Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Trudeau wants to talk about the election — but what about Afghanistan？

00:00:00.260 Hello, my friends. Today I talk about the fall of Afghanistan, what it says about Joe Biden,

00:00:05.120 and what it says about Justin Trudeau, who chose to start the election on the very day that Kandahar

00:00:12.000 fell. I've got some thoughts on that and some videotape, too. That's ahead, but first let me

00:00:17.460 invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's our daily video version of this

00:00:21.720 podcast. Just go to rebelnews.com and click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month, 80 bucks

00:00:26.340 for the whole year. And I got to tell you, we're one of the few media outlets in this country that

00:00:31.200 are not subsidized or directly controlled by Justin Trudeau's government. So if you are consuming

00:00:37.180 government news, and you probably are, if you're watching the CBC or reading a newspaper, I really

00:00:42.380 recommend subscribing to Rebel News Plus because you need a balanced diet. If you're getting all

00:00:49.200 that government stuff, you should at least hear the other side of the story. All right, here's today's

00:00:52.800 podcast.

00:00:56.340 Tonight, the Canadian election is on. Trudeau would rather talk about that than many things,

00:01:14.060 including Afghanistan. It's August 16th, and this is the Ezra LeVance Show.

00:01:18.060 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:23.860 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:27.920 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody

00:01:32.800 right to do so.

00:01:38.700 Justin Trudeau called the election yesterday. He's nowhere near the end of his term.

00:01:43.000 It hasn't even been two years. There is no crisis of confidence in Parliament. I mean,

00:01:47.540 that in the legal sense, as in losing a confidence vote. In fact, all the opposition parties are only

00:01:52.940 too happy to prop up Trudeau's minority. None of them wants an election, and they keep saying so.

00:01:58.460 I don't think I believe in a system where an unelected governor general would deny a prime

00:02:03.240 minister an election in a case like this, but I think the new governor general, handpicked by Trudeau

00:02:08.320 just weeks ago, ought to have made Trudeau wait a bit for her answer. And you know, she could comment

00:02:14.980 in a very reserved and understated way, like the Queen might do, that she yields to the decision of

00:02:22.560 the prime minister. But on behalf of the constitutional monarchy, on behalf of the state itself,

00:02:27.720 she expresses reservations about the timing of an election. I say that not because I'm sympathetic

00:02:33.240 to the whining of the unprepared opposition, but because there is actually a crisis going on right

00:02:38.280 now that I think behooves the prime minister to, you know, work on, rather than to ignore for the

00:02:43.260 next five weeks. And I'm talking about the disaster of our age, the handing over of Afghanistan to the 1.00

00:02:49.240 Taliban terrorists in a shocking turn of events. Canada no longer has any troops officially in

00:02:56.840 Afghanistan. Canadians served there as private contractors, though. There's a lot of Canadian

00:03:02.460 NGOs and diplomats there, of course. Stephen Harper brought back the last of Canada's troops in 2014.

00:03:09.320 But the fact is, Afghanistan was a sort of colony of NATO for 24 years, 20 years, you know, I checked,

00:03:16.020 and the median age of Afghans is 18 and a half years old. So most Afghans were born and raised

00:03:24.180 in a country, spent their whole life in a country controlled by NATO. It's a very long time.

00:03:31.680 Truly an empire. And you can imagine how many people shaped their lives in accordance with the

00:03:36.360 fact that they were living in an American and NATO empire, that the U.S. and other allies would be

00:03:41.040 there to maintain some sort of order. Not a democracy, but not even really a rule of law kind of place,

00:03:47.560 but just a mitigation of the terror, some pretense of civilization, at least in the major centers.

00:03:54.180 That's been replaced in a matter of weeks. Actually, it's just days.

00:03:58.580 The Medieval Times are back. They're painting over women's faces in billboards, you see. 0.95

00:04:03.900 Here's CNN's reporter getting into the spirit of things, not just with her head covering,

00:04:09.660 but with her explanations. I mean, sure, they hate America, but in a nice way?

00:04:15.680 They're just chanting death to America, but they seem friendly at the same time. It's utterly bizarre.

00:04:21.640 Imagine if you were born and raised in Afghanistan, you cast your lot in with the West. 0.99

00:04:27.300 And now the East has devoured the West. Countless weapons, more sophisticated than ever,

00:04:33.440 even helicopters and jets, American material left behind from their own troops, but also

00:04:38.440 everything that the U.S. gifted to Afghan's 300,000-person army that just surrendered in days.

00:04:44.880 And how much of that is being shipped to Iran right now, in this video, to be inspected,

00:04:50.680 sold to Russia and China? I read a report of an F-15 flight simulator that was captured.

00:04:55.880 China's got to be excited about that.

00:04:58.840 America was actually begging and bribing the Taliban to spare its embassy in Kabul.

00:05:03.500 You know, that embassy out there, it actually tweeted the Pride Day flag tweet thing,

00:05:14.320 and that's really nice of them. But I don't think that spirit of LGBTQ2 plus is going to survive 1.00

00:05:21.300 much longer out of the Taliban. The top general in the United States, Mark Milley is his name,

00:05:25.980 he's been so busy lately declaring war against his own troops. He's made public statements demanding

00:05:34.340 that critical race theory be taught and pro-trans ideas be taught and domestic white rage is the 0.99

00:05:42.100 real threat to America. He said all of that. He's been so busy with that. I think you forgot about

00:05:47.140 the whole war and guns and terrorists part of his job. Oh, well, this is a real U.S. Army recruiting ad.

