Trudeau Liberals silent as Trump bans Canadian goods and services from U.S. infrastructure projects
Summary
Donald Trump just declared a trade war on us, not us in particular, but on everyone else. He signed an executive order enjoining by American companies and now the U.S. government will prefer American companies over Canadian companies as a matter of law.
Transcript
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Hello, my rebels. So I'm calling you today. You're listening to a free audio only recording of my
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show, the Ezra Levant Show. I have a crazy story for you today. And I'm going to spend a lot of
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time giving you the facts before I give you my commentary and analysis. Normally, I just briefly
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mention the facts because we all know them, because we've all seen them reported somewhere.
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And then I give you my thoughts. But in this case, I think we're talking about really something that's
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a secret that you have not seen reported anywhere. I really searched high and low to find news of it.
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And the news is that on Thursday at 12 noon Eastern time in the Oval Office in front of a crowd of
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journalists, Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a trade war on us, not us in particular,
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but on everyone. He signed an executive order enforcing by American. And now the U.S. government
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will prefer American companies over Canadian companies as a matter of law. Here, listen to
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the podcast and hear for yourself. We'll quote Trump and I'll read from the executive order.
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are a great way to support The Rebel without spending a dime. Thanks. Oh, and now enjoy this free audio
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only version of my show. Tonight, Donald Trump just banned Canadian goods and services from U.S.
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infrastructure projects. So where's Justin Trudeau or Chrystia Freeland or the media party?
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It's February 4th and this is The Ezra LeVance Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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What I'm about to tell you is a secret in Canada. At least I cannot find a single media outlet that
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reported it. That's almost a secret, right? Even though it was news announced at a noisy press
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conference by the noisiest president in a century. At precisely 12 noon on Thursday, January 31st,
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Donald Trump signed an executive order banning Canadian goods and services from potentially
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hundreds of billions of dollars worth of U.S. contracts in which the U.S. government is involved
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as a contractor or a funder. It's pure trade protectionism. It's kind of a trade war.
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It's aimed at the whole world. It doesn't specifically mention Canada by name, but of course Canada is by far
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the country that will be the most impacted given the size of our trading relationship with the
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United States and the integration of our economies and the nature of the products and services being
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banned under this executive order. I know you haven't heard about this. You probably don't even
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believe me when I say there's a trade war that was just launched because it's such shocking news
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and it's such a disaster. But all you've heard from the media party instead is how amazing
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Christia Freeland, our foreign minister is, and how she totally wrestled that Donald Trump to the
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ground over NAFTA renegotiations and how she totally slam dunked him and wore that weird t-shirt
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about him and even went to an anti-Trump rally in Toronto. Remember that? Right in the middle of
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negotiations calling Trump a tyrant. So you know it's all good. You know everything's great because
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the CBC says so and McLean says so and the rest of the bailout media say so. You must think what I've
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just told you, that Donald Trump has launched a trade war against us, you must think that's fake
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news. I mean I'll be candid. I was skeptical when someone first told me about this a couple days ago.
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It's that weird. I had to learn about a trade war against Canada from someone personally telling me
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about it verbally like we're in some old-timey world in the age of the Telegraph or something.
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But Donald Trump did not do this quietly. Has he ever done anything quietly? He had a full-blown
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press conference about it in the Oval Office in the White House. The entire media was invited
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including presumably CBC, CTV, Global TV, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Post Media. They all have
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Washington journalists on the ground there. And for those who couldn't attend in person or who don't
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have any reporters in Washington, no problem. The White House was kind enough to put the entire 38
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minute presentation on YouTube. That's what you can see behind me now. And if you don't like watching
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videos, well no problem. The White House was kind enough to provide a word perfect transcript.
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Everything Trump said and everyone else said, they just put the whole transcript up. It's on the
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website. It's called Remarks by President Trump at Signing of Executive Order Strengthening by
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American Preferences for Infrastructure Projects. And you can see it's dated January 31st. And you can
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see it's on the White House website at whitehouse.gov. You can find it yourself. Like I say, it was a
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massive announcement with various government and industry officials there. I'm going to just play
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a little bit of it for you on video because I know that no one has told you this. No one has told you
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that we are in a trade war with America now. So I need to take extra time to prove it to you or you're
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going to think I'm nuts. Here, listen for yourself. This happened at 12 noon on Thursday. So this wasn't
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hidden. This wasn't done like at midnight. This wasn't done just minutes ago and the media are
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catching up. This was Thursday at noon. There's absolutely no excuse whatsoever for this news to
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be hidden. Except that it is deeply, deeply embarrassing to Justin Trudeau and Christian
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Freeland and their desperate desire to pretend that they are competent in the world of foreign
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affairs and trade. And therefore it's deeply embarrassing to the CBC state broadcaster and all
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the rest of the private broadcasters who are signing up for some of that $595 million bailout
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fund. They want to be little state broadcasters under Trudeau's media bailout plan. So here,
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let me do a bit of reporting for you. Sorry, you have to hear about this from me rather than on the
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state broadcaster that costs you $1.5 billion tax dollars a year. Take a listen to Donald Trump
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Today, I'm taking action to build on this tremendous success by strengthening the Buy American
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principle for federal infrastructure and federal spending. We want American roads, bridges and
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railways and everything else to be built with American iron, American steel, American concrete
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and American hands. And if you look at what's happened with the steel industry, it's actually
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amazing. The steel industry is thriving now. And it was dead. When I came to office, it was dead. It
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was a dead industry. They were dumping steel all over the place. The jobs were going. And if any of
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you are in the steel industry, I think you can probably tell, you know, an aluminum tube.
