Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Our most rambunctious alumnus： An interview with Gavin McInnes

00:00:00.000 Tonight, a one-on-one feature interview with our most rambunctious alumnus, Gavin McInnes.

00:00:20.400 This is the Ezra LeVance Show.

00:00:22.040 You're fighting for freedom! 0.55

00:00:25.280 Shame on you, you sensorialist bug!

00:00:30.000 Well, over the years, Rebel News has had dozens of different on-air personalities.

00:00:42.320 Some people retire, some people get married and have kids and do other things.

00:00:46.160 Some people leave the media business, some go out on their own.

00:00:49.340 One of the most interesting people to pass through our offices over the years is our friend Gavin McInnes.

00:00:55.820 He's known for so many cultural projects, he invented hipsterism, or at least defined it.

00:01:02.860 I'm not sure if we should thank him or condemn him for that.

00:01:06.800 He was one of the founding minds behind Vice, and he was famous for their fashion do's and don'ts, which I think drove the growth of that company.

00:01:15.060 It's hilarious. If you don't know what I mean, you should look it up.

00:01:18.300 And then he joined Rebel News, where he became a YouTube staple, really doing the advice to young men circuit before Jordan Peterson came around.

00:01:30.000 In fact, he made a movie with Fox called How to Be a Man. Here's a clip from that.

00:01:35.480 We have a good relationship, and we love each other very much.

00:01:38.300 If you want to have an affair, that's fine, because I know you can't get pregnant. 1.00

00:01:41.640 That is true. Once you pop a baby in, it seals up, and then...

00:01:46.800 You don't worry about affairs after that.

00:01:48.280 Right. Like, I could get jizzed in, like, three or four times a day, and you would never know.

00:01:52.860 Some guys, like, they want to jizz in, I'm pregnant. 0.81

00:01:55.000 Okay!

00:01:57.820 I just saw this post. It's an old friend of mine. He's looking for a cameraman to help him make a video.

00:02:03.920 Who is this guy?

00:02:04.720 My mom, she's Facebook friends with you. 1.00

00:02:06.520 She looks a lot like a chick I used to fuck. 1.00

00:02:09.940 God. 0.99

00:02:13.260 So what do you need me to do?

00:02:14.420 I need you to film me giving a bunch of life lessons to my unborn son, and I need you to do it now, because I'm not going to be around for long.

00:02:22.160 I'm dying.

00:02:24.440 The thing about bullies is they're always going to be there.

00:02:26.800 How do I fight? Let me show you.

00:02:28.740 Look at my shirt. It's totally spotless.

00:02:30.920 Fuck your shirt. 1.00

00:02:32.080 It's my dying wish. 1.00

00:02:33.240 You ever heard of Death Row? They get to eat whatever they want.

00:02:35.700 They'll have ice cream and steak.

00:02:37.160 This is my ice cream steak. 0.99

00:02:38.480 You do your balls. 0.99

00:02:44.300 You get down there. 1.00

00:02:45.100 And it's just doodly-do-ly.

00:02:46.300 One armpit.

00:02:47.160 Doodly-do-loo. 0.87

00:02:47.800 One armpit.

00:02:48.640 Done.

00:02:49.040 No shower for a man should be more than one minute long. 1.00

00:02:52.460 Well, Gavin McInnes is one of the driving forces of Rebel News as we grew in our early years, and so it wasn't a surprise when he was snapped up by a larger American company that could simply outbid us for his talents.

00:03:05.660 Alas, I don't know if they knew what they were getting into.

00:03:08.700 He was a little bit too rambunctious for them.

00:03:10.980 And now he has his own company called Censored.tv, which gives you a bit of a hint of what he's up to.

00:03:19.400 I want to catch up with Gavin.

00:03:20.760 It's been a couple of years since we've said hello to him, and I want to talk to him about some free speech issues, including his interview with Kanye West, which had overtones of free speech, cancel culture, and what can you say in America today?

00:03:34.200 And I want to ask him about Elon Musk, once again, the world's richest man who bought Twitter with one of the purposes of liberating it.

00:03:43.080 Joining us now via Skype from his studio is Gavin McInnes.

00:03:48.920 Gavin, great to see you again.

00:03:49.900 Last time you and I saw each other was in a pub in New York, and we were catching up.

00:03:54.600 You were working on Censored.tv back then.

00:03:58.620 You were getting things going.

00:03:59.820 I want to catch up because you're one of our favorite people for our fans.

00:04:04.200 Let's start with what you're doing.

00:04:06.060 Give us an update of Censored.tv.

00:04:08.440 When I look through your list of shows and talent, it really is every censored person in America.

00:04:14.560 It's like you've gathered them all up and given them a home in a sanitarium or something.

00:04:20.440 Yeah, it's the Island of Misfit Toys from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and we take all the outcasts.

00:04:26.580 We give them a commission on all the subs they bring in, and it's very lucrative because censoring people

00:04:33.680 has become mainstream.

00:04:35.940 So I'm not getting the David Dukes and the Gigi Allens and the freaks of society.

00:04:43.180 I'm getting basically people who agreed with Obama and the Clintons 10 years ago.

00:04:48.700 Moderates.

00:04:49.540 Slightly right of center moderates, and that's considered radical and unspeakable these days.

00:04:55.680 So the roster, if you watch Censored.tv, you're just watching normal, sane, dad culture, but

00:05:03.640 that's radical these days.

00:05:07.040 Well, I think that you're different than me, obviously.

00:05:11.380 And America is different than Canada because some of the folks on Censored.tv, well, if they

00:05:18.260 wouldn't get your YouTube channel canceled, they would certainly get you demonetized in 0.92

00:05:22.260 every way.

00:05:22.720 You'd have trouble.

00:05:23.620 I remember when they came for Rebel News in 2017.

00:05:26.980 They took away our DNS server.

00:05:29.940 I still don't know exactly what that is, but it was a piece of Internet architecture that

00:05:34.220 took us off the Internet entirely for a couple of days.

