Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Two opinion polls that the media party doesn’t really like

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Great show for you today. I'm going to take you through a couple of opinion

00:00:04.860 polls that you might find surprising, and then we have an interesting interview. But before I

00:00:08.440 get to that, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's the

00:00:12.140 video version of this show. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe, eight bucks a

00:00:16.560 month. You get the video version. I do the show every weekday. Sheila Gunn-Reed does the show

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00:00:24.780 you're supporting Rebel News because we don't take any money from the government, and it shows.

00:00:29.060 All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:38.020 Tonight, two opinion polls that the media party doesn't really like. It's May 17th,

00:00:51.160 and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:52.480 You party for freedom!

00:00:55.520 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:00:59.060 Peter Thiel, the great Silicon Valley entrepreneur, one of the few conservatives in

00:01:11.560 that city, which is why he left it, actually. He had a question that he would ask in job

00:01:15.840 interviews, and we often ask that same question in job interviews here at Rebel News. This

00:01:21.020 is an excerpt from Thiel's book called Zero to One, as summarized very well by Farnham Street

00:01:26.440 Blog. I've got the book, two copies of it, actually, but here's the succinct summary that

00:01:31.880 I'll quote from on this treatment of it. When Peter Thiel interviews someone, he likes to

00:01:37.900 ask the following question. What important truth do very few people agree with you on?

00:01:43.520 This question sounds easy because it's straightforward. Actually, it's very hard to answer.

00:01:47.400 It's intellectually difficult because the knowledge that everyone is taught in school is by definition

00:01:53.120 agreed upon, and it's psychologically difficult because anyone trying to answer must say something

00:01:58.600 she knows to be unpopular. Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is even shorter supply than genius.

00:02:07.020 Isn't that true? I'll just keep reading a little bit more because I love this.

00:02:09.720 The most common answers, according to Thiel, are our educational system is broken and urgently needs

00:02:17.600 to be fixed. America is exceptional. There is no God. These are bad answers. The first and the second

00:02:26.060 statements might be true, but many people already agree with them. The third statement simply takes

00:02:31.040 one side in a familiar debate. A good answer takes the following form. Most people believe in X,

00:02:37.760 but the truth is the opposite of X. I'm going to come back to the news of the day in a moment,

00:02:43.540 but let me read this insight. And it's an insight into technology, which is where Peter Thiel is,

00:02:49.280 and it's Thiel's repeated entrepreneurial successes into progress, but also into the field of ideas and

00:02:54.960 politics, which is what we're concerned with here. What does this contrarian question have to do with

00:03:02.160 the future? In the most minimal sense, the future is simply the set of all moments yet to come.

00:03:08.720 We hope for progress when we think about the future. To Thiel, that progress takes place in two ways.

00:03:15.840 Horizontal or extensive progress means copying things at work, going from one to N. Horizontal

00:03:21.500 progress is easy to imagine because we already know what it looks like. Vertical or intensive process

00:03:27.600 means doing new things, going from zero to one. Vertical progress is harder to imagine because

00:03:33.280 it requires doing something nobody else has ever done. If you take one typewriter and build 100,

00:03:39.680 you have made horizontal progress. If you have a typewriter and build a word processor,

00:03:44.400 you have made vertical progress. At the macro level, the single word for horizontal progress is

00:03:49.520 globalization, taking things that work somewhere and making them work everywhere. The single word for

00:03:55.120 vertical zero to one progress is technology. Isn't that great thinking? That is so true.

00:04:01.200 And when we interview people here at Rebel News, I'm of course interested in their background and if

00:04:06.080 they have a resume, sure I am. They typically tell me that they went to school and what they studied.

00:04:10.880 That's interesting enough if they learn something real, especially a technical skill.

00:04:15.920 But if anyone has a general education, I'm interested more in their ability to think critically and not

00:04:20.800 just to conform to a big bureaucracy, which is what a university or a college is. I thought Jordan

00:04:26.720 Peterson got it right when he talked about the real value of a fancy university education. Sure,

00:04:32.400 you're going to learn things, of course you are, but it's really just a proxy for can you pass an entrance

00:04:38.000 exam? Can you follow rules for a few years and please assist them? He says, and I think he's right, that

00:04:45.760 the biggest value of going to university might actually be just finding a spouse that is socially

00:04:51.280 and intellectually and economically headed in the same direction as you. Here's Professor Peterson when

00:04:56.000 he spoke about this last December at the Democracy Fund event. So why pay $150,000 to go to university?

