58.720 everywhere, but it's almost like it's being rebutted by massive murals on every block. A huge

00:07:08.560 skyscraper has a gorgeous massive mural on it. There are more murals in this city than maybe

00:07:15.200 any other city in the world. Now, unfortunately, there's more graffiti in this city than anywhere else

00:07:19.920 in the world too, but it's a visual feast for the eyes. As we drove in, there's some astonishingly poor

00:07:25.920 neighborhoods in Sao Paulo, and there were some unusual things. We didn't stop, but we saw,

00:07:30.560 I think, someone selling voodoo bones. Like, there's a lot of exotic things. Let me just use that

00:07:38.560 adjective in this city. But we're not here as tourists. I can assure you that we are here to cover

00:07:44.400 this rally. We flew overnight. Our head of video, Efraín Oswaldo Flores Monsanto, myself,

00:07:50.640 we flew overnight. We can't even check into the hotel yet because it's not available. We're going

00:07:56.080 to go straight to the rally, do that all day, go to the hotel, and then probably do some more wrap up

00:08:02.640 journalism tomorrow, and then home we go. We're going to have all our reports at a website called

00:08:07.600 thetruthaboutbrazil.com, and that's what we want to do. We want to follow the facts wherever they lead.

00:08:13.520 We just got here. We haven't gone to the protest yet. We're going with an open mind. I speak no

00:08:18.880 Portuguese. A lot of Brazilians don't speak English, but I'm sure we'll find people to help us figure out 0.99

00:08:24.640 what's going on. You can follow us at thetruthaboutbrazil.com, and the only way we're able to do

00:08:30.720 that is because in this censorship jurisdiction where they have a China-style great firewall,

00:08:37.280 we're using a VPN, and I'm afraid that other tyrants around the world are watching the censorship here

00:08:43.200 as sort of a lab experiment. Can they get away with it or not? I hope freedom rules the day,

00:08:48.160 and I'm glad that Elon Musk is throwing the weight of X, which is what he calls Twitter. I'm glad he's

00:08:52.800 throwing the weight of his companies and his own convictions behind the freedom side. All right,

00:08:56.720 we'll keep you posted. I'm making my way on foot to the big Bolsonaro rally, which is also a free

00:09:02.960 speech rally, which is also a rally against the censorship of the social media company called

00:09:08.480 X, formerly called Twitter. It's been a big battle. An out of control judge named Alexandre de Moraes

00:09:15.440 has been banning individual accounts of political opposition, and then the government just outright

00:09:20.400 banned Twitter altogether. Today is Independence Day, so Yair Bolsonaro,

00:09:26.400 who's basically the leading opposition figure, he's the former president, is having his rally in

00:09:32.400 Sao Paulo, while Lula, the tyrannical, in my opinion, president, is having his rally in Brasilia,

00:09:39.520 the capital. You can see it's sort of gridlock on the way in. I see lots of Bolsonaro supporters,

00:09:47.280 some candidates. He has adopted the colors of Brazil. You can see the beautiful Brazilian flag,

00:09:54.400 green and yellow. It's also sports colors. So you, I mean, I guess if you see someone today

00:10:02.640 wearing green and yellow, they might just be supporting a football team or a sports team.

00:10:06.400 But I get the feeling the closer we go to the rally, it's going to be a symbol of support. I spoke to

00:10:12.400 this young lady here who's selling this merch. Unfortunately, she doesn't speak a word of English. I'm ahead of

00:10:18.400 her because I speak one word of Portuguese, which is obrigado. Anyways, oh, there you go. Yeah,

00:10:25.040 that's thank you. Well, thank you for letting us film in front of your stuff. I'll let you know how

00:10:28.880 it goes. We're going to keep walking in this 32 degrees Celsius heat. That's about 90 degrees

00:10:34.960 Fahrenheit. I'm not built for hiking in that weather, but I'll do it for you. We're just on the fringes of

00:10:40.720 it. You could see it's sort of a festival atmosphere. Roads are closed. Food trucks are here.

00:10:45.600 It's sort of like, I don't know, in Rio, they might call it carnival. And we're just at the fringes of

00:10:52.880 it. Politics is a huge affair in a country with 200 million citizens. And it was a razor's edge by

00:11:00.400 which Lula beat Bolsonaro in the last election. Bolsonaro wants back in. But Lula's right-hand man,

00:11:08.000 an extremist judge named Alexandre de Mores has actually issued a ruling saying that Bolsonaro is

00:11:15.040 not eligible to run in the next election just by judicial fiat. It's really modeled after the U.S.

