Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ New York City poised to elect radical socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor

00:00:00.000 Hello my friends. Normally I'm not interested in who's the mayor of a foreign city. I mean 0.98

00:00:05.460 we've got our own terrible mayors here in Canada but what's happening in New York City

00:00:09.080 I think is a global news story. A hardcore left-wing, I'd even say communist candidate

00:00:15.960 who only came to America a few years ago, born overseas, pro-Hamas, is now leading the race to 0.99

00:00:24.860 be the next mayor. He won the Democratic primary. I'll tell you all about it but first please

00:00:31.380 consider becoming a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. It's the video version of this podcast. I want to

00:00:36.840 show you what this guy Zoran Mamdani looks like. I want you to see how slick he is and I want you to

00:00:43.980 see how white his supporters are. Migrants too but those liberal white women can't get enough of this 1.00

00:00:48.920 guy and I want to show that to you so I want you to get the video version. We call it Rebel News Plus.

00:00:53.340 Go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. You get all our shows in video

00:00:59.600 and the satisfaction of supporting Rebel News.

00:01:18.760 Tonight, New York City is on the verge of electing an Islamic communist as mayor. 1.00

00:01:23.340 Will Zoran Mamdani conquer the city that the 9-11 terrorists could not?

00:01:28.600 It's June 26th and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:34.440 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:46.040 Hey, look at this guy. He just won the Democratic Party primary in the New York City mayor's election.

00:01:51.580 Take a look.

00:01:52.140 Good morning, everyone.

00:01:53.980 We are approaching the dawn of a new era in New York City.

00:01:58.860 We are turning the page on the corrupt politics of the past that made this the most expensive city in the United States of America.

00:02:07.100 Today, I am filled with gratitude for the more than 50,000 volunteers that have powered this campaign for the last eight months, for the tens of thousands more who have already cast their ballots.

00:02:21.660 And I'm filled with conviction that we will win this race.

00:02:27.460 We've shown that by focusing on the issues of working in middle class New Yorkers across this city, that by listening instead of lecturing, that by creating a politics of no translation, New Yorkers will join you in your fight for a new city.

00:02:44.040 What we offer is a way to sustain this city that I so deeply love.

00:02:50.000 What we offer is a vision to keep New Yorkers in the place that they call home and an antidote to the Trump administration and the hatred and the division that it skews.

00:03:00.340 We are showing people that hope is not something that is naive.

00:03:05.540 It is, in fact, righteous when it is built upon a plan and a vision.

00:03:10.140 We are showing New York City that a better day is possible.

00:03:16.100 And today is the first of many of them.

00:03:19.020 Handsome, well-spoken, high-energy, fresh face.

00:03:22.200 He's an actor.

00:03:23.360 His mom is a Disney filmmaker.

00:03:25.680 He's all about pizzazz.

00:03:27.040 He's remade himself several times.

00:03:29.120 I mean, here's another version of him.

00:03:30.900 Brother and brother, this election has only been 20 days and the choice is under my and Andrew Cuomo.

00:03:36.860 If you are aware of the first time election, this is what Andrew Cuomo is offering.

00:03:42.080 Today we have a building, property, bank balance, bangla, car, what do you have to do?

00:03:46.040 Now, we've raised $8 million raised.

00:03:50.500 $6 million from more doors are cut and cut.

00:03:52.880 And it's just so close to the first South Asian mayor to make this city.

00:03:56.840 But the thing is, it's not that I'm going to make this city, but the thing is that I'm going to make this city.

00:04:01.180 For our communities and for every New Yorker, I will make our city affordable.

00:04:05.800 New Yorkers are offering food, clothes, clothes and buildings.

00:04:09.520 Not always so smiley.

00:04:24.020 Here he is putting on a show when Trump's border czar, the man in charge of deportations, came to New York City.

00:04:29.620 I think he really wanted to get arrested.

00:04:43.300 But he is good at politics, similar in a way to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

00:04:48.100 But he's, I think, smarter and more serious than she is.

00:04:51.440 People thought she was a joke because of her casual manner and childish style. 1.00

00:04:55.060 But you have to understand, that's what works in the modern American left.

00:04:58.720 She's exotic enough to attract white liberals and ideological enough to pull the youth away from more moderate Democrats. 1.00

00:05:05.780 And so is Mamdami.

00:05:07.240 And when you're dealing with a city like New York, where 36% of people are foreign-born.

00:05:13.220 But I have to be fair, it's not just new immigrants.

00:05:16.980 White liberals, especially white liberal women, love it too. 1.00

00:05:21.620 Look at Zoran's, I'm calling him Zoran.

00:05:24.500 He goes by his first name.

00:05:26.520 I would too if my name was Zoran.

00:05:28.140 I mean, it's a powerful name showing that he's not part of the establishment.

00:05:32.320 But look at his victory party.

00:05:35.060 It's liberal white girls. 1.00

00:05:36.900 Well, he is handsome.

00:05:54.700 So, yeah, New York is 36% foreign-born.

00:05:58.300 And I think you saw some of that power in Mamdami's win.

00:06:02.500 By the way, the number of foreign-born citizens, 35, 36% in New York, that number is 52% in Toronto.

