Rebel News Podcast - Trudeau's environment minister visits China — the most polluted country on earth — but saves her scolding for Canadians

00:00:00.000 Tonight, Canada's Environment Minister goes to the most polluted country in the world,

00:00:04.480 but doesn't criticize them. She saves her scolding for you. 0.86

00:00:08.580 It's November 5th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.

00:00:16.740 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:00:20.520 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:00:24.260 You come here once a year with a sign, and you feel morally superior.

00:00:27.240 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.

00:00:37.920 You know what the most polluted country in the world is. I don't even need to tell you.

00:00:42.140 It's the People's Republic of China, Justin Trudeau's favorite country.

00:00:46.240 I don't have to tell you. He'll tell you.

00:00:49.020 The inspiration I actually have for China, because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime 0.97

00:01:01.040 and say, we need to go green as fast as we need to start, you know, investing in solar.

00:01:05.040 So they can move really fast on the environment, was what he liked about China's basic dictatorship.

00:01:13.280 I suppose there's some truth in that.

00:01:15.460 China can move fast as a basic dictatorship because they don't allow environmental groups to protest.

00:01:21.500 They don't allow environmental groups to sue.

00:01:24.120 They don't allow any property rights owners to sue.

00:01:26.360 They really don't even review projects for environmental effects at all.

00:01:29.400 It's the economy first, with the possible exception of the Chinese Communist Party officials getting their payoffs and commissions and kickbacks.

00:01:37.040 But China became the left's favorite country after the fall of the Soviet Union because it was the greatest counterweight to America.

00:01:44.560 It's also why the left is a soft spot for radical Islam, by the way.

00:01:47.980 They'll back anyone that's a danger to their own civilization. 0.88

00:01:51.160 But for environmentalists to back China is just bizarre.

00:01:57.680 But that's what they're doing.

00:01:58.500 Here's an example.

00:01:59.980 This is an article from Scientific Americans.

00:02:01.960 It was pretty legit.

00:02:03.680 Headline, stemming the plastic tide, 10 rivers contribute most of the plastic in the oceans.

00:02:12.500 And then if you can see the little sub-headline there,

00:02:14.420 the Yangtze alone pours up to an estimated 1.5 million metric tons into the Yellow Sea.

00:02:21.040 And scroll down a bit.

00:02:21.860 Look at all that junk in what looks.

00:02:24.660 I think that's a riverbed.

00:02:26.460 Now that is true pollution.

00:02:28.200 That's not the pretend made-up pollution of carbon dioxide in the air.

00:02:31.760 You know, harmless, colorless, odorless carbon dioxide that people and animals breathe out, that plants need for photosynthesis. 0.96

00:02:38.420 That is absolutely garbage. 0.98

00:02:41.180 Look at that photo. 0.98

00:02:42.600 But scroll down a bit more on the story to this chart.

00:02:47.980 They call that top 10 polluters.

00:02:50.240 Do you see that?

00:02:50.740 This is about the rivers full of junk.

00:02:52.660 And it shows them in sort of a scale which river is more polluted than the other.

00:02:58.140 I don't know if you can see it, but that giant dot in the middle there, in the darker color, that's the Yangtze River, which, of course, is in China.

00:03:07.220 And it's pretty much as garbage-y as the next 10 rivers combined.

00:03:12.020 Look at that, eh? 0.76

00:03:12.640 The number two dirty river.

00:03:13.820 I don't know if you see that.

00:03:15.380 It's the Indus River, and that's in India, as the name suggests.

00:03:19.580 But then there's the Yellow River.

00:03:20.920 Do you see that right in the top and the middle?

00:03:22.720 That's in China.

00:03:23.680 And then the Hai River, that's in China.

00:03:26.940 Now, Africa has two dishonorable mentions in the top 10 list.

00:03:30.060 They've got the Nile, and they've got the Niger River.

00:03:32.520 But nothing can touch China. 0.56

00:03:34.620 The Pearl River is on there.

00:03:36.000 The Amur River is on there.

00:03:37.220 That borders China and Russia.

00:03:38.980 There's not one American or European river on the list, obviously not one Canadian river.

00:03:43.500 Pollution is a Chinese problem, mainly, and a problem in India and Africa, too.

00:03:48.180 But we're about as clean as it gets here in Canada because, as Trudeau observed, a basic dictatorship can do what it wants,

00:03:54.780 and only someone as naive as Trudeau would think that it would want to act in the interest of its people.

00:04:00.020 It's pretty much a rule in the world, the freer the country, the cleaner the country.

