Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Joel Pollak： Trump puts America first, backs 'weaker' Canadian leadership

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Today we talked to my old buddy, the senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com,

00:00:05.640 Joel Pollack is his name, for his take on the meeting between Mark Carney and Donald Trump.

00:00:11.280 It's a little bit different than my own, and I hate to say it, but I think where we disagree,

00:00:16.600 Joel is probably right. And, you know, I think it's a really interesting talk, and I hope you

00:00:21.140 enjoy it. Let me invite you to get a subscription to what we call Rebel News Plus. It's the video

00:00:26.300 version of this podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com and click subscribe. I'm still

00:00:34.360 thinking about my chat with Joel, and he has some very striking things to say. I think you'll like

00:00:39.760 today's show. Hey, by the way, one more thing. Hey there, Rebel News listeners. Do you have a

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00:01:34.860 independent journalism.

00:01:52.580 Tonight, we get an American view on Mark Carney's visit to the White House.

00:01:56.380 It's May 7th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:02:02.480 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:02:14.900 Well, Canada-U.S. relations are normally so boring that they never come up. I mean, sure,

00:02:20.760 Canada has never lifted its share of the load in terms of NATO and military, but that wasn't a top

00:02:28.140 10 issue for any U.S. president. Well, Donald Trump has made tariffs and economic repatriation

00:02:34.820 part of his mandate, and of course, Mark Carney, the new Prime Minister of Canada, made hating Trump

00:02:41.860 a core part of his mandate. Well, the two men finally met today in the Oval Office. Here's a clip

00:02:48.760 of how that went. It's a great honor to have Prime Minister Mark Carney with us. As you know,

00:02:54.780 just a few days ago, he won a very big election in Canada, and I think I was probably the greatest

00:03:01.020 thing that happened to him, but I can't take vote. His party was losing by a lot, and he ended up

00:03:08.700 winning, so I really want to congratulate him. It was probably one of the greatest comebacks in the

00:03:12.900 history of politics, maybe even greater than mine. But I want to just congratulate you. That was a

00:03:19.740 great election, actually. We were watching it with interest, and I think Canada chose a very talented

00:03:24.840 person, a very good person, because we spoke before the election quite a few times. And it's an honor to

00:03:31.040 have you at the White House and the Oval Office. You see the new and improved Oval Office as it becomes

00:03:37.780 more and more beautiful with love. You know, we handle it with great love and 24-karat gold. That

00:03:43.840 always helps, too. But it's been a lot of fun going over some of the beautiful pictures that were

00:03:51.720 stored in the vaults that were for many, many years, in some cases over 100 years. They were stored in

00:03:58.060 vaults of the great presidents who are almost great presidents, all having a reason for being up,

00:04:04.420 every one of them. So it's very interesting. But I just want to congratulate you. And it ran a really

00:04:10.440 great race. I watched the debate. I thought you were excellent. And I think we have a lot of things

00:04:15.460 in common. We have some tough, tough points to go over, and that'll be fine. But we're going to also

00:04:20.100 be discussing Ukraine-Russia, the war, because Mark wants it ended as quickly as I do. I think it has to 0.87

00:04:26.760 end. Mark, would you like to say a few words? Thank you, Mr. President. I'm on the edge of my seat,

00:04:32.760 actually. But thank you for your hospitality and, above all, for your leadership. You're a

00:04:41.000 transformational president, the focus on the economy with a relentless focus on the American

00:04:45.800 worker, securing your borders, ending the scourge of fentanyl and other opioids, and securing the

00:04:54.860 world. And I've been elected with my colleagues here. With the help of my colleagues here, I'm going

00:05:00.860 to spread the credit to transform Canada, with a similar focus on the economy, securing our

00:05:09.100 borders, again, on fentanyl. Much greater focus on defense and security, securing the Arctic

00:05:15.420 and developing the Arctic. And the history of Canada and the U.S. is we're stronger when we work

00:05:21.100 together, and there's many opportunities to work together. And I look forward to addressing some of

00:05:25.900 those issues that we have, but also finding those areas of mutual cooperation so we can go forward.

00:05:31.100 That's great. Very nice. Thank you very much. It's a nice statement.

00:05:33.780 Well, the animosity is gone. And Trump, I don't know if he's serious or not, is implying that he

00:05:40.860 supported Carney. Carney was his choice, and that his tweets helped throw the election to Carney,

00:05:47.380 which is something I can't really dispute. Joining us now to talk about this is our friend Joel Pollack,

00:05:51.940 senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com. Joel, great to see you again. A few months ago, it was

00:05:57.500 unthinkable that the liberals could win again. The Conservative Party had a 20-point lead,

00:06:02.400 and that's in a multi-party system. The Conservatives had been leading for two full years.