00:06:10.260 In places like Brampton, Ontario, it's even higher.

00:06:12.340 59%.

00:06:12.940 Everything you think is wrong in New York and London, it's worse here in Canada.

00:06:20.020 Vancouver's 49%.

00:06:21.520 Montreal's 41%.

00:06:23.560 Even Calgary and Edmonton are at 35% foreign-born.

00:06:27.900 That answers quite a few questions, doesn't it?

00:06:29.980 You know, it brings to mind the United Nations study called Replacement Migration.

00:06:38.900 That's what's going on.

00:06:40.500 I mean, the Democrats are proud to say it.

00:06:42.160 Normally, the Democratic primary is all you have to do in New York City to run for mayor.

00:06:47.040 Since the city is overwhelmingly Democrat, whoever is the Democrat usually wins.

00:06:51.400 There's been a few exceptions to that.

00:06:53.380 When billionaire Michael Bloomberg ran, he ran as a Republican, just like Rudy Giuliani before him.

00:06:59.840 And Bloomberg then ran as an independent, again, mainly so he could avoid that primary that he surely would have lost,

00:07:06.240 because it was just the hardcore leftists he ran in the general.

00:07:10.380 Bloomberg really spent his way into victory.

00:07:12.880 He's a billionaire.

00:07:13.980 It's tricky right now, the situation.

00:07:16.200 The incumbent mayor is an ex-cop named Eric Adams.

00:07:22.140 He's a black man, and that is an important constituency in New York City.

00:07:26.700 He's an ex-cop, which speaks to the increasing worries about crime.

00:07:31.980 But he is not far left.

00:07:34.040 In fact, he has said supportive things about Trump dealing with illegal migrants who have overrun New York City. 1.00

00:07:40.620 I think that's one of the reasons why Mamdami ran.

00:07:46.140 He's pro-illegal immigration.

00:07:49.120 I think Eric Adams would likely have been challenged in the primary, so he did a Bloomberg and became an independent

00:07:56.560 and was planning to run for re-election as an independent.

00:07:59.480 So in step to the Democratic primary the other day, the former governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, he's 67 years old, compared to Zoran's 33 years old.

00:08:12.480 And Cuomo sure feels like the establishment personified.

00:08:15.780 I mean, I don't know if you remember, but his father, Mario Cuomo, was governor about 40 years ago,

00:08:20.580 and Andrew Cuomo himself was governor for about a decade, too.

00:08:23.680 I mean, he's moderate as New Yorkers go.

00:08:25.860 He's old school.

00:08:26.840 Zoran is the candidate of socialists, environmentalists, activists, and Islamists.

00:08:32.520 So it was quite a contrast generationally.

00:08:35.760 And in the end, Zoran got 43.5% of the primary vote, and Cuomo just got 36.4%.

00:08:41.880 In raw numbers, it was 432,000 votes for the upstart and 361,000 for the old man.

00:08:49.240 I think, though, that the Democrats are all now coalescing against Zoran.

00:08:53.140 Everyone is excited about him.

00:08:54.820 He's the new AOC.

00:08:56.380 So you see everyone from Bill and Hillary Clinton on down are endorsing him.

00:09:00.560 They see he's the next AOC, but more likely to be a leader of a movement, not just a backbench pundit, which is sort of what AOC has turned into.

00:09:10.420 Now, Andrew Cuomo says he might run as an independent.

00:09:13.640 We'll see about that.

00:09:14.760 I think all these big establishment types backing Zoran are trying to convince Cuomo not to run.

00:09:19.820 And Eric Adams, the incumbent, said he would run as an independent.

00:09:23.560 And then there's the Republican candidate for mayor, Curtis Sliwa.

00:09:26.640 You might have heard of him.

00:09:27.580 He was the founder of sort of the street paramilitary anti-crime force called the Guardian Angels, famous for being in those New York City subway cars when there was so much crime.

00:09:37.860 So you could potentially see three centrist candidates against Zoran, Eric Adams, the ex-cop mayor who is black, Andrew Cuomo, the former governor who is Italian, and Curtis Sliwa, the activist.

00:09:52.040 And I mentioned the ethnicity because that is part of New York politics.

00:09:55.460 Those three candidates would all split the vote on the right.

00:10:00.740 And if that happens, I think it's almost a certainty that Zoran will win the general election on November 4th.

00:10:08.040 Now, normally, who's running for mayor is not much concern outside the city involved.

00:10:12.160 And even then, it's not that much, it's not that momentous a position.

00:10:16.120 But that's not actually true for some cities that are more like countries in terms of their size and importance.

00:10:21.920 I mean, the New York City Police Department is larger than most countries' armies, and it's a counterterrorism force.

00:10:31.420 So in many ways, being the mayor of New York is really like being the president of a small but important country, and it's not even small economically.

00:10:40.180 London, England, that mayor, Sadiq Khan, is one of the most powerful politicians in the UK, certainly more so than, say, the conservative leader of the opposition there.

00:10:49.600 Sadiq Khan is a hard left-wing extremist who has spent his life as a sympathizer for Islamic terrorism.

00:10:56.240 And so he turns a blind eye to the anti-Semitic crime wave in his city, just like they do in Toronto.

00:11:00.800 But he's much more than just an Islamist.

