Globalist CEO latest to push the narrative that Albertans should shut up about Wexit
Episode Stats
Words per minute
169.96361
Harmful content
Misogyny
10
sentences flagged
Toxicity
10
sentences flagged
Hate speech
5
sentences flagged
Summary
In today's podcast, I take on some questions, some comments from Ed Sims, the WestJet CEO who was taking on Wexit, and it reminds me of what I've observed about the Brexit, and I talk a bit about the Quebec experiment with separatism, and even Czechoslovakia. I think we can learn from those other separatist movements for what to expect here in Canada.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hey, Rebels. In today's podcast, I take on some questions, some comments from Ed Sims,
00:00:05.920
the WestJet CEO who was taking on Wexit. And it reminds me of what I've observed about the
00:00:13.980
Brexit. And I talk a bit about Brexit and the Quebec experiment with separatism and even
00:00:18.880
Czechoslovakia. I hope you find it interesting. I think we can learn from those other separatist
00:00:23.920
movements for what to expect here in Canada. Can I invite you to become a premium subscriber?
00:00:30.000
It's eight bucks a month. You go to premium.rebelnews.com and you get the video version of the podcast,
00:00:36.580
which I think is pretty cool. Anyway, please consider that premium.rebelnews.com.
00:01:00.000
Tonight, a globalist CEO says Albertans should shut up about Wexit. They have nothing to complain
00:01:06.400
about. It's December 10th and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
00:01:09.700
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:15.520
There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:19.580
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody
00:01:25.460
Last month when we had our Wexit town halls in Edmonton and Calgary, great events by the way,
00:01:35.880
almost a thousand people came between the two events. Great questions and comments and it was
00:01:39.900
pretty snowy out there. So great turnout. Well, one of the things I said on the panels was that we
00:01:45.280
could all learn from how separatist movements have succeeded or not succeeded around the world.
00:01:51.880
The separation of the Czech Republic from Slovakia, used to be called Czechoslovakia,
00:01:58.580
was done in a shockingly quick time. I mean, depending on exactly how you measure,
00:02:04.240
it was really done in six months. Both sides had just sort of got tired of each other, I think.
00:02:10.880
They had different political parties in their parliament already representing different regions.
00:02:14.680
There were definitely some economic issues, almost like our Canadian equalization issues,
00:02:19.920
but actually not even as dramatic as the difference between, say, Alberta and Quebec.
00:02:24.140
But really, I think they just wanted out. And part of it was that the Berlin Wall had just come down
00:02:29.200
and the idea of dissolving artificial national boundaries was normalized. And they just did it.
00:02:36.640
Fast, not really acrimonious. My cursory research suggests it was done very quickly,
00:02:43.060
almost presented as a fait accompli. In fact, I don't know if it could honestly be said to have
00:02:49.340
been done fully democratically approved. It was just, it was sort of shotgun, but it happened.
00:02:55.620
Now, compare that to Quebec separatism, the opposite in so many ways. I mean,
00:02:59.000
seriously, it's been almost 50 years since the FLQ crisis alone. That was an actual terrorist group,
00:03:05.460
Front de Liberation du Québec, that planted bombs, kidnapped people. They even committed murder.
00:03:13.460
It's hard to imagine. The whole place was put under martial law by Pierre Trudeau. That's when he said,
00:03:18.320
just watch me, you know. Well, Quebec is still part of Canada. And so you'd think it was a failure,
00:03:25.240
but really by every other measure, the FLQ and the legal Parti Québécois and the federal Bloc Québécois.
00:03:32.360
By the way, today, in 2019, they're still the third largest party in our parliament.
00:03:38.920
By any other measure, you must say the Quebec separatist movement is a roaring success. Sure,
00:03:44.880
they're still part of Canada, but they only get the good parts, I think. Massive recipients of
00:03:50.500
equalization. I mean, Quebec's provincial government has a multi-billion dollar surplus,
00:03:55.920
while Alberta is in a multi-billion dollar deficit. But Alberta still sends them equalization money.
00:04:01.640
I mean, riddle me that one. Quebec has a guaranteed one-third of the seats on the Supreme Court,
00:04:07.440
even though they have less than 25% of the population. Quebec has control over everything
0.50
00:04:12.000
from their own provincial police force, to their own immigration policy, to their own pension fund.
