EZRA LEVANT ｜ Joel Pollak： Trump puts America first, backs 'weaker' Canadian leadership
Episode Stats
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Summary
Joel Pollack's take on the meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Donald Trump at the White House is a little different than my own, but I think where we disagree, Joel is probably right.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Today we talked to my old buddy, the senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com,
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Joel Pollack is his name, for his take on the meeting between Mark Carney and Donald Trump.
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It's a little bit different than my own, and I hate to say it, but I think where we disagree,
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Joel is probably right. And, you know, I think it's a really interesting talk, and I hope you
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enjoy it. Let me invite you to get a subscription to what we call Rebel News Plus. It's the video
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version of this podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com and click subscribe. I'm still
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thinking about my chat with Joel, and he has some very striking things to say. I think you'll like
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today's show. Hey, by the way, one more thing. Hey there, Rebel News listeners. Do you have a
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Tonight, we get an American view on Mark Carney's visit to the White House.
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It's May 7th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Well, Canada-U.S. relations are normally so boring that they never come up. I mean, sure,
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Canada has never lifted its share of the load in terms of NATO and military, but that wasn't a top
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10 issue for any U.S. president. Well, Donald Trump has made tariffs and economic repatriation
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part of his mandate, and of course, Mark Carney, the new Prime Minister of Canada, made hating Trump
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a core part of his mandate. Well, the two men finally met today in the Oval Office. Here's a clip
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of how that went. It's a great honor to have Prime Minister Mark Carney with us. As you know,
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just a few days ago, he won a very big election in Canada, and I think I was probably the greatest
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thing that happened to him, but I can't take vote. His party was losing by a lot, and he ended up
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winning, so I really want to congratulate him. It was probably one of the greatest comebacks in the
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history of politics, maybe even greater than mine. But I want to just congratulate you. That was a
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great election, actually. We were watching it with interest, and I think Canada chose a very talented
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person, a very good person, because we spoke before the election quite a few times. And it's an honor to
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have you at the White House and the Oval Office. You see the new and improved Oval Office as it becomes
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more and more beautiful with love. You know, we handle it with great love and 24-karat gold. That
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always helps, too. But it's been a lot of fun going over some of the beautiful pictures that were
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stored in the vaults that were for many, many years, in some cases over 100 years. They were stored in
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vaults of the great presidents who are almost great presidents, all having a reason for being up,
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every one of them. So it's very interesting. But I just want to congratulate you. And it ran a really
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great race. I watched the debate. I thought you were excellent. And I think we have a lot of things
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in common. We have some tough, tough points to go over, and that'll be fine. But we're going to also
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be discussing Ukraine-Russia, the war, because Mark wants it ended as quickly as I do. I think it has to
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end. Mark, would you like to say a few words? Thank you, Mr. President. I'm on the edge of my seat,
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actually. But thank you for your hospitality and, above all, for your leadership. You're a
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transformational president, the focus on the economy with a relentless focus on the American
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worker, securing your borders, ending the scourge of fentanyl and other opioids, and securing the
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world. And I've been elected with my colleagues here. With the help of my colleagues here, I'm going
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to spread the credit to transform Canada, with a similar focus on the economy, securing our
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borders, again, on fentanyl. Much greater focus on defense and security, securing the Arctic
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and developing the Arctic. And the history of Canada and the U.S. is we're stronger when we work
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together, and there's many opportunities to work together. And I look forward to addressing some of
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those issues that we have, but also finding those areas of mutual cooperation so we can go forward.
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That's great. Very nice. Thank you very much. It's a nice statement.
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Well, the animosity is gone. And Trump, I don't know if he's serious or not, is implying that he
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supported Carney. Carney was his choice, and that his tweets helped throw the election to Carney,
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which is something I can't really dispute. Joining us now to talk about this is our friend Joel Pollack,
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senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com. Joel, great to see you again. A few months ago, it was
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unthinkable that the liberals could win again. The Conservative Party had a 20-point lead,
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and that's in a multi-party system. The Conservatives had been leading for two full years.
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The only question was, how big a majority would it be? Trump started talking about a 51st state
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and annexing Canada, and it spooked a million boomers and seniors into voting liberals,
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letting them edge out the Conservatives in the vote. What do you make of all that?
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Well, I don't think that Trump is to blame for this. I think you can make that argument.
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But I think there are several factors that went into this. First of all, Justin Trudeau
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left the scene. He was clearly very unpopular. And the Canadian public appears to have decided that
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the Liberal Party was just fine without his leadership. So again, you're the better judge of
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that than I am. But I would guess that just looking historically at the fact that there really
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only has been one Conservative Prime Minister in the modern era, that there's kind of almost a default
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preference in Canada for the Liberal Party. So if it comes up with a different leader, you know,
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we have this problem in the United States as well. If you ask most voters, until recently,
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really until the last couple of years, where Republicans have outperformed Democrats on what we call the
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generic ballot. Generally, there are more Democrats than Republicans in the United States.