00:05:37.680 We weren't prosecuted in any way, but I feel like you are one standard deviation edgier than

00:05:47.280 Rebel News ever was, and yet you're thriving.

00:05:49.820 I mean, we lost PayPal.

00:05:52.520 They simply refused to do banking with us anymore.

00:05:55.080 No reason, no explanation, no warning, no appeal.

00:05:57.940 They just sent us an email one Friday night, an anonymous email saying, you violated our

00:06:04.540 terms of service, didn't tell us what term, didn't tell us what.

00:06:07.120 So if we have trouble being as edgy as we are, how can you run a business and you're much

00:06:13.600 tougher than us?

00:06:15.140 Because the market wants it.

00:06:17.280 The market wants free speech.

00:06:18.820 There's a massive demand for this supply.

00:06:22.320 And people feel like they're going insane when they watch the news, when they hear Lori

00:06:25.980 Lightfoot talking, when they hear Joe Biden trying to talk, when they hear the press secretary

00:06:30.960 say Joe Biden is the most articulate person in the White House.

00:06:34.020 They feel like they're losing their minds when they see us do nothing for Ohio, but do everything

00:06:39.420 for Ukraine.

00:06:40.720 They go, am I nuts?

00:06:41.660 And then they see us be normal and they go, OK, I'll pay two beers a month for that.

00:06:47.560 And the gatekeepers before, whether it was the comedy gatekeepers at Comedy Central or the

00:06:53.520 standup gatekeepers or the media gatekeepers, they were all getting this money.

00:07:00.040 It was just pouring all over them.

00:07:01.640 And they were doling out little scraps to the creators.

00:07:05.020 Well, now that we've circumvented the gatekeepers, we realize there's plenty of money in the

00:07:09.240 market for this kind of content.

00:07:11.080 It was being it was being restricted.

00:07:13.240 It was being strangleholded earlier.

00:07:14.920 And now everything from movies to stand up to true comedy can thrive because we flanked

00:07:22.120 it.

00:07:22.260 We went around it and realized, wow, you guys were taking a lot of money for yourselves.

00:07:29.460 Well, I'm thrilled to hear that you're a commercial success because we have found it difficult.

00:07:35.900 And our viewers know that we always crowdfund.

00:07:39.360 I don't think you crowdfund.

00:07:41.540 So you survive on subscription.

00:07:43.000 I guess America and the world, you probably have subscribers in the UK and Australia and

00:07:48.020 Canada, too.

00:07:49.120 I guess America is large enough that even if you're only appealing to the most rambunctious

00:07:55.620 one percent, well, that's still three million people.

00:07:58.320 That's a lot of dough that they have to chip in 10 bucks a month. 0.99

00:08:02.600 Sure.

00:08:03.500 But it's also you'd be surprised we do these comedy tours.

00:08:07.240 We had it last year was called the Cognitive Dissidence Tour.

00:08:10.400 And this year it's the End Racism Tour.

00:08:12.300 And we're calling it the End Racism Tour.

00:08:14.380 So people feel bad if they cancel it.

00:08:16.760 You just canceled ending racism.

00:08:20.260 But the people that come to these shows, it's not like they're punk rockers or or freaks in

00:08:25.840 like leather fetish wear.

00:08:27.340 There are newlyweds.

00:08:28.580 They're thanking me for telling them to put a ring on it there.

00:08:31.320 They've got a newborn at home that mom is looking after.

00:08:34.320 Like there there's a lot of chicks there, I think, because I always say, you know, venerate

00:08:38.800 the housewife.

00:08:40.580 They're surprisingly mainstream.

00:08:42.520 So it started to repeat myself.

00:08:45.380 But we're not that as rambunctious as you say.

00:08:48.100 And I would also add something, Ezra.

00:08:49.880 You're a Jew and Jews are less parsimonious than us Scots.

00:08:55.620 I think Jews are always shocked when they come and step into us in the cheap ring and see 1.00

00:09:01.460 that that they ain't got nothing on Scottish penny pinching. 0.99

00:09:05.040 Well, I like your model of hiring anyone and everyone, but they have to eat what they kill.

00:09:13.640 They have to live off what they bring in and subscriptions.

00:09:15.900 That's that's a great model.

00:09:18.060 I'm just pleased that you've managed to survive it and not be canceled digitally and not even

00:09:25.500 be prosecuted.

00:09:26.520 I mean, for a moment there, I saw in the background, I think you had some footage of the January

00:09:30.040 6th protests at Capitol Hill.

00:09:32.580 The left calls it a riot.

00:09:33.700 I think you called it the great meandering or something.

00:09:37.960 The fact that you have not been prosecuted.

00:09:41.920 I mean, one of your creations, you created vice, you created hipsterism, you created the

00:09:46.420 Proud Boys.

00:09:46.980 And I say again, for years, that was taking care of how to be a man, giving young men a 0.96

00:09:53.680 way to think and be proud of themselves and get their act together.

00:09:57.260 And Jordan Peterson sort of came along and added a PhD to the same kind of thinking.

00:10:02.120 But you that was becoming a huge movement.

00:10:06.120 Now, the Democrats and the FBI and the left said, oh, my God, we can't let this happen.

00:10:10.420 And they actually prosecuted.

00:10:12.640 I'm I genuinely was worried that they would try and get you wrapped up in that in Canada.

00:10:18.260 I know this is insane.

00:10:19.820 They actually called the Proud Boys a terrorist group.

00:10:22.900 There has literally never been a single Proud Boys event or action in Canada other than five

00:10:29.320 folks in the Canadian forces who stood up for the flag, several of which were indigenous or

00:10:34.900 gay. 0.93

00:10:35.360 Like it was the most diverse rainbow freedom protest. 0.99

00:10:39.480 And yet it's called a terrorist group.

00:10:41.360 I was worried about you.

00:10:42.820 I'll be honest.

00:10:43.280 I was worried they were going to try and come for you.

00:10:46.360 Yeah, me too.

00:10:47.720 I'm starting to think I'm a Fed.

00:10:51.200 How do I keep getting away with this?