00:11:03.360 He's built a coalition with white left-wingers in the UK, including the old communist fringe, government sector unions, environmentalists, and LGBTQ extremists.

00:11:14.260 London leads the way in things like environmental spyware.

00:11:17.640 They have this system that combines surveillance cameras and 15-minute cities so that if you dare to drive when and where the government says you can't drive at that time, you're sent a fine.

00:11:29.340 It's like photo radar, except you've done nothing wrong except for driving at all.

00:11:33.440 These 15-minute cities are called ULES, ultra-low-emission zones, as if they'll somehow counteract China building a coal-fired power plant every week.

00:11:45.060 But really, it's all about controlling people, whatever the excuse is.

00:11:48.260 Censorship, environment, they don't care.

00:11:50.520 It's the controller after the power.

00:11:53.060 I have to say I have a forbidden affection for the band of so-called Blade Runners in London.

00:11:57.880 Those are people who go around and immobilize those ULES spy cameras.

00:12:02.580 They come in, typically on a motorbike, they have a metal-cutting saw, and they do their work in less than a minute.

00:12:08.560 Look at this.

00:12:09.160 Timber! 1.00

00:12:33.800 See you fucking later. 1.00

00:12:35.780 There you go. 1.00

00:12:36.620 Didn't last very long, did it, folks?

00:12:38.040 Didn't last very long at all. 0.99

00:12:40.200 See you fucking later. 0.99

00:12:42.020 You ladies, down on the deck, have some of that. 1.00

00:12:45.360 Boys ain't messing around around here.

00:12:47.320 Boys ain't messing around around here.

00:12:49.300 Anyways, so Sadiq Khan of London, he's presided over an incredible crime wave where knives are the weapon of choice, where petty lawlessness is ubiquitous.

00:12:58.400 I mean, don't walk down the street holding your cell phone because someone might snatch it on a bike going by.

00:13:04.600 Antisemitism is, of course, normalized, just like in Toronto.

00:13:07.320 I mean, you can't blame everything on Sadiq Khan.

00:13:10.160 He's not in charge of mass immigration.

00:13:12.140 That's at the feet of both the current Labour government and the Conservative government that ran the UK for 14 years before that.

00:13:19.480 Khan is actually a product of that.

00:13:21.180 There's no doubt that mass immigration to London, which is now a majority-minority city, is why such a radical has won and why a truly conservative indigenous British person will likely never be elected again. 0.95

00:13:34.500 It's the same story in Toronto, of course.

00:13:37.280 I mean, Olivia Chow would have been unthinkable a generation ago. 0.75

00:13:40.840 I hesitate to use the word communist to describe her and Sadiq Khan because it seems so overheated, like I'm trying to insult them or something.

00:13:47.880 But I think it actually really is an accurate descriptor.

00:13:51.200 Crime, homelessness, Islamic extremists on the street, crazy taxes, absurd anti-car regulations, LGBTQ kookiness. 1.00

00:14:00.900 I think this video sums up her politics perfectly.

00:14:05.560 Here's her police force giving Toronto homeowners advice on how to respond to the new crime wave of home invasion robberies in Toronto, where foreign gangs break into your house to get the keys to your fancy cars to steal them.

00:14:19.320 This is Olivia Chow's failed state called Toronto.

00:14:21.560 To prevent the possibility of being attacked in your home, leave your fobs at your front door.

00:14:27.320 Because they're breaking into your home to steal your car.

00:14:30.020 They don't want anything else.

00:14:31.200 A lot of them that they're arresting have guns on them.

00:14:33.940 And they're not toy guns.

00:14:34.940 They're real guns.

00:14:35.960 That's real, folks.

00:14:37.420 You don't want your car stolen to begin with.

00:14:39.480 But if your car is stolen and you have to use the subway in Toronto, both Toronto and New York force you into an even more dangerous situation, there's subways.

00:14:49.740 I mean, Toronto's subway is crazy. 0.97

00:15:07.840 And if it's not violent, it's mentally ill. 0.96

00:15:17.380 London is an enormously consequential city with a population and economy of a small country.

00:15:22.800 Toronto is less prominent in a global sense.

00:15:25.360 But it's the London of Canada, right?

00:15:27.000 The largest city, the biggest economy, the most corporate head offices, etc.

00:15:30.680 It affects more than just itself is what I'm saying.

00:15:32.980 It really is a shame.

00:15:33.900 If you've been to Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., you'll see once great cities in steep decline.

00:15:41.740 And it's 100% due to politics.

00:15:44.000 I mean, I think of Detroit, which was one of America's wealthiest and most successful cities.

00:15:49.240 It had the highest industrial wage in America.

00:15:52.400 It was the place to go and get rich.

00:15:55.520 Ha! 0.89

00:15:55.760 What a joke now.

00:15:56.760 It's just destroyed by left-wing politics.