00:04:05.860 These dictatorships don't care about the people, and neither do places without property rights.

00:04:11.460 No one cleans up a mess in publicly owned land, but everyone cleans up a mess in their own private property.

00:04:17.720 If someone threw a beer bottle in your front lawn, you'd pick it up in a way you wouldn't pick it up on the side of a highway.

00:04:23.460 I acknowledge there are some instances of altruism where some people pick up, you know, they do clean up garbage on the side of a public highway.

00:04:33.520 In high-trust societies, sometimes local communities sometimes do band together to clean up other people's messes.

00:04:41.440 That's pretty much just a Western civilization thing. 0.97

00:04:44.100 In low-trust societies that is everywhere else in the world, you'd be called a sucker. 0.97

00:04:48.280 Sure. Speaking of suckers, going back to Canada, Catherine McKenna, our environment minister, thinks the real problem in the world is that we use too many plastic straws. 0.95

00:05:00.200 Yeah, sister, I don't think that was what's clogging up the Yangtze River in China.

00:05:03.720 But hundreds of thousands of Canadians don't work in the straw manufacturing industry, so she declares war on them.

00:05:11.960 You know, it's weird, but it's not as dangerous.

00:05:15.380 She's declared war on oil and gas, where hundreds of thousands of people work.

00:05:19.360 That's more troubling to me.

00:05:20.420 And yet we're proceeding with our plans to economically damage ourselves in the name of environmentalist virtue signaling while the world goes the other way.

00:05:27.880 I mean, Donald Trump killed any chance of a U.S. carbon tax.

00:05:31.160 And, of course, he pulled the United States out of the Paris-U.N. global warming scheme.

00:05:35.380 Remember this?

00:05:37.340 I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.

00:05:45.560 One of my favorite moments of the presidency.

00:05:47.840 That's the most important thing, of course.

00:05:49.340 America is Canada's biggest customer, our biggest market, our biggest competitor.

00:05:54.440 Brazil's new president, by the way, Jair Bolsonaro, he campaigned on getting Brazil out of the U.N. global warming scheme, too,

00:06:02.000 though it looks like he might have backed off that pledge a bit.

00:06:04.820 But we're still blazing ahead here in Canada.

00:06:06.900 And by we, I mean Justin Trudeau and Catherine McKenna, our environment minister,

00:06:10.580 because province after province has announced that they're going to refuse to bring in a carbon tax,

00:06:16.660 and they might even fight Trudeau in court.

00:06:18.080 A couple years ago, it was just two forces fighting against the carbon tax.

00:06:23.860 Our massive rallies, as you can see, a rally here in Edmonton, 3,000 people.

00:06:29.280 We had lawn signs, we had petitions.

00:06:31.600 And the little province of Saskatchewan fighting hard on their own.

00:06:35.200 Everyone was for the carbon tax, even Preston Manning,

00:06:38.200 who led the fight against the Kyoto Protocol 20 years ago.

00:06:41.260 He switched sides and started lobbying for it.

00:06:44.620 Everyone supported the carbon tax except the people.

00:06:46.980 Well, today you've got Saskatchewan and Ontario and Manitoba and now New Brunswick

00:06:54.040 fighting against Trudeau's carbon tax, and probably Newfoundland and PEI will join, too.

00:06:58.820 And, of course, Alberta next year when Rachel Notley is replaced.

00:07:01.580 So, yeah, the only suckers left on that file are Trudeau and McKenna personally. 0.97

00:07:06.500 So not even Canadians are suckers, just Canada's prime minister and environment minister. 0.96

00:07:12.700 It's weird. 0.84

00:07:12.980 But anyways, you knew all that, but did you know that Catherine McKenna went to China last week?

00:07:18.760 Of course she did.

00:07:19.900 She loves to jet around the world for environmental causes, doesn't she? 0.99

00:07:24.420 It's sort of weird.

00:07:25.620 Maybe it's good that she's flying to China.

00:07:27.640 If you're trying to clean up the world, go to the most polluted place, right?

00:07:31.900 Even if you think carbon dioxide is dirty, which it isn't, but even if you do think carbon dioxide is dirty, go to the number one emitter of CO2, right?

00:07:42.500 I mean, China now emits more carbon dioxide than the United States and Europe combined.

00:07:49.800 China's the top graph there.

00:07:51.600 U.S. is number two.

00:07:53.720 India, Russia.

00:07:54.600 And China's growing, by the way, unlike the U.S., where CO2 emissions are shrinking under Donald Trump.

