Rebel News Podcast - Joel Pollak on Trump taking over from the Democrats on trade, immigration, LGBT and more

00:00:00.000 Tonight, the U.S. Democrats, can they find a candidate to beat Donald Trump?

00:00:20.260 It's December 27th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:25.580 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:00:29.100 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:00:33.440 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.

00:00:44.480 Well, you know him as our expert Sherpa to guide us through U.S. politics.

00:00:50.500 So we're glad that he was able to take some time to sit down with us to look ahead for what 2020 will hold in U.S. politics.

00:00:58.680 Obviously, a momentous year, not just congressional elections, but the presidential election.

00:01:05.020 Will Donald Trump be re-elected?

00:01:07.340 What will happen, joining us now via Skype, is Joel Pollack, senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com.

00:01:12.380 Joel, great to see you again.

00:01:14.540 Good to be with you.

00:01:15.200 I tell you, there has not been a dull moment with Trump, partly because he's an entertainer, and everything he does just, you know, is funny or outrageous.

00:01:28.020 I think he's a natural storyteller.

00:01:30.740 He's a ham, as they would say.

00:01:32.900 He's a New Yorker.

00:01:33.860 He's got bravado.

00:01:36.520 He's got charisma.

00:01:37.580 This is not me expressing my affection for him, although I am affectionate.

00:01:41.520 I think he is the most newsworthy person to hold that office since Theodore Roosevelt.

00:01:48.380 What do you think?

00:01:50.760 Well, until the next one.

00:01:53.640 Yeah, that's right.

00:01:55.320 But it's going to be a wild year.

00:01:57.020 It's going to be a crazy year, partly because he's like catnip.

00:02:00.820 No one can avoid him.

00:02:01.640 The media go crazy about him.

00:02:03.200 His enemies go crazy. 0.99

00:02:04.360 They're deranged. 0.97

00:02:06.940 Yes, and the funny thing is, I don't think they really believe their own derangement.

00:02:11.500 It's almost something you have to talk yourself into.

00:02:13.600 If you step back a little bit and just allow yourself to examine your own behavior in terms of what you actually do.

00:02:22.080 For example, in the same way we ask people to look at their own behavior, if they really believe in climate change, are they really taking fewer flights?

00:02:29.380 Are they buying a different car?

00:02:30.740 Are they turning the lights off?

00:02:32.360 Are they abandoning energy-intensive toilet paper for some other green alternative?

00:02:39.480 I don't know.

00:02:40.120 The question really is, are you really behaving as if Donald Trump is a tyrant?

00:02:43.800 Do you really live in fear of your life and your constitutional liberties?

00:02:46.380 Maybe in the months after the election when Hillary Clinton's rhetoric was still ringing in your ear, that might have been excusable.

00:02:53.840 After three years of a growing economy, expanding opportunity, massive improvements in the lives of black, Latino, gay, Jewish Americans, you name it, fighting for gay rights abroad. 0.95

00:03:08.780 I mean, do you really think that Donald Trump is a terrible tyrant, Hitler-in-waiting? 0.84

00:03:13.820 Well, it doesn't really hold water.

00:03:15.920 And nobody's fleeing the country and seeking refuge, at least not right now, unless a bunch of us show up at the doorstep in Canada.

00:03:23.460 But I think Democrats' worldview is now largely contrived and sustained only by the fact that we rely on media to tell us about what's going on in the world right in front of our faces rather than going out and looking for ourselves.

00:03:35.520 Well, you know, that's a good point.

00:03:36.820 We heard so many people who said, well, if Donald Trump wins, I'm moving to Canada.

00:03:40.960 None of them moved to Canada, so I guess it couldn't have been that bad.

00:03:44.020 Or maybe Canada was worse.

00:03:46.180 I don't know.

00:03:46.440 You had Justin Trudeau by then.

00:03:47.760 Well, that's, I mean, he's the dreamboat of the Hollywood left.

00:03:51.220 Well, it's funny you say that because just the other day I was looking at the website of GLAAD, which is a gay and lesbian anti-something-something alliance against discrimination.

00:04:04.100 It's like, it's a pro-gay lobby group. 0.60

00:04:07.320 And they have a whole website dedicated to Trump and the terrible times of Trump.

00:04:13.880 And they have over 100 incidents in the last three years.

00:04:18.580 And I thought, oh, my God, what's going on?

00:04:20.020 I started clicking through them.

00:04:21.660 And they were, oh, well, PragerU had a website that was mean.

00:04:24.960 And Joe Walsh, who's actually a never-Trump Republican, he said something mean.

00:04:29.960 I thought, for God's sakes, if you can only come up with 100 things in 1,000 days of Trump.

00:04:36.180 And when I start reading them, they're not even things that Trump did.

00:04:40.520 I'm guessing things are pretty, I mean, he's not the tyrant you said he was, if you can't even muster examples of him being mean.

00:04:51.680 Right.

00:04:52.380 And more than that, there's so many examples of Trump doing great things for gay and lesbian Americans, appointing the highest-ranking gay official in Richard Grinnell, who's a cornerstone of our diplomatic mission abroad.

00:05:04.660 And decriminalizing homosexuality worldwide, leading an effort to do that. 0.92

00:05:10.480 So, you know, I think Trump's been great.

00:05:12.960 There is a debate over the T in LGBT.

00:05:15.780 Yeah.

00:05:16.000 And Trump hasn't been a transgender president.

00:05:20.520 But there's also a debate within the gay rights movement.

00:05:22.780 I mean, look at someone like Andrew Sullivan, who's been very critical of Republicans over the last decade or more, took Obama's side very strongly in the 2008 and 2012 elections.

