Rebel News Podcast


Republican Senator John McCain passed away. Why does the left love him so much?


Summary

Ezra LeVant on why the left loved John McCain so much and why it s so hard to understand why the right loves him so much. He was a war hero. He stood up for human rights and stood up against repression and torture. And at the same time, one of America s largest arms manufacturers put out a tweet saying goodbye to their best friend.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Tonight, Republican Senator John McCain passed away.
00:00:04.000 Why does the left love him so much?
00:00:07.000 It's August 28th and you're watching The Ezra LeVant Show.
00:00:15.000 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:00:18.000 There's 8500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
00:00:22.000 You come here once a year with a sign and you feel morally superior.
00:00:25.000 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it
00:00:29.000 is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:00:37.000 John McCain has died.
00:00:39.000 He was the Republican Senator from Arizona.
00:00:42.000 He ran for president in 2008, losing to Barack Obama.
00:00:46.000 During that campaign, he was brutally smeared by the Democrats and the U.S. Media Party.
00:00:52.000 They called him the obvious warmonger.
00:00:55.000 Probably some truth to it.
00:00:57.000 He loved to get in the weeds with local fights anywhere around the world.
00:01:01.000 Some of whom were local soldiers.
00:01:03.000 Some of whom, more accurately, would probably be called terrorists.
00:01:07.000 Here he is with the Syrian rebels who happened to be allied with ISIS.
00:01:12.000 Oh well, war is war.
00:01:15.000 He even joked about war.
00:01:17.000 Here he is, answering a question at a public forum, making a bit of a joke.
00:01:22.000 You know that old Beach Boys song, Bomb-O-Ran?
00:01:29.000 Bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb.
00:01:32.000 Anyway, I don't know.
00:01:34.000 Bomb-bomb-oran.
00:01:36.000 Americans gave a lot of deference to McCain because he was a war hero.
00:01:41.000 He was a Navy fighter pilot who was shot down over Vietnam.
00:01:45.000 He was tortured endlessly.
00:01:48.000 Because he was the son of a senior admiral who was also the son of an admiral himself.
00:01:55.000 First time that had happened in the U.S. actually.
00:01:58.000 This is a picture of McCain's dad.
00:02:00.000 John McCain Jr. is his name.
00:02:03.000 The admiral.
00:02:04.000 He was in charge of the entire U.S. military in Vietnam.
00:02:08.000 He was the commander-in-chief for the Pacific Command.
00:02:12.000 So he was prosecuting the war against Vietnam when his son, John McCain III,
00:02:18.000 the one we know as the late senator, was shot down.
00:02:22.000 The Viet Cong wanted to let him go early as a propaganda gesture or a diplomatic gesture,
00:02:29.000 given who his father was, but McCain refused.
00:02:34.000 And he stood by the tradition that POWs would leave the prison in the order that they were captured.
00:02:43.000 As in, he refused to be released earlier than other soldiers,
00:02:47.000 especially lower-ranked men, less-connected men, who were captured before him.
00:02:52.000 That's an incredible thing.
00:02:53.000 That's very impressive.
00:02:54.000 And perhaps it's the most important thing he ever did in his life.
00:02:58.000 Normally, such acts of valor, though, are disparaged by the left and certainly by the media.
00:03:05.000 They seem to hate soldiers, especially those who actually try to kill the enemy.
00:03:09.000 They hated anyone who served in Vietnam, didn't they? That's for sure.
00:03:12.000 And they hate anyone who talks like this.
00:03:15.000 Even a veteran who was kept in a cage for years, starved, had his bones broken,
00:03:20.000 was beaten regularly every week.
00:03:23.000 McCain uses a racial slur for Vietnamese people.
00:03:27.000 The word gook. It's a bad word.
00:03:30.000 And in the 2000 presidential election, he didn't win the nomination back then,
00:03:35.000 but he ran in the primaries then.
00:03:37.000 He, of course, tried again in 2008.
00:03:39.000 But in the year 2000, when he was running in the Republican primaries,
00:03:44.000 he was bantering with reporters on the bus, and he said that bad word.
00:03:49.000 He said,
00:03:51.000 I hate the gooks, McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus.
00:03:57.000 I will hate them as long as I live.
00:04:01.000 So how could such a man be treated as such a saintly hero by the left?
00:04:07.000 I mean, just take a look at this.
00:04:08.000 Just for example, here's George Soros, the arch-globalist, the key funder for not only the hard left wing of the Democrats,
00:04:16.000 but of the shock troops on the left like Antifa.
00:04:18.000 He wrote, remembering John McCain, a brave warrior for human rights who stood up against repression and torture.
00:04:25.000 And at the same time, and this is weird, one of America's largest arms manufacturers,
00:04:32.000 a weapons company called Lockheed Martin, put out a tweet too.
00:04:36.000 You don't see that every day.
00:04:38.000 I won't read the whole thing.
00:04:39.000 I'll just, you know, the military industrial complex is saying goodbye to their best friend.
00:04:45.000 I'm just going to read the last letter, the last line to you.
00:04:48.000 You will be greatly missed.
00:04:51.000 Yeah, you bet.
00:04:53.000 It was odd that the left loved him though.
00:04:55.000 I mean, here's Justin Trudeau's comment, calling him a patriot and hero.
00:05:03.000 Which is weird because Justin Trudeau hates those things.
00:05:07.000 He's never used those words to describe things he likes.
00:05:10.000 Patriot and hero.
00:05:12.000 He never uses those words to describe our own military.
00:05:15.000 Isn't that weird?
00:05:16.000 Same with Chrystia Freeland.
00:05:18.000 And at the same time, Donald Trump was more reserved in his own comments.
00:05:25.000 Almost immediately, Trump tweeted,
00:05:28.000 My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain.
00:05:34.000 Our hearts and prayers are with you.
00:05:37.000 That sounds nice.
00:05:39.000 But the left, weirdly, it was the left, and of course the media, pounced on it.
00:05:45.000 And said, well, it wasn't loving enough.
00:05:47.000 It wasn't full of enough praise for McCain himself.
00:05:51.000 It thoughtlessly focused on the family.
00:05:56.000 It's a weird criticism, isn't it?
