Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ The sway of the next U.S. presidential election will determine Trudeau's fate as Canada's leader

00:00:00.000 Hello, my Rebels. A heart-to-heart conversation with one of our favorite American observers,

00:00:05.360 Ben Weingarten. We're going to talk about who will be president. Donald Trump, Joe Biden,

00:00:11.520 and maybe even RFK Jr. We're going to go through the state of each of their campaigns. And the

00:00:17.760 big question, what will they not do to stop Donald Trump? That's today's show. But first,

00:00:22.740 let me invite you to become a member of what we call Rebel News Plus. That's the video version

00:00:27.400 of this podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe, eight bucks a month. We need

00:00:32.140 that to pay the bills around here because, you know, we don't get any money from Trudeau or from

00:00:35.560 YouTube. It's just you and me. And if you like what we do, please chip in. That's rebelnewsplus.com.

00:00:41.460 All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:57.400 Tonight, we go deep in the state of American presidential politics. Our guest,

00:01:03.420 Ben Weingarten. He's one of the best. It's February 15th, and this is The Ezra Levant Show.

00:01:08.300 You've got it for freedom. Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:14.660 The Ezra Levant Show.

00:01:44.660 in the latest polls, and you choose it, whether it's Nanos or David Coletto's abacus. He's at about

00:01:51.660 23. Donald Trump is more popular or has more approval in Canada, left-wing-estand,

00:02:00.280 than Justin Trudeau himself. So many things going on, the rebuke by the courts of Trudeau's invocation

00:02:06.440 of martial law, just tremendous. I think Canada is rising up, talking about things we've never

00:02:11.180 taught before. For example, the successful motion in the House of Commons to revise immigration

00:02:17.400 numbers. I wouldn't have imagined that. That said, Canada is a smallish country in a big, big world.

00:02:25.740 And of course, while it's deeply important to us that we rid ourselves of Justin Trudeau at the

00:02:29.580 earliest convenience, and by the way, he legally could stretch out his term as late as 2026, God forbid,

00:02:35.300 I think it's fair to say, and I don't think it's disrespecting of our country to say, that

00:02:40.500 what happens in November 2024 in the United States of America, and I refer specifically

00:02:47.620 to the presidential election, what happens in the presidential election in the United States of

00:02:52.240 America this November will have a greater impact on Canada than perhaps anything that will be decided

00:02:59.020 within our own borders. And if that goes for Canada, it goes doubly for other places in the world like

00:03:05.780 Russia, Ukraine, Iran, China, Taiwan, you name it. People always say this is the most important election

00:03:13.780 in a generation. They always say it, but is it actually ever as true as it is now? Well, that's one of the

00:03:20.040 many things we're going to talk about with our next guest, our favorite America-o-file, which makes sense

00:03:25.860 gives him that he is an American, is our friend Ben Weingarten, who joins us now by Skype. Ben, great

00:03:30.180 to see you again. Always a pleasure, Ezra. You know, there's so many things that I'd like to talk to

00:03:35.940 you about. Joe Biden, who is falling apart in front of our eyes in terms of his cognitive abilities.

00:03:43.720 We're starting to see pro-Democrat newspapers like the New York Times openly muse about if the guy's

00:03:50.420 lost his marbles. Do you think the Democratic Party will run Joe Biden as their candidate this year? Or

00:03:57.540 do you think they will, at the last moment, switch him out for another candidate? I know the primary

00:04:03.620 season is pretty much over, but there are ways you can replace a candidate on the ballot. Is that kind

00:04:11.560 of Hail Mary pass on the table for the Democrats? Or am I overstating the problems they have with Joe

00:04:17.160 Biden? Is he actually a winner? Well, first, I think it's remarkable, this special counsel report

00:04:24.780 investigation into Joe Biden's mishandling of classified documents, both as a senator and as

00:04:31.440 vice president. And that has spurred this question of Joe Biden's obvious declining faculties, which you

00:04:38.480 didn't need a federal prosecutor to tell the American people what they can see with their own eyes,

00:04:44.100 starting from the basement campaign he ran in 2020 to today. But what's amazing in that report is that

00:04:50.500 it notes that Joe Biden lacked, quote unquote, recall and essentially had faulty faculties dating back

00:04:58.720 to 2017. So this is someone who's been in decline for a very long time. I think, to your point, the

00:05:05.900 suggestion in sort of establishment outlets, including Politico, which detailed here the various ways in which

00:05:13.480 Democrats could jettison Joe Biden, when you add on the impeachment inquiry and what it reveals about

00:05:19.840 the Biden family's international influence peddling scheme, add on how much age in the minds of American

00:05:26.340 voters, and this is across the board, that Democrats and Republicans alike view his age and the mental