00:08:01.780 Here's a chart from the EPA.

00:08:04.040 Now, to be fair, as you can see, emissions have been falling for years, including under Obama.

00:08:08.820 They're now lower than they have been in America for 20 years, even though their population and GDP is at a record height.

00:08:14.800 That's because of fracking.

00:08:16.680 It's got nothing to do with Trump or Obama personally.

00:08:18.620 It's that fracking has allowed cheap, plentiful, clean natural gas to replace other higher carbon sources of energy.

00:08:25.000 So even though America is not part of the U.N. global warming scheme, they've reduced their CO2 emissions by the size of a whole Canada's worth.

00:08:33.620 Whereas Canada really hasn't done anything other than jet to conferences to virtue signal.

00:08:38.980 I guess the U.S. really does have the best of both worlds, right?

00:08:41.340 They've got 4.2% GDP growth, and they're reducing their harmless greenhouse gases.

00:08:48.640 Trudeau really has neither.

00:08:50.220 He's got half that growth, and he's not reducing emissions.

00:08:53.160 But look at this.

00:08:54.340 McKenna went to China to talk about the environment, and what did she say?

00:09:01.380 Well, let me read here.

00:09:02.600 Canadian Environment Minister praises China's effort to combat climate change.

00:09:06.780 And as you can see there, this is from Xinhua.

00:09:11.460 That's Chinese. 0.97

00:09:12.460 That's the state news agency in China.

00:09:15.200 So it's communist propaganda.

00:09:18.060 But really not distinguishable from Canadian CBC propaganda, is it?

00:09:22.520 Let me read a little bit from this Xinhua story.

00:09:25.100 As Canada prepares to roll out a national carbon pricing system next year,

00:09:28.800 the country's Environment and Climate Change Minister highlighted China's pricing system

00:09:32.860 on greenhouse gas emissions on Friday as she concluded her visit to China.

00:09:38.960 China has been and continues to be an essential partner in the fight against climate change

00:09:44.100 as a large emitter and producer, but also with its commitment to reduce emissions

00:09:48.780 and its ability to scale like no other country,

00:09:51.700 Catherine McKenna told Canadian journalists in a teleconference from Beijing.

00:09:56.480 Is that true?

00:09:57.380 Has China really been an essential partner in the fight against climate change?

00:10:03.440 It is the biggest polluter in the world, by far, of real pollution.

00:10:08.140 And if you're afraid of CO2, which I'm not, but McKenna says she is,

00:10:11.760 they're by far the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, too,

00:10:16.180 more than America and Europe combined.

00:10:18.020 I get why Xinhua would report her saying that it's propaganda,

00:10:22.600 but why would she say it in the first place?

00:10:25.040 Why would she say China is a leader in fighting climate change?

00:10:28.460 Let me read some more.

00:10:29.660 Here's an amazing line.

00:10:31.120 It is essential that we engage with China, and China is committed to climate action.

00:10:37.480 Well, what's climate action?

00:10:39.020 What do those two little words mean?

00:10:41.880 Does it mean actually changing the climate?

00:10:43.480 I don't think that's even possible for people to do, for governments to do.

00:10:47.200 But if you believe in various environmentalist superstitions like McKenna does,

00:10:52.340 you'll think that they were changing the climate for the worst because of all their emissions.

00:10:57.860 I read this entire article in Xinhua, and I didn't see a critical word in it,

00:11:01.320 not a word about carbon taxes being foisted on China, not alone,

00:11:05.180 not a word about banning straws.

00:11:07.100 One more line from the story.

00:11:10.040 On climate change, McKenna said that she and her Chinese counterpart discussed how Canada and China

00:11:14.880 could collaborate on reducing emissions, phasing out coal, combating pollution and protecting nature.

00:11:22.360 The conversation resulted in an agreement on pricing pollution, electric vehicles, and clean technology.

00:11:27.020 All right, but China isn't phasing out coal.

00:11:33.020 You know that, right?

00:11:34.300 It's phasing coal in.

00:11:37.160 I love this New York Times article.

00:11:38.460 I must have shown it to you half a dozen times before.

00:11:41.040 It's from last year.

00:11:42.580 As Beijing joins climate fight, Chinese companies build coal plants.

00:11:47.640 Well, which one is it, sister?

00:11:50.560 They're building hundreds of new coal-fired power plants in China and around the world.

00:11:55.800 They're getting so good at it, everyone around the world is buying a Chinese coal-fired power plant.

00:11:59.700 Look at these headlines.

00:12:00.740 And these are from liberal media.