00:05:59.000 And then immediately came hundreds of cookie cutter complaints that Trump didn't lower the flag at the White House long enough.
00:06:06.000 That story of the flags actually led all the TV networks and our own Canadian media thought that piece of U.S. vexillology was newsworthy.
00:06:20.000 Here's the National Post about the White House flag.
00:06:25.000 The CBC was furious about the White House flag.
00:06:29.000 It's funny because the media party doesn't like the flag most of the time.
00:06:36.000 In the U.S. and at the CBC, they're clearly on the side of the anti-American NFL football millionaires who take a knee rather than salute the flag.
00:06:47.000 They hate the flag on the left.
00:06:49.000 In Canada, we are literally getting cranes to tear down statues of our Father of Confederation, Sir John A. MacDonald.
00:06:58.000 But we really, really care that the U.S. flag is properly handled when John McCain dies.
00:07:04.000 It doesn't make any sense.
00:07:06.000 The fact is, by the way, there's a U.S. law called the U.S. Flag Code.
00:07:11.000 Pretty straightforward.
00:07:12.000 When a senator dies, the flag is to be flown at half-mast on the day of death and the following day.
00:07:19.000 Not for a whole week.
00:07:21.000 It's not a month of mourning.
00:07:24.000 It's the one day and the next.
00:07:27.000 Did they, the left-wing media, did they really love McCain that much or was it just about bashing Trump who complied with the flag code?
00:07:37.000 Well, you know the answer.
00:07:39.000 And just in case you don't, watch this amazing clip from CNN.
00:07:44.000 So, Governor, what do you think about President Trump rejecting the practice of putting out an official White House statement about John McCain's service and sacrifice?
00:07:56.000 Look, that was printed in the Washington Post, and I have to be honest with you, I don't give much credence to what I read.
00:08:02.000 We also have that reporting.
00:08:04.000 Yeah, well, same thing applies, Alice.
00:08:07.000 Governor, you come on CNN, and we appreciate you coming on CNN, and we appreciate your take on it, but I don't appreciate you denigrating our reporting.
00:08:21.000 I think that you know we have excellent reporters here, but are you saying that you don't want to believe that?
00:08:26.000 You don't want to believe that President Trump would do that about John McCain.
00:08:30.000 I'm saying that I don't want to comment on a report that I haven't satisfied myself as correct.
00:08:35.000 And if that report were true?
00:08:39.000 I'm not going to answer the hypothetical.
00:08:41.000 It's not hypothetical.
00:08:42.000 This is all reporting.
00:08:44.000 We have rock-solid sources in the White House that there was a statement that was drafted.
00:08:48.000 You asked me to come on to talk about John McCain.
00:08:50.000 I'm here to talk about John McCain as I remember him.
00:08:53.000 I'm not here to talk about the press's handling of a difference between the White House and the press corps at this time.
00:09:03.000 It's not the press's handling.
00:09:05.000 It's President Trump's handling of John McCain's death.
00:09:08.000 That's why they like John McCain.
00:09:11.000 They hated John McCain when he ran for president, especially against the precious Barack Obama.
00:09:16.000 They only loved him because he quarreled later against Donald Trump, and they love him now that he's dead.
00:09:22.000 It's almost like the only good Republican to the media is a dead Republican because they can use him to bash Trump.
00:09:28.000 Tell me that CNN clip didn't give it all away.
00:09:31.000 That's why they care about the flag that, by the way, Trump did lawfully.
00:09:34.000 Here's John McCain's best friend over the past couple of years.
00:09:40.000 But look at this headline from 2008.
00:09:43.000 Hit McCain harder.
00:09:46.000 That's his advice to Democrats.
00:09:49.000 Hit McCain harder.
00:09:52.000 And there was a lot to hit him on, including, by the way, enormous corruption in U.S. banks, first with the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s, and then again with the bank meltdown in the 2008 recession.
00:10:07.000 John McCain was at the center of both financial meltdowns.
00:10:11.000 No wonder George Soros loved him.
00:10:14.000 You could say he was the welfare state and the warfare state.
00:10:19.000 There was rarely an occasion where he'd meet a spending program he didn't like.
00:10:23.000 I agree that John McCain was a hero when he was shot down, that he endured true torture.
00:10:30.000 It was pure evil what he went through.
00:10:35.000 Captivity, his captivity was not without controversy, though.
00:10:38.000 He succumbed to his torture and recorded an audio recording at the behest of the Viet Cong denouncing America and praising the communists.
00:10:49.000 That audio was later released by the U.S. archives.
00:10:53.000 Here, take a listen.
00:10:54.000 I, as a U.S. airman, am guilty of crimes against the Vietnamese country and people.
00:10:59.000 I have bombed the cities, towns, and villages, and caused new injuries, even death, to the people of Vietnam.
00:11:05.000 Now, it's not for me to judge.
00:11:07.000 I surely would have buckled to the torture that he did.
00:11:10.000 But it is against the U.S. military code to do propaganda like that for the enemy.
00:11:15.000 But it's part of the picture.
00:11:16.000 It's part of the flawed man that is never remarked upon, at least not these days.
00:11:21.000 As soon as John McCain returned to America after his years in prison in Vietnam,
00:11:28.000 he abandoned his wife who had loyally waited for him back home.
00:11:33.000 She had been injured in a car accident.
00:11:35.000 That was going to be a liability for him, a distraction for him as a rising political star.
00:11:41.000 So he started dating a pretty heiress, and he pressured his loyal, disabled wife for a divorce.
00:11:48.000 I don't know. Maybe that's not relevant.
00:11:51.000 Maybe it is.
00:11:52.000 There's something about politicians like John Kerry and John McCain who abandon wife number one,
00:11:58.000 who gets them close to their ambitions, and then trade up to a wealthy heiress to take them the rest of the way.
00:12:03.000 I guess I raised that point like I raised the Tokyo Rose propaganda recording to say,
00:12:08.000 look, he's not a saint, despite the love for him by the liberal left.
00:12:12.000 John McCain was not a conservative.
00:12:15.000 He was universally regarded as a recalcitrant, quarrelsome senator.
00:12:20.000 That's why Democrats hated him when he fought against them.
00:12:23.000 But they forgave him because he had the one essential quality the Democrats require in a Republican.