00:05:35.220 But Andrew Sullivan's been saying, look, we are not allowing ourselves to debate this transgender issue in the gay community.

00:05:42.640 And what's happening is young gay kids are being told, maybe you're not homosexual, maybe you're just the wrong gender.

00:05:48.960 He says that's actually, in a way, a kind of discrimination against gays.

00:05:51.840 So there's a debate going on within the transgender community, and it really affects a very, very, very small proportion of the population.

00:05:59.260 So on the whole, Donald Trump is probably, arguably, the most pro-gay and lesbian bisexual rights president in the history of the United States.

00:06:08.120 So anyway, the dark totalitarian world hasn't materialized, except in Congress, except among Democrats, who have trampled civil liberties and the Constitution in their rush to impeach Donald Trump.

00:06:22.840 Yeah.

00:06:23.260 You know, it's funny you mentioned the T, because that's what I was doing in the GLAAD website, actually.

00:06:27.700 They had a study that showed the acceptance of LGBT was falling precipitously amongst millennials, and my theory is it's because of the T, because of the absurdities there. 1.00

00:06:42.380 But the points you make about gay issues, I think, can be made about black issues, about Jewish issues, all these groups that historically have been counted on by the Democrats.

00:06:55.720 I mean, even labor unions, maybe that's the biggest of all.

00:06:59.220 One of the first things Trump did was he ripped up the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that had been such a sticking point for the big unions.

00:07:07.200 I remember when Trump gave a tour to union bosses, I think it was his first day in office.

00:07:13.860 Here's a clip of that, these big Democrat labor union bosses, and they left stunned by the respect they had shown.

00:07:23.300 And here's a quick clip of one of them saying he had never been shown that respect by any president ever.

00:07:30.020 Here, take a look at that.

00:07:31.140 When the president laid out his plans about how he's going to handle trade, how he's going to invest in our infrastructure,

00:07:37.440 and how he's going to level a playing field for construction workers and all Americans across this country,

00:07:41.140 and then took the time to take everyone into the Oval Office and show them the seat of power in the world.

00:07:48.980 The respect that the president of the United States just showed us, and when he shows it to us,

00:07:53.180 he shows that the three million of our members in the United States was nothing short of incredible.

00:07:58.580 And we will work with him and his administration to help him implement his plans on infrastructure, trade, and energy policy,

00:08:07.540 so that we really do put America back to work in the middle class jobs that our members and all Americans are demanding.

00:08:14.420 Thank you very much.

00:08:15.320 Trump isn't just friendly to gays and Jews and blacks and labor unions.

00:08:20.780 I think he's doing the ultimate Democrat move of being a celebrity.

00:08:25.200 Like, Obama was supposed to be the celebrity, but Trump actually was.

00:08:29.020 I think that's one of the reasons he drives the left crazy, is because he's using all their tricks against them.

00:08:37.600 Right, and also he's reaching right into the core of the Democratic constituency.

00:08:42.680 You know, his political strategy in 2016 was to go beyond the swing states, go beyond, you know, in football terms, the neutral zone,

00:08:51.540 and don't fight on the line of scrimmage, go deep.

00:08:54.240 And he went right into the heart of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio.

00:08:58.060 He went to all of these Democratic states.

00:09:00.460 He's doing it again, not just in terms of the electoral college, you know, going to Minnesota, campaigning in Democratic strongholds like that,

00:09:07.000 but also by going to all of these groups that form the stars in the Democratic constellation, African-Americans, Latinos, gays and lesbians, and unions.

00:09:18.500 And now you've got the AFL-CIO backing the USMCA, Trump's big trade deal.

00:09:24.520 So Trump is really going after Democratic voters, Democratic priorities.

00:09:29.880 Border security is something many Democrats are concerned about.

00:09:32.460 Trade, immigration.

00:09:33.780 These issues cut across party lines, but Democrats have positions on these issues that are at odds with the majority of Americans and with many people in their own party.

00:09:42.840 You know, to take on China is so contrary to the traditional GOP Republican elite, the free trade with everyone.

00:09:54.180 And I got to tell you, that's where I came from politically myself.

00:09:58.400 The Fraser Institute, the Milton Friedman, pure free trade, declare unilaterally free trade with the whole world.

00:10:05.560 So Trump, going back decades, I mean, you could see his old interview on Oprah Winfrey, he was talking about getting tough with, back then it was Japan, and then I suppose it was Taiwan, and now it's China.

00:10:19.400 That's a traditional turf of Democrats.

00:10:22.700 Here's a clip from Trump, I think this is from the 80s, telling Oprah he wants to get tough with cheap foreign labor.

00:10:31.200 Here, take a look at this.

00:10:32.040 You took out a full-page ad in major U.S. newspapers last year criticizing U.S. foreign policy.

00:10:37.240 What would you do differently, Donald?

00:10:38.800 I'd make our allies, forgetting about the enemies, the enemies you can't talk to so easily, I'd make our allies pay their fair share.

00:10:45.180 We're a debtor nation.

00:10:46.380 Something's going to happen over the next number of years with this country, because you can't keep going on losing $200 billion, and yet we let Japan come in and dump everything right into our markets and everything. 1.00

00:10:55.520 It's not free trade.

00:10:56.900 If you ever go to Japan right now and try to sell something, forget about it, Oprah.

00:11:00.320 Just forget about it.

00:11:01.160 It's almost impossible.

00:11:02.320 They don't have laws against it.

00:11:03.460 They just make it impossible.