00:12:02.380 This is from the New York Times again.

00:12:03.500 Why China wants to lead on climate, but clings to coal for now.

00:12:07.640 Yeah.

00:12:08.640 Here's one from the South China Morning Post itself.

00:12:11.040 China helping push carbon emissions to all-time high.

00:12:15.360 Here's from the Financial Times.

00:12:17.660 China's CO2 emissions set for fastest growth in seven years.

00:12:22.980 They're amazing.

00:12:23.640 Just one more here.

00:12:26.420 Blow for global...

00:12:27.300 This was from the sub-headline there.

00:12:29.380 Blow for global climate change effort as Greenpeace data shows 4% rise in the first quarter.

00:12:35.180 4% rise in global warming gases in the first quarter.

00:12:39.840 It's just a fact, but here's my question.

00:12:42.100 Why is Catherine McKenna friendlier to a foreign government on carbon dioxide than it is to Canadian provinces? 0.51

00:12:52.760 Why does Catherine McKenna not say a hard word towards China's dictators about their pollution, either real pollution, you saw that picture of the river, 0.93

00:13:01.800 or about harmless CO2, but why does McKenna say she will punish, for example, Saskatchewan by withholding health and education transfers if they don't bring in her carbon tax? 0.87

00:13:12.540 It says, China emits a Saskatchewan's worth of CO2 in about 15 minutes, if my math is right. 0.92

00:13:21.060 So why are McKenna and Trudeau bullying Canadians but sponsoring and subsidizing our Chinese competitors?

00:13:29.920 I said subsidizing because Canada still ships foreign aid to China in various ways, including this one.

00:13:36.340 Now, check out these tweets from McKenna in China.

00:13:39.400 Let me read this one.

00:13:40.200 It says, Canada and China recognize the environment and the economy go hand in hand, and our two countries are committed to working together.

00:13:47.660 Always great seeing Minister Xie Junhua, my co-chair for the China Council executive meeting, and Art Hanson.

00:13:54.880 And then it says, Canada and China at the end.

00:13:57.840 Let me read this next one.

00:13:58.680 The China Council had an incredibly productive discussion on taking climate action, and how the circular economy, what's that, can beat plastic pollution.

00:14:08.700 Oh, so she is talking about straws.

00:14:10.780 Good hearing from Vice Minister Zhao Yigmin, Administrator Steiner, and Special Representative Wider Helgeson, Canada in China.

00:14:18.940 Okay.

00:14:19.820 Now, so I assumed that the China Council was the Canada-China Trade Council, Business Council.

00:14:27.820 That's what I assumed Canada and China meant.

00:14:30.460 We're trying to sell them things.

00:14:32.200 That's what we do, the trade missions, Team Canada.

00:14:34.780 We don't really sell a lot of things to China.

00:14:37.260 We import a lot from them.

00:14:38.760 The trade's very lopsided.

00:14:39.880 But that's not the China Council she's talking about.

00:14:44.320 I thought it was this, Business Council here.

00:14:46.380 You look at its board of directors, you see senior businessmen, you see, you know, there is the ambassador.

00:14:54.700 But if you scroll down, you see some ex-politicians, you see some liberals, you see some Tories, Stockwell Days on there.

00:15:01.700 There's Martin Cochon, former liberal.

00:15:05.520 If you keep scrolling down, you'll see James Moore on there.

00:15:08.240 So it's sort of this nonpartisan friendship council trying to get business going.

00:15:13.180 You know, it's really just a chamber of commerce for Canada-China business.

00:15:16.420 Fair enough.

00:15:17.360 Fair enough, right?

00:15:20.000 That's not the China Council that Catherine McKenna went to. 0.97

00:15:23.420 She went to this weird, obscure thing.

00:15:27.220 This is what it's called.

00:15:29.420 The China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.

00:15:33.900 And that is not a Canadian council.

00:15:36.060 That is a Chinese government agency.

00:15:39.100 It is part of the Chinese government.

00:15:42.260 It is to promote the Chinese government's interests.

00:15:45.060 Catherine McKenna actually sits on a panel of an agency set up by the Chinese Communist Party to promote China.

00:15:55.840 I'm not kidding.

00:15:56.740 This is not an international group.

00:15:58.640 It's a Chinese group.

00:16:00.500 Look at the membership list.

00:16:03.040 The chairman is this guy, Han Zheng.

00:16:06.520 He's the vice premier of the National People's Congress.

00:16:10.300 So he's a top communist.

00:16:11.680 He's the chairman of this thing.