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It's true. And importantly, and I'll come back to this later, it's mainly China that was the problem
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here. China was flooding the U.S. with deeply subsidized, artificially subsidizing low-cost
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steel below what it costs them to make it. And they were doing this not to make a profit,
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of course, but rather to stimulate employment and industrial expansion back in China and to push
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American steel companies out of business by dumping that cheap steel and perhaps even put the U.S. in a
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strategic problem of having no more heavy industries anymore. So it's really China. And of course,
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China was trying to hide its tracks by shipping some of that subsidized steel into America via Canada.
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But again, it's a China problem. In this 38-minute press conference, Trump said the word China
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28 times. He didn't say the word Canada once. I checked. But we're the ones who are going to be
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disproportionately punished here. And I'll get back to that in a moment. But here's more from Trump's
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Thursday announcement. Now, you know how Trump's speeches go. There are the little tangents and
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little vignettes and little anecdotes and little jokes. And there's banter. And he talks about
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plenty of other things not really related to the announcement itself. Fine. You can watch the
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whole 38-minute video. But instead, let me show you just a few clips that I think sum it up. Okay.
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So here's Alexander Acosta. That's Trump cabinet minister in charge of labor, the labor secretary.
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Listen to him. Mr. President, you know, in the past, we encouraged individuals out there to buy
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American. But what you're doing is so important because you're leading by example. You're saying
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the federal government will buy America. And we've seen the impact last year with, you know, a 10-year
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record low in foreign purchases. And this is going to take it to the next step. And it will translate
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into more jobs for individuals just like those here today. It's having an incredible effect. I mean,
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people don't realize it yet. But they're seeing it more and more. We are mandating even pipelines
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and things that were made elsewhere. They're starting to be made here because we have a steel
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industry again. But it's having a tremendous impact. Please. Thank you, Mr. President. I've been
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co-sponsoring Bill for years with Dan Lipinski. Couldn't get it to go anywhere. I'm honored that
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you're doing it today to force it into action because, as you said, these are American jobs. It's American
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concrete. It's American steel. It's American asphalt. Thank you for doing so. Thank you very much.
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So there's banter with administration officials. There's congressmen there. There's
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businessmen. You can see there's some industrial workers. There's some lobbyists. Here's just a
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little bit more just because I know you haven't seen this anywhere. Mr. President, I'd like to thank
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you for this buy American push that you've got. With federal funding for the infrastructure that's
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buy American. It's jobs for us. And it puts us in a position where we can compete. Otherwise,
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we tend to walk away from jobs where foreign competition is going to take our business.
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We're changing that fast. Thank you. Big difference. Big difference.
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Big difference. And then they do what they do. They sign the executive order.
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Okay. Let's go. Does anybody want this panel? Sure. Thank you very much. Thank you all for being
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That's a declaration of war, a trade war. It's on. Let me read a little bit of that executive order to
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you. So it's sort of the opposite of the banter and blarney of the Trump press conference. It's just
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the executive order, which is not particularly a law. It's not a statute. But in some ways, it's more
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powerful than a law because it doesn't get watered down or delayed by the legislative process, by
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congressmen. It's more limited than a law under the U.S. Constitution. But the president can do what
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he wants to a large extent in the executive branch of the government. That means the cabinet positions
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here. Let me quote. And again, this is the opposite of secret. It's right there on the White House
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website. They're advertising. And here's what it looks like on the website. Executive order on
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strengthening by American preferences for infrastructure projects. So I'm going to give
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you a little bit of legalese. I know I'm spending way more time than normal on just giving you the
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facts before I then give you my commentary and analysis. But that is because the entire Canadian
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political media establishment has not reported this. Not a peep anywhere that I've seen.
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Neither from the government nor the opposition. Neither from the state broadcaster nor any private
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broadcaster. So I want you to be very well briefed on the facts because you will be the first person
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in your circle to know this. And I want you to really know it. So I'm going to read this executive
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order. Let me get into the text of it. By the authority vested in me as president by the constitution
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and the laws of the United States of America and to strengthen by American principles in federal
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financial assistance programs, it is hereby ordered as follows. Section one policy as expressed in
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executive order 13788 of April 18th, 2017 by American and higher American. It is the policy
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of the executive branch to maximize consistent with law, the use of goods, products and materials
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produced in the United States in federal procurements and through the terms and conditions of federal
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financial assistance awards. Okay. Like I say, it's not a law, but it has the force and effect of a law
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over those matters that the U.S. president can control through his executive authority. And he's
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saying anything the federal government buys, anything that the federal government spends its
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money on finances, it's got to be American made. I'm not going to read the entire order, although it's
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fairly brief, but look at the definitions of what's covered. This is really important. I think this is
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the heart of the heart of it. Section two definitions as used in this order, a produced in the United
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States means for iron and steel products that all manufacturing processes from the initial melting
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stage through the application of coatings occurred in the United States. So there goes any Canadian steel.
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C. Manufactured products means items and construction materials composed in whole or in part of
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non-ferrous metals such as aluminum, plastics and polymer-based products such as polyvinyl chloride
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pipe, aggregates such as concrete, glass, including optical fiber, and lumber. So it's not just steel.
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It's plastic and concrete and wood and glass. Everything made it a factory pretty much.
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That's why they love Trump in the Rust Belt, in those working class states. And that's why Trump
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won in Ohio and Indiana and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan and places that Republicans
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haven't won in a generation. Because Trump didn't tell those people like the snooty liberals did for
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so long to just suck it up and yeah, you're out of the job of the factory, just learn how to code or
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whatever millennials do when they're not ordering $15 avocado toasts. Trump doesn't hate working
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Well, you know, Kevin, when I took over, the Rust Belt was really in trouble. Many people were saying
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it's dying, it's dead, people were leaving. And I love the Rust Belt. And the Rust Belt is no longer
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the Rust Belt, as far as I'm concerned. It's vibrant. It's doing so well. You look at all of those red marks,
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those red marks are where it's flourishing. Tremendous numbers. And that's fantastic. We're very proud.