00:11:04.960 They come over here.

00:11:05.760 They sell their cars, their VCRs.

00:11:07.540 They knock the hell out of our companies.

00:11:09.280 And, hey, I have tremendous respect for the Japanese people.

00:11:11.980 I mean, you can respect somebody that's beating the hell out of you, but they are beating the hell out of this country.

00:11:16.800 Kuwait, they live like kings.

00:11:18.120 The poorest person in Kuwait, they live like kings, and yet they're not paying. 0.99

00:11:21.700 We make it possible for them to sell their oil.

00:11:24.220 Why aren't they paying us 25% of what they're making?

00:11:26.840 It's a joke.

00:11:27.440 See, that is contrary to the Koch brothers' purist free trade approach, but that's what's going to bring back jobs for blue-collar Americans in those states you mentioned, like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio.

00:11:42.160 I think he's winning those seats back from the Dems, who are now all about radical grievance politics and identity groups.

00:11:49.120 Right, and you can't underestimate the degree of damage that identity politics has done to the Democratic connection with their voter base.

00:11:59.560 Yes, there are particular constituent groups and leaders who insist on identity politics, but many Democrats are alienated by it.

00:12:07.000 In fact, many Democrats agree with Republicans that political correctness is a big problem.

00:12:10.840 And if you're a young and up-and-coming Democrat and you want to make your way in the party and have a political career, or if you're just a voter who's looking for a place to belong, political correctness is a big obstacle because you've got to somehow do this inventory of all these prejudices you supposedly carry with you and privileges that you supposedly inherited from Lord knows where.

00:12:30.840 And they make you basically pay an admissions price at the door to get into this party.

00:12:36.540 And more and more people are saying, well, that's just too high a price to pay to belong to the cool kids.

00:12:40.840 Maybe I'll just sit back and be an independent for a while for free.

00:12:43.900 And if they really get upset, they join the Republicans or they vote Republican.

00:12:47.160 Quietly, many independents do.

00:12:49.340 And I think that's why Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are trying to rush this impeachment.

00:12:55.520 They sense the public's not with them.

00:12:57.740 The Democratic base doesn't like their candidates.

00:13:01.000 There's all sorts of other tensions pulling out the Democratic Party.

00:13:04.220 So, yeah, identity politics is one of them.

00:13:06.240 Big how do you do until Andrew Yang qualified, really.

00:13:09.520 But there was a big controversy about having only white candidates on the stage for the December debate.

00:13:16.480 Now, again, that's part of identity politics.

00:13:20.080 You know, the ideal Martin Luther King Jr. articulated was judge people by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.

00:13:26.620 Democrats are a long way from that.

00:13:28.180 And in that sense, they're moving away from a national principle, something that's shared broadly by Americans.

00:13:32.440 You know, identity politics, we went deep on the issue of the T and LGBT.

00:13:40.480 But I think that's actually a big sleeper issue because that's not just some obscure virtue signaling where you, you know, like saying people kind.

00:13:50.580 If you use the right language, it shows how fashionable you are.

00:13:53.180 I think there's an enormous number of Americans, including, let's say, American mums whose girls are on sports teams. 0.94

00:14:01.860 And now you've got a guy who can't cut it on the men's team.

00:14:05.840 So he says, I'm a girl.

00:14:07.180 I identify as a girl.

00:14:08.340 And he goes and he competes against the girls' teams, smokes them. 0.94

00:14:12.360 And maybe if he's really pushy, he demands to change in a girl's changing room.

00:14:19.260 And all of a sudden, what was just an irritant of virtue signaling and political correctness now is actually changing the lives of normal people who don't want politics messing up with their girls' sports or the girls' changing room.

00:14:31.940 I think that the T in LGBT is actually, if the Republicans were to pick it up and run with it, I think that could move a lot of those soccer moms, as they call them, into the Republican camp.

00:14:44.520 Because I think that's a genuine concern for millions of Americans and Canadians who don't feel like they're allowed to even talk about that in public.

00:14:53.040 But if you look, you mentioned the Democrat debates.

00:14:55.920 They had an entire debate or town hall that seemed to be only about sexual issues.

00:15:01.340 Here's one where someone says, what about the black, transgender, something, something.

00:15:06.200 Here's a clip from that.

00:15:07.320 I just want to take a moment before I ask my question to validate the pain of our transgender siblings that demonstrated earlier and that have spoken up today.

00:15:16.840 Especially black trans women. 1.00

00:15:18.940 I'm so sorry.

00:15:19.820 I don't want to take this away from you.

00:15:21.580 But let me tell you something. 1.00

00:15:22.780 Black trans women are being killed in this country. 0.99

00:15:25.180 And CNN, you have erased black trans women for the last time. 1.00

00:15:29.340 Let me tell you something. 1.00

00:15:30.400 Black trans women are dying. 1.00

00:15:32.960 Our lives matter.

00:15:34.600 What do you think about that?

00:15:35.680 I mean, I'm not, we're spending a lot of time talking about LGBT, but I actually think it's an explosive issue because unlike, you know, other rights that don't really impose upon you, if someone is trans, they're saying, I want to get in your girl's league.

00:15:51.380 I want to get in your girl's change room. 1.00

00:15:53.000 And it's a whole different thing than, okay, so he's gay or okay, so he's black, I think. 0.62

00:15:57.920 Well, here's the issue.

00:16:00.980 It's okay to champion the cause of a small number of people if in some way it's emblematic of a larger problem.

00:16:07.200 So when Donald Trump took up the cause of families who had lost a loved one to crimes by illegal aliens, that's a very small group of people, but it represented a lot of Americans who felt their government was no longer protecting them.