00:05:03.920 How about to find a wife or a husband? Right? That might, just that alone, because you have a select pool

00:05:11.280 then, of people who are roughly your, say, intellectual and social peers. The universities

00:05:18.880 for a long time did a pretty good job of screening applicants, and so it might be worth $150,000 in

00:05:24.080 four years if one of the things you accomplish between the ages of 18 and 22 is you meet the person

00:05:28.880 you're going to spend the rest of your life with. That's a big deal. Well, it gives you four years to

00:05:33.200 mature. It gives you four years to learn how to be independent. It gives you four years,

00:05:37.920 it allows you to purchase a socially sanctioned identity for four years that you have to make

00:05:45.680 some sacrifices to maintain. Let's say you have to go to class and study, but while you're doing

00:05:50.320 that you can actually think a little bit, you can learn to be a citizen, you can contemplate your

00:05:55.280 future, you can experiment, and you can all do that while you're becoming more mature and independent

00:06:00.320 looking for a partner, and the universities do provide all of that. Anyways, here at Rebel News,

00:06:04.160 I want to know if someone has the courage to think differently, to be a contrarian, a non-conformist,

00:06:10.640 not for technology reasons, but for idea reasons, to keep our democracy strong. This was especially

00:06:15.760 valuable during the pandemic, wasn't it? When the entire world was saying the same thing, reading from

00:06:20.560 the same talking points, it was very difficult and very valuable to be a dissenter and to be a dissenter

00:06:26.960 in public. How rare was that? Being a Rebel News staffer, especially on camera, means saying unpopular

00:06:33.200 truths every day. To me, that's more valuable than someone telling me they got a degree in humanities

00:06:38.880 from an Ivy League university. In fact, your ability to get through four years of indoctrination and get a

00:06:44.160 validation from that place after four years, get a degree, it actually plants some seeds of doubt in me.

00:06:50.160 Were you able to keep your own opinions through it all? Were you able to stay true to yourself through

00:06:54.080 it all? Or did you just comply for compliance sake? Then it would impress me. Contrarianism,

00:07:00.960 individualism, freedom of thought, the right to dissent and make use of that right, that's valuable

00:07:05.600 to me. That's why I like Teal's question. Thanks for letting me tell you about that. Of course,

00:07:10.720 I have a dozen answers to that question myself, as you know. I'm very contrarian. But in Canada,

00:07:15.360 in politics, what important truth do very few people agree with you on?

00:07:23.440 It's almost impossible for a politician to answer, isn't it? Because by definition, if only a few

00:07:29.120 people agree with you on it, you're not going to win in a, you know, first-past-the-post raw vote

00:07:35.840 situation, which is what an election is. But here's the trick, and it's something we've learned. When the

00:07:41.120 establishment tells you that very few people agree with you on something, they're often wrong.

00:07:49.680 The media party may think everyone is in agreement about something. Trump is evil. We need more gun 0.99

00:07:55.280 control. Global warming is going to do much. They think everyone believes that. Of course,

00:08:00.000 you've got to take your booster shot. But they're just talking in their own echo chamber. Everyone they

00:08:04.880 know says that, but that's just because they know a very closed loop. In fact, in many ways, the media

00:08:11.200 elites are the fringe minority they accuse us of being. The truckers proved that, didn't they?

00:08:16.880 They proved that millions of Canadians actually dissented. They weren't happy with what was happening.

00:08:22.560 Do you know what issue is a double Peter Thiel, as in it's tough to say it in public for fear of

00:08:27.360 being marginalized? But in fact, it's actually quite popular. Well, mass open borders immigration

00:08:36.960 and pumping the brakes on it. That's the answer to the double Peter Thiel. Here, take a look at a new

00:08:42.640 Leger poll in the popular Journal de Montréal. That's the largest selling newspaper in Quebec, actually.

00:08:48.480 Let me show it to you first en français. This is how it appears on the website. Sondage.

00:08:54.560 That means an opinion poll. I'll click the translate on the page so you can read it in

00:08:59.760 Google translated English. I mean, it's not a huge survey, but it's about immigration.

00:09:03.840 Survey. Immigration targets set by Ottawa. Quebecers want to have their say.

00:09:08.640 But this is more than just a poll, but having a say or who gets to decide. With all due respect to

00:09:15.040 the initiative of the century lobby, a majority of Quebecers want to have a say on federal immigration

00:09:20.080 thresholds before opening the doors of Canada wide. Now, that century thing they're talking about,

00:09:26.400 there's a crazy proposal to triple Canada's population to 100 million people. That's the

00:09:33.840 century part in just a couple of decades. Why would you do that? Why would you bring 60,

00:09:38.960 70 million people here to just do it? Sure, Canada is the second largest country in the world,

00:09:45.440 but most of it is uninhabitable. Those migrants they're talking about, often from 1.00

00:09:50.080 tropical countries, they are not going to live in Inuvik and even if they wanted to, they couldn't. 0.99

00:09:54.720 It can't sustain it. They're going to go to Toronto and Montreal and Vancouver and other big cities. So,

00:10:01.920 imagine 20 million person metropolises, the majority of whom will have just arrived. What a terrible idea

00:10:11.120 in terms of housing and hospitals and schools and traffic and policing and cultural fit and jobs,

00:10:17.040 everything. It's just a crazy idea. That's this sensory initiative thing. And here's the reply of

00:10:24.160 Quebecers. Indeed, 73% of respondents to a recent Leger Le Journal survey believe that

00:10:30.240 Quebec should be consulted regarding the federal government's immigration targets.