00:10:54.520 I went to Canada recently for my my brother's bachelor party and I was like, all right.

00:10:59.080 I told my my wife and kids, like, I might not be coming back.

00:11:02.700 I might end up in this slammer.

00:11:03.940 And I just breezed right in.

00:11:05.900 I think one of the reasons I haven't been prosecuted is because they know it would be a very

00:11:11.400 public case.

00:11:14.540 I would obviously have enough lawyer fees to fight it and I would have a lot of backing.

00:11:19.160 And I think a lot of them, a lot of these prosecutors don't want the headaches.

00:11:23.080 The beauty of prosecuting the Jan 6 guys is they're broke, they're anonymous, and it's 0.99

00:11:28.600 easy to abuse them.

00:11:30.300 I think they know that abusing me wouldn't be so easy.

00:11:33.640 And the same with you, too.

00:11:35.600 I mean, obviously, if either of us was to go to court, it would be a spectacle.

00:11:40.000 And I think I think the bureaucrats who bully the average, you know, Ottawa trucker character

00:11:47.300 is they just want to abuse them, get them off the map and move on to the next guy.

00:11:53.860 Yeah.

00:11:54.700 Yeah.

00:11:55.180 I mean, the 200 people in Canada whose bank accounts were seized or frozen by Trudeau,

00:12:00.840 they were all working class people who likely could not afford a lawyer, wouldn't even know 1.00

00:12:06.580 how to get a lawyer, wouldn't know how to put out a press release, wouldn't have like

00:12:10.340 they were just it really was a working class rebellion.

00:12:13.560 The trucker convoy, which was amazing.

00:12:17.140 And I think that's one of the reasons why Justin Trudeau hated it even more.

00:12:20.700 How dare those grubby truckers stand up to us? 1.00

00:12:24.800 But but, you know, we haven't had the kind of over the top 18 months in prison or I guess

00:12:32.620 it's two years in prison business that January 6th has.

00:12:35.000 But we had we had truckers doing 50 days in prison.

00:12:38.260 We had a pastor in Alberta, 50 days in prison to Merrill Leach, sort of the the Joan of Arc

00:12:44.380 of the Truckers, 50 days in prison over a mischief case.

00:12:47.600 I know that's that's less than the January 6th guys, but it shows that the left who talk

00:12:52.600 about civil rights, they never really mean it.

00:12:54.640 It's just a cover. 0.67

00:12:56.080 Just like Justin Trudeau pretends to be a feminist and he sexually assaulted Rose Knight. 0.94

00:13:00.200 He pretends to care about diversity, but he's Mr. Blackface. 0.99

00:13:03.480 They never really meant it when they said they were for civil liberties.

00:13:06.400 They never did. 0.99

00:13:06.920 But no, and you've got to also remember that lawyers, especially Canadian lawyers, are pussies 0.99

00:13:13.000 and they don't want to be seen defending the truckers because it's bad for their rep. 0.99

00:13:18.500 And every time these lawyers refuse, they refuse me, too.

00:13:21.920 I go, you know, that Jeffrey Dahmer had a lawyer, right?

00:13:25.560 Like they don't even understand that that if you defend someone evil, you're still doing

00:13:30.960 your job.

00:13:32.520 You don't get to pick and choose your clients like that, but they do.

00:13:36.920 Oh, we had that same thing six years ago when we had Tommy Robinson acting for us.

00:13:43.100 We had to go through eight different law firms before we found one that was willing to represent

00:13:48.340 him.

00:13:49.060 And we literally went with the law firm that had a website advertising that they defend

00:13:53.200 accused war criminals.

00:13:55.340 That is how we finally found a lawyer who would deal with someone whose politics were, you

00:14:00.440 know, a little bit coarse in the eyes of the mainstream.

00:14:03.260 And, you know, and in Canada, on the trucker side, even defending anti-lockdown protesters,

00:14:08.800 like forget about, you know, January 6th or you and the Proud Boys or Tommy Robinson, just

00:14:14.880 defending people who got lockdown tickets.

00:14:19.340 It was extremely hard to find lawyers in Canada and Australia because, you know, if you would

00:14:27.080 become known as that kind of lawyer, you would you would kill your career.

00:14:30.780 You know, they really claim to be morally better than us, the left, but they are worse in

00:14:36.380 every way.

00:14:36.920 Hey, I want to ask you about cancel culture a little bit, because one of the most interesting

00:14:41.040 things I saw over the last few months was Kanye West, who I admire in many ways.

00:14:47.920 I love his music.

00:14:48.940 I think he's incredibly creative.

00:14:51.360 I love his Christianity.

00:14:53.380 I love his Sunday service.

00:14:55.760 There's so many things about him I like, but I think something, a switch flipped in him

00:15:02.200 and he went, I think he went into say anything mode.

00:15:08.560 I'm going to, I think he, he made a decision.

00:15:12.280 Whatever you told him he could not do or say, he was going to do or say, at least that's how

00:15:19.580 it looked like to me.

00:15:20.260 Now you sat down with him and I want to play a couple of clips of that and I'd like you

00:15:24.920 to explain how, how it came to be that you had to sit down with Kanye West, because I

00:15:30.740 think that's probably very interesting.

00:15:32.740 What you thought of him and what, what was motivating him then and, and how did you think

00:15:38.300 it goes?

00:15:38.640 So before we get into that, let me just play a clip for our viewers.

00:15:42.120 This is, here's a few excerpts of Gavin McInnes and Kanye West.

00:15:47.120 Take a look.

00:15:48.020 And yeah, that's my answer to that.

00:15:50.380 Okay.

00:15:50.580 Here, this is, I'm going to have an intervention here for you and Nick, and let me just make

00:15:54.940 a case.

00:15:56.620 Yes, there are, uh, almost 80 to 90% of Hollywood is Jewish, probably more.

00:16:03.660 Um, media.

00:16:05.680 Yeah.

00:16:05.880 I'm going to say like 80% of media is Jewish, but I see the Jews we're talking about in these 0.84

00:16:13.340 cases as liberal elites, high IQ people, whites.