00:16:21.020 And what Democrats are doing with transgenderism is choosing a group to champion, rightly or wrongly. 0.95

00:16:29.160 I mean, I'm not saying in this comment, anything about their cause, but they're choosing a group that has a hard time standing for anybody else.

00:16:37.140 They're really standing for identity politics in general.

00:16:39.760 They're the next civil rights cause in a way, but they don't stand for any broader purpose.

00:16:46.080 In fact, the charge they make is that the entire system, cultural system, not just political system, the entire cultural system is unjust.

00:16:54.840 And so by standing up for the transgender movement and the way Democrats are doing it, they're basically saying we want to be a part of changing everything. 0.92

00:17:04.320 Well, that's really about an abstract ideal shared by fervent supporters of the Democratic Party, but it's not something that represents the majority of Americans or some great, broad, inclusive idea.

00:17:17.900 So that's where Democrats are stuck. 1.00

00:17:20.400 Where Democrats usually have a good footing is when it comes to health care.

00:17:25.580 And they often choose specific categories of victims, people with pre-existing conditions, for example.

00:17:30.820 That was a big Democratic talking point for a long time.

00:17:33.900 And very few people, well, I shouldn't say very few, a large number of people do actually fall into that category, but it's still a minority.

00:17:40.300 Most people who have health insurance are not ruled out because of pre-existing conditions.

00:17:43.400 But they represent the group most vulnerable as part of a system that doesn't really work as well as it should for anybody.

00:17:53.020 Americans like their health insurance, but pay too much for it and everyone has problems.

00:17:57.680 So this idea that people are getting excluded from health insurance completely, even though it was a smallish number of people, that stands for a larger cause.

00:18:05.120 But Democrats aren't talking about them so much anymore.

00:18:07.040 And they're focused on all this impeachment nonsense and on transgender issues and so forth, deciding which pronoun they are. 0.52

00:18:14.760 I mean, it all is about a narrow agenda.

00:18:17.840 Trump is winning because he's going into the heart of the Democratic Party and finding big ticket items and making them his own.

00:18:24.880 Yeah.

00:18:24.960 Well, I mean, Obama was historic.

00:18:30.900 It truly was historic to have him win.

00:18:33.100 I think winning the election was his finest moment.

00:18:38.180 And it was all downhill from there.

00:18:39.420 He didn't deliver much.

00:18:40.800 But you could say he was iconic.

00:18:42.340 He had a look, a sound.

00:18:44.060 He represented a hope.

00:18:45.040 I look at the field of Democrats who were seeking the presidential nomination, and it feels like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs without Snow White.

00:18:56.020 It's just seven dwarves. 0.99

00:18:57.640 It feels like, I mean, when Donald Trump ran, it was a very crowded field of nominees against him, too.

00:19:05.220 There was actually some good contenders there, I think, that were serious.

00:19:08.320 But he was just so dominant.

00:19:10.500 I don't see anyone in this Democrat field that makes me say, wow, or they've got leadership.

00:19:17.840 They've got the royal jelly.

00:19:19.420 I just, I mean, they're either too old, Joe Biden, too socialist, Bernie Sanders, too young and inexperienced, Pete Buttigieg.

00:19:28.060 Maybe I'm just nitpicking.

00:19:29.980 But I look at that, and I think it's not a surprise that Hillary Clinton keeps floating trial balloons.

00:19:37.120 Because at least she's a giant. 1.00

00:19:40.400 She's a corrupt, failed, unhealthy, miserable giant. 1.00

00:19:44.940 But she is a giant. 1.00

00:19:47.240 Right.

00:19:47.920 So she's teasing the idea of running.

00:19:50.660 Look, in four years or five years, Republicans are in trouble because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is going to be old enough to run for president. 0.99

00:19:59.000 She's the only person who excites the Democratic Party and can broaden it by bringing in new young voters. 1.00

00:20:03.980 So I think that her personality would dominate the field. 0.99

00:20:09.200 She exudes leadership.

00:20:11.180 Like her or not, she's got leadership qualities.

00:20:15.260 And she controls the Democratic caucus right now. 0.99

00:20:17.720 I mean, she basically prodded Nancy Pelosi toward impeachment. 1.00

00:20:20.160 So there you go.

00:20:21.340 But you're correct.

00:20:22.240 I don't think Democrats like their own candidates.

00:20:24.280 I've talked to Democrats in many different groups of the population, let me put it that way, socioeconomically, racially, ethnically.

00:20:31.920 Nobody seems to like their candidates.

00:20:33.580 Nobody feels what you describe, that sort of attraction to a leader that Republicans felt with Trump.

00:20:39.640 And like him or hate him, they felt strongly about him.

00:20:42.200 There are no Democrats that evoke that strength of feeling.

00:20:46.200 So I think Democrats find themselves in a similar situation to Republicans in 2012,

00:20:50.640 when Mitt Romney was sort of heir apparent to the nomination because he bowed out in favor of John McCain in 2008.

00:20:57.960 And he didn't really come from the Tea Party.

00:21:00.560 He wasn't in touch with the base.

00:21:02.560 He had the right resume, good looks and all of that.

00:21:04.860 But he really didn't resonate with the party.

00:21:06.980 And people were dissatisfied.

00:21:08.660 They kept looking around.

00:21:09.500 We called them the not Romneys. 1.00

00:21:11.040 It was Romney versus the not Romneys.

00:21:13.360 And people kept looking at the not Romneys.

00:21:15.020 And every month, it seemed there was a new one.