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Compare that to Justin Trudeau talking about pipelines or the oil sands or industrial scale mines.
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I've said time and time again, and you're all tired of hearing me say it, you can't make a choice between
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what's good for the environment and what's good for the economy. We can't shut down the oil sands tomorrow.
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We need to phase them out. We need to manage the transition off of our dependence on fossil fuels.
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We need to phase them out. Who is fighting for their workers? Justin Trudeau is not. Donald Trump is.
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Okay, just a bit more from the executive order. It's not actually that long.
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It's just a little bit of legalese, but it's actually fairly plain, isn't it?
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But here's a scary part of it. Listen to all the projects that Canadian firms will now be shut out from.
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Section D, infrastructure project, means a project to develop public or private physical assets
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that are designed to provide or support services to the general public in the following sectors.
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Surface transportation, including roadways, bridges, railroads, and transit. Aviation.
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Ports, including navigational channels. Water resources. Projects. Energy production.
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Generation and storage, including from fossil fuels, renewable, nuclear, and hydroelectric sources.
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Electricity transmission. Gas, oil, and propane storage and transmission. Electric oil, natural gas,
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and propane distribution systems. Broadband internet, pipelines, stormwater, and sewer infrastructure.
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Drinking water infrastructure. Drinking water infrastructure. Cyber security. And any other
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sector designated through a notice published in the Federal Register by the Federal Permitting
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Improvement Steering Council. So yeah, I'm not sure if there's anything really left out of that.
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He even talks about oil and gas. He even talks about renewables. Now, I'm not a trade lawyer,
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but I think that means Canada won't even be able to make the Keystone XL pipeline that Trudeau approved.
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Even though it's a Canadian company that owns it. I think Americans have to build it.
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I mean, now, Trudeau doesn't care. He doesn't want Canadians to build pipelines in Canada. He can't
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very well demand that Canadians be allowed to build pipelines in America. I'm not talking about the
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workers. I'm talking about the steel. Can't even sell the steel for it. So what do we have here?
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Well, we have Donald Trump keeping a promise. A promise to the people who vote for him.
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I know that they hate Donald Trump in the fancy circles in Canada. I still can't believe that
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Chrystia Freeland was the keynote speaker at an explicitly anti-Trump rally in Toronto during the
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NAFTA renegotiations. The Liberals hate Donald Trump. Freeland and Trudeau hate Trump. The Canadian
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media hates Trump. The CBC is obsessed with Trump. And that all makes them feel really good. But Trump
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literally couldn't care less. Because Ontario and Quebec and British Columbia and the CBC head office,
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they don't have votes in the US electoral college in 2020. Michigan does. Ohio does. And he's taking
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jobs from Canada and giving it to them. The latest US jobs report was stunning, by the way. I don't know if
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you saw this. 304,000 new jobs in January alone. Almost double predictions. That's in America. 300,000 new
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jobs. I'm sorry, that's amazing. Canada's jobs report for January doesn't come out for a couple more days.
00:19:27.640
But for the previous month, December 2018, Canada created a grand total of 9,600 jobs. And it's
00:19:37.320
actually worse than that. Because Canada actually lost 18,900 full-time jobs in December. But there
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were 28,300 new part-time jobs. So that's the only reason the number is positive at all.
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So Canada created net 9,300 jobs in the last month for which we have data. America created 304,000.
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That is 32 times more than we created. And they only have nine times our population, but 32 times as much
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jobs growth. Hey, what do you think this new buy American, hire American executive order signed on
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Thursday at noon? What do you think that's going to do to these job numbers? That executive order is now
00:20:17.960
in effect. He signed it. You saw him. So it starts now. I predict we will see outright job losses in
00:20:25.880
Canada, not in the January numbers that are going to come out this week. But of course,
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going forward, the February numbers that we'll see in a month.
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Do you not think this ought to be news in Canada? This is a trade war. I know he was all jokey and
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banter, high fives. And now those were the Americans who were going to get the jobs.
00:20:48.440
This is a trade war just, just right after we were supposed to have signed up
00:20:54.200
for the renewed NAFTA. But as I write this, as I say this, not a single Canadian media outlet,
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at least according to Google's news search, has written about the story.
00:21:08.120
You could see a buy American executive order sorted by date. It's not there. There's nothing.
00:21:14.200
Here's the CBC's internal search engine. If you go to the CBC and type in buy American,
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you'll see a story from November. You'll see a story from 2017. There are a few hits from the past,
00:21:25.400
including during the NAFTA renegotiations, but nothing about this huge news from Thursday.
00:21:31.400
Hey, come on. Every journalist is silent. It's Trump. He's so noisy. I thought, I thought the
00:21:40.280
Toronto Star had that guy, Daniel Dale, who's got this list of 7,000 fibs that Donald Trump told. So,
00:21:45.640
so Daniel Dale is listening to every word Trump says, and he just sort of missed this.
00:21:52.280
Well, because these reporters aren't really in the reporting business. They're in the PR business,
00:21:56.680
or at least whatever it takes to get their share of Trudeau's $595 million bailout. You tell me a
00:22:02.360
more persuasive explanation. I put it to you that they can't have missed it. How could they have
00:22:07.640
missed it? I put it to you that they don't want to report this because this puts Trudeau and Freeland
00:22:12.760
in a bad position. Now to be honest, it's hard to be mad at Trump for doing this. I mean, it's going
00:22:21.960
to hurt Canada. But he's doing this for his people. This is how national leaders are supposed to act,
00:22:31.160
I think, in their own national interests. It's hard for smaller countries with smaller economies
00:22:36.840
like Canada to act that way. America remains the world's essential economic engine, despite what the
00:22:41.880
China obsessed pundits say. And in fact, Trump's hard line with China is really his main point here.
