Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ If we had 20 Ron DeSantis’s, we’d be winning this battle

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Boy, I got two stories today, both of them involving Elon Musk. I guess I talk

00:00:04.760 about him a lot, but I really think not only is the world's richest man, one of the most

00:00:08.540 interesting men, he's such a consequential man. He's a man of action. And boy, some news today

00:00:15.600 about him and a discussion with one of our writers who daily goes back and forth with Elon Musk on

00:00:23.020 Twitter in real time. It's amazing to watch. We'll interview Ian Miles Chong. But first, let me invite

00:00:28.000 you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's a video version of this podcast. We, you

00:00:33.420 know, we make it with the video in mind. The fact you're listening in audio, it's great. But we

00:00:39.400 actually put a lot of effort into the visuals. We show you things. We show you pictures. We show you

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00:01:00.860 left. So please go to rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's podcast.

00:01:20.140 Tonight, if we had 20 Ron DeSantis's, we'd be winning this battle. It's December 1st,

00:01:26.040 and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:30.940 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:42.560 Take a look at this Reuters headline. There's a little bit of jargon in it. Florida pulls

00:01:49.320 $2 billion from BlackRock in largest anti-ESG divestment. What does that mean? Well, ESG

00:01:59.060 stands for environmental, social, and corporate governance, which is just a buzzword for left-wing

00:02:05.560 political values infiltrating into businesses. We know the long march through the institutions of

00:02:11.420 left-wing radicals, universities, the media, Hollywood. But now they're in formerly conservative

00:02:19.800 territories, big technology, the military, even NFL football and NASCAR, and now big business.

00:02:28.300 Here's how the CFA Institute defines ESG. CFAs are chartered financial analysts. They're people who run

00:02:35.520 companies. They're the numbers, guys. See, that's your problem right there. Companies are run by making

00:02:40.880 financial decisions based on numbers. But ESG tells businesses they have to place other political

00:02:47.240 values higher than making money in their company. Like fighting climate change, whatever that means,

00:02:53.480 you're not going to change the weather by spending shareholder money on stupid things. Here's the CFA 0.99

00:03:00.100 Institute's website. They define ESG this way. They say, what is ESG investing? ESG stands for

00:03:07.720 environmental, social, and governance. Investors are increasingly applying these non-financial factors

00:03:13.940 as part of their analysis process to identify material risks and growth opportunities. ESG metrics are not

00:03:21.280 commonly part of mandatory financial reporting, though companies are increasingly making disclosures

00:03:26.680 in their annual report or in a standalone sustainability report. Numerous institutions,

00:03:32.400 such as the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, the Global Reporting Initiative, and the Task Force

00:03:39.640 on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, are working to form standards and define materially

00:03:45.400 to facilitate incorporation of these factors into the investment process.

00:03:49.800 So it's like when Trudeau says he'll apply a gender analysis to things like building pipelines. It's a laugh.

00:03:59.000 It's a joke. There is no gender analysis to building pipelines. Pipelines don't have a gender. They're made of 1.00

00:04:05.760 steel. But it's just Trudeau's way of smearing the oil and gas industry as misogynistic or whatever. Of course,

00:04:12.740 it's not true. Try doing a gender analysis on oil from Saudi Arabia, where women actually are not allowed to work 1.00

00:04:18.780 in those companies at all. Canadian oil and gas is gender neutral, if you want to use that word. Anyone can work

00:04:25.360 in an oil company, any race, any sex, gay or straight, whatever. None of those things can be said about OPEC oil

00:04:31.360 or Russian oil, even. But Trudeau used gender analysis to block Canadian pipelines. It's a scam, of course. 0.93

00:04:39.980 It's purely designed to infiltrate companies. You'd think that one of the highest rated ESG companies,

00:04:46.020 by the way, would be Tesla, Elon Musk's electric car company. I mean, he's finally doing that leftist

00:04:52.900 dream, building an electric car for the mass market. But of course, Elon Musk has gone rogue these days,

00:04:58.480 gone crazy by talking about free speech and all that. Look at this exchange on Twitter. I'm on Twitter

00:05:06.800 for fun and for business these days. You learn so much. Carol Roth wrote,

00:05:11.280 Remember when Elon Musk wanted to bring free speech to Twitter and then Standard & Poor's

00:05:17.800 removed Tesla from their ESG 500 index but kept Exxon? ESG is business social credit. It's a means to

00:05:26.460 control capital, keep business people in line with the narrative and ultimately control you.

00:05:31.160 She's exactly right. Elon Musk wrote back and said, ESG is the devil. Pretty blunt. He's funny.

00:05:40.060 Some other podcaster chimed in and said, What objective standards are used to determine an ESG

00:05:46.820 score? To which Christina Peshaw, a senior aide to Ron DeSantis, replied, There are no objective

00:05:54.420 standards. If Exxon has a higher ESG score than Tesla, it's all about ideological conformity,

00:05:59.240 not sustainability or whatever the virtue signaling word of the day is. And then Glenn Beck jumped in

00:06:04.880 to the same conversation. He said, Well, well, a couple of my favorite people talking about

00:06:08.680 one of the West's most insidious villains. I have a feeling that there is a Chinese Communist Party 1.00

00:06:13.440 inspired public-private partnership behind Apple's App Store threat. Elon, you're welcome on my podcast

00:06:19.340 anytime. You know, Twitter can be pretty interesting. I like a number of those people in that conversation.

00:06:25.380 But Christina Peshaw was the most consequential, at least as far as my news story today is concerned.

00:06:32.360 There are 50 United States, and each of them has a governor and a budget and investments.