00:21:17.260 It was Newt Gingrich one month.

00:21:18.680 It was Rick Santorum another month.

00:21:20.620 And the Republican primary electorate kind of cycled through these alternatives to Romney

00:21:25.100 before basically giving up and settling on Romney.

00:21:28.360 The smart money says that's what's going to happen with Joe Biden.

00:21:31.240 By the way, my prediction of Kamala Harris was wrong.

00:21:33.300 So that didn't happen.

00:21:34.580 But she may still be on the ticket because of the fact that she checks all the different boxes for Democrats in different ways. 1.00

00:21:41.600 But Joe Biden may end up being kind of default nominee.

00:21:45.060 And then Democrats kind of hobble into the election.

00:21:47.660 Now, that doesn't mean they're going to lose.

00:21:48.920 I mean, Democrats have the tech companies, the media, Hollywood on their side.

00:21:54.220 Those are very, very big factors.

00:21:56.380 So we'll see.

00:21:58.320 But I think Democrats are certainly in a very difficult position.

00:22:01.100 And it is probably too late for another candidate to come in who does have that sort of leadership quality.

00:22:06.920 Nobody knows who it would be.

00:22:07.920 And Democrats have not done a very good job of developing a bench of talent.

00:22:11.960 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is there.

00:22:13.720 But she basically broke down the door. 1.00

00:22:16.280 She ran against an incumbent lieutenant of Nancy Pelosi's in the Democratic Party.

00:22:21.520 So that's how Democrats are going to renew themselves.

00:22:25.460 The current crop of candidates really doesn't provide them with much.

00:22:28.580 Maybe a few future cabinet members, you can see Pete Buttigieg, for example, being placed in charge of something or other.

00:22:34.100 But I don't see a real leader among them either.

00:22:37.660 Yeah.

00:22:38.040 Well, if Trump wins again, and let me make the case again, I'm an outsider.

00:22:44.780 I'm a Canadian.

00:22:45.440 Obviously, you live this stuff every day.

00:22:47.100 It's your forte.

00:22:48.180 But I would guess a few things.

00:22:50.120 First of all, if there is another, quote, scandal on Trump, first of all, we probably have heard all the scandals against him.

00:22:57.600 I can't imagine there's anything that hasn't been dug up if it was there to be dug up.

00:23:02.900 It's not like Justin Trudeau, who wasn't vetted.

00:23:06.080 No one even bothered to look through his yearbook photos to see the blackface until he was prime minister for four years already. 0.98

00:23:12.340 I think if there's anything bad on Trump, it's already exploded.

00:23:14.880 And even if there was something new, I don't think it's going to dent the ardor for him by his base, who love him not just despite his flaws, but love his fighting spirit.

00:23:26.140 So I can't imagine he's going to lose them unless he dramatically changes course on the core policy.

00:23:34.220 I think he's better organized now.

00:23:36.400 He has a bigger team now.

00:23:40.020 He's building lists at these mega rallies he has.

00:23:42.960 I see his campaign bragging about how many names they're signing up.

00:23:47.600 He's reaching out to new communities.

00:23:49.140 My point is, I think there's a real chance Trump could win again in 2020, especially if the economy holds.

00:23:56.080 And I guess my question to you is, will liberals actually explode?

00:24:02.960 And by that, I mean, do something nuts like, God forbid, an assassination attempt. 0.91

00:24:09.000 And God forbid, some crazy civil war attempt, not that they're armed.

00:24:13.260 I mean, I just, they've labored for three years thinking this guy isn't real.

00:24:17.800 He hacked the election.

00:24:19.360 He stole the election.

00:24:20.240 He colluded the election.

00:24:21.220 He bribed the election.

00:24:22.380 If he's actually elected, I think, I don't know what they're going to do.

00:24:25.220 They're going to explode.

00:24:25.960 I think they're going to, well, Obama used to believe that if he won in 2012, as he put it, the fever would break and that Republicans would become more amenable as if they were the problem.

00:24:42.040 Now, that almost happened in a sense because the Republican establishment was certainly eager to make a compromise.

00:24:49.220 They wanted to negotiate over amnesty as soon as the election results were in.

00:24:55.480 I mean, literally the day after Romney lost the election, the Republican establishment was all in for amnesty on illegal immigration.

00:25:01.860 And it may be that they saw an opportunity in Obama's victory to rid themselves of this troublesome political base, this terrible issue.

00:25:09.720 So in that sense, the fever broke, although, you know, these were really Obama's co-conspirators in a policy sense.

00:25:16.720 Now, Obama mistook the source of his problem as being the opposition.

00:25:23.020 Really, the source of his problem was himself, his ideas, his inability to lead the country in a way that unified it and so forth.

00:25:28.780 But with Trump, I think there really will be kind of a reckoning, not because they're suddenly going to realize they like Trump and they should listen to him and they should acknowledge his achievements.

00:25:38.840 But I think what you see happening around Democrats, my mind is sort of just kind of working this out as I speak to you.

00:25:45.200 But what you see among Democrats is.

00:25:49.780 They're laying the foundation for an explanation as to why they lost in 2020.

00:25:55.700 And right now, that foundation has two pillars.

00:26:00.440 One is a weak field of candidates.

00:26:02.460 So they will tell themselves we had terrible candidates.

00:26:05.380 They're already telling themselves they had terrible candidates.

00:26:08.360 The related complaint will be that the Democratic National Committee mismanaged the debates by having these arbitrary thresholds about donation levels and polling thresholds.

00:26:17.840 So already you see a bit of that.