00:05:54.160 I think they might be focused a bit too much on politics and not enough on killing the bad guys.

00:05:58.380 This is real. It begins in California with a little girl raised by two moms. I also marched

00:06:06.960 for equality. I like to think I've been defending freedom from an early age, standing at the altar

00:06:13.980 to marry my other mom. With such powerful role models, I finished high school at the top of my class.

00:06:20.900 I found it. A way to prove my inner strength and maybe shatter some stereotypes along the way.

00:06:32.460 I'm U.S. Army Corporal Emma Malone Lord, and I answered my calling.

00:06:36.620 So back to reality, I think, Joe Biden went into hiding. So did the whole Democrat front bench.

00:06:45.720 They put out this press release, a tweet pretty much just begging the Taliban to spare the U.S.

00:06:50.600 embassy, pretty please. It reminded me of this tweet by Michelle Obama,

00:06:56.000 Bring Back Our Girls, which was a tweet written to the Boko Haram Muslim terrorist group in Nigeria

00:07:02.400 that was kidnapping and killing and raping and forcibly converting young Christian girls.

00:07:08.500 Michelle Obama is the wife of the most powerful man in the world.

00:07:12.460 If the best you can do about it is tweet, that's actually unhelpful because it signals to the whole

00:07:18.160 world that that's all your husband's going to do about it, and your tweet is the worst that's coming.

00:07:23.280 The thing about Donald Trump was that you knew the one thing he was personally incapable of doing

00:07:30.080 was appearing weak. He was mocked for that. You know how he always talked about being the best,

00:07:35.800 the biggest, huge, having the most people at this inauguration, for example. Now, a lot of people

00:07:41.160 debated that. Did he really or not? I don't care if it was true or if it wasn't. What that whole

00:07:46.440 ridiculous debate taught me, at least, is that being strong or at least appearing to being strong

00:07:52.920 and getting respect for strength was so important for Trump as a businessman and a politician. And so

00:07:59.040 it was, for example, when he was having dinner with China's president at Mar-a-Lago. That's precisely

00:08:05.020 the minute he ordered a missile strike on Syria just to show how tough he was. No one messed with

00:08:11.720 Trump because of that. There was no terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In fact, he mopped up ISIS in a few

00:08:17.040 months. He killed its boss, Soleimani. And that was actually in Iran and killed al-Baghdadi. He just

00:08:25.100 killed all the bad guys. Countries fell into line. Iran didn't try anything big, even when Trump killed

00:08:33.000 their top guy Soleimani. Certainly didn't try anything like when it captured U.S. and U.K. sailors

00:08:38.360 under Obama's watch. But Biden and his team, who actually are strong because they're Americans and

00:08:46.180 they have the same strong army at their disposal that Trump had, they think weakly. They actually

00:08:53.060 hate America's strength. So they telegraph to the world that they don't want to use America's

00:08:57.800 strength. They want the world to know that they can be beaten. It's almost like they wanted what

00:09:03.280 happened. Trump was negotiating an exit from Afghanistan, too, by the way. But anytime the

00:09:08.420 Taliban did something violent, he'd call off the negotiations and bomb them back to the Stone Age.

00:09:13.560 So they learned who they were dealing with. That's that strength and appearing strong thing.

00:09:18.360 What does this scene from Kabul's airport show, other than a redux of that iconic Vietnam evacuation

00:09:24.600 photo? It shows weakness, doesn't it? It's destructive to me how little Trudeau cares about all of this.

00:09:31.780 I acknowledge that we don't have troops on the ground there now, but neither does America in a

00:09:36.280 major way. I acknowledge that Afghanistan is largely a failed experiment in nation building

00:09:41.700 in a country that is not modern and is in fact culturally anti-modern. But that's where Canada

00:09:48.420 was the noisiest, or at least Trudeau was. All that talk about soft power and girl power and LGBT2Q+, 1.00

00:09:56.120 all Trudeau's specialties. But that's what's going the quickest in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

00:10:03.080 That was gone the very first day, wasn't it? Trudeau doesn't really care. He's happy, like Joe Biden

00:10:10.460 is, to see America humiliate. Trudeau's favorite country is China, which will take over everything 1.00

00:10:16.760 in Afghanistan now. They'll carve it up with Iran and Russia. But what about the 158 Canadians who died 0.82

00:10:24.360 in that imperial war? And the thousands more who were wounded? A total of 40,000 Canadians cycled

00:10:31.700 through that country, with a peak of just over 2,000 at any one time. What was their sacrifice for?

00:10:38.140 I'm not sure. But it feels like Canada specializes in pointless missions sometimes. I think America

00:10:47.280 and Canada and the UK are tired of trying to nation build. Trudeau isn't tired of using the military

00:10:53.300 for photo ops, though, including his recent adventure in Mali. Can you find Mali on a map? Do you know

00:10:58.920 anything about it? Do you even know what continent it's on? Do you know what our national interest is there?