00:06:37.860 28 of the states are run by Republicans. But of course, Ron DeSantis of Florida is clearly the most

00:06:44.060 active leader amongst them, which brings us back to the news of today. That Reuters story I read the

00:06:51.040 headline too. Florida's, let me read a little bit more. Florida's chief financial officer said on

00:06:56.660 Thursday, his department would pull $2 billion worth of its assets managed by BlackRock Inc.,

00:07:02.280 the biggest such divestment by a state opposed to the asset manager's environmental, social,

00:07:07.180 and corporate governance ESG policies. The move will hardly dent BlackRock's $8 trillion in assets

00:07:15.200 and drew a strong response from the company, which said the action put politics over investor

00:07:19.720 interest. What a laugh that is. Now, it's true, BlackRock is bigger than pretty much most governments

00:07:25.680 in the world. It probably controls more of your life in certain spheres, at least, than does the

00:07:30.680 government. $2 billion sounds like a lot to you and me, but it's less than 1% of 1% of the funds that

00:07:36.480 BlackRock controls. But still, it's finally someone taking on the Death Star, even a little bit.

00:07:42.520 I should note that two other governors have done this before. DeSantis did. Louisiana's governor pulled

00:07:48.920 $800 million out, and Missouri pulled $500 million out. Maybe Florida's just a bigger state and their

00:07:54.960 governor is better at getting national media. But that's three states that I know about. That's not

00:07:59.560 a blip then. That's a trend, you could say. Like I say, there are 25 other U.S. states run by

00:08:06.040 Republican governors. If they all followed Missouri and Louisiana, Florida, it would surely be an 11-figure

00:08:12.080 divestment. Still not enough to dent BlackRock, but enough to get a counter-narrative going.

00:08:16.580 What is ESG? Who decided we have to follow it? How is it hurting us, and how can we stop it?

00:08:22.920 Let's get that discussion going. As the CFAs tell us, ESG is making political decisions instead of

00:08:28.200 business decisions. Now, I suppose we believe in that sometimes, right? I mean, we wouldn't want to

00:08:33.320 buy something made in slave labor factories in China just because it was cheaper, right?

00:08:39.280 Of course, we do that every day. I mean, everything in Walmart's made in China. Everything in Best Buy's

00:08:43.700 made in China, we wouldn't want our computers made there, or our clothing, or our running shoes, 1.00

00:08:48.060 right? Except they all are, right? In fact, there are massive protests going on right now. I'd call

00:08:53.900 it an uprising at Apple's big factories in China right now. Why is Apple making its phones in China?

00:09:01.340 Look at this story in the New York Times. Nike, the clothing company, actually lobbied against a

00:09:07.100 proposed U.S. law that would stop them from using slave labors in China's Muslim province of Xinjiang.

00:09:13.140 They literally lobbied against the anti-slave labor law. So how do they do on this ESG score business?

00:09:20.200 Well, let's check. There's a lot of rankings out there. Nike has an ESG score of 17. They call it

00:09:28.460 low risk. Do you see that? Really? Low risk? They are literally using slave labor in China and

00:09:35.180 lobbying to stop rules against slave labor in China. But they're so cool and woke, right?

00:09:40.520 I think that was Colin Kaepernick's company, right? And look at this, Apple. Apple has almost

00:09:46.360 the identical score. They are building their machines in China where they're having an uprising.

00:09:52.320 But Elon Musk, the free speech guy, building literally electric cars. He's a higher risk,

00:09:58.080 according to ESG. Look at this story on CNBC the other day. Standards and Poor's literally kicked

00:10:06.740 them off their index saying, I can't even believe this, Tesla's lack of a low-carbon strategy and

00:10:14.180 codes of business conduct, along with racism and poor working conditions reported at Tesla's factory

00:10:20.240 in Fremont, California, affected the score. Tesla's handling of an investigation by the National

00:10:25.240 Highway Transportation Safety Administration also weighed on this score. Really? A low-carbon

00:10:31.280 strategy. They're lacking a low-carbon strategy. They make electric cars. They are the strategy.

00:10:36.440 And poor working conditions in California, the most pro-worker jurisdiction in America? I mean,

00:10:41.380 could be. They're being kicked out, but companies actually building things in China are just fine for

00:10:48.160 ESG. Oh, yeah. I'm not sure if there's an objective standard. I just got to show you this one more

00:10:52.980 thing. There's a company in Alberta called Meg Energy, M-E-G. They're a large oil sands operator.

00:10:59.820 So they're under Canadian environmental laws, Canadian social responsibility, civil rights,

00:11:05.100 workers' rights, gay rights, women's rights, aboriginal rights. They are called high risk.

00:11:11.260 Do you see that? They have a 38. Danger, danger, high risk, danger. They're operating in Alberta,

00:11:17.360 the most ethical jurisdiction in the world. But Sinopec, a Chinese oil and gas company that operates

00:11:23.960 in China and OPEC dictatorships, no human rights, no freedom, no environmental, they get 35.7. They're

00:11:31.060 better? Sorry, they're better than Meg Energy? Seriously, imagine the bribery behind the scenes

00:11:38.160 here. Because it's all loosey-goosey, right? This would be like the corruption at the Olympics

00:11:43.020 Committee, different cities trying to bribe the commissioners to get the Olympics in their country.