00:22:48.200
That's why he's doing this. He doesn't mean to come for us. I told you, he said China 28 times.
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He didn't say Canada one time, but that's the thing. I really believe Trump was trying to shoot at China,
00:22:58.520
but we are the collateral damage. But because we have such a weak prime minister and a weak foreign
00:23:04.360
minister, Christian Freeland, who's never negotiated anything of any size in life, but she thought that
00:23:10.440
her hip millennial Twitter squad shown here were the best people in our entire country to personally
00:23:16.760
lead the NAFTA trade negotiations. Well, look, we have no clue. We have no relationship left with
00:23:22.920
Trump down there. We have no one on our side down there. I wonder if Christian Freeland herself even
00:23:27.480
knows about this news. She's probably on some TV pundits panel or something, you know, posing for another
00:23:33.240
magazine cover. I scrolled through her Twitter feed and that of foreign affairs department.
00:23:39.320
And there's nothing about this. Nothing. She's got a tweet about a visit she made to a daycare
00:23:45.560
the other day. It's got, it's got nothing to do with the federal government.
00:23:49.080
Daycares are not the federal government's department. It's got nothing to do with foreign affairs.
00:23:53.720
But that's how she's spending her time. I wonder if she even knows
00:23:57.560
about this executive order. Let me read her daycare tweet. It was great to stop by one of the many
00:24:04.040
daycares in Uni-Rose. That's University of Rosedale. That's the name of her writing.
00:24:09.080
Thank you to all the hardworking caregivers who do this essential work. And thank you to the
00:24:13.080
brilliant students who helped me practice my French.
00:24:18.120
Yeah. Okay. That, that goes in your diary, sister. That, that's, um, can we get a little bit
00:24:23.880
more foreign ministry stuff? Like the trade war just declared against us. Yeah. I am not sure if
00:24:31.720
we have anyone who is looking out for our national interest. Do you? So you can't blame Trump really
00:24:37.320
for doing what he said he would do in a thousand campaign stops. It's all he talked about. Buy American,
00:24:43.000
hire American. He talked about reshoring factories. That's the office opposite of offshoring factories.
00:24:49.160
He talked about bringing industrial jobs back to America. He said it so many times and,
00:24:55.160
and I guess he meant it because he's doing it. And I think it might even be working for him.
00:25:00.200
I wish we had his job reports. Don't you? I wish we had a leader who, who actually loved industry,
00:25:09.160
who actually loved working men and women. Look at this. Justin Trudeau would never stand next to a
00:25:14.280
sign saying that he loves coal or loves oil, Woody. Trump does. And you know what? He bloody well means
00:25:20.920
it. So I don't think you've been told the news. Our political class is clueless or despondent or
00:25:29.240
something. Who knows? Our media class is incurious and uninterested. Or maybe they are actively in spin
00:25:36.280
mode for Trudeau as in hide mode. I have no idea. I'm sorry. They just declared a trade war against
00:25:43.720
Canada and no one's talking about him. So what should Trudeau do? What should we do?
00:25:50.840
Well, I think we should look at what Stephen Harper did exactly 10 years ago when Barack Obama did the
00:25:54.840
same thing to us. Protectionism is a bipartisan thing in the States. The first thing Stephen Harper did
00:26:01.640
when Barack Obama brought in Buy America, I think he called it the Reinvest in America Act in 2009,
00:26:07.240
the first thing Harper did was to make a fuss, not rudely, not by going to rallies calling Obama a
00:26:14.360
tyrant, but by relentlessly phoning and meeting and bugging Obama to carve out an exemption for Canada.
00:26:22.040
Harper just wouldn't stop. It was his top priority. He wasn't rude about it. He wasn't embarrassing.
00:26:28.040
But here, let's quote Obama. Here's Obama basically saying, all right, all right, stop pestering me,
00:26:35.480
Steve. We'll exempt Canada. Take a listen to Obama himself. The Buy American provisions that were there,
00:26:43.080
as I noted at the time, we made sure that they were WTO compliant. That doesn't mean that they're not a
00:26:51.160
source of irritation between the United States and Canada. Prime Minister Harper, I want to emphasize,
00:26:57.560
has brought this up with me every single time we've met, so he's been on the job on this issue,
00:27:03.240
and our teams have been working together. It appears that there may be ways to deal with this
00:27:08.600
bilaterally, but also potentially multilaterally. Believe me, I could show you a dozen more video
00:27:14.760
clips like that. Harper made it his top priority. Did you know he had every Canadian cabinet minister
00:27:19.320
fly down to Washington to meet with their American counterparts, with Obama's cabinet secretaries?
00:27:24.200
Importantly, Harper appointed a former New Democrat premier, Gary Dewar,
00:27:30.760
as our ambassador to Washington. Why would Harper do that? Why would he choose a New Democrat?
00:27:36.680
Harper's so right-wing. Why did he choose a socialist? Well, because the point of an ambassador is to
00:27:43.000
assess the political landscape in the other country, and to do your best to persuade other countries of
00:27:48.120
your Canadian interests. So send a friendly socialist down as an ambassador to Obama.
00:27:53.960
The friendly socialist. Gary Dewar did a great job, by the way, regardless of his partisan stripe.
00:28:01.400
And by the way, I don't even think it's socialist to defend Canada's interest to Obama. It's just so he
00:28:06.680
he would click with Obama. They would get along. The point is, Harper knew that Obama and Obama's people
00:28:12.120
would viscerally like Dewar more than if Harper had sent some right-winger down there. And not once
00:28:21.320
in his term as prime minister did Stephen Harper himself ever badmouth Obama or his people in public.