00:11:21.520 Democrat lawfare against Donald Trump. Imagine just simply saying you're not allowed to run again

00:11:28.560 because I'm a judge and I say so, and I'm protecting democracy by not letting the opponents of the regime

00:11:35.680 run. That's how nutty it is in Brazil. But that's another reason to be here. Because although we

00:11:40.880 might think of a Latin American country as perhaps not the heart of a liberal democracy, this is a

00:11:47.760 large democracy, 200 million souls. And if they can get away with the kind of tyranny, lawfare and

00:11:54.320 chicanery, censorship and abusiveness, really lurching back to a banana republic style dictatorship, 0.99

00:12:00.960 if they can do it here in Brazil, don't think for a moment that other leaders around the world won't

00:12:06.720 think they can copy it, especially this censorship aspect. We're going to make our way in. Hopefully,

00:12:12.640 we'll find some English speakers. But I had to stop and remark on sort of the party atmosphere.

00:12:17.760 That's Brazil for you. But what's very interesting is how many signs are here for freedom of speech.

00:12:24.480 And for Elon Musk, there are also signs saying Moraes, Moraes, which means Moraes out.

00:12:33.520 Who is Moraes? He is an extremist judge who has been conducting secret trials, censoring opposition

00:12:42.480 leaders. I want to show you this. This guy right here, he's dressed up as Alexandre de Moraes. What

00:12:48.240 do you have to say?

00:12:49.200 We have to take courage. We have to take courage. We have to take courage. We have to take courage. The

00:12:52.960 freedom is our own heritage. And we have to fight for the anistia of the people who are

00:12:57.520 arrested unjustly. They are parents and mothers and families. This here is a retrace. It is the

00:13:03.200 carne. It is the justice that we have today. And it's not just penalizing him, Alexandre de Moraes, but his

00:13:10.000 pares, for inertia, for lack of respect for the citizens of Brazil. The Venezuela is there. We are going to pass. 0.85

00:13:17.040 A liberdade é o maior patrimônio. Temos que lutar por nossa liberdade. Liberdade. E bota pra torar.

00:13:24.000 There he is. You don't need to know Portuguese to know that. He's a critic of Alexandre de Moraes,

00:13:30.320 the extremist judge who wears a black cape like this and has a bald head like that. What a character.

00:13:37.120 We've met a few of them in São Paulo. Obrigado. Thank you. Thank you. Very good.

00:13:42.160 And look over there. We're standing in front of the federal justice building. A very symbolic place.

00:13:50.400 You can see this is a stage from which the speeches will begin shortly. Lots of Brazil flags.

00:13:58.400 I think they're calling Moraes a criminal.

00:14:00.800 We're going to try and get closer.

00:14:10.000 Why are you here? I am American and Brazilian.

00:14:14.640 And why are you here today? I'm here representing my friend Alan dos Santos.

00:14:20.240 He is one of the journalists that is in exile in America due to Alexandre de Moraes' actions,

00:14:27.120 illegal actions. Why is he in exile? What did he do? He's a journalist. So he spoke the truth and now

00:14:35.040 he's paying for it. And what has Moraes done to him? Took his passport, all his assets,

00:14:41.920 separated his family for over three years. And what do you make of Moraes and Lula fighting against

00:14:50.960 Elon Musk in Twitter? They are wrong. They are doing illegal things. Moraes should be put in jail

00:14:58.080 and pay for his actions. He's crying. We're right at the front. This is a stage where the speeches will

00:15:04.320 happen in a matter of minutes. But even looking around the crowd is fascinating. For example,

00:15:10.160 look at those three flags at the top. The Brazilian flag, then the American flag, then the Israeli flag,

00:15:18.160 which is a very interesting statement because Lula, the authoritarian leader of Brazil,

00:15:24.320 is very sympathetic to different countries. Iran, China, Cuba. And I don't know if you can see it now,

00:15:32.640 but there's a fellow there that has a sign saying Bolsonaro and Trump are both against communism.

00:15:40.080 There's lots of placards, some of which call for the ouster of Brazil's censorious judge,

00:15:50.000 Alexandre de Moraes. There's posters for Elon Musk. It's a very interesting mix.

00:15:57.680 These people care about freedom. I love Elon Musk. I love Elon Musk. Brazil loves Elon Musk.

00:16:07.040 Thank you. Are you worried that Brazil is becoming a dictatorship again?

00:16:12.000 We are already a dictatorship.

00:16:16.320 How many people are expected today?

00:16:18.400 We are expecting hundreds of thousands of people. The last manifestation that we had was about a

00:16:26.640 million people. And how about Lula in Brasilia? What do you think is about his counter-protest?

00:16:34.880 Brazil, they had a death. Today is a Brazilian independence. They hold a parade that nobody supported.

00:16:43.360 The people of Brazil do not want to Lula. They do not vote for Lula.

00:16:49.040 It's a Trump-style rally. But this ain't Pennsylvania. It's Sao Paulo, Brazil.

00:16:55.440 And they're introducing Jair Bolsonaro, sometimes called the Donald Trump of Brazil.

00:17:09.360 He used to be the president. Then the left-wing regime won by a sliver. They've been conducting

00:17:16.880 lawfare against him ever since. This is one of his comeback rallies. But more than that,

00:17:23.360 it's a rally for freedom of speech. Because just like in Canada, America and elsewhere,

00:17:29.520 the authorities are cracking down on social media. Jair Bolsonaro is on the stage.