00:16:13.260 Look at the number two here.

00:16:14.440 The executive vice chair, Li Ganjia, his biography proudly shows that he joined the Communist Party in 1984.

00:16:27.180 And the next vice chair is Catherine McKenna.

00:16:31.420 What is she doing working on a Chinese government committee? 1.00

00:16:34.880 Scroll down.

00:16:35.420 There's more Chinese communists.

00:16:37.640 There's a few international NGOs.

00:16:40.440 But no one else has a cabinet minister working for the Chinese government.

00:16:44.780 What is this thing?

00:16:47.260 This is not the Canada-China Business Council.

00:16:50.120 It's got nothing to do with promoting Canadian interests.

00:16:53.160 It is a Chinese government council.

00:16:56.460 Let me read from their official charter the section called Mission and Tasks.

00:17:00.580 This is from their charter.

00:17:01.600 Now, it's written in that Soviet style.

00:17:02.980 But bear with me.

00:17:03.880 This is the council that Catherine McKenna is talking about.

00:17:06.340 Ready?

00:17:11.440 CCICED will provide policy analysis and recommendations, technical support, best practice experience,

00:17:17.240 and early warning in support of the national five-year plans in China's goal of building a moderately well-off society.

00:17:26.520 CCICED will support the implementation of the Chinese government's socioeconomic and sustainable development strategies,

00:17:34.280 the accelerated development of a resource-conserving and environmentally-friendly society,

00:17:38.040 and an evidence-based approach to comprehensive, coordinated, and balanced policies covering the environment, the economy, and society.

00:17:43.660 Okay, so this has got nothing to do with Canada.

00:17:48.280 This is about promoting China and promoting the Communist Party's five-year plans.

00:17:55.040 And Catherine McKenna is the vice chair of this Chinese government committee.

00:18:00.600 What on earth?

00:18:02.740 She is literally co-chairing a Chinese Communist Party council on how to meet their five-year plan.

00:18:12.120 Are you ready to be grossed out?

00:18:15.160 Check this out.

00:18:17.120 Ready?

00:18:18.020 Canadian taxpayers are literally paying $1.6 million a year to the Chinese government

00:18:27.220 for the privilege of sitting on their council to help them meet the Communist Party's five-year plan.

00:18:34.600 It's got nothing to do with Canada's interests.

00:18:36.020 We're paying $1.6 million a year to China, so Catherine McKenna can sit on a Chinese government committee to help China. 1.00

00:18:45.100 What?

00:18:47.120 All right, let me sum up. 0.69

00:18:48.620 China is the world's most polluted country. 1.00

00:18:50.900 You know that.

00:18:52.220 The Yangtze River is basically as polluted as every other river in the world combined.

00:18:57.280 No Canadian river comes close.

00:18:59.860 China is the biggest carbon emitter in the world, if you care about that.

00:19:03.340 But the biggest coal power plant builder in the world is China.

00:19:07.860 They're public enemy, number one, if you care about those things.

00:19:10.680 But Catherine McKenna goes over there, doesn't have a hard word to say about China, 0.60

00:19:15.720 doesn't scold them for not having a carbon tax, doesn't call them deniers,

00:19:19.460 doesn't tell them to stop building things, like she says to Albertans.

00:19:22.900 She doesn't promote the Canadian interest.

00:19:24.980 She literally, according to the council's charter, promotes China's interest.

00:19:29.460 And she gives them $1.6 million a year of our money for the privilege of doing it.

00:19:35.300 She hates Canadians who oppose carbon taxes.

00:19:39.660 She hates Canadians who work in oil and gas.

00:19:42.300 She loves China for doing the same with coal, times a thousand. 0.64

00:19:47.440 Let me close with a Communist Party tweet.

00:19:49.740 Or at least it reads that way.

00:19:50.960 I don't know who actually wrote it.

00:19:52.740 Ready?

00:19:52.920 We can act now.

00:19:55.940 We should act now.

00:19:57.700 We must act now.

00:19:59.520 Pleased to be speaking to global environmental leaders discussing how and why taking climate

00:20:04.240 action is so important.

00:20:05.800 China Council, CCICED, Canada in China.

00:20:10.140 Yeah, China's taking climate action.

00:20:12.680 They're building as much coal as possible.

00:20:15.160 And Canada is paying them money.

00:20:18.340 Can we switch that around just for a bit?

00:20:20.320 Can we call it opposite day just once?

00:20:23.540 Just for one day.

00:20:25.220 Can Catherine McKenna praise her fellow Canadians?