00:26:19.940 They're saying the DNC is to blame.

00:26:21.680 The second pillar is going to be this impeachment thing.

00:26:25.620 And I think that some Democrats will say, in retrospect, it was a mistake to go for impeachment.

00:26:31.020 Now, this is assuming they lose in 2020.

00:26:33.720 But if they do, they're going to look at impeachment and say, you know what, this was really just kind of nuts.

00:26:38.060 We allowed ourselves to get talked into this.

00:26:39.680 So they are already, in a sense, laying the – or maybe they'll say they didn't push it hard enough.

00:26:45.560 That was the initial reaction of CNN when the articles of impeachment came out.

00:26:49.720 CNN basically said, well, this is all you came up with after all these months?

00:26:53.340 You didn't push hard enough.

00:26:54.420 You didn't include extortion and bribery and all the things you could have included and should have included.

00:26:58.820 You didn't fight hard enough.

00:26:59.920 That's actually a likelier response from Democrats.

00:27:01.900 So what Democrats are saying, in either case, is we didn't fight hard enough.

00:27:06.760 We didn't choose the best candidates, the best arguments.

00:27:09.340 And it's, in some measure, our fault for losing.

00:27:12.380 They didn't say that about Hillary Clinton. 0.86

00:27:14.320 The Bernie people did.

00:27:15.260 The Bernie Sanders people blamed the establishment and Hillary Clinton for losing in 2016.

00:27:19.280 But the Clinton people, who still represented the establishment and the dominant force in the media,

00:27:24.480 they were basically saying, well, this was the Russians and Trump stole the election and all that nonsense.

00:27:28.040 So what I think you'll see is not so much a reckoning with where the country is as a whole and why the country is not listening to Democrats,

00:27:35.940 why Democrats are distant from the needs of ordinary Americans.

00:27:39.020 But you'll see Democrats talk to each other about their own failures.

00:27:43.080 They're not going to become more amenable to compromise with Trump, maybe even more dug in against him.

00:27:47.880 But I think they'll start to have a real conversation with each other about the way, at least, in which they choose their candidates.

00:27:54.120 It's all just going to be talk because, again, it sort of awaits a strong personality.

00:27:58.100 Once you get Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez going, and she will get going, then I think you have a different kind of conversation.

00:28:04.260 But I think you'll start to see some reckoning among Democrats in the same way there was a little bit of reckoning among Republicans.

00:28:10.380 And look, Republicans had a very qualified field in 2015, but perhaps not a very good field.

00:28:16.240 That's what Trump saw.

00:28:17.000 That's why he jumped in.

00:28:17.820 And so you'll start to see Democrats also change their party simply by running in the way that Trump's changed his party by running.

00:28:24.940 And I don't think the fever, so to speak, of opposition to Trump will break.

00:28:29.340 But I do think Democrats will have some reflecting to do.

00:28:32.060 And maybe in the long run, that might make them start to listen more to the American people.

00:28:35.720 But it depends how that internal process shakes out.

00:28:37.660 You know, I remember right after 2016, like the first reaction was just stunned.

00:28:44.180 I mean, Hillary Clinton herself couldn't muster herself the night of the election to give a concession speech. 1.00

00:28:50.520 She just wouldn't.

00:28:51.520 She just wouldn't believe it.

00:28:53.480 And I think there's this amazing footage.

00:28:56.020 I think it was Ben Rhodes was the name of a Democratic strategist who just literally was stunned, speechless.

00:29:02.780 He was participating in a reality TV show.

00:29:06.700 He thought he would be the hero and winning that day.

00:29:09.480 But at the moment, he just had to process.

00:29:11.860 And that's here is a clip of that.

00:29:13.220 He said, I just need a minute to process.

00:29:14.880 Look at look at this.

00:29:25.580 I just came outside to try to process all this.

00:29:29.320 It's a lot to process.

00:29:37.720 I mean, I can't even.

00:29:56.920 I can't.

00:29:57.920 I mean, I, I, I, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't put it into words.

00:30:15.620 I don't know what the words are.

00:30:16.880 So there was that initial stunned moment, Joel.

00:30:21.520 But then I think some of the more radical elements deployed.

00:30:27.480 There were Antifa riots almost immediately.

00:30:31.080 George Soros announced he was giving, I think it was $100 million to street activists.

00:30:36.880 He bankrolled the Pussy March, the Women's March to coincide with the inauguration. 0.95

00:30:41.380 I mean, that was a heavy, high budget, high engagement response by a more radical wing than just the, you know, the elected officials. 0.99

00:30:53.380 I know it sounds insane.

00:30:55.080 And I, I, I'm not that wild, Joel.

00:30:58.480 But do you think that you're going to see a street riot approach, an Antifa approach?

00:31:03.980 Do you, do you, do you think that'll actually happen?

00:31:07.940 That's a given.

00:31:08.720 They've invested so much money in these organizations.

00:31:12.320 They'll do whatever they think benefits them politically.

00:31:15.960 So you notice they turned off the Antifa stuff once it started to backfire.

00:31:20.820 And they were able to bring it, rein it in pretty quickly.

00:31:23.340 A lot of it is connected to the institutional money that also supports the Democratic Party.

00:31:27.080 So I think they will ratchet it up.

00:31:29.500 But I think, again, most of their energy is going to be focused inward after 2020 if they lose.

00:31:35.480 If they win, maybe Antifa comes back because they need some way to, and Obama tried this and sometimes succeeded.

00:31:44.700 They need a way to amplify the messages from the White House.

00:31:47.600 They need a grassroots presence to validate whatever the administration is doing.

