Learn how much you REALLY paid for Trudeau's India trip
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Summary
How much did Justin Trudeau's trip to India cost? $1.5 million, but no one in the English-language media reported it. Is it a secret? Or is it a scandal? And why is it only being reported in a Quebec newspaper?
Transcript
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Tonight, shocking details of how much of your money Justin Trudeau spent on his lavish India
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vacation, but why is it only being reported in a Quebec newspaper? It's June 20th and you're
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watching The Ezra Levant Show. Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer
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I know? There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer. You come here once a year
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with a sign and you feel morally superior. The only thing I have to say to the government
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about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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How much did Justin Trudeau's trip to India cost? Well, that's the crazy thing. The bills are in,
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partial bills, more are yet to come, and it's over 1.5 million dollars, but not a peep about it in
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any English language media. The Québécois newspaper called Journal de Montréal published it today.
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You can see it here. Le voyage de Justin Trudeau en Inde a coûté au moins 1.5 million dollars. Sorry,
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my French accent's there, but you don't need to understand French to understand that headline,
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am I right? The voyage of Justin Trudeau to India has cost at least 1.5 million dollars.
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But the spending information was made public. This is not a scoop that some reporter at Journal
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de Montréal managed to dig out. It wasn't even through an access to information document that
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they got first. It was an order paper question filed in Parliament. That's when a member of
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Parliament writes a detailed question in Parliament and various departments have to give detailed
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answers. It's like a written version of question period, but it actually generally gets some answers.
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So this was not a secret or a scoop or an exclusive. That written report came out two days ago,
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June 18th. But every single media outlet in English Canada, including, of course, the CBC,
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simply declined to do a story. But I note that late this afternoon, CTV did a quick follow on it,
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but the only newspaper in the country was Journal de Montréal. I mean, who cares, right? It's not like
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anything newsworthy happened in India. Yeah, actually, just as a reminder, in case you were in outer
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space or in a coma at the time or worked for the CBC and have deliberately forgotten about it,
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Trudeau's trip to India was the greatest train wreck of his prime ministership so far. It was a fiasco,
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a disaster, literally the definition of an international incident. Not just the cringeworthy,
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embarrassing moments like this when Trudeau insisted on dancing. Oh my God, dancing at the end. This one
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here again and again, dancing, dancing at official events. I mean, Donald Trump's foreign trips are
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about trade and military matters. He's also wearing a suit. Justin Trudeau really doesn't have any
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serious matters that he likes to talk about. He passed his marijuana legislation. That's pretty
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much the only policy he cares about in his bones. So the rest of being prime minister to him is about
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selfies and parties and showing off his dance moves. I mean, he went to Bollywood, that's the India
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equivalent of Hollywood. And he dressed up in a costume. And look at the Bollywood star there.
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They didn't, he didn't dress up as, you know, in a costume. That's weird. It'd be like if someone
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from India came to Canada and walked around, everyone dressed up as a Mountie or something.
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They all thought he was a shallow clothes horse. The India newspapers were devastating. Of course,
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he is a clothes horse. That's pretty much all he does. Eight day trip, seven days of which was a
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family vacation. One day of which was work and you paid for it all. But it wasn't just the cringy
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selfie stuff. Like when Trudeau had the entire Taj Mahal cleared out of people for entire hour,
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look at that. There's no one else there. 10,000 pilgrims and tourists were kicked out for an hour
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so he could have just the perfect family vacation shot taken with his high maintenance wife. It was
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substantive disasters too, not just stylish disasters. Like the bizarre and shocking fact
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that Trudeau actually invited Jaspal Atwal, a convicted terrorist, to an official event. Here's a copy of
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that invitation. Jaspal Atwal is not just any terrorist. That's him with Sophie Trudeau. He was convicted of
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trying to murder a cabinet minister from India. A cabinet minister from India who was visiting
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Canada for a wedding. Trudeau invited a convicted assassin to India with him as an honored guest.
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The guy who tried to kill an Indian cabinet minister. That is shocking. That is bizarre. That
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is so weird. But even weirder was the excuse that Justin Trudeau finally came up with. It wasn't his
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fault, people. But rather, you see, it was a conspiracy to make him look bad. A conspiracy by
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rogue elements of the Indian government who set Trudeau up. I know that is nuts, but that's what
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Trudeau said. It was so nuts that the Indian government, which is a bit more serious than our
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lad, well, they issued a statement saying that accusation was unacceptable. Oh, and then they
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promptly nuked a trade deal they had for various Canadian agricultural crops. So yeah, thanks,
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Justin, you dancing fool. Oh, by the way, we here, the rebels submitted an access to information
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request for all of Trudeau's costumes. Do you see that there? Provide copies of all documents
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regarding the planning for Prime Minister's trip to India, anything to do with the clothing and the
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wardrobe. And look at what we have heard back in response. I mean, we asked how many outfits did he
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bring, who paid for them, that sort of thing. Can imagine how embarrassing that would be to Trudeau.