00:15:58.960 Well, next up, perhaps the greatest city in the world, New York City, city of 9-11, where two jets hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists flew into the World Trade Center, killing thousands. 1.00

00:16:08.220 Oh, shit! 1.00

00:16:09.520 Oh, shit! 1.00

00:16:09.540 Oh, shit! 1.00

00:16:11.480 Oh, shit! 1.00

00:16:14.580 Go, go, go, go! 1.00

00:16:17.680 Oh, shit! 1.00

00:16:19.360 Oh, shit! 1.00

00:16:21.840 Oh, shit! 1.00

00:16:25.200 Shit! 1.00

00:16:25.520 So that wasn't even 25. 1.00

00:16:55.500 Now, New York appears set to elect a mayor who, by some measures, is on the same side as those terrorists. Now, I don't say that merely because he's Muslim. There are moderate Muslims and there are tolerant Muslims, of course. Mamdani is an avidly anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and pro-terrorist candidate. I mean, the day after Hamas terrorists massacred more than a thousand Jews and took hundreds hostage, here's what Mamdani said. No mention of Hamas or terrorism. 0.89

00:17:23.640 He wrote this. He said,

00:17:54.640 What a joke that is. I mean, he does come by it honestly though. Here's his dad, an extremist professor at Columbia University, saying Israel as a country must be dismantled.

00:18:08.120 The Palestinian challenge is to persuade the Jewish population of Israel and the world that, just as in South Africa, the long-term security of a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine requires the dismantling of the Jewish state.

00:18:25.500 The South African lesson for Palestine is that historic Palestine can be a homeland for Jews, but not for Jews only. Jews can have a homeland in historic Palestine, but not a state.

00:18:40.220 I can only imagine what he would have said after 9-11. And this is from someone in New York City, the place of 9-11. I'm not going to focus solely or even mainly on his pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic extremism.

00:18:53.620 Again, he's running for mayor, not running for president, though it wouldn't surprise me if one day he does run for higher office.

00:18:59.680 He's for rent freezes. Basically, four years of no rent increases, which will kill any construction of apartments. Why would you build an apartment if you can't recoup your costs?

00:19:11.700 He's for free public transit. You know, just throw another taxpayer bale of $100 bills on the fire. He's for universal childcare. He's gone full communist on this next one. He's for city-owned grocery stores.

00:19:26.440 What would those be like? I mean, in New York City, if you've ever been to Manhattan, there's a bodega. There's like a small grocery store, convenience store that often has prepared foods on every block.

00:19:38.100 They're independently run, typically. What would a government-owned grocery store be like?

00:19:44.540 Imagine if the Department of Motor Vehicles and the post office and the TSA airport security ran a grocery store. I think that's what it would look like.

00:19:52.960 What do you think the prices would be like at such a store? But that's not the point. See, the point is the socialism itself. The point is to attack the capitalist grocers.

00:20:03.000 And the point is to get lots of government jobs for his friends. Speaking of which, he proposes to raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour.

00:20:10.340 Hmm, really? And will this be in your grocery store? Cashiers, bag boy, you know, people, bus boys. Get ready for a lot more of stores with self-checkouts and a lot more automated restaurants and the like.

00:20:26.340 If you're making people pay $30 US per hour minimum wage for entry-level jobs, those entry-level jobs will be replaced by robots or by illegal immigrants who work under the table. 1.00

00:20:39.260 And, of course, his central plank is to stop the enforcement of immigration laws. He's no dummy. He needs the socialist vote for sure, but he really, really needs the foreign vote.

00:20:50.280 But that all sounds good to new immigrants, to illegals, to socialists. And Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley sage, he was the founder of PayPal, he made this excellent point a few years ago. 0.81

00:21:03.800 It's a terrifying point. He said this about 2020 when Bernie Sanders was, his name was floated.

00:21:08.520 Why are so many young New Yorkers and young people everywhere, why are they socialists now? Like, other than just it's cool, is there a reason? Take a listen to his explanation. It's a couple minutes, but take a look.

00:21:20.660 And there is a problem that we have. You know, we don't have a very well-functioning capitalist society. You know, there's a generational problem where it is difficult for young people to acquire capital.

00:21:33.300 And, you know, I'd say there's sort of two, if I had to give sort of, and that's, you know, the young people that are supporting Bernie Sanders.

00:21:40.840 And we, and, you know, the sort of the two simple political things that, you know, one should really think about are the runaway student debt in colleges.

00:21:49.840 You know, it's $300 billion in student debt in 2000s, up to $1.7 trillion today. And if you start your life in debt that can never be discharged in bankruptcy, you know, it'll be much harder to accumulate capital, and you might be less friendly to capitalism.

00:22:06.180 So that's, that's a, that is a big problem. And, you know, I think, I don't think we should socialize the student debt, but we should deal with it in a non-socialist way.

00:22:15.020 We should internalize the costs onto the universities. We should redo the bankruptcy laws. Yes, you can discharge the student debt.

00:22:21.420 And when you discharge it, it's the college that gave you a bad education that gets, that gets stuck with a bill.

00:22:27.620 That's, there's a sort of a non-socialist alternative. And, and then, and then, you know, I think the other, the other basic problem of, of a lack of capital or inequality is that it's very hard for people to get onto the, onto the housing ladder.

00:22:44.600 You know, the main way that the people in the middle class in this country accumulate capital is through owning real estate, through owning your house.

00:22:52.900 And, and if it, if through a series of urban zoning laws and bad planning and impossibility of building things, it has become impossible for people to get onto, onto that.