00:04:18.080
I mean, they're even bringing in anti-hijab laws, and no one in Ottawa dares question it. They have this
0.97
00:04:25.200
Teflon on them. It really is like a divorce from Canada, but with bedroom privileges, as many have
00:04:32.760
called it. So yeah, probably more successful than if they actually were to separate and become an
00:04:38.400
economically weak ethnostate, sort of like the Greece of North America. Quebec's got it all figured out.
00:04:44.960
Well, what's to learn from Quebec? For a Wexiteer? Well, Quebec got so many things because they had an
00:04:53.160
or else. There was always a threat of separatism that was more terrifying to the rest of Canada
00:04:59.120
than actual separatism probably would have been. I despise the FLQ terrorists, and I am utterly
00:05:05.480
against them in any way. But I think it worked. I think it was all a dance, actually, where one
00:05:12.100
Quebecer in Quebec City would play fight with another Quebecer in Ottawa, the Prime Minister,
00:05:19.000
to decide how much payoff was to be paid to Quebec. I mean, right there, out of the past 50 years or so,
00:05:25.520
there's been a non-Quebec Prime Minister for what? Like, if my math is right, 14 years out of the last 50?
00:05:33.580
But the comparison I'd like to make now is that of Brexit. Everyone was against Brexit. The media,
00:05:41.020
the pollsters, the pundits, big business, the globalists, fancy people, all the political parties,
00:05:45.520
including the Conservative Party, which actually called the Brexit referendum because they assumed
00:05:49.940
it would fail, and then people like Nigel Farage would finally shut up about it. Everyone was against
00:05:54.860
it except the people and the amazing Nigel Farage. You have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance
00:06:01.660
of a low-grade bank clerk. And the question that I want to ask, the question that I want to ask,
00:06:08.040
that we're all going to ask, is who are you? I'd never heard of you. Nobody in Europe had ever heard
00:06:14.760
of you. I would like to ask you, President, who voted for you? And what mechanism? Oh, I know democracy
00:06:24.620
is not popular with you lot. And what mechanism to the peoples of Europe have to remove you?
00:06:30.720
Mr. President. Is this European democracy? Well, I sense, though, that you're competent
00:06:37.220
and capable and dangerous. And I have no doubt that it's your intention to be the quiet assassin
00:06:43.060
of European democracy and of the European nation-states. You appear to have a loathing
00:06:48.960
for the very concept of the existence of nation-states. Perhaps that's because you come from
00:06:54.720
Belgium, which, of course, is pretty much a non-country. So Brexit was won by the leavers
00:07:00.920
over the remainers. But, of course, that was in 2016. It was even before Trump won. And here we are
00:07:06.900
almost 2020. And the UK is still not out of the European Union because the remainers simply refuse to
00:07:13.460
abide by the democratic results. So they stalled by any means, legal or illegal. Parliamentary,
00:07:18.960
means, judicial means, excuse after excuse. I think they'll finally be out when Boris Johnson
00:07:24.540
wins the UK election, as it seems he's set to do. But it almost wasn't so. And certainly until these
00:07:31.100
very final moments, the establishment is cooking up ways to stay. And I bet they're still going to
00:07:35.680
try even if Boris Johnson wins. The Remain side actually named their strategy Project Fear
00:07:41.480
to terrify Brits into voting to remain. It failed. They said there would be mass layoffs. They would
00:07:48.480
trade. No one would want to trade with the UK, the essential trading nation. That was the dumbest
00:07:52.860
thing I ever heard until the British Sandwich Association said, I'm not even making this up,
0.97
00:07:59.600
that if Brexit were to pass, there just wouldn't be any tasty sandwiches in the UK anymore.
00:08:04.760
But certainly there would be serious problems in terms of some of the fresh ingredients we bring
00:08:09.800
in from the European Union and also from overseas, particularly if we have problems at ports
00:08:15.520
and we can't get ingredients through because they're all fresh and don't have a very long shelf
00:08:21.720
life. And we've got no chance to stop piling fresh ingredients. So I think the answer from the
00:08:27.420
sandwich industry is going to be that it's going to limit the amount of choice that consumers have if
00:08:31.520
we suddenly crash out of Brexit in the way that it's being talked about.
00:08:35.980
Imagine saying that with a straight face. That's when I ripped up my lifetime membership in the British
00:08:40.760
Sandwich Association right on the spot, by the way. My point is, learn from these other places.
00:08:46.380
Learn from Czechoslovakia. Learn from Quebec. Learn from Brexit. If there were a genuine Brexit
00:08:51.520
movement in Alberta, what would it face? It would face Project Fear times 100, I think.