00:06:08.580 The only question was, how big a majority would it be? Trump started talking about a 51st state

00:06:14.680 and annexing Canada, and it spooked a million boomers and seniors into voting liberals,

00:06:20.380 letting them edge out the Conservatives in the vote. What do you make of all that?

00:06:24.440 Well, I don't think that Trump is to blame for this. I think you can make that argument.

00:06:31.060 But I think there are several factors that went into this. First of all, Justin Trudeau

00:06:37.040 left the scene. He was clearly very unpopular. And the Canadian public appears to have decided that

00:06:47.720 the Liberal Party was just fine without his leadership. So again, you're the better judge of

00:06:54.020 that than I am. But I would guess that just looking historically at the fact that there really

00:06:58.980 only has been one Conservative Prime Minister in the modern era, that there's kind of almost a default

00:07:04.580 preference in Canada for the Liberal Party. So if it comes up with a different leader, you know,

00:07:11.420 we have this problem in the United States as well. If you ask most voters, until recently,

00:07:16.500 really until the last couple of years, where Republicans have outperformed Democrats on what we call the

00:07:21.400 generic ballot. Generally, there are more Democrats than Republicans in the United States.

00:07:27.180 No party has a majority. And there's a huge block of independents. But typically, your average American

00:07:34.780 voter is more likely to say that they are Democrats. That's changed in the last year, because Democrats

00:07:41.260 have become so unpopular, mostly because of their woke policies. Wokeness has become unpopular. And Trump

00:07:47.580 has become very popular among those who like seeing something done about wokeness. So that's changed. But generally,

00:07:54.320 there is a kind of cultural preference, at least when talking to pollsters, for the center-left, even though

00:08:02.380 in terms of our politics, generally, our policies are center-right. So it's a curious balance. And I think Canada

00:08:11.040 likes to be liberal or thought of as liberal. And so when you have Trudeau removed from the scene,

00:08:17.780 then maybe there's a reversion to that. There are a couple other factors as well. One is that I think

00:08:22.420 Canada likes to be different from the United States. It's part of the Canadian identity, just from my

00:08:26.600 experience with friends and family and so forth in Canada. So I think that the fact that Trump came

00:08:32.460 out of the gate so hard, not just against Canada, but on every front, meant that Canadians understood 0.87

00:08:38.300 they had to be the opposite of whatever that was. And it's noteworthy, I think, that the last

00:08:43.880 conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, was prime minister during the height of the Obama era.

00:08:49.420 There were a few years where he overlapped with George W. Bush. But basically, Harper was around

00:08:55.740 during Obama. And I think that Obama was a radically left president. And in the same way, I think there's

00:09:04.080 almost an instinct to be different from the United States. I also think that the campaign that the

00:09:13.220 conservatives ran in Canada has to be faulted for some of the things it didn't discuss. And never

00:09:20.040 mind Trump for a moment, but the issue of immigration was there, but perhaps not as strong as it ought to

00:09:27.760 have been. And I have to say that just following a little bit of the aftermath of the election,

00:09:33.460 the idea that the party leader would shove out a duly elected member of parliament to take up a seat

00:09:40.280 again, it smacks of bad form. And it actually makes it look like he deserved to lose, at least from this

00:09:46.380 distance. So I think you have to look at the campaign the conservatives ran. I also think that

00:09:52.480 Trump could have played a role. So let's get to Trump. And the theory that we have at Breitbart News is

00:09:57.300 that Trump prefers a weaker Canadian leader to one who's stronger and able to push back. So I think

00:10:03.920 Trump preferred a liberal leader, frankly, than one who is conservative and might have the ability to

00:10:09.340 make a stronger case for the national interest because he could point to some ideological similarities

00:10:13.640 with Trump and say, we're not opposing your ideas. We're just standing up for Canada. It's easier to

00:10:18.800 oppose someone who not only is from a different country and advocating for that country's interests,

00:10:22.960 but who also has bad policies in a number of areas. Carney has come out of the gate, for example,

00:10:27.920 talking about climate and so forth. I mean, it's so easily mockable that I think it helps Trump make

00:10:34.740 his case for the United States in the trade dispute with Canada. So that's how I would look at that.

00:10:39.680 You said a few things about the conservatives, which I disagree with, but I don't want to spend

00:10:44.000 time on those. I don't think they're that important. But let me just talk about the 51st state

00:10:49.560 thing for a minute. I think you may know that it came about, and Trump referred to it again today,

00:10:55.900 when Trudeau came down to Mar-a-Lago to try and head off the tariffs. And Trump said,

00:11:02.000 if we had even trade, that is, we no longer had a huge trade surplus with Canada, which is almost all

00:11:08.500 from oil and gas, by the way, automobiles and oil and gas. That's what the trade surplus is,

00:11:13.520 but it's mainly oil and gas. Trump said, what would happen if we had an even trade balance with you?