00:11:49.360 Well, back to Ron DeSantis. Here's more from that Reuters story. It underscores how a backlash

00:11:56.360 among many Republican leaders, such as those in Florida, against ESG investing, which they see as

00:12:02.140 promoting a woke agenda, is gathering steam. Republicans are set to assume control of the U.S. House of

00:12:08.100 Representatives in January. This will allow them to hold hearings on ESG and grill the chief executives

00:12:14.080 of BlackRock and other major asset managers about their ESG policies and also pressure regulators to

00:12:20.020 scrutinize them. Exactly. See, if you are managing someone else's money as an investment firm, or if you're

00:12:27.500 running a company on behalf of shareholders, you have a duty to the shareholders, to the investors.

00:12:32.460 Obviously, a duty to be honest, don't steal, don't cheat. But you have something else called a

00:12:37.180 fiduciary duty. You have to look out for their financial interests. You have to be cautious for

00:12:42.060 them. You have to be smart for them. You have to make the most money for them that you can.

00:12:45.680 You can call it greed if you're negative about it, but you can call it being prosperous if you're

00:12:51.060 positive about it. And given that so many investments are people's pensions, people's life

00:12:56.820 savings, or endowments for universities or hospitals, employee pension funds, whatever,

00:13:03.300 it is highly moral to get the best rate of return possible under the law. Now, business people might

00:13:11.860 be greedy for themselves. I guess that's human nature, right? But fiduciary duty says you have to

00:13:18.680 be greedy for others, which I suppose you could call, well, not quite charity, but frankly, you're

00:13:25.240 looking out for your fellow man. You're forced to do the best for your fellow man. I don't even think

00:13:29.260 you can call that greed because it's not for you. We know that people will take care of themselves.

00:13:34.200 That's human nature. But businesses must take care of their investors too. They must do the best

00:13:39.900 thing for the grandma who has their pension with the investment firm. But ESG changes that. It makes

00:13:46.700 political errands more important than earning money for grandma's pension. It's diverting people's money 0.99

00:13:53.860 to the pet causes of the ESG activists. Hey, here's an idea. Let businesses make money and then let the

00:14:02.840 shareholders who get the dividends decide whatever they want to do with the profits, whatever they

00:14:07.660 want. Well, BlackRock not only uses ESG to push its left-wing policies on its investors, but it forces

00:14:16.140 companies that want BlackRock money to agree to this ideology. It literally injects politics into

00:14:23.560 non-political businesses as a kind of condition, almost an extortion, will invest in you, but only

00:14:28.760 if you go woke. I think regulators should take a look. How much money is BlackRock frittering away on

00:14:36.680 its political pet projects instead of earning money for investors? How much money is it bribing? 0.87

00:14:42.280 And how are they pressuring companies to become political to get BlackRock money? In a statement,

00:14:48.400 I'll read some more. Florida CFO Jimmy Petronis said the state's treasury, which he oversees,

00:14:55.260 would remove BlackRock as manager of about $600 million of short-term investments and have its

00:15:00.020 custodian freeze $1.43 billion of long-term securities now with BlackRock, with an eye on

00:15:05.680 reallocating the money to other money managers by the start of 2023. Petronis accused BlackRock of

00:15:11.700 focusing on ESG rather than higher returns for investors. Florida's treasury division is divesting

00:15:18.220 from BlackRock because they have openly stated they've got other goals in producing returns,

00:15:23.100 Petronis said in the statement provided by his office. Well, BlackRock's response was just incredible,

00:15:29.560 by the way, just amazing. They said, asked about the move, BlackRock said in the statement that

00:15:35.380 we are disturbed by the emerging trend of political initiatives like this, that sacrifice access to

00:15:41.380 high-quality investments and thereby jeopardize returns, which will ultimately hurt Florida's

00:15:46.040 citizens. Fiduciaries should always value performance over politics. They said that. No, no, no, no. ESG is

00:15:53.060 the politics part. Investing to make money is the fiduciary part. BlackRock is literally lying. It's

00:15:59.280 opposite day. They're accusing the state of Florida of doing what they're doing, which is putting

00:16:04.340 politics into business. Here's an interesting end to the story. I thought this was neat.

00:16:09.600 Other companies also faced Republican scrutiny. Earlier this week, Republican attorneys general

00:16:14.160 from various states asked a federal regulator to limit Vanguard Group Inc.'s activities over ESG

00:16:20.040 concerns and asked United Parcel Service and FedEx Corp to clarify their policies on tracking firearm

00:16:26.140 shipments. Exactly. Do massive companies get to simply ban people from doing legal things

00:16:33.820 to follow some political agenda. How about when Rebel News, when we applied for a mortgage and the Royal

00:16:39.440 Bank of Canada approved us financially, said we were worthy of a mortgage, but then canceled it because

00:16:46.100 of our politics. Remember when they told me that? That's a form of Chinese-style social credit.

00:16:52.200 It's bad enough when governments do that, but now big companies are doing it in partnership with

00:16:57.980 government. BlackRock's the worst. I fully support Ron DeSantis. I wonder if, say, Alberta Premier

00:17:04.080 Danielle Smathers, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, I wonder if they might do the same. I mean,

00:17:10.560 why should Alberta and Saskatchewan invest public money in funds that defame and abuse Alberta's oil and gas

00:17:18.540 industry, but don't raise a peep about OPEC or Russian oil? Imagine obeying a junk science eco-cult that says

00:17:28.640 a Chinese oil company operating in OPEC regimes is more ethical than a Canadian oil company operating 0.65

00:17:33.780 here at home. Yeah, the only question I have is, will Canadian conservatives join Ron DeSantis

00:17:39.460 in finally doing the right thing? Stay with us for more about Elon Musk.