00:12:33.000 He lost.
00:12:35.000 Hey, the next time anyone tells you McCain was a great senator, ask them to name one thing he did to deserve that recognition.
00:12:45.000 You don't have to be mean about it, like Donald Trump is sometimes, remember this?
00:12:50.000 He's not a war hero.
00:12:51.000 He's a war hero.
00:12:52.000 He's a war hero.
00:12:53.000 Five and a half years.
00:12:54.000 He's a war hero because he was captured.
00:12:56.000 I like people that weren't captured, okay?
00:12:58.000 I hate to tell you.
00:12:59.000 That's mean.
00:13:00.000 That's not classy.
00:13:02.000 But it's certainly no more quarrelsome than McCain was in return.
00:13:07.000 Let me close with a comment from the left-wing website called Vox.
00:13:10.000 Not Fox, but Vox.
00:13:12.000 John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the rise of reality TV politics.
00:13:17.000 McCain empowered a demagogue who put the Republican Party on the path to Donald Trump.
00:13:23.000 It's an interesting thesis.
00:13:25.000 But I have a different take.
00:13:27.000 In the year 2008, Republicans nominated John McCain.
00:13:31.000 You could call him a hero.
00:13:33.000 And he campaigned the way he was supposed to.
00:13:36.000 He played by the rule book.
00:13:37.000 He was polite enough.
00:13:39.000 He was normal enough.
00:13:42.000 And the liberal media tore him to shreds, calling him a racist.
00:13:45.000 Saying he was mentally ill, an extremist, a sexist.
00:13:48.000 And he lost.
00:13:50.000 And in 2012, the Republican Party nominated Mitt Romney.
00:13:54.000 Who did what he was supposed to do.
00:13:57.000 He played by the rule book.
00:13:58.000 He was superlatively polite.
00:14:00.000 He was as normal as a politician can be.
00:14:03.000 And they tore him to shreds, calling him a racist, an extremist, a sexist.
00:14:09.000 And he lost.
00:14:11.000 So in 2016, the Republicans nominated Donald Trump.
00:14:15.000 Not polite.
00:14:16.000 Not normal.
00:14:18.000 And they tried to tear him to shreds, calling him racist, extremist, sexist.
00:14:24.000 But he won.
00:14:27.000 Because by now, we all know.
00:14:29.000 That's just what the liberal media does.
00:14:31.000 No matter who you are.
00:14:33.000 That's what they do in Canada too.
00:14:35.000 Donald Trump and John McCain are temperamentally different.
00:14:38.000 Both have their flaws.
00:14:39.000 But the hagiography of John McCain and the hatred for Donald Trump.
00:14:45.000 It comes down to just one difference.
00:14:48.000 McCain lost and Trump won.
00:14:51.000 Stay with us for more.
00:15:09.000 Welcome back.
00:15:10.000 Well, it's very interesting, this deal between Donald Trump and Mexico for so many reasons.
00:15:16.000 I mean, Donald Trump attacks Mexico, on Twitter at least, more than any other country other
00:15:21.000 than maybe China.
00:15:23.000 Trump makes fun of Mexico.
00:15:24.000 He talks about building a wall and making it higher every time a Mexican quarrels with
00:15:29.000 him.
00:15:30.000 He has Twitter feuds, for example, with the former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox.
00:15:36.000 But in a stunning development, yesterday, Trump and the outgoing Mexican president had
00:15:43.000 a joint phone call on speakerphone announcing they've done a trade deal and cut out Canada.
00:15:50.000 And as we discussed yesterday, Christia Freeland, our foreign minister, was halfway around the
00:15:57.000 globe in Berlin giving a talk to German diplomats about something or other.
00:16:03.000 I want to play you a clip from Christia Freeland in a speech she gave earlier this year.
00:16:10.000 And then I'm going to introduce to you our special guest for this discussion.
00:16:13.000 This is a speech that Christia Freeland gave when she was receiving the award by a foreign
00:16:20.000 policy magazine for Diplomat of the Year.
00:16:24.000 This was in Washington.
00:16:25.000 The foreign policy press and all the pooh-bahs were there.
00:16:29.000 This is a clip of Christia Freeland dissing Trump in his own backyard.
00:16:34.000 Take a look.
00:16:35.000 You may feel today that your size allows you to go mano a mano with your traditional adversaries
00:16:42.000 and be guaranteed to win.
00:16:45.000 But if history tells us one thing, it is that no one nation's preeminence is eternal.
00:16:52.000 That is why the far wiser path and the more enduring one is to strengthen our existing alliance
00:17:01.000 of liberal democracies.
00:17:02.000 To hold the door open to new friends.
00:17:05.000 To countries that have their own troubled past such as Tunisia, Senegal, Indonesia, Mexico,
00:17:12.000 Botswana, or Ukraine.
00:17:14.000 To reform and renew the rules-based international order that we have built together.
00:17:21.000 And in so doing, to require that all states, whether democratic or not, play by these common rules.
00:17:32.000 That's just a short clip of Christia Freeland siding with the Senegals and Mexicos of this world.
00:17:39.000 Funny that, Mexico threw Canada under the bus and got a deal for themselves.
00:17:44.000 Even Vicente Vox, a hater of Trump, was applauding the agreement.
00:17:49.000 Joining us now via Skype is our friend Anthony Feary, a columnist at the Toronto Sun newspaper.
00:17:55.000 Anthony, great to see you again.
00:17:57.000 Am I overstating the animosity between Christia Freeland and her little poking at Trumpism and Trump's reaction?
00:18:07.000 I mean, everyone in the media likes to play gossipy games and, like back in high school,
00:18:12.000 look at who's being mean to whom.
00:18:14.000 But I actually think that there was a personality quarrel between Freeland and Trump.
00:18:20.000 And I think the Canadian side let that get in the way of us getting a deal.
00:18:24.000 Well, you know, there's one story, Ezra, from Global News, where they say that they heard from American sources
00:18:30.000 that Trump has been very personally frustrated at Freeland since June.
00:18:34.000 And not just Trump, who we can all kind of agree can be a bit of a capricious individual,
00:18:38.000 but Robert Lighthizer as well, who I guess would have been the person working closest in the room with Christia Freeland.