00:11:18.980 And Trudeau, who isn't that policy-oriented and didn't have a good answer, he sort of panicked

00:11:27.240 and said, well, then Canada would cease to exist. He said something almost exactly to that effect.

00:11:33.260 Here's Secretary Rubio, who was there. Take a look at this.

00:11:37.540 President Trump has talked about expanding the U.S. footprint. In a hot mic moment,

00:11:43.080 Canada's prime minister said that absorbing Canada is a real thing. Is it a real thing?

00:11:49.840 Look, you know how that came about. The president's meeting with Trudeau and Trudeau says, well,

00:11:53.400 if you impose, if you even out our trade relationship, then we will cease to exist as a

00:11:57.840 country. At which point, the president responded very logically, and that is, well, if you can't

00:12:02.040 exist without cheating and trade, then you should become a state. That was his observation.

00:12:07.340 That's how it started.

00:12:08.300 It is how it started. And I think he's told the story publicly. And that's how all this began.

00:12:12.360 And so Trudeau panicked and said that would mark the end of Canada. That's such an astonishing thing.

00:12:17.900 It's false, by the way. But it shows such weakness that Trump immediately grabbed it and jabbed at it,

00:12:24.080 saying 51st state, 51st state. And I think Trump, I've watched enough of his speeches,

00:12:28.660 he gets an applause line or a joke that works. And he just uses it all the time. It's his go-to line.

00:12:36.180 So he loved saying 51st state. It did irritate Trudeau. But the trouble is, it felt like an

00:12:43.880 indecent proposal to Canadians who were happy enough with their own country. Like proposing marriage to 0.94

00:12:50.200 someone who was already married. It wasn't just not on. It was taken as an affront. And that's a

00:12:57.500 luxurious reason to cast a ballot. I don't like how Trump makes me feel. But I think for a million

00:13:03.480 sensitive Canadians, his reputation, and he repeated it again today, which I don't even know why he's

00:13:08.620 doing it. Maybe to show America, I think of America as a great growing power, you know, manifest destiny.

00:13:16.720 I get it. But I like the banter. But a lot of Canadians, it really turned on a lot of anti-Americanism.

00:13:27.840 I just don't see how having an anti-American population in Canada helps with America first.

00:13:35.020 I don't know how it helps get the stronger military. I don't know how it helps get our trade barriers down.

00:13:40.820 I don't get it. And I am probably the Trumpiest person in Canada. We've endorsed him in all three

00:13:47.040 elections. We've taken a lot of punishment for being pro-Trump. And I honestly just don't get it.

00:13:55.380 How is this America first? Well, I don't think you would have had that comment had Trump's policy not

00:14:04.880 been American first, because Trump doesn't see his job as electing conservatives in other countries.

00:14:10.980 He really doesn't. I think he refers sometimes to the rise of populist and nationalist movements in

00:14:17.720 other countries. But that's not really where his heart is. His heart is the American interest.

00:14:23.240 And it's left to commentators, mostly on the right, sometimes on the left, to talk about whether

00:14:29.740 the Trump phenomenon is being mirrored in other countries and so forth. But he doesn't feel any sense

00:14:34.480 of obligation. And in fact, some of his best relationships have been with foreign leaders

00:14:40.420 on the left. That doesn't mean he always prefers foreign leaders on the left, but he has had

00:14:45.180 productive relationships with people with whom there's something to exchange or to trade, rather

00:14:52.380 than people with whom there's already a lot of commonality. You'll notice there's a bit of a frosty

00:14:57.140 relationship at the moment between Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, for example. That has to do with

00:15:02.380 some disputes over the 2020 election. But it also has to do with the fact that being close to

00:15:08.740 Netanyahu allows Netanyahu to have a little bit of leverage over Trump that Trump doesn't want him to

00:15:13.780 have. And Trump has pushed him away a little bit in a number of ways. First of all, Netanyahu came a few

00:15:21.960 weeks ago to try to get Trump to sign on to a deal to attack Iran's nuclear sites. And Trump then announced

00:15:27.120 without really warning Netanyahu that he was launching talks with Iran. Then just this week,

00:15:34.380 both the U.S. and Israel attacked the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and quite forcefully so after the Houthi

00:15:39.840 attacks on the U.S. Navy and on an Israeli airport. And right after Israel bombed and destroyed the main