00:17:57.260 Welcome to a day in my life as a Twitter employee. So this past week, went to SF for the first time

00:18:04.180 at a Twitter office, badged in. Honestly, took a moment to just soak everything in. What a blessing.

00:18:11.400 Also, started my morning off with an iced matcha from the pit. Then I had a meeting, so quickly

00:18:17.380 scheduled one of these little pod rooms, which were so cool. They're literally noise-canceling.

00:18:22.560 Took my meeting, got ready for a bunch. Look how delicious this food looks. Oh my goodness,

00:18:28.140 I was so overwhelmed. Then made my way down to this log cabin area. I don't know what this

00:18:34.180 is, but it was really cool. Played some foosball with my friends to kind of unwind a bit.

00:18:41.300 Also found this really cool meditation room that I thought was super neat. I didn't do any yoga,

00:18:48.900 but they have this yoga room if you are a yogi, so also thought that was really cool.

00:18:54.560 Had a couple more meetings in the afternoon. Had a ton of projects that we needed to knock out.

00:18:58.980 Say hi to my teammates. Went to the library to kind of get some more work done. Obviously had to have

00:19:07.060 our afternoon coffee, so made some espresso. And then before leaving for the day, had some red wine

00:19:13.200 that's on tap. Went up to the rooftop and just honestly enjoyed the beautiful weather. So awesome trip.

00:19:22.520 What an incredible video. It felt more like it was an all-inclusive resort or a cruise ship. All the

00:19:28.920 breakfast bars and lunch bars and the yoga room and the wine on tap at an office. You don't normally

00:19:34.900 see that. You know, I once visited the Twitter HQ here in Toronto, Canada, and it was luxurious. It was

00:19:41.900 nothing like what we just saw there. Apparently they spent $13 million a year just on food.

00:19:47.640 It's just incredible. Needless to say, that employee is no longer there, according to Elon Musk. He gave

00:19:54.780 her and thousands more the heave home. People who were sort of like barnacles on the ship.

00:19:59.880 They weren't computer engineers who built the code. They were part of, you know, the engagement teams or

00:20:07.060 the community standards teams or the UN policy enforcement. There were all these political

00:20:12.820 barnacles that were slowing down the ship of Twitter. Well, what's interesting about Elon Musk

00:20:18.800 buying Twitter and taking it private, he's the boss and he doesn't have to answer to the SEC or to a

00:20:24.680 board in the normal way that a publicly traded company would. He can make bolder decisions that

00:20:29.680 would have a rebellion amongst shareholders if he was publicly traded. But I think the funnest thing

00:20:34.680 about Elon Musk is not only that he is a true disruptor, but that he is tweeting it in real time.

00:20:40.980 He's using his forum Twitter to talk about Twitter and how he changes Twitter. There's so many layers

00:20:47.700 to it. It's amazing. But we have a small connection to this story. Not only do we love to use Twitter

00:20:53.960 and, you know, I think we love it too much. Sometimes it's a bit addictive. But one of our rebels who is

00:21:00.180 extremely online, as the kids say, has established a personal rapport with Elon Musk himself. I'm not

00:21:08.580 saying they're close friends. But when our writer, Ian Miles Chong, tweets about Twitter and Elon Musk,

00:21:15.960 well, more often than not, Elon Musk personally replies. It's actually very exciting. And joining

00:21:21.820 us now via Skype is Ian Miles Chong. Ian, great to see you again. And congratulations, not just on your

00:21:27.860 work for Rebel News, but you are engaging with one of the richest, smartest, most consequential men in the

00:21:34.340 world right now. Absolutely. I mean, it feels like a privilege in a lot of ways. I mean, I wouldn't say

00:21:40.220 this about just anyone. You know, I've had a lot of celebrities interact with me. I couldn't care less.

00:21:46.100 They're just anybody, you know. But Elon Musk, he is a once in a lifetime human being. And I know I

00:21:51.020 sing his praises a lot. Some people have called me out on it. They're like, oh, why are you cheerleading

00:21:55.840 him so much? I'm like, well, have you ever met anyone at Elon Musk? I mean, look at what he's doing

00:22:00.560 for humanity. You know, you may not agree with all the things he's doing. You may not agree with

00:22:05.120 his handling of Twitter, which some might say is very disorganized. But let's face it, he's getting

00:22:11.780 results. I mean, it took Twitter how long to crack down on child sexual exploitation? I mean, like they

00:22:18.560 never did, right? 10 plus years, they didn't do anything. And Tifa, five years, they didn't do

00:22:23.040 anything. And he steps in. Within two weeks, he gets rid of all of this. Well, yeah, that's a good

00:22:27.200 point. And he may look chaotic, but he's always had sort of a controversial style. But look what

00:22:33.660 he's built, SpaceX. The most successful space company is not NASA. It's a private company.

00:22:39.980 Look at Tesla. I mean, I have my opinions on electric cars. But as he repeatedly says,

00:22:45.660 he never asked for grants. That was GM and his other competitors. He's made his patents open source.

00:22:50.880 Like the guy is an ideas man. Like you say, some of his ideas might be a bit unusual. He wants us

00:22:57.460 all to go to Mars. He's got a neural link plan that I don't quite understand about transhumanism.

00:23:03.420 So, you know, I have, I want to be careful of blind spots too. But the man is, he is a decider.