00:18:43.000 He is the U.S. Trade Representative.
00:18:45.000 And he might have looked at this speech and said, I don't know, we were getting along so well.
00:18:49.000 Why did you do this?
00:18:50.000 And I read this speech, Ezra, with great interest back in June, because it was a big idea speech
00:18:55.000 where she talks about the Francis Fukuyama thesis about the end of history and the changes of liberal democracy.
00:19:01.000 And she says, don't forget, folks, liberal democracy is not forever.
00:19:05.000 All the things we cherish could fall apart in a moment.
00:19:07.000 And I think she's completely right about that.
00:19:09.000 But then she does a wink, wink, nudge, nudge, and basically says, this fellow you have in the White House now,
00:19:14.000 he is precipitating the downfall of liberal democracy.
00:19:17.000 And he is reminding us of all these horrible dictatorships we had in the past.
00:19:21.000 And that's basically the subtext of what she says.
00:19:23.000 And then she says, facts matter, truth matters.
00:19:26.000 And does all these zingers there that she doesn't directly point towards Donald Trump.
00:19:30.000 But you know what she's getting at.
00:19:32.000 And I'm sure she received a lot of applause from people in the elite chattering classes,
00:19:35.000 in the Washington Circuit, in the Beltway, and up here in the Laurentian elites.
00:19:39.000 And I just thought, OK, it's one thing for an MSNBC contributor to go and give that speech at some event, whatever.
00:19:45.000 That's what I expect from them.
00:19:46.000 But hang on a second.
00:19:47.000 You are our lead trade negotiator, our foreign affairs minister at a time.
00:19:51.000 And Ezra, this happened just after Trump had initially announced the first tariffs against Canada.
00:19:56.000 And I thought, this is absolutely bizarre.
00:19:59.000 This is not poking the bear.
00:20:00.000 This is coming up and whacking him on the back of the head with a chair like in one of those WWF wrestling matches.
00:20:06.000 How do you not expect him to turn around and respond?
00:20:09.000 And he did not for a while.
00:20:10.000 But now we learned he has actually been frustrated about it all this time, perhaps pushing us to the direction we find ourselves in now.
00:20:18.000 And when she goes into his backyard, you know the phrase, digging up his backyard, giving a speech to his American, Washington, foreign policy elite.
00:20:28.000 And that comment about multilateralism and globalism, that's basically saying stop having your own opinion, Donald Trump.
00:20:35.000 You have to obey the United Nations, whether it's global warming or trade.
00:20:40.000 It's basically saying we reject the entire philosophy of Donald Trump.
00:20:44.000 Well, that's fine to say, like you said, if you're a pundit.
00:20:47.000 But if you are in the middle of the most important trade negotiation in your term, maybe you should just cork it.
00:20:54.000 What's so interesting, Anthony, is that she gave a repeat, like the speech she gave yesterday in Berlin that she boasted about on Twitter when she was doing it, was the same theme.
00:21:06.000 I bet it was very, very similar in its wording.
00:21:09.000 It was on multilateralism and how that's the better way, not Trump's way.
00:21:13.000 I have to think that that's on purpose.
00:21:17.000 I can't believe that that's accidental or just, you know, carelessness.
00:21:22.000 I think it lends credence to the conservative accusation that maybe Justin Trudeau actually wants a fight with Trump so he can run against Trump in the next Canadian election because Canadians hate Trump and Trudeau can run against Trump.
00:21:38.000 I think maybe they want to throw the game.
00:21:41.000 Well, and why wouldn't they want that?
00:21:43.000 Because polling numbers have shown that a lot of Canadians, immaterial of their politics, they see Trump getting a little tough on Canada and they're turning around and they're saying,
00:21:51.000 oh, I don't like that at all.
00:21:52.000 Maybe I'm not actually crazy against Trump or crazy for Trudeau, but I'm not liking being pushed around.
00:21:57.000 So he has gotten a bit of a net benefit in the polls for this.
00:22:00.000 So they are exploiting it.
00:22:01.000 But I mean, wowzers, Ezra, the idea that you would exploit basically people's jobs, which is what NAFTA is, particularly for the manufacturing sector, to just keep yourself a few percentage points in the polls.
00:22:12.000 I got to say, that is a really troubling thing to think that they would do that.
00:22:15.000 And I must say, I was previously rather complimentary to the prime minister's office on this issue.
00:22:20.000 I'm not so much on a lot of issues.
00:22:21.000 But I thought, well, since the inauguration period, since before the inauguration from November 8th to January 17th or so back then in 2016 when heads were exploding,
00:22:30.000 Trudeau actually sent some of his people down to meet with people like Jared Kushner and, of course, Donald Trump.
00:22:35.000 And I thought, oh, good, this is quite reasonable progress.
00:22:38.000 But the wheels came off the bus about a year ago when Christie Freeland was putting out those videos saying feminism and environmentalism and First Nations rights.
00:22:45.000 That's the whole point of a NAFTA deal.
00:22:47.000 I thought, well, you can support those issues.
00:22:49.000 But that is not the point of a NAFTA deal.
00:22:52.000 So, Ezra, we're finding ourselves in very bizarre terrain where the liberals are pushing in odd directions where you'd think,
00:22:58.000 come on, guys, you've got to know this won't read well.
00:23:01.000 And to your point, do they like that?
00:23:03.000 Yeah. You know, I want to show you something very interesting.
00:23:06.000 And I've only read it in one newspaper today, the Wall Street Journal, which is a very reputable business newspaper.
00:23:12.000 They gave sort of a behind the scenes tick tock of how the deal went down.
00:23:16.000 Let me put it on the screen here.
00:23:18.000 Amazing. The foreign minister of Mexico has visited the White House.
00:23:24.000 You know how many times, Anthony?
00:23:26.000 Forty five times.
00:23:29.000 That's a lot.
00:23:30.000 That's a lot.
00:23:31.000 Plus an additional ten visits to the personal home of Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who's sort of a fixer, sort of a, you know,
00:23:42.000 he goes in and does special projects for the president, especially sensitive diplomatic projects.
00:23:47.000 That is 55 personal meetings.
00:23:50.000 I mean, I don't think the foreign minister of Mexico has been doing anything else.