00:11:05.340 I think you could apply all those same questions to Afghanistan, too. Other than Trudeau trying to

00:11:11.180 get on the UN Security Council, is there an interest? That didn't work. What irks me is that Trudeau

00:11:16.940 actually did care about one piece of the Afghan puzzle. He truly loved the terrorists there. 1.00

00:11:23.340 There's no other word for how he treated Omar Khadr, the convicted, confessed al-Qaeda terrorist

00:11:27.620 who murdered a U.S. Army medic. Trudeau must have loved him because he gave him a heartfelt public

00:11:33.040 apology. The terrorists, I mean. No apology to Sergeant Christopher Spears' family. Trudeau

00:11:38.240 apologized to Omar Khadr, gave him 10.5 million taxpayers' dollars, and took him off the no-fly list.

00:11:44.160 I know that last part because I happened to be on a plane with him two years ago. The flight

00:11:49.120 attendants had no idea. Remember I caught up with him in the airport afterwards? He was seated in first

00:11:54.440 class, so he got off the plane before me. So I didn't catch up with him until I was off the plane.

00:11:58.180 Remember this? Can I have a word? Can I talk to you for a minute? Can you take a selfie together?

00:12:05.620 If you want. Can I ask you a couple questions? How did you get on the plane? I thought you were

00:12:12.660 on the no-fly list. This is exactly what we figured would happen. Why don't we go ahead and walk away

00:12:17.220 from a ton of things that are hurt? But aren't you on the no-fly list?

00:12:23.540 Is there security? For me or for him? For filming a person when that's really not an okay thing to do.

00:12:31.220 Can I ask you why you won't let the widow have access to some of the money you got?

00:12:38.660 I'm not harassing anybody. That's a convicted Al-Qaeda terrorist right there who just flew

00:12:46.340 on an airplane. Yeah, Trudeau loves the terrorists in this war on terrorism. He says we have to learn

00:12:53.300 from them. Trudeau mocks our military saying it's just about old white men with their phallic symbols.

00:12:58.980 Why aren't we talking more about the kind of humanitarian aid that Canada can and must be engaged in

00:13:04.500 rather than, you know, trying to whip out our CF-18s and show them how big they are.

00:13:08.980 Yeah, yeah, we know. Look, Afghanistan is so far away. 40,000 Canadians and their families know a lot

00:13:15.540 about it. For 158 Canadian families, we know too much about it. Being a good ally to America and the UK

00:13:23.140 and NATO is important for sure. But being a new woke empire trying to teach liberal democracy and feminists and 1.00

00:13:32.820 LGBTQ plus ideas to folks still living in medieval times, it doesn't sound like a good use of time 1.00

00:13:39.460 and money and energy. Not when we have problems we do now here in Canada. I'd rather spend those

00:13:44.980 billions of dollars fixing Indian reserves in their drinking water, wouldn't you? You know, for years,

00:13:51.300 the Afghan interpreters who helped Canadian soldiers, they wanted to come here because they faced

00:13:55.540 your death over there. Trudeau didn't help with that. He blocked them, actually. Now, though, he says

00:14:01.940 he'll bring over 20,000 of them. That's quite a lot of interpreters for a Canadian delegation that

00:14:08.260 never had more than 2,000 people on the ground at once. Of course, to Trudeau, it's just another

00:14:13.300 mass immigration scheme. I don't know how he can do it, though. How do you even vet 20,000 people, 0.96

00:14:19.220 especially with no embassy on the ground anymore, no security intelligence, no meaningful records?

00:14:25.060 Oh, well, it didn't stop Trudeau from bringing in 50,000 Syrians with the same problem. 0.53

00:14:29.540 Joe Biden went to ground on this issue. He hid for days, issuing this one photograph of him alone

00:14:37.940 in his war room doing a Zoom call with advisers for two days. That was it, until late this afternoon

00:14:44.420 today, when he emerged briefly to blame Donald Trump and hide before any questions were put to him.

00:14:52.340 Here's a few excerpts. I always promise the American people that I will be straight with you.

00:14:57.540 The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So what's happened? Afghanistan

00:15:07.380 political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometime without

00:15:16.500 trying to fight. If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military

00:15:24.180 involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision. American troops cannot and should not 0.86

00:15:33.060 be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.

00:15:39.620 We spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000

00:15:51.140 strong, incredibly well equipped, a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies.

00:16:01.780 We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries,

00:16:06.580 provided for the maintenance of their air force, something the Taliban doesn't have. Taliban does 0.90

00:16:13.300 not have an air force. We provided close air support. We gave them every chance to determine their own

00:16:21.300 future. We could not provide them was the will to fight for that future. But if Afghanistan is unable to 0.83

00:16:30.980 mount any real resistance to the Taliban now, there is no chance that one year, one more year, five more

00:16:40.340 years or 20 more years, the U.S. military boots on the ground would have made any difference.

00:16:48.100 Here's what I believe to my core. It is wrong to order American troops to step up when Afghanistan's own 1.00

00:16:57.380 armed forces would not. There was some truth to what he said, for sure. But there's plenty of

00:17:03.220 scapegoating. Everyone's to blame but him. He was in the Obama White House for eight years, though.