00:10:34.400 The majority is confirmed as much among Francophones, 78%, as among non-French speakers, 58%.

00:10:42.400 So Quebecers don't want some lobby group to make a decision. They want to be asked about this

00:10:47.600 decision. But look at the question about raw numbers of immigration itself. The issue of federal

00:10:53.280 thresholds has come back in the news since the publication of our file on Ottawa's willingness to

00:10:59.680 welcome 500,000 new permanent residents annually from 2025, double the number received in 2014.

00:11:07.520 However, only 22% of them want to raise the thresholds for Quebec.

00:11:11.920 By adding up the people in favor of the status quo, we still get 51% of respondents opposed to a decline.

00:11:18.480 Indeed, the idea of a decrease only gets the support of a minority with 41%, despite the many debates on

00:11:24.000 the subject during the last election campaign. Did you see that trickery there? Did you see that trickery

00:11:28.720 though? That's editorial commentary. They're trying to fudge things. Why did they add status quo people

00:11:35.280 to the same chunk as people who want to raise immigration? Why wouldn't they add it to the lower 0.87

00:11:42.880 it and say 78% want the numbers the same or low? Obviously, to spin the fact that by a ratio of two

00:11:48.800 to one, people prefer lower immigration to higher immigration. Do you see the trick they did there?

00:11:54.240 They added the, oh, I don't knows, to the, yeah, we want mores. And they say, oh, it's a majority.

00:11:59.600 They're tricksters there, aren't they? There are other points about Quebecers' desire that their

00:12:05.040 immigration speak French. Of course, they want that. They want to preserve their cultural heritage.

00:12:09.600 I'm not sure it's possible to add 60 or 70 million people to Canada through immigration without swamping

00:12:15.840 French as a language. There are only 67 million people who live in all of France total. You cannot 1.00

00:12:24.160 bring in tens or a hundred million people to Canada and expect French to have a future. Just 1.00

00:12:30.160 saying the obvious. Like I say, Peter Thiel's question, what is the truth that few people agree

00:12:36.160 on with you? Well, reducing immigration is actually a demand by quite a few Canadians, including Quebecers,

00:12:42.800 even if the Journal de Montréal doesn't believe so. And for good reason. In the country of a hundred

00:12:47.120 million people, eight million French speakers, which is approximately what there is now.

00:12:50.960 That's a rounding error now. It's not a founding nation anymore, is it? Okay. I want to show you

00:12:57.920 one more poll. This one's in English. It's by Angus Reid. It's a different subject altogether.

00:13:03.120 Canada's global image. Half of Canadians believe nations' international reputation is on the decline.

00:13:08.880 Now, before I go further, in some ways, I don't really care what other people in the world think

00:13:14.880 about Canada. This isn't high school where you want to be popular to fit in. We are who we are. We're a

00:13:20.000 country. That said, if our friends and allies think less of us, it behooves us to ask why. And if our

00:13:25.440 enemies like us more, we should ask why also. Why would we want dictatorships like China to praise us?

00:13:31.280 Here I'll read the preamble to the Angus Reid press release. A cache of leaked Pentagon documents

00:13:36.720 recently confirmed a secret that many have suspected for years, as Prime Minister Justin

00:13:40.880 Trudeau reportedly admitted that Canada is unlikely to ever meet the two percent military defense

00:13:46.560 spending target recommended by NATO. Amid this, a new study from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute

00:13:52.720 finds Canadians less enthusiastic about their perception of the country's international

00:13:57.120 reputation than they have been in recent years. Half of Canadians, 51 percent, say Canada has a

00:14:02.880 good or very good reputation abroad, while one quarter say it is poor or very poor, and one quarter

00:14:08.160 say it is average. Notably, there has been a 33 point drop since 2018 in the proportion offering a

00:14:14.960 positive view. That's incredible. I remember when Canadians were amongst the best loved people in the

00:14:20.400 world. In fact, some Americans used to sew a little Canadian maple leaf on their backpacks when they

00:14:26.240 traveled through Europe. Not sure if that's happening anymore. Not sure Canadians as citizens are

00:14:30.880 disliked. I don't think we are. But our government, especially Trudeau, is giving us a bad reputation.