00:15:46.040 airport in Yemen, Trump came out and said, we're not bombing the Houthis anymore because they've agreed 0.99

00:15:50.000 not to attack our ships. And that boxed Israel in to some extent. Now, Israel had already done, I think, 0.93

00:15:55.840 the most significant damage. And you don't want a situation where you create a state that collapses

00:16:00.640 completely, which then requires you to participate somewhat in a humanitarian or rebuilding effort. But

00:16:05.240 it was a way of boxing Israel in and saying, okay, I'm not going to be pushed any further into this 0.76

00:16:10.860 conflict. So I think, just to round out the thought, when it looked like Netanyahu might lose during the

00:16:17.240 first Trump term, Netanyahu had to go through several elections, but there was one, the first one,

00:16:21.960 where it looked like he might lose. Trump came out and said, our relationship is with the people of

00:16:27.080 Israel and not with any particular government. And so I think that Trump doesn't see himself as a kind

00:16:33.860 of global leader of conservatism or populism or nationalism. He cares about those principles,

00:16:39.320 but he ultimately just cares about America first. And so if he believes it's in America's interest to

00:16:45.000 have a liberal Canadian leader, he doesn't mind helping the liberal leader.

00:16:47.540 And he doesn't mind if he riles up the Canadian electorate to put one into power. Now, we might,

00:16:55.560 again, think that it's unfortunate. And I happen to like the conservative leaders' policies in a

00:17:00.600 number of ways, in many ways. And, you know, many conservatives in the United States were quietly

00:17:05.340 rooting for the conservative party. At the same time, I do think that Trump believes that he can get a

00:17:13.820 better deal from Canada in terms of trade if he applies this kind of pressure.

00:17:19.520 Do I like it in every case? I don't. But that's, I think, what his America first policy is about. He

00:17:24.820 just doesn't feel an obligation to the conservative party in Canada. And he wants to get the United

00:17:29.360 States to a better place. And look, just one more example. When AMLO came to power, the previous

00:17:35.440 president of Mexico, many people thought, oh, that's the end of Trump's effort to get Mexico to do

00:17:40.520 anything about the border because this guy is basically a socialist and Trump is a capitalist,

00:17:45.140 billionaire, nationalist. Trump did very well with AMLO. It was AMLO who sent 15,000 troops to the

00:17:50.560 southern Mexican border to stop the caravans of migrants from coming up to the United States.

00:17:54.660 And that's because Trump threatened tariffs on Mexico. And after that, the two of them got along

00:18:00.120 very well. So I think that it is possible that Trump believes that dealing with a weak liberal leader,

00:18:07.760 and I do think Carney is going to be a weak leader. I think his policies are terrible. And I think the

00:18:12.460 public will sour on them very quickly in Canada. I think Trump would prefer to have an unpopular and

00:18:17.320 weak Canadian leader than to have somebody who is strong and able to articulate the Canadian national

00:18:23.180 interest. So I hear the pain in your voice. It must be very hard. And I hear the same from friends

00:18:32.440 in Israel who love Trump and everything he's done for Israel. And now they're getting very worried about

00:18:37.040 what kind of deal Trump might do in Iran that ties Israel's hands. And so there's a lot of frustration.

00:18:43.420 But I think the lesson for Israel is also the lesson for Canada, which is that you just have to be 0.88

00:18:47.360 strong independently of whoever's in the White House. And one final thought on this, the 51st state

00:18:54.240 thing. Look, it is insulting. And I understand that it's insulting. Americans also find it somewhat

00:19:01.180 amusing. And it becomes a laugh line and an applause line. You know, it's like Michael Moore portraying

00:19:06.960 Canada in, I forget which film it was. I think it was Roger and Me or one of the subsequent films.

00:19:11.640 And he mentions Canada and then he cuts immediately to a shot of penguins on the ice. Obviously, penguins

00:19:18.060 don't live in Canada. But there's a certain amount of teasing that goes on. And, you know,

00:19:22.900 the South Park films and all of that. I mean, a lot of it happens in the opposite way as well,

00:19:27.180 I know, from my Canadian relatives. But I think that the wounds that Trudeau caused among Trump and

00:19:36.980 his supporters for the way that he treated Trump, those left a very bad memory. And, you know,

00:19:42.360 you mentioned he came to Mar-a-Lago. During Trump's first term, there was a meeting of some

00:19:47.940 international leaders somewhere, maybe it was the G7, I don't know, where Trudeau was hanging out with

00:19:52.360 Boris Johnson and some other people, all very clearly enjoying a laugh at Trump's expense.