00:23:11.060 He is a doer. And it would be foolish to bet against him. And here's what I like about your

00:23:16.900 engagements with him. You're not fan. You're not turning into a fanboy. You and I sort of are

00:23:21.920 friends of his. But you are, I can see what you're doing. You're actually trying to make

00:23:26.940 substantive suggestions, arguments. Like you're not just, hey, give me a high five. Let me give

00:23:32.700 you an example. Here's one tweet that I thought was interesting. As you know, everyone's trying to

00:23:37.560 fight Twitter now. Celebrities are noisily saying they quit. Some companies say they're going to quit

00:23:43.880 their advertising. I think it was NBC who briefly quit using it as a, oh, you know what? Let me

00:23:48.900 play a really great clip from the White House. A Fox reporter asking the White House, well,

00:23:55.980 you're criticizing Elon Musk and saying you're keeping an eye on Twitter. Do you plan to stop

00:24:00.260 using Twitter? This was a great exchange. And of course they don't stop, plan to stop using it.

00:24:06.820 Here, take a quick look at this.

00:24:07.940 On another subject, when are you guys going to delete the White House Twitter account?

00:24:13.880 Why would we do that?

00:24:16.220 Well, you're saying that you're keeping an eye on Twitter because it might not be a suitable

00:24:20.440 platform. So why use it?

00:24:22.580 Look, I want to be very clear here. The president has always said, and he has been very, very clear

00:24:29.060 in his belief that it is important social media platforms to continue to take steps to reduce hate,

00:24:34.300 speech and misinformation. And he will continue to say that. But media platforms make independent

00:24:39.900 choices about their information that they present. And so, look, I don't have anything to share on any

00:24:47.100 policy or any changes that we will be making. We have multiple platforms, as you know, that we

00:24:53.420 utilize to communicate with the American people.

00:24:56.360 What a great question. People who say, I'm quitting Twitter. It's like those Democrats when Trump won,

00:25:02.620 who said, I'm moving to America. I'm moving to Canada. That's exactly right. Anyways, let me read

00:25:07.020 your, this is one of your tweets just a few days ago. Let me read it and his reply. And I'd love you

00:25:12.140 to talk a bit about this. So Ian said, the establishment media is angry at Elon Musk because

00:25:18.260 Twitter is no longer under the control of the establishment and its activist allies.

00:25:22.560 He implemented meritocratic policies and fired their friends who worked at Twitter. The public

00:25:29.120 can now openly question the narrative. Now, that tweet was very popular. And Elon Musk just wrote

00:25:34.840 one word back. He said, yep. Now, I'm not saying that's a deep discussion, but he's obviously reading

00:25:39.880 you and paying attention and thinking about things. And he's, he's saying, yeah, what that guy said,

00:25:44.840 that's pretty cool. It sums it up, right? Because I mean, that's exactly why they're afraid of him.

00:25:48.620 They have lost control of the narrative. They have lost control of a platform that

00:25:52.440 they use to organize, that they use to push their views and they quote unquote fact check

00:25:58.160 anyone who disagrees with it, including us. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is I think Twitter's

00:26:03.820 main purpose was not as a channel, but as a filter, not, it was, it was not as a medium,

00:26:09.600 but as a lens in the medium. I think that that was its value to the left is not to have a free

00:26:16.020 conversation, but to have it seemingly free, but actually controlled by them. Once that control

00:26:20.400 is removed, I think the left is revealed. Let me read another one. Yoel Roth, who was the head of

00:26:26.080 trust and safety for years, he quit after Elon Musk came aboard and he wrote an op-ed saying,

00:26:32.700 well, maybe the Apple store, the Apple app store and the Android store for, for Android phones,

00:26:40.340 maybe they will ban the Twitter app to make it harder to get. And here's what you wrote. You said,

00:26:45.540 if anyone can fight Apple with an actual chance of winning, it's Elon Musk. He needs allies though,

00:26:52.220 who will stand with them? And he wrote back simply, support is greatly appreciated.

00:26:58.940 Again, not a long reply, but it shows that he's thinking along the same lines as you.

00:27:05.480 Absolutely. I mean, look at, I mean, they had a meeting with Apple yesterday, right? Like he actually

00:27:10.520 went there and Tim Apple or, you know, whatever his name is, since Donald Trump called him Tim

00:27:16.080 Apple, I just can't get it out of my head. So they had a conversation and Tim was very clear to Elon

00:27:22.140 that he had no plans to remove Twitter from Apple. So it seems like somebody at Apple, somebody high up

00:27:27.840 decided that they didn't like Elon's approach to free speech and they wanted to remove it.

00:27:32.260 And this was at the behest of the media. If you, you know, if you paid any attention at all to

00:27:36.620 journalists like Taylor Lorenz, I mean, she went on the BBC, she went on different

00:27:40.700 news stations, podcasts, she and a whole bunch of other journalists, you know, especially the NBC

00:27:45.320 news guys, they were quoting activists who said that Twitter needs to be removed, uh, from, uh,

00:27:51.280 from these app stores in order to secure democracy, right? In order to secure liberal freedom. It's

00:27:56.240 like, okay, like they just clearly want him banned, but the backlash to it was so immense that you had

00:28:02.460 congressmen, you had Kevin McCarthy come out and, uh, as well as Ron DeSantis said that Congress needs

00:28:08.580 to do something about this. If Apple decides to exercise its monopoly powers. Yeah, you're right.