00:28:27.400
Not once. He bit his tongue, even when Obama slighted us. Trudeau does not have that personal
00:28:34.520
discipline. Trudeau has done the opposite. Trudeau has sent the most irritating liberals to interact
00:28:39.960
with Trump. There was no reason to send quirky, eccentric, irritating, narcissistic, know-nothing
00:28:48.440
Chrystia Freeland to have been the lead negotiator on the NAFTA renegotiation. That is a legal,
00:28:54.120
technical job. I mean, put aside the fact that we got fleeced in those renegotiations. That this
00:28:59.480
Buy American executive order on Thursday proves that she failed to make a dent in them. Why would you
00:29:05.800
send someone who was not a trade lawyer to lawyer a trade deal? Is she going to try surgery next?
00:29:15.000
Other than vanity and photo ops, instead of building friendships with Trump and biting his tongue
00:29:21.400
the way Harper did with Obama, Justin Trudeau has gone to the United States again and again. He's gone
00:29:26.840
there about a dozen times. But he very rarely meets Republicans. He prefers to meet with his Democrat
00:29:33.320
buddies of the most extreme variety. Here he is meeting with Barack Obama's first campaign
00:29:39.400
chairman, David Axelrod. Axelrod has no power anymore. I think he's with some college or some
00:29:43.640
think tank. Why are you meeting with Obama insiders now? Obama's gone. Obama's not in office anymore.
00:29:51.160
Why aren't you meeting with Trump insiders? Watch this clip. I've shown this clip before as evidence
00:29:58.840
that Trudeau is obviously drunk or stoned on those flights. As you know, he goes through
00:30:03.800
thousands of dollars worth of liquor. And of course, marijuana is legal now. You can see in this video,
00:30:09.640
just standing up and sitting down, Trudeau wobbles three times. He's clearly inebriated.
00:30:16.040
That's the fun of this video. But the point is, why isn't he meeting with Republicans?
00:30:22.920
Republicans, Kellyanne Conway, Mike Pence, Jared Kushner. If he hates Trump so much,
00:30:27.640
fine. Meet with Trump's people. Here, take a look. Thank you so much.
00:30:43.640
There were four wobbles there. Stephen Harper didn't just meet with cabinet ministers and congressmen.
00:30:52.120
He also met with United States-based companies that were lobbying for Buy American. But get this,
00:30:59.320
one of the companies that was present at Trump's Buy American press conference on Thursday
00:31:05.000
is called McWane. That's just the name of the company. I never heard of it before.
00:31:10.440
They make things like iron pipes, fire hydrants, that sort of thing. Heavy industry, right?
00:31:16.040
They love these Buy America rules. They were part of the Obama Buy American lobby group too. Like I say,
00:31:22.840
this is bipartisan. Now back under Obama, Gary Dewar, our ambassador, summoned McWane to the Canadian
00:31:31.640
embassy and said, hmm, you guys sell a lot of stuff into Canada. Be a shame if anything happened
00:31:40.040
to your sales into Canada. Hey, why don't we all focus on the real bad guys here? China dumping cheap
00:31:49.240
steel. And why don't you guys sign a letter? McWane, the American company, why don't you sign a letter
00:31:57.000
calling for an exemption for Canada? Keep us out of it. Because you wouldn't want anything to happen
00:32:04.200
to your exports to Canada now, would you? So a little bit of hardball. Canada basically said,
00:32:13.160
if you don't ask Obama to exempt us, you just might find yourself having some problems in our markets,
00:32:18.440
especially given some of the legal and ethical problems that McWane was having at the time.
00:32:22.280
That's a little bit of Trump style negotiating, isn't it? 10 years ago by Harper and Dewar.
00:32:28.440
And would you look at that? McWane, the folks who were literally standing next to Trump on Thursday,
00:32:36.680
back a decade ago, they wrote a letter to the, well, in this case, they wrote it to a
00:32:46.280
congressman, but he was the protectionist congressman. Basically, they wrote a letter to
00:32:50.920
Obama saying, hey guys, we really like this bi-American stuff, but we don't mind if Canada
00:32:58.040
is allowed to sell into the US also. Can you believe that? That's what Harper and his diplomats
00:33:05.080
did. Harper and his team met with all sorts of American companies that had operations on both
00:33:10.280
sides of the border. And they made the case to these Americans that the problem is not Canada.
00:33:15.480
You know, we have balanced trade with America. We buy as much from them as they buy from us.
00:33:19.080
That's fair dealing. The problem is obviously China and their tariffs and their dumping.
00:33:25.320
So it was so persuasive. Harper got the exemptions Canada needed by making it his top priority,
00:33:32.440
by not being rude, by sending an ambassador that clicked with Obama, by being a little bit tough
00:33:37.480
with companies, but just making the case. Stephen Harper spent his political capital
00:33:43.240
serving our national interest. He didn't spend his political capital as Trudeau and Freeland did
00:33:49.480
over the past year demanding bizarre things like feminist or environmentalist clauses in the NAFTA
00:33:57.560
deal. What is that about? Climate change in the NAFTA deal? Gender in the NAFTA deal?
00:34:03.240
Stephen Harper spent his political capital defending Canadian jobs. Justin Trudeau. Well, to be frank,
00:34:11.800
he doesn't really like industrial jobs. He thinks they should be phased out. You heard him.