00:23:04.560 And if you could find ways for, for people to own more houses, you would have much less of these sort of millennial craze socialism.

00:23:12.380 So I think, I think, you know, we should, we should try to understand where it's coming from. We should, we need, we need to try to, try to solve it.

00:23:19.940 But, but, but, you know, at the end of the day, I think it will be pretty weak because it's mainly a critique.

00:23:26.480 It's a critique of, of bad institutions. And if, if, if Sanders becomes serious, I think it'll be, it'll be as scary as Corbyn was in the UK.

00:23:34.780 And obviously, you know, we'll, we'll be talking about the post office and the DMV and it'll just be ridiculous.

00:23:40.560 So a lot of wisdom in there. Young people in the States borrow a lot of money to get useless university degrees. 0.90

00:23:46.720 And if you go to these fancy schools like Columbia or Harvard, you could end up with a hundred thousand, $200,000 in debt for a degree that's sort of useless.

00:23:56.740 And that debt follows them around forever. It's not the kind of debt that gets wiped out in a bankruptcy.

00:24:01.780 Peter Thiel says the universities themselves should be forced to eat that debt.

00:24:07.720 They're the ones who are pumping out the useless degrees, but his point about not being able to afford a home is very important, not just for college educated people, but for any young people.

00:24:19.440 And it applies in Canada too, where student debt isn't as big a problem.

00:24:24.500 Peter Thiel didn't mention the big driver of high housing prices, immigration.

00:24:30.280 So in New York City, you have all of this vanity degrees that saddle young people with debt and no chance of buying a home, no good jobs, people having a tough time.

00:24:43.000 So of course, if you're shut out of the capitalist economy, you don't care about capitalism.

00:24:47.580 You sort of hate it. Of course you want free stuff, even if you never actually get it.

00:24:52.440 In fact, even if you never actually get it, you like the fact that the capitalists are getting punched in the teeth.

00:24:58.200 It's not like you're going to pay for any of this.

00:25:00.680 And those liberal white women who voted for Zoran to get a bit of excitement for voting for someone who's exotic and Islamist that speaks very good English. 0.82

00:25:09.180 I'm not sure if Zoran himself is an Islamist.

00:25:11.460 I'm not sure his wife does not wear a burqa, for example, but I think he sees the political uses of it.

00:25:17.080 Because we want this one thing, in this country, in this country, if we want equality, respect, those things are not given.

00:25:28.200 They have to be won.

00:25:29.580 And the way that we win them is at the ballot box.

00:25:34.760 So this June 24th, in a city with a million Muslims, in a city with 200,000 of them registered as Democrats, I ask that we tell everyone to vote.

00:25:46.820 So, yeah, migrants know he's an ally.

00:25:50.200 Socialists know he's an ally.

00:25:52.740 The anti-Semitism works in both camps, doesn't it? 0.86

00:25:55.560 The one thing that Peter Thiel gets wrong, I think, is that when this becomes a disaster, when New York City lapses back to its worst state, like in the 1970s, he thinks people will back away.

00:26:09.040 He was talking about Bernie Sanders back then, but I think it applies to Zoran or Kamala Harris or whomever.

00:26:14.200 The idea that things get so bad and then they snap back, the pendulum swings back.

00:26:19.340 But I'm not sure if that happens.

00:26:22.000 Like, when is that going to happen in Detroit or Baltimore?

00:26:25.920 The city of Baltimore, Maryland, is what, two-thirds the size of what it was 75 years ago?

00:26:32.660 The productive, conservative, capable, citizenship-oriented people, they've all left.

00:26:40.280 Detroit, you can buy a house in Detroit for $10.

00:26:44.440 It's a run-down house.

00:26:46.080 Their population is shrinking.

00:26:49.520 When's California going to snap back?

00:26:51.240 When's Los Angeles or San Francisco in particular?

00:26:53.440 How about Chicago or D.C.?

00:26:55.300 Great cities can, in fact, be ruined.

00:26:59.260 And there's no guarantee they're going to come back.

00:27:01.280 New York City is amazing.

00:27:02.660 And in some ways, it always has been amazing.

00:27:04.580 But the 1970s were a very dark time there.

00:27:07.080 Extreme crime and discord.

00:27:09.440 Oh, yeah.

00:27:09.900 I forgot to mention, Zoran wants to defund the police, too.

00:27:13.380 Imagine adding that to the mix.

00:27:15.420 Another problem is people are already moving out of New York City.

00:27:19.840 So many have moved out of New York during COVID times.

00:27:23.320 They moved to Florida or Texas where there weren't lockdowns, where things are freer.

00:27:27.780 Everyone who moves to Florida says they love it.

00:27:29.740 They love the lower taxes.

00:27:30.740 They love the crackdown on crime.

00:27:33.520 They love the end of the shenanigans, the wokeness.

00:27:36.080 So all these good folks, typically entrepreneurial folks, conservative folks, with each passing year, they're moving from New York, from California to better places in the U.S.

00:27:47.140 And so what happens is the remaining people in New York and California will become more concentrated in their political malaise.

00:27:54.640 Sure, you're always going to have the public sector workers, but you're going to have fewer and fewer makers taking care of all those takers because those who could have fought to save New York instead chose to look after themselves.