00:31:51.000 That's how Democrats have learned to operate.

00:31:52.440 So you could see more Antifa if Democrats win, ironically.

00:31:55.380 Well, listen, I want to whip through a few other points.

00:31:58.640 We spent a lot of time talking about the Democrats and Trump, and I think it's fascinating.

00:32:04.300 We're going to have reporters in the field in the United States, even though we're based in Canada.

00:32:09.920 We're riveted by it, as the whole world is.

00:32:12.160 But let's just tick off a few other issues.

00:32:14.360 I don't want to keep you much longer.

00:32:16.180 The economy.

00:32:17.100 I mean, it has gone, I think, surprisingly well.

00:32:20.980 I remember when Obama said, oh, it's not like you could just wave a magic wand.

00:32:25.320 Here's Obama saying, well, you can't do any better.

00:32:27.680 Here's that clip.

00:32:28.600 He's going to bring all these jobs back.

00:32:30.960 Well, how exactly are you going to do that?

00:32:32.520 What are you going to do?

00:32:34.780 There's no answer to it.

00:32:37.320 He just says, well, I'm going to negotiate a better deal.

00:32:40.280 Well, how exactly are you going to negotiate that?

00:32:44.860 What magic wand do you have?

00:32:46.960 Well, I guess Obama really never had any private sector practice, so Trump did.

00:32:51.560 He's getting really strong growth, even though he's in a full-tilt trade war with China.

00:32:58.160 Right.

00:32:58.720 I think the trade war could be a negative factor in the economy, mostly because the costs of tariffs are being absorbed by businesses.

00:33:08.580 So in order to stay competitive, they're spending money on other things like tariffs.

00:33:14.040 They're also competing now in a very tight labor market.

00:33:16.860 So they are raising wages, but they're not necessarily investing in future production.

00:33:22.980 So we could see some fallout further down the line.

00:33:25.800 But, yeah, I mean, we still have relatively high interest rates compared to what we had during the Obama era.

00:33:30.840 And we're still rocking and rolling economically.

00:33:33.260 It's really about confidence.

00:33:34.580 I think the country is confident, and we've changed our disadvantageous tax structures so there is no longer the same incentive for companies to park their money overseas.

00:33:43.860 And I think it's great.

00:33:45.320 And I think it's great for the country, regardless of politics, because recessions are really terrible.

00:33:51.660 But I think if it keeps going like this, Trump ought to win.

00:33:56.020 And, you know, as I said to you before, Justin Trudeau won, I tend to think that even if you don't like anything a president or prime minister is doing, if they're still presiding over economic growth, they tend to get reelected.

00:34:08.360 Now, I know the unemployment numbers haven't been good since then, although they still, you know, on the year are pretty good.

00:34:15.960 But who knows, you once were skeptical about those numbers.

00:34:20.740 And I thought about you when I saw the last two unemployment reports from Canada.

00:34:24.040 I thought, well, I wonder if there was something to that.

00:34:26.000 But we'll just have to see.

00:34:27.200 My wife, who's the labor economist, tells me that Canadian unemployment statistics tend to be very volatile.

00:34:32.900 So it's very hard to measure after just two reports.

00:34:36.660 But, look, in any case, as long as the economic growth number is positive and as long as the economy feels positive, it's harder to lose an election.

00:34:44.920 But Democrats are going to try to push Trump out no matter how they have to do it.

00:34:48.700 You know, I remember talking to Phelan McAleer, the independent filmmaker, in 2012.

00:34:57.040 And he said that one of the things that Obama had going for him, ironically, was that the fracking revolution was creating jobs in places that were really depressed.

00:35:08.920 And he really focused on Pennsylvania, for example.

00:35:12.160 And he said that, ironically, Obama was against the energy industry.

00:35:16.100 But despite that, it was creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

00:35:20.360 Well, here we are, four, eight years later, and the United States, and this was unthinkable just five years ago, is a net energy exporter and, for the first time, a net oil exporter.

00:35:33.820 That's unbelievable to me.

00:35:36.400 So, I mean, that's huge jobs.

00:35:39.920 That's also very important.

00:35:42.260 Well, you know, that shows you the resilience of the American economy by design, because so much of our economy exists outside of government.

00:35:48.300 That even though Barack Obama tried to put the brakes on oil and gas development in this country, he simply couldn't stop what was happening technologically.

00:35:57.180 And driven by high oil prices, which were a legacy of the Iraq War and that whole period, the American energy sector invested in new technology, found new resources, created this shale boom.

00:36:09.420 And we're still enjoying the benefits of that in a very big way.

00:36:12.620 And that shows you how resilient our economy is, because essentially Obama tried to destroy that industry.

00:36:19.540 Now, there are industries that are suffering in the energy sector, like coal, but that's also happening in a way, despite government.

00:36:25.580 Donald Trump is the most pro-coal president we've had, probably since Harry Truman.

00:36:29.220 And yet the coal industry is suffering, and that's because of prices, and it's because of consumer preferences, and a variety of other reasons.

00:36:36.480 But again, it shows us that the economy, in many respects, is driven by factors outside of government in the kind of economy we have.

00:36:43.620 Now, if we had a more state-centered economy, you could see those policy changes having a much bigger impact.

00:36:48.520 There are policy changes that do have an impact, primarily relating to taxes, monetary policy, and things like that.

00:36:54.840 But when government decides the future of an industry, it can do some damage.

00:37:00.740 But as much power as Obama had early in his administration, as much damage as he tried to do, the market just would not let him.

00:37:07.940 The supply and demand for energy would not let Barack Obama destroy the oil and gas industry.