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No party has a majority. And there's a huge block of independents. But typically, your average American
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voter is more likely to say that they are Democrats. That's changed in the last year, because Democrats
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have become so unpopular, mostly because of their woke policies. Wokeness has become unpopular. And Trump
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has become very popular among those who like seeing something done about wokeness. So that's changed. But generally,
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there is a kind of cultural preference, at least when talking to pollsters, for the center-left, even though
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in terms of our politics, generally, our policies are center-right. So it's a curious balance. And I think Canada
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likes to be liberal or thought of as liberal. And so when you have Trudeau removed from the scene,
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then maybe there's a reversion to that. There are a couple other factors as well. One is that I think
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Canada likes to be different from the United States. It's part of the Canadian identity, just from my
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experience with friends and family and so forth in Canada. So I think that the fact that Trump came
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out of the gate so hard, not just against Canada, but on every front, meant that Canadians understood
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they had to be the opposite of whatever that was. And it's noteworthy, I think, that the last
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conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, was prime minister during the height of the Obama era.
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There were a few years where he overlapped with George W. Bush. But basically, Harper was around
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during Obama. And I think that Obama was a radically left president. And in the same way, I think there's
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almost an instinct to be different from the United States. I also think that the campaign that the
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conservatives ran in Canada has to be faulted for some of the things it didn't discuss. And never
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mind Trump for a moment, but the issue of immigration was there, but perhaps not as strong as it ought to
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have been. And I have to say that just following a little bit of the aftermath of the election,
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the idea that the party leader would shove out a duly elected member of parliament to take up a seat
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again, it smacks of bad form. And it actually makes it look like he deserved to lose, at least from this
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distance. So I think you have to look at the campaign the conservatives ran. I also think that
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Trump could have played a role. So let's get to Trump. And the theory that we have at Breitbart News is
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that Trump prefers a weaker Canadian leader to one who's stronger and able to push back. So I think
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Trump preferred a liberal leader, frankly, than one who is conservative and might have the ability to
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make a stronger case for the national interest because he could point to some ideological similarities
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with Trump and say, we're not opposing your ideas. We're just standing up for Canada. It's easier to
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oppose someone who not only is from a different country and advocating for that country's interests,
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but who also has bad policies in a number of areas. Carney has come out of the gate, for example,
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talking about climate and so forth. I mean, it's so easily mockable that I think it helps Trump make
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his case for the United States in the trade dispute with Canada. So that's how I would look at that.
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You said a few things about the conservatives, which I disagree with, but I don't want to spend
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time on those. I don't think they're that important. But let me just talk about the 51st state
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thing for a minute. I think you may know that it came about, and Trump referred to it again today,
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when Trudeau came down to Mar-a-Lago to try and head off the tariffs. And Trump said,
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if we had even trade, that is, we no longer had a huge trade surplus with Canada, which is almost all
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from oil and gas, by the way, automobiles and oil and gas. That's what the trade surplus is,
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but it's mainly oil and gas. Trump said, what would happen if we had an even trade balance with you?
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And Trudeau, who isn't that policy-oriented and didn't have a good answer, he sort of panicked
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and said, well, then Canada would cease to exist. He said something almost exactly to that effect.
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Here's Secretary Rubio, who was there. Take a look at this.
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President Trump has talked about expanding the U.S. footprint. In a hot mic moment,
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Canada's prime minister said that absorbing Canada is a real thing. Is it a real thing?
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Look, you know how that came about. The president's meeting with Trudeau and Trudeau says, well,
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if you impose, if you even out our trade relationship, then we will cease to exist as a
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country. At which point, the president responded very logically, and that is, well, if you can't
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exist without cheating and trade, then you should become a state. That was his observation.
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It is how it started. And I think he's told the story publicly. And that's how all this began.
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And so Trudeau panicked and said that would mark the end of Canada. That's such an astonishing thing.
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It's false, by the way. But it shows such weakness that Trump immediately grabbed it and jabbed at it,
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saying 51st state, 51st state. And I think Trump, I've watched enough of his speeches,
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he gets an applause line or a joke that works. And he just uses it all the time. It's his go-to line.
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So he loved saying 51st state. It did irritate Trudeau. But the trouble is, it felt like an
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indecent proposal to Canadians who were happy enough with their own country. Like proposing marriage to
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someone who was already married. It wasn't just not on. It was taken as an affront. And that's a
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luxurious reason to cast a ballot. I don't like how Trump makes me feel. But I think for a million
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sensitive Canadians, his reputation, and he repeated it again today, which I don't even know why he's
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doing it. Maybe to show America, I think of America as a great growing power, you know, manifest destiny.