00:16:18.580 And when you have like, they're disproportionately represented in medicine too, because they have

00:16:23.320 high IQs.

00:16:24.160 So the problem isn't these, these Jews that when most of them are secular Jews, atheists, 1.00

00:16:28.800 I don't see Soros as Jewish.

00:16:30.300 So we have these secular, mostly atheist Jewish people with high IQs who dominate fields that

00:16:35.120 tend to require high IQs.

00:16:37.100 They're, they're overrepresented in chess and mathematics too.

00:16:40.120 So the real issue here, and there is an ethnomasochism, there is some sort of like, let's burn

00:16:43.940 it to the ground. 0.69

00:16:44.900 But I think that trait is a white trait, a liberal elite white trait.

00:16:49.580 Oh, not even white per se, a liberal elite trait. 0.63

00:16:51.940 Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, they also have these traits.

00:16:54.720 And there's some sort of like lemming DNA in white people where when they reach a certain 0.93

00:17:00.280 amount of success, they just want to take it off a cliff.

00:17:02.500 And I don't like when Jews get pulled into that because when I think of my Orthodox Jewish

00:17:08.220 friends and even my Hasidic friends, these people are conservative Trump supporting, you

00:17:13.820 know, American patriots.

00:17:15.940 And the Jews that are getting lumped in with this sort of ethnomasochistic cultural suicide

00:17:21.380 tend not really to be Jewish.

00:17:23.340 I call them ginos, Jews in name only. 1.00

00:17:25.320 It's liberal elite whites you should have a beef with. 0.97

00:17:27.600 Yeah, but I lump them all in together.

00:17:29.520 That's what I did.

00:17:30.180 That's OK, that's good.

00:17:31.540 That's why the tweet said that Jewish people. 0.99

00:17:35.340 OK, but this trait like, you know, blacks are overrepresented in violent crime. 0.96

00:17:41.940 But when you meet an individual black person, you don't apply that. 0.95

00:17:46.260 You start with a fresh slate every time you meet someone.

00:17:48.060 Do you do that with Jews? 1.00

00:17:49.560 Nope.

00:17:49.800 This intervention isn't going very well.

00:17:59.040 Tell us what it was like there.

00:18:00.420 I mean, how did you connect with him?

00:18:03.260 She's such a big shot.

00:18:05.060 I mean, he's in trouble now.

00:18:06.320 But how did you connect with him?

00:18:07.860 How did you convince him to come and talk to you?

00:18:10.140 Because I'm here in the outskirts of society.

00:18:14.060 I'm banished.

00:18:15.060 I'm in the gulag.

00:18:16.160 I'm in the caves.

00:18:17.340 So when you get kicked out of society and they close the gate to the village, I'm there with all the dead bones around me going, hi, welcome to nowhere.

00:18:26.280 So you reached out as one deplorable to another.

00:18:32.660 Yes.

00:18:33.020 Yeah.

00:18:33.240 I know Ali very well.

00:18:35.120 And I know Nick Fuentes.

00:18:36.800 And I said I killed to get an interview with Kanye.

00:18:40.320 And they go, or sorry, yay.

00:18:41.980 And they go, OK, fly us up to New York, which I looked into.

00:18:45.440 It's 50 grand to rent a jet.

00:18:47.880 So I said no.

00:18:49.540 And then they said, well, you can be at his studio tomorrow.

00:18:51.820 So we just ran down to the airport, scooted over there.

00:18:55.160 And we were there within 24 hours.

00:18:58.040 It's weird over there.

00:18:59.640 He's in this massive studio, this massive factory, really, where he makes his clothes.

00:19:05.560 It goes on for like two city blocks.

00:19:08.220 Very amicable dude.

00:19:10.240 Very unusual guy.

00:19:12.740 Very out of touch with what's going on.

00:19:15.860 Like he said to me, if I'm going to become president, what should I do?

00:19:20.100 And I go, build a wall, job, job, jobs.

00:19:21.740 That's all anyone cares about.

00:19:22.640 And he goes, well, I was thinking about giving amnesty to everyone who's here.

00:19:25.680 And I'm like, dude, that's immigration 101.

00:19:28.820 Like everyone knows that argument.

00:19:30.960 And the argument is, if you give amnesty to whatever 30 million illegals that are here,

00:19:35.380 you're just going to get more.

00:19:36.500 You're rewarding bad behavior.

00:19:37.860 You're going to get more bad behavior, obviously.

00:19:40.100 And if you're saying that, that amnesty argument, then you're not really into politics.

00:19:44.400 Because that's like, that's kindergarten when it comes to the topic of immigration.

00:19:49.140 But what I think people don't get about Ye is he's an artist.

00:19:54.060 David Bowie did this exact same thing in the late 70s.

00:19:58.420 He wore fascist gear.

00:20:00.300 He had the Nazi armband. 0.51

00:20:01.980 He talked about Jews and said that he wants World War III.

00:20:06.520 And this is art to him. 0.98

00:20:08.600 And I think the worst thing Jews can do when someone does a silly, I don't know, experiment 0.93

00:20:15.260 like this is to overreact and condemn and freeze his bank account because that creates 0.94

00:20:20.940 anti-Semitism.

00:20:22.320 What you've got to do is what I do when the Proud Boys are called white nationalists is

00:20:26.640 I just roll my eyes and laugh and make fun of the person.

00:20:29.640 I don't have the power to, you know, cancel their bank accounts.

00:20:32.800 But I wouldn't if I did. 0.95

00:20:33.920 You just got to let these these guys do their silly art.

00:20:37.440 You know, just to go off on a tangent briefly, there's this Canadian punk band called the

00:20:41.280 Forgotten Rebels, and they have a couple of songs.

00:20:44.500 One is called Bomb the Boats about the boat people. 0.99

00:20:47.220 Bomb the boats, feed the fish.

00:20:49.460 Another one is Hey Little Girl about a pedophile where they called the cops and someone snitched 0.99

00:20:54.460 to the pigs and now she's gone away.