00:17:10.180 On his watch, ISIS was born and thrived. He was a high-ranking senator for decades. It's not like he was

00:17:17.620 only handed this problem six months ago. It is true that the Afghans surrendered without a fight,

00:17:24.580 but it's also true that the U.S. knew that was the case the whole time, that they were

00:17:28.980 only bribing their way through Afghanistan. No hearts and minds were actually won over.

00:17:34.820 It was a bipartisan goal to get out of Afghanistan, though the generals and the arms dealers and the

00:17:40.020 NGOs enjoyed a 20-year paycheck out of it. No one's actually questioning ending the role of 1.00

00:17:48.100 Globocop. I think both parties in America are tired of it, but you can leave a place in a manner

00:17:53.380 befitting a superpower as Trump was trying to do on his schedule with whatever symbols of strength

00:17:59.540 could be mustered. To run out of there, to be run out of there, to be chased out of there,

00:18:05.620 Saigon-style, humiliated, that was Biden's alone. There was not only two options, stay

00:18:12.580 as an empire or be chased out. The humiliating way, that was Biden's touch.

00:18:16.580 One more thing I have to note is that if this were under Donald Trump, you know he would have stayed

00:18:24.260 and taken tough questions from the media for an hour. We know that because he did that every day,

00:18:30.020 and he would always call on his toughest opponents in the press gallery. Joe Biden ran out of there

00:18:36.180 after 10 minutes. He didn't even stay at the White House. He went back on vacation.

00:18:45.860 You know, Trudeau is the same way. I don't think any Canadian journalist asked Trudeau if he was

00:18:51.060 consulted by Biden on any of this, by the way. Because I think every single Canadian journalist

00:18:55.620 knows the answer is, of course not. As if Biden would value Trudeau's comments at all,

00:19:00.580 as if he wouldn't even think of Trudeau in a time like this. But for Trudeau to think

00:19:04.260 so little of Canada's historic role there and our sacrifice there, that he would call an election

00:19:09.220 literally on the day Kandahar fell, shows how unserious a man he is in serious times.

00:19:17.860 Stay with us for more. We'll have an interview with our friend Joel Pollack next,

00:19:21.780 that was recorded before Joe Biden made the statement today.

00:19:36.500 Is the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?

00:19:40.500 No, it is not. Because you have the Afghan troops have 300,000 well equipped, as well as

00:19:51.140 equipped as any army in the world and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban.

00:19:59.780 It is not inevitable. That's a press conference from US President Joe Biden just weeks ago, not

00:20:05.620 months or years ago, but it was just last month, where he swore on a stack of Bibles that, oh no,

00:20:11.060 those Afghan military forces are serious and well-armed and well-trained and there's 300,000 of them.

00:20:17.060 They're going to hold off the Taliban who are outnumbered and outgunned. No, no,

00:20:21.700 pay no attention to increasing reports from the intelligence community that

00:20:25.780 the country is crumbling and that it could fall. No, no.

00:20:29.220 Well, it was short weeks from that to this. These are terrifying scenes as the Taliban close in on

00:20:38.100 Kabul itself, the capital city where so many thousands of Westerners, Americans, Canadians,

00:20:45.860 Brits and others, were there either in a military or a quasi-military or a civilian capacity, 20 years

00:20:54.180 rushing to the airport, reminiscent of the fall of Saigon and Vietnam when the North Koreans 0.99

00:20:59.140 North Viennese finally closed in. Everyone who was associated with the American regime then was

00:21:05.220 in grave trouble, trouble for their lives. I think the same is obvious in Afghanistan. If you cooperated

00:21:10.980 or collaborated with America or Canada, you may face death. And the scene of the hasty retreat,

00:21:19.300 including these terrifying photos of ordinary Afghans literally clambering onto a US military jet.

00:21:26.340 Look at this. I don't know what they were thinking, but they must have been so desperate to think that

00:21:31.060 it's better to hang on to the outside of a jet than to be left behind to the devices of the Taliban.

00:21:38.820 What an utter humiliation and a disaster. A loss of blood and treasure for 20 years. And now this

00:21:46.900 disgrace in the eyes of the world. Joining us now to talk about is our friend Joel Pollack,

00:21:52.020 senior editor at large at Breitbart.com. You know, Joel, it's great to see you. Thanks. I've been

00:21:57.300 following you on Twitter on this issue. Let's unpack the two things, the actual cost and loss of blood

00:22:05.620 and treasure and the loss of military equipment. Here's a parade of high-tech US equipment being sent

00:22:13.620 to Iran, where it'll surely be shared with China and Russia. Just the loss of money and life, 0.88

00:22:20.100 but also the loss of stature. Talk about that.

00:22:26.500 Well, Ezra, there are two dimensions to this. One is the overall long-term strategic dimension,

00:22:32.180 where Americans have become tired, both Republicans and Democrats, of a long-term commitment to

00:22:38.820 Afghanistan, a country that seems incapable of governing itself. And the frustration with the 1.00

00:22:46.260 government of Afghanistan is bipartisan. People do feel that 20 years is too long to have troops

00:22:53.140 committed there, not just to provide security, but also in combat roles. People are tired of the war,

00:22:59.700 people are tired of the expense, and they feel that the people for whom this is being done are ungrateful.