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I get it. But I like the banter. But a lot of Canadians, it really turned on a lot of anti-Americanism.
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I just don't see how having an anti-American population in Canada helps with America first.
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I don't know how it helps get the stronger military. I don't know how it helps get our trade barriers down.
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I don't get it. And I am probably the Trumpiest person in Canada. We've endorsed him in all three
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elections. We've taken a lot of punishment for being pro-Trump. And I honestly just don't get it.
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How is this America first? Well, I don't think you would have had that comment had Trump's policy not
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been American first, because Trump doesn't see his job as electing conservatives in other countries.
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He really doesn't. I think he refers sometimes to the rise of populist and nationalist movements in
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other countries. But that's not really where his heart is. His heart is the American interest.
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And it's left to commentators, mostly on the right, sometimes on the left, to talk about whether
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the Trump phenomenon is being mirrored in other countries and so forth. But he doesn't feel any sense
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of obligation. And in fact, some of his best relationships have been with foreign leaders
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on the left. That doesn't mean he always prefers foreign leaders on the left, but he has had
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productive relationships with people with whom there's something to exchange or to trade, rather
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than people with whom there's already a lot of commonality. You'll notice there's a bit of a frosty
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relationship at the moment between Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, for example. That has to do with
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some disputes over the 2020 election. But it also has to do with the fact that being close to
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Netanyahu allows Netanyahu to have a little bit of leverage over Trump that Trump doesn't want him to
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have. And Trump has pushed him away a little bit in a number of ways. First of all, Netanyahu came a few
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weeks ago to try to get Trump to sign on to a deal to attack Iran's nuclear sites. And Trump then announced
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without really warning Netanyahu that he was launching talks with Iran. Then just this week,
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both the U.S. and Israel attacked the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and quite forcefully so after the Houthi
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attacks on the U.S. Navy and on an Israeli airport. And right after Israel bombed and destroyed the main
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airport in Yemen, Trump came out and said, we're not bombing the Houthis anymore because they've agreed
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not to attack our ships. And that boxed Israel in to some extent. Now, Israel had already done, I think,
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the most significant damage. And you don't want a situation where you create a state that collapses
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completely, which then requires you to participate somewhat in a humanitarian or rebuilding effort. But
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it was a way of boxing Israel in and saying, okay, I'm not going to be pushed any further into this
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conflict. So I think, just to round out the thought, when it looked like Netanyahu might lose during the
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first Trump term, Netanyahu had to go through several elections, but there was one, the first one,
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where it looked like he might lose. Trump came out and said, our relationship is with the people of
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Israel and not with any particular government. And so I think that Trump doesn't see himself as a kind
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of global leader of conservatism or populism or nationalism. He cares about those principles,
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but he ultimately just cares about America first. And so if he believes it's in America's interest to
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have a liberal Canadian leader, he doesn't mind helping the liberal leader.
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And he doesn't mind if he riles up the Canadian electorate to put one into power. Now, we might,
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again, think that it's unfortunate. And I happen to like the conservative leaders' policies in a
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number of ways, in many ways. And, you know, many conservatives in the United States were quietly
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rooting for the conservative party. At the same time, I do think that Trump believes that he can get a
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better deal from Canada in terms of trade if he applies this kind of pressure.
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Do I like it in every case? I don't. But that's, I think, what his America first policy is about. He
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just doesn't feel an obligation to the conservative party in Canada. And he wants to get the United
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States to a better place. And look, just one more example. When AMLO came to power, the previous
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president of Mexico, many people thought, oh, that's the end of Trump's effort to get Mexico to do
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anything about the border because this guy is basically a socialist and Trump is a capitalist,
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billionaire, nationalist. Trump did very well with AMLO. It was AMLO who sent 15,000 troops to the
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southern Mexican border to stop the caravans of migrants from coming up to the United States.
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And that's because Trump threatened tariffs on Mexico. And after that, the two of them got along
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very well. So I think that it is possible that Trump believes that dealing with a weak liberal leader,
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and I do think Carney is going to be a weak leader. I think his policies are terrible. And I think the
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public will sour on them very quickly in Canada. I think Trump would prefer to have an unpopular and
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weak Canadian leader than to have somebody who is strong and able to articulate the Canadian national
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interest. So I hear the pain in your voice. It must be very hard. And I hear the same from friends
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in Israel who love Trump and everything he's done for Israel. And now they're getting very worried about
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what kind of deal Trump might do in Iran that ties Israel's hands. And so there's a lot of frustration.