00:14:36.640 It's sometimes shocking to see it. But whether it's the New York Post or the Daily Mail of London, England,

00:14:41.760 or the European Parliament, a lot of people see right through Trudeau. And unlike our mainstream media,

00:14:47.200 they're not afraid to say it. And I think it's shocking because we're so used to apologies from the

00:14:51.600 media party. We're shocked to see things like this. That it would have been more appropriate

00:14:56.240 for Mr. Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, to address this House according to Article 144,

00:15:02.800 an article which was specifically designed to debate violations of human rights, democracy,

00:15:09.200 and the rule of law, which is clearly the case with Mr. Trudeau. Then again, a prime minister who

00:15:15.440 openly admires the Chinese basic dictatorship, who tramples on fundamental rights by persecuting 0.97

00:15:22.320 and criminalizing his own citizens as terrorists, just because they dared to stand up to his perverted

00:15:28.800 concept of democracy, should not be allowed to speak in this House at all. Mr. Trudeau,

00:15:35.360 you are a disgrace for any democracy. Please spare us your presence. Thank you. 0.99

00:15:41.840 All right, back to the Angus Reid survey. Let me read a little more. Let's start with a pretty basic

00:15:46.800 question, pretty easy one here. Overall, what kind of reputation would you say Canada has internationally?

00:15:53.520 That's an easy question. As you can see, the question was asked in 2016, 2018, 2020, last year,

00:15:59.520 again, just this month. Until a few years ago, it was steady. In fact, it briefly went up in Trudeau's

00:16:05.440 first term. Canadians, I guess, were feeling pretty good about themselves. Our belief in our world

00:16:09.440 reputation actually climbed a bit from 79% to 84%. And then Trudeau's obsequious dealings with

00:16:15.600 communist China took hold. His mocking insults to India, his general buffoonery started to get noticed,

00:16:24.000 blackface. And of course, his inner tyrant shone through during the pandemic, the lockdowns and the 0.99

00:16:30.320 banana republic style martial law invocation. That was spooky to a lot of people. Look at that from 71%

00:16:36.800 to 62% to 62%, plunging to just 51% this year, saying we have a strong international reputation.

00:16:43.840 They're right. Trudeau is deluding himself. He only goes to tightly scripted, tightly controlled events

00:16:49.760 where people are curated to love him. But real people see through him, both at home and abroad.

00:16:57.520 Let me show you one more graph. Look at this one. All things considered, do you think Canada's

00:17:02.560 reputation around the world is better or worse now than it was? And then they check different

00:17:07.360 times, 10 years ago, last year, whatever. Massive, massive. That red line is the people who say it's

00:17:12.800 gotten worse. That blue sliver is better. Only 7% of people think it's gotten better over the last year.

00:17:18.560 That is crazy. Here's another image here. Even liberals aren't exactly thrilled with Trudeau's

00:17:25.360 reputation abroad. That's amazing. But people are starting to see through Justin Trudeau.

00:17:31.920 But not just through Trudeau. Through him and his media courtiers who decide what we can and can't

00:17:38.240 talk about, or can and can't even think. Canadians are embarrassed by Trudeau's international antics,

00:17:45.760 not impressed by them. And Trudeau's plan to triple Canada's size through mass, open borders,

00:17:51.920 immigration, is unpopular, including with other new immigrants, and especially in French Quebec.

00:17:59.280 I wonder if Pierre Polyev will ever find the courage to talk about these things.

00:18:04.320 Stay with us for more.

00:18:05.200 Well, Twitter has been in the news. It always is in the news, and it is the news itself, but never

00:18:22.960 known more so since Elon Musk took it over. Removed thousands of dead weight staffers, many of whom were

00:18:32.320 in content moderation and other euphemisms for censorship. And in the process, Elon Musk has

00:18:38.880 become an even more avid Twitter user himself. And he sometimes says the most amusing or entertaining or

00:18:46.000 provocative things in just a few words. I mean, just today. Soros reminds me of Magneto. That's just so

00:18:56.800 funny. And it tweaks the nose of George Soros, and it's a reference to pop culture, and it's apropos

00:19:03.280 of nothing. Are you not entertained? Well, that is one of the purposes of Twitter. Information is another.

00:19:09.760 And of course, Elon Musk has plans to turn it into an important commercial app. He seeks to expand its

00:19:18.000 utility beyond just political chat and sports and entertainment. He wants to make it like some

00:19:24.320 Chinese apps like WeChat, WePay, where there's so many other functionalities there. It truly becomes

00:19:30.560 an everything app. We'll see how he does it. One of the things he did is he finally hired a new CEO

00:19:37.440 that is not himself or his dog. Linda Iaccarino is her name. And immediately,

00:19:44.560 people on Twitter who are concerned with the restoration of a censorship elite found that she

00:19:53.440 was active at the World Economic Forum and had talked about content moderation before. Was Elon Musk

00:19:59.840 really going to go back to that way? Well, joining us now to talk about it is a man who knows Elon Musk

00:20:05.040 better than most. He is an extremely online guy. You can follow him on Twitter at Still Gray, G-R-A-Y. 0.95

00:20:12.640 His name is Ian Malestrong and he works with Rebel News. Great to see you again, Ian. Thanks for joining

00:20:16.960 us. Happy to be here. Happy to be here. Well, I think Elon Musk is the world's most interesting man.