00:28:14.200 You know, I love Ron DeSantis. I think he's an excellent governor and the people of Florida

00:28:17.800 certainly seem to think so if the midterm elections were anything to go by, but I love how he judiciously

00:28:22.700 weighs into national affairs. And I, you know, you would think, well, there's 49 other governors,

00:28:27.740 there's, there should be some ambitious ones amongst them, but Ron DeSantis, he just nails

00:28:32.480 it. Here's a quick clip of Ron DeSantis saying, if Apple tries to do this, it should have congressional

00:28:38.520 oversight. Take a look. Very concerning. And then when you also hear reports that Apple is threatening

00:28:45.140 to remove Twitter from the app store because Elon Musk is actually opening it up for free speech

00:28:54.400 and is restoring a lot of accounts that were, uh, unfairly and illegitimately suspended

00:29:01.020 for putting out accurate information about COVID. That's like one of the main things that's being

00:29:06.740 reinstated. So many things these experts were wrong at, and you had people on Twitter that were calling

00:29:12.760 that out and Twitter, the old regime and Twitter, their response was to try to just suffocate the

00:29:19.040 dissent. And, and, and Elon Musk knows that's not a winning formula. And so he's, uh, providing free

00:29:25.520 speech. And so if Apple responds to that, uh, by nuking them from, from the app store, you know, I think

00:29:33.240 that that would be a huge, huge mistake. And it would be a really raw exercise of monopolistic power

00:29:39.640 that I think would merit a response, uh, from, from the United States Congress. And so, uh, don't be a

00:29:46.380 vassal of the CCP on one hand, and then use your corporate power in the United States on the other

00:29:52.720 to suffocate Americans and try to suppress their right to express themselves.

00:29:58.260 Well, I think that's spot on. Um, you know, I, I, I saw the claim that Apple is not advertising as much

00:30:07.380 in Twitter. And I know that Apple used to advertise all the time. It would certainly come up in my feed.

00:30:12.000 So hopefully they're not boycotting. It's one thing for them to ban, but hopefully they're not

00:30:16.080 boycotting. You wrote one more tweet on this theme. You said they're basically asking for a ban because

00:30:22.640 they want ammunition to justify their continued attacks on Twitter and your management of the

00:30:27.720 platform. And, uh, someone else weighed in and then Elon Musk said, this is messed up. Now, again,

00:30:34.400 I'm not saying that these are heavy and deep conversations, but I think that we know for a fact

00:30:39.920 that Elon Musk is reading your analysis, reading what you are choosing to highlight. And he's

00:30:46.840 saying, yep. Like he's basically signaling that your take on things is accurate. So you don't need him

00:30:53.320 to go on at great length because you just went on at great length. He reads and he said, yes,

00:30:57.740 that's it. Much appreciated. Yup. It's messed up. So I, it's a very interesting way of him being the CEO

00:31:03.980 and owner of a mega company to have that kind of interaction. But frankly, that's, what's so fun

00:31:11.660 about Twitter in the first place is you get to talk to the highest and the lowest people. They can

00:31:16.560 be in the same conversation. You could have a master of the universe talking to a kid and it doesn't

00:31:21.800 matter. You're on Twitter. You're part of the conversation. He's leading the charge. I think that

00:31:26.440 more CEOs, more executives, more politicians need to do exactly what he's doing. And he's showing that

00:31:32.260 Twitter is a, is an even playing field before, you know, as the elites versus the plebs, you had, 1.00

00:31:38.520 you know, the aristocracy, the blue check marks, they were the ones in charge and they wouldn't

00:31:42.480 talk to anybody else. Now he's democratizing Twitter and he's using that, you know, that new

00:31:48.200 sense of democracy to actually interact with just anybody. He's showing people that this is how it's

00:31:54.020 done. And, you know, a lot of CEOs, people like Mark Zuckerberg, they'll never interact with the

00:31:58.280 public, but he's saying, you know, maybe you should, maybe you should. And I think they should.

00:32:03.100 Zuckerberg comes across as awkward. I mean, there's a reason there's so many lizard memes about Mark

00:32:09.100 Zuckerberg. He's just socially awkward a bit, which is fine. I mean, listen, he's obviously a

00:32:14.780 tech genius. Elon Musk is quirky too, but I think he lets it all out there and he's got a self

00:32:20.740 deprecating sense of humor. Let me show you a fun meme, a video. I can't remember who made it right

00:32:28.000 now. It looks like it was digitally altered a little bit. I think that the eyes and certain

00:32:32.420 things, this is Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who's a congressman from New York, who's a huge critic 0.90

00:32:38.720 of Elon Musk and Twitter and Elon Musk. And someone mashed up these two interviews, making it look like

00:32:45.120 they're, well, like they're in love with each other. I, I've watched this three times. I think

00:32:50.260 it is so funny. Well, Elon Musk watched it too, and he loved it. That's what I like about Elon Musk.

00:32:57.760 Yep. For one of the richest men in the world, he still pokes fun at himself sometimes. Take a look at

00:33:02.540 this homemade mashup video that I, I mean, it's just funny. Take a look.

00:33:15.120 I apologize. Everybody's perfect. I'm breaking all the rules. I'm breaking all the rules. I guess

00:33:27.020 we might make some mistakes. Who knows?

00:33:34.760 I think one of the biggest problems we have in DC is that everyone's egos are too big. I actually

00:33:40.940 prefer to have no titles at all. You're opening yourself up. I'm just being me.

00:33:55.380 Let's go. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, that's really funny. And look, here's the point

00:34:01.500 is Elon Musk is not shutting down people who are poking fun at him. So when he says he believes in

00:34:06.580 free speech, I think he's living it. I mean, that was obviously very lighthearted, and frankly,

00:34:11.380 it was flattering towards him. But he puts up with a lot of tough stuff. I think he might do it. Last

00:34:17.960 clip. Here is the boss of Netflix, which is a pretty left-wing organization, judging by their

00:34:24.200 editorial output. Here's the CEO saying he rather admires Elon Musk. He thinks Elon Musk is operating

00:34:31.700 in good faith. He wants to save the world. And don't bet against Elon Musk. He's got his quirky

00:34:37.180 style, but he gets her done. Take a look at this. You're on there all the time. What do you think?