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But I think the lesson for Israel is also the lesson for Canada, which is that you just have to be
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strong independently of whoever's in the White House. And one final thought on this, the 51st state
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thing. Look, it is insulting. And I understand that it's insulting. Americans also find it somewhat
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amusing. And it becomes a laugh line and an applause line. You know, it's like Michael Moore portraying
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Canada in, I forget which film it was. I think it was Roger and Me or one of the subsequent films.
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And he mentions Canada and then he cuts immediately to a shot of penguins on the ice. Obviously, penguins
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don't live in Canada. But there's a certain amount of teasing that goes on. And, you know,
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the South Park films and all of that. I mean, a lot of it happens in the opposite way as well,
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I know, from my Canadian relatives. But I think that the wounds that Trudeau caused among Trump and
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his supporters for the way that he treated Trump, those left a very bad memory. And, you know,
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you mentioned he came to Mar-a-Lago. During Trump's first term, there was a meeting of some
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international leaders somewhere, maybe it was the G7, I don't know, where Trudeau was hanging out with
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Boris Johnson and some other people, all very clearly enjoying a laugh at Trump's expense.
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And their comments, I think, were caught on a hot mic and everything. And I just think Trump never
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forgot that. And I think that there was no way Justin Trudeau was ever going to be able to deal
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with Donald Trump. So if anything, I think that fueled the kind of rancor that Trump used against
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Canada. And, you know, I think he was very polite to Carney. And I watched the press conference,
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I thought that he was trying to put the relationship on solid footing. And I thought
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Carney actually did very well. He said, Canada is not for sale. And Trump said, OK, well, you know,
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you can see he's arguing for his interest and I'm arguing for mine. And we love Canada. And we're
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going to get he said that many times. We love Canada. We love Canadians and and so forth. But we're
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going to have a we're going to have a tough fight here over this. So, look, that's where I'll leave that
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point. You may disagree with some of what I've said, but I think that's why he did it, because he really
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thinks he's doing the best for America, for the United States. I mean, by saying that.
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Yeah. And and Canadians should never say a word if an American throws a jab at us. I mean,
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our CBC state broadcaster had a whole series called Talking to Americans, where our so-called
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government comedian would go to the United States and ask fake questions and and give fake answers just
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to demonstrate how dopey Americans like this. This was our state broadcaster, like half of the
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Canadian identity. Trudeau himself said this. He was asked, what does it mean to be Canadian? His
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answer was not American. Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian. One of the ways we define
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ourselves most easily is, well, we're not American. Like there's a sullen, smug, superior anti-Americanism
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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
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and Iran and China and Mexico to follow what, frankly, most Canadian leaders say about him. I'm
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lucky that we're not on his top 10 of issues. So you're right. It's just I feel a sense of loss
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because we were so close to extirpating the liberals from this country. And here's what I'm really worried
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about. And I think America should worry about it, too. Mark Carney is a friend of Xi Jinping when he
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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
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Canada should sell our oil to America. Mark Carney isn't that fussed about it. And I'm worried that
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China is sniffing around our resources. There's just things that hurt me as a Canadian. But I think
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I bet America would care about this if they knew about it. So I don't know. We'll see where things go.
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But Carney certainly was a different man in the meeting in the Oval Office on the campaign trail.
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His anti-Americanism was off the charts. His anti-Trumpism, even after he won, he was saying
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things like, our relationship with America has forever changed. Well, in the Oval Office meeting,
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he was like a little puppy on Trump's lap. You know, I respect your leadership, Mr. President.
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Anyways, you're right. I'm a little sad, Joel. For two years, and the mass immigration is another
00:23:37.200
thing. I mean, we are bringing in thousands of people from Gaza. You can't vet someone from Gaza.
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What do you check against? The police records kept by Hamas? How do you vet Gaza migrants? And
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they're coming into Canada. We have a fairly porous border with America. How does that suit Trump to
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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
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line that I've never forgotten and I've often repeated, which is that the people are always
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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
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say this with great respect for his heroism and his five and a half years in a North Vietnamese prison
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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.
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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
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
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
00:28:57.540
of them? You have, you know, bad immigration. Canada's immigration policy used to be exemplary.
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.
00:32:13.260
Right. Look, I think Canada has a massive problem with immigration from the Muslim world. And it's got
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
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
00:33:26.660
photographs, but they wouldn't ban headscarves. So there are different ways to try to deal with this
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
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,
00:34:39.700
former terrorists, radical Islamic terrorists, and so forth. We should exclude people who believe
00:34:44.980
Israel doesn't have a right to exist because, frankly, that's just not a debate we're going to
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
00:35:01.560
tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction. Now, you have the Christian evangelicals who are a larger portion
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.
00:35:18.640
And I think Canada needs to say, what kind of Canada do we want? And are the people coming here
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
00:35:49.280
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,
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.