00:19:57.460 And their comments, I think, were caught on a hot mic and everything. And I just think Trump never

00:20:01.300 forgot that. And I think that there was no way Justin Trudeau was ever going to be able to deal

00:20:07.020 with Donald Trump. So if anything, I think that fueled the kind of rancor that Trump used against

00:20:14.740 Canada. And, you know, I think he was very polite to Carney. And I watched the press conference,

00:20:19.760 I thought that he was trying to put the relationship on solid footing. And I thought

00:20:23.340 Carney actually did very well. He said, Canada is not for sale. And Trump said, OK, well, you know,

00:20:27.900 you can see he's arguing for his interest and I'm arguing for mine. And we love Canada. And we're

00:20:31.780 going to get he said that many times. We love Canada. We love Canadians and and so forth. But we're

00:20:35.840 going to have a we're going to have a tough fight here over this. So, look, that's where I'll leave that

00:20:40.680 point. You may disagree with some of what I've said, but I think that's why he did it, because he really

00:20:45.480 thinks he's doing the best for America, for the United States. I mean, by saying that.

00:20:49.760 Yeah. And and Canadians should never say a word if an American throws a jab at us. I mean,

00:20:57.460 our CBC state broadcaster had a whole series called Talking to Americans, where our so-called

00:21:05.920 government comedian would go to the United States and ask fake questions and and give fake answers just 0.96

00:21:14.520 to demonstrate how dopey Americans like this. This was our state broadcaster, like half of the 1.00

00:21:22.700 Canadian identity. Trudeau himself said this. He was asked, what does it mean to be Canadian? His

00:21:27.760 answer was not American. Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian. One of the ways we define

00:21:34.380 ourselves most easily is, well, we're not American. Like there's a sullen, smug, superior anti-Americanism

00:21:41.320 in Canada. And and the one time an American chirps at us, you know, we go into apoplexy. It's a bit much.

00:21:50.560 You're right. The bar. I mean, I thank God that Donald Trump is too busy with Ukraine and Russia

00:21:57.260 and Iran and China and Mexico to follow what, frankly, most Canadian leaders say about him. I'm

00:22:04.460 lucky that we're not on his top 10 of issues. So you're right. It's just I feel a sense of loss

00:22:10.720 because we were so close to extirpating the liberals from this country. And here's what I'm really worried

00:22:17.800 about. And I think America should worry about it, too. Mark Carney is a friend of Xi Jinping when he

00:22:23.280 was the chair of Brookfield Asset Management, basically a slightly smaller BlackRock. He was

00:22:28.220 deep with China. He has various pro-CCP candidates who were elected in parliament. I'm worried about the

00:22:38.760 Five Eyes Intelligence Group, that I'm worried that Canada is frankly being compromised. I think

00:22:46.500 Canada should sell our oil to America. Mark Carney isn't that fussed about it. And I'm worried that

00:22:52.640 China is sniffing around our resources. There's just things that hurt me as a Canadian. But I think

00:22:58.480 I bet America would care about this if they knew about it. So I don't know. We'll see where things go.

00:23:05.520 But Carney certainly was a different man in the meeting in the Oval Office on the campaign trail.

00:23:10.960 His anti-Americanism was off the charts. His anti-Trumpism, even after he won, he was saying

00:23:17.480 things like, our relationship with America has forever changed. Well, in the Oval Office meeting,

00:23:24.820 he was like a little puppy on Trump's lap. You know, I respect your leadership, Mr. President.

00:23:31.420 Anyways, you're right. I'm a little sad, Joel. For two years, and the mass immigration is another 0.99

00:23:37.200 thing. I mean, we are bringing in thousands of people from Gaza. You can't vet someone from Gaza. 1.00

00:23:44.800 What do you check against? The police records kept by Hamas? How do you vet Gaza migrants? And 0.58

00:23:51.300 they're coming into Canada. We have a fairly porous border with America. How does that suit Trump to

00:23:56.560 have those guys reelected? These are, that's what's on my mind.

00:23:59.620 Well, let me perhaps refer to a couple of things. First of all, Stephen Harper, when he lost, said a

00:24:09.360 line that I've never forgotten and I've often repeated, which is that the people are always

00:24:13.800 right. And I thought it was magnanimous of him in defeat to say that. And I've often thought about

00:24:21.460 that line when I've disagreed with the outcome of an election. And I wanted John McCain to defeat

00:24:28.740 Barack Obama so badly in 2008 that I made life decisions based on that election, really, that are

00:24:34.900 still, you know, having an effect on my life today, a positive effect. And I still think Obama was

00:24:41.460 terrible. But John McCain betrayed the Republican Party and Donald Trump in a really nasty way. And I

00:24:49.320 say this with great respect for his heroism and his five and a half years in a North Vietnamese prison

00:24:55.040 and all of that, which, you know, looking back at the arc of his life, he had a remarkable life.