00:34:18.040
He's canceling them anyways. And he really does prefer Democrats. Even if they don't control the White
00:34:23.960
House, Trudeau just can't stomach playing nice with Trump. Even if it's what diplomacy calls for,
00:34:31.480
even if it's literally what diplomacy means. We are in a trade war as bad as anything we faced
00:34:37.640
in a decade. That's dangerous. But just as dangerous and more inexplicable is a media party
00:34:46.520
and a political establishment, including Andrew Scheer's conservatives, I might add,
00:34:51.800
who haven't said a word about this. How bizarre.
00:35:01.480
I took responsibility for content that appeared on my page in the Eastern Virginia Medical School
00:35:15.720
Yearbook. That was clearly racist and offensive. I am not and will not excuse the content of the photo.
00:35:24.760
It was offensive, racist and despicable. When my staff showed me the photo in question yesterday,
00:35:34.840
I was seeing it for the first time. I did not purchase the EVMS yearbook and I was unaware of what
00:35:42.200
was on my page. When I was confronted with the images yesterday, I was appalled that they appeared on
00:35:49.960
my page. But I believe then and now that I am not either of the people in that photo.
00:35:59.400
So he never saw his own yearbook. It was on his page. He's apologizing for it, but he's also saying
00:36:06.440
it wasn't him. Sounds legit. That's the Democratic governor for Virginia. For now, joining us now via
00:36:14.840
Skype is our friend Pardes Saleh, a reporter with Mediaite. It was what was a spectacular
00:36:20.840
press conference. Pardes, nice to see you again. Welcome back. Hi. Good to see you too. Thanks.
00:36:27.400
It was quite a spectacle. I mean, what can you do? Let's put the image up here right now to show people
00:36:32.040
what all the fuss was about. This is a Democrat and this wasn't a high school yearbook. So this is
00:36:37.400
not a teenager. He was in medical school and that image on the right there. Yeah. Oh, that's old timey
00:36:46.840
Virginia. What do you think of that Pardes? Yeah, I think it's the thing that comes to mind is actually
00:36:53.160
how much Brett Kavanaugh was thrilled over his high school nickname. He had some, some little nickname
00:36:59.800
that wasn't even significant, something to do with his beer stuff and his affection for beer and
00:37:09.240
how much the Democrats thrilled him over that. And now a literal photo on Ralph Northam's page with
00:37:18.440
KKK robe and black face shows up and it's not getting the same outrage.
00:37:26.920
Well, I mean, it is getting a lot of Democrats distancing him, uh, themselves from him, but
00:37:32.840
he's still there. He doesn't seem like he wants to resign. He's claiming it wasn't him. Um,
00:37:40.040
although I don't believe that first of all, his, his yearbook says his nickname. I don't even want to
00:37:45.160
say this word, but it's, it's his nickname that was on the yearbook. So this is not how I talk. I've
00:37:50.360
never said this word before, but his official nickname was coon man. And that is a rooted in
00:37:57.720
a derogatory term for black people. I'm just saying it cause that's, I don't believe for a
00:38:03.560
second, this guy's excuse that he never saw it before. Uh, I, I just don't buy that. What,
00:38:08.520
what do you think? Is he credible? Does anyone believe him? First of all, Pardes probably has to
00:38:13.400
say that it wasn't him because, uh, this is, she has to stay in office. Like Democrats need him to
00:38:20.040
stay in office. And I think a lot of people on his, uh, political side are very upset about the photo
00:38:25.880
and they're probably very, very, very angry at him. But at the same time, they need to keep him in
00:38:30.760
office. So if he says that it wasn't him, they're going to say, okay, it wasn't him. He said it.
00:38:36.920
Well, I want to show you some other excerpts from his press conference. I'm not sure if they want
00:38:41.960
him in office. Cause I think, I don't know the U S constitutional system, but I think that the
00:38:45.320
Lieutenant governor, who's also a Democrat, I think would, would take over. Um, I don't know.
00:38:51.400
I think he just has nothing to lose by staying in his career is over. Why not stick around? I don't
00:38:57.400
know. It'll be interesting, but let me show you a few more tidbits from that press conference.
00:39:02.520
Cause it was quite something. He says, no, no, no, that's not me in blackface.
00:39:06.600
But he, he says he's done that sort of thing before. Um, because you know,
00:39:12.200
he's a big fan of Michael Jackson. Here, take a look.
00:39:14.760
That same year. I did participate in a dance contest in San Antonio,
00:39:20.440
in which I darkened my face as part of a Michael Jackson costume. I look back now and regret that
00:39:28.600
I did not understand the harmful legacy of an action like that. It is because my memory of that
00:39:35.320
episode is so vivid that I truly did not believe I am in the picture in my yearbook.
00:39:40.840
That's just a, that's just a weird excuse. And I don't know why he won't say blackface dark in my
00:39:48.360
face. He's just, it's weird that he's rolling that out. I wonder what else he's scared of that.
00:39:54.040
He's just trying to get it all out in this one moment. What do you think of that Michael Jackson
00:39:58.760
impersonator thing? He looks more like an Elvis impersonator to me.
00:40:02.120
I wish he did the moonwalk. That would have been so epic. That would have made my day if he just
00:40:09.080
moonwalked. It's funny you say that because he was, it was specifically asked that. That's our next clip.
00:40:13.640
Um, a reporter there had the presence of mind to say, really, Michael Jackson, uh, and take a look at this exchange.
00:40:20.600
You said that the competition in San Antonio was a dance competition? Yes.
00:40:25.960
And it was that you danced the moonwalk? That's right. Are you still able to moonwalk?
00:40:30.520
Oh. Inappropriate circumstances. My wife says inappropriate circumstances.