00:05:32.780 decline, of course, as a proxy for that age, as being a massive problem for him. And then you factor in,

00:05:38.800 as you noted and alluded to, not only these articles talking about the various machinations

00:05:43.500 Democrats can engage in to in smoke filled rooms, sideline him and pick someone else to be the

00:05:50.060 figurehead for the party, but add on for months now, the rumblings that there are issues with Joe

00:05:57.000 Biden's campaign, he's not a compelling candidate. And this is from putative allies on the Democrat side,

00:06:03.380 questions about how strong candidate he can be. Plus, the polls showing Donald Trump ahead of him

00:06:09.000 nationally, and in most of the swing states as well, by substantial margins, that is beyond the

00:06:16.400 margins of errors, certainly. And all of that points to a very compelling case for jettisoning him.

00:06:22.680 Now, whether or not Democrats will go through with that, we shall see. It certainly seems to me that

00:06:27.620 if I was in the Democrat Party, and the Democrat Party is very disciplined and all about me following

00:06:34.280 the party line, ultimately, I would want Joe Biden to be the nominee through the convention. And then

00:06:40.900 if you look to the Democrat rules, they can essentially, if for health reasons or otherwise,

00:06:46.180 he steps aside, essentially, the party bosses can pick who the nominee is, that would allow them to

00:06:51.820 control the process, it would allow them to potentially sidestep or work around issues around

00:06:57.760 Kamala Harris being the next in line. So I've long been on record of saying, I believe they will

00:07:02.900 jettison Joe. And I think everything that we've seen in recent days suggests that is the case. But

00:07:08.360 there are very smart analysts who argue the complete opposite of this, and that Joe Biden is the man

00:07:13.020 they're going to drag to the finish line. I think, if nothing else, the special counsel report that has

00:07:19.660 dropped, and the questions about the president's mental acuity, would you get a bit obvious for

00:07:23.940 Odyssey for years now? If nothing else, it provides Democrats optionality, if they really believe that

00:07:30.020 he's going to be a loser in 2024. Yeah. You know, we alluded to some of the matters in that special

00:07:36.360 prosecutor's report. He couldn't remember when he was vice president. Something very personal, he couldn't

00:07:43.240 remember when his son passed away. Now, when that was revealed, Joe Biden leaned into and said,

00:07:48.180 I'm outraged that they would talk about my dear son like that. I miss him and I love him.

00:07:52.460 And that was his attempt to take the energy and the emotion of, holy cow, you forgot that, into

00:07:58.280 they're attacking me personally. And I don't know if it worked. I think if anything brought more

00:08:03.280 attention to it, like this guy couldn't remember the most basic things when he was a senator, things

00:08:08.840 like that. But I don't think we needed an official person to say that. I think we've all, like every

00:08:14.680 single human, even if you're a Democrat, has seen enough clips of him just saying inexplicable,

00:08:20.960 unintelligible things. And it's going to get, you know, I think it's going to accelerate. He's going

00:08:29.080 to have these Biden moments all the time. Here's a question I have for you. Who do you, and I think

00:08:36.460 it's going to happen. I think they're going to get him to the nomination, celebrate him, and then in

00:08:41.160 sorrow, more than anything, he will probably announce, or maybe Dr. Jill Biden will probably

00:08:47.900 announce that he's stepping aside for family reasons or health. It'll be very loving, and

00:08:53.940 they'll have lots of kudos and tributes to the man, and it'll be almost like a living funeral for him.

00:08:58.940 Everyone will send in accolades. And then they, and it's so important. I mean, you know the rules

00:09:04.980 better than me, but it is not a primary process after that. It is not a let's go and talk to the

00:09:10.060 people. It's what the bosses say. So they don't have to go through, well, who came in second. They

00:09:15.420 don't have to go to the vice president. I think the only person more unlikable, I mean, Joe Biden

00:09:21.360 actually has a likability. You can disagree with him. You can see he's falling apart, but he's got a

00:09:25.180 likability. Who do you think they would pick as his handpicked successor if we're going down that road?

00:09:33.640 And I know this is speculative, but I think it's worth speculating. Who do you think would be the

00:09:37.800 savior of the party? I've got a name, but I want to hear who you think first.

00:09:42.820 Well, and also let's note, by the way, there could be a real fight here between the Biden family and

00:09:46.700 the party itself, because let's not forget that Hunter Biden is facing prosecution. So

00:09:51.900 what happens with, if you take Joe Biden out of the equation, then what happens to potentially

00:09:58.160 pardoning Hunter Biden? There are a lot of different monkey wrenches like that that could be

00:10:02.140 thrown into this mix. Set all that aside to your main question, who would be the replacements?