00:24:59.780 He was a hero. But he did break his promise to his own voters, first of all, on border security,

00:25:06.740 and secondly, to Trump on repealing and replacing Obamacare, which was Obama's attempt at a national

00:25:12.520 health service. And when I saw McCain do that, I thought, okay, he deserved to lose.

00:25:20.020 That's the kind of person, that's the kind of character he would have been as president. That's

00:25:25.260 what people who were critical of McCain saw. It doesn't mean they were right about everything

00:25:30.840 about him. And sometimes they said things that were grossly inaccurate and unfair.

00:25:34.540 But in that moment, I thought, okay, we dodged a bullet in a way. Not that Obama was good. I still

00:25:40.660 think McCain would have been better than Obama. But in a sense, in that sense, the people were right.

00:25:45.620 The people saw something in McCain's leadership that they did not want. And

00:25:51.440 I'll add the second thought, which is what happened when Biden won the election. And I do think Biden

00:25:58.820 won the 2020 election based on the rules that Democrats put into place. So they made previously

00:26:05.400 fraudulent voting legal. So I don't think there was ballot stuffing and mailbox tricks and all sorts

00:26:12.200 of things like that. I think they made vote by mail universal and immediate and automatic in many

00:26:17.060 places where it wouldn't have been before. And we're doing that kind of thing would have been

00:26:20.340 fraudulent. And they did a lot of things that were bad. In that election, I've written a book about it. But

00:26:25.140 I could not discount the possibility or I could not eliminate the possibility that Biden won fair and

00:26:30.880 square. And I do think that the American people had tired in a sense of the drama around the Trump

00:26:37.340 presidency, not all of which was caused by Trump, maybe not even most of it. I mean, most of it was

00:26:42.780 the result of the media and Democrats deciding to make the country ungovernable with the riots and so

00:26:46.780 forth of 2020. The ridiculous pandemic shutdowns, which I think were very much because Democrats wanted

00:26:52.460 to shut down the economy to hurt Trump. I do think there was a strong political motive. But as I watched

00:26:57.640 Biden taking the oath of office, I also had a sense of confidence. And I said, none of this will work.

00:27:03.040 None of this will work. It's not going to work. Everything you do will fail. Not that I want it

00:27:09.700 to fail, but it is going to fail. And I just wrote a book about Trump's first 100 days in office. And

00:27:19.840 it's called Trump 2.0, the most dramatic first 100 days in presidential history. I also released an

00:27:26.080 ebook about Joe Biden's first 100 days. And the title of that book was, We Told You So.

00:27:31.940 Told You So. Because everything he was doing was already failing. And it wasn't just a partisan

00:27:38.580 perspective. I mean, nothing he did worked. Nothing. Zero. And the country understands that now. It's not

00:27:46.700 just Republicans who say that, conservatives who say that. The country understands that Joe Biden was a

00:27:51.900 failure. And he was a failure because he didn't even do the things that his own voters wanted. And

00:27:58.580 left-wing ideas fail in governance. You know, George Orwell used to say that the strongest opponent

00:28:06.020 of any left-wing government is its previous propaganda. And that's because they promise

00:28:12.120 everything and then they can achieve nothing. Because you cannot govern as a, what the Cubans 1.00

00:28:16.920 would call a revolutionary party. It doesn't work. And so I would offer the consolation, you know,

00:28:22.400 this consolation to conservative voters in Canada. You're going to watch Mark Carney fail. He's going to

00:28:26.620 fail hard. Just judging on his policies already. This alliance with China is going to fail. The 0.99

00:28:34.780 climate stuff is going to fail. I'm sorry for the cost you have to endure in the meantime.

00:28:40.120 I'm sorry for the negative results, I think, that are going to come from the trade agreement that

00:28:44.280 eventually results from dealing with Trump. I think Trump now has the upper hand. So again,

00:28:48.560 you never want to wish those negative interim costs on anybody. I mean, I think the damage Biden did to

00:28:53.220 the country in four years was terrible. Millions of illegal migrants. How are we going to get rid 1.00

00:28:57.540 of them? You have, you know, bad immigration. Canada's immigration policy used to be exemplary. 1.00

00:29:01.880 Now it's a cautionary tale. But, you know, so it's going to cause a lot of problems.