00:20:56.480 He's playing a villain in the music, but you can't get it on Apple Music anymore because

00:21:01.180 we've killed color, we've killed irony, we've killed someone, you know, playing a character,

00:21:06.540 being the devil's advocate.

00:21:08.060 And I think a lot of what Ye is doing is sort of based on that.

00:21:12.040 He's he's often a tangent doing a playing a character. 0.60

00:21:16.380 And you've got to let these artists do their silliness. 0.95

00:21:19.380 It's not like Jews are getting lynched because of what Ye said. 0.98

00:21:22.260 You know what?

00:21:25.160 And I've I deal with this issue from time to time myself because I I'm not amongst the

00:21:30.820 deplorables as deeply as you are.

00:21:32.800 But in Canada, in the Canadian scene, I suppose I do.

00:21:36.960 I'm adjacent to folks who are, you know, in the populist nationalist right.

00:21:42.300 And I can see how sometimes they tip over into conspiracy theories somehow.

00:21:47.420 Sometimes they tip over into, you know, globalist equals Jew. 0.96

00:21:51.200 No, I criticize globalists every day.

00:21:53.580 I criticize George Soros.

00:21:55.000 We went to the World Economic Forum and made trouble for them that there's nothing Jewish

00:21:59.360 about that.

00:22:00.040 But I can I understand that sometimes people on the right who are trying to figure out this

00:22:06.780 crazy world for themselves and the Internet is their main source of information, you can

00:22:12.320 get caught up in anti-Semitic theories.

00:22:14.620 And unfortunately, there's enough little strings that they can tie together because the because

00:22:20.880 George Soros, even though he's anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, he was born Jewish, for example.

00:22:25.680 And the Rothschilds are wealthy.

00:22:28.380 But when they sew it together in a big conspiracy theory, I feel I feel like I want to talk people

00:22:33.720 off the ledge and say you can still be a dissident, a contrarian.

00:22:37.320 You can still challenge George Soros in the World Economic Forum, but you don't have to

00:22:41.180 overlay it with anti-Semitism.

00:22:43.000 Let me help you come back from the edge of the cliff. 0.97

00:22:45.600 That's how I feel, because I know most of these people, they don't have a black heart.

00:22:50.100 They just they've got carried away or wound up or they've had so much confirmation bias

00:22:55.880 from so many people saying yes, yes, yes in their years, especially on social media.

00:22:59.240 So I sometimes try and have an intervention personally because I know they're not bad

00:23:04.020 people.

00:23:05.140 But once you say something anti-Semitic in public, like you say, the Anti-Defamation League

00:23:11.120 or anti-hate groups smash you so hard and destroy you so hard that that actually proves their

00:23:19.700 theory.

00:23:20.160 They say, look, I've just proved my theory right because it's the one thing you can't

00:23:24.560 talk about.

00:23:25.680 It's the one thing you can't say.

00:23:29.140 And so, you know, in effect, the reaction to their their their, you know, step one anti-Semitism

00:23:37.940 turns them into hardcore anti-Semites because they say, I just proved everything in my theory.

00:23:42.980 So you were saying.

00:23:44.760 Yeah, this is why free speech is so important.

00:23:47.600 This is why open dialogue is so important.

00:23:49.820 We used to have that.

00:23:50.820 You used to have David Duke on CNN arguing with Wolf Blitzer.

00:23:55.860 You used to have Richard Spencer on ESPN arguing with I forget who it was, Shaquille O'Neal or

00:24:02.620 whatever, about a racism in this country.

00:24:05.360 And that was very healthy.

00:24:07.500 Bad ideas get rooted out.

00:24:09.660 Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant.

00:24:11.380 And then the left realized that a lot of people on the right, even the dissonant right,

00:24:16.120 are pretty intelligent. 0.97

00:24:18.040 And as they got dumber, the far right got smarter. 0.95

00:24:21.780 And these these debates were becoming were becoming abusive, basically, because our side 0.98

00:24:28.320 knew so much and their side knew so little.

00:24:30.360 So then it became don't give Nazis a platform.

00:24:33.560 And that was a major turning point, not just in American culture, but in Western culture

00:24:38.540 entirely, because then it became we're no longer talking to the other side.

00:24:42.840 We are in control.

00:24:44.040 And what that did was it radicalized a lot of moderate conservatives.

00:24:48.200 And it was a really bad move on the left.

00:24:50.820 And I think it precipitated this this national divorce where we're now agreeing to disagree. 0.99

00:24:57.640 I hate your guts.

00:24:59.080 Let's let's let's have our communities, our media, our restaurants. 0.94

00:25:05.220 And it's it's segregation all over again, not just racial segregation, but political, philosophical

00:25:10.940 segregation.

00:25:12.600 Yeah.

00:25:13.360 You know, in CNN, about 20 plus years ago, there was a show called Crossfire.

00:25:19.220 In fact, Tucker Carlson was on it.

00:25:22.500 And the whole concept of it, a permanent host on the left, a permanent host on the right,

00:25:27.680 guests coming in two by two, one on the left, one on the right.

00:25:31.320 And Canada, our state broadcaster, the CBC, had a copycat version, which had a wonderful

00:25:36.160 name, Face Off.

00:25:37.540 Isn't that a great name for basically a knockoff of Crossfire?

00:25:42.320 You had Judy Rebick, who was a socialist feminist, head of the feminist movement.

00:25:48.400 And you had Claire Hoy, who was sort of a grouchy conservative. 1.00

00:25:51.920 And they brought guests in two by two.

00:25:54.200 And that would never happen today because they would never legitimize the other side 1.00

00:26:00.880 of the story.

00:26:01.360 That's our motto at Rebel News, telling the other side of the story, because it used to

00:26:04.700 be everyone said, of course, you have the other side of the story, even if it's fringe,

00:26:08.760 even if it's wrong.

00:26:09.640 Let's hear it.

00:26:10.480 When I was on campus, the political clubs, like the parties, and when I was in school,

00:26:18.200 there were four main parties at the University of Calgary, Reform Party, PCs, Liberals, and

00:26:22.280 NDP.