00:10:08.340 Obviously, you've had Gavin Newsom positioning himself. Of course, he hosted Xi Jinping. I had

00:10:15.900 also visited China as well. So I guess that's sort of an attempt to burnish credentials as I'm a kind of

00:10:23.360 global leader as governor of California, and he's curried favor with Joe Biden. Joe Biden spoke in favorably

00:10:30.120 of him. Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, has also tried to position herself accordingly. In

00:10:36.180 particular, it seems that she's trying to elevate herself as trying to maintain the Democrat vote 0.96

00:10:42.520 when Joe Biden is potentially struggling, particularly with Palestinian Arab voters in Dearborn. This is

00:10:50.580 usually significant because the Michigan margins could be very tight. If Michigan falls to Donald Trump,

00:10:56.300 that could cost Democrats the presidency. To me, I've long felt that the secret weapon for the Democrats

00:11:03.380 is Michelle Obama. And I suspect that might be your pick as well. One of the reasons that I say Michelle

00:11:10.700 Obama would make sense is that this allows you to skirt the Kamala Harris problem. The Kamala Harris

00:11:16.980 problem being how can the party sideline a black woman when she was picked, you know, in part on the 1.00

00:11:26.460 identitarian kind of credentials, and you're going to enrage potentially your base if you then pick a

00:11:33.900 Gavin Newsom over a Kamala Harris or a Gretchen Whitmer over a Kamala Harris. Michelle Obama allows you to

00:11:41.100 sidestep that. And despite the fact that I think she is a completely non-compelling figure and that I

00:11:47.800 think she would be a disastrous president of the United States, I could very well see the Democrat 0.99

00:11:51.900 Party turning to her. I also believe, and I think this is being borne out, beyond the fact that if you

00:11:58.900 look to virtually every single person in a prominent position in the Biden administration, that it is all

00:12:04.380 holdovers from the Obama Biden administration, that this is essentially Barack Obama's third term

00:12:10.020 in the way of policy. And that illustrates, that reflects the fact that this is Barack Obama's

00:12:16.300 Democrat Party. It used to be that the Clintons controlled the Democrat Party. It is now an Obama

00:12:20.780 controlled Democrat Party. So who better for Barack Obama to pick than Michelle Obama for that position? 1.00

00:12:27.800 Obviously, we're engaging in speculation, like you said. There are any of a number of other figures who are

00:12:32.760 going to be vying hard for the seat to the extent it does become open. But to me, that would be the

00:12:37.900 one that I would look to as potentially, I guess, no pun intended, but a potential Trump card.

00:12:45.420 Wow. That was not the name I had in mind. Whenever I've seen that name floated, I've scoffed. I thought,

00:12:51.860 come on, it's too much. I mean, Hillary Clinton, the nominal spouse of Bill Clinton, ran. But in fairness,

00:13:01.360 she was her own political figure for a very long time. She served as Secretary of State, for example.

00:13:08.680 So she had a real political track record of her own. Michelle Obama was vocal as a First Lady

00:13:15.020 and ubiquitous in her own way. But she clearly is nothing but an appendage to the Obama movement and to Barack

00:13:24.140 Obama himself. But that said, having a black woman as the candidate really pulls hard at the

00:13:32.740 identitarian aspect of things. And in some ways, I don't think she would be vetted because everyone

00:13:38.960 would assume, oh, yeah, we know her. We're very familiar with her. We've known her for 20 years.

00:13:44.560 And we're not afraid of her. And even if you reveal things about her, we already have an opinion about

00:13:49.540 her. So in a way, she actually has not been vetted, but she will not be vetted. And I think

00:13:58.500 people, just like many people look back to Trump's time in office as a better time in America,

00:14:05.240 policy-wise, I think people look back to Barack Obama, even though policy-wise he was a disaster,

00:14:10.880 there was a calmness there. At least the feeling that Barack Obama always gave was soothing.

00:14:18.400 Well, I mean, listen, he could be quarrelsome, too. But I think there would be some sentimentality,

00:14:22.360 some nostalgia. I think Michelle Obama would be a difficult candidate to succeed. I was going to

00:14:30.440 say Gavin Newsom. It's so obvious to me that he's setting himself up for that role. He really is

00:14:37.080 a Justin Trudeau doppelganger in so many ways. But I think you're right. I think Michelle Obama would

00:14:42.880 smoke Gavin Newsom. Anyway, we're talking in the realm of speculation, but I think you have to

00:14:47.800 speculate when your figurehead right now, I mean, he could literally pass away and no one would be

00:14:55.280 shocked. Let's talk about the other side of the ticket, about Donald Trump, the other side of the

00:15:01.300 ballot. I think Trump is one year younger than Joe Biden, but he feels 15 or 20 years younger,

00:15:07.760 I think. They've done everything to him other than jail him. I mean, they're prosecuting him

00:15:13.420 criminally. There are civil lawsuits against him. But he just, you know, he's like that old child

00:15:19.800 story, Weeble. Weebles wobble, but they don't fail done. You push him and he comes right back up.