00:40:38.920
Pardes, I think he really was going to prove that he could moonwalk until his wife said,
00:40:45.960
yeah, don't do that, Ralph. I think he, in his mind would think if I can show that I can moonwalk,
00:40:53.800
that will show, so show my love for Michael Jackson, people will forgive me for dressing up either in
00:41:01.560
blackface or as the Klansman. Cause look, I like you people. I even can breakdance like Michael Jackson,
00:41:09.560
and you can call me my racist nickname because I meant it affectionately. I think I've never seen
00:41:15.240
anyone so stunned in my life. Was he serious? Was he seriously going to moonwalk there?
00:41:22.200
Probably. I mean, the whole thing sounds like, uh, he sounds a little bit oblivious in the moment,
00:41:29.320
so maybe. Look, it's too much fun. It's too much fun because, um, all of this feels like payback for
00:41:37.720
the way the Democrats treated, uh, Brett Kavanaugh, the, uh, uh, Donald Trump's nominee for
00:41:45.000
the Justice Department. I'm sorry, for, for the Supreme Court. Um, but it's actually, uh,
00:41:51.640
I think obscures a far more egregious, um, statement that the same governor, Ralph Northam,
00:41:59.480
made a couple of days earlier. And look, we're having a lot of fun. We're laughing about the
00:42:03.720
fact that he says he can do a Michael Jackson impression. We're laughing about his goofy
00:42:07.400
excuse. I didn't dress in blackface then. I did then. So it's okay then and not then.
00:42:12.520
But let me play for you his comments about live birth abortion. I know that's such a crazy phrase.
00:42:19.160
People are saying, what are you talking about? A bill going through Virginia that would allow a baby to
00:42:25.320
actually be born and then aborted when it is actually alive and outside of the mom. That's
00:42:32.040
it's not a fetus anymore. That's a fully born baby here. Don't take it from me. Listen to this
00:42:37.240
Michael Jackson impersonator, um, talk about how it would go down. Take a look.
00:42:41.800
There are no exception. There was a very contentious committee hearing yesterday when Fairfax County
00:42:46.680
delegate Kathy Tran made her case for lifting restrictions on third trimester abortions,
00:42:51.800
as well as other restrictions now in place. And she was pressed by a Republican delegate about
00:42:56.360
whether her bill would permit an abortion, even as a woman is essentially dilating, ready to give birth.
00:43:02.440
And she answered that it would permit an abortion at that stage of labor. Do you support her measure
00:43:10.040
and explain her answer? Yeah. And I'm, you know, I wasn't there, uh, Julie, and I certainly can't
00:43:16.600
speak for, uh, delegate Tran, but, um, I will tell you one, uh, first thing I would say, this is why
00:43:23.480
decisions such as this should be made by providers, uh, physicians, uh, and, uh, the, uh, mothers and
00:43:31.480
fathers that, that are involved. Um, there are, you know, when we talk about third trimester abortions,
00:43:37.800
these are done, uh, with the consent of obviously the, the mother with the consent, uh, of the physicians,
00:43:44.600
more than one physician, by the way. Um, and it's done in cases where there may be severe deformities.
00:43:50.600
There may be a, a fetus that's non viable. So in this particular example, uh, if a mother is in
00:43:56.840
labor, I can tell you exactly, uh, what would happen. Um, the infant would be delivered. Uh, the infant would
00:44:03.000
be kept comfortable. Uh, the infant would be resuscitated if, if that's what the, uh, mother and the
00:44:08.600
family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mothers.
00:44:13.800
But as I got to tell you, I was having a good laugh at this idiot talking about breakdancing
00:44:18.600
and offering to do a moonwalk and how he wasn't in blackface here, but he was there. That's all just,
00:44:25.400
that's just all entertainment. But what he's talking about for a governor of a serious state
00:44:32.040
and a serious party to, to be totally calm about, I'm sorry, that's killing a baby.
00:44:39.720
That's not, that's not pro-choice anymore. That's, that's not an, that's not even an abortion
00:44:43.480
anymore. To me, that is far more shocking than his goofy college yearbook photo.
00:44:50.840
Well, you want to know what I heard on Twitter? Because Twitter is where everything happened.
00:44:54.680
Uh, someone said, and this is going to sound crazy, but someone, someone wrote that it could
00:45:02.600
be that Northam's own people put, uh, had that photo sent out in order to distract from his
00:45:11.160
infanticide comment, uh, from his statement. I mean, it's called, it's being noted as infanticide,
00:45:17.720
his statement, uh, basically endorsing partial birth, uh, partial birth abortion, which is like
00:45:25.800
killing a baby as it's, as the baby's already coming out.
00:45:31.480
I saw that same speculation on Twitter and you know what? I do give it credit and here's why.
00:45:37.720
Because if the Republicans were the ones who had that blackface Klan yearbook photo,
00:45:44.280
why didn't they use it during the campaign? That would have been a kill shot.
00:45:47.800
So obviously the Republicans didn't have it. Someone had it. And those comments were so
00:45:53.800
egregious, uh, about infanticide and they were getting such wide coverage. I think it,
00:45:59.640
I think they decided to abort his political candidates, his political career to distract,
00:46:06.360
not only to cover up the news of his disastrous infanticide comments, but to take him out so he's no
00:46:13.800
longer a legitimate face of the Democrats. I have to say that is actually the most logical explanation
00:46:20.840
because of the Republicans had it, they would have used it before. What do you think of that?
00:46:25.640
They would have definitely Ed Gillespie, his, his former, uh, challenger would have his,
00:46:31.720
his people would have, his research team would have used it for sure. Um, and people are saying that,
00:46:37.640
wow, it's crazy that this infanticide endorsement, it didn't end his career and the blackface did or
00:46:43.720
whatever, but it could be that that did end his career. And this is just a distraction in the end.