00:20:25.120 And he is an outstanding entrepreneur and industrialist, but he's a very clever thinker.

00:20:31.360 And so help me understand his thinking behind hiring the new Twitter CEO. Some people are worried

00:20:38.400 worried that she is a retrenchment of the old, you know, elites know best, you can't say mean things

00:20:45.920 censorship squad. What's your take on it? So my take on it is, well, first of all, don't worry,

00:20:51.680 right? Because she may be CEO, but her job title doesn't matter because at the end of the day,

00:20:57.520 his job title is owner. And so the reason he hired her is because of her wealth of experience

00:21:03.840 in the advertising industry. She was responsible for building NBC's Peacock online streaming service,

00:21:11.440 where she got a bunch of advertisers for them. So clearly she knows the people who can monetize

00:21:16.640 Twitter. And bear in mind, Twitter cannot survive without advertisers as much as, you know, as a nice,

00:21:22.720 as I said, a deal as it would be for Twitter to simply survive on its own. It can't, right? We live in

00:21:28.880 a world in which Twitter needs money to survive and advertising is the only way to do it. And, you know,

00:21:34.720 she knows her stuff, right? I think her track record proves that. So he doesn't have to deal with

00:21:39.440 advertisers. And furthermore, and this is probably more important, he doesn't have to travel down to

00:21:44.400 Washington DC to meet with the regulators every week because that certainly takes up a lot of his

00:21:49.360 time. And his job as a CTO, which is chief technical officer, will allow him to work on Twitter as a

00:21:55.920 product, meaning, you know, bringing new features, tweaking the algorithm, things that, you know,

00:22:01.120 the CEO doesn't really have a say in. So keep in mind that Twitter is a tech company, first and

00:22:05.600 foremost. So the CTO typically, in all these companies, has more power than the CEO who,

00:22:10.720 in this case, is only responsible for advertising and for dealing with regulators. So I wouldn't worry

00:22:16.640 too much about it. The policy at the end of the day is still dictated by Elon Musk and his

00:22:21.600 commitment to free speech appears to be unwavering. And I think you can see that in

00:22:26.160 his tweets about George Soros. As inflammatory as they may be to some people, he's willing to

00:22:30.960 say them. And if this were any other platform, I don't think you'd be even allowed to criticize

00:22:35.600 George Soros. I think you're probably right. And more seriously, there is an election in Turkey

00:22:41.600 right now. And it is heavily contested. Turkey is an authoritarian regime and a democracy at the

00:22:47.120 same time, and a NATO ally. It's a very unusual place. And they have been telling Twitter to censor

00:22:54.560 hundreds of tweets that are critical of the regime. Twitter must comply with the local laws in every

00:23:00.960 country in which it is situated. That's why it doesn't operate in some countries like China. But

00:23:06.320 that's why in other countries like Germany, it takes down certain Nazi material that it wouldn't

00:23:12.400 in another jurisdiction. To his credit, Elon Musk has fought back against many of these Turkish 1.00

00:23:19.600 censorship actions, including in court. And they published a variety of these fights.

00:23:26.720 I think that's a sign of dedication to freedom of speech. But we'll know. I mean, we will know soon

00:23:32.160 enough if the people who were revived by Elon Musk after having been suspended are resuspended. I think

00:23:38.800 that's the canary in the coal mine. Simply that someone worked for the mainstream media or the

00:23:44.000 regime media before. I don't think that's on its face a disqualification. If so, you would never hire

00:23:50.240 anyone with any experience. I mean, if you're the head of ads at NBC Universal, you know ads, and you

00:23:56.880 know all the biggest brands. And it's not actually surprising that you went to the World Economic Forum

00:24:02.800 where the other titans of the universe are. So I'm going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt,

00:24:08.800 Elon, when he hires her. And I'm going to notice that she actually served on a Donald Trump council.

00:24:14.640 I think it was on sports or something. And you had a fitness council. Yeah,

00:24:18.240 the fitness council. And, you know, that may not be politically spicy, but doing anything in

00:24:24.800 association with Donald Trump when he was president was a black mark against a liberal,

00:24:30.400 especially in California. So if she were to have done that, I think that shows some independence

00:24:36.800 of mind and some nonpartisanship. I, to me, that's actually proof of her contrariness that she was 0.97

00:24:44.400 able to be on a Trump council, despite the fact that Hollywood hates him. What do you think?