00:28:08.920 Leave for greener pastures with their family.

00:28:10.680 New York has a lot of staying power, that's for sure, but no city is forever, especially if you replace its people with other people.

00:28:21.160 I mean, the future of New York is a crime-ridden, you know, socialist paradise.

00:28:27.020 It might sound awful to you and me, but someone from Pakistan might say it's the best they could ever dream of, and they love it just fine.

00:28:35.000 Now, it's possible to stop Zoran in the next few months, but I sort of doubt it.

00:28:41.220 I mean, I told you what's happening electorally.

00:28:43.180 You've got a lot of big egos there.

00:28:44.740 You've got Curtis Sliwa, Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams.

00:28:48.340 Are they all going to get out and back one alternative?

00:28:51.840 Remember, it was the Democratic primary, which is the dominant party there.

00:28:56.060 Are they going to look at other options, or it looks like they're all circling the wagons around Zoran?

00:29:02.320 The only hope in the long term, I think, is Trump's plans for mass deportation.

00:29:09.800 Stay with us.

00:29:10.700 Up next, a couple of fascinating interviews done by my friends Lincoln Jay and Ephraim Monsanto when they were in Northern Ireland last week.

00:29:19.600 As you know, I was on the cruise, so I couldn't go, but they went.

00:29:22.740 I've never been to Northern Ireland before.

00:29:24.600 That's, of course, part of the United Kingdom.

00:29:26.440 It's the six counties on the north part of the island of Ireland.

00:29:32.200 Here's what those lads heard.

00:29:44.920 So we've been walking around this area.

00:29:46.500 Why don't you tell our viewers where exactly we are right now, what this divide is all about,

00:29:50.540 what the purpose of these gates are, and what they were used for?

00:29:54.000 Yeah, so we're in West Belfast.

00:29:56.460 To my left, we've got the Shankill Road.

00:29:58.800 To my right, we've got the Falls Road, the Springfield area.

00:30:01.560 And back during the Troubles, this was a flashpoint.

00:30:04.240 It was what's called an interface area.

00:30:05.980 So you had rioting, disturbances, sectarian murder.

00:30:10.120 So this street would have been used for vehicles to go and attack people on the Catholic side 0.86

00:30:14.640 and go and attack people on the Loyalist side.

00:30:17.000 So it was a real flashpoint.

00:30:18.700 So the gates there that you see behind us, they were put in place to stop the rioting

00:30:22.960 and to stop the sectarian attacks going down this part of the town.

00:30:27.440 This went on for years.

00:30:29.040 Those gates probably were there for about 30 years.

00:30:32.520 And it did obviously stop a lot of violence.

00:30:34.800 But it just shows what happens when a community becomes very, very polarised and divided,

00:30:39.320 like Northern Ireland did.

00:30:40.580 You have to put these measures in place.

00:30:42.120 These areas as well would have been heavily patrolled by the RUC in Armoured Land Rovers,

00:30:47.240 the British Army.

00:30:48.040 Heavily armed soldiers from the British Army would have been here.

00:30:50.640 And in that area, if you were a British soldier and you're in the Springfield Falls area,

00:30:56.100 your life would have been in danger.

00:30:57.900 If you're on the Shankill Road, you would have been safe.

00:31:00.720 Because obviously the Loyalist people basically had affinity with the British Army and the British soldiers.

00:31:05.600 Whereas the Irish Republicans and the Nationalists would have seen British soldiers as occupying forces.

00:31:10.820 Now, the divide is getting less and less as time goes on.

00:31:14.980 But one of the issues we've got at the minute, like we've just seen in Ballymena,

00:31:18.300 is the muscle memory of people in these areas and these very tight-knit communities

00:31:24.840 is not the sort of place that you want to put Roma, Gypsy Mafia into the mix. 0.77

00:31:32.960 And that's really what happened in Ballymena tomorrow.

00:31:35.020 That's really what happened in Ballymena.

00:31:36.420 So very, very tight-knit communities.

00:31:38.200 These communities, everybody knows each other.

00:31:39.920 If I walked into the Springfield Road, people were saying, who are you?

00:31:43.380 What are you doing here?

00:31:44.400 If I walked around the Shankill Road, they'd be saying exactly the same thing.

00:31:46.840 In my hometown, I pretty much know anyone.

00:31:49.040 That's what Northern Ireland's like.

00:31:50.620 It's still a community.

00:31:52.440 And what we've had since the peace process, there's been a lot of mixing between people,

00:31:56.100 between the different groups and between different people that were even involved in the violence.

00:32:00.640 You know, I know a lot of people on the Republican side, a lot of people on the Loyola side,

00:32:03.060 a lot of British soldiers and ex-policemen.

00:32:04.260 So there's been a very solid base of peace put down here.

00:32:10.700 So since this, you know, I know you have to say alleged, this terrible alleged assault that took place, sexual assault,

00:32:16.920 you've seen people from both sides come together.

00:32:19.000 Absolutely.

00:32:19.820 I mean, Ballymena, that's one of the things that's happened in Ballymena.

00:32:22.120 People are saying it's, the writing up there is about racism.

00:32:25.000 It's not.

00:32:25.520 Basically what happened was a criminal gang came into the area.