00:23:55.000 If you have 55 meetings in another country, that, I mean, I think that's more often than many people who visit their own family.
00:24:04.000 If your in-laws are in a different city, I don't know if you'd visit them 55 times.
00:24:08.000 Compare that to Chrystia Freeland, who hasn't been in a negotiation with the Americans in months.
00:24:15.000 Compare that to Justin Trudeau, who, when he goes to the States, he takes in a show in New York
00:24:21.000 or he visits with Democrat activists in Chicago like David Axelrod.
00:24:25.000 55 visits, 45 at the White House, 10 at Kushner's house.
00:24:30.000 No wonder they got a deal, Anthony.
00:24:32.000 It is very bizarre, though, because like I said, I do credit the Liberals for on this one issue getting on the ground floor,
00:24:38.000 and they did not take the anti-Trump hysteria bait initially, and they were very mature and serious about the issue.
00:24:44.000 But I don't know what happened, Ezra.
00:24:46.000 Perhaps your theory is right, that it evolved such that they realized, well, you know, screw this deal.
00:24:51.000 Why don't we go and get some positive points by being seen as puffing our chests and sticking up to Donald Trump?
00:24:57.000 How else does one explain it?
00:24:58.000 Because I do think it was initially going okay.
00:25:01.000 And if they wanted to do a charm offensive, they could.
00:25:03.000 I mean, you always hear people lie about that fact.
00:25:05.000 Oh, Trump said every single Mexican is this and that.
00:25:08.000 Well, of course, we know in the tape he did not.
00:25:09.000 He just said that there are people from Mexico who have committed those crimes.
00:25:13.000 And clearly, the Mexican foreign minister is able to overlook that and is clearly aware that Trump is not maligning, you know, every single person from Mexico.
00:25:20.000 And he's able to come and sit down and have these discussions and put all of that sort of anti-Trump derangement syndrome aside to get a deal.
00:25:28.000 I would assume that Canada should be able to do that, too, particularly because on the outset, we were not being maligned by Donald Trump.
00:25:35.000 He didn't have anything to say about us, really.
00:25:37.000 A few positive things, that was it.
00:25:39.000 Mexico, he was saying we're really upset with NAFTA because of Mexico.
00:25:43.000 And suddenly, and you remember it was Stephen Harper Ezra who pointed this out in a memo to his clients that was leaked a year ago.
00:25:49.000 He said, I don't get this.
00:25:50.000 Canada is sort of making a spectacle out of itself.
00:25:53.000 And this is going to make Donald Trump turn over and look at Canada and go, oh, maybe I should be frustrated at you guys.
00:25:59.000 And that is exactly what happened.
00:26:01.000 Yeah.
00:26:02.000 I mean, again, I can't think of a more important file for Canada's foreign minister, especially if you care about the auto industry, which is right in liberal turf of Ontario.
00:26:12.000 I mean, the oil patch, we understand they don't care about oil and gas pipelines.
00:26:16.000 But Trump has specifically threatened a 20% tariff on Canada's auto industry.
00:26:22.000 I mean, he says those words.
00:26:24.000 And you could think he's bluffing, but he wasn't bluffing when he hit China.
00:26:28.000 He wasn't bluffing when he hit Canada with other tariffs.
00:26:30.000 I just, it's incredible to me that people think maybe he doesn't mean it.
00:26:34.000 Let me throw one last thing at you.
00:26:36.000 And it goes to reporting.
00:26:39.000 I learned about how many meetings the Mexicans have had in the Wall Street Journal.
00:26:43.000 That's appropriate.
00:26:44.000 That's a good place for me to learn it.
00:26:46.000 We, I think so much of the background here, I think the media party, the mainstream media, the CBC in particular, which has the most resources,
00:26:57.000 I don't think they've done genuine investigating.
00:27:00.000 I don't think they've asked questions like, why haven't you met with them in months?
00:27:05.000 Why, like to, if it were Stephen Harper that was fiddling when NAFTA was burning, if Stephen Harper, like right now, as we're recording this,
00:27:16.000 Justin Trudeau is meeting with a youth council in Papineau.
00:27:20.000 Christia Freeland yesterday was in Germany.
00:27:22.000 If this were melting down under Harper, and Harper was meeting with some, you know, 4-H club in Alberta,
00:27:29.000 and Harper's foreign minister was off on the other side of the world,
00:27:32.000 our entire Canadian media party would be digging up every fact and shaming him.
00:27:38.000 I think Canada's media party let Trudeau get away with this because they don't like Trump either,
00:27:44.000 and they don't want Christia Freeland to have 55 meetings with Trump because they don't want them to be friends.
00:27:52.000 And perhaps people don't want her to fail, so they want to hold her up and bolster her up.
00:27:57.000 I've been pointing out that it's bizarre that she emphasized this feminism issue, this environmentalism issue.
00:28:03.000 Stephen Harper talking to people on the ground says that they're baffled by that in the U.S. as well.
00:28:07.000 And we've heard that from one or two other sources.
00:28:09.000 But I suspect if people really worked on their U.S. sources as opposed to just calling up the person they knew in the PMO
00:28:16.000 and asking for what the message there is in the Canada response, which is going to be a spin just as much as anything else is going to be a spin,
00:28:23.000 you might hear that, yes, people are saying, what on earth is this going on about feminism during a trade deal?
00:28:28.000 That's what really destroyed the signing of the TPP deal, Trudeau showing up last minute and stressing those issues.
00:28:34.000 And then the PMO tried to say, oh, that was false, that was bogus.
00:28:37.000 And a lot of people bought that hook, line and sinker, the PMO just doing a denial.
00:28:41.000 Were it not for the fact that one of my colleagues at Post Media, she was actually on a visit in an Asian country a few weeks later,
00:28:47.000 and she met with some people there, some government officials, and they reaffirmed, yes, that was the case.
00:28:52.000 It was Trudeau going on about thinking a trade deal somehow has to be a feminist trade deal.
00:28:57.000 That's what rankled a lot of people.
00:28:58.000 So to your point, do we have a wide enough sort of source situation here?
00:29:04.000 The answer, I think, is no.
00:29:05.000 Yeah, very interesting.
00:29:07.000 I am truly worried about the auto industry.
00:29:10.000 I've read all the banking reports.