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So he did what he always does. He stonewalled. Look at the reply. The government says they will not
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answer that question in the 30 days required by law. They want a 300-day extension. They will not
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answer until 2019 because they say that telling us how much money they spent on costumes for his
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dress-up party would disrupt the government's operations. Yeah, no, you liars. But really,
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why does Trudeau need to lie and hide his costume expenses? As we've seen today, $1.5 million in
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other expenses has been revealed in public, and only one newspaper in the entire country bothered to
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write about it. And it was in French. So really, no need to censor Trudeau's costume expenses. It's
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not like the media party's going to report on it. They're too well-trained to even run with it when
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they have the facts in front of them. Back to the order paper question that started the Journal de
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Montréal story. Let me read a bit from the Journal de Montréal. Let's give them some credit for their
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work. I put their website through Google Translate, if you know what I mean. So this is a machine
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translation. It's not perfect, but you get the point. So this is a website translated. Justin Trudeau's
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trip to India cost at least $1.5 million. The stay was qualified as a total failure because of PM's
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clothes. Well, that's not quite true. It was a total failure because of the terrorist incident and
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Trudeau's general vanity, and then the excuses he made for the terrorist incident. The clothes just
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made everything extra cringeworthy, but still. All right. Let me read from the translation. Again,
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this is a Google translation of Journal de Montréal. During a nine-day stay last February, the government
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paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the rental of rooms and meeting rooms in hotels, nearly $60,000
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for chauffeur-driven car rentals, and even $17,000 for a Canadian chef's trip to India to prepare a meal
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at a party. Isn't that crazy? He literally spent $17,000 to bring an Indian chef with him to India
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from Canada because I guess Indians don't know how to make Indian food, as well as Trudeau's liberal
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party chef friend. So drop $16,000 on him for that. I've got an idea for Canada's wounded military vets.
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They should retrain as Indian chefs. Maybe Trudeau would have a few more bucks for them then.
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First of all, why are we still fighting against certain veterans groups in court? Because
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they're asking for more than we are able to give right now. But nothing is too luxurious for Prince
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Justin. Let me read some of the facts of how we spent your money. I'm reading from Journal de Montréal.
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The most expensive bill, excluding the price of the plane of the Prime Minister, is definitely that
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of $89,147 paid to the Taj Palace Hotel for the accommodation rental. Canadian wines. Ottawa spent
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$5,100 for the purchase of Canadian wines for official use. Fruits and vegetables, $6,754 for the
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reception at the official residence. Meat, chicken and fish, $5,635 for the reception at the official
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residence. Mumbai, $38,713 for the business networking reception. Gifts, $3,581 in official
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presence. Impression, $4,273 for the printing costs of the official program. That's that fancy
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invitation that the terrorists got. Chef, the government has invited all expenses paid at a cost
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of $17,044 Indian-Canadian chef Vikram Vij to come and cook a meal at the Canadian High Commission
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in India. That's a hell of a pricey meal. Just to remind you, this was an eight-day trip, but seven days
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of it were a family vacation forum, one day of which was work. So $1.5 million for one day of work
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and a lot of selfies and a lot of footage that the liberals can use for ethnic advertising in the next
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election. You paid for that. And if we happen to nuke our diplomatic relations with India, the world's
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largest democracy in the process by inviting a terrorist. Well, do you think Trudeau even knows
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or cares about that? But here's the thing. Like I say, this is a public document. It's not actually
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a Journal de Montréal scoop. It's a public document released to the world by Parliament. It was just
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ignored by everyone else in the media party. So take a look on page 25, all right? It's the item-by-item
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breakdown of the $1.5 million. Now, you can see the chef in there. You can see the printing in there.
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The wine's in there. But look, what's this? What's this? Eric Mazinet, $14,898 to fly from Los Angeles
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to India. And look at this, $9,649 to fly Benoit Cloutier to India. Mario Lemire, $12,813 for a flight
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from LA. Eric Tremblay, $10,547 for a flight. Who are these guys? Now, that's first-class luxury travel.
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$10,000, $12,000 for one flight. I don't know if you remember a few years ago, we sent four
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rebel staff to India in 2016 to cover a UN conference in New Delhi. We spent $1,200 each on the flights.
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And they were fine. I mean, our staff got up and stretched a little bit. $1,200 to fly from Toronto to New Delhi.