00:08:58.100
It would face everyone lying about what a tough time Alberta would have on its own.
00:09:02.420
There would be no appeasement as there was for Quebec.
0.98
00:09:04.420
It would be lies and smears and attacks and meddling. Make no mistake about it.
00:09:09.960
Which brings me to today's news. A story in the Financial Post. It doesn't cite anyone. All of it's
00:09:16.300
off the record. No one's quoted. It's all rumors. But they ran it anyways. They claim that a high-tech
00:09:22.140
company called Watchpad, I'd never heard of it, chose to locate in Halifax instead of in Calgary
00:09:27.780
because of the threat of Wexit, which, by the way, is a Facebook page right now. I'm serious.
00:09:33.660
Someone told someone who told someone. And so there you have it, guys. You see what your
00:09:37.960
Wexit talk is doing? Uh, Wattpad isn't coming to town. That would have revolutionized Alberta's
00:09:43.120
economy. Let me read from the Financial Post gossip column. That company was Toronto-based
00:09:49.140
Wattpad, a tech firm with fewer than 200 employees that hosts user-generated fiction. Sounds like a
00:09:56.240
moneymaker. The platform has over 80 million monthly users, according to a source familiar with
00:10:01.640
negotiations but not authorized to speak publicly. The firm outlined its concerns in a written
00:10:06.340
statement sent to CED. That's Calgary Economic Development. Earlier this year, Wattpad issued a
00:10:11.680
request for proposals to cities interested in housing its second headquarters. Oh, boy. Calgary,
00:10:17.820
you missed out on it. There's less than 200 workers there, and they got this cool blog where
00:10:22.220
people can write fiction. I mean, that would have transformed your Alberta economy.
00:10:25.620
Yeah. I don't know. And it sounds like the Financial Post doesn't know either. But that's
00:10:31.380
the narrative. It's Project Fear. Come on, guys. You didn't get a few jobs of a fiction website
00:10:37.500
company. Shame on you. And that totally outweighs the, you know, 200,000 six-figure oil and gas jobs
00:10:44.720
that were lost in the oil past. Come on, Alberta. You could have had some cool jobs coding for fiction
0.97
00:10:50.440
blogs. Give up your oil and gas obsession. Leave it in the ground and get with the Trudeau program.
00:10:55.620
Learn how to code. Well, here's WestJet's CEO to say the same thing, really. WestJet's CEO on Wexit,
00:11:06.660
I won't tolerate that kind of language. WestJet's CEO, Ed Sims, said talk of Alberta separating from
00:11:12.460
Canada runs counter to the economic interests of both the Calgary-based airline he leads and the
00:11:17.360
province as a whole. You know, Ed Sims really is the president of WestJet, so I guess he
00:11:24.560
finally lives in Canada now. But he really is a globalist of the first order. He's lived and
00:11:29.980
worked around the world wherever the headhunters sent him next. He's got that great British accent
00:11:34.640
that I've learned to love from my trips over there. He lived in the UK. Then he lived and worked in New
00:11:40.460
Zealand for a bit. Then he switched companies down there. Now he's up here in Canada for a bit. Who
00:11:45.160
knows where he'll go next? He's that globalist, CEO, borders mean nothing to him, gazillionaire. He's
00:11:51.980
exactly the kind of guy who would be a Brexit remainer, remainer. And so don't be surprised
00:11:57.040
that he's rolling out Project Fear here too. And he's lecturing Albertans about what they can
00:12:01.780
and can't say about their lot in life. He's doing just fine, Jack. Multimillionaire. He was lured here.
00:12:09.340
Big paycheck, big bonuses. Don't you unemployed oil men speak up about your lot. You might upset his
00:12:16.900
sweet, sweet gig. Let me quote again. I won't tolerate that kind of language, Sims said when
00:12:22.180
asked in an interview for his thoughts on Wexit, the movement that promotes an independent Alberta,
00:12:26.480
and that has come into the spotlight in the aftermath of the recent federal election.
00:12:29.780
Okay, got it. So guy moves to Canada two years ago. So I guess he's not a citizen yet, right?
00:12:36.340
But he's got some stern instructions for citizens.