00:24:48.720 Yeah, more importantly, she follows me on Twitter. And she follows lips of TikTok. She follows Jack

00:24:56.640 Posobiec. I mean, these are accounts that by all, you know, well, by the left's measure would be

00:25:02.240 considered far right. Now, granted, we're not far right. But the fact that she's willing to step out

00:25:07.360 of the boundaries that they've locked her in, you know, she is a member of the establishment,

00:25:11.520 after all, shows that, you know, she's willing to leave her echo chamber. And that makes her very

00:25:17.600 interesting as a person, right? I mean, how often do you see an establishment figure even speaking

00:25:23.680 to a member of the conservatives, right? I mean, they just don't do that. But she's willing to do

00:25:28.800 it. And looking at her Twitter account, I can see that she is actually a conservative. So I think that

00:25:34.720 people are fine to criticize her and they're fine to be apprehensive of her. But I would say,

00:25:38.560 give her a chance. And obviously, if things don't work out, then Elon can always fire her. So there's

00:25:44.320 always that. It's not like she owns the company. Yeah, I agree with you on all those things. And

00:25:48.240 she may be following you and Jack Posobiec and libs of TikTok to know, not so much out of personal

00:25:54.640 interest, but to know where Elon Musk's lines are. Because if he is interacting with those accounts,

00:26:00.000 and if he supports those accounts, that way she can, okay, so what's the four corners of acceptable

00:26:07.200 discourse, according to the boss, following those accounts shows that she's, even if she doesn't

00:26:12.480 believe in them herself, she at least is very attentive to what the boss thinks on

00:26:17.680 censorship. So I didn't know those details, but I'm encouraged to hear it. Well, here's the thing

00:26:22.880 that worries me the most, is that when you tweak the nose of George Soros, it was just a joke

00:26:29.920 comparing to Magneto. It's not that interesting. But boy, he says tough things about issues that you're

00:26:36.720 not supposed to. I mean, the man donated 100 million dollars worth of internet to Ukraine,

00:26:41.680 but he criticized some Ukraine policies he's sworn at by some foreign minister, defense minister of

00:26:48.320 Ukraine. He, you're not allowed to dissent from the military industrial complex there. He did. He's

00:26:55.200 skeptical of so many sacred cows from transgenderism, as we talked about, to 1.00

00:27:00.640 even climate extremism, even though he's in a green company. The guy,

00:27:05.680 I think he's hostile to the deep state. And more importantly, he recognizes the deep state. He

00:27:10.320 even, he says its name. And so here's my worry, Ian. I don't care how rich, powerful you are,

00:27:19.920 you are still vulnerable, God forbid, to whether it's, I shouldn't even say it, assassination,

00:27:27.920 I shouldn't say that, but it's a possibility, to blackmail, to extortion, to some, like,

00:27:35.760 it is very difficult to fight the kind of titans who are on the other side. As I think it was Joe Biden

00:27:44.640 who said, don't fight with the deep state, they'll get you six different ways. Or I figured,

00:27:48.720 or maybe that was Obama who said that, I can't remember.

00:27:50.800 That's wonderful.

00:27:51.840 If you fight against the CIA, the FBI, you fight against the big censors,

00:27:58.560 they're going to get their vengeance. I'm worried that they might come for him in one way. And one

00:28:04.000 way is to try and implicate him in, for example, the Jeffrey Epstein matter. Tell me a little bit

00:28:10.320 about that subpoena and what you make of it. They're trying to subpoena Elon Musk about Jeffrey

00:28:16.080 Epstein. What's that all about? Yeah, I mean, it's not super clear what the subpoena is about,

00:28:21.360 but it's the U.S. Virgin Islands, so it's not the U.S. as a whole. Clearly, they want attention

00:28:27.040 to their case, and they're going after J.P. Morgan because J.P. Morgan allegedly financed Jeffrey

00:28:33.120 Epstein and helped to cover up some of his misdeeds. And I guess the subpoena for Elon Musk is because

00:28:39.520 they claim that Jeffrey Epstein helped put Elon in touch with J.P. Morgan. I mean, it's patently

00:28:46.720 ridiculous. I mean, you can just read news articles showing that J.P. Morgan had invested in Tesla 0.93

00:28:53.040 two decades ago, right in the 2000s. They didn't need to go through, I mean, he didn't need to go

00:28:57.680 through Jeffrey Epstein to get in touch with J.P. Morgan. They're just a phone call away. It's

00:29:01.840 complete nonsense. And he himself responded to the reports on Twitter in which he said,

00:29:06.960 that cretin, referring to Jeffrey Epstein, never advised me on anything whatsoever. The notion that 1.00

00:29:12.800 I would need or listen to financial advice from a dumb crook is absurd. Yeah, I mean, 1.00

00:29:17.120 this is a titan of industry. He doesn't need to listen to Jeffrey Epstein, who wasn't a titan of

00:29:21.920 anything. He was, if anything, a con artist, in addition to being a predatory criminal. And finally, 0.57

00:29:28.480 J.P. Morgan let Tesla down 10 years ago, despite having Tesla's global commercial banking business,

00:29:34.400 which we then withdrew, I have never forgiven them. So clearly, he has no ties to either Epstein or J.P.