00:17:37.200 We'll stand by for his speech shortly.

00:17:39.200 The other side that won the elections, no one follows. In any place in Brazil that I go,

00:17:46.800 from the south to the south to the south to the south to the south to the south, or the north,

00:17:52.960 the people treat us very well. We can see, one day, a team of football will be champion

00:18:02.760 with the team, but the president without the people, it's the first time that we are watching in the history of Brazil.

00:18:11.600 People say that I should pass a faixa for that guy. I don't pass a faixa for a ladrão. 1.00

00:18:25.760 Do you see that sign there? For Alexandre de Moraes. That means get out, Moraes. Let me explain that for Americans and Canadians. 0.71

00:18:43.760 In Canada and the United States, there's lawfare that is using and abusing the courts to criminalize your political opponents.

00:18:51.760 Here in Brazil, they take it to a whole new level. They have secret trials and ban politicians.

00:18:57.760 and journalists in secret trials and journalists in secret trials and order social media companies to block them.

00:19:07.760 Only Twitter says no. And so now, the tyrannical regime of Lula and Moraes are seizing assets belonging to Elon Musk.

00:19:19.760 That's why we're here today on a whistle stop trip to Sao Paulo. We're going home tomorrow. We're just here for today and tomorrow morning.

00:19:37.760 We've walked about a block off the main drag on each side of the podium there. There's got to be a mile of people.

00:19:49.760 And we were jammed together so closely. I tell you, it was like a bride and groom.

00:19:55.760 I, uh, it's about 32 degrees or about 90 Fahrenheit. But when you're jammed up with people like that, it's 37 degrees.

00:20:04.760 It's body temperature. They were passing out little chilled containers of water near the front.

00:20:10.760 I think they were worried people were going to faint. 95% of the remarks have been in Portuguese,

00:20:17.760 which unfortunately I speak very little of. But there was a particular mention of Elon Musk in English,

00:20:24.760 thanking Elon Musk for providing Twitter and through Twitter a freedom of speech social media platform that has not been censored.

00:20:33.760 Well, let me correct myself. It has been ordered to be censored by an activist judge, Alexander de Moraes.

00:20:40.760 But Twitter has resisted, which by omission suggests that the other social media companies have complied.

00:20:49.760 By the way, historically, the conservative freedom oriented president before the current left wing authoritarian president,

00:20:58.760 Yair Bolsonaro, he organized using WhatsApp, the social media app that is owned by Meta.

00:21:07.760 So they've cracked down on his party's use of WhatsApp. And Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are fine with that.

00:21:15.760 Same with Instagram and Facebook. Only Elon Musk's social media app of Twitter has stood up against this activist judge.

00:21:26.760 And so you saw signs in the audience with praise for Elon Musk, thanking Elon Musk.

00:21:32.760 And there was a shout out to him in English from the podium.

00:21:36.760 It was interesting looking at the crowd. And again, I find it hard to measure a crowd when you're in the middle of it.

00:21:43.760 We put our drone up and I saw some images on our videographer's phone. It looked enormous.

00:21:49.760 I don't think I've ever been to such a large protest in my life. I mean, even the truckers was measures in tens of thousands.

00:21:57.760 But here, I think they measure their protests in hundreds of thousands and occasionally by the million.

00:22:03.760 Makes sense in a country with 200 million souls. I wouldn't be surprised if there were 200,000 here today.

00:22:10.760 But there was an observation because I go to protests around the world.

00:22:14.760 I went to a protest a few months ago, you might recall, in Dublin, Ireland.

00:22:19.760 And one of the things I look for are the flags. What flags were there here today?

00:22:24.760 Well, obviously, there was the Brazilian flag, green and yellow. You probably know it. It's an interesting flag.

00:22:30.760 And Bolsonaro has adopted the colors of the Brazilian flag as his own campaign colors.

00:22:36.760 But in addition to the green and yellow of the national flag, there were American flags.

00:22:44.760 And I must say, there were quite a few Israeli flags.

00:22:48.760 What I did not see at all was a single pro-Hamas Gaza flag, not a single one in the audience,

00:22:57.760 because simply that's not reflected by the grassroots will of this country.

00:23:02.760 I contrast that to the allies of the incumbent president, Lula is his name,

00:23:09.760 who is allied with the likes of Iran, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, and China.

00:23:16.760 Now, I don't speak any Portuguese, so I wasn't much good at understanding what was said from the stage.

00:23:23.760 But it was a high-energy, Trump-like rally. That is, lots of energy, music.

00:23:31.760 They have their own Bolsonaro theme song that they played.

00:23:35.760 They also played what I think was the Brazilian national anthem.

00:23:40.760 And it was beautiful to see so many Brazilians sing along quite passionately.

00:23:45.760 I've never been to Brazil before, but one thing you'll note right away is the racial heterogeneity of the country.