00:12:39.180
Having come from the UK, I've seen three years of total economic paralysis and stagnation
00:12:45.180
caused by Brexit, Sims added. I don't envy our UK colleagues trying to deal with attracting people
00:12:50.860
to a UK that feels very divided. And there's no reason for Alberta to feel divided from the rest
00:12:55.660
of Canada. Oh, shut up, you prat. First of all, he's lying about the UK, or at least uninformed. I'm not
1.00
00:13:02.300
sure which. The UK actually has the strongest economy in the European Union. He's lying when he says it's
00:13:08.120
being rough. How would he even know? He's been in New Zealand for a decade. And hey, he just came
00:13:13.940
to Canada to run an airline, so maybe he didn't bother to learn about Canada and the Energy East
00:13:19.980
Pipeline being cancelled, and the Northern Gateway Pipeline being cancelled, and the Trans Mountain
00:13:23.840
Pipeline being delayed or cancelled, or the carbon tax or any of that because it all happened before
00:13:28.460
he came here, or when he was busy running the airline and not running his mouth. If we are not careful,
00:13:34.140
we will start using the language of a depression rather than a recession, he said. I worry because we,
00:13:39.640
WestJet, are a Canadian operation headquartered here. Hey, you unemployed oil men down there. Stop
00:13:46.100
talking about your situation because you see, according to this guy, your talk is why Alberta's in a
0.97
00:13:52.920
recession. Because you're talking about it? Because you're unhappy with your lot in life? You're unhappy
00:13:58.620
with the carbon tax? You're unhappy with the blockade on the pipelines? Take it from this Brit
1.00
00:14:03.100
who followed the cash to New Zealand and now is ringing the bell here in Canada with WestJet,
00:14:08.760
but he has his eyes on the main chance wherever it is he's going to go next. So in the meantime,
00:14:13.140
can you please shut up, you guys? I mean, you heard the man, I won't tolerate that kind of language.
0.89
00:14:19.060
Yeah, mate, I don't know how it is, where you come from. I don't even know where that is anymore,
00:14:24.320
and maybe you don't either. But here in Canada, foreigners don't usually tell Canadians to shut
00:14:30.480
up. Of course, there is one more possibility. Maybe this Ed Sims is secretly working for
00:14:38.240
Wexit. Because like Project Fear and that idiot from the Sandwich Association, nothing will push
1.00
00:14:47.180
people towards separatism like a condescending blowhard, telling the little people to shut up.
1.00
00:15:08.340
Professor Carlin, you gave $1,000 to Elizabeth Warren, right?
00:15:23.820
Why so much more for Hillary than the other two?
1.00
00:15:26.040
Because I've been giving a lot of money to charity recently because of all of the poor
00:15:30.760
You can't wait for calmer times. The time for you is now. And I would say that what Trumbull
00:15:39.760
said has even more bearing today. Because I believe that this is much like the Johnson
00:15:45.580
impeachment. It's manufactured until you build a record. I'm not saying you can't build a
00:15:51.260
record. But you can't do it like this. And you can't impeach a president like this.
00:15:55.660
Kings could do no wrong because the king's word was law. And contrary to what President
00:16:01.180
Trump has said, Article 2 does not give him the power to do anything he wants. And I'll
00:16:05.560
just give you one example that shows you the difference between him and a king, which is
00:16:10.400
the Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility. So while the president can name
00:16:18.100
Well, those are short clips from the impeachment circus in Washington, D.C. They're all entertaining.
00:16:27.080
The whole story is so complicated. I think that most Americans simply aren't following it. I have
00:16:33.740
some proof. Look at this. It is the Google search trends for two different words. One is
00:16:41.100
impeachment. And the other is Peloton. What is Peloton, you might ask? Well, it's sort of like
00:16:48.280
a home exercise bike that's connected to the webcam and the internet. There was a slightly quirky
00:16:55.520
Peloton internet ad that got the whole country talking. My point is people are not watching the
00:17:04.860
circus, but the circus continues. Joining us now via Skype from Breitbart World Headquarters
00:17:12.300
is our friend Joel Pollack, the senior editor at large down there. Joel, you have been following
00:17:18.060
this meticulously. I think you're one of maybe, maybe 50, probably 20 people in the whole country
00:17:24.960
that's actually going through this meticulously.
00:17:27.700
My point about the Peloton versus impeachment is that I don't think this has gripped the
00:17:35.480
nation in the way that, say, Bill Clinton's impeachment did a couple of decades ago.
00:17:41.840
Well, your point about the Peloton is actually interesting because I missed all of the initial
00:17:47.560
excitement over the Peloton ad. By the way, if you've ever seen these bikes, they're pretty
00:17:52.140
intense. I actually was on an elliptical machine during the Houston Democratic debate a few
00:17:58.560
hours before, and there was a guy next to me on a Peloton. That Peloton is pretty serious.