00:29:40.800 Morgan at this point. So it's quite unclear why they would subpoena Elon Musk. It seems to me to be

00:29:47.600 political in nature, or maybe just to draw attention to the case, because no one seems to be super

00:29:53.120 interested in finding out what happened with Epstein. Where's the list? I mean, if anything,

00:29:58.960 Elon Musk is the one, you know, shouting from the rooftops saying, release the list, release the

00:30:04.000 list of the Epstein names. And yet, they're not releasing those names. We have the names,

00:30:09.360 so you occasionally see snippets of it in the Wall Street Journal. But give us the full list,

00:30:13.840 you know? I mean, I think that's important. If you're really interested in going after these people,

00:30:17.920 do that. The Wall Street Journal has done some important reporting lately showing a connection

00:30:22.800 between J.P. Morgan and Epstein. But the connection to Elon Musk is a laugh. The subpoena

00:30:29.040 says that Epstein, quote, may have referred or attempted to refer

00:30:34.560 Musk as a client to J.P. Morgan. As you say, there's no factual basis for that. I think

00:30:39.680 there's two things afoot. Elon Musk is newsworthy. It's like saying Kim Kardashian

00:30:44.560 five years ago. I mean, you say the name Elon Musk and you're going to get some media attention,

00:30:48.720 including from him, which happened. He responded to it. So you're going to get some attention on

00:30:52.960 a case that may not otherwise. And second of all, this goes to my fear. They're going to take this

00:30:58.000 guy down. And who knows? I mean, I don't know him personally. I know he has different kids by

00:31:03.040 different moms. I know he flies around. I know he's got so much money. There's got to be schemers 0.95

00:31:08.080 and scammers around him all the time. You know, I'm sure his conversations are tapped not just by

00:31:15.920 world governments, but by rival companies. I mean, it must be very difficult to have any privacy

00:31:22.560 if you're him. And my chief worry about Elon Musk is they're going to get to him in some non-business

00:31:29.280 way. And and I hope that doesn't happen because I think he has so much good to do, not just for the

00:31:34.720 world as an industrialist and a wealth creator. But I actually and maybe I sound naive for this. I

00:31:42.320 actually believe him when he says he cares about humanity and the importance of freedom of speech.

00:31:47.600 Maybe I'm just a sucker, but I like him. Last word to you, Ian, because I think you

00:31:53.760 I wouldn't say you're close to him, but you talk to the guy, you interact with them, you communicate

00:31:58.800 with them, which is something I think a lot of people wish they could do. What's your sense of the

00:32:04.560 man as a man? Have you had enough dealings with him to come to form some mental image of him?

00:32:09.200 I would say so. I would say that he is who he presents himself on the Internet. Most people don't.

00:32:15.360 I mean, well, maybe not most people, but many people put up a facade of themselves. They want

00:32:19.920 the world to think that there's something when they're really something else in private. Elon Musk

00:32:24.640 doesn't strike me that way. He strikes me as an honest man. And I think he can't afford to be

00:32:28.800 dishonest, right? Because he knows that he's being botched all the time. And so and this is Elon

00:32:34.480 his entire life where you can read him. I mean, he's as transparent as a book. Basically,

00:32:39.520 you can flip through the pages and recognize that he is who he says he is. He is who he presents

00:32:44.160 himself as. I don't think he tries to be anything different. I don't think he tries to manipulate

00:32:48.560 the public. And I think truth, if anything, is his highest priority. And that's commendable. If

00:32:54.480 anything, more people, more businessmen in particular could stand to be like Elon Musk and

00:32:59.840 be more sincere in the way they present themselves to the public, because he's got nothing to hide.

00:33:06.480 This is a man who is who he says he is. That's my read on it. And I think you can quite clearly see

00:33:11.840 that in his interactions online, where he will simply say the quiet part out loud, even if it's

00:33:16.000 unpopular, even if it gives him a lot of flack, calling George Soros, you know, Magneto has certainly

00:33:21.680 earned him a lot of attacks today. And so, you know, the fact that he's willing to say that tells

00:33:27.760 you a lot about him. He's not political. He's not playing a game with people.

00:33:31.040 Yeah. Well, to me, there were a few moments of truth. One of them was he bought Twitter and then

00:33:36.800 he very promptly released internal memos that were embarrassing to Twitter about how they

00:33:42.880 corrupted the process and how they were, you know, pawns of foreign and domestic intelligence agencies.