00:20:28.920 Can she praise how clean a country we are?

00:20:32.280 And can she instead speak truth to power about the most polluted in the country and the world

00:20:36.580 that just happens to be a brutal dictatorship?

00:20:40.140 Just for one day.

00:20:42.680 Stay with us for more.

00:20:43.740 Republicans had lost 60 of their 238 seats in the House.

00:21:03.920 In the Senate, Republicans had dropped from 55 seats to 41.

00:21:11.180 Time magazine declared the Republican Party leaderless, rudderless, all but dead.

00:21:16.140 The grievances of the Tea Party originated with TARP.

00:21:20.220 That horrified us that D.C. would borrow money, hundreds of billions of dollars, and just send

00:21:28.220 it right to Wall Street.

00:21:29.160 I had back-to-back 1,200 people type meetings.

00:21:33.880 I've never seen anything before or after that in those numbers.

00:21:37.480 I have a message, a message from the Tea Party, a message that is loud and clear and

00:21:43.840 does not mince words.

00:21:45.720 We've come to take our government back.

00:21:48.040 Well, that is from the trailer for a new documentary film called From the Ground Up.

00:21:56.180 I've watched this movie.

00:21:57.840 It is so well done.

00:21:59.640 It's very exciting.

00:22:00.560 And as you can hear, I don't know if you can identify that beautiful, beautiful narrator's

00:22:05.040 voice.

00:22:05.560 That's Kelsey Grammer. 1.00

00:22:07.080 I didn't know that until I got to the end of the movie and saw the credits.

00:22:10.140 It makes the movie even more beautiful.

00:22:13.060 But to me, it's a great story about how grassroots Americans took back their party and I think

00:22:22.220 set the table, actually, for Donald Trump's victory.

00:22:25.420 And it's worth talking about this on the eve of the U.S. midterm elections.

00:22:30.620 And we've gotten a little bit involved with this film.

00:22:33.920 Joining us now to talk with us is the filmmaker David Lasden, the director and producer who joins

00:22:39.540 us now via Skype from L.A.

00:22:41.140 Great to meet you over Skype, David.

00:22:43.360 And congratulations.

00:22:44.580 I watched the movie.

00:22:45.800 I don't have a lot of time for documentaries.

00:22:47.600 I feel busy.

00:22:48.940 But I started watching this and I couldn't stop.

00:22:52.080 It was a refresher of how to take your government back, how to take your party back.

00:22:56.480 Congratulations, by the way.

00:22:58.560 Thank you very much.

00:23:00.180 This is the film tells the story of the angry voter and where when the angry voter became

00:23:05.200 empowered.

00:23:05.720 The first time when the angry voter realized that change doesn't have to come from Washington,

00:23:11.580 change can come from them.

00:23:13.320 And this is how they changed not just the 2010 election and brought back a result that

00:23:21.240 no one expected.

00:23:22.460 But it's how they changed the way that elections are done and who controls elections and who

00:23:28.040 can win elections.

00:23:28.780 And if not for what the Tea Party and Republicans and Libertarians and everybody who triggered 0.61

00:23:35.660 in 2010 did, yeah, the angry voter never would have been empowered to help get Donald Trump

00:23:41.540 elected.

00:23:42.140 And, you know, the angry voter is on both sides of the aisle.

00:23:45.220 We're seeing this year that the angry voter on the left side is pretty energized, too.

00:23:49.940 Yeah.

00:23:50.480 Very interesting.

00:23:51.560 Well, I should note that you're obviously coming from the liberty point of view.

00:23:55.880 And more congratulations for you.

00:23:58.300 I understand the film won the best libertarian ideals documentary feature at the Anthem Film

00:24:04.500 Festival in Vegas.

00:24:05.500 And I've been to some of those libertarian conferences in Vegas.

00:24:08.640 It is very well done.

00:24:10.380 Can I ask you a question?

00:24:11.280 I mean, listen, there's a lot of great journalism in this documentary.

00:24:15.060 But I and I don't want to emphasize the narrator, but I just was thinking the whole time,

00:24:19.380 who is this voice?

00:24:20.880 It was Kelsey Grammer.

00:24:22.140 Can I ask you how you managed to get him to be a part of it?

00:24:25.140 I'm not downplaying any other aspect of the film.

00:24:27.560 The cinematography, the editorial line is great.

00:24:30.620 The history telling is great.

00:24:32.060 But but that's sort of the icing on the cake.

00:24:35.080 It definitely is.