00:23:05.220 So there's a general fatigue with Afghanistan, and you saw it under President Donald Trump,

00:23:11.220 who said he wanted to withdraw, and of course with President Joe Biden, who has withdrawn.

00:23:15.940 The difference between Trump and Biden is really about tactics and how the withdrawal was going to

00:23:20.980 take place. Biden has shown that he is willing to accept, in Neville Chamberlain's terms, peace at any

00:23:27.780 price. So he didn't really care how the withdrawal was done. He was simply going to withdraw.

00:23:33.300 With Trump, we saw that he was only going to withdraw from a position of strength.

00:23:38.100 When he came to office, he talked about withdrawing, but he also dropped the Moab, 0.94

00:23:41.780 the mother of all bombs, on Taliban complexes in the country. And when the Taliban started to attack

00:23:47.700 Americans during the talks in September 2019, Trump suspended the talks and said there will be no

00:23:52.820 further negotiations while the Taliban are killing Americans. Trump made it absolutely clear he was

00:23:58.340 not going to withdraw under fire, which is why it took so long to get out. Trump also set a May 1st

00:24:04.100 deadline to leave. May 1st is, of course, the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden by

00:24:09.220 Navy SEALs. Joe Biden changed that to September 11th. Now, September 11th is a very weighty day in

00:24:15.140 American history, and it's a sacred day in some ways. But it's also a day that marks an American defeat. 0.81

00:24:20.180 It marks the day, of course, when thousands of Americans were killed by terrorists who had been

00:24:23.700 harbored by the Taliban for years. Biden essentially marked this withdrawal as a defeat from the

00:24:30.660 beginning. And he gave the Taliban all kinds of extra time to prepare. And he completely eviscerated

00:24:37.220 his own deterrent ability. He took apart the American deterrent. So he was negotiating from

00:24:42.900 a position of weakness, just as he's negotiating with Iran from a position of weakness, just as he

00:24:46.500 has given away almost everything Russia has demanded. And that's the posture of Joe Biden. He has

00:24:52.500 extensive experience in foreign policy. But as Sarah Palin said in their vice presidential debate

00:24:57.940 in 2008, he's always been wrong. There's almost no issue in foreign policy on which Joe Biden has

00:25:03.300 ever been right. And he thinks he's a genius. So when the generals told him this is going to be

00:25:08.180 dangerous, evidently from what we're hearing, he overruled them and said, no, we're just going to pull

00:25:11.860 out. Trump clashed with his generals, but he also listened to them. And even though he drew down

00:25:18.340 forces significantly, he did it in a way that did not jeopardize American security.

00:25:22.260 The broader issue is really we have China ascendant, not only because we've now withdrawn

00:25:27.300 our troops from the one country with a land border with China where we had a base,

00:25:31.380 but also because China is now going to move in and do deals with the Taliban and gain access to the

00:25:35.540 rare earth minerals that are abundant in Afghanistan. Russia is now crowing over this because they had

00:25:41.700 their own defeat in Afghanistan under the Soviet Union. And they're now being seen in the Middle East as

00:25:46.660 a more reliable ally than the United States, at least under Democrats. And Iran, of course, 0.80

00:25:52.180 is thrilled because Afghanistan borders Iran and they're now getting all that military equipment you 0.86

00:25:56.980 talked about. Plus, they are given a reprieve here. Trump had Iran on the ropes. The regime looked weak.

00:26:03.380 Biden has given them a third chance on life. The second chance, of course, was given by Barack Obama.

00:26:08.420 So this is a catastrophe. And what has to be done now is, first, there have to be rescue operations

00:26:13.780 to bring the thousands of Americans, thousands of Afghan allies out of the country. We also have 0.96

00:26:20.820 to consider the other countries who were with us in Afghanistan. There's a lot of consternation among

00:26:25.780 American allies, frustration that Joe Biden didn't consult with them about this. So we have to correct

00:26:30.420 that situation immediately. Second, there has to be a more aggressive and assertive posture on all

00:26:35.700 fronts in foreign policy. We need to make clear that we are going to protect Taiwan from China. 0.85

00:26:40.580 We need to make clear that we are not going to accept a return to the failed Iran nuclear deal.

00:26:45.540 We need to make it clear to Russia that we will not tolerate aggression in Eastern Europe or anywhere

00:26:49.780 else. In short, we need to reverse all of Joe Biden's foreign policies thus far. And we also need to see

00:26:55.620 many resignations. Secretary of State Tony Blinken must resign. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan

00:27:01.140 must resign. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has to resign. The Press Secretary Jen Psaki has to resign.

00:27:07.060 She was AWOL during this entire crisis. And we also need to see other resignations, including the 0.87

00:27:12.980 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, who is so busy educating his troops about

00:27:17.940 white rage and critical race theory that he failed to make adequate plans for the Afghan withdrawal.

00:27:24.500 So that's the situation we're in. It's not unsalvageable. We can do it, but we need a

00:27:29.540 drastic change of personnel and policy. You know, talking about resignations, I know that in the

00:27:35.620 United States, because cabinet members and these other appointees, they're drawn from the population

00:27:41.700 at large. So they don't have a like in Canada, we draw our cabinet from the legislature. So I think

00:27:49.540 it was Lincoln who said, send me better lumber and I'll send you a better cabinet. I think it was Lincoln.