00:23:54.760 They have people of all different backgrounds, black, white, indigenous.

00:23:58.760 And I would guess, just from anecdotal observation, that most Brazilians are a mix of the above.

00:24:05.760 To see a rainbow of colors of people united in singing a patriotic anthem was actually quite a moving thing.

00:24:13.760 Again, that's Trump-like. I don't think you would have that on parties of the left as well.

00:24:19.760 We found it difficult to upload video in real time because there must be 50,000 people trying to stream this event on their cell phone.

00:24:31.760 So even though we were using a VPN and we bought extra data, it slowed to a crawl.

00:24:37.760 So we're going to go to a local cafe and upload our videos.

00:24:41.760 But it was a fascinating experience.

00:24:43.760 That's what I'm going to go do now.

00:24:45.760 Go and upload the video so you can see them live.

00:24:48.760 And we will come back.

00:24:49.760 There's just so many people here.

00:24:51.760 It's almost a certain date.

00:24:53.760 They'll be here for hours more.

00:24:55.760 On our way in, we saw lots of food trucks.

00:24:57.760 It's got that carnival feeling to it.

00:25:00.760 It's such a hot day.

00:25:01.760 People are selling cold water, cold pop, cold beer.

00:25:04.760 It's a Brazilian experience.

00:25:07.760 And it's an experience for freedom.

00:25:09.760 And we're not done yet.

00:25:19.760 There's very few people here who speak English.

00:25:21.760 And because of that, it's hard to understand what they're saying.

00:25:24.760 And it's hard to do streeters, which is one of our favorite ways of doing journalism.

00:25:29.760 It's also a sign that people here don't follow Rebel News.

00:25:34.760 I've been in places all around the Anglosphere.

00:25:38.760 And people recognize Rebel News.

00:25:40.760 But not here in Brazil.

00:25:41.760 They haven't heard of us.

00:25:42.760 They simply don't speak English.

00:25:44.760 But George overheard me speaking in English.

00:25:46.760 And he came up and wanted to share his thoughts.

00:25:49.760 Because I am eager to hear from someone in English.

00:25:53.760 We'll now ask George what's cooking here today.

00:25:56.760 All right, then.

00:25:57.760 I can tell you that today, it is one of the most important rallies in our country.

00:26:04.760 Today is our Independence Day.

00:26:06.760 And we celebrate that, celebrating also our liberty.

00:26:09.760 Because without liberty, without freedom, you don't have any independence at all.

00:26:15.760 So, all that you are seeing here today, we are about to reach over a million.

00:26:21.760 Over a million people here.

00:26:23.760 Last time, it was 750,000 in this avenue.

00:26:28.760 Today, we are reaching out for over a million.

00:26:31.760 To speak for freedom.

00:26:33.760 To speak against the banning of the X from our country. 1.00

00:26:38.760 To speak for freedom of speech.

00:26:40.760 So, X, you mean Twitter, as it's now called X.

00:26:43.760 So, are you a Twitter user yourself, an X user?

00:26:46.760 Yes.

00:26:47.760 Yes, I am.

00:26:48.760 Now, do you still use it?

00:26:49.760 I understand.

00:26:50.760 They tried to ban people from using a VPN.

00:26:53.760 Do you currently have access to X or Twitter right now?

00:26:56.760 Only if you use the VPN.

00:26:58.760 But as we are banned, we cannot use it.

00:27:00.760 So, this Alexandre de Moraes, he actually, he shut up 22 million people that use X or the X

00:27:10.760 Twitter here in Brazil.

00:27:11.760 So, 22 million.

00:27:13.760 It's a lot.

00:27:14.760 It's a lot.

00:27:15.760 22 million.

00:27:16.760 And when is the next election?

00:27:19.760 Is it a fixed date?

00:27:21.760 When will the next election be in Brazil?

00:27:24.760 For mayors and House of Deputies, it's going to be here next October.

00:27:30.760 But for president, 2026.

00:27:33.760 That's for our next election for president.

00:27:36.760 Now, I understand that this same judge, De Moraes, who's banned Twitter, has also ordered

00:27:41.760 that Jair Bolsonaro is not allowed to run in the next election.

00:27:45.760 Is that, is that the current state of the law?

00:27:48.760 All right, then.

00:27:49.760 As, what they did, it is, they turned Bolsonaro unelected for the next election.

00:27:55.760 But now, there will be many of the, some of the House of Deputies, they are fighting for,

00:28:01.760 to get back his right to be elected as president again.

00:28:04.760 So, what we are looking for, it is to be sure that he will be our next president.

00:28:10.760 Because he's the only one who has fought for our freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of thinking, freedom of thought.

00:28:18.760 So, he's the one that actually should be in that chair today.

00:28:23.760 Well, let me ask you this.

00:28:25.760 You speak about freedom and I saw a lot of people here with placards about freedom.

00:28:30.760 But when I came in from the airport, I passed through some extremely poor neighborhoods.