00:15:24.440 In fact, every time he's pushed, his fan base is confirmed that the world is allied against him

00:15:31.480 and it's tough to deny it. I actually think that the only thing that would stop Trump,

00:15:38.660 God forbid, may it never happen. I hate to even say the words, may it not come true.

00:15:43.340 But I've got to say it. It's on my mind. I think an assassination attempt is really the only thing

00:15:48.160 that would stop him from being on the ballot and being a real contender. Actually, I'm a little bit

00:15:52.000 worried about that. There's been four presidential assassinations in America so far. The stakes

00:15:56.620 have never been higher. The deep state, including lots of FBI, CIA, and international intrigue types

00:16:03.540 hate Trump because of what he would have, the changes he would make in the world. I actually

00:16:08.080 think the only thing that could stop Trump is a bullet. Well, you have rhetoric from the left,

00:16:16.160 from our political establishment in America, constantly talking about how Donald Trump is

00:16:21.440 Hitler reincarnated and that he will bring about tyranny and authoritarianism. So the response, 0.79

00:16:27.520 by the way, is let's impose tyranny and authoritarianism so we can destroy our political

00:16:32.020 foes. Set that aside. The rhetoric is certainly suggestive of a willingness to take the most extreme

00:16:40.940 measures. Let's not forget that in 2020, beyond the draconian lockdowns that were imposed,

00:16:47.320 which obviously had a political aim, you also had essentially leftist mobs rioting throughout

00:16:53.280 the country. And so there was almost an assumption. If you recall, back around election day, you had

00:16:59.480 businesses in places like Washington, D.C. boarding up their windows with the expectation there would be

00:17:04.780 street violence, fires in the streets, essentially, to the extent the American people chose wrong.

00:17:11.960 So there was a threat there, essentially, of mob justice trying to impose a political end at the

00:17:19.480 threat of a gun or a billy club. And look, the thing sort of speaks for itself in the way of the

00:17:28.320 rhetoric that exists around Donald Trump and how existential a threat he is to the country if you

00:17:34.840 listen to our betters, our elites, and this is accurate, of course, globally, as well. So you

00:17:41.780 can't, sadly and disturbingly, you can't put anything past a rabid political opposition like this. I pray

00:17:49.340 nothing comes to pass in the way of bodily harm attempts, etc. Setting that aside, I don't think

00:17:58.280 there's any way he does not win this nomination going away. The primary process is essentially over.

00:18:04.620 At this point, I'm not sure what the theory of the case was, if the belief was there would be some

00:18:09.520 black swan event, that some superseding indictment would come down or some revelation would come

00:18:15.200 in one of the myriad cases against him that was finally going to be the crushing blow

00:18:19.480 that turned the Republican base against Donald Trump. To your point, the more we see these

00:18:26.740 legal persecution attempts for what they are, and this is exposed every single day in many of these

00:18:33.860 cases. For example, the so-called January 6th case out of D.C. where the prosecutor there,

00:18:39.960 Jack Smith, trying to rush the case to the Supreme Court, rush the case to the Supreme Court on an

00:18:44.100 emergency basis. Why? He can't articulate why there's an emergency for skipping the normal

00:18:49.640 ballot process. And this is a case, by the way, on the weightiest matters of what authorities does the

00:18:56.140 president have, checks and balances, the interplay between what courts can do, where the voters are,

00:19:02.420 what a president can do, et cetera. You look at where the J6 case is, and the reason that Jack 0.58

00:19:09.260 Smith, the prosecutor there, can't articulate the emergency is because the emergency is purely a

00:19:13.560 political one. It's the Biden Justice Department really wants Donald Trump convicted of a crime

00:19:19.700 before the presidential election, before the general election. But he can't say it in court.