00:24:36.320 I mean, all throughout making the film, I kept thinking, you know, we're going to need

00:24:40.000 a narrator.

00:24:40.520 I need somebody who can be dramatic and funny and basically get give the feel of what I

00:24:47.360 wanted.

00:24:48.080 And there was one name that was atop my list, you know, in terms of there aren't that many

00:24:53.740 conservatives and libertarians out here.

00:24:56.800 And that name was Kelsey's.

00:24:58.880 And I got in touch with his agent and his agent said, let's see the film.

00:25:02.960 I sent them the film and they got back to me and said, we're interested.

00:25:08.380 And I was shocked.

00:25:10.080 I was really shocked about that because I didn't expect that they would just cut back to me so

00:25:15.220 quickly.

00:25:15.720 I friends I'm in the business who have told me, oh, yeah, these things take months and months

00:25:20.300 and months and then they cam and they haw and no, they wanted to do it.

00:25:24.740 And in fact, they wanted to do it sooner than we were ready.

00:25:27.680 And we were like, OK, we're going to get this done.

00:25:30.320 Kelsey was just a dream to work with. 1.00

00:25:32.140 He loved the film and wanted to help bring it out there.

00:25:36.640 Well, congratulations.

00:25:37.100 I love the fact that he's sort of paying it back, paying it forward, whatever you want

00:25:40.380 to say, because there are not a lot of liberty oriented voices in Hollywood.

00:25:45.680 They're often deplatformed or marginalized.

00:25:48.560 I mean, you could really count conservative or libertarian filmmakers on one hand.

00:25:53.140 I mean, we like Phelan McAleer, who's a little more on the social conservative side.

00:25:57.280 But this Tea Party, you know, watching it, I was reminded of it was really a bipartisan thing

00:26:02.860 because both the Democrats and the Republicans were all for the big bank bailout.

00:26:07.760 They called it TARP, Toxic Asset Relief Program or something like they really it showed that

00:26:15.500 both parties loved bailouts and they loved the lobbyists scene more than they loved the

00:26:20.700 grassroots.

00:26:21.140 Would you agree with that assessment?

00:26:23.540 Yeah.

00:26:24.460 A lot of people think that, oh, the Tea Party movement was a response to Barack Obama.

00:26:30.620 And that wasn't the case.

00:26:32.240 There was a Tea Party that I met that gave me, it's not, quote, not in the film, but he

00:26:37.960 said, you know, when Republicans spent all the money they spent and did all the stuff they

00:26:41.720 did with TARP, I was angry.

00:26:43.560 And then the Democrats came in and they spent four times as much in terms of debt.

00:26:48.420 I got off my couch.

00:26:49.740 Yeah.

00:26:50.420 And it really, you know, there was a lot of Republican anger going around in 2008 when

00:26:55.340 I first started the film.

00:26:57.780 And TARP really stirred it up because at that point, these people were just mad as hell.

00:27:03.360 And what they needed was something to light the fire.

00:27:08.420 And Democrats coming in got them stirred up a little bit more.

00:27:12.800 And then on February 19th, 2009, Rick Santelli made his famous rant on CNBC.

00:27:20.780 And that just really got everything going.

00:27:23.100 I remember that.

00:27:23.760 It was incredible.

00:27:24.760 I mean, and to refer to the Tea Party, the Boston Tea Party that really lit the fuse, you

00:27:30.520 know, 200 plus years ago in America, that was a very patriotic moment.

00:27:35.540 And I remember that even though I'm a Canadian and we don't share the same history, obviously.

00:27:39.540 It was a very, it felt like a moment of solidarity.

00:27:42.900 Now, there's some faces in the movie that are prominent to this day.

00:27:47.520 I mean, of course, Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul, has been very strong.

00:27:54.480 And I think he's sort of come around to Donald Trump.

00:27:56.580 I think he was skeptical of some of Trump's politics.

00:28:00.940 But I think they seem to be working fairly well together.

00:28:04.300 I mean, listen, Trump is, as they would say in Latin, he's sui generis.

00:28:08.420 He's a one of a kind.

00:28:09.900 He's not like others.

00:28:11.860 But would you say that he's about as libertarian in his actual effects that a president could be?

00:28:20.960 Or would you take that back over his trade battles?

00:28:23.680 What's your assessment of Trump himself from the Tea Party, you know, checklist?

00:28:28.680 How does he stack up?

00:28:31.360 Well, to take it a step back, the Tea Party was very libertarian and very focused on finance and focused on debt and spending.

00:28:42.320 So it's not quite the same as the Trump movement, although a lot of people that were in the Tea Party joined the Trump movement.