00:34:40.400 What's going on? I'm excited. I'm excited. Elon Musk is the bravest, most creative person on the

00:34:46.140 planet. I mean, you know, what he's done in multiple areas is phenomenal. You know, his style is different

00:34:52.800 than like, I'm trying to be like a really steady, respectable leader. You know, he doesn't care.

00:34:57.900 He's just like out there, you know. But think of a guy who's spending $44 billion. He could have

00:35:03.320 built the biggest, he could have built a mile-long yacht for $44 billion. Okay? But it's like not good

00:35:08.980 for the planet, doesn't he? He's not interested. He's in for things to help.

00:35:11.220 Do you think what he's doing is good for the planet?

00:35:12.660 Absolutely. I'm 100% convinced that he is trying to help the world in all of his endeavors. Okay?

00:35:20.440 And he's trying to help the world in that one because he believes in free speech and there's power

00:35:24.560 for democracy and that there's an option. Now, how he goes about it, again, you know, is not how I

00:35:29.320 would do it. But I'm deeply respectful and I'm amazed that people are like so nitpicky on him.

00:35:36.060 Yeah, sure, the blue checkmark, he's making a mess of some things or not, you know, but it's like,

00:35:40.860 give the guy a break. He just spent all this money to try to make it much better for democracy

00:35:45.280 and society to have a more open platform. And I am sympathetic to that agenda.

00:35:49.440 What I liked about that, Ian, is that, you know, like I say, Netflix, it's obviously a bit

00:35:54.620 big tech rivals any other company. It's a competitor. It's left of center, but they respect

00:36:00.780 a doer. They respect a builder. And, you know, maybe Elon Musk will get other people in the

00:36:06.540 industry talking about freedom again. Last word to you, Ian.

00:36:08.740 Oh, it's got Zuckerberg, of all people, talking about freedom. Zuckerberg actually spoke at the

00:36:14.500 same conference yesterday, the New York Times thing, the book deal thing. And he said that,

00:36:19.700 you know, he wants to see where Musk goes with this free speech stuff and that it might work.

00:36:24.420 So, I mean, if anything, Elon Musk is leading the way and he's showing people that he's willing to

00:36:29.300 be experimental. This is something that Silicon Valley has forgotten about. I mean, I remember when

00:36:33.420 they used to be disruptors back in the 2000s, right, back when Twitter and Facebook were first

00:36:38.220 founded. So Elon is bringing it back to these days. And I'd love to see other people follow suit.

00:36:44.220 It'd be really nice to, you know, if this actually works, and I think it will,

00:36:48.060 Facebook might actually see the same changes happening to it.

00:36:50.820 Wow, that would be incredible. Here's that clip of Zuckerberg. Take a look.

00:36:54.400 If you look at all the major computing platforms that have existed, Windows, Android, iOS,

00:37:01.260 hopefully the future ones around the metaverse that will get built,

00:37:05.120 Apple's stands out as the only one where one company can control what apps get on the device.

00:37:11.120 That wasn't the case in Windows. That isn't really the case on Android phones. I mean,

00:37:15.940 Google might control what goes in the Play Store, but they've always made it so that you could

00:37:20.760 sideload and have other app stores and, you know, work directly with, you know, phone manufacturers.

00:37:29.620 I do think Apple has sort of singled themselves out as the only company that is trying to control,

00:37:35.180 like unilaterally what apps get on a device. And I don't think that's a sustainable or good place

00:37:42.140 to be. The reality is, is that the, you know, vast majority of the profits in the mobile ecosystem

00:37:47.260 go towards Apple. They have, I think the majority of people in the U.S. have iPhones. Certainly the

00:37:52.780 majority of the economic, you know, activity on phones goes towards that. So I do think it is

00:37:59.340 problematic for, for one company to be able to control what, what kind of app experiences get

00:38:03.880 on the device. Well, it's interesting time to be alive and we are quite strong on Twitter. I think

00:38:09.640 in many ways it's our strongest medium, or at least this least censored. A lot of our traffic comes from

00:38:14.360 Facebook. That's just the nature of it. But in terms of censorship, I think they have the lightest touch

00:38:20.020 on Rebel News and our personalities. Ian, you're certainly one of our Twitter warriors,

00:38:25.000 always out there. And I really enjoy watching you interact with the man of the hour. And I like

00:38:32.300 the fact that you're putting interesting ideas to him. And he's saying, yes, yes, I find it

00:38:37.340 riveting, frankly. And that's, I guess, part of, part of Elon Musk's strategy too, is he wins when

00:38:44.940 we're all watching this unfold. Thanks for taking the time and keep up the great work.

00:38:49.640 Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.

00:38:51.080 Right on. There you have it. Ian Miles Chong. And you got to follow him online. His Twitter

00:38:56.820 account is spelled still gray, G-R-A-Y. Stay with us. More ahead. 0.99

00:39:13.300 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. Aztec01 talks about that creepy Simon's pro-suicide ad saying,

00:39:20.580 his increasingly histrionic wandering avalanche of meaningless buzzwords shows how desperate he is

00:39:27.140 to monetize depression, sadness, pain, and death for clout. This idiot is a monster. Yeah, like, 1.00

00:39:33.480 it was so weird. And he talked about how brave he was. And that he was, I'm really good. I don't want

00:39:43.200 to take all the credit, but I'm really good. Really good. Really good would be helping someone

00:39:47.920 who's sick, not helping them die. Vic Bor says, these are the same people who claim we should let

00:39:54.840 children transition because otherwise they'll off themselves, yet they support suicide. Yeah, 0.89

00:40:00.420 it's a cult of death. It's terrible. And Danielle Smith, Honor 234 says, once again,

00:40:07.660 the federal government of Canada overextends its constitutional powers into provincial areas of

00:40:11.520 responsibility and authority. Another power grab from a dictator in Ottawa. Well, let's see. I mean,

00:40:17.620 according to Lauren Gunter, the Alberta government is united behind Danielle Smith,

00:40:21.220 which is a bit of an accomplishment, given that she was an outsider. But still, we'll see what the

00:40:25.660 province in general says she will be in an election in the spring. That's our show for today.