00:27:53.700 In Canada, you've got slim pickings. Like you've got, let's say, 150, 170 MPs. Imagine having to

00:28:00.660 make your cabinet out of that. In America, you can choose from that amazing, incredible,

00:28:05.860 vast country. And so you can fire easily too. The idea of firing a Canadian cabinet minister is

00:28:12.340 extremely heavy and serious because it's also a problem. How do you replace them? I don't think

00:28:17.300 you have that same problem in America, but isn't it quite rare. And I wonder if in the age of just

00:28:23.620 brazening it out, like, I mean, Andrew Cuomo didn't quite get away with it, but he almost did the idea

00:28:30.340 of just tough it out, brazen it out, admit nothing, explain nothing. All these resignations you're

00:28:35.940 talking about, they, they make sense to me. I mean, that general who was forcing critical race theory on

00:28:41.060 his troops and transgenderism on his troops. You know, I can't even believe that the press secretary 1.00

00:28:47.380 went away for a week or emails on out of office. Even President Biden basically hiding for two days,

00:28:55.860 putting out one still photograph of him in an empty situation room. These all sound like

00:29:01.300 resignable offenses to me. But is that realistic at all, Joel?

00:29:07.380 Not under a democratic administration, perhaps. Although we don't know, perhaps Biden's going to

00:29:12.260 need to have these resignations so he can maintain his own credibility. Because I don't think anybody

00:29:17.300 believes anything Joe Biden says about anything anymore after this. As you played in that clip of

00:29:21.380 the press conference, he said it was highly unlikely that the Taliban would take over the country again.

00:29:25.380 He said we weren't going to see scenes from Saigon. He was right about that. It's worse than Saigon. 0.60

00:29:29.620 So I think that Joe Biden's going to need these resignations. But I will just point out,

00:29:34.500 under Republican administrations, both Trump and George W. Bush, we have seen cabinet members resign.

00:29:40.100 We saw Donald Rumsfeld resign. We saw various other members of the Bush

00:29:44.900 staff resign when things didn't go well. Karl Rove left the administration after the 2006 midterm

00:29:49.460 elections. We almost saw nobody resign in the Obama administration. And likewise in the Biden

00:29:56.260 administration, we just haven't seen a willingness to take responsibility. There is this attitude

00:30:01.620 lately, at least in democratic administrations, that people don't resign. They don't resign on

00:30:05.460 principle. The way Samantha Power, I believe, ought to have resigned when Obama did nothing about Syria. 0.98

00:30:09.620 Remember, she was the expert on genocide and she was supposed to be in charge of doing something

00:30:13.220 about genocide. And then Syria happened. She ought to have resigned. She didn't. 0.91

00:30:16.980 What we did see with Trump especially wasn't just resignation. Trump fired people when they failed to

00:30:20.980 deliver. Trump fired a lot of people. Remember, that was considered a point of criticism, but the

00:30:25.940 American people loved it because it meant that there was accountability. So when you have a Donald

00:30:32.180 Trump around from the business world who understands that you either get the job done or you get fired,

00:30:36.740 that's how people step up. That's how people perform. And if you perform once, that's not good

00:30:42.180 enough. You have to keep performing. So there are people who are right for one task but not right for

00:30:45.940 another task and they leave the administration. That's how it ought to happen. If you have,

00:30:49.860 as you pointed out, access to the great talent pool of American industry, of American society,

00:30:53.860 American academia, and all of that, and American politics, you can go to the legislature and pick

00:30:58.900 a congressman, pick a senator. But we don't see that under democratic administrations as much. In this

00:31:03.460 particular administration, the advisors and the staff were drawn from a very small coterie of

00:31:08.500 insiders that worked for particular consulting firms. I think one of them is called West Exec and it was

00:31:13.140 formed by Clinton alumni and Obama administration alumni. And many of them have now risen with

00:31:19.780 in the Obama administration. Look at Jen Psaki, the press secretary, for example. She did nothing 1.00

00:31:24.580 for the Biden campaign. Simone Sanders was his erstwhile press secretary the entire campaign,

00:31:29.300 trudging through the snow in Iowa and so forth. African-American woman didn't get the job. Jen Psaki 1.00

00:31:33.860 got the job because she was part of this little group of insiders. So we see the Democrats hiring from a

00:31:39.620 small talent pool of trusted party loyalists. They are elite. They are Ivy League educated. They've been in

00:31:45.780 Washington forever and they don't know a thing about how to run anything in the real world. And

00:31:51.700 we saw it under Obama and we're seeing it now. You know, Trump had two skills from the business

00:31:57.140 world. And by the way, America got to know this on his show, The Apprentice. You're fired. I think

00:32:02.580 there are so many firing offenses in America over the last few days, few months, but I think you're

00:32:09.140 right. It won't happen. Not just firing people, but how do you negotiate? Like if you're a New York

00:32:14.740 real estate developer, plus if you're in the casino business, these negotiations are, I can't imagine

00:32:20.740 anything harder in the world than negotiating real estate deals in New York that whether it's the

00:32:26.100 mafia or crooked city regulators or just your competitors, you need to know what you're doing.

00:32:32.660 And we'll think about that for a minute. Not only did Trump have to negotiate and navigate between

00:32:37.460 the mafia and the banks and the crooked politicians and all of that, but he kept himself out of legal

00:32:43.220 trouble over decades. Look how hard the Democrats have to work to try to find something that they

00:32:48.020 can prosecute him for. They're demanding his tax returns. Still, they are going after some executive

00:32:54.020 in the Trump organization for, I think it's failing to claim frequent flyer miles as income or some

00:32:59.620 garbage like that. Trump kept himself clean in dealing with the toughest, dirtiest people in

00:33:04.660 the world. That's a tough guy. That's a guy who not only knows how to get what he wants,

00:33:09.460 but also knows how to get what he wants in a very difficult regulatory and political environment.

00:33:14.420 That's the kind of person you want out there. And that's the kind of person the Taliban were 0.97

00:33:17.780 dealing with. Trump made it very clear when he killed Qasem Soleimani, when he dropped the Moab on

00:33:22.500 the Taliban, he made it clear that there was going to be a price to pay for harming any Americans.

00:33:26.260 Not only has Biden made it clear there's no price whatsoever, but he's actually left thousands

00:33:31.220 of Americans behind. When he came into office, he had 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. Now we're

00:33:36.820 sending 7,000 troops. The number keeps going up every day. We're sending 7,000 troops now back to

00:33:41.860 Afghanistan to try to guide an evacuation that has already failed, where people have already died,

00:33:47.140 as you pointed out, people clinging to cargo, transport planes, C-17s or what have you, C-130s,

00:33:53.540 people mobbing the airport. It's a complete disaster. We don't even know the scale of the

00:33:58.100 disaster yet because we can't get good reports. Journalists are being intimidated by the Taliban. 0.84

00:34:02.900 This is a complete catastrophe. It's only salvageable with that kind of military force,

00:34:07.220 but it didn't have to be this way. And that's why I think there has to be accountability.

00:34:10.500 Yeah. You know, I've heard reports that the US was offering to bribe the Taliban to permit them to 0.78

00:34:18.420 leave their embassy in a certain way. They were begging them publicly. They were issuing tweets

00:34:25.620 to the Taliban. And I had reports that were offering staggering amounts of cash if the Taliban would

00:34:32.900 just let the people out. It's incredible to me. And while I believe that Afghanistan, you know,

00:34:39.940 graveyard of empires or whatever it's called, or undertaker of empires, but I'm not so much worried

00:34:46.980 about Afghanistan as I am. What does China think they know about Joe Biden now? What does Russia

00:34:52.340 and Iran think they know about Joe Biden now? What is Taiwan, Israel, United Arab Emirates,

00:34:58.500 the Baltic States? It's like when Ronald Reagan cracked, you know, stood up to the air traffic

00:35:05.060 controllers very early in his agenda. After the Berlin Wall fell, it came out that the Russians 0.78

00:35:12.980 observed how Reagan meant what he said and called the bluff of the air traffic controllers union in

00:35:19.540 a way that no one thought he would. And they said, oh, we're up against a different cookie.

00:35:23.780 So you would think something like dealing with a union, a rogue strike of air traffic controllers.

00:35:29.380 What's that got to do with negotiating nuclear arms deals with the Soviets? Well, everything,

00:35:35.060 because they got the measure of the man. I think people have got the measure of the man

00:35:39.060 and they've got to be sharpening their knives. I think the most scared person in the world right

00:35:44.660 now, it's got to be the president of Taiwan. And then a close second might be, you know,

00:35:49.540 United Arab Emirates or anyone at risk from Iran and the Gulf. What do you think of that?

00:35:55.220 Well, paradoxically, the Abraham Accords that President Trump negotiated between Israel and the

00:36:01.540 Sunni states have made the Sunni states stronger. I don't think they're as worried, mostly because they

00:36:07.540 know Israel is a reliable ally. Israel can always be trusted to do what's in its own interest. And

00:36:12.660 right now, those relations between Israel and the Arab states are still very strong because Israel

00:36:17.220 finds that to be in its interest. I think they can see the contrast between leaders in Israel who

00:36:22.500 continue a strong national security posture when they change administrations and leaders in the

00:36:27.060 United States where the Democratic Party comes in and you know you're going to get the apology tour and

00:36:30.820 the weakness and the unwillingness to commit to doing anything properly. You're going to get missile

00:36:36.580 strikes against Sudan and that sort of thing and invasions of Libya, but you're not going to get

00:36:40.340 any kind of commitment to doing it properly. And they fail to learn from their mistakes. Yes,

00:36:45.700 Trump was someone that was unpredictable. His unpredictability restored some of the strategic

00:36:51.220 balance and deterrence that our diminished military, when he came in at least, could not provide. He built

00:36:56.740 up the military again, so that was good. But we have a crisis in this country because there's no clear

00:37:02.180 replacement in the short term for Joe Biden. Joe Biden has, you're correct, shown that he is weak.

00:37:07.940 Kamala Harris is his only possible replacement right now. She's also weak. She endorsed his pull

00:37:13.220 out from Afghanistan, so she doesn't offer any kind of alternative. She has no experience running a 1.00

00:37:17.220 campaign well, never mind running a military campaign. So political campaign was a failure,

00:37:22.420 and she doesn't have any credibility either. Then you go down the list of succession. Who have you got?

00:37:27.140 Nancy Pelosi would be the next in line to be the president. She's the Speaker of the House. 1.00

00:37:32.260 She's at least somewhat fearsome, but she can barely do the job she has now. So I think there

00:37:38.980 is a crisis of leadership right now, and this country is going to face a reckoning politically

00:37:44.340 over the next several weeks. It's not going to stop when the news cycle ends. September 11th is coming

00:37:48.740 up in a few weeks, and on the 20th anniversary of September 11th, we're going to find the Taliban 0.99

00:37:52.820 back in power in Afghanistan. And General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

00:37:58.420 who messed this whole thing up, already warned senators on Sunday that he expects terror groups

00:38:03.940 to come back to Afghanistan likely or sooner than originally anticipated.

00:38:08.740 Including from Guantanamo Bay, where most of them were let go. Joel, it's great to talk to you.

00:38:13.780 These are heavy matters, and I should say that everything that you're discussing with America,

00:38:18.980 a smaller version of that applies to Canada too. We had over 150 Canadians die in Afghanistan.

00:38:27.380 We served there for many years, and I think a lot of people are saying, for what?

00:38:32.660 And Canada, I should tell you, if you think Joe Biden and his absence is bad,

00:38:40.180 yesterday was the day that Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, chose,

00:38:44.020 instead of to deal with evacuating Canadians, he chose to call an election yesterday at his

00:38:49.700 complete discretion. He said, no, I think the next 30 days I'm going to spend door knocking,

00:38:54.820 and I'll let the caretaker bureaucrats handle this Afghan matter. So if you think Joe Biden's bad,

00:39:00.020 I should tell you it's one notch worse here in Canada. Joel, I could keep you here all day because

00:39:05.060 there's so much we learned from you. I'm grateful for your time. Thanks for joining us.

00:39:08.020 Thanks, Ezra. Keep well.

00:39:09.780 Right on. There you have it. Joel Pollack, senior editor at large at Breitbart.com. Stay with us more ahead.

00:39:26.340 Hey, welcome back on my show on Friday. Rob writes,

00:39:29.860 the conservative party desperately needs real men like Jonas Smith and not cowards who abandon their

00:39:34.500 own values for O'Toole's ridiculous social justice warrior goofiness. What a loss.

00:39:40.580 Yeah, I reviewed the conservative party platform. I think I'll go through it in some detail tomorrow.

00:39:45.860 And there was nothing against vaccine passports. Lots of talks about vaccine, but no talk about civil

00:39:52.340 liberties. I'll go through it tomorrow. James writes, promoting liberal policies such as this,

00:39:58.420 never got a conservative elected. Yeah, I just really, I'm looking back at election after election.

00:40:04.100 And I think voters want a real choice and they want authenticity. They want to know that you truly

00:40:09.140 believe it. I think the problem with Andrew Scheer is that he so clearly was sort of a prairie

00:40:15.220 conservative in a lot of ways, but he tried to act like a fancy pants, downtown liberal. And I think

00:40:25.700 people could detect that. So they thought it was dishonest. Both sides thought it was dishonest.

00:40:30.980 Conservatives said, why are you pretending to be someone you're not? And liberals said,

00:40:35.140 why are you pretending to be someone you're not? If people really wanted a liberal, wouldn't they vote

00:40:39.220 for the real thing? Paul writes, lose 20 seats. I think it'll be a lot more. Well, I just want to

00:40:46.340 show you one quick thing. Let me throw this in here. This was the very first campaign ad the liberals

00:40:51.300 put online. You'll see this is really from a conservative account. I'm not going to play

00:40:55.460 this whole thing, but let me play a minute of this for you. I don't even know what the point

00:41:00.260 here is. The production quality of this is so awful. This is just so bloody irritating.

00:41:08.100 This is the first shot that Erin O'Toole's conservatives fired in campaign 2021. Take a look.

00:41:13.780 Here we go again. Daddy will get you a golden goose as soon as we get home. No, I want one of those.

00:41:24.180 I want a party with roomfuls of laughter. Ten thousand tons of ice cream.

00:41:29.780 I want the works. I want the whole works. Presents and prizes and sweets and surprises

00:41:41.700 of all shapes and sizes. And now, don't care how I want the majority.

00:41:48.580 Yeah, I'm going to stop that right there. I'm not even going to punish you by playing any more of that

00:41:51.940 for you. I don't even know what that is. But if that's where your donations to the conservative

00:41:57.940 party of Canada are going, to crack ad agencies coming up with stuff like that,

00:42:04.260 keep your money or light it on fire or, I don't know, donate it to Rebel News.

00:42:09.460 Because if that's where your conservative party donations are going, yeah, I don't think they

00:42:13.300 need any more money. That's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at

00:42:17.540 Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, goodnight, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - August 17, 2021

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Trudeau wants to talk about the election — but what about Afghanistan？

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