00:18:02.560
Anyway, the Peloton ad is actually completely unobjectionable. There's nothing wrong with it,
00:18:09.940
except that at one point, the wife in the ad, who is getting the Peloton as a Christmas present,
00:18:17.460
is looking back at the camera, and she has sort of a look on her face, that critics, particularly,
00:18:26.880
I guess, those of the feminist persuasion, interpreted as almost a cry for help or some
0.74
00:18:34.740
kind of disingenuous glance as if to say, thank you, husband, for giving me the ability to shape
00:18:43.380
my body to suit your whims. But in other words, the criticism was based on interpretations of an
00:18:50.080
Oh, yeah. I thought it was a very quirky ad. I didn't find it. I had to study it twice to see
00:18:55.700
what the offense was. I think in that way, the ad was a huge success. It got everyone talking about
00:19:00.840
Right, right. So the impeachment is pretty much like that Peloton ad because there's nothing actually
00:19:07.500
wrong with what Trump did. But the Democrats are interpreting a kind of inflection in their own
00:19:14.060
imaginations in what Trump might have said to the Ukrainian president or might have suggested,
00:19:20.660
you know, implicitly with some kind of signal that there was something amiss.
00:19:26.360
You know, that's a great, I didn't make the connection, but you're so right. I mean,
00:19:29.780
I watched the ad and I thought, well, there's nothing wrong here. And that's what the impeachment is.
00:19:33.540
You've got to have some intuition that something's wrong because there's nothing more than that.
00:19:39.080
Well, not even intuition. You've almost got to be kind of coached to see it. I mean,
00:19:43.600
I can tell you that when my wife encouraged me to go to the gym, I had an experience like that woman
00:19:50.000
in the ad. You know, it changed my life. I mean, you know, I don't stand before you here as a
00:19:57.680
quivering mass of muscle, but I definitely feel healthier than I was before. So, you know,
00:20:03.080
it's something nice to do for your spouse. I don't see anything wrong with it. I don't see
00:20:07.740
anything particularly gendered about it because my wife was the one going to the gym and, you know,
1.00
00:20:12.300
I was not. So, you know, I didn't see anything objectionable about it and something one spouse
00:20:17.740
should do. Now, of course, they're all interpreting this woman's expression as somehow an indictment of
00:20:23.500
the husband. And in the same way, Adam Schiff used that whistleblower complaint, not the transcript
00:20:28.880
of the conversation, but used the whistleblower complaint to launch this investigation. Of course,
00:20:33.320
Trump released the transcript and that wasn't really part of the plan. They didn't expect him
00:20:39.140
to do that because they figured from the whistleblower complaint that whatever Trump said must have been
00:20:42.880
terribly damning. And so they were primed to interpret what Trump said in the worst possible
00:20:48.040
light. But of course, Trump didn't say anything damning or illegal. In fact, Trump was doing his job.
00:20:52.000
And so when they introduced this issue into the House Intelligence Committee,
00:20:56.940
Adam Schiff gave a dramatic reading to the transcript. He basically invented words, invented
00:21:01.860
things, sort of a mob dialogue that simply wasn't there. So in a way, the Peloton ad is exactly right.
00:21:09.600
And you said it's complicated. It's actually not complicated at all, except Democrats have made
00:21:13.800
it complicated. You know, if this were simple, they wouldn't have to make it complicated. If the
00:21:18.660
president had done something wrong, it'd be very clear. And you'd have no disagreement from
00:21:23.320
Republicans. There are plenty of never Trumpers in the Senate, especially who would love to impeach
00:21:29.400
the president and pretend the last three years never happened. They want to keep all the judges
00:21:33.520
and they want to keep the low taxes and they want to keep the economy and so forth. But they don't want
00:21:39.580
to acknowledge that he did anything, especially the Mitt Romneys of the world. They can't stand that
00:21:43.560
this guy, won what they couldn't win and did what they promised to do, but probably wouldn't have.
00:21:49.160
And so they want him out of the way. But the Democrats gave these never Trump Republicans
00:21:54.960
nothing to work with. There's no case. Basically, the first article of impeachment, which Democrats
00:21:59.520
released Tuesday morning, alleges that he abused his power, get this, by asking a foreign government
00:22:07.100
to help us with an investigation that the Democrats' own witnesses said was probably necessary.