00:32:28.160 We're not going to talk about the actual case because obviously we don't want to risk collapsing the case.

00:32:32.940 But there's allegations of sexual assault, not just one, a number of sexual assaults.

00:32:37.200 There's been serious criminality.

00:32:38.560 There's been brothels in the area. 1.00

00:32:41.240 There's been drug dealing.

00:32:42.620 There's been money laundering.

00:32:43.800 There's been people trafficking.

00:32:45.080 And it's all been carried out by this one section of the community,

00:32:49.140 this Roma gypsy mafia who moved into the town. 0.72

00:32:51.600 The whole community, Protestant and Catholic, joined together in that area

00:32:55.700 and basically marched down to the streets where those Roma gypsies had been living. 1.00

00:33:00.220 Now, they'd already been moved out of the area before the people got there.

00:33:02.900 But what then happened was there was some very, very targeted violence.

00:33:07.240 And we're not going to condone that.

00:33:08.800 Violence is always wrong.

00:33:09.800 Criminality is always wrong.

00:33:10.640 But there was violence targeting the houses that allegedly belonged to some of these Roma gypsy mafia

00:33:18.000 that had basically moved into the area.

00:33:20.180 So a place like Ballymena, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just trying to get my bearings straight.

00:33:23.140 But in that town, is there also sort of a dividing line?

00:33:26.780 Well, absolutely.

00:33:27.620 Yeah, the south of the city is Protestant, the north of the city is Catholic.

00:33:30.480 But they all came together.

00:33:31.880 You know, they've got an amazing sense.

00:33:33.940 And they come together because the mainstream politicians of all sides

00:33:39.200 condemned them as racists and thugs and all the rest of it

00:33:41.920 when really all they wanted was to get rid of the mafia.

00:33:43.920 Last night saw significant sustained disorder in Ballymena.

00:33:47.560 This violence was clearly racially motivated and targeted at our minority ethnic community and the police.

00:33:56.140 It was racist, thuggery, pure and simply.

00:33:59.040 And any attempt to justify or explain it as something else is misplaced.

00:34:03.200 I mean, I was, you know, I was joking with some of the guys.

00:34:06.460 I said, look, I says, everybody loves to go to the cinema and watch equaliser movies

00:34:10.240 where the gangsters are put out by the good guys.

00:34:12.960 Well, that's pretty much what happened in Ballymena.

00:34:15.360 The gangsters were put out by the good guys. 0.99

00:34:17.340 And yet everyone's been condemned as racists and thugs and scum and all the rest of it. 0.99

00:34:21.720 And nothing could be further than two. 0.99

00:34:23.180 Again, I'm not condoning the rioting.

00:34:24.940 The rioting is not what I'm talking about.

00:34:26.740 It was people power and people saying, we're going to march on this area and we want to make sure that these people are not in this area when we get down there.

00:34:34.180 The people had been moved out.

00:34:35.360 They were gone from the area by the time the march got down there.

00:34:38.040 But again, obviously, like all this happens in these situations, the police come in, then skirmishers start with the police and then the rioting starts and it gets out of control.

00:34:46.300 But again, the rioting was not, there's been a lot worse rioting in this area in the past few years than there was in Ballymena, you know, because it's been kind of sectarian rioting.

00:34:57.500 Even though the peace process is, you still have kids that will come together, you know, for a scrap.

00:35:02.600 But so in terms of why we're showing you this and why this is important, this shows how divided this community was and how it's come together.

00:35:11.020 And actually, instead of the community being driven apart by what happened in Ballymena, and this is really unique, came wholly together.

00:35:20.200 And there is no divide between Protestant and Catholic in that town now.

00:35:23.400 And that, you know, they still have cultural differences.

00:35:25.380 The Catholics would cast themselves as Irish and the Protestants would cast themselves as British. 0.55

00:35:28.460 But on the issue of mass, uncontrolled, illegal migration into their town that's caused them so many social issues and so many issues in terms of health care and school places.

00:35:43.640 One of the people I was talking to said that one of the schools in Ballymena, which is a pretty much, you know, the most British town you can probably get to in Northern Ireland.

00:35:55.740 One of the schools in that town, 60% of the pupils don't speak English.

00:36:00.180 Yeah, it's crazy.

00:36:01.980 It's mad.

00:36:02.400 Right, we're here in what's known as the Shankill Memorial Garden.

00:36:07.180 And the reason why they've brought you here is that this place is very, very symbolic to what's known as the Northern Ireland Peace Process.

00:36:16.000 Just across the road where I've already taken you.

00:36:19.920 On the 23rd of October in 1993, before the peace process began, there was a bomb just across the road there.

00:36:29.840 Now, in this area, it was a sectarian divide between ourselves here on the Shankill Road, the Falls Road, and just up this way.

00:36:41.820 There was more sectarian divides where there was peace walls.

00:36:45.440 Now, you have a people here within this general Belfast area who want to align with Ireland.

00:36:53.060 And here on the Unionist side, we want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

00:36:58.540 And that's the reason why the divide actually occurred.

00:37:03.180 Now, people were really so patriotic about what they believed in that they ended up fighting with each other.

00:37:14.300 You know, people would have been fighting to stay aligned with Ireland.