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Who are these people spending 10 times that on a luxury suite? They are junior staff.
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They're tour staff of the Privy Council. Look at that at the bottom. You see that? Privy Council office, tour at the bottom.
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They're with the tour group. They're assistants. This is the government's phone director. They're assistants.
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Since when do junior assistants fly first-class to India for $12,000 for a plane ticket? Who on earth
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approved that? Is there any private sector company in the world that would send a junior assistant
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first-class to India? They're asking for more than we are able to give right now.
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Yeah, maybe Canada's wounded veterans should apply to work as travel assistants and bellhops for Trudeau.
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Then he'd have enough money for them. But there are even higher airfares there. Look at this.
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This is a flight for $18,202. Here's some flights for $20,242 to India. Because I guess there's two
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flights there. Because I guess one flight isn't enough. But you'll see there, you see the names.
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I don't know. You see it says CNote 2. You see CNote 2 doesn't have a name there. And if you read
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note 2 at the bottom, it says that it's a secret to protect the privacy of who was flying,
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they're not telling you who it was. Okay, hang on. So it's a private thing? Who was billing
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Canadian taxpayers $12,000, $20,000 to fly to India with Trudeau? So it's private enough
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that we can't know who went to India, but it's public enough that we have to pay $20,000.
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$20,000. $20,000. Did you just rent the seat on the plane? I mean, you didn't actually buy
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a plane, did you? And sorry to be dumb, but I mean, I don't come from a world where you fly your
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own chef in for $17,000. So I just got to ask, why didn't these people just come on Trudeau's
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own jet? Why did they have to book their own flights for $10,000, $15,000, $20,000? Even if they were
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in another city like LA, well, why not fly from LA to Ottawa for what, like $500?
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And then get on Trudeau's plane there. This is gross. This is shocking. This is unacceptable
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from a government that is telling the rest of us to live smaller, telling veterans they're
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just asking for too much, telling the rest of us when it comes to carbon, like flying
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in a jet, to make better choices about energy and travel, telling veterans, no, no, too much
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for you. But really, really, really. Given how the CBC and the rest of the Canadian media
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is just fine with it, what possible incentive does Justin Trudeau have to stop this? The
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media party wrote a thousand stories about Bev Oda, the Harper cabinet minister who expensed
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a $16 orange juice. She was fired. A $16,000 flight, though, in a $1.5 million vacation? Yeah,
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not a peep. I say again, you just can't believe a word the mainstream media tells you. Stay
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What's going on in the United States is Rome. I can't imagine what the families living through
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this are enduring. Obviously, this is not the way we do things in Canada.
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Well, that is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doing his best dramatic act or passionate
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explanation that we simply, simply don't treat people in the manner that the evil Donald Trump
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does. This is an interesting approach to take during heated NAFTA negotiations. Of course,
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Trudeau is referring to the separation of minor children from their parents if they make an
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illegal entry into the United States. But is Justin Trudeau right? Do we not separate
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children from their parents if they're illegal immigrants who are detained? Well, I went to
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the state broadcaster to find out. Here's a story published just today. Canada aims to avoid detaining
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migrant children, but it happens. Well, it happens, people. What are you going to do?
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McGill's study on Canadian practice finds psychiatric and academic difficulties long after detention.
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Let me read the first sentence in it. The U.S. is the focus of international outrage for its policy
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of separating children from their parents and detaining them after they crossed the border in
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search of asylum. But Canada has also detained migrant children and in some cases has restricted
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access to their asylum-seeking parents despite its stated policy to do whatever possible to avoid it.
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Last year, 151 minors were detained with their parents in Canadian immigration holding centers.
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Joining us now to talk about this is our friend Giddy Mammon, an immigration and refugee expert.
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He's with the law firm of Mammon, Sandaluk, and Kingwell. He joins us now via Skype. So,
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Giddy, which is it? Is Justin Trudeau right? We simply don't do that in Canada? Or is the state
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broadcaster right? We do that more than 100 times. Well, we do that quite often and we've been doing
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it for as long as I've been practicing, which is over 30 years. In fact, my particular area of
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specialty is detention work. So, I spend a lot of time at the immigration detention centers
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and the provincial holding facilities. The truth is that not only do we detain
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migrant children, that is children who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents,
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but we actually do house Canadian children. And you say, how can that be? The immigration
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authorities have no jurisdiction over Canadian citizens. That's true. But the practical reality
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is that when you arrest a couple that are here without its status, there's no one, quite often,
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there's no one to look after the kids. And so, the kids are held in the detention center just like
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their parents. And of course, children without status are held in our immigration, in our holding
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centers with their parents all the time. Now, about a year ago or so, there was some litigation that led
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to the court ruling that the IRB, the Immigration and Refugee Board, has to be more sensitive to the
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best interests of the children in the context of detention hearings. They can't just simply decide
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that the family or the child or whatever is a flight risk or a danger to the public. They also have to
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give attention to whether or not this is going to somehow impact on the best interests of the children.
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The other thing is that in another context, we separate children from their parents all the time.
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How many stories have you read in the Canadian media where we deport parents and their Canadian
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children are here? And we say to them, well, we don't care that your spouse can file a sponsorship
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or something and bring you back, but you're going to have to go nonetheless. And those sponsorships
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can take a year or two years. And we separate children from their parents all of the time,
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let alone in the criminal context where, you know, somebody commits a crime and they're put in jail
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and they're separated from their children as well. So I'm not so sure that Justin Trudeau
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You know, listen, it's such an emotional thing to see pictures of kids crying away from their parents.
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Nothing tugs at the heartstrings more. I understand the extremely strong temptation to virtue signal and
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chime in. It's just odd coming from a prime minister who oversees our own detention of young people.
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It's like for a pundit, that's fine. A pundit could say, well, if Canada does it, it's wrong too.
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It's so odd to me, Giddy, that Trudeau is saying this while he is doing it. And by the way,
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I think it's okay to separate kids from parents in some instances. You don't want kids being in
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jail. You don't want kids being in a prison with grownups. So, I mean, it's not an ideal
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situation, but in some cases the alternative is worse. We don't put kids in jail with their parents.
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It's just weird to me that the prime minister gave in to his instinct to take a jab at Trump
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when he's doing the same thing. I don't know if you want to talk about the politics of it,
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There is no question that there's a bit of mass hysteria going on right now over this issue.
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And believe me, it's not that I'm insensitive to children crying, but I've heard all kinds of
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stuff that just sounds like nonsense to me, that the American government is now in the business of
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ripping children away from their parents and putting them in cages. This kind of rhetoric is
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not helping anybody. So let's really talk about what is actually going on. And it's nowhere near
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as interesting as the rhetoric, in my opinion, but these are the facts. The Homeland Security Secretary
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and the Attorney General in April said that we are now going to be enforcing the right to prosecute
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people criminally for entering our country. When you cross the border without proper authorization,
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you try to sneak across the border. That is not only an immigration offense, it is a criminal offense,
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and we are going to charge you and we are going to detain you. So this became known in April
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and that became enforced in May. And now we're two thirds of the way through June. So everybody knew
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that if you come to the border with a child, as of May, you could be arrested and detained. Now,
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the fact is you cannot have children in a federal prison or a federal jail. So obviously, the parent is
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going to be put in jail and the children are not. Now, according to the Attorney General and the
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Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security said that they are not going to be separating children
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from their parents if, in fact, they can establish the relationship. But if they cannot establish the
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relationship and they need to make sure that these children are not being the victims of human smuggling,
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obviously, the authorities should and do take those children until parentage can be established.
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Now, imagine if you are trying to run the border and you hear that if you are arrested,
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if you cross the border illegally and you are alone, you're going to go to jail. And if you come with
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a child, you're not going to be detained. So what do you think people are going to do? People are
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going to simply use children to accompany them to cross the border in hopes that they will not
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be detained. And of course, when they're released, whether or not they show up for any immigration
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proceedings or not is another question. Now, this idea of children being held in cages. Children are not
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being held in cages. There is apparently this Walmart that was empty. It's a massive cavernous place. And
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what they did is they created sections of areas where people are confined. Now, I have seen children
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detained and it's never pretty. But whether it's a chain link fence or cinder block or metal bars,
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it's all the same to me. Detention is detention and it never looks pretty. And at the end of the day,
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what we have here is a president with a real problem. The real problem is that he has 11 million
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people who have no status, who came into the country and remain there without status. On the other
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hand, 38,000 people are entering the United States from the southern border every single month.
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If that keeps up, you're looking at about over 450,000 people per year. So instead of that number
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being held at 11 million, it's going to go up by almost half a million every single year. And what
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he is simply saying, the same way he said to the Democrats when the DACA program was under consideration
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and the temporary protected status, the TPS program was being renewed for the Haitians and
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the Salvadorans, et cetera, et cetera. He said, we have to have comprehensive immigration reform
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and which must include the sealing of the border. The Democrats will not entertain that discussion.
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And so what he's doing is he's cranking up the pressure and saying, I'm going to make it very
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uncomfortable for people to cross that border in order to deter them. And this is the place where
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we're at. So is he holding children hostage? According to the attorney general and according
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to the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, they're only doing that to establish
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identity and relationship of the kids. And I think that that should be okay.
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Yeah. Well, I read that about 80% of the kids in those detention centers were not with their
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biological parents. They were with traffickers. And I've also read other studies getting,
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maybe you've seen them, that 40 to 60% of people who, of women or children who cross the border
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are sexually assaulted either as some payment to the human traffickers or that that is why they are
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being sent across. I can't imagine sending a minor child, especially God forbid, a girl along with
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some gangs. God forbid. I mean, in some ways, I think these, some of these kids are actually being
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rescued, not ripped away from parents. Very interesting times. I got to tell you, Giddy,
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I hope Donald Trump is distracted by the chorus of voices shouting at him and does not notice that
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Canada's prime minister was one of them, because I don't think he's going to take kindly to us
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criticizing him for something we do too. Last word to you, my friend.
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Look, we have a problem here in Canada also. Some people may look at it as okay. And some people
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may think that, you know, it's not sustainable. You and I have talked about this many, many times.
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Last year, we received 50,000 people making claims at our border. And our immigration refugee board
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is simply overwhelmed. A system that was put into place to deal with refugees expeditiously
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is now almost grinding to a halt. Instead of a few months, it's taking a couple of years. And that
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delay is producing even a greater incentive for people to come to Canada. Not only do you get to
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escape the enforcement of American immigration law, now you come to Canada, you have this guaranteed
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extended period of time in Canada where you can collect all kinds of benefits while waiting for
00:26:57.520
your refugee claim to be heard, whether it's meritorious or whether it's completely without
00:27:01.920
any foundation whatsoever. Our government may think it's being cute by bringing attention to the
00:27:11.460
American crisis. But all it's doing is really taking the eye of the Canadian voter and taxpayer
00:27:17.360
off of the ball in our court, which is we also have a border problem. And, you know, somebody has
00:27:25.860
to deal with it. But if our prime minister would rather talk about the American difficulties, that's
00:27:32.360
terrific. But me as a practitioner, he can't play with me that way. He has to understand that I know
00:27:38.240
the numbers, and I know those numbers are increasing, and there is no way that our infrastructure is
00:27:43.420
going to be able to support it. So, you know, I would strongly recommend that he worry about what's
00:27:52.940
happening in our backyard before he's, he becomes too obsessed, making political mileage on the ills of the
00:28:01.280
U.S. crisis. Isn't that the truth? Well, Giddy, as always, we learn so much from you because this,
00:28:06.340
of course, has been your lifetime's career. So, you know far more about it than most, including,
00:28:11.340
obviously, our own prime minister. Great to see you again, my friend. Thank you for having me.
00:28:15.360
That's right. What a pleasure. That's our friend Giddy Mammon, an immigration and refugee lawyer.
00:28:20.880
He's with the firm Mammon, Sandaluk, and Kingwell. Stay with us. More Ahead on the Rebel.
00:28:31.280
Another of our goals was to stop the council from protecting the world's worst human rights abusers.
00:28:43.320
What happened? The council would not even have a meeting on the human rights conditions in Venezuela.
00:28:49.820
Why? Because Venezuela is a member of the Human Rights Council, as is Cuba, as is China.
00:28:57.060
Similarly, the council failed to respond in December and January, when the Iranian regime
00:29:03.860
killed and arrested hundreds of citizens simply for expressing their views.
00:29:10.460
When a so-called human rights council cannot bring itself to address the massive abuses in Venezuela and
00:29:17.180
Iran, and it welcomes the Democratic Republic of Congo as a new member, the council ceases to be worthy
00:29:24.860
of its name. That is the ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, Donald Trump's ambassador,
00:29:33.780
explaining why the U.S. is pulling out of the U.N. Human Rights Council. I couldn't help but think,
00:29:41.140
when I was listening to her saying, well, why didn't they investigate Venezuela? Because Venezuela is on
00:29:45.240
the Human Rights Council. It made me think of Robert Conquest's third law of politics, which is the best
00:29:50.800
way to understand any bureaucracy, is that it is being colonized by a cabal of its enemies. And isn't
00:29:57.640
that incredible, the way she lists the violators of human rights that have actually infiltrated the
00:30:05.000
Human Rights Council? Well, that's not news to our next guest, our friend Claudia Rosette. She's a
00:30:12.400
foreign policy fellow for the Independent Women's Forum, and she joins us now via Skype. Claudia,
00:30:17.080
I know that you have known these things about the Human Rights Council for ages. It's sort of exciting
00:30:23.240
to see the U.N. ambassador from the United States say the same things, isn't it? Oh, it's refreshing.
00:30:30.140
It's bracing. And you know something? I think it's actually quite good worldwide for the cause of human
00:30:35.040
rights. I think so, too. Now, here's a question. The United States has allies of different degrees of
00:30:43.380
ardor. Do you think that this will spread to anyone else? Do you think any other countries that are more
00:30:48.960
on the democratic side of the spectrum will say, yeah, you know what, we're out of here, too. We
00:30:53.200
don't need to give this place any dignity? I certainly hope so, although that's really not
00:30:59.140
the record. In fact, one of the things that Ambassador Haley mentioned in her terrific remarks,
00:31:03.860
along with Secretary of State Pompeo, who also was really clear and excellent on this,
00:31:10.220
is that America's allies who share our values refuse to stand up for them in public at the Human Rights
00:31:17.600
Council. Behind closed doors, they may agree, but they won't. They just sit there and go along with
00:31:23.900
it. She didn't actually name any individual countries, but if you look down the list of
00:31:28.480
members, you'll find countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, countries that share our values.
00:31:36.260
But again, America really fights this alone, and I think it's right to withdraw.
00:31:41.840
Well, I know the argument for staying in, which is, well, if we're in, we can have some influence. If
00:31:46.540
we're in, we're part of the discussion. If we're in, we can maybe make some minor adjustments to their
00:31:53.000
trajectory. Doesn't sound like that's working. I don't know. I think there's a real peer pressure,
00:32:01.160
and it reminds me of other Donald Trump decisions. Like when Trump removed the United States from the
00:32:08.640
Paris Agreement on global warming, and this was something, oh, you can't do that. The earth will
00:32:15.620
fall. The sky will fall, rather. And nothing happened. Like Trump withdrew America from this UN
00:32:21.440
process that makes the UN Human Rights Council look, you know, it's so dysfunctional. The climate change
00:32:29.540
panel. It's so much larger, too. And nothing happened. The sky didn't fall. And I think that
00:32:35.060
there's this peer pressure, you can't leave these institutions. No one's ever left these institutions.
00:32:41.540
It's the jungle out there if we leave these institutions. No, you can leave these institutions
00:32:46.460
and try something else, and it's not going to be a calamity.
00:32:50.360
No. In fact, there's this huge vested interest by these worst abusers in many cases. But the U.S.,
00:32:58.320
remember, the Human Rights Council is particularly bad at the UN. It's a magnet for the worst abusers,
00:33:05.120
because they exploit it to try and actually warp the definition of human rights. You get them
00:33:10.020
arguing all sorts of things that are really out of Orwell. And they try to then sort of
00:33:14.620
institutionalize that under the UN. And it got so bad. It was previously the Commission on Human Rights,
00:33:20.840
you might remember, which ended up being chaired by Qaddafi's Libya in 2003. And the U.S. finally
00:33:27.900
said, enough. The UN actually agreed and said, OK, we'll reform this. Then they produced the current
00:33:32.920
Human Rights Council. The Bush administration said, in fact, with John Bolton as the ambassador who was
00:33:38.640
there for part of this, said, no, we're not joining this. It's going to turn into the same collection of
00:33:43.880
abusers. All the incentives are the same. And didn't join. President Obama then joined in 2009.
00:33:51.380
And here we are finally, thank goodness, with President Trump saying, no, this isn't working.
00:33:56.720
The incremental bits, the occasional good moment is not worth effectively endorsing the complete
00:34:06.780
Yeah. Well, I remember the last time I visited the United Nations building myself, and I was shown
00:34:12.720
this absolutely exquisite lounge that faced the river. And it would have been, like, if those were
00:34:20.440
condominiums, they would have been, like, $10 million. Like, that property is so amazing. And it was the
00:34:27.780
most luxurious room I think I've ever been in in my life. And I'm trying to remember if it was Qatar
00:34:32.400
or the United Arab Emirates that had sponsored this room. Like, it was a plaque brought to you by,
00:34:40.460
I forget which, OPEC dictatorship. And what I learned then was, in the past, America says,
00:34:47.240
well, we're footing the bill. We get to call the shots. But I realize now that if America pulls up,
00:34:52.360
like, when Donald Trump threatened to pull his funding away from the PLO, well, that's nothing for
00:34:58.460
some OPEC dictator to come in with $10 million, $100 million. So it's not even the money anymore.
00:35:05.080
And that's another worry, though, is that Trump could say, well, we're paying three quarters of
00:35:09.660
the bill or a quarter of the bill or whatever it is. I don't think there's any shortage of bad guys
00:35:14.380
that would take over. And that would be the only one thing on my mind, is if America were to pull out
00:35:21.120
of certain things, that America would be replaced by an odious force, does that apply here?
00:35:29.580
Yeah. And at the same time, what America is also withdrawing is credibility. You know,
00:35:35.680
if the UN, even with its current budget, were operating out of, say, you know, Novosibirsk,
00:35:41.860
Russia, it simply wouldn't have the effect that it does today. It's the US backing. I mean,
00:35:47.940
democracies carry credibility. They're legitimate governments. And when we withdraw that, that's
00:35:53.620
important. Now, we still fund the base UN where even if we don't fund, they say, the Human Rights
00:36:00.220
Council, we're paying for the brand, if you like. We're paying billions, we the US, billions every
00:36:06.140
year to keep the entire enterprise going and attached to it are all these agencies where whether
00:36:11.600
we fund them or not, they thrive on the UN label. But when the US starts pulling out, it says,
00:36:17.940
we're taking our business elsewhere. You know, we want to promote human rights. We're not going
00:36:22.360
to do it through this complete charade and mockery at the United Nations. We take away some of the
00:36:30.260
legitimacy that is falsely attached to a thing, an outfit like the Human Rights Council. And I think
00:36:36.180
that's, although you are certainly correct. Yeah. OPEC dictatorships, sure. They could afford to
00:36:42.840
bankroll most UN agencies. But what they want is the US in there, not only paying for it, but blessing
00:36:48.500
it. Yeah. You know what? I sometimes daydream what would happen if the UN was actually physically
00:36:54.780
moved from New York. I mean, I'm sure Putin would want it in Moscow. I'm sure, you know, any Gulf,
00:37:03.880
I'm sure they'd want to move it to Doha or Qatar. But I think taking it out of that wonderful city,
00:37:09.160
New York would knock it down prestige-wise. But that's, we should rejoice in this one baby step
00:37:15.240
today. Hey, before we go, I want to ask you a little bit about North Korea, because you and I
00:37:19.640
have talked about North Korea half a dozen times. And we were so perplexed, and we were so, and I've
00:37:23.820
talked to Gordon Chang about it too. And we all thought it was such an intransigent, insoluble problem.
00:37:29.360
And then look at Donald Trump and what he's done. I don't want to, I don't want to say that the
00:37:36.780
deed is done. But I want to ask you, if you believe that what is happening so far is real
00:37:45.360
enough that we can at least have half a candle of celebration. I'm incredibly wary. I don't think
00:37:52.660
that Kim Jong-un has changed his ways. And I don't think that his great concern is developing a thriving
00:37:58.360
North Korea where people are free. What I am hoping is that the real agenda here or the real effect
00:38:05.000
will be a change of regime. Ideally, Kim Jong-un just goes. Perhaps that he is forced in some way
00:38:12.840
to alter things to an extent where it basically is regime change. I think it would mean his downfall.
00:38:18.380
But one of the big, I think there are pieces of the puzzle we may not be seeing. And one of the big
00:38:23.780
questions I have is, did President Trump find a credible way to threaten Kim Jong-un to such an extent,
00:38:31.440
I mean, directly, perhaps through some message, perhaps through some set of targeting coordinates,
00:38:37.060
I don't know, I'm guessing, I'm asking, that Kim Jong-un has a real incentive to comply with some of this.
00:38:44.880
I don't think that Kim is going to cheerfully give up his entire nuclear arsenal and production
00:38:51.320
facilities. I do think there's a chance here of maneuvering in some way to basically bring him
00:38:58.260
down. And if that happens, we have the real, real start of a solution.
00:39:02.880
Yeah. Let me throw one thing at you. I mean, Donald Trump is criticized, certainly by the left and
00:39:08.460
even some on the right, for his style, his braggadocio, his occasional vulgarity. And there's
00:39:18.600
a theory out there, and some say it with respect, some say it with a grudging respect. He's such a
00:39:24.660
bruiser, Trump. And he comes from New York real estate, where you're dealing with unions and corrupt
00:39:31.840
regulators, and sometimes even in the past, I guess, the mafia. It's such a voracious, rapacious
00:39:39.620
world that maybe his battle scars and his bully style that people criticize, maybe that's, he's the
00:39:48.640
first guy who has the temperament to take on a Kim. And I mean, the thing about Trump is you flick his
00:39:55.680
nose, he flicks you back 10 times harder, as our own Justin Trudeau is discovering. And so maybe it
00:40:01.820
takes the biggest, baddest, braggingest bully around to finally know how to deal with Kim. Maybe I'm
00:40:10.260
saying the obvious here, but I think it takes, I think a guy who's a nice guy, like George W. Bush
00:40:17.600
was, and I think Obama sometimes was, I don't think they had a chance. Maybe it takes a killer
00:40:23.640
like Trump. I'm using that phrase metaphorically. What do you think of that? Oh, I think so. In fact,
00:40:30.040
I wondered, was this sort of the godfather summit, a sit down in which a threat had been issued when
00:40:34.920
President Trump said, we understand each other, was he sort of talked the way the godfather would,
00:40:39.500
you know, we understand each other because we left a horse head in his bed before he came to
00:40:43.380
have his chocolate cake. But, but we don't know, we're really guessing on a lot of this. The thing
00:40:49.440
I see is that it's, I have thought for years that it's very likely that the only real solution to North
00:40:55.740
Korea requires military action. No American president wants to do that. There's no appetite for another
00:41:01.520
war in Korea. So they default to trying what they can with diplomacy. And what you just described with
00:41:08.080
President Trump style, I think has a far better chance at succeeding than all the polished, refined Ivy League
00:41:15.900
fancy diplomats who have paraded through the negotiations with North Korea over decades and failed
00:41:22.420
catastrophically. Yeah. I just don't think there's any person in the world who's older than like maybe grade
00:41:28.960
two that John Kerry has ever scared. Like former Secretary of State John, like who would be afraid
00:41:35.480
of John Kerry other than... That's the problem. And whereas Donald Trump, I think, I think he could
00:41:42.080
scare someone. And we're all sort of counting on that. Well, we'll keep in touch with you on this
00:41:49.040
too. But it was nice to have a little bit of a victory to talk about together, namely Nikki Haley
00:41:52.960
pulling out of the UN Human Rights Council. So it's great to talk to you about that. And I just had
00:41:57.580
to throw in some North Korea questions. It's nice to see you again, Claudia. I appreciate your time
00:42:00.540
today. Great to see you. Thanks, Ezra. All right. You too. Well, there you have it. Claudio Rosette,
00:42:06.020
a lot going on in foreign affairs. And Donald Trump is certainly at the center of all of it. Stay with
00:42:22.820
Hey, welcome back. Your viewer feedback on my monologue yesterday about the Southern Poverty
00:42:26.740
Law Center having to apologize to Majid Nawaz and pay out a settlement of more than $3 million. Bruce
00:42:32.580
writes, the SPLC feels entitled to back their hate speech by stifling dissent. Fortunately, someone fought
00:42:39.980
back. Yeah, isn't that the truth? I'm shocked how quickly they surrendered. They must have had
00:42:44.980
something awful they were hiding. On my interview with Ian Lee on the NAFTA trade negotiations, Ron
00:42:50.380
writes, Ezra, your interview with Professor Ian Lee on NAFTA problems was one of the rebels' best ever.
00:42:55.640
Too bad Trudeau or Freeland will never see it and therefore learn something. Well, I'm glad you think
00:43:00.040
so. I think we put the whole video on YouTube. You know, we did that with Manny Montenegrino's
00:43:05.200
conversation. And so far, Manny's... I mean, it's a 17-minute conversation with Manny. I don't
00:43:09.900
remember if you remember that a couple of weeks ago. Over 100,000 people have watched that. 100,000
00:43:14.900
people are watching a 17-minute discussion about foreign trade barriers. Like, this isn't the new
00:43:20.780
Beyonce video. This is me and Manny talking trade policy for 17 minutes. Yeah, 100,000 people have
00:43:27.220
viewed it. People are craving the other side of the story because all you get from the CBC is
00:43:31.540
cheerleading. On my interview with Candace Malcolm about Al-Quds Day, Liza writes,
00:43:37.820
Al-Quds is a celebration of hatred and also has no place here. Why have we allowed this poison into
00:43:42.200
our peaceful nation? And why do we tolerate this celebration every year? It is an insult.
00:43:47.560
Those are good questions. I guess at base, the answer is because we have freedom of speech, right?
00:43:54.800
But these folks are foreigners. They're either foreigners, the Iran government sponsoring this,
00:44:00.280
or their immigrants to Canada who brought their hateful anti-Semitic ideas with them. I think we
00:44:06.480
need to have a values test for Canadians, not a racial test, not a religious test even. There are
00:44:13.100
plenty of liberal Muslims, our friend Raheel Reza, Majid Nawaz we talked about, progressive Muslims,
00:44:18.780
people who believe in the separation of mosque and state, people who believe in pluralism,
00:44:22.700
not Muslim preachers calling for the eradication, that was the word he used, of the Jews. He used
00:44:31.820
the code word Zionist. Yeah. I think we need to close the border to people who hate us. And that's
00:44:38.680
got nothing to do with race, does it? That's our show for today, folks. Until tomorrow, on behalf of
00:44:43.520
all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.