00:28:35.760 People, there's an enormous number of homeless people in parts of Sao Paulo, grindingly poor.

00:28:43.760 Do they think about freedom? Would they vote for Bolsonaro?

00:28:48.760 Or would they vote for Lula, the socialist, because he's promising to take money from the rich to give to the poor?

00:28:55.760 You seem to care about freedom, but what about people who are shockingly poor?

00:29:01.760 Before, I can answer that through the history.

00:29:04.760 Before, people from northeast of Brazil, they used to vote for Lula because Lula used to give them money.

00:29:10.760 Bolsonaro did different. Bolsonaro gave them jobs.

00:29:13.760 Bolsonaro gave them the freedom to work and have their own money without depending on the government.

00:29:19.760 So, I'm pretty sure that today we have a lot of minds that were for Lula before transformed into go to Bolsonaro today

00:29:28.760 because they saw that you only reach our freedom economically, freedom of speech, if you have independence.

00:29:36.760 If you work, if you are capable to have your own salary. So, that's what Bolsonaro was doing.

00:29:41.760 Instead of giving money, he was giving jobs. He was creating jobs around the country.

00:29:46.760 So, that will make, for example, foreign investors to invest in Brazil, to invest in companies, in the industry, in everything that we needed here.

00:29:57.760 So, Bolsonaro was on the right path for our prosperity. And now, we are seeing everything that we are seeing around the country.

00:30:04.760 Our deficit is go over and beyond the charts. Do you understand?

00:30:09.760 So, now, Bolsonaro was able to cap that in check. And actually, we have over money, not over deficit. Do you understand?

00:30:18.760 So, we have money enough to do all those social programs that use the left wing used to do it. 0.99

00:30:24.760 Only by giving money, Bolsonaro was able to give jobs. And that's what is important for the people.

00:30:30.760 For you to know how you catch your own fish, not only by giving.

00:30:34.760 All right, George. Great to catch up with you. Thanks very much.

00:30:37.760 There you have it, George. One of the few protesters we've seen today who speaks English.

00:30:42.760 A lot of similarities between how they attack Donald Trump in America and how they attract Bolsonaro here.

00:30:48.760 using lawfare, censoring, demonizing. It'll be interesting to see what terrible lessons Lula teaches Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Justin Trudeau.

00:31:02.760 To follow along, go to thetruthaboutbrazil.com.

00:31:06.760 Why are you here?

00:31:09.760 This place is a good fast, awesome fast. The future of Brazil is the in Bolsonaro, in ever, ever, ever Brazilians. 0.96

00:31:28.760 Why do you like Bolsonaro?

00:31:30.760 I like very.

00:31:33.760 For why? Why?

00:31:35.760 Can I speak Portuguese?

00:31:40.760 Bolsonaro did a lot for our country.

00:31:44.760 Especially in the years in the pandemic.

00:31:47.760 He did things that no other president before him was prepared to do.

00:31:52.760 And he acted with a strong hand, with the direction of God.

00:31:57.760 But he managed to remove our people from a situation that no other president before him could do.

00:32:03.760 My Portuguese is as good as your English. What do you think about freedom? And freedom of expression? Libertad.

00:32:12.760 Libertad.

00:32:21.760 they are not respecting the freedom of expression of our country.

00:32:25.760 So we are here as a way of protest to make this constitution

00:32:30.760 that they have so much appreciated.

00:32:33.760 But they are acting like a hypocrisy,

00:32:37.760 because they say that they respect, but they don't respect.

00:32:40.760 So we are here fighting for our freedom of expression.

00:32:43.760 Even though we have to pay a high price,

00:32:46.760 but we are here fighting not only for generations of today,

00:32:49.760 but for future generations.

00:32:51.760 What about libertad?

00:32:53.760 What about freedom of speech?

00:32:55.760 What about freedom of speech?

00:32:57.760 What about freedom of speech?

00:32:59.760 I think it's fundamental in any democracy,

00:33:03.760 in any way, in any way.

00:33:05.760 The right to speak is basic.

00:33:07.760 There's nothing to discuss.

00:33:10.760 It's a natural right for us to defend ourselves,

00:33:14.760 to be able to speak, to be able to express ourselves.

00:33:16.760 It's a natural thing.

00:33:18.760 Do you use social media?

00:33:20.760 Facebook?

00:33:21.760 Instagram?

00:33:22.760 Twitter?

00:33:23.760 X?

00:33:24.760 I have all of them.

00:33:25.760 I use all of them.

00:33:27.760 What do you have to say to Elon Musk,

00:33:31.760 the owner of X?

00:33:33.760 What would you say to Elon Musk?

00:33:35.760 What do you think of him?

00:33:39.760 What do you think of him?

00:33:40.760 I think it's absurd, in fact.

00:33:42.760 It's a thing that's totally without fundament,

00:33:45.760 no basis legal.