00:19:25.600 And consequently, I think they're going to get smacked down in terms of their effort to make

00:19:30.500 the Supreme Court rush through dealing with just a part of that case, the immunity aspect of it,

00:19:37.200 argument that's been raised by Trump's side. So what does it show? It shows that the American

00:19:41.180 people, tens of millions of Americans, see the attempts to lock Donald Trump up, to try and take

00:19:48.240 away his assets, his business, and destroy him and bankrupt him financially, to smear him and target 0.52

00:19:55.340 him mercilessly with concocted stories, scandal after concocted scandal. The American people see it

00:20:02.920 for what it is. It's a witch hunt, but it's not only a witch hunt against Trump, it's a witch hunt

00:20:06.860 against them as a vessel for the beliefs of tens of millions of voters and essentially a middle finger

00:20:13.740 to the regime that lords over us. So that is why I believe Donald Trump gets stronger with every last

00:20:21.360 attempt to try and take him down. But it's incredibly disturbing and frightening, the rhetoric that you

00:20:28.040 see, because the rhetoric suggests if this is the worst person on earth, what wouldn't you be willing

00:20:33.080 to do to stop that worst person on earth from winning? And they did an awful lot last time around

00:20:37.720 in 2020. We can go back to Russiagate and even pre-Russiagate efforts to go after Donald Trump.

00:20:44.040 They've shown they'll stop at nothing. No norm, no law, no principle will serve as a guardrail in

00:20:50.200 stopping Trump. They are so zealous and rabid and hateful towards Trump, but again, as a proxy towards

00:20:57.240 tens of millions of Americans who disagree with their policies and to some extent just disagree

00:21:01.720 culturally with them at the end of the day. And so consequently, that puts us in a very perilous

00:21:06.220 place going into 2024. You know, there's that thought experiment. If you could go back in time,

00:21:15.280 would you kill Hitler if you could? Would you kill him when he was elected? It was not elected. Would 0.86

00:21:21.620 you kill him when he was just a street protester? And then there's the terrifying ethical thought

00:21:27.740 experiment. Would you kill baby Hitler to stop the world? And I'm not going to get into that interesting 0.57

00:21:34.180 and quirky question other than a lot of people would say you must do literally anything to save

00:21:41.220 millions of lives. And if Trump is Hitler, if Trump is going to cause, I mean, people are saying he's

00:21:50.880 going to cause third world war. This is that thought experiment in real time. And even if only one in a 0.68

00:21:57.720 million people says, yes, I believe that Trump is the new Hitler. Yes, I believe he's going to put us

00:22:03.640 in a nuclear war or something. And yes, I have the means and the opportunity to attack him. All you need

00:22:09.780 is one in a million people. Or, I mean, what do you think the stakes are for the People's Republic of

00:22:14.440 China? What do you think the stakes are for Vladimir Putin? All these countries around, for Iran,

00:22:19.700 all these countries who have had their agendas advanced under Joe Biden, they have an interest in

00:22:25.720 keeping America weak and distracted and listless. There were no October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel

00:22:34.140 during Trump's term. There were no invasions of Ukraine during Trump's term. There was before and

00:22:39.080 after. So it's not just the domestic rivals. I think there are serious bad actors around the world

00:22:44.780 who would rather have a weak and declining America than a renovated and revived America.

00:22:52.620 I think it's the worst of all worlds. I'm afraid of it. I want to ask you about a possible third

00:22:59.500 name on the ballot, RFK Jr., Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who I really find interesting. And I know there's

00:23:06.200 certain things about which he is, I would say, a progressive. I don't know if I'd use the word a

00:23:12.720 hard leftist. But I find that on many other things, he's surprisingly open-minded. I think he cares a

00:23:20.040 little more about civil liberties than your average Democrat. I think in terms of foreign policy,

00:23:24.040 he's a little bit more sane than your average Democrat, even cares about the border crisis.

00:23:29.600 I don't know if he would be my first pick. Being a Canadian, I actually don't get a pick.

00:23:34.040 But I think that he is an impressive third-party candidate who may well do better than any third-party

00:23:39.100 candidate since Ross Perot. And Ross Perot, for those who remember from a generation ago,

00:23:44.280 in many ways handed the presidency to Bill Clinton because he stripped off just enough votes of sort of

00:23:50.220 cranky, free-market, libertarian anti-politicians. I think he really paved the way for the Democrats to

00:23:58.280 win. Do you think RFK Jr. will be on the ballot? Do you think he'll siphon votes more from one party or

00:24:05.680 the other? And what do you make of the fact that just the other day it was revealed by Judicial Watch,

00:24:12.380 a great civil liberties charity in America, that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

00:24:18.420 ruled that they would not provide him with Secret Service protection. I mean, it's almost too on the

00:24:27.000 nose. What do you make of RFK Jr.? Is he a threat? And is he at risk?

00:24:32.520 Well, on your last point, it's just asinine that he wouldn't get the protection that he deserves here.

00:24:37.940 And it actually plays into kind of a theme of his, which goes back decades in the Kennedy family,

00:24:46.120 which is the skepticism of the deep state and its intentions and its operations.

00:24:52.800 RFK Jr. stands essentially as an avatar for those Americans, and many of them are Trump voters,

00:25:00.440 who reject the establishment, reject what authorities say is settled science and the truth.