00:29:12.000 If these tariffs come, it will be a disaster for Canada.
00:29:16.000 It'll be a little bump in the road for the U.S.
00:29:18.000 Their economy is so big and it's growing so fast, it will throw Ontario into recession.
00:29:23.000 I've seen banking studies that say over 100,000 jobs will be lost.
00:29:26.000 I hope that does not happen.
00:29:28.000 I will find out in the days ahead.
00:29:31.000 Anthony, I'm sure you'll be writing more about this.
00:29:33.000 We'll keep our eyes peeled for your Toronto Sun column.
00:29:36.000 Absolutely.
00:29:37.000 Thanks, Ezra.
00:29:38.000 All right, thanks for spending the time with us.
00:29:40.000 That's Anthony Fieri who has been watching Chrystia Freeland and he remarked on how she was pricking Donald Trump and the administration,
00:29:48.000 turning them from a passive sleeping elephant, you could say, to an elephant on a rampage.
00:29:54.000 I'm worried we're going to get stomped.
00:29:57.000 Let me just say one more time, just fascinated by that, 55 visits, 45 to the White House and 10 to Jared Kushner's own home.
00:30:06.000 Have you been anywhere 55 times?
00:30:10.000 That's all you, I mean, you know what, the more I think about it, I think the Mexican foreign minister will have to do some research.
00:30:17.000 I think he probably moved to Washington and stayed there.
00:30:22.000 Like, he wouldn't fly back and forth to Mexico City 55 times.
00:30:25.000 He would just move with your family to Washington and say, I am going to stay here as long as it takes and do nothing but get a deal.
00:30:35.000 And I bet he actually became personal friends with his White House counterparts.
00:30:39.000 And I bet he would never in a million years have given a public speech disparaging his American counterparts.
00:30:45.000 I bet if he saw the tweet about Donald Trump making fun of a taco, as Trump did on Senco de Mayo a few years ago,
00:30:51.000 I bet he just bit his tongue and said, that's not important. What's important is jobs for my country.
00:30:56.000 And what a difference in professionalism that the foreign minister of Mexico would have 55 meetings
00:31:04.000 while our gender quota appointee was off gallivanting somewhere and giving selfie photos. Unbelievable.
00:31:14.000 Stay with us. More ahead, everybody.
00:31:28.000 Welcome back.
00:31:29.000 Well, one of the themes of our news coverage over the last year or two has been how censorship is the new central principle of the left.
00:31:40.000 Where once they would debate you and argue things, now they want to de-platform you.
00:31:46.000 It's coming through social media, but that's not quick enough or hard enough for some of the alt-left environmental extremists.
00:31:54.000 There's an interesting story in the Daily Caller about how 60 global warming campaigners are now insisting that media formally ban climate skeptics.
00:32:09.000 Let me read the headline here.
00:32:10.000 Climate alarmists throw temper tantrum, refuse to debate skeptics.
00:32:14.000 Well, that's one thing, just simply to refuse to debate.
00:32:17.000 But in their public letter, signatories said they would no longer appear in the media alongside their critics.
00:32:22.000 We are no longer willing to lend our credibility to debates over whether or not climate change is real.
00:32:27.000 Well, their goal is to get the media to choose.
00:32:31.000 Well, if we can't have both sides of the debate, we will ban the skeptics.
00:32:36.000 Joining us now via Skype is our friend Mark Morano, the boss at ClimateDepot.com.
00:32:40.000 Mark, great to see you again.
00:32:42.000 Do I have that right?
00:32:43.000 Basically, it's a boycott.
00:32:46.000 They're saying if you talk to the wrong people, even for a rebuttal, even if you're disparaging or criticizing them, if you even talk to the other side, we will blacklist you.
00:32:58.000 So you better choose wisely.
00:32:59.000 That's what they're doing, right?
00:33:01.000 Yes, that's what they're doing.
00:33:03.000 And they actually think that they're so valuable as news sources and news information that these journal editors and others will bow and be, oh, my gosh, we can't lose them.
00:33:15.000 But they probably will bow, but not because they think they're valuable, but because it's the expected thing to do in our culture of political correctness, if you will.
00:33:24.000 And so this now keep in mind, this isn't climate scientists signing this letter, although there might be a few sprinkled in there.
00:33:30.000 These are people like Clive Lewis, George Monbiot, UK, European writers who are just general alarmist writers who this is their way to try to influence the climate debate.
00:33:41.000 They literally have had it with the idea that there is a debate.
00:33:44.000 They're so sure that they're right that they don't want to hear any dissenting opinion.
00:33:48.000 And by golly, if they do, they take their ball and go home and they're going to take the media outlet with them.
00:33:53.000 And we've seen this in the Climategate emails. We see it in the in the actual journals.
00:33:57.000 If a journal editor dares publish a study that's threatening any aspect, they're threatened with their career.
00:34:04.000 In many cases, they are ousted from that journal. So now they're making it more formal and they're going after it.
00:34:09.000 Of course, this is in Europe. And I have a whole section in my book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change, that deals with this very issue happening in America as well.
00:34:19.000 The Los Angeles Times, being one example, has already stated they won't even publish letters to the editors from Global Warming Skeptics.
00:34:26.000 They've banned letters to the editors. That's how bad it's gotten.
00:34:29.000 You know, and that's where that's the place where you really allow almost anything.
00:34:34.000 That's so well, you can write a letter. That's almost like a put down to tell a career, well, write a little letter.
00:34:39.000 Now they won't even let them have that. As you were talking, we were scrolling through some of the names.
00:34:43.000 I'd like to put that up there again because what's so shocking about the signatories here is you're not just politicians or extremists.
00:34:50.000 You can see a great many professors. You can see a great many members of Parliament or members of the European Parliament.
00:35:00.000 That's what MEP stands for. So, I mean, it's one thing for Greenpeace to be on this list.
00:35:06.000 And there are some lobbyists like that. I get it. But for people who run a class, like if you're in class,
00:35:15.000 how could anyone have a fair hearing in university as a student if their own professor would ban them?
00:35:23.000 How could anyone in the idea of a parliamentarian, Mark, saying they were going to ban things?
00:35:30.000 That's too much. That's crazy.