00:26:23.020 There were public debates all the time.

00:26:25.640 It was assumed that you would participate.

00:26:28.860 And if you didn't participate, you were being anti-democratic.

00:26:31.780 The idea that they would have a debate like that now with the Reform Party type people, that

00:26:36.960 would be like the People's Party, is unthinkable.

00:26:40.000 It would be banned and boycotted.

00:26:42.020 People would ring the fire alarm.

00:26:44.360 They would say they were triggered.

00:26:46.980 It used to be everyone was part of the community.

00:26:51.080 Everyone had their say.

00:26:52.820 And you know, one of the benefits of that, Gavin, is if you felt you had a conspiracy

00:26:57.000 theory, the world had to know.

00:26:58.940 If you felt you had some secret knowledge that would bring the whole establishment down,

00:27:02.680 you could say it, and when the whole world didn't come tumbling down, it would make you

00:27:08.300 think, oh, well, maybe I didn't have this secret knowledge that would change the world,

00:27:12.180 and my entire life has been burning within me because I've been censored everywhere.

00:27:15.700 One of the things about being censored is you think, I have this secret knowledge, I'm

00:27:20.140 being persecuted for it.

00:27:21.520 If only I could tell the world and save the world.

00:27:23.740 But if you're allowed to tell the world and no one cares, that's a good check on you.

00:27:28.660 You think, oh, well, maybe I'll do something else with my time in my life because

00:27:31.920 actually no one seems to agree with me, but at least I was heard.

00:27:35.100 At least I had my moment.

00:27:37.180 That's why on the internet, comment sections are so popular, Reddit or the comment sections

00:27:42.820 are so popular, and that's why they're being censored now, too.

00:27:46.660 And by the way, that person you just described is now smarter than he was before.

00:27:51.800 When two people debate about climate change, pro-life, when they debate about the economy,

00:27:57.260 you're watching that, and now you're more intelligent because you have applied your philosophy to

00:28:04.620 a degree of rigor that it wasn't normally applied to.

00:28:08.860 So we're losing that intelligence.

00:28:11.820 We're losing it.

00:28:12.240 It's like boxing.

00:28:13.060 If you don't spar, you're not a good fighter.

00:28:15.560 And when you don't spar, you become obese.

00:28:18.580 We are mentally obese now.

00:28:20.500 And this is incredibly evident when you see streeters with young people, and they say things

00:28:27.000 like, do you think Trump is racist?

00:28:29.320 Yes.

00:28:29.780 Why?

00:28:31.700 They can't formulate an argument because they've never tried it before.

00:28:36.840 They just know that I'm on this side, and that is my new Puritan religion, and everyone

00:28:41.860 else is a blasphemer. 0.59

00:28:43.080 That's it.

00:28:43.580 Yeah, and then they just download the next message track.

00:28:48.640 Oh, it's on vaccines today.

00:28:49.920 Oh, it's on Ukraine tomorrow.

00:28:51.720 It's on Proud Boys.

00:28:52.900 Just watch the new message track.

00:28:54.860 I will say it, and I'm safe now because I'm with the herd, so I won't be culled.

00:29:00.940 And even if it's crazy or wrong, I don't have to think about it because there's safety in

00:29:04.020 numbers.

00:29:05.040 Right, but this leaks.

00:29:06.900 Go ahead.

00:29:07.800 This leaks into the justice system. 1.00

00:29:09.400 So Proud Boys are Nazis, they're white nationalists, they're domestic terrorists. 1.00

00:29:13.500 Okay, you can have that silly belief. 1.00

00:29:15.600 It's as dumb, by the way, as calling the Amish Satanists. 0.99

00:29:19.160 But now Amish are in court accused of Satanism, and they're getting like Nick Oaks is doing 0.98

00:29:26.280 four years right now because he meandered into the Capitol reporting on it the same way Elijah

00:29:32.080 Schaefer would.

00:29:32.800 We have a show with him, by the way, where we use AI to bring his letters from prison to

00:29:37.120 life, and we deepfake his face.

00:29:40.140 But it's not a joke anymore. 0.96

00:29:42.400 It's not just a silly rumor about you.

00:29:44.660 It comes up in court.

00:29:46.460 And one thing I wanted to mention earlier, too, is you and I are around the same age.

00:29:49.880 When we were young in the 90s, political correctness was gaining its stride. 0.92

00:29:54.620 And those people, we thought they were nuts. 0.64

00:29:56.840 There was blue hairs. 0.99

00:29:57.940 There was like feminists who believed in a world without men, all that kind of silliness. 0.99

00:30:01.400 But they were esoteric. 0.90

00:30:03.340 Now they're judges.

00:30:05.000 Now they're prosecutors.

00:30:06.140 Now they're in control of the justice system.

00:30:09.620 Now they're in the White House.

00:30:11.200 Now they're in Parliament.

00:30:14.280 Yeah.

00:30:14.640 Oh, you're so right.

00:30:15.900 You know, and you just made me think that Justice Paul Rollo, who had the Trucker Commission

00:30:20.880 inquiry, one of his findings was that the government was justified in bringing in martial law because

00:30:28.520 the Diagonon hate group, it's literally some goofy pranksters on the Internet with a made-up flag. 0.99

00:30:36.420 And I think they're stupid, and I think they do so much damage because they are proof of hate groups. 1.00

00:30:43.700 They're not funny. 1.00

00:30:44.560 They're just, you know, oh, I was just kidding everything I said.

00:30:47.500 But that was relied on by this judge to excuse throwing the entire country under martial law some Facebook pranksters.

00:30:54.420 But it goes to show you that that, you know, you're right.

00:30:58.680 And that judge isn't even particularly young.

00:31:01.940 Hey, I want to talk about one more thing, though, because.

00:31:05.420 Well, they were supposed to be, but it's like it's like it's like a joke.

00:31:13.880 Take my wife, please. 1.00

00:31:15.440 You know, it's the delivery.

00:31:16.540 But if you look at it, he said, take my wife, your honor.

00:31:20.300 He literally said, take my wife.