00:29:07.760 I do think Canada will find a way out because that's what democracies do. The people eventually

00:29:13.420 find a way to reinvent themselves in political form. And so I would say with Stephen Harper,

00:29:18.900 as painful as it is, people are always right. And I think you have to look for new conservative

00:29:23.980 leadership and bolder conservative leadership that may be willing to challenge some of the

00:29:29.880 sacred cows of Canadian politics. And I think you'll find it. I think you'll find it. And you'll

00:29:34.840 find it in your audience because the people who watch Rebel News understand what's necessary.

00:29:38.220 And I think that's what drew you to Trump. You're not a follower of political personalities.

00:29:42.500 You're a discerning and incredible thinker who I followed long before I knew you personally.

00:29:46.220 And I think you were drawn to Trump because of Trump's policies. And there are things about Trump

00:29:52.140 I would dislike if I weren't American. But there are many things I like about him because I'm American,

00:29:56.700 because I'm a citizen of the United States, and because they're working. And these are things that

00:30:00.280 I thought no politician would ever do before. I mean, you know, so every day there's something,

00:30:05.060 he does something new that I wish someone would have done. And he does it. So, you know,

00:30:10.840 sometimes you take the bad with the good. But overall, I think he's been very effective.

00:30:14.000 And even when he is gone from the political scene, his supporters will be able to say to

00:30:18.560 Democrats what he wanted to do worked. I don't know if the tariffs will work. I do believe

00:30:23.840 eventually we'll get to a better place than we are now in terms of our trade. I think the situation

00:30:27.660 is improving. But I think ultimately the test is whether these ideas work. And I do think they

00:30:32.960 work in the United States, whatever you think of Trump. So maybe if you have a Canadian leader who

00:30:37.140 really picks up the gauntlet and goes at some of these things very hard, I think he can win.

00:30:41.180 Yeah. Well, let me close with this, Joel, because you've made me feel better by what you've just

00:30:45.880 said there. I was in the United Kingdom on Thursday when two remarkable things happened.

00:30:51.800 There were hundreds of local council elections, which followed the federal parties, the national

00:30:57.620 parties. And Nigel Farage's Reform UK absolutely cleaned up, like huge, huge successes. And immediately

00:31:09.280 they've announced things like only the British or English flags can be flown, no other flags,

00:31:15.060 no DEI court. Like they immediately started with full-throated stuff. And I was in, so they had

00:31:22.920 these local elections that were just huge wins, massive. And then I was in this one neighborhood

00:31:28.620 named Runcorn and Hellsby, what a great British name. And the Labour Party had won it with 53%

00:31:35.800 last time. And remember, they have the multi-party system there. So that's a huge win.

00:31:40.960 Reform won. And it was such a bellwether, not the old conservatives, but reform. And you know what

00:31:48.080 their main message, their number one message, it's very short, so I memorized it. It's freeze

00:31:54.640 immigration and stop the boats. Freeze immigration. I don't even know if Trump uses that word.

00:32:01.540 So they were unafraid. They were all the way over. And they didn't give a care about who

00:32:07.180 called them names. Freeze immigration and stop the boats. And that won in Runcorn. 0.99

00:32:13.260 Right. Look, I think Canada has a massive problem with immigration from the Muslim world. And it's got 1.00

00:32:22.360 a problem with housing costs, which are driven partly by immigration as well. But Canada has a massive

00:32:27.820 problem with immigration from the Muslim world. And I feel that the multicultural nature of Canadian

00:32:35.400 society, which is multicultural by design. You have Quebec, you have a bilingual society. It's part of

00:32:43.100 who you are as Canadians. And it's a wonderful part of who you are as Canadians. But it does make Canada

00:32:48.160 more vulnerable to a kind of balkanization culturally. And that's a challenge very few

00:32:56.340 countries in the world have dealt with successfully. The United States has dealt with it more successfully

00:33:01.260 because we don't have a multicultural idea. Fundamentally, we have an idea of assimilation

00:33:06.140 at the core of our identity. The national motto is e pluribus unum, from many one. But we don't have

00:33:12.680 the same identity that the French do, which is a kind of enforced secularism. Headscarves have never been 0.89

00:33:17.320 banned in this country. Muslim have headscarves. In fact, Americans, as anti-Islamic as they might

00:33:21.640 be, would think it was weird to ban headscarves. They might agree with banning veils in identity 1.00

00:33:26.660 photographs, but they wouldn't ban headscarves. So there are different ways to try to deal with this 0.93

00:33:32.180 while also remembering that there are many Muslims who come to our country and your country who

00:33:37.900 want to be part of the United States and Canada, want to fully immerse and be Americans and Canadians and

00:33:44.660 devote themselves to the country. There are many good people. But there has to be a way of making

00:33:52.220 sure that people who are going to cause problems are not being brought in. And what Trump is doing

00:33:59.300 is exactly what I said he should do. In an essay, I wrote about how Trump can fight anti-Semitism. I

00:34:04.020 wrote this right after the election. And one of the things I said was, and I wrote this in my book,

00:34:07.580 The Agenda as well, something similar, but you basically need to exclude any migrant from the rest 1.00

00:34:15.140 of the world to the United States who believes Israel shouldn't exist. We already exclude terrorists.