00:25:10.240 To your point, my measure of him is that he's a leftist in the classical sense, but not one who

00:25:18.280 wants to throw you in a gulag. He'll actually have an open conversation with you. Like you said,

00:25:23.080 he is a defender of free speech, a defender essentially of the little guy against established

00:25:30.200 business interests, against the administrative state, again, against the deep state. And obviously,

00:25:35.640 the contrarian line on the Chinese coronavirus taps into a huge groundswell of feeling among Americans who

00:25:45.100 rejected the lockdowns and the hysteria and the evisceration of our rights arbitrarily suspended for long periods

00:25:54.380 without any sort of explanation, oftentimes anti-scientifically. So you put all that together,

00:25:59.180 and then you throw on top of it the dissatisfaction with Americans, to some extent, with both the Republican

00:26:06.720 and Democrat assumed nominees, and sort of RFK Jr.'s sort of demeanor, you know, the symbolic more than the

00:26:16.560 substantive aspects of RFK Jr., the kind of breath of fresh air that he appears to put out there. And I

00:26:23.580 think all those things make for a compelling third-party candidate. And to your point, I do think that he may

00:26:30.000 well have a, I'm not sure if it's going to be a decisive role that he has in terms of siphoning off

00:26:35.160 votes, but certainly more than, I think, a marginal one. And the question's going to be, in what states

00:26:41.760 does RFK Jr. move the needle? And would he peel off more Trump voters or Biden voters? To the extent

00:26:49.080 Donald Trump, and he sort of has to some extent, embraces RFK Jr. to any degree, whereas Joe Biden clearly

00:26:55.280 loads RFK Jr. and the Democrat Party completely rejects RFK Jr. By the way, we saw that when he

00:27:01.280 testified before the House Weaponization Committee, and the Democrats all savaged him. To the extent you

00:27:07.040 have more than a detente, but even a warmth between the Trump camp and the RFK Jr. camp, does that impact

00:27:15.280 where the votes are siphoned off from, to some extent? It's hard to say at this point. It's hard to say

00:27:20.400 which candidate he might hurt more ultimately, but I do think he is going to play a pretty substantial

00:27:26.960 role coming down the stretch in this election. And whether or not it's bigger than Perot, I think,

00:27:31.280 is yet to be seen. But it's certainly probably a more meaningful and significant third-party

00:27:37.200 candidate than we've had in some time in America. Yeah. And I have a warmth towards him because

00:27:43.360 some of his policies, like he was the original skeptic on COVID-19 and the proposed political

00:27:52.800 remedies to him. But along the way, I just found him a compelling person. He's got that Kennedy charisma.

00:27:59.840 He's in his 70s, too. I think he's a little bit younger than Trump and Biden, but he comes across as

00:28:05.200 a man a quarter century younger than he is. I mean, I saw him on Joe Rogan a few months back talking about

00:28:11.760 his workout regime. And I don't think it's just a political photo op. I mean, he works out every day.

00:28:19.200 Here's a shot of him working out on Venice Beach. And here's a clip of him handling a rattlesnake. Now,

00:28:28.880 this tweet I later discovered was shown in reverse. He was actually letting a rattlesnake go as opposed

00:28:35.120 to grabbing a rattlesnake. But still, would you handle a rattlesnake in sort of its cool,

00:28:42.480 I love nature way? Here's him in the rattlesnake.

00:28:59.440 Now, look, I know that neither working out nor handling rattlesnakes are important criteria for

00:29:05.120 selecting a president. But what it comes across as vigorous, healthy, outdoorsy, a bit of a

00:29:12.880 Teddy Roosevelt feeling. And if you're running against the cognitive decline candidate of the

00:29:18.560 Democrats who can't remember where he is, this young-looking, young-spirited, vigorous Kennedy

00:29:25.680 is very appealing. And I think emotion is obviously part of a choice. I don't know. Call me a sucker.

00:29:32.400 But I can't, of the three men, I actually think RFK Jr. is the most likable. Trump is the toughest,

00:29:39.280 but you are always slightly on guard with Trump. I think RFK Jr. is probably the nicest

00:29:45.360 man of the three. I mean, they say Joe Biden is nice. I think he's just nice because he's not even

00:29:50.400 there anymore. What do you think of my love affair for RFK Jr., or at least his aesthetics?

00:29:55.600 Well, I think, to your point, he gives off a vibe of being vigorous and much more youthful than he is.

00:30:05.680 He sort of represents what the Democrat Party, to some extent, used to be and is not now. That is

00:30:11.520 not a hard left Democrat Party. But I guess, to some extent, more of a left libertarian party. Although

00:30:16.880 you can go back and you can find some of his quotes on sort of climate environmentalism. And

00:30:22.320 those were disturbing. And he sort of tried to argue, well, here's what I really meant by that.