00:31:23.180 Like, my point is a joke out of context in black and white, a photo.

00:31:28.360 It's not funny anymore.

00:31:29.340 It can be weaponized in any way.

00:31:31.400 Let me let me change subjects, though, because I know you're pressed for time.

00:31:34.560 I'm it's great to catch up with you.

00:31:37.220 I was getting more and more.

00:31:41.940 Despondent about how censorship and cancel culture was going.

00:31:44.580 And it felt to me like there it was only going one way.

00:31:48.680 We have a liaison on a YouTube who abuses us, demonetizes us, punishes us, suspends us.

00:31:56.060 It's an atrocious, abusive relationship.

00:31:59.000 We're still in it because we have one point six million YouTube viewers and I want them to see our stuff.

00:32:04.200 But we're not allowed to sell ads to them or get tips from them or anything.

00:32:08.180 It's really atrocious.

00:32:09.020 But one day I asked our YouTube manager, I said, can anyone come back from being banned?

00:32:19.460 Because it's the one thing in life where progressives are in favor of a life sentence.

00:32:24.380 You know, you shoot someone.

00:32:25.760 They say, oh, he was misunderstood.

00:32:27.620 He's rehabilitated after six weeks in jail.

00:32:30.080 Let him out.

00:32:31.160 But.

00:32:31.340 For example, Alex Jones, could he ever come back to YouTube?

00:32:36.640 He was huge on YouTube, extremely popular.

00:32:39.440 And I was told, no, it's a life sentence.

00:32:42.760 There's no room for redemption, no room for a change of heart, no room for anyone to learn, no room for anyone to say, you know what?

00:32:50.480 I think maybe I did get one or two things wrong.

00:32:52.560 I'd phrase a little bit differently.

00:32:53.860 And I'm older now, and maybe I'm wiser, I'm a little more seasoned, maybe I'm a little calmer.

00:32:59.580 Let me try again.

00:33:00.440 No.

00:33:01.040 I was sort of shocked but not surprised to hear that they have a, and so I thought to myself, it's a ratchet.

00:33:07.540 It only goes one way.

00:33:09.120 So when you were banned from Twitter, when Laura Loomer, when a hundred conservatives were banned, I thought, I have to be careful because it's just a matter of time before I'm banned.

00:33:18.320 And there's no, there's no coming back to life.

00:33:22.220 Well, there is for the center.

00:33:27.680 I talked to an insider on Twitter, too, who told me the same thing.

00:33:30.920 She said, no, you're never coming back.

00:33:33.220 She said, the 10% on the right and the 10% on the left, so like the Antifa direct action psychos and me are never coming back.

00:33:42.880 And it's funny because their idea of radical left is truly radical.

00:33:46.760 Molotov cocktail kill cops.

00:33:48.560 Our radical 10% are just like there's two genders, climate change is not a big deal, and we should have more charter schools. 1.00

00:33:58.380 That's their idea of super radical.

00:34:00.240 But we're never coming back.

00:34:01.620 But I don't know if you remember the movie Thunderdome, but there's a dude down there who works with the methane gas pigs.

00:34:07.140 And he has pig killer tattooed on his forehead, I believe.

00:34:11.120 And he's got a life sentence to work with the pigs in the feces building methane gas. 0.98

00:34:16.060 That's where I am.

00:34:17.480 And it's not so bad down here.

00:34:19.580 Like you get used to the smell after a while.

00:34:21.960 You build a little house for yourself.

00:34:24.040 You know, you got your wife and kids.

00:34:25.400 And the other good thing about being, you know, a pig killer down here in Thunderdome is this cancellation, it's a fashion fad. 0.60

00:34:37.180 So whereas they were ostracizing my kids and vandalizing my house a few years ago, they lose interest after a while and move on to the next thing.

00:34:44.160 They don't have the courage of their convictions.

00:34:45.840 So, you know, every time I meet one of these people on the street and they call me a Nazi or something, you just walk up to them and they immediately cower and apologize.

00:34:55.160 There's no there's no there's no heart to any of this radical cancellation from the left.

00:35:02.140 They don't mean it.

00:35:05.280 You know, I maybe that's the difference between Canada and the United States.

00:35:08.440 Maybe it's just the difference between your style and my style.

00:35:10.520 I am so lucky that I have not in my personal life, either directly to me or my family, had any of that cancel culture. 0.99

00:35:18.120 And I don't want it.

00:35:19.580 I'm not I'm not governing my life to avoid criticism.

00:35:23.840 It's just I know some of the things you were put through and I think it's atrocious and I feel terrible for you.

00:35:30.840 And I wonder if that's a Canadian difference or if it's just people in Canada are more passive aggressive and would just never say anything to my face.

00:35:38.220 I don't know why it is, but I, you know, knock on wood, but I just haven't had that same experience.

00:35:44.440 Well, that's what they did.

00:35:46.180 I've avoided it.

00:35:47.240 They did it in the American Revolution. 0.69

00:35:48.960 They did it in the Boer War. 0.82

00:35:50.080 The English were famous for this. 0.89

00:35:51.320 If they couldn't get to the guy, they would attack his family, burn down his house, kill his wife and kids. 1.00

00:35:56.380 It's a tactic for cowards. 1.00

00:35:58.680 And sometimes it's effective.

00:36:00.320 In the Boer War, the English did win by terrorizing their families and they gave up. 0.74

00:36:05.580 In the American Revolution, it just made them angrier.

00:36:08.940 And that's where I'm at right now.

00:36:10.640 The fact that you came out my wife and my kids, my car, my house, you know, ostracized my kids at school.

00:36:16.740 Now I'm really mad and I am never quitting.

00:36:20.600 I don't care if I'm as senile as Joe Biden.

00:36:23.600 I'm going to sit here and say, come on, man.

00:36:26.320 This is what it does.

00:36:27.440 There's two genders, man. 1.00

00:36:28.640 The corn pop and then the other genders. 1.00

00:36:30.780 Come on.

00:36:31.840 It's not a joke.