00:37:17.140 People would have been fighting to stay aligned with the United Kingdom.

00:37:20.120 And it ended up in 1969 in a bitter sectarian campaign, which lasted for 30 years.

00:37:30.080 Now, in the early days, 1972, I'm giving you an overview here.

00:37:34.780 They say that 1972 was probably one of the most brutal years in the history of the Troubles.

00:37:42.740 But I differ from that.

00:37:45.160 I'm going to transport you till 1993 and what happened just across the road here in a happening known as the Shankill Bomb.

00:37:55.080 On the 23rd of October, 1993, people from the Ardorn area, they came with a bomb in a car just across the road here behind us into a place called Berlin Street.

00:38:08.160 They get out of the car with a holdall with a bomb in it.

00:38:11.200 They walked around past a church that is here in the corner where there was young BB guys standing, you know, a boys' brigade.

00:38:20.760 They were on their way to a football match.

00:38:23.040 They walked up a few shops and they placed the bomb inside a fish shop.

00:38:28.860 They sold fish and shellfish and so on.

00:38:32.080 Now, it is later learned that that bomb was doctored in some way by whom we do not know.

00:38:41.300 But there is a suggestion that that bomb went off prematurely.

00:38:45.440 And it killed not only the guys who were transported the bomb, but it killed nine innocent men, women and children.

00:38:54.380 Now, when I say nine innocent men, women and children, I mean nine innocent men, women and children that were in no way involved in the sectarian conflict which existed here for years.

00:39:08.220 Now, as a person, I stood on that bomb site 15 minutes after that bomb went off.

00:39:15.200 And what I witnessed and what I seen, I will remember from now till the day I die.

00:39:20.920 I mean, I witnessed body parts strewn all over the road.

00:39:26.560 I witnessed people carrying mutilated bodies out of that rubble.

00:39:31.700 And as a person who would have supported remaining in the United Kingdom and who had a deep hatred for the people on the other side of that peace wall.

00:39:41.900 Well, you know, I began to change my mind about what was going on in terms of the fighting, the bombing and the shooting.

00:39:48.920 And I began to realise that this isn't the facting the people who are involved in the fighting.

00:39:55.820 This isn't the facting, you know, the paramilitaries on the Republican side or the paramilitaries on the loyalist side.

00:40:02.560 This is a facting ordinary people.

00:40:05.880 And it was only innocent people in both sides that were being slaughtered.

00:40:10.260 And I'm going to say that 1993 was one of the most brutal years of our troubles.

00:40:16.220 Because of why?

00:40:17.560 Because that warning factions were recognising no boundaries on the depths that they were prepared to stoop to get one over on the other community.

00:40:26.700 And only innocent men, women and children were the people that actually suffered.

00:40:32.220 Now, this creates a perfect segue into what is happening in our country today.

00:40:37.600 Now, what do I mean?

00:40:39.860 Well, we don't want to see another repeat of what happened in this country in 1993.

00:40:46.440 Now, I was listening to Ezra on one of his podcasts just a few days ago.

00:40:51.360 And Ezra was 100% right whenever he said that if there is a place not to place people that is capable of causing trouble and causing fighting and creating community tensions,

00:41:06.200 if there's a place not to place them, it is Northern Ireland.

00:41:09.900 Now, why do I say that?

00:41:11.000 Because we are trying to reconcile with another community on the other side of that divide, which we showed you earlier.

00:41:19.100 And now what you have is that you have a situation in where that there is another happening in this country,

00:41:29.560 where there is other trouble happening in this country.

00:41:32.600 And there's the potential for more of that to happen in where, well, if I'm honest, brutally honest,

00:41:39.720 it could pull both sections of that divide into standing up for their communities.

00:41:46.420 And what happens to the years of work for the so-called peace process that has been, you know, worked at and, you know, attempted to reconcile those two warring factions?

00:41:58.060 Now, that's something to remember about what's happening in this country.

00:42:02.040 You know, I am at a loss why a government, why those that are meant, or they're putting power to serve and protect us.

00:42:12.600 They say that they, that the peace process has sank or sank.

00:42:16.660 They say that, but yet they're happy enough to put people into our communities, into the nationalist communities,

00:42:25.560 which could create that tinderbox situation here in Northern Ireland once again.

00:42:31.220 Thank you.

00:42:40.900 Well, that's our show for today.

00:42:42.220 Boy, it's great to be back in Toronto, in Canada, on dry land.

00:42:46.820 I was on the high seas and I was a little bit seasick, but it was wonderful to spend some great time with almost 150 rebels.

00:42:53.820 And we had Tamara Leach and other speakers there. 1.00

00:42:56.360 I hope you'll join us on a future event, whether it's a conference on the ground.

00:43:00.340 We've had four of them lately in Calgary, Red Tear, Edmonton and Regina at sea, as we just did off the coast of Alaska.

00:43:08.860 Or I have to tell you, I'm planning a, an international educational seminar tour.

00:43:15.860 I'll tell you more about it probably in a week when it's finalized.

00:43:18.280 So I hope one day you can join us on an adventure like that.

00:43:21.800 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

00:43:28.120 We'll see you next time.

Rebel News Podcast - June 27, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ New York City poised to elect radical socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript