Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Trump avoids Canada's premiers in latest excursion to White House

00:00:00.060 It was sort of amazing, 13 Canadian premiers flew down to Washington, D.C. to meet with Donald Trump.

00:00:06.400 Trouble is, Trump was busy, and really no one at the White House was able to meet with him, some junior staffers.

00:00:13.740 It was actually sort of embarrassing, not for the premiers, but for the Canadian government, which couldn't,

00:00:19.440 even though it has hundreds of people at the embassy, couldn't arrange a meeting with Trump.

00:00:23.100 But can you blame Trump? Justin Trudeau couldn't bother to be there, so why should he?

00:00:27.560 I'll tell you what Trump was doing instead, from Russia to Ukraine to Jordan.

00:00:31.720 I'll give you a rundown of Trump's busy days, so don't be too mad at him for not meeting with the premiers.

00:00:37.200 That's today's show, but before I get to that, let me invite you to get the video version of this podcast.

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00:02:00.980 Tonight, a day in the life of Donald Trump, as seen through Canadian eyes.

00:02:14.260 It's February 13th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show. 0.92

00:02:18.420 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:02:21.520 Yesterday, all 13 provincial and territorial premiers went to Washington, D.C. together.

00:02:38.000 That's quite something.

00:02:39.200 I mean, that is really remarkable.

00:02:41.380 They went to lobby the American political class to stop the planned tariffs on Canadian imports.

00:02:47.340 It was actually quite nice to see them all together, even though they're in very different political parties.

00:02:52.520 Now, I'm going to guess this is the first time that the entire group of premiers has met together outside of Canada.

00:02:59.180 I really think it's quite a feat.

00:03:01.480 It shows how worried they are about the tariffs.

00:03:03.500 It's also three months too late.

00:03:07.360 But I suppose better late than never.

00:03:08.940 I mean, it was back in November when Donald Trump first announced that he wanted the borders sealed by Canada and Mexico,

00:03:16.060 by the day of his inauguration, January 20th, or there'll be hell to pay, as his phrase says.

00:03:22.200 Trudeau jetted down to Mar-a-Lago for a quick dinner and came back up to Canada and really did nothing.

00:03:29.240 He re-announced some spending.

00:03:32.480 He fake announced some border staff.

00:03:35.380 There's no way he could muster 10,000 border guards.

00:03:38.800 So he's renaming any bureaucrats at desks part of the border force.

00:03:44.160 He agreed to list the cartels as terrorist entities in Canada.

00:03:48.820 But here, take a look.

00:03:50.360 I actually looked it up today.

00:03:52.100 And no, he didn't do it.

00:03:53.900 Here's the list of all the banned terrorist groups in Canada.

00:03:57.860 You can see it.

00:03:59.260 He hasn't put the cartels on it.

00:04:02.840 It's obvious why.

00:04:05.300 He genuinely doesn't want to do anything Trump asks him to do.

00:04:08.940 He certainly doesn't want to crack down on illegal migration.

00:04:14.200 Trudeau is the guy who wrote the tweet that launched the Roxham Road.

00:04:17.740 Remember, he definitely doesn't want to crack down on illegal drugs.

00:04:21.600 He's the guy who legalized hard drugs, who's pushing so-called safe injection sites.

00:04:26.820 So he doesn't want to do anything for Trump.

00:04:29.920 He certainly doesn't want to do these things for Trump because he likes fighting Trump.

00:04:34.860 And it's the first time he's had fun as prime minister in years.

00:04:38.340 You could see it on his face.

00:04:39.800 And he's even getting a bump in the polls as he plays Captain Canada. 0.98

00:04:44.040 Some of the dumber premiers went along with Trudeau's strategy at first. 0.96

00:04:50.080 Only Alberta's Danielle Smith took the president seriously, 0.99

00:04:54.240 actually rolled out a serious border force of her own,

00:04:57.560 knowing Trudeau wouldn't do it federally.

00:04:59.740 And she had already taken steps to shut down hard drug abuse in Alberta.

00:05:05.820 Premier Smith has been down in Washington, I don't know,

00:05:08.660 probably 10 times in the past three months.

00:05:11.920 You might recall I actually managed to interview her on the eve of Trump's inauguration.

00:05:16.200 I visited her on January 19th.

00:05:18.520 And as I told you at the time, it was jammed.

00:05:20.580 I was jammed into her schedule between so many other U.S. officials that she was lobbying.

00:05:25.080 By contrast, the rest of the premiers either did nothing or copied Trudeau's tough talk towards Trump.

00:05:33.000 Yeah, not sure if you're going to be able to out-bully Donald Trump, but good luck with that.

00:05:38.840 Oh, and add to that the official liberal leadership candidates.

00:05:42.360 Here's Chrystia Freeland's campaign ad boasting how much Trump hates her. 1.00

00:05:46.880 I want to let you in on a little secret.

00:05:49.240 Donald Trump doesn't like me very much.

00:05:51.260 Canada, we don't like their representative very much.

00:05:54.520 I'm a tough negotiator.

00:05:56.080 During the first Trump administration, I fought hard to protect Canadian jobs,

00:06:00.820 the Canadian economy, and our way of life.

00:06:03.300 And we won.

00:06:04.660 I left Trudeau's cabinet because I know what we need to do to win that fight again.

00:06:09.580 Donald Trump and his billionaire buddies think they can push us around.

00:06:13.860 Trump thinks we're for sale.

00:06:16.020 But he can take what isn't his.

00:06:18.040 We're not going to let him.

00:06:19.360 And here's Mark Carney calling Trump a bully. 0.86

00:06:22.360 Canada won't bow down to a bully.

00:06:24.120 President Trump, President Trump thinks Canada will cave in.

00:06:30.620 We will never, ever bow down to a bully.

00:06:35.580 In the first 12 days of February, Carney has tweeted about 12 times regarding Donald Trump.

00:06:41.580 But he's just tweeted once about Pierre Poliev.

00:06:43.700 You can see Trudeau, Freeland, and Carney have the same strategy.

00:06:50.200 Entertain Canadians by pretending to be national heroes, marching against Trump, matching him insult for insult.

00:06:58.720 And when that doesn't work, we'll ask people to rally around the flag.

00:07:01.580 We'll all be poorer.

00:07:02.900 We'll lose many jobs and pay more for everything.

00:07:05.940 Our dollar will fall even lower.

00:07:07.140 But at least the liberals will get to play the patriots, which is quite something for them after spending a decade denigrating any Canadian patriots or sense of Canadian history or culture or even the flying of the Canadian flag.

00:07:19.660 They said that was alt-right, remember?

00:07:22.400 So the premiers, they were finally in Washington, D.C.

00:07:25.840 Three months late, but still they're there.

00:07:27.780 Except for provincial premiers typically don't get face time with the president of the United States.

00:07:33.900 I mean, politicians try to have some sort of parity.

00:07:37.420 A foreign minister will meet with another country's foreign minister.

00:07:41.680 A president or head of government will meet with another president or prime minister.

00:07:46.140 It really would be rare for a president to meet with premiers at all, although 13 of them at once is more impressive.

00:07:53.600 My obvious point being, though, Trudeau wasn't there.

00:07:58.460 Trudeau himself wasn't there.

00:07:59.960 He was swanning around Paris, France.

00:08:01.600 I mean, why not grab a few more luxury junkets before he no longer gets the private jets on March 9th?

00:08:07.540 So President Trump did not meet with the premiers yesterday.

00:08:12.980 Ontario's premier, Doug Ford, tried to obscure that by not naming the officials they met with.

00:08:18.800 We had a very constructive conversation.

00:08:21.560 We appreciate the Trump administration facilitating this literally in the last minute.

00:08:27.040 And we're just, we're grateful.

00:08:28.480 We listened, we communicated, and we look forward to further conversations.

00:08:33.560 Who did you speak with exactly?

00:08:34.920 I'd rather not disclose that.

00:08:36.360 High-ranking Trump administration.

00:08:38.640 Is it James Blair, sir?

00:08:39.620 That has been reported already.

00:08:41.780 It'd be great to get a name out there so we can confirm it.

00:08:44.840 Well, I'm not at liberty to say, to be frank with you, but it's a very high-ranking administration.

00:08:52.260 V.C.'s premier, David Eby, was more candid.

00:08:55.460 They met with some staff.

00:08:56.560 We had frank conversations about the 51st state comment, where we underlined that that was a non-starter.

00:09:02.920 That was obviously consistent among all the premiers.

00:09:06.540 And for my part, just underlining how important it was to share information and concerns related to fentanyl on the border with the premiers as well.

00:09:15.960 There are enforcement actions that we can take to make sure that information is flowing.

00:09:19.620 If these are the key points of frustration for the president, we want to take action on those things, too.

00:09:23.820 Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and Director of Presidential Personnel Sergio Gore.

00:09:30.460 I mean, those aren't nobodies.

00:09:33.020 Anyone who works at the White House isn't a nobody.

00:09:35.180 But those are just staff.

00:09:37.600 Now, there's nothing wrong with meeting staff at the White House.

00:09:41.020 But it's like going to an important office somewhere and being told, you don't have an appointment, you'll have to come back later, leave a message with the receptionist, and they'll pass it on.

00:09:51.720 It's sort of pitiful, actually.

00:09:54.340 I mean, the government of Canada has hundreds of bureaucrats and diplomats in Washington whose job is nothing but make connections.

00:10:02.420 Sounds like none of their phone calls are being answered, is my guess, if 13 premiers go to the White House and really are being pawned off on some staff.

00:10:13.860 I see Trudeau has hired a new lobbying firm for $85,000 a month.

00:10:21.620 I mean, obviously, I don't know who's who in Washington, but this firm just started a few months ago, I understand.

00:10:29.720 And it looks pretty junior.

00:10:31.080 I don't see any famous Republican names on there, which is what you'd actually want if you wanted a meeting with Trump.

00:10:37.660 You'd probably want some very senior Republicans who just left office and now sell access.

00:10:43.120 Like, if that's what you're trying to do, instead of meet with one of his assistants, what are we paying $85,000 a month for?

00:10:48.680 What are we doing that anyways, given that we have a whole embassy worth of staff?

00:10:52.020 But even that meeting with the assistants turned into an extra snub.

00:10:58.380 A Canadian reporter who was down there, Colin DeMello, he tweeted this.

00:11:02.200 He said,

00:11:02.540 B.C. Premier David Eby says premiers had a frank conversation with Trump administration officials about the 51st state comments and stressed it's a non-starter.

00:11:12.620 Eby says the two representatives, Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and Director of Presidential Personnel Sergio Gore, agreed to share a few items with Trump.

00:11:21.840 Willingness to engage, work on key areas of agreement.

00:11:25.380 Canada would never be the 51st state.

00:11:28.980 So that's what the Canadian reporter said a Canadian premier told him.

00:11:34.740 But the White House staff in question saw that tweet and they had a bit of a different spin on things.

00:11:39.520 So here's James Blair, the Deputy Chief of Staff, clapping back.

00:11:42.700 He said,

00:11:42.980 So, yeah, not a fun day for the premiers.

00:12:01.740 They didn't get any meaningful meeting.

00:12:04.960 And even the one they did, they were clapped back at.

00:12:08.420 But look, if Trudeau couldn't be bothered to attend the meeting because he was swanning around Paris again, why would Trump attend?

00:12:18.300 Those premiers are Trudeau's problem, aren't they?

00:12:21.840 It's like the premiers have the constitutional authority to speak for the government of Canada.

00:12:27.080 No, they don't.

00:12:28.860 I bet Trump would meet with 15 or 13 U.S. governors of U.S. states, but they're Americans.

00:12:38.620 It would be like if a bunch of mayors, I don't know, from Spain, showed up in Canada.

00:12:43.860 I mean, nice people, but would you really said the hand of the country to meet them?

00:12:48.080 But in fairness to Trump, I think he's the busiest person in the world right now.

00:12:53.460 He's still getting his cabinet choices approved by the U.S. Senate.

00:12:58.880 They have the power to advise and consent and whatnot.

00:13:02.460 Today, it was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

00:13:05.260 Yesterday, it was Tulsi Gabbard.

00:13:07.700 Those are close votes in the Senate.

00:13:10.200 Very important votes for Trump.

00:13:12.340 There's more to come.

00:13:13.780 He's obviously paying attention to that.

00:13:15.540 I bet he's making phone calls for that.

00:13:18.280 There's the Americans Trump is bringing back almost every day from foreign jails. 0.66

00:13:22.760 I don't know if you follow that about Trump, but he really works at bringing home any Americans around the world.

00:13:28.800 In fact, two nights ago, one of them popped by the White House just straight off the plane.

00:13:33.940 Mark Fogel was his name.

00:13:35.060 I really don't know his background.

00:13:36.360 I think he had medical marijuana or something.

00:13:39.520 He had a prescription for it, but he was a resident.

00:13:41.260 I don't know this story, but Trump visited him in person.

00:13:45.380 That's Trump's thing.

00:13:46.440 Bring him home.

00:13:48.200 So he's working on that.

00:13:49.280 Oh, did I forget?

00:13:51.680 The King of Jordan came by.

00:13:53.800 And normally, the King of Jordan isn't a particularly important person in the world, no disrespect.

00:13:58.380 But Trump is working on him to help with Gaza.

00:14:02.700 One of the things that we can do right away is take 2,000 children that are either cancer children or in a very ill state to Jordan, as quickly as possible,

00:14:14.600 and then wait for, I think, the Egyptians to present their plan on how we can work with the president to work on the Gaza challenges.

00:14:22.420 I want to tell you, excuse me, wait, just please, I didn't know that, what you just said, 2,000 children with cancer or other problems, and that's really a beautiful gesture.

00:14:36.900 That's really good, and we appreciate it.

00:14:38.900 Trump really wants to solve this Gaza problem.

00:14:41.420 He wants to fix the whole Middle East. 1.00

00:14:43.660 And here's the King of Jordan, which is actually 70% of the territory historically called Palestine.

00:14:49.240 Trump needs to talk with him and needs to get him on board with his Gaza plan.

00:14:53.900 And that's an important meeting to take today.

00:14:57.540 Oh, just meeting Narendra Modi, the prime minister of the, or the president of the, sorry, I can't remember if he's prime minister or president of India, the largest country in the world.

00:15:08.820 A couple of days ago, it was Japan's new prime minister.

00:15:11.500 Trump is working with Elon Musk in rooting out massive bureaucratic waste.

00:15:15.780 Here's a scene from their joint press conference a couple of days ago where there was Elon Musk, President Trump, and little X, Elon's son.

00:15:24.340 Take a look.

00:15:24.900 So the, at a high level, if you say, what is the goal of Dojo, or, and I think a significant part of the presidency is to restore democracy.

00:15:38.340 This may seem like, well, are we in a democracy?

00:15:40.640 Well, if you don't have a feedback with FX, we'd have to.

00:15:45.780 Sorry.

00:15:46.980 I tell you, gravitas can be difficult sometimes.

00:15:51.300 So if there's not a good feedback loop from the people to the government, and if you have rule of the bureaucrat, if the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?

00:16:06.620 If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the president and the Senate and the House, then we don't live in a democracy.

00:16:18.420 We live in a bureaucracy.

00:16:19.660 Oh, yeah. And then there's that little thing. Yesterday, while the 13 premiers were being given coffee and snacks by some junior staff, yesterday Trump spoke with Vladimir Putin of Russia, and then Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine, to get the peace process underway.

00:16:39.360 I don't see any way. I don't see any way that a country in Russia's position could allow them, just in their position, could allow them to join NATO.

00:16:49.020 I don't see that happening. And long before President Putin, Russia was very strong on the fact that I believe that's the reason the war started, because Biden went out and said that they could join NATO, and he shouldn't have said that.

00:17:01.200 As soon as he said that, I said, you know what? You're going to have a war now. And I was right about that. This is a war that would have never happened if I were president.

00:17:08.740 You don't think it's President Biden's fault, not President Putin? 0.90

00:17:11.320 I think Biden is incompetent. And I think when he said that they could join NATO, I thought that was a very stupid thing to say. 0.99

00:17:19.940 I thought when he said, well, it depends if it's a minor incursion. In other words, it's okay if Russia does a minor incursion. 0.88

00:17:27.720 And I thought that was a very foolish thing to say.

00:17:31.080 I'm told that Joe Biden did not have a single phone call with Vladimir Putin since the war began.

00:17:38.940 I mean, I understand putting on a brave face, but you don't even have a back channel phone conversation.

00:17:45.820 I understand it's the same thing with the Secretary of State under Biden, Antony Blinken.

00:17:50.520 You don't have even diplomatic back channels. I find that astonishing to hear.

00:17:55.900 We know that since the Cold War, there's been that hotline between Moscow and Washington.

00:18:00.860 It's sort of shocking to me that three years has gone by with not a single conversation.

00:18:04.980 Anyways, that's about a year's worth of work that I've just listed from, yeah, and we haven't even talked about all of it.

00:18:12.260 I'm just going with what I remember.

00:18:15.200 Trump is surely doing many other secret or private matters that are not on TV also.

00:18:19.840 And then there's just the boring, regular stuff of dealing with 435 congressmen, 100 senators, and countless other very important people,

00:18:30.000 all of whom are dying for a moment with the president.

00:18:34.220 I mean, how about, oh, just that little matter of the fires wiping out L.A.?

00:18:38.980 Or how about the migrant crisis in New York?

00:18:41.700 Got to talk to those mayors.

00:18:43.100 So, yeah, the 13 Canadian premiers never had a chance.

00:18:49.340 You think Trump was going to sit down and take 10 minutes to listen to the story told by Premier P.J. Akiagok?

00:18:58.680 Yeah, I don't know who that is until I looked it up today.

00:19:02.060 No disrespect, but that's the premier of Nunavut, population 40,000 people.

00:19:06.820 I'm sure he's a great guy, by the way.

00:19:08.840 And actually, I give him credit.

00:19:10.940 He traveled very far to be there in Washington.

00:19:14.080 Probably took him three days, frankly, to get there.

00:19:17.280 But Trump's not going to meet with him.

00:19:19.300 Although I bet Trump would have visited with him if the subject matter of the meeting was not,

00:19:24.960 we're not joining the 51st state.

00:19:26.440 Yeah, we know.

00:19:27.180 You don't have to, you know, you're bantering.

00:19:29.200 But if the subject were how to defend the Arctic sovereignty of the North,

00:19:32.760 I bet Trump would have cared a lot about that.

00:19:35.680 Frankly, I think Trump cares a lot more about that than Canada does.

00:19:40.300 I mean, when Trump talks about Greenland, he's talking about locking in the North

00:19:46.120 so it doesn't all go to China and Russia.

00:19:48.460 I bet you the premier of Nunavut, who I'm pretty sure Donald Trump hasn't heard of,

00:19:53.420 if he became an activist for strengthening the military in the Arctic,

00:19:57.420 maybe he could get an audience with Trump.

00:19:59.360 But just not yesterday.

00:20:01.000 It was a busy day, fixing the world, leading the world,

00:20:04.060 and, yes, taunting the world.

00:20:06.180 I mean, I can't get over Trump's announcement about plastic straws.

00:20:10.480 I mean, just take a look.

00:20:11.940 This part at the end where he talks about sharks just made me chuckle.

00:20:16.140 Just take a look.

00:20:16.960 We're going back to plastic straws.

00:20:18.460 These things don't work.

00:20:20.260 I've had them many times.

00:20:21.600 And on occasion, they break.

00:20:23.980 They explode.

00:20:25.400 If something's hot, they don't last very long, like a matter of minutes,

00:20:29.480 sometimes a matter of seconds. 0.89

00:20:30.980 It's a ridiculous situation. 0.50

00:20:33.560 So we're going back to plastic straws. 0.67

00:20:36.380 I think it's okay.

00:20:38.780 And I don't think that plastic's going to affect a shark very much

00:20:42.740 as they're eating, as they're munching their way through the ocean.

00:20:46.720 Sharks munching.

00:20:49.400 That's just too funny.

00:20:51.020 He really is funny.

00:20:52.300 But back to Ukraine.

00:20:53.460 Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014, when Barack Obama was president

00:20:59.200 and Joe Biden was vice president.

00:21:01.540 Then Putin didn't dare between 2016 and 2020, when Trump was president the first time.

00:21:07.040 Then Putin invaded again in 2022, when Biden was president, and Putin saw weakness.

00:21:14.920 And as we now know, Biden's family was deeply compromised by Russian and Ukrainian bribes

00:21:21.260 and payoffs.

00:21:22.740 Biden didn't just pardon his own son, but pretty much pardoned his entire family, including

00:21:28.100 his brother.

00:21:29.040 I think it's fair to say that the Biden family is a crime family.

00:21:34.320 Putin invaded Ukraine because Biden showed weakness.

00:21:37.660 That is a fact.

00:21:38.940 Other reasons, too, like the fateful decision by Ukraine some 30 years ago, after the fall 0.68

00:21:48.400 of the Berlin Wall, when Ukraine decided to give up its nuclear weapons.

00:21:52.380 If you remember, at the end of the Cold War, Ukraine, which had been a Soviet socialist

00:21:57.120 republic, part of the USSR, part of the Soviet Union, Ukraine, when the dust settle, was left

00:22:03.000 with, I think was at the time, the world's third largest nuclear arsenal.

00:22:07.040 Because so much of the Soviet military was based in Ukraine, including the Russian Navy.

00:22:14.100 So Ukraine was persuaded to give its nukes up under a treaty guaranteed by the West, including

00:22:22.040 America and the UK.

00:22:23.720 Yes, so much for that guarantee, eh?

00:22:26.480 I would say this is a national scale warning about letting yourself be disarmed, don't you

00:22:31.820 think?

00:22:32.020 I mean, if Ukraine had kept its nukes, the chance that Russia would have invaded, even

00:22:38.340 when Obama or Biden were in power, I think it would have been zero, don't you think?

00:22:43.840 I mean, that's the ultimate deterrent.

00:22:45.940 I think there's a lesson there.

00:22:48.020 But back to yesterday's big day, when the premiers were being given a courtesy tour because Trump

00:22:53.700 was busy talking to Putin and Zelensky and making plans to visit Moscow and to have Putin visit

00:22:59.700 America.

00:23:00.760 I want peace, and I want peace.

00:23:02.660 I just want to see people stop getting killed.

00:23:04.960 We're very far away from that particular war, but that's a vicious war.

00:23:09.780 Probably a million and a half soldiers killed in a short period of time.

00:23:13.540 I've never seen anything.

00:23:14.320 I have pictures that are, you wouldn't believe it.

00:23:17.280 You wouldn't believe what you have to look at.

00:23:19.280 Young, beautiful soldiers that are just being decimated.

00:23:23.520 And it would be nice to end it immediately.

00:23:26.820 But we had a very good talk with, people didn't really know what President Putin's thoughts

00:23:34.300 were.

00:23:34.540 But I think I can say with great confidence, he wants to see it ended also.

00:23:38.960 That's good.

00:23:40.420 And we're going to work toward getting it ended and as fast as possible.

00:23:44.780 We'll get something done.

00:23:45.880 We're going to be meeting, actually, tomorrow.

00:23:48.800 They're meeting in Munich, as you know.

00:23:50.260 And we're going to have some other meetings.

00:23:51.880 And we'll be, I'll be dealing with President Putin largely on the phone.

00:23:56.240 And we ultimately expect to meet.

00:23:58.620 In fact, we expect that he'll come here and I'll go there.

00:24:02.400 And we're going to meet also, probably in Saudi Arabia, the first time we'll meet in

00:24:06.680 Saudi Arabia, see if we can get something done.

00:24:09.520 But we want to end that war. 0.83

00:24:11.000 That war is a disaster.

00:24:12.500 It's a really bloody, horrible war.

00:24:14.960 What do you think of all that?

00:24:16.860 I see rage in certain parts of the Twitterverse.

00:24:20.860 Some people are saying that this is granting Putin a victory.

00:24:24.540 Even though there's no deal yet that we know about, it's just the beginning of a negotiation.

00:24:29.220 Officially, the war actually continues to rage on, on the ground.

00:24:33.960 But you can see the shape of the deal a little bit.

00:24:36.420 Here's the new Secretary of Defense, just approved by the Senate a few days ago, Pete Hegseff.

00:24:42.080 We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine.

00:24:46.840 But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic

00:24:55.520 objective.

00:24:57.400 The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome

00:25:04.880 of a negotiated settlement.

00:25:07.840 Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.

00:25:15.160 Now, the NATO membership question is key.

00:25:19.060 NATO is a treaty organization that basically says all for one and one for all.

00:25:23.740 So if any member is attacked, it's like an attack on any of them.

00:25:28.280 It's quite a dramatic idea to have such an alliance spring into place in a country that

00:25:35.920 is currently in the middle of a war.

00:25:38.320 Trump pretty clearly ruled that out.

00:25:40.940 Here's Chrystia Freeland yesterday, though, ruling that in. 1.00

00:25:44.980 She said, Canada stands steadfast with Ukraine and the brave people of Ukraine who are on

00:25:50.040 the front lines of the fight against tyranny.

00:25:52.160 It is in the interest of all democracies to support them.

00:25:55.220 Ukraine must become a full NATO member.

00:25:57.740 Now, I don't know if that is the position of the Canadian government because Freeland is

00:26:02.780 no longer in cabinet.

00:26:04.960 Put aside Freeland's Nazi roots.

00:26:07.360 As you remember, her grandfather was an actual Nazi who expropriated a newspaper from a Jew

00:26:14.320 and turned it into a pro-Hitler propaganda newspaper.

00:26:18.300 And I'm not blaming that on Freeland, who wasn't even born yet.

00:26:21.560 But she tried to cover this up as long as she could.

00:26:26.320 But putting that aside, it's understandable for Freeland to oppose this atrocious war that

00:26:33.980 has driven out millions of Ukrainians as refugees, has seen Russia occupy and annex huge swaths

00:26:41.680 of Ukraine, and has devastated countless lives and destroyed incalculable property. 0.97

00:26:46.740 But what's the solution?

00:26:50.720 I think that's—Trump is interested in deals and solutions.

00:26:55.620 After three years of a terrible meat grinder, is Ukraine going to suddenly be able to repel 1.00

00:27:01.320 Russia, which is three times the population, ten times the artillery, and now has North Koreans 1.00

00:27:08.420 fighting as mercenaries against Ukraine, a kind of expeditionary force?

00:27:12.940 No doubt it is all awful and unfair.

00:27:15.720 But what's the path to victory?

00:27:18.360 Or more to the point, what is victory?

00:27:20.600 Trudeau keeps saying that word.

00:27:22.480 He's gone quiet on the subject over the last few days.

00:27:25.260 But in the past, he has talked about victory.

00:27:27.960 What exactly does victory look like here?

00:27:30.680 Take a look.

00:27:31.360 Canadians know this is a question of right or wrong.

00:27:37.020 Canadians know that, yes, it is incredibly hard for Ukraine to continue to stand against

00:27:43.380 a Russian aggression.

00:27:45.780 And let's be honest, it's hard for the democracies around the world, who are there to support

00:27:51.060 their citizens, who are investing for the future, who are challenged with a challenging

00:27:55.600 economy around the world, to continue to step up as Canada has with close to $9 billion in

00:28:02.140 aid for Ukraine. But we will because the cost on Canadians, on our lives, on our world will be so

00:28:09.500 much greater if Putin wins this war that we will and have to stand every single day until Ukraine wins this war. 0.51

00:28:18.380 It's too dangerous for me to visit Ukraine, but when I visited the Ukraine pavilion at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, I had a heart-to-heart with a Ukrainian hero who wanted to talk about peace.

00:28:32.320 I think that's because so many of his friends and family have died in the war.

00:28:37.420 I think it's different having skin in the game, isn't it? Rather than just being an internet keyboard warrior, as so many are, especially in Canada.

00:28:45.780 Now, Donald Trump famously said he could end the war in one day. Obviously, that hasn't happened, but I think both President Zelensky and President Putin have expressed interest in hearing President Trump's plan, and it sounds like they are open-minded in participating in some sort of negotiated solution.

00:29:09.700 Does that accurately reflect Ukraine's position?

00:29:12.020 Well, I can't speak on behalf of Ukraine's position, but as an American resident and somebody who is passionate about the Ukrainian cause, I can tell you that the ceasefire cannot come soon enough.

00:29:23.600 What we need is lasting peace and a fair peace, and I'm happy to see Trump and Zelensky talking about how to make that happen.

00:29:30.140 What is missing is the desire for Putin to come to the table and negotiate.

00:29:33.940 So what I expect will happen is we'll need further sanctions on Russia to bring them to the negotiating table, and then some kind of agreement can be hammered out. 0.58

00:29:42.860 But I'm not positive that it will happen this year.

00:29:46.980 Now, you said you want a ceasefire soon.

00:29:49.980 I want it soon because I want to stop the loss of life.

00:29:55.540 On the other hand, I want to make sure that that's not a capitulation for Ukraine.

00:29:59.340 Well, and that's the thing.

00:30:00.940 I've heard some people on the Ukrainian side say that a ceasefire could freeze the borders where they are.

00:30:11.240 Now, by the way, Ukraine has an incursion into Kursk, which is a Russian province, so who knows what a ceasefire would mean there.

00:30:21.040 If there were to be a ceasefire, it might be a de facto border.

00:30:27.340 What do you think about that?

00:30:29.340 I have no comment on that.

00:30:30.800 I don't know.

00:30:33.360 Well, are you optimistic?

00:30:36.860 I mean, do you think that Trump will bring peace faster than Biden and Harris, who I guess they didn't bring peace?

00:30:45.720 Do you think Trump will achieve his goal of some sort of negotiated peace?

00:30:50.380 I can't say that I'm optimistic about Trump.

00:30:52.880 I feel like his priority is internal in the United States.

00:30:56.920 It's immigration, and it's drilling oil and other things.

00:31:01.400 As someone who's passionate about Ukraine, I want to see continued aid to Ukraine, both financial and military.

00:31:06.980 And this is not something I expect Trump will provide.

00:31:09.080 So I think that will come more on the shoulders of Europe and Japan and other allies of Ukraine.

00:31:14.640 So I hope that whatever Trump does will not hurt too much, but I'm not super optimistic.

00:31:20.860 I don't know what the peace agreement will look like between Russia and Ukraine.

00:31:23.940 It's clear Trump doesn't want to spend more American money on it, and he definitely doesn't want to send U.S. troops.

00:31:30.960 Trump has talked about an economic role for the U.S. in Ukraine, including having access to Ukrainian minerals.

00:31:36.920 That sounds more like a business deal rather than a plan for foreign aid, sounds to me.

00:31:43.680 We'll see.

00:31:44.220 I mean, Trump's specialty is negotiating with bluster, as we know.

00:31:48.700 So I don't know the contours of the deal.

00:31:50.860 But look at this just for a moment.

00:31:53.020 This is Kaya Kalas.

00:31:54.480 She was the prime minister of Estonia a few years ago.

00:31:58.280 You probably heard of Estonia.

00:31:59.500 It's a very small former Soviet socialist republic.

00:32:03.080 It was part of the USSR, like Ukraine was. 0.60

00:32:05.720 It's just 1.3 million people.

00:32:08.500 That's the size of Calgary.

00:32:10.140 And again, I sympathize absolutely with Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia.

00:32:14.980 Those are the three little Baltic countries that were seized by the Soviets.

00:32:19.480 And really, Russia did everything they could to break them.

00:32:22.980 They were under the Soviet yoke for the better part of a century.

00:32:26.220 So I understand the skepticism and aversion of anyone in Estonia.

00:32:31.660 But this former prime minister of Estonia, population 1.3 million, is now the foreign minister for the entire European Union, which is an astonishingly large claim to make.

00:32:45.180 It's sort of odd to me, given that there are 27 different countries in the European Union.

00:32:49.500 And clearly, they don't all share the same view.

00:32:52.620 But here she is yesterday. 0.90

00:32:54.220 This is Kaya Kalas talking about Trump's announcement.

00:32:59.600 Membership in NATO is the strongest security guarantee there is.

00:33:02.840 And actually, it's also the cheapest security guarantee there is.

00:33:06.000 If we are saying that, you know, it's not going to be NATO membership, but it's going to be some other security guarantees, then the question needs to be answered by everybody.

00:33:17.520 What are these security guarantees really?

00:33:19.940 Again, I would say that, you know, we shouldn't take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started.

00:33:27.360 Because it plays to Russia's court and it is what they want. 0.67

00:33:31.920 Why are we giving them everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started?

00:33:37.640 It's appeasement.

00:33:38.500 It has never worked.

00:33:40.040 Last question.

00:33:41.020 How do you put these things back on the table?

00:33:42.880 How does Europe muscle itself back to the table and put these options on the table again?

00:33:47.220 Is that even possible?

00:33:47.940 No, again, I want to say that, you know, if there is agreement made behind our backs, it will simply not work because you need for any kind of deal, any kind of agreement.

00:33:58.940 You need Europeans to implement this deal. 1.00

00:34:02.000 You need the Ukrainians to implement this deal. 0.97

00:34:04.700 So, I mean, that doesn't also look good if somebody agrees something.

00:34:08.780 And I mean, everybody else has said, OK, fine, you have agreed, but we will not follow this.

00:34:14.160 The Ukrainians will, Ukrainians will resist and we will support them.

00:34:18.580 That sounds a bit like a complaint over turf.

00:34:22.080 Trump basically said he's going to do the deal with Putin and Zelensky.

00:34:25.100 I'm quite certain Trump would listen to the United Kingdom on this.

00:34:28.420 They were such a military support of Ukraine and perhaps some others.

00:34:31.900 But I don't know if he's going to hand a veto over the young Kaya Kalos of Estonia,

00:34:36.920 because I don't think that Kaya Kalos of Estonia or Kaya Kalos, the unelected foreign minister of the European Union,

00:34:43.220 I don't think that she has an army.

00:34:47.160 And that's the currency of war.

00:34:49.740 How many soldiers do you have?

00:34:51.340 That's what Hitler said of the Pope.

00:34:54.500 How many divisions does he have?

00:34:55.860 Or maybe it was Stalin who said that.

00:34:58.780 That's what's going to decide who wins any continued fighting.

00:35:02.400 And if the European Union or NATO itself were able to end the war in some sort of ceasefire or peace treaty.

00:35:09.920 Well, they've had three years to try and they didn't do it.

00:35:14.300 In fact, they sort of scuppered a deal that came close to happening in early 2022.

00:35:20.220 I don't know what a peace deal will look like.

00:35:22.640 I really do believe both parties want one.

00:35:25.520 But the devil's in the details, aren't there?

00:35:27.940 I saw this on the Internet.

00:35:31.440 I find it very interesting.

00:35:33.600 It's a scholarly treatment of Donald Trump and how he negotiates.

00:35:42.040 It's based on reviewing his books and his speeches.

00:35:48.840 And it's pretty interesting.

00:35:50.380 It's called Art of the Power Deal.

00:35:52.980 The Four Negotiation Roles of Donald J. Trump.

00:35:55.760 And it's written by an academic named Eugene B. Kogan.

00:35:58.700 So understand, this is not the art of the deal.

00:36:01.280 This is a scholar who's read all of Trump's books, watched a ton of Trump videos, and has tried to study it and say, well, is there a Trump way?

00:36:12.100 And here's a bit of the abstract, which is the official academic summary.

00:36:15.860 Let me read it to you.

00:36:16.520 My argument is that Trump's coercive negotiation style is best understood through the prism of his four public roles.

00:36:26.940 Observer, performer, controller, and disruptor.

00:36:31.900 In this article, I analyze how these roles translate into his negotiating behavior.

00:36:37.560 Spotting and exploiting vulnerability is his trade.

00:36:40.580 Leverage and bravado are his tools.

00:36:42.400 After assessing the opposing side, Trump uses leverage to threaten his counterpart's weaknesses,

00:36:50.440 while using bravado to play up the advantages of reaching an agreement on his terms.

00:36:55.480 This way, he presents a drastic, structured choice to his opponents, leaving them the least maneuvering space.

00:37:02.000 In the final section of the paper, I illustrate how the four-role framework helps explain Trump's decisions in the nuclear negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

00:37:12.380 I also consider opportunities for further research.

00:37:16.120 I've read that paper twice now in the last week.

00:37:19.240 I think it's really interesting to read how Trump operates if you sort of try and analyze it and to find an underlying theory.

00:37:25.780 And the scholar here himself acknowledges this is important, that there's obviously a lot going on under the radar that Trump hasn't written about or talked about.

00:37:34.860 Obviously, that's the case.

00:37:36.360 But still, there's a lot to learn because Trump does do a lot of his negotiating out in public, all of which is to say, Trump's a bit busy right now.

00:37:44.820 Trump, in his mind, he's saving the world or running the world or, depending on your point of view, he's destroying the world or whatever you think he's doing.

00:37:55.080 But he's pretty busy.

00:37:57.280 Kings and princes and presidents and prime ministers are hanging on his every word.

00:38:01.320 They're lined up to meet him either in the White House or Mar-a-Lago.

00:38:04.300 Trillions of dollars are at stake, millions of lives, the destiny of the United States.

00:38:08.580 And I would say all of Western civilization.

00:38:10.840 You can forgive Donald Trump for not jamming in a meeting that sounds like it was hastily organized with 13 Canadian provincial premiers if Justin Trudeau himself doesn't think it was important enough to do.

00:38:24.940 Stay with us for more.

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00:39:27.140 Hey, it was just a month ago when I was standing on the sidewalk near my own house, and there was a pro-Hamas protest on the street where these activists were reenacting the last moments of Yahya Sinwar, the terrorist leader himself.

00:39:48.220 It was so shocking.

00:39:49.340 It would be like reenacting the final moments of Hitler in the bunker. 0.86

00:39:54.840 And, of course, they were doing this in the heart of the Jewish community, so I just went to take a picture of it.

00:39:59.240 I didn't go there to protest.

00:40:00.940 I didn't even really go there to interview it.

00:40:02.420 I just wanted to capture this grotesque moment.

00:40:04.640 And the police said to me that my mere presence was so offensive to the Hamas activists that if I didn't leave, I would be arrested.

00:40:14.720 And I said, well, I'm on a sidewalk, and I'm a citizen.

00:40:17.400 And they said, get out, or we'll arrest you.

00:40:19.620 And I declined to move.

00:40:21.460 And you know the rest.

00:40:22.700 Here's a quick clip of that.

00:40:24.220 And I don't leave because you say Jews aren't allowed on the streets.

00:40:27.120 In the interest of keeping peace here and public safety, you're under arrest for breach of the peace.

00:40:31.100 Take them in.

00:40:31.500 Ezra Levant is a journalist and publisher of Rebel News, and yesterday he was arrested while reporting on a pro-Palestinian protest in a Jewish neighborhood of Toronto.

00:40:43.580 Over the last hour or so, we've been getting updates about Ezra Levant, the chief of Rebel Media, who has been arrested by the pro-Islamist police force of Justin Trudeau's Toronto.

00:40:56.760 Well, that seems to be breaking out all over the place, where your mere presence is so odious that police consider it grounds for arrest.

00:41:06.160 Take a look here.

00:41:07.140 This is a woman named Isabel Vaughn Spruce.

00:41:09.460 She lives in Birmingham.

00:41:10.560 And here she is being accosted by a police officer who says her mere presence, simply standing there, is so upsetting that if she doesn't move, she'll be charged criminally.

00:41:22.900 Take a look at this video.

00:41:23.960 Your mere presence here is causing people to arrest an alarm and distress.

00:41:27.520 So the police have told me before in an email I am allowed to be in this area.

00:41:31.240 Right, okay.

00:41:32.780 So you're not allowed to be within 150 metres, like I say, because your mere presence is causing people to arrest an alarm and distress.

00:41:37.560 So me personally, I'm not allowed to come within 150 metres of an abortion centre.

00:41:41.900 So with you being the leader of an organisation, for an anti-abortion organisation, should I say.

00:41:46.240 Sorry, what do you mind?

00:41:47.080 Sorry, I apologise.

00:41:47.980 Sorry, I didn't hear you.

00:41:49.040 No, no, no, that's okay.

00:41:51.820 It is causing people to arrest an alarm and distress.

00:41:54.200 And although I know you're not saying anything, it is causing people to these issues, because they know who you are.

00:41:58.240 Do you understand?

00:41:58.840 So because somebody knows who I am, then that's causing them harassment?

00:42:03.300 Because you're the leader of an anti-abortion organisation, it is causing people to these issues.

00:42:07.840 I'm not going to go into the internet out of it, because you know that. You know you shouldn't be here.

00:42:11.080 No, I don't. I don't. I think I'm perfectly entitled to be here.

00:42:13.700 I'm going to ask you politely to move. Would you do that for me, please? Would you leave 150 metres above the zone?

00:42:17.560 I really don't see that I need to. I'm literally just standing here silently saying some prayers.

00:42:21.160 Is there anything I can reasonably say or do to make you leave at this moment in time?

00:42:24.360 I don't think that is a reasonable thing to ask me to do, simply because of my beliefs that I'm being asked to move.

00:42:31.420 Well, that's Isabel Vaughn-Spruce, who joins us now via Skype from Birmingham, along with Lois McClatchy Miller, who is with the Alliance Defending Freedom, who is helping Isabel fight back.

00:42:43.540 Isabel, first of all, congratulations on holding your ground, and I think you've proved yet again the wisdom of recording your interactions with police.

00:42:53.580 It's a scary thing to do. I mean, someone, I guess in the UK, cops don't have guns, but nonetheless, they are intimidating.

00:43:01.420 So good for you for holding your ground. Tell us a little bit more about that encounter. When was that? And how did it end? Were you, in fact, arrested?

00:43:11.240 Yeah, so this happened about a week ago in Birmingham, and it becomes even more ludicrous when you realise the backstory to this, that already I was arrested previously for my silent prayers on exactly the same spot.

00:43:23.380 I went to court. I went to court. I was acquitted. I was rearrested two weeks later by six police officers who took me away in a police van, telling me my prayers were an offence.

00:43:33.920 And even after that, I had police officers coming out, trying to give me tickets, telling me I'd be fined.

00:43:39.080 And in the end, I had to resort to making a claim against the police for unlawful arrest, for false imprisonment and for assault. And I received a settlement for that.

00:43:49.020 And now, since then, this has happened. So, you know, before I was being told that my prayers were an offence. Now, effectively, it's me that's the offence.

00:43:57.980 It's all very well giving me compensation. But if that doesn't translate into changes, what's it worth?

00:44:03.480 It was never about me being out of pocket. It was about officers across the force behaving very unprofessionally or grossly misunderstanding the law, which still seems to be happening.

00:44:14.500 You know, there are some people who get a black mark against them. It's almost like the police are instructed, go after this person.

00:44:22.040 And if I'm not mistaken, the U.S. Constitution talks about bills of attainder, which is basically get Isabel, like a law that would be so directly tailored to you. 0.77

00:44:32.780 Based on what you've just said, it seems to me someone in authority has marked you in some way.

00:44:39.180 Like the fact that you sued, and I understand you won 13,000 pounds, which is about 23,000 Canadian dollars.

00:44:46.240 That's not nothing. I mean, that's symbolic.

00:44:48.500 Even if it was $1, the courts found for you and against them, that's what's confusing to me here is normally I say to people, sue, fight back.

00:44:58.580 Well, you did. And yet the bad guys are still coming. What's going on?

00:45:04.300 It seems to me like the police have already decided their own agenda, and they're rewriting the law to fit that.

00:45:10.620 And that's not how policing works. That's not how the law works.

00:45:13.760 The law is what it is. You know, the public street is a public street, and I am a member of the public.

00:45:19.560 Being almost as inoffensive as you could possibly be, I'm standing silently on that public street.

00:45:25.900 So if that's how low the bar is for criminality, then every person walking down that street should have broken the law already just by virtue of being there.

00:45:34.660 The law does not say that you can't come within 150 metres of an abortion centre, as the police officer told me.

00:45:40.500 It's certain behaviours within that zone, including protesting, which I never do outside an abortion centre, and I certainly was not doing on that occasion.

00:45:48.740 So we're really seeing two-tier policing because, you know, there's lots of people in that street who some people might find certain things that they believe to be offensive.

00:45:58.660 You know, there's abortion workers who, you know, walk down that street, and some people might find their work offensive.

00:46:05.480 But that doesn't mean they're not allowed to walk down the street.

00:46:07.800 We can't start criminalising people, you know, because we disagree with them, which is essentially what has happened here.

00:46:14.820 You know, I presume you're Christian, and you were having a quiet prayer in your own mind.

00:46:19.280 And I think that, in particular, has been deemed offensive by the police.

00:46:24.460 I was in London for a massive rally of about 100,000 supporters of Hamas.

00:46:30.000 Like, it was truly terrifying.

00:46:31.860 And they were so overt and explicit with threats, with calls for violence.

00:46:38.180 And the police were acting as concierges.

00:46:41.180 It truly is two-tier policing.

00:46:43.620 Let's ask Lois McClatchy Miller. 1.00

00:46:45.520 Lois, you're with ADF International, which is a free speech-oriented group that has other battles as well.

00:46:53.740 What's the state of things now?

00:46:55.460 In Canada, you can sue the government for violating your rights, and you can sue for a kind of punitive damage against the government called charter damages.

00:47:04.160 That's just what it's called in Canada.

00:47:05.400 And you can sue for an enormous amount to sort of teach the government a lesson.

00:47:11.040 It would be sort of the equivalent of exemplary damages in civil court.

00:47:14.700 I don't mean to get into too much jargon.

00:47:16.340 I'm just saying if the government keeps on misbehaving, courts have the power to really punish them.

00:47:24.180 Is there such a thing in the United Kingdom?

00:47:26.160 If the police continue to harass Isabel, even though the courts have exonerated her, is there some way to tackle the police in a way to get them to comply with the law themselves?

00:47:39.760 Well, this actually forms part of a broader story, which Isabel has been involved with, where we've constantly seen police step out of bounds of the law when it comes to buffer zones, these zones that the government have implemented around 150 metres from abortion facility.

00:47:56.900 That's right.

00:47:57.200 Not just at the door, but across several streets.

00:48:00.120 Unfortunately, the confusion that we've seen is that while Isabel has interactions where she's able to prove that the police have been in Iran, in other parts of the country, we have other individuals that we're supporting who have been convicted for nothing more than standing, praying silently in their head.

00:48:14.180 Adam Smith-Connor was a military veteran in Bournemouth, and just in October there, he was found guilty of a crime because of his silent prayers in his head.

00:48:23.840 Adam Smith-Connor will be supporting him to appeal that judgment in July, so I think what we're seeing is a difference across the country, depending on where you are, police might interpret this law differently, and to us that says, well, it's a bad law, it's too vague.

00:48:37.120 It's too vague if these police officers see it so differently between one person standing silently getting a payout of £13,000 and one person getting a conviction in which they had to pay the authorities £9,000.

00:48:50.400 And so I think what we're pushing for right now is clarity, it's for the government to come out and say, you know what, silent prayer is never a crime, thoughts are not a crime, someone's mere presence on a street is obviously not a crime, and we really need that to be emphasised from the authorities involved.

00:49:06.560 You know, it really is a country where two-tier justice is, it's not just a slogan, I really detect it, I mean, I follow the case of Tommy Robinson, who's currently in prison, in solitary confinement, an 18-month sentence, he'll serve half of it, for posting a video online that a judge told him not to.

00:49:25.380 That seems like quite an astonishingly punitive fine.

00:49:30.340 You've talked about various pro-life cases.

00:49:34.100 The government set up 24-hour-a-day courts to prosecute social media offences related to the Southport stabbings, which many of which have later been proved to be true.

00:49:45.880 It was a terrorist did the stabbing.

00:49:47.840 It seems like there's such a double standard when it comes to policing hurty words.

00:49:53.420 I mean, everything I've just described here is word crimes, or thought crimes, or feelings crimes, or what's in your own mind as you pray crimes.

00:50:04.560 It just, it doesn't feel like the Britain we used to learn about in school, like the mother of parliament and the source of freedom of expression.

00:50:14.320 It just, it feels like things are careening off course there.

00:50:17.340 Do ordinary people in the UK think about this, or is it just the activists that I've just listed?

00:50:24.000 I mean, do ordinary Brits feel like their freedom's slipping away?

00:50:28.140 I think there's mounting frustrations.

00:50:30.700 I mean, Isabel has known this for many years, that pro-lifers get kind of a second-tier treatment when it comes to the law.

00:50:37.660 But for a long time, it was only maybe Christians or pro-lifers who really experienced and knew about this kind of two-tier policing.

00:50:43.660 But I think as the problem deepens, the media, the press are doing a great job.

00:50:48.440 And we have this new media class coming through of podcasters and Twitter influencers and those who weren't necessarily controlled by the establishment, BBC, that kind of thing.

00:50:57.180 And so as the public learns more and sees more examples of this kind of two-tier policing, it's becoming impossible to ignore.

00:51:05.240 And I think that is mounting some frustrations and some pushback against these different standards that the police have for people of different views.

00:51:12.060 You know, a country that is supposed to celebrate diversity, but somehow those with Christian or pro-life views are somehow treated so much worse.

00:51:19.840 So I think it is coming to a sharp head now.

00:51:23.120 Isabel, are there any cases proceeding against you now?

00:51:25.840 Are you subject to any more charges?

00:51:28.280 Like, for example, in Birmingham two weeks ago, were you actually charged?

00:51:32.060 I'm not sure if I caught how that story ended.

00:51:35.400 No, but, you know, just to make it clear, the police weren't just maybe, you know, giving me a little bit of advice.

00:51:41.660 I was being told categorically to move, which they had no right to do.

00:51:46.380 And the frustrating thing is that, you know, all throughout these cases that have been brought against me in the past,

00:51:51.400 I've had to go very public with this or at least allow it to be shared very publicly in an effort to seek justice.

00:51:58.440 You know, I've had my photo all over the newspapers of me being arrested, neighbours asking me why I've been arrested,

00:52:03.920 people who have no idea about, you know, my job and my work.

00:52:07.500 Most people aren't prepared to have their livelihoods, their reputation, their relationships affected by something like this.

00:52:14.140 And so they're resorting to being treated like second class citizens.

00:52:18.400 You know, there's a rule for one and there's a rule for another.

00:52:20.980 And that's not how the law should work.

00:52:23.820 You know, I was quite despondent about the state of freedom of speech because I felt that big tech was slowly strangling any opinions that were outside the mainstream.

00:52:35.860 And then a shocking thing happened.

00:52:39.280 Elon Musk bought Twitter and really broadened the spectrum of opinions.

00:52:43.580 Really, I think he said it best when he said, we will ban what's illegal, but we really won't be stricter than the law.

00:52:50.800 And I thought that made a lot of sense.

00:52:52.520 Since then, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has said he intends to lay off 40,000 censors and lean back into free speech, including on testy issues like transgenderism.

00:53:05.740 And he specifically said he's going to rely on the State Department, the U.S. government, to help him do that in overseas markets.

00:53:15.080 I don't know if he was talking about the U.K. in particular.

00:53:17.620 So let me ask you this, has Elon Musk's free speech approach to Twitter and perhaps what might come from Facebook, is that changing how these issues are discussed in the U.K.?

00:53:31.880 Is that, I don't know, maybe there's just a lot more arrests and non-crime hate incidents or whatever being, what is the effect on the ground in the U.K.

00:53:43.460 of this pendulum swinging back in America towards free speech?

00:53:50.540 I think we're realizing how much support there is from others, because I think people were feeling quite isolated in this, in the past.

00:53:57.400 Like Lois was saying, pro-lifers for years and years have been facing this two-tier policing situations.

00:54:04.360 And now we realize we're not alone, that a lot of other people have been facing this as well, particularly Christians, whether it's street preachers and people like that.

00:54:12.660 But we realize it's just going further and further out, these restrictions that are being, you know, discrimination that is happening against people.

00:54:21.680 And I think, you know, the free speech that is allowed on places like Twitter and, you know, maybe more so on Facebook, as things might change there as well.

00:54:30.080 I think that really helps people to recognize the unity that there is amongst people on the ground level in being unhappy with how things are in this country.

00:54:42.780 And I think there's many, many people who all we're asking for is the law to be, you know, fairly applied to everybody.

00:54:50.060 And that's all Christians that I know and pro-lifers that I know are asking for. 0.71

00:54:53.340 We just want some fairness in the law.

00:54:55.800 And I really hope that in the future we can at some point see that happening.

00:54:59.020 But it's not happening yet.

00:55:01.140 Lois, how is ADF fighting back?

00:55:03.320 Do you guys crowdfund your legal defense?

00:55:05.760 Are there other cases you're fighting for right now?

00:55:08.980 I mean, I think that the Internet isn't just a place for free speech.

00:55:12.740 It's a place where a lot of little people can come together to make a – if everyone chipped in 10 pounds, you know, you can put together enough dough to hire a quality lawyer.

00:55:22.340 That's really how Rebel News was built.

00:55:25.580 How are you approaching this in the U.K.?

00:55:27.520 Do you crowdfund?

00:55:29.000 Do you have other cases?

00:55:30.120 Give me just a little bit of the state of affairs in the U.K.

00:55:33.100 Thank you.

00:55:33.680 Well, absolutely.

00:55:34.400 We are supported entirely by private donors.

00:55:37.160 Anyone who comes to ask for our legal help receives everything for free.

00:55:40.600 They don't pay a dollar.

00:55:41.820 They don't pay a pound.

00:55:42.880 But we do rely on the generosity of givers around the world to support people like Isabel who are going through situations where their speech is being oppressed.

00:55:51.500 We have several other cases coming up.

00:55:53.600 As I mentioned, Adam Smith-Connor, who was the Army veteran who got criminally convicted for praying in his head.

00:56:00.160 And next month we'll be back in court in Bournemouth where a lady will be prosecuted for standing with a sign saying, 0.98

00:56:06.860 here to help – here to talk if you want.

00:56:10.460 An open vote for a conversation.

00:56:12.900 And she will be in court for that.

00:56:15.400 But I think what's interesting, Ezra, you were mentioning the effect of Twitter and Elon buying X, now X.

00:56:21.600 And I think these things have had an incredible cultural impact.

00:56:25.860 They've really changed the way that we expect to have our right to free speech respected.

00:56:31.040 But around the world we see that if governments are not on board with free speech, then there is only so much that Elon or Mark Zuckerberg can do.

00:56:39.540 We have cases at ADF International across the world where people are in court for things they legally were allowed to say on Twitter or on Facebook.

00:56:47.660 But it's the authorities who are censoring it, either under blasphemy laws in the Middle East and parts of Africa,

00:56:53.400 or under censorship laws, hate speech laws in Europe and Mexico, and I believe Canada, yourself as well there, Ezra.

00:57:00.980 So it really is a global phenomenon.

00:57:03.520 We're trying to take a global approach to solving this crisis by challenging these laws across the world.

00:57:09.360 I'm terrified.

00:57:10.280 I follow in the news that the U.K. government, led by Keir Starmer, is looking at bringing in an Islamophobia law, really,

00:57:17.440 to enshrine a kind of blasphemy law, particularly protecting Islam. 0.51

00:57:22.720 And so I think as other parts of the world move towards freedom, the U.K. is headed the wrong direction.

00:57:27.240 Well, it's nice to spend some time with you, too.

00:57:29.440 I wish you good luck.

00:57:31.200 Isabel, don't give up.

00:57:32.780 One of our reporters, David Menzies, was arrested five times last year for just doing what you did, for standing on the sidewalk.

00:57:41.000 In his case, he wasn't praying.

00:57:43.140 He was doing journalism, but that's a protected activity as well.

00:57:48.020 And I think hopefully in the end you will prevail.

00:57:52.420 You certainly seem to have courage and you have smarts, and it looks like you've got good allies in the ADF.

00:57:58.060 And thanks to Lois McClatchy-Miller, too.

00:58:00.780 I wish you guys good luck, and we'll keep in touch.

00:58:03.480 Thank you so much.

00:58:04.740 All right.

00:58:05.240 There you have it.

00:58:05.960 If you want to learn more, go to the website, adfinternational.org.

00:58:10.120 Stay with us.

00:58:10.840 More ahead.

00:58:11.240 Hopefully you're having a good time with this podcast, but I guarantee a better time would be coming to Alaska with me, Drea Humphrey,

00:58:23.620 and my other Rebel colleagues.

00:58:26.800 You've got to find out more at our special website, rebelnewscruise.com.

00:58:32.220 But it's taking place June 18th to June 25th, a vacation trip of a lifetime.

00:58:39.760 Again, that's rebelnewscruise.com.

00:58:42.060 I'll see you there.

00:58:43.000 Oh, hi, everybody.

00:58:51.280 Welcome back.

00:58:51.820 You know, there's so much cooking in Rebel World. 1.00

00:58:53.840 I just wanted to tell you a few things.

00:58:55.720 In the United Kingdom, as you know, we have a new reporter.

00:58:59.060 Her name is Sammy Woodhouse, and she's doing great.

00:59:01.720 By the way, she's one of the bravest people I've ever met in my life.

00:59:04.660 She was one of the 1,400 victims in the Rotherham rape gang crisis, and she was the whistleblower there.

00:59:10.620 She's the one who stood up and said enough and told the media about it, and she continues to be a hero for so many British women to this day.

00:59:19.800 So she works for us full time. 1.00

00:59:21.820 The other day, she was down in London covering the Farmer Rebellion.

00:59:25.680 They're taking on their farmers in the U.K.

00:59:28.580 Their socialist prime minister, Keir Starmer, wants to put an inheritance tax, which will basically destroy the idea of the family farm,

00:59:35.420 because you've got to sell the farm to pay the tax.

00:59:38.460 You can't hand it down to your next generation.

00:59:41.080 It's a terrible war on food, and the Labour government says as much.

00:59:45.040 So Sammy was down there.

00:59:46.080 She's doing great work in the U.K.

00:59:49.440 Today and tomorrow, our Sheila Gunn-Reed is covering the important federal court case of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms,

00:59:58.140 challenging the constitutionality of Trudeau invoking the prorogation of Trudeau dissolving Parliament.

01:00:05.920 Now, when I first heard of that, I thought there's no way that'll work.

01:00:09.060 But John Carpe proved to me that, in fact, it worked precisely that way in the United Kingdom.

01:00:15.000 Talk about a huge precedent.

01:00:17.280 Now, I've been following along Sheila's live tweeting today, and it looks like the judge is being skeptical.

01:00:23.580 I think the judge has made – it seems to me the judge is politically predisposed to not siding with the JCCF.

01:00:31.400 It would be quite a dramatic thing, and I think judges prefer not to be dramatic if they can.

01:00:37.800 Tomorrow, we've got one more thing going on around 12.45 p.m. Eastern time, and that is Ontario, as you may know, is having an election.

01:00:45.440 And I'm completely unenthused about it.

01:00:48.420 Doug Ford is a conservative in name only.

01:00:52.060 The symbol that I'll always have for him is the statue of Sir John A. MacDonald at Queen's Park.

01:00:58.560 That's the Ontario legislature.

01:01:00.560 It has this huge wooden sarcophagus built around it because Doug Ford doesn't quite have the guts to tear it down.

01:01:08.200 He's not completely woke, but he doesn't have the courage to stand by it.

01:01:12.380 So it's in a big wooden box.

01:01:13.920 Yeah, whoo, one cheer for the Conservative Party, only in that the Liberals and the NDP are actually worse.

01:01:21.120 So we'll be live streaming that debate for any Ontarians and others who care.

01:01:25.380 That'll be tomorrow at 12.45 p.m. Eastern time.

01:01:29.320 But, of course, the big challenge in Canada right now these days is how the Liberal Party has decided to put the country's affairs on hold while they hand-select our new prime minister.

01:01:41.440 It's really outrageous. We'll continue to cover that story.

01:01:45.300 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.

01:01:49.020 Good night.

01:01:50.080 And keep fighting for freedom.

01:01:51.160 Good night.

01:01:51.820 Good night.

01:01:52.260 Good morning.

01:02:00.400 Good night.

01:02:02.280 Thank you.

Rebel News Podcast - February 14, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Trump avoids Canada's premiers in latest excursion to White House

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