00:33:46.760 And it's the voice of our people,

00:33:48.760 that's the only place where we could express ourselves,

00:33:51.760 that wasn't censured, was there.

00:33:55.760 was there, and they were able to do something like that.

00:34:01.760 I'm Brazilian, I want to express myself,

00:34:05.760 I'm against the system, but they don't let me talk.

00:34:09.760 So it was a door that closed for me.

00:34:12.760 Tell me why you brought the flag israeli today.

00:34:15.760 Because Brazil and Israel are together.

00:34:18.760 It's historic.

00:34:19.760 Brazil is a Christian people.

00:34:21.760 And the Christianism comes from the root of the Jews. 0.99

00:34:25.760 There's no way.

00:34:26.760 Even the name of Brazil is called Pau Brasil,

00:34:28.760 who was assigned to an Israeli,

00:34:30.760 who founded Brazil, came to Brazil

00:34:32.760 and gave the name of Brazil because of the wood that came to Israel.

00:34:35.760 And so the name Pau Brasil,

00:34:39.760 this name has a Jewish root.

00:34:42.760 So it's always together, from the beginning.

00:34:45.760 I also saw some American flags.

00:34:48.760 What do you think of those?

00:34:50.760 Because the base of the United States,

00:34:52.760 the Latin America is the Christianism.

00:34:54.760 The West is the Christianism, 1.00

00:34:56.760 which is what the left wants to remove,

00:34:58.760 these pillars of the West, which is the Christianism.

00:35:02.760 And, also, we have our representative out there,

00:35:06.760 Elon Musk.

00:35:07.760 So, for us, it's a great importance

00:35:09.760 for everything he's doing,

00:35:10.760 for love to Brazil and love to democracy.

00:35:12.760 So, for me, this is gratitude.

00:35:13.760 That's why I brought the band of the United States.

00:35:15.760 The freedom, freedom in a alienation.

00:35:26.760 You know, I asked as many people as I could,

00:35:29.760 why did you come to the big rally today?

00:35:31.760 And, over and over, the number one answer I got was freedom.

00:35:34.760 Civil liberties, freedom of expression.

00:35:36.760 of expression it's not something you normally hear people go to rallies for partisan reasons

00:35:41.380 or even for economic pocketbook issues but to go to talk about freedom of speech i was impressed

00:35:46.740 many of them talk specifically about elon musk and they call it x here they don't use the old

00:35:51.740 word twitter i asked them if you had one message to say to elon musk what would it be boy i got

00:35:58.300 an earful take a listen why were you here today why did you guys come to the rally we came here

00:36:04.080 today because we are fighting for our freedom you know we listen to and we we saw all the things

00:36:11.220 that elon musk show to us and we hear for fighting for our freedom you know elon musk inspired us i

00:36:19.680 know that both lula and maurice have publicly criticized musk it's easy to be against the

00:36:28.740 world's richest man it's easy to be against the a foreign person um our ordinary brazilians

00:36:36.320 how do they feel about elon musk do they even know who he is you know most of the people are

00:36:42.740 with elon musk because we see what's going on we see we know what is right and that's why we think

00:36:49.020 that we and we support him uh but it's easy to be at lula's side right now do you use social media

00:36:57.000 like twitter instagram facebook no she is anymore x anymore oh yeah instagram you used to use x yes

00:37:04.600 he used to use no more they cut off don't you know this i do know this i use a vpn to get around

00:37:12.800 that my husband has this vpn because he's from united states well then they get who use vpn here

00:37:20.780 and they catch too don't want to use because you go x from vpn they block this too why am i be in

00:37:30.660 trouble because i'm using x to the vpn for another country you are in brazilia it's okay do you use

00:37:37.240 social media yes i use i use i used to my favorite was twitter like x but now i'm using

00:37:46.480 blue sky instagram tiktok i use a lot so you stopped using x when it was banned by the government

00:37:53.260 i stopped it because more i stopped us elon musk has stood up to alexander demoraes

00:38:00.600 very noisily and he's pushed back what do you think of that i think it's good for brazil

00:38:06.960 because he's not brazilian but he's going to help us a lot

00:38:13.200 app

00:38:14.200 is up you x x eu usava só agora foi bloqueado então você pode ver que eu tenho ele aqui

00:38:18.640 ok só que é bloqueado a gente não pode usar mais spanish block aqui ó eu tenho um x só

00:38:26.120 que a gente não pode usar mais tá bloqueado você usa vpn se eu falar isso perigoso ser mutado 0.71

00:38:32.960 então espeta rio if i say that i use vpn i am i am subjectable for a fine of 50 000 reais

00:38:40.400 which will be ten thousand dollar fine mas ele dá um jeitinho we are here because this

00:38:46.240 because he is let us to talk in in the biggest platform of brazil so we are here to fight to

00:38:56.080 for this platform and our freedom of speech

00:38:58.480 i love elon musk i love elon musk thank you if you had one message you could send to elon musk

00:39:10.560 today what would it be we are on your side how do you feel about elon musk he's taken a great