00:28:48.960 The Trump movement was a little bit different in terms of some of the things that they focused on.

00:28:52.920 And so a lot of the people who were Tea Party, who were very focused on libertarian ideas and small government and the debt and making sure low taxes, these people were a bit skeptical and Rand Paul being one of them.

00:29:08.660 And I think that Trump has delivered a lot of the things that they hoped that a president would deliver.

00:29:14.320 He has managed to cut taxes, which Republicans could not deliver on until he got in there.

00:29:21.760 They've managed to cut regulations.

00:29:23.680 And the economy is just going incredibly well.

00:29:26.340 I mean, Trump said that we were going to be winning so much we were going to be tired of winning.

00:29:29.820 And I haven't gotten tired of it yet, but you can't argue with success.

00:29:34.380 The economy is going great.

00:29:35.840 And anybody, you know, got a look at what Trump has done and said, all right, maybe I was skeptical of him, but we're achieving what we want to achieve.

00:29:45.220 And in that way, Trump has achieved what the libertarians and a lot of the Tea Party people originally their goals were to achieve.

00:29:52.380 That's a great point.

00:29:53.460 And I think sometimes people get distracted by Trump's style.

00:29:56.520 They focus, they nitpick on his colorful personality, and they're ignoring his actual achievements.

00:30:03.180 Folks, we're talking about a new documentary.

00:30:04.820 I have watched it.

00:30:06.020 And let me say it is a refreshing, exciting film.

00:30:09.880 You can get more info at From the Ground Up Doc, as in documentary, fromthegroundupdoc.com.

00:30:17.340 And we're going to help promote this film because we think it's important.

00:30:20.700 Hey, I got a question for you, David.

00:30:23.640 There's a lot of American values here.

00:30:26.180 You know, the revolutionary spirit, the Tea Party itself, the American system, which is open to grassroots fighting.

00:30:33.980 We're up here in Canada, which is, I say sort of a split in the difference between the U.S. and the U.K.

00:30:39.500 We're not quite European in our thinking, but we're not quite full, red-blooded Americans.

00:30:44.460 Do you think that the spirit of the Tea Party is an American phenomenon only?

00:30:50.100 Or do you think, looking at Brexit, looking at Brazil the past few weeks, looking at maybe continental Europe, do you think that there's something in all humanity that could follow the Tea Party example?

00:31:01.640 Well, I mean, the film, while the film obviously is focusing on the Tea Party, the film is about the angry voters, about the little guy.

00:31:12.020 And I think anywhere in this world, the little guy can have the power.

00:31:17.120 Now, there are a lot of countries out there where the government is all-powerful and the little guy has no power whatsoever.

00:31:24.020 But I think that this film shows that the little guy can be in power.

00:31:29.700 So it doesn't have to be, you know, small government and individual liberty the way that the Tea Party was about in Canada or U.K. or Brazil or anywhere else.

00:31:40.620 It's about the government that I want and not the government that's imposed on me.

00:31:46.600 Now, a lot of the Tea Party momentum came when social media was pretty new.

00:31:54.900 I think Twitter had just been born and Facebook wasn't as big as it is.

00:32:00.540 And people still live their lives in real life as opposed to so much online.

00:32:06.200 In some ways, social media has made organizing and communication so much more grassroots.

00:32:12.040 But in other ways, I think it's become sort of the tone police and calling people radical and calling people, I don't know, racist or whatever.

00:32:23.480 Could the phenomenon be replicated now?

00:32:26.100 I mean, in some senses, I think it would be easier.

00:32:28.480 But if there was some sort of a grassroots Tea Party movement now, would the fancy people just kill it on Facebook, kill it on social media and defame it as a hate group now?

00:32:38.500 Have things changed in the last 10 years?

00:32:40.840 Well, I mean, I think that the left defamed it as a hate group then, and they would defame anything on the right as a hate group now.

00:32:49.120 But if anything, social media has gotten even better at organizing.

00:32:54.200 You know, coming back to the way that the left is doing it this year, I mean, it was just up in the Fresno area.

00:33:03.820 The Facebook group, a left-wing Facebook group, got a lot of people together.

00:33:08.240 They bused them all from the Bay Area to go and volunteer for somebody they'd never heard of running for Congress in the Central Valley here in the Fresno area.

00:33:16.520 And, you know, social media is even better at organizing and communicating than it's ever been.

00:33:22.660 You know, what you're referring to, of course, is that people express some idea on Twitter and then other people go out there and just rake them