00:30:27.760 And to some extent, I guess, recanted on them. But he certainly gives off and conveys something

00:30:35.120 that I think is sort of inherently compelling in the eyes of a voter. He comes off as a free thinker

00:30:43.120 who is willing to truly engage on questions. And he's very sharp and very shrewd. He has that charisma,

00:30:50.240 to your point. And it's sort of interesting and amazing that he gives that off when you delve

00:30:55.840 into his background and his drug abuse and womanizing and divorces and other things,

00:31:03.120 which give a much more negative kind of perspective about who he is in his personal life and might call

00:31:08.640 into question his character. But as he looks as a candidate today and what he's conveyed,

00:31:14.720 the message he puts forth, where he stood, to your point, not just on the COVIDianism,

00:31:20.720 but also on social media censorship by proxy, again, on the weaponization and hyper politicization

00:31:28.080 of the national security apparatus, people who might not otherwise be on his side, I think,

00:31:33.520 feel his positions resonate with them. And as you noted, is sort of what he gives off in terms of

00:31:40.400 his personal traits and what he conveys makes for a compelling package. And that's why, again,

00:31:45.600 I agree that he will have more of an outsized impact than most third-party candidates who are

00:31:50.560 usually irrelevant sees, but maybe might play a spoiler in one or two states in a normal,

00:31:55.840 quote-unquote, presidential election. Well, it's going to be very interesting.

00:32:00.160 I think it's crazy that the secretary of the Homeland Security Department personally signed the memo,

00:32:05.360 like literally the boss, Mayorkas himself, signed the memo, refusing to provide him secret service

00:32:12.000 protection. If any family in America needs secret service protection, you would think it would be

00:32:17.520 that one. It just feels so punitive and personal and spiteful. Hey, I got one last question. I know

00:32:24.000 we've got to let you go fairly soon. Thank you for spending so much time with us. I was riveted

00:32:31.360 for a variety of reasons by Tucker Carlson's recent trip to Moscow, where he interviewed Vladimir

00:32:38.320 Putin, the Russian president. And I started to watch that interview, which was more than two hours long.

00:32:43.680 And it was odd at first. And Tucker himself said he thought that when he asked, why did you invade

00:32:49.920 Ukraine? He wasn't ready for a half-hour history lecture going back hundreds and hundreds of years.

00:32:55.040 And Tucker said he wasn't used to that. He thought it was Putin trying to filibuster. And in some ways,

00:32:59.040 it was. It was Putin saying, well, you're going to have 100 million people watch this. I'm going to

00:33:02.960 tell them what I want them to hear, not what you want to hear. But I think in another way,

00:33:06.560 that's how Putin is. He doesn't follow the rhythms of Western-style reporters.

00:33:12.800 There are no Western-style accountability, you know, attack-oriented, gotcha-oriented reporters

00:33:19.440 in Russia. They're more stenographical. They'll ask a question and then they'll get a professorial

00:33:25.680 speech. I think that's honestly how Putin talks. If you ask him a question, he'll answer for as long

00:33:31.600 as he wants, because he expects you to listen for as long as he wants. And yeah, that's just a comment

00:33:35.920 on Putin's mindset. I watched the whole interview. And without getting into any particular details,

00:33:44.480 my first impression was I don't think that Joe Biden could handle a two-hour wide-ranging

00:33:51.520 intellectual conversation like that, attentive. And it was Tucker who said, okay, we're done after

00:33:57.280 two hours. Putin probably would have gone a third hour. Secondly, to compare the vigor

00:34:02.400 of Putin with Western leaders, that none of this is to say I support Putin. I mean,

00:34:08.640 he talked about justifying the invasion of another country. That was his main point.

00:34:14.960 But I thought that was an interesting interview. I thought the reaction of the interview was just

00:34:18.720 as interesting, how the State Department asked Facebook to throttle it. And indeed, they did.

00:34:25.520 Fewer than 150,000 people we even saw on Facebook, which is absurd. What do you make of that interview?

00:34:31.520 What do you make of Tucker Carlson? What do you make of Vladimir Putin and that interview? I trust

00:34:36.880 that you watched it. Just tell me what you thought about it, because it had my mind swimming for a day.

00:34:43.120 Well, first of all, note the irony that now you have the entire political establishment that

00:34:48.480 doesn't want a U.S. commentator, who they loathed, interviewing Vladimir Putin, despite the fact that,

00:34:54.240 of course, Western outlets have interviewed all manner of strongmen, strongmen, dictators, historically.