00:39:17.040 interest in brazil i love elon musk oh love elon musk he's helping us so much i hope so because he

00:39:26.400 has a lot of power a lot of money a lot of everything i hope he can help us you trust him a lot

00:39:35.920 if you had one message for the owner of x elon musk what would it be

00:39:41.760 brazil we need to fight for our future and we need to to stop more eyes hello musk thank you for

00:39:51.280 fighting for our freedom we are with you thank you very much you are friend of brazilian people

00:40:00.240 hello musk help us please please

00:40:05.120 musk fica firme não desanima nos ajuda porque o brasil precisa de você e o mundo precisa de você

00:40:10.960 porque a gente precisa de liberdade e você é um guerreiro é um lutador para nós é de grande

00:40:15.600 importância foi pelo que você está fazendo não pelo dinheiro certo mas pelo que você é então

00:40:20.720 isso nos orgulha muito então meu feliz demais pelo musk is not amazing that gave me a lot of hope 1.00

00:40:26.640 but the fact that they rely on an industrialist and a free speech activist from america to save them

00:40:33.520 in brazil it's delightful that x is doing that but it's also deeply sad that without x these people

00:40:41.920 would be thrown to the wolves we heard several instances today where people who express themselves

00:40:48.000 on instagram find themselves censored immediately so all the censorship that elon musk is fighting

00:40:54.000 against mark zuckerberg is accepting and rolling over for all our reports from sao paulo

00:41:00.800 go to the truth about brazil dot com and if you like this journalism please help cover the cost

00:41:07.120 of our citizen activism journalism it's about four thousand dollars all in for my cameraman and

00:41:12.960 i to come down from canada for a couple days you can chip in at the truth about brazil dot com

00:41:18.640 thanks we're a couple of blocks away from the big rally uh on a fence i see this enormous

00:41:24.160 banner impeachment of the dictator alexander demoraes and a shocking picture of him he is quite easy to

00:41:34.240 caricature because he's uh got a completely shaved bald head and he wears this black cape like he's some

00:41:43.600 i don't know member of the spanish inquisition or some quasi-religious high priest and the reason they

00:41:51.840 call him a dictator is because he has unilaterally banned anyone that comes to his attention who

00:42:01.680 criticizes the current left-wing regime he's ordered the leader the end of the conservative

00:42:08.720 opposition the trump-like figure here javier bolsonaro he's banned him from running again and he's

00:42:15.680 basically declared war on elon musk because elon musk won't go along with his censorship it's quite

00:42:21.520 incredible to see that personified in one man and you might look at that and say that that's just

00:42:26.880 such a shocking grotesque image bloodthirsty but i i think that more ish actually cultivates that image

00:42:35.760 no one wears a black cape and has that astonishing look by accident he really thinks he's some high

00:42:43.200 emperor and the trouble is brazil is not so far removed from a military dictatorship past i have to

00:42:50.480 tell you um he would be at home being a ruler of any tin pot banana republic that's what he's trying

00:42:57.200 to turn brazil into yeah your bolsonaro wants to make it more freedom oriented be interesting to see

00:43:03.120 which way that goes but i just have to stop and remark on this banner why did you come to the bolsonaro

00:43:09.120 rally today i i come here because i'm here to to defend the free of brazil because chandong is

00:43:23.280 he's cream of speech yeah yes he's closing our our mouth oh really because lula is doing that or moray

00:43:30.960 morays morays is um that's the judge he's a judge he's uh literally just a toy for him it's just a

00:43:38.800 toy this alexandre de morais he actually he shut up 22 million people that use x or the next twitter

00:43:47.840 here he's in brazil so 22 million it's a lot it's a lot 22 million i think in the united states what

00:43:56.000 they're doing to donald trump trying to censor him trying to take legal action against him i feel

00:44:02.640 like they're doing the same thing here as well uh and this alexandre de morais i think he's a

00:44:08.320 radical judge does it look likely that he'll be impeached or do you think he's going to continue

00:44:13.920 doing what he's doing i think he is unfortunately going to keep doing what he's doing which is a shame

00:44:20.480 for us brazilian because this he doesn't represent us but i hope one day it will stop there's gonna be

00:44:27.680 one impeachment they're gonna ask for impeachment this time have a lot of power the judge alexander

00:44:33.520 de morais yeah yeah then it's gonna be a lot of power this impeachment for 90s i hope so you win

00:44:40.960 him so who's more powerful lula or morais morais really lula is he's just a part of this wrong thing

00:44:50.480 this bad thing in brazil now i understand that this same judge de morais who's banned twitter

00:44:57.360 has also ordered that jair bolsonaro is not allowed to run in the next election

00:45:02.560 is that does that the current state of the law all right then as uh what they did it is

00:45:08.640 they turned bolsonaro unelected for the next election but now there will be many of the

00:45:15.520 some of the house of deputies they are fighting for to get back his right to be elected as president