00:34:21.220 We exclude communists. We exclude Nazis on the basis of their beliefs. You couldn't do that to Americans.

00:34:26.380 American citizens have the right to freedom of association. They can become Nazis if they want.

00:34:30.720 But we don't want more Nazis in the country. So Nazis are not allowed to immigrate. And if you lie about

00:34:34.800 having been a Nazi, then we can convict you of a crime and kick you out. Same thing with communists, 0.95

00:34:39.700 former terrorists, radical Islamic terrorists, and so forth. We should exclude people who believe 0.99

00:34:44.980 Israel doesn't have a right to exist because, frankly, that's just not a debate we're going to 0.89

00:34:48.540 have. And we don't want to add to the sheer numbers on the anti-Israel side of the debate because

00:34:55.420 the Jewish community can never compete with the size of the Muslim world. A billion Muslims versus a 1.00

00:35:01.560 tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction. Now, you have the Christian evangelicals who are a larger portion 0.98

00:35:05.780 of the American society who support Israel. But if this is a numbers game, Israel will lose every

00:35:11.280 time. If it's a question of principles and strength and quality, Israel wins every time. 1.00

00:35:18.640 And I think Canada needs to say, what kind of Canada do we want? And are the people coming here 1.00

00:35:26.560 prepared to be part of that Canada? We can have multiculturalism within certain boundaries, but

00:35:32.140 it cannot be a free-for-all where the multicultural nature of our society is simply determined by who

00:35:40.240 manages to cross the border. It cannot be that way. So I think that's a question that the conservatives

00:35:47.480 in Canada are going to have to grapple with.

00:35:49.280 And it's not just about Israel. I mean, I believe that Israel can generally take care of itself.

00:35:54.340 What appalls me about the mass immigration to Canada is its hatred, not for a foreign country, 0.99

00:36:02.680 but for hundreds of thousands or millions of Canadians. Like, I'm afraid in Canada, for Canada,

00:36:11.340 being a Canadian Jew is what scares me. I'm not, I'm actually not worried about Israel. I think

00:36:16.800 they'll be fine. So I hear what you say. I would just, I'm just speaking about, you know.

00:36:20.980 I think Israel will be fine. But I think having a strong belief that is anti-Israel is a problem.

00:36:29.360 It's a proxy for being anti-American, anti-Western, anti-separation of mosque and state.

00:36:34.800 Absolutely. I hear what you're saying. It's not just an external abstract thing like,

00:36:41.500 what do you think about Israel? It's like, every week in Toronto, we see hate marches that if they

00:36:47.180 were against black people, if they were the Klan marches, they would be arrested in a second in

00:36:52.280 Canada. Anyway, we're getting a little bit off course, but I hear what you're saying.

00:36:56.140 If Americans truly studied Canada's immigration, I think they would reclassify Canada as a serious

00:37:03.060 threat. And I had hoped that that would end with Pierre Polyev's election, but alas, it won't.

00:37:07.960 Joel, it's great to catch up with you, and you're very generous with your time. Tell me again

00:37:11.760 the name of your new book, Trump 2.0. Tell me what it's called. It's called Trump 2.0,

00:37:18.940 the most dramatic first 100 days in presidential history. And is it out now, or is it coming out

00:37:24.760 soon? It's out now. It's on Amazon. It's there, Trump 2.0. It's a short book about the first 100

00:37:32.180 days. I have another book coming out in the fall, which I know you'll like, Ezra, and it's called

00:37:38.400 The Zionist Conspiracy and How to Join It. Wow. And that's coming out in print.

00:37:44.120 Well, you know what? I met an actual Nazi in Ireland for the first time in my life,

00:37:48.240 and I was shocked by it. And I'll have to get him a copy of the book. His name is Justin Barrett. It

00:37:54.440 was quite an experience. Joel, great to catch up with you. Thank you for your thoughts about so many

00:37:58.220 things. And I look forward to reading both books. All right. Take care, Ezra. All right. There he is,

00:38:03.240 Joe Pollack, senior editor-at-large of rightbar.com and the author of the new book, Trump 2.0. That

00:38:09.260 sounds interesting. Well, that's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us

00:38:13.560 here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - May 08, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Joel Pollak： Trump puts America first, backs 'weaker' Canadian leadership

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