00:22:14.480
Now, they didn't like the fact that Trump was the one asking for it. They said it should have gone
00:22:18.640
through, you know, the department or whatever, but it wasn't illegal to ask for it. So they're going
00:22:23.140
to impeach him because they say he abused his power because Joe Biden happened to be a political
00:22:27.780
opponent. There is no immunity, as Trump learned, against investigations if you happen to be running
00:22:33.600
for election. Trump got investigated for alleged ties to Russia, which he didn't have. Joe Biden
00:22:38.640
actually has ties to Ukraine. So there's that. Article two is that Trump obstructed Congress.
00:22:46.000
Now, this is a bogus charge. In fact, both charges are bogus. They picked the two articles of impeachment
00:22:51.240
that Cass Sunstein, Obama's, one of Obama's White House advisors, you know, Cass Sunstein's a liberal,
00:22:56.980
married to Samantha Power, very left-wing guy. He came out with a book called Impeachment,
00:23:02.800
A Citizen's Guide, in 2017, when all of the liberals, all the people on the left,
00:23:07.340
they were really interested in impeaching Trump for whatever reason they could find.
00:23:11.020
And Cass Sunstein, even in that feverish atmosphere, wrote in that book that abuse of power
00:23:15.960
and obstructing Congress are not valid reasons to impeach the president because every president
00:23:22.200
has abused the power by definition, has abused their power because every president gets sued for
00:23:26.700
overstepping the bounds of their authority. And, you know, it's very hard to find grotesque abuses of
00:23:31.060
power. But unless you've got some other crime that it's linked to, you can't just impeach a
00:23:35.600
president for abuse of power. It's a term of art, really. It's not really anything impeachable.
00:23:39.080
It's certainly not in the Constitution. And then obstructing Congress is not impeachable
00:23:43.080
because otherwise Congress could just come up with any farcical investigation and then impeach
00:23:49.480
the president for refusing to cooperate with it. So they chose to introduce an article of impeachment
00:23:55.680
on obstruction of Congress, basically saying President Trump should be impeached for asking
00:24:00.800
the courts to do what the courts are supposed to do, which is to adjudicate disputes over document
00:24:05.260
and witness production between the executive branch and the judicial branch and the legislative
00:24:10.700
And your American system, even better than ours, checks and balances the president is supposed to.
0.61
00:24:17.700
The Constitution counts on him to push back at Congress and vice versa and the judiciary.
00:24:23.680
These are branches of... I mean, it's the balance of power. We don't have that in Canada where our
00:24:29.820
parliaments, like the executive and the legislature are combined. I wish we had the ability for
00:24:38.600
Congress or our parliament to fight with the executive and vice versa, but they can't. I don't know.
00:24:44.240
It sounds pretty weak to me, but you make a good point. If you have such a complicated accusation,
00:24:50.260
it's probably to hide the fact that you don't have a simple accusation.
00:24:57.400
It would take so many words to explain a very simple accusation. That's why Democrats wanted to charge
00:25:03.600
Trump with bribery, because the public understands bribery.
00:25:06.940
There's only one problem. It wasn't any bribery.
00:25:10.480
One witness after another was asked, did you see a bribe? Did you know about any bribe? They all said no.
00:25:16.940
And after going through these Intelligence Committee hearings, there was just no evidence
00:25:21.360
of bribery. So Democrats dropped that in their articles of impeachment. So yeah, bribery is simple,
00:25:28.980
Yeah. I mean, everyone could understand, okay, Richard Nixon approved breaking into the Democrats'
00:25:36.780
campaign office, if that's what Watergate was, I think. I mean, that's pretty clear to understand.
00:25:41.480
But Trump was just his blustery self on a phone call. I don't know. Let me ask you how it's
00:25:48.820
playing out, because I know that the edgy wing of the Democrats, the squad, they were all very
00:25:57.140
bullish on this Tom Steyer, just dumping buckets of cash. But Nancy Pelosi was sort of hesitant.
00:26:04.280
They're all locked in this now. Do they regret it? Is this backfiring on them? I see polls from
00:26:10.600
across America suggesting that Trump and the Republicans are pulling ahead, and that maybe
0.94
00:26:16.700
grassroots Americans are saying, this is ridiculous. This is a setup. We're less than a year away from
0.91
00:26:22.140
the election. Stop these games. Am I misinterpreting? Am I cherry picking my information?