00:33:48.960 He released embarrassing things about his own company that he just bought. Who does that other

00:33:54.080 than a guy who actually believes in transparency? Well, listen, I hope you're right.

00:33:58.240 And I think you're right. And in the meantime, it's a hell of a show along the way. Ian,

00:34:01.760 great to catch up with you. Thanks for taking the time. And we'll keep following you at

00:34:05.120 Stillgrave, S-T-I-L-L-G-R-A-Y on Twitter.

00:34:21.200 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me on Rachel Notley kicking out Akean Bexty from a press conference.

00:34:26.120 Frosty Knight says, if the owner asks you to leave property, then you have to leave. I am not a

00:34:31.180 supporter of any of the main parties, but I do support private property rights. I agree with

00:34:35.820 you. And I'm not sure if you saw my conversation with Adam Sosa and Sheila Gunn-Reed on the live

00:34:41.500 stream the other day. Here at Rebel News, our rule is if you're on private property, you know,

00:34:47.020 conduct yourself in a good manner. But if you are asked to leave, you have to leave. You don't have

00:34:53.500 to run off, but you have to leave at a reasonable pace. That's our rule of thumb here at Rebel News.

00:34:57.900 It's very different if you're in a public place, like let's say outside City Hall or on a sidewalk,

00:35:03.100 then hold your ground. There's very few rules that allow authorities to kick you off a public

00:35:09.400 sidewalk, for example. In this case, Kian Bexty said he was invited there and he argued with the

00:35:18.240 NDP official for a while. I agree with you that when the property owner told him to get out, he should

00:35:25.200 have get out and that would have been what rebels would have done. In the end, police did kick him

00:35:28.800 out. But I think he made the point that Rachel Notley is extremely intolerant to journalists he

00:35:33.900 doesn't like. Someone with a nickname Three Cracked Cheeks says Russia and Ukraine are like two

00:35:39.340 fighting motorcycle gangs. Both sides are odious and cannot be trusted, and there will be many

00:35:43.800 innocent victims. All the billions sent there by the West will simply vanish into this black hole of a

00:35:47.860 war. What a mess. I want to distinguish between the government and the people. I think this is an

00:35:54.780 absolute human disaster. It is a tragedy. We know from leaked information that over 100,000 Ukrainian 1.00

00:36:03.620 soldiers alone have died. That's just soldiers. I've got to think the civilian casualties are similar.

00:36:11.540 Russian casualties are smaller, and I would imagine that their civilian casualties are very close to zero

00:36:16.880 because the fighting is being done in Ukraine. But what really irks me is when armchair generals in

00:36:23.460 the West talk about fighting to the last Ukrainian. They never say that out loud, but that's really 0.94

00:36:27.660 what they mean. When I saw that clip of the U.S. spokesman saying they are absolutely adamantly against

00:36:34.780 a ceasefire, I thought you wouldn't be saying that if the battlefield was somewhere in America. I found that

00:36:40.560 deeply depressing. I hope that war ends. Of course, I want it to end justly. But after a

00:36:46.860 certain point in time, the losses are so massive, you should at least sue for peace, don't you think?

00:36:54.060 Someone with a nickname Enoch was right, says the failed comedian knows his time is up. Ukraine is 1.00

00:36:58.280 losing approximately 800 men every single day. That's why this supposed spring offensive has been

00:37:03.480 delayed repeatedly. Their military has been completely gutted. The Donbass is firmly in Russia's 0.96

00:37:07.900 hands, which is what the majority of the people living there want. Look, I don't know about those

00:37:12.380 statistics. If it's true that 100,000 people, soldiers have died on the Ukrainian side, given

00:37:19.160 that the war has been going on for about 14 or 15 months, you can do the math on that. I think your

00:37:25.340 number is a little bit high. I think that there are countries that want to broker a peace deal.

00:37:33.720 From what we heard from Israel's former prime minister, Ukraine and Russia came close to a deal,

00:37:41.280 but America vetoed it. That's what the former prime minister actually said. We know that countries like

00:37:47.160 Hungary, which are pro-Ukraine, have proposed a diplomatic settlement, and so have old foreign policy

00:37:57.320 hands like Henry Kissinger himself. I just, I'm frustrated by the fact that there doesn't seem

00:38:05.080 to be a diplomatic track at all. And if the desired effect is to grind down Russia's military, all right,

00:38:13.420 mission is being accomplished, but at what cost in human life, especially civilian human life,

00:38:18.580 I find this war terrible. Those are my thoughts for today. That's the show for tonight. Until tomorrow,

00:38:25.360 on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - May 17, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Two opinion polls that the media party doesn’t really like

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