00:35:01.200 And despite the fact that many Democrats especially wanted the Russian reset with Vladimir Putin,

00:35:07.120 hailed Vladimir Putin when he first rose to power, et cetera, and then turned on Russia,

00:35:12.880 really, or rather, Putin during the Obama years. And then with the creation of Russiagate,

00:35:18.080 that turned Russia into the enemy par excellence for people who probably, in many cases, spent the 70s

00:35:25.520 and 80s, soft on communism and wanting to appease the Soviet Union. Set aside that hypocrisy that's

00:35:32.960 always existed there with the characterizations of Russia and Putin. To me, I agree with your point

00:35:41.120 about Putin sort of sought to lecture Tucker Carlson and, by extension, American conservatives and, by

00:35:49.200 extension, America, because that's what he does. Dictators, authoritarians, strongmen, they speak

00:35:56.400 at Weyenthoff sometimes for hours in front of their own people. That's what dictate means. Like,

00:35:59.680 dictate is literally, they speak it and it becomes the fact. So, it's not surprising that a dictator would

00:36:05.440 dictate. Sorry, I interrupted you, but I was thinking of the term. Go ahead. Sure. And this is

00:36:11.600 sort of a tactic. It's, I'm going to set you Americans straight. Here's my narrative and vision

00:36:17.680 for the world. It's your point. It obviously draws a contrast of this is someone steeped in his history,

00:36:23.600 however ahistorical it is, and propaganda, and seemingly on top of his game, well in command

00:36:31.520 of the narrative he wants to put forth. That said, one of the questions that I have coming

00:36:36.320 out of it, and I'm sure analysts are going to be parsing the interview, probably in native Russian

00:36:40.800 over what the translation was like, is who was Putin's intended audience here? Was he trying to spin

00:36:48.640 a narrative to capture we in the West? Was he going after American conservatives? Was he speaking to

00:36:55.600 Ukrainians? Was he speaking to the Russian people and kind of defending the narrative that he thinks is

00:37:00.640 sort of the nationalist narrative that appeals to Russians to the extent they were able to see it

00:37:05.840 in Russia? I think that's kind of one interesting question. In other words, forget about the

00:37:10.320 substance of what he said. Who is he targeting with the substance of what he said? Obviously,

00:37:15.520 many have noted also that he kind of bristled at the questions about the Wall Street Journal

00:37:19.440 reporter that has been detained, and kudos to Tucker for pressing him on that, I'm sure.

00:37:23.840 He pressed him so many times. That was, I think that was the, I think Tucker went back at it four times.

00:37:28.240 Yeah, I can't imagine, obviously, any Russian reporter being able to ask those questions.

00:37:36.160 So that was certainly an eye-opening part of the interview. But I think more broadly,

00:37:40.880 you know, there was sort of the Barbra Streisand effect here of the hysteria around,

00:37:45.520 oh my God, Tucker has the gall to interview Vladimir Putin. He's a Vladimir Putin stooge for

00:37:50.400 having the gall to actually ask the person basic questions, which by the way, provides intelligence.

00:37:55.120 It provides insight into either how the person thinks or how they want you to think they're

00:38:00.320 thinking about the world, what their perspective is, or what they want to argue that their perspective

00:38:05.120 is. That's all useful. That's all to the good. The fact that he was able to secure the interview is

00:38:10.400 a good thing, quite frankly. And the hysteria about it, I think, increased the viewership immensely

00:38:16.640 relative to what it probably otherwise would have been. So a fascinating interview. I hope there are

00:38:22.560 more such interviews. Asking pointed questions is a good thing of these people, because the fact of

00:38:28.800 the matter is, the world is comprised of mainly liars, thieves, crooks, and murderers when it comes to

00:38:36.400 foreign powers. And you need to understand how they think, how they operate. That's how you gain

00:38:41.440 insights, and that's how you ultimately defend your national interest in a very dangerous and chaotic world.

00:38:46.720 Yeah, I wish that Vladimir Zelensky would have an unscripted interview with a citizen journalist

00:38:53.040 from the West. There's a lot of questions I'd like him to answer. Well, Ben, listen,

00:38:56.240 it's great to see you again. Thanks for spending so much time with us. Of course, Rebel News is based

00:39:00.720 in Canada. We love Canada. Ninety percent of our work is in Canada, but we do care very much about what

00:39:05.520 happens to our friends and allies in the United States. And as I said at the top of the show, what you

00:39:10.320 will decide as a country this November will have an enormous impact on our country, too. Great to see

00:39:17.200 you, Ben Weingarten. Keep up the fight. Always a pleasure. Thanks so much, Ezra. Right. Well,

00:39:22.960 that's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,

00:39:29.360 see you at home. Good night and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - February 16, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ The sway of the next U.S. presidential election will determine Trudeau's fate as Canada's leader

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