00:26:28.980
Well, let me put it this way. I think Pelosi was forced into the impeachment by the left wing of her
00:26:35.560
party. And I also think she was forced into making a decision on the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement
00:26:43.460
by Trump, because Trump repeated over and over again that the Democrats were failing to move ahead
00:26:50.220
on things that are important to Americans, like the USMCA, because they were busy with impeachment.
00:26:55.220
So it was a win-win for Trump, right? Because if Pelosi didn't pass the USMCA, he could blame her for
00:27:00.680
focusing on impeachment. And if she did pass the USMCA, which looks likely now, he could say he
00:27:05.520
achieved this major rewriting of NAFTA, one of his core election promises, something the unions have
00:27:10.940
wanted. I mean, the AFL-CIO is endorsing it now. And that's the Democratic core. I mean, that's their
00:27:17.360
turnout machine. So win-win for Trump. And I think Pelosi essentially had to stay in the impeachment
00:27:24.820
fight to stay on top of her caucus, because the left was really advancing and gaining in strength and
1.00
00:27:30.500
power. And she, I think, successfully bargained for time and for additional power by giving the left
0.99
00:27:36.720
what they wanted. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been relatively quiet since the impeachment started.
00:27:42.800
And in that sense, I think Nancy Pelosi scored a victory here because she was able to defang one of
00:27:50.120
her most important rivals and bring her into the tent. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is causing far fewer
1.00
00:27:57.560
problems for everybody, including Pelosi, but also Trump, since this impeachment started. So in a way,
00:28:04.640
Pelosi did what she had to do politically and is now the beneficiary of this process. Although I think
00:28:09.880
in the long run, this is possibly going to take the gavel out of her hands. I think the Trump supporters
00:28:16.280
are so angry about this and independent voters are so angry about it that Democrats have now placed
00:28:22.320
their control of Congress in jeopardy. Oh, and by the way, it's a census here next year. So if Democrats
00:28:27.660
get swept at the polls next year, Republicans will largely be in control of redrawing the
00:28:32.900
congressional districts if the Republican voters also show up for state legislative elections. So
00:28:39.400
let's just put it this way. Nancy Pelosi is making decisions under duress. They happen to be clever
1.00
00:28:46.740
decisions because she's a very canny politician. But her strategy, as opposed to her momentary tactics,
1.00
00:28:53.160
her overall strategy is a dead end. She has no way of getting out of this. Trump and the left have
00:28:59.580
boxed Pelosi in, which does not bode well for the future of her leadership. Now, I've underestimated her
00:29:04.280
before, so I want to be careful before pronouncing any sort of end to her political career. But
00:29:09.020
I don't see how she and the other members of the Democratic establishment, Adam Schiff,
00:29:14.060
Jerry Nadler, I don't see how they last much longer after this impeachment. They are going to lose power
00:29:19.340
in the next Congress, whether Democrats hold the gavel or not. Interesting. I got one last question
00:29:24.660
for you. I appreciate your time. You and I have been talking about Kamala Harris, the California senator
00:29:31.380
who we both thought had the winning combination, but she bowed out in recent days. And the new entrant,
00:29:40.600
Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, he's jumped in with a shocking amount of money. He
00:29:51.540
is spending $20 million per week in ads. I mean, if he keeps that up, he'll be at a billion dollars.
00:30:00.380
That's his own personal wealth. The guy's worth more than $50 billion. He's in his 70s,
00:30:05.260
so I guess he's thinking, what else do I got to spend it on? Harris is out. Bloomberg, I think he's
00:30:13.100
unacceptable and unpalatable to most of America. But if you're willing to spend a billion dollars of your
00:30:18.900
own money, more than every other opponent combined, do you think he's actually got a shot of things?
00:30:24.920
No. Bloomberg has no shot. And that's for a variety of reasons. But one of those reasons is
00:30:34.140
that I don't think Democrats look to him for leadership in what's called the moderate lane
00:30:41.760
of the party now. And now, you know, Bloomberg's now moderate, even though he's all in on climate
00:30:46.140
change and so forth. The decline of Joe Biden's fortunes does not automatically benefit the other
00:30:54.980
moderate candidates. What it means, basically, is that the party establishment is shoved out of the
00:31:01.300
way. So actually, it may create more room for candidates on the left. And if there's to be any
00:31:07.180
sort of moderate candidate who benefits, it's likely to be South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg,
00:31:12.320
who's rising in the polls, not Michael Bloomberg, age 77, 40 years older than Pete Buttigieg. I mean,
00:31:18.840
Democrats have always gone for younger candidates, but Buttigieg is also just more exciting.