00:40:31.080 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,

00:40:34.640 good night, and keep fighting for freedom. Reporting for Rebel News, I'm Tamara Ugolini,

00:40:39.360 bringing you a report that attempts to bridge the gap between the RSV surge currently being seen in

00:40:46.440 children's hospitals with the fallout of the experimental pandemic responses and the vested

00:40:53.000 interests of pharmaceutical companies. In Canada and abroad, children's hospitals are in crisis over

00:40:59.840 respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. Yet health officials fail to recognize why this may be

00:41:06.100 happening and instead are resorting to what could have caused it in the first place, which are the

00:41:12.140 unscientific knee-jerk pandemic responses like masking, novel injections, and socially isolating

00:41:18.620 the healthy by way of indiscriminate lockdowns. Dr. Earl Rubin from Montreal Children's Hospital

00:41:25.260 acknowledged the risk all of this had to children during an interview with CTV recently. Listen for

00:41:31.640 yourself. The flu is here, so we anticipate that the numbers will go up. For COVID right now, we are

00:41:39.940 relatively stable. The majority of kids who are admitted with COVID are admitted for another reason

00:41:45.460 and found to be COVID positive, but with BQ1 and 1.1 and VA 4.6, we don't know what's coming. So that's

00:41:54.500 where that triple threat really is. But at this point in time, it's really RSV that is the issue. So to

00:42:02.560 answer your question, there's kind of that perfect storm that's brewing. We have easy transmission of

00:42:10.600 these viruses. We have a population that is non-immune because they've been wearing masks and

00:42:17.060 distance and not going to school in the last couple of years. So you get increased numbers who are

00:42:22.540 vulnerable. And on top of that, you have kids who are not only vulnerable, but because they don't have

00:42:28.400 immunity or getting sicker. So all of these things are coming into play. As analyzed by the infamous

00:42:35.720 health data dissector Twitter account, GoldenPup, who sources all of his information directly from

00:42:41.620 government sources, RSV cases surged in 2021, but we barely heard a peep throughout the COVID hysteria.

00:42:50.060 His graphs repeatedly show that a term known as seasonality is the likely explanation for surges

00:42:57.300 in respiratory viruses and that mask mandates did next to nothing to stop or break that cycle.

00:43:03.540 Using more broad health Canada data, he shows how the average number of pediatric hospitalizations

00:43:10.740 of those age 16 and under has skyrocketed in just one week from November 6th to the 12th, 2022.

00:43:19.880 The dotted black line details average hospitalizations from 2014 to 2020. The blue dash line is 2021 and

00:43:26.520 2022. And then, wow, look at that solid blue line just going straight up. Pup further pointed out this

00:43:33.220 a few weeks ago that RSV incidences were exponentially higher last year. Yet surprisingly,

00:43:39.860 there were fewer kids in the ICU at the same time, 67 compared to 87 this year. And his post dated

00:43:47.220 November 15th, there have been 70,000 doses of the COVID-19 shot administered to children. Now,

00:43:53.700 of course, correlation doesn't equal causation, but what is important to recognize here is that both

00:43:58.980 Pfizer and Moderna's FDA filings show that seasonal syncytial virus is a documented adverse event.

00:44:06.340 Here's an FDA submission on emergency use authorization amendment by Moderna.

00:44:11.380 On page 161, they clearly note that within 28 days after vaccination, some respiratory tract related

00:44:17.380 infections were reported with greater frequency in the mRNA group compared to the placebo group,

00:44:22.740 including croup, respiratory syncytial virus, and pneumonia. And one of Pfizer's emergency

00:44:28.580 use authorization amendments says something similar. On page 35 here, vaccine-associated

00:44:34.420 enhanced disease, including vaccine-associated enhanced respiratory disease, is included as an

00:44:40.020 important potential risk. If that weren't enough, Pfizer's own analysis of post-authorization adverse

00:44:46.180 events reports acknowledge that respiratory syncytial virus is a documented reaction.

00:44:53.220 So what is our governing health body doing now? Well, they are reviewing a new RSV vaccine, of course.

00:45:00.900 Health Canada said it received a submission from GlaxoSmithKline on October 25th for an RSV vaccine

00:45:06.740 for adults 60 years of age and older. In addition, Pfizer has notified Health Canada that it is planning

00:45:13.620 to submit two RSV vaccine candidates for consideration, one for seniors and one for pregnant women.

00:45:22.740 The revolving door of injections continues, and when that injection causes an unintended consequences,

00:45:29.700 surely there will be a vaccine developed for that too. For Rebel News, I'm Tamara Ugolini.

00:45:43.620 Nice to meet you guys!

00:45:44.500 Chinese

00:45:59.180 Thank you,ihi.

00:46:04.180 And

Rebel News Podcast - December 02, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ If we had 20 Ron DeSantis’s, we’d be winning this battle

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