00:35:32.000 It's crazy. And what we're finding is we have a branch of our organization, Collegiate CFACT,
00:35:37.000 a collegiate organization that deals with on all the college campuses.
00:35:41.000 And what we're finding is these kids from kindergarten all the way through college,
00:35:45.000 even conservative libertarian kids have just punted on the climate.
00:35:49.000 They just don't think there's any dissent anymore because they're told and it's reinforced.
00:35:54.000 And it's not just told that there's a consensus.
00:35:56.000 They're made to feel stupid if they question any aspect of the debate, of the climate claims.
00:36:03.000 And that's what this is about. It's about intimidation, pure and simple.
00:36:08.000 And you've got the members of parliament piling on. Why would they be piling on, Ezra?
00:36:12.000 Very simply, they're going to be supporting fuel standards, legislation, the UN-Paris agreement.
00:36:18.000 And they don't want to hear any of those pesky dissenting voices.
00:36:21.000 And this is why in the U.S. we have the New York Times openly major writers like Tom Friedman
00:36:26.000 praising China's one-party rule and how they handle environmental regulations.
00:36:31.000 You're so right. You know, let me throw one thing at you. You just made me have a thought.
00:36:35.000 I mean, I went to school a lot. I think you and I are about the same age.
00:36:39.000 So we went to college about 25 years ago or so. And political correctness was getting going.
00:36:44.000 But back then, I don't think it was that bad. Now it's just absolutely total.
00:36:49.000 And the punishments for deviating from it are even more shocking.
00:36:55.000 And I can imagine someone who's come up through the schools in the last 20 years has only heard one point of view.
00:37:01.000 But you made me think of something about Dr. Jordan Peterson.
00:37:04.000 Do you know who I'm talking about, the Canadian who's got the best-selling book, 12 Rules for Life?
00:37:10.000 He's a free speech activist. I've heard of him, yeah. I've read the book.
00:37:13.000 I mean, he's a huge name up here in Canada, Mark. And he's getting pretty big in the United States, Australia, the U.K. also.
00:37:20.000 And he's an unlikely hero because he's a, I don't know exactly how old he is. I'm going to guess he's almost 60.
00:37:28.000 He's got sort of a professorial manner. Like, he talks a great length and he goes down tangents and he's a little bit obscure.
00:37:37.000 He's slightly humorous in his style. Like, he's a great professor. I can only imagine how great he is to have in class.
00:37:45.000 So he's not cool in the traditional, he's not charismatic, he's not hip and sexy. He's actually anti-charismatic in a way.
00:37:54.000 I mean, he speaks with, anyway. I'm just telling you this because why has Professor Jordan Peterson got such a strong following on campus with kids who would normally say,
00:38:08.000 Yeah, you're Squaresville, dude. And the reason I've heard it is because Professor Jordan Peterson is the first person who thoughtfully and at great length and with as much detail as you can handle will give you the other side of the story to the feminist postmodernist Marxist worldview that young people have never, ever actually heard before.
00:38:30.000 So he's the first time any young person, especially young men, have heard the rebuttal, the antidote to cultural feminism, Marxism, and thank you for giving me that two-minute preamble.
00:38:42.000 My question to you, Mark Morano, is that an analogy that young people have never actually heard the other side of the story?
00:38:52.000 They've just accepted the talking points of the environmental extremist left.
00:38:56.000 And if someone, especially someone anti-charismatic, a little bit old, maybe a little bit eccentric, were to hit the campus circuit now,
00:39:06.000 maybe someone like our old friend Lord Moncton, who would be charming in the fact that he's old and uncool and unhip,
00:39:14.000 and he would go on at great length and debate anyone, and all of a sudden thousands of young eyes would say,
00:39:20.000 Oh my God, I didn't know there was another side of the story. I always had this feeling that I wasn't being told the whole story,
00:39:26.000 and now I know the whole story. Maybe Jordan Peterson proves that you can never say never,
00:39:32.000 and if Lord Moncton or someone like him went on tour, maybe he'd have a hit with young people who were craving the other side of the story.
00:39:39.000 What do you think?
00:39:41.000 I think you're absolutely on to something. There's a craving out there for people to hear this.
00:39:46.000 I recently did a Facebook video, which was really my first Facebook video that I'd done, two minutes long.
00:39:51.000 It's now, I think, 8.5 or so, over 8 million views. It's been so successful, and this was out through conservative think tanks,
00:39:59.000 and it ran out to a lot of young people. It's been so successful, Ezra, that they're using it as the poster child for Facebook
00:40:05.000 and going after Mark Zuckerberg to ban climate deniers.
00:40:08.000 So keep in mind, this letter today to the UK Guardian, what you're describing, the backlash and the thirst for it,
00:40:15.000 this is now YouTube is going to be censoring, Facebook's going to be censoring, Twitter is censoring.
00:40:21.000 Now you have them going the final nail to get any of the traditional media to censor.
00:40:25.000 So you're absolutely right. College campuses, these kids know instinctively when they hear that there's another side,
00:40:32.000 they're interested automatically. They want to hear it. And you're right.
00:40:35.000 It might take a Lord Moncton and someone a little bit more nontraditional to reach them and tell them
00:40:43.000 that they don't have to take what their professors tell them, hook, line and sinker.
00:40:48.000 In fact, it's the opposite. The 1960s, it was always question authority. That's what it was all about.
00:40:54.000 Go after the government. Now, the same left wing is telling you to accept the government.
00:40:59.000 Accept the government's consensus. Accept the government's studies. Don't question a thing,
00:41:03.000 because if you do, you're stupid and we won't cover you and we're going to take our ball
00:41:06.000 and you're going to be all left alone. It's the exact opposite of what college campuses should be about.
00:41:11.000 Tolerance, dissent, free speech.
00:41:14.000 Well, I hope we find a Jordan Peterson of the environment to red pill, as they say.
00:41:20.000 That's right, yeah.
00:41:21.000 Mark, it's great to have you on the show. Thanks for your time today.
00:41:24.000 Thanks a lot, Ezra. I appreciate it.
00:41:26.000 All right. Our pleasure.
00:41:27.000 There you have it. Our friend Mark Moreno from ClimateDepot.com.
00:41:30.000 Do you know, Lord Moncton, it's been a while since I've interviewed him.