00:36:32.960 Because you think I'm kidding me.

00:36:35.060 It's not a joke.

00:36:37.420 That's not a bad impression.

00:36:40.140 But where I was going with that is I was feeling, as the kids say, rather black-filled about the whole thing, rather, you know, despondent.

00:36:47.180 And then the craziest thing in the world happened.

00:36:50.580 The world's richest man bought Twitter for $44 billion U.S.

00:36:55.060 And obviously loves tweeting himself, tweets things that would have got him banned under the earlier regime, tweets skepticism in the Ukraine war, tweets attacks on wokeism all the time, tweets about gender issues, tweets about race.

00:37:11.120 He stood up for Scott Adams, who was the Dilbert cartoonist.

00:37:16.480 I mean, so Elon Musk, you know, he's got his blind spots, too.

00:37:22.420 And he's exposed to China because Tesla does big business there.

00:37:26.180 So he has some vulnerabilities.

00:37:28.360 But he has been very strong against cancel culture.

00:37:33.660 I know he hasn't given Alex Jones, for example.

00:37:37.360 But suddenly dozens or hundreds or maybe even thousands of people who are banned are being brought back to life.

00:37:43.660 I mean, including some of your talent, like like Laura Loomer, who used to work for Rebel News briefly, too.

00:37:48.420 So I'm left with some hope.

00:37:51.460 Now, Elon Musk may be the richest man in the world, but he's not bigger and more powerful than the CIA or the FBI or, let's say, BlackRock or other groups like that.

00:38:01.620 So the story's not finished yet.

00:38:03.520 But I've been given a whole new hope when it comes to freedom of speech by Elon Musk.

00:38:07.900 What do you think?

00:38:09.460 Yes, I agree with you.

00:38:10.660 I think it's really exciting.

00:38:11.820 And, you know, my ex-pal Owen Benjamin once said, he said, you've got to get over that was my idea.

00:38:19.240 Or I came up with that and I should have copyrighted it.

00:38:22.440 As long as the idea is out there, then you're winning.

00:38:26.300 And I know that you and I will never, well, I see you're still on Twitter, but I know I'll never get back on Twitter.

00:38:32.540 I'm fine with that because my ideas, our ideas are still getting out there.

00:38:38.280 And, you know, this war on meritocracy, the war on kids, this this bastardization of what it is to be a woman, which I see as a war on woman, is all getting pushback on Twitter.

00:38:49.360 Thanks to Elon Musk.

00:38:50.380 And for whatever reason, Twitter controls the national conversation.

00:38:54.900 It controls the international conversation.

00:38:58.480 So it is it's not just an app.

00:39:01.200 It is it is where we all it's our town hall for every town.

00:39:04.500 So the fact that they're that meritocracy is getting its day in court is is a really good sign.

00:39:11.680 And I mean, and I'm seeing it every day, like Lori Lightfoot getting booted out yesterday.

00:39:16.660 That's that's a major step here.

00:39:20.020 I think the left is finally realizing that they were better off under the patriarchy and they should maybe give Archie Bunker a little bit more power because kids day, which is what the past five years has been, isn't working out.

00:39:34.180 It's time for mom and dad to come back home and tell you to eat your vegetables.

00:39:39.200 Well, listen, my friend, it's great to catch up with you.

00:39:42.520 And it's fascinating to see the path you've taken, which is very different than the path we've taken at Rebel News.

00:39:49.560 And you've been successful at it, which is miraculous and hopeful.

00:39:55.020 And, you know, as I said, when the last time we met, your sense of humor fused with the issues of the day really caught the imagination of millions of people.

00:40:07.340 And I think I think you really did pave the way for a lot of the public intellectuals out there now.

00:40:12.620 I mean, I think Jordan Peterson was beavering away on his own and I'm not sure how much of your stuff he consumed.

00:40:17.960 But I think you were tilling the same field there.

00:40:21.980 And I love watching him fight cancel culture, too, by the way, like he's too big a fish for many of them to swallow.

00:40:29.040 It's great to catch up with you. And I look forward to staying in touch.

00:40:32.260 Yeah. Just one last thing. I was at the airport in West Palm Beach yesterday and this happens to me on a regular basis.

00:40:39.780 Someone comes up to me and they go, hey, man, what are you up to now?

00:40:42.940 I give them a censored TV card. They don't really care about that.

00:40:45.980 But they always say the same thing. They go, I used to watch you on YouTube on Rebel.

00:40:50.780 And the guy last night was saying I used to fall asleep to listening to you on Rebel.

00:40:54.820 I don't think you can underestimate the incredible impact Rebel has had.

00:40:59.260 You can be on Blaze. You can be on Fox News. No one ever comes up to me and says, hey, I saw you on Fox News.

00:41:05.960 They saw the viral video with Tamara Holder occasionally. But as far as like me getting to know your stuff, it's always Rebel.

00:41:12.220 And it's amazing the long lasting impact being on your network has had. It's incredible.

00:41:18.940 Well, I mean, I remember when we met last time, I told you that you really fueled a lot of our growth in that era.

00:41:26.640 Those last twilight hours of freedom on YouTube before we were demonetized, before we were throttled in 2016 and early 2017.

00:41:39.020 Millions of people watched and they couldn't get enough of the humor that was tied to the times we're in.

00:41:45.620 And I thank you for that. And it's nice to catch up.

00:41:48.840 And I hope both of our countries get freer and I hope we both stay safe.

00:41:53.180 Yes, agreed. Thanks for having me, buddy. How's it going? Take off.

00:41:56.300 Right on. There he is. Gavin McInnes, the boss of Censor.TV and an alumnus of Rebel News.

00:42:05.880 That's our show for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us at the Rebel to you at home.

00:42:11.040 Good night. And keep fighting for freedom.

00:42:13.340 Good night.

00:42:29.920 Good night.

00:42:30.820 Good night.

00:42:31.060 Good night.

00:42:31.180 Good night.

00:42:32.340 Good night.

Rebel News Podcast - March 16, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Our most rambunctious alumnus： An interview with Gavin McInnes

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