00:46:50.200
Yeah. It's the mop up team. Of course, um, there weren't a lot of journalists who were appalled by the
00:46:56.520
infanticide comment. I think it was more Republicans, conservative commentators. I think that is actually
00:47:02.200
fairly close to the norm in the media. I mean, in Canada, what's shocking in the States, we have no
00:47:09.560
abortion law in Canada whatsoever. It's, it's literally until the moment of birth, abortion is,
00:47:15.560
is lawful in Canada and in fact paid for by taxpayers. So I think that is considered the
00:47:20.120
political norm amongst the media class. Um, but some more thoughtful Democrat probably said,
00:47:26.840
we got to switch the channel. What do you think is going to happen? You, you say the Democrats don't
00:47:31.160
want him out. I actually think they do. I mean, I don't know the Virginia system, but I would imagine
00:47:36.520
that they would replace him with, I think the Lieutenant Governor is a Democrat also. Um, but
00:47:42.200
why would he step down other than the abuse? Like he's got no political future anymore. I don't think
00:47:47.000
everyone's jumping on him from across the party. Uh, do you think he's going to try and weather it out
00:47:53.160
or will he just be too impotent because no one will want to deal with him? Well, last night, uh,
00:47:59.160
I keep going back and forth too, by the way. Uh, but last night he put out a, I think it,
00:48:05.080
I don't know if it was him who put out a statement. Uh, someone, someone put out a statement saying
00:48:09.960
that he was considering resigning. I don't know if it means that he will, but it means that it could
00:48:16.120
be a very big chance of happening. Well, we'll see it anyways. I certainly enjoyed going through the
00:48:22.600
crazy press conference with you. And although that was fun and crazy, his infanticide comments,
00:48:27.240
I think are by four more serious. Pardes, great to see you. We look forward to talking to you next
00:48:30.360
week. You too. Thank you. All right. There you have it. Pardes Salah, a reporter with mediaite.com.
00:48:37.000
She joins us via Skype from Washington, DC. Stay with us. More ahead on The Rebel.
00:48:40.840
Hey, welcome back on my monologue Friday about the CBC trying to get a refugee advocate fired over a
00:48:57.480
two-year-old Facebook post. Henry writes, social workers are heroes. They're underpaid and do a lot
00:49:03.140
of hard work that doesn't get a lot of recognition. It's sad that people are attacking social workers
00:49:06.820
for political reasons. Well, we all work hard. I'm not sure if social workers work harder than
00:49:12.260
any of us. You know, I'm not going to fight you over that, but I don't think that's the center of
00:49:17.780
the issue here. I think the center of the issue is the fact that he's a social worker, shows that he is
00:49:22.740
your soft-hearted friend to all, who surely works overwhelmingly with minorities, Muslims, foreigners,
00:49:33.060
obviously. And to say that he's a bigot because he wants these people to integrate into Canadian
00:49:38.180
values, that's appalling. And that the CBC whips up a campaign to have him essentially fired.
00:49:48.660
To me, the key line in that report was that the CBC, when they called up the government to tattle on
00:49:54.500
him, that's the first government heard of it. No one thought this was an issue until the CBC became a
00:50:00.260
tattletale. I guess the lesson here is if they can do this to him, they can do it to you.
00:50:08.340
Susanna writes, we have entered the era where you can't trust your co-workers, neighbors, and even
00:50:12.740
family members to not report you to the authorities. That's exactly what this government and the minions
00:50:16.980
want, for people to be afraid to speak up. You're so right. And that snitch culture, that informant
00:50:22.980
culture is really the lifeblood of an authoritarian regime. We've talked about it before. We'll continue to
00:50:29.620
talk about it as the time is right. Pavlik Morozov, the young boy from Ukraine, who reported his
00:50:37.060
parents, Kulak farmers, to Stalin's KGB secret police, because he overheard his parents talking
00:50:45.220
over dinner, how they disagreed with Stalin's forced collectivization. His parents were sent off to the
00:50:50.900
gulag. And Pavlik Morozov was given a national honor. He was given the title informant number one
00:50:59.060
as a good thing. Like, I mean, in popular culture, oh, you're a rat, you're an informant. It's a
00:51:05.300
disparaging term. In the Soviet Union, this little boy, Pavlik Morozov, who put Stalin ahead of his own
00:51:12.100
parents, who sent his parents to prison because they said something bad about Stalin in the privacy of
00:51:17.220
their home. He was made a national hero. He was called informant number one. And every boy scout
00:51:22.820
in the Soviet Union, who's called the young pioneers, had to wear a little pin with Pavlik Morozov's
00:51:27.780
picture on it as a symbol that they too would put the state ahead of their own parents. That is the
00:51:34.580
lifeblood of an authoritarian, totalitarian regime. And I don't think we're there yet, of course,
00:51:41.300
but there are drops of it, aren't there? And this Twitter mob culture is certainly of a piece with it.
00:51:46.900
On my interview with Yasmeen Mohamed, Paul writes,
00:51:50.980
Virtue signaling takes cowardice, putting yourself in potential danger to save others' heroism. Yasmeen
00:51:56.580
Mohamed is a hero to many. Yeah, I really like talking with her. And you know, she said she was
00:52:02.500
finally getting some attention from the mainstream media. And sure enough, I did see her in other
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media. And that is great. I mean, we love to discover these people, these thoughtful thinkers who
00:52:14.180
are marginalized by the mainstream. So we feel some sort of connection to them. We try and boost their
00:52:21.700
signal. To see them break into the mainstream is a thrilling feeling because it's a sign that maybe,
00:52:27.700
maybe we're having a little temporary victory in a small battle in the larger war. Well, folks,
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that's the show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,
00:52:50.420
day a little while at Kenyon, because all of us will be loved.