00:37:13.200 Now, it certainly cost jobs and probably made electricity and gas more expensive.

00:37:18.320 But I think that given the resilience of the American economy, as long as presidents and governments in general are doing what they can do to help that economy stay resilient, and there are key decisions to be made.

00:37:30.460 I'm not saying government's unimportant.

00:37:31.700 Very important, actually.

00:37:33.080 But government doesn't drive the economy.

00:37:35.120 Government's not the engine.

00:37:36.060 Let me put it this way.

00:37:37.240 Government might be the steering wheel, but it's not the engine.

00:37:39.200 And that's, I think, very important when it comes to understanding that energy boom in the United States.

00:37:45.840 We're now the number one oil producer in the world.

00:37:47.740 That's largely due to Donald Trump, but it's also despite Barack Obama.

00:37:51.360 Yeah.

00:37:51.720 Well, here in Canada, I mean, in my home province of Alberta, it literally has, that one province has more oil reserves than any other country in the world other than Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.

00:38:03.360 50% of the accessible oil in the world is in Alberta.

00:38:06.560 That is, it's not controlled by a state.

00:38:08.560 Right.

00:38:09.200 And yet Alberta is floundering because of government.

00:38:13.420 And we look on Texas and North Dakota and Pennsylvania with great longing.

00:38:18.200 That could be us, but we voted for a drama teacher in blackface. 1.00

00:38:22.400 Let me ask you one last question, and it's about the wall.

00:38:28.620 I remember I once said to you that the wall, in my assessment as a Canadian pundit, so I'm removed from it.

00:38:37.340 It was such a core promise.

00:38:40.200 And I don't know if this made sense, but I said it.

00:38:42.360 I said, if he only keeps that promise, he's reelected.

00:38:46.480 And if he does anything but keep that promise, he's not reelected.

00:38:51.040 It seemed that important, not only as a tangible symbol that he actually is who he says he is.

00:38:57.860 Now, here he is in his fourth year as president.

00:39:01.340 Maybe he's proven enough on himself on so many other things, like appointing great judges and fighting back in the culture wars and the media wars.

00:39:08.580 Maybe the wall has been eclipsed by other proofs of his realness.

00:39:14.160 But I still believe that wall is such a tangible proof of whether or not he's full of it or if he can be trusted.

00:39:21.100 What do you think of the wall?

00:39:22.420 Will more of it be built?

00:39:23.860 Is that still a fake?

00:39:25.220 What's up with the wall?

00:39:26.960 I think the wall will be built.

00:39:29.680 It's going to take a lot of work.

00:39:31.840 Trump's doing what he can.

00:39:32.740 I think Trump voters are sticking with him, even though the wall isn't up, because they sense that he's tried his hardest and the opposition he's faced has been relentless.

00:39:42.340 And it's clearer than ever that only Trump can get it done.

00:39:46.780 So I think they'll stick with him on that.

00:39:49.520 I do agree with you.

00:39:50.220 It was central.

00:39:51.060 And that's why Democrats attacked it.

00:39:53.680 It's also why Democrats would only pass the USMCA through the House on the day they also decided to impeach the president.

00:40:01.080 And it's as if they can't give him a core campaign accomplishment without, in a sense, delegitimizing his presidency.

00:40:10.040 That's the level of tradeoff Democrats are demanding. 0.87

00:40:13.280 So we'll see.

00:40:14.360 But if Republicans come back in 2020 with a majority in both houses of Congress, I think they'll learn from the mistakes of the first two years of the Trump presidency.

00:40:22.900 And I think they'll be ready to roll on the wall, on health care, on a whole bunch of other issues.

00:40:27.740 I won't say the election is theirs to lose, but Democrats, by focusing on impeachment, have given Republicans a massive opportunity.

00:40:36.040 Joe Pollock, it's great to have such a good talk with you.

00:40:38.800 Thank you for spending so much time with us.

00:40:40.260 Thank you.

00:40:40.500 Not just today, but throughout the year, we really rely on you as a guide.

00:40:44.480 And we love reading your stuff at Breitbart.com.

00:40:46.560 Thanks, my friend.

00:40:47.000 Thank you.

00:40:47.340 Merry Christmas.

00:40:47.920 Happy New Year.

00:40:48.460 Happy Hanukkah.

00:40:49.480 Thanks.

00:40:49.840 And Kwanzaa, Canada.

00:40:52.040 Right on.

00:40:52.880 You too, my friend.

00:40:53.780 There you have it.

00:40:54.980 Joe Pollock.

00:40:55.520 Bye.

00:40:55.620 Well, that's it for today.

00:40:57.280 Until next time, my friends.

00:40:58.940 Good night.

00:40:59.940 And keep fighting for freedom.

00:41:01.400 Good night.

00:41:02.240 Good night.

00:41:02.960 Good night.

00:41:06.740 Good night.

00:41:07.380 Good night.

00:41:07.860 Good night.

00:41:09.640 Good night.

00:41:14.800 Thank you.

00:41:15.460 Good night.

00:41:18.860 Good night.

00:41:19.320 Good night.

00:41:19.720 Good night.

00:41:20.720 Good night.

00:41:21.520 Good night.

00:41:22.240 Good night.

00:41:23.760 Good night.

00:41:24.660 Good night.

00:41:26.040 Good night.

00:41:26.900 Good night.

00:41:28.380 Good night.

00:41:28.760 Good night.

Rebel News Podcast - December 28, 2019

Joel Pollak on Trump taking over from the Democrats on trade, immigration, LGBT and more

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