00:31:23.220
He's also going to be the first serious gay presidential nominee if he wins the nomination.
00:31:29.160
Now, Bloomberg would be the first Jewish nominee. So there's kind of, you know, historical significance
00:31:33.580
in that. But I just think his age, in a sense, disqualifies him. And he is not, and has never been,
00:31:39.840
actually, a leading ideological voice within the Democratic Party. He's also a former Republican.
00:31:45.460
So all of this basically makes life much harder for Bloomberg. Biden's decline doesn't mean
00:31:50.700
Bloomberg's gain. If I were one of Bloomberg's heirs, I'd be calling dad or granddad right now
00:31:55.840
and telling him, why are you squandering the family legacy on a vanity project? You're 77 years old. You
00:32:01.820
should donate money to foundations and build buildings and contribute in a civic way, which he's
00:32:07.720
going to do anyway. And at least if you're on the left, he's been giving a lot of money to your
00:32:12.080
favorite causes. But this is a vanity project. He's not even getting on the ballot until Super
00:32:17.420
Tuesday, which is the fifth contest. His opponents are going to get a month of free media coverage
00:32:22.560
in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina. Oh, and here's another thing. This ties back into
00:32:28.300
impeachment. And this is just delicious. The Senate conducts the trial. The senators all have to be
00:32:36.960
there. You know, you watch Congress and members float in and out. They're there. They're not there.
00:32:41.460
They have to sit there during the trial because they are members of a jury, essentially. And so
00:32:46.100
all of the senators have to be in the Senate chamber during the trial. It's within Republicans'
00:32:51.540
discretion, since they control the Senate, when to schedule this trial. Now, they've said they want
00:32:56.120
to get it done quickly, but they've also hinted they could do it over six to eight weeks.
00:33:01.100
Either way, Republicans are going to be able to force the senators to sit in Washington during
00:33:06.940
a crucial part of the buildup to the Iowa caucuses in the New Hampshire primary.
00:33:11.560
So they're going to force Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar,
00:33:16.120
Michael Bennett, and anybody else to sit in Washington while Pete Buttigieg gets to go and
00:33:23.020
use his vast army of volunteers and his big money war chest to campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire.
00:33:30.420
So, by the way, Biden's also going to have to be in Washington because he might be a witness.
00:33:35.140
He says he'll defy a subpoena. Yeah, good luck with that. Biden is going to be called as a witness.
00:33:39.940
And even if he's out on the trail, he's going to be asked questions about this impeachment trial.
00:33:43.320
So essentially, impeachment takes most of the other candidates out of the race for about two or three
00:33:49.260
weeks, let's just say conservatively. And you get Biden also taken out. So that means you have
00:33:54.760
Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, and one or two others who will have free reign. And so Republicans can
00:34:02.360
really mess with the Democratic primary because of the Democrats moving forward on impeachment. So
00:34:07.020
it's really funny. I mean, and I get angry about this stuff, too. But at some point,
00:34:11.800
you have to laugh because it really just is comical. This is not a serious impeachment,
00:34:17.640
Yeah. Well, it's quite a circus. And we enjoyed our role, even though we were in Canada,
00:34:25.820
we certainly covered the Trump campaign in 2016, more so than any other Canadian outlet. I think
00:34:31.420
that's how we really got a lot of U.S. fans. And I look forward to us playing a similar role in the
00:34:37.440
2020 election. We have a new reporter joining us who's actually from Hawaii, Tulsi, a Gabbard
00:34:44.140
country. And I look forward to ramping up our own coverage of the 2020 campaign. And Joel,
00:34:50.280
thank you for being so generous with your time every week to give us the update from your point
00:34:56.440
All right. There you have it. Joel Pollack, senior editor at large of Breitbart.com. Stay with us for
00:35:11.020
And what do you think about that WestJet CEO? I mean, listen, I believe that corporate leaders
00:35:16.200
can have something to say about our country. Absolutely. And WestJet's an important company.
00:35:20.920
Absolutely. I don't think Ed Sims is a Canadian yet. And I think it's really gross for him to
00:35:28.660
tell unemployed Albertans they have nothing to bitch about. And then in fact, it's their
0.94
00:35:33.000
complaining that's leading to the bad economy. I think he owes all Canadians and Albertans in
00:35:39.460
particular an apology. What do you think? That's the show for today. Until next time, on behalf of all
00:35:44.980
us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night and keep fighting for freedom.