00:45:21.440 again so what we're looking for it is to be sure that he will be our next president i don't usually

00:45:28.960 do this but i want to give a shout out to the vpn i'm using and i downloaded it in about 30 seconds

00:45:35.360 on my phone it's called piavpn.com and they actually give us a commission if you sign up for

00:45:42.320 it so i'm gonna toot their horn as a kind of advertiser by the way it works great it was easy

00:45:48.800 even for a technophobe like me if you go to piavpn.com slash rebel news you get a big discount and we get

00:45:57.520 a couple of bucks anyways that's my commercial picks thanks for letting me say it i'm worried that what

00:46:03.040 we see with lula and demora is lurching back in time towards a less free brazil do you feel that

00:46:12.160 way are you worried that brazil will become a kind of dictatorship i am afraid of that and i hope

00:46:19.760 things change in the future i hope donald trump win to help us because it's a terrible country to live

00:46:26.480 right now why does maurice wear the black cape i find that very weird me too me too i can't

00:46:34.640 does he think he's like i can't understand why he isn't he's the judge because he's not judge here

00:46:40.560 does he think he's maybe uh like a a high priest or an or a head of the inquisition it's it's almost

00:46:48.320 like he's dressing up in a halloween costume as some emperor or something like voldemort yeah or

00:46:55.920 palpatine in star wars yeah uh i think he's like voldemort here um for my friends and and i uh he's

00:47:03.600 voldemort and what do you think he's just a monster

00:47:07.440 well it's about 5 15 p.m here in sao paulo and the rally for jared bolsonaro and freedom

00:47:23.040 is officially over people are slowly making their way home but i gotta say it's still that

00:47:28.160 festival feeling that carnival feeling there's so many food trucks and stands selling stuff people

00:47:34.400 are in no rush to get home they blocked off all these streets so it's sort of turned into a street

00:47:39.200 festival lots of beer is drunk here in brazil i can testify to that um everyone's so friendly you

00:47:45.760 know when we do what we call streeters or man on the street interviews in toronto people or new york

00:47:52.880 people are too rushed they sort of brush you off um they're they're sort of gruff about it but i found

00:47:58.240 that everyone here was very polite now i have to say very few spoke english but we did manage to find

00:48:03.600 someone we found a fella who helped us translate but there's such a friendliness here to brazil was

00:48:08.080 very welcoming and i mean i suppose this is all a brazilian society but it's such a diverse mix of

00:48:13.840 people from different ethnic backgrounds uh it really is an amazing looking people and the harmony

00:48:22.400 is quite something my favorite part of today i have to tell you was when we were right at the front

00:48:28.000 in the rally and they sang the brazilian anthem at least what i think was a brazilian anthem and

00:48:33.040 everyone sang it with passion and to see faces of every race and ethnicity sing that unifying song

00:48:41.920 i was touched by it and i was touched by how many brazilian flags i saw and it was notable that i didn't

00:48:47.840 see a single hamas flag the whole time there were some israeli flags some american flags these people

00:48:53.200 know what they believe in it's hard to measure the size of a crowd when you're in one how can you

00:48:59.200 possibly do that we flew our drone part of the way down the street but i think there were some gps

00:49:05.280 limitations in this area i saw a lot of other drones so we just showed one half of the street but there

00:49:11.760 was as many people on the other half of the street too i heard someone gave an estimate i don't even

00:49:17.680 want to repeat it because i don't believe that there were a million people i just find that hard to

00:49:21.600 believe but do i believe there were more than a hundred thousand people here today absolutely i

00:49:26.400 do we'll have to see what the police estimate is wouldn't surprise me if it was a quarter million

00:49:31.520 that's how they roll i mean think about it brazil is the kind of place that puts a hundred thousand

00:49:35.920 people in a soccer stadium so they're used to coming out and there was there's some entertainment

00:49:41.200 here i mean there were some great speakers there was even some songs they've got their bolsonaro

00:49:47.120 song that's pretty catchy um like i say sort of a festival feeling i was sort of squished and crushed

00:49:53.280 near the front and uh it was extremely noisy the front so i wasn't very able to do some journalism

00:49:59.280 there but i enjoyed the streeters that i did after and everyone here when you ask them why did you come

00:50:06.640 here why did you come to this rally they all answered the word freedom every single one of them and

00:50:14.400 that's impressive to me that people care about something like that we'll have some more reports

00:50:19.120 that we put up over the next little while we got to go and edit them you can follow all those at the

00:50:23.760 truth about brazil.com and by the way efron and i crowd we're crowdfunding our tickets to come out here

00:50:30.720 to economy class airfares about three thousand dollars canadian combined plus a hotel room and some

00:50:37.120 taxis if you can help chip in you can do that right there about the truth about brazil.com all right we're

00:50:44.080 going to make our way back to the hotel and start doing some editing

Rebel News Podcast - September 10, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Hundreds of thousands rally for free speech in Brazil with support of Elon Musk and X

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