00:41:33.000 Very interesting character. Lots of Britishisms.
00:41:36.000 Slightly eccentric fella. Brilliant man.
00:41:39.000 I find him endlessly engaging.
00:41:42.000 I think maybe he could be the anti-charismatic here.
00:41:46.000 Although he's charismatic in his own way.
00:41:48.000 I think he's just...
00:41:50.000 Maybe he's just what the doctor ordered.
00:41:52.000 Stay with us.
00:41:53.000 More Head on the Rebel.
00:41:54.000 Hey, welcome back. Your viewer feedback on my monologue last night.
00:42:09.000 Robert writes,
00:42:11.000 Well, that's the thing. It reminds me a little bit of Patrick Brown, the former Ontario leader, who campaigned for the leadership on the right.
00:42:26.000 And as soon as he got all those conservative votes, he abandoned them and tacked to the left.
00:42:31.000 Now, I don't think that Andrew Scheer has the personal skeletons in his closet that Patrick Brown does.
00:42:36.000 But I think other than that, he's trying the Patrick Brown strategy of campaign right to get the leadership and then tack left.
00:42:42.000 Because seriously, where's a true conservative gonna go?
00:42:45.000 Peter writes,
00:42:47.000 I will vote for Bernier if and when he has his party up and going with 338 candidates and a fully ratified party constitution.
00:42:55.000 However, Common Sense says that will not be done in one year.
00:42:58.000 Hence, I will bite my tongue, hold my nose, and vote for the party that can oust Justin, the major embarrassment, Trudeau.
00:43:06.000 Yeah, well, I think that there's two things there.
00:43:09.000 First of all, I think you are correct.
00:43:10.000 I observed firsthand, I was in the reform party in its early days, not in its super duper early days,
00:43:16.000 but I was there when they had just one MP Deborah Gray and one Senator Stan Waters.
00:43:22.000 And I remember how hard I was, I was Preston Manning's assistant when he was first in parliament.
00:43:29.000 And I remember how hard it was.
00:43:32.000 Preston was on the road 200, 250 nights a year.
00:43:35.000 And painstaking church basement by church basement.
00:43:41.000 You don't just create a party like that. It just doesn't happen.
00:43:44.000 You can't, you can do a lot of things on Twitter, but you can't create a real party just on Twitter.
00:43:51.000 Donald Trump, everyone thinks he was just a Twitter candidate.
00:43:54.000 No, he was a master of Twitter and Facebook, but he had organizers on the ground.
00:43:59.000 Ian writes,
00:44:01.000 Ezra, you are upset and sheer for not allowing Rebel at the convention.
00:44:04.000 Understandable.
00:44:05.000 Also upset about the insult and injustice of Soviet marketing policies.
00:44:10.000 Understandable.
00:44:11.000 But you have to let this go for the next 12 months.
00:44:13.000 After that, we can get a true conservative leader in there and work to reform the policies from within.
00:44:18.000 If you don't let this go for now, you and Rebel are just working for Trudeau.
00:44:23.000 Another five years of Trudeau.
00:44:25.000 P.S. Unblock me on Twitter.
00:44:27.000 What are you thinking?
00:44:29.000 Well, Ian, I'll have to check out what your Twitter handle is because I don't know why I would have blocked you.
00:44:36.000 I block people typically who come at the Rebel or me in bad faith.
00:44:41.000 Your email here is obviously in good faith, so I'll have to check out what your Twitter handle is and let you see my super important tweets again.
00:44:50.000 I hear what you're saying, and that is the cold-blooded argument which says, look, you know, Scheer may be pretty weak.
00:44:59.000 He may be fairly unconservative, but surely he's preferable to Justin Trudeau.
00:45:06.000 And I would absolutely agree with that.
00:45:08.000 Obviously, Andrew Scheer would be better than Justin Trudeau.
00:45:14.000 But I don't see today as ballot checkmark day.
00:45:19.000 Obviously, I'm going to vote for the Conservatives.
00:45:21.000 I see my job today and over the next course of the year is to do two things.
00:45:27.000 To talk about things that Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives can't or won't and to exert pressure on Andrew Scheer to pull him to the right as a counterbalance to him being pulled to the left.
00:45:38.000 You understand those two things are a little bit different.
00:45:40.000 One is the CBC is always saying, come this way, come this way, come this way.
00:45:43.000 And we're going to say, no, come that way.
00:45:45.000 So we're pulling on him himself.
00:45:48.000 And the other is to talk about issues to shape the battlefield, as they would say, so that people can start talking about things that they didn't have the courage to or the information to before.
00:45:58.000 I believe we played an important role to shape the battlefield when it came to the carbon tax.
00:46:03.000 You may recall our big rallies in Alberta that were mocked by the media, but I believe we were part of the turning point on that issue.
00:46:10.000 Same thing with M103, the anti-Islamophobia motion.
00:46:14.000 I believe that we were the ones who really brought it to the attention of Canadians more than and certainly earlier than any other media did.
00:46:21.000 I see our role is to talk about things that Andrew Scheer is still too timid to talk about.
00:46:26.000 Most obviously, extreme multiculturalism and immigration.
00:46:29.000 Maxime Bernier was starting to have that effect too, and I'm disappointed that he quit.
00:46:33.000 So I would say, Ian, you're right.
00:46:36.000 If the vote were held today, obviously I'd vote for Andrew Scheer.
00:46:39.000 But that doesn't mean that I'm not going to, for the next year, try and pull him to the right
00:46:43.000 and give him a reality check.
00:46:45.000 Don't listen to the media party.
00:46:46.000 Don't listen to them on all these issues where they're so wrong.
00:46:49.000 And we're going to talk about things we know he can't talk about.
00:46:51.000 So that's my mission.
00:46:52.000 I'm not just going to say, oh, well, got to vote for Scheer.
00:46:55.000 That's it. That's that.
00:46:56.000 No, we're going to try and reform him in the next year.
00:46:59.000 That's our show for today.
00:47:00.000 Ian, I'm going to check it out and find out what your email is,
00:47:02.000 and I'll unblock you on Twitter if you're not mean to me.
00:47:06.000 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,
00:47:09.000 good night and keep fighting for freedom.
00:47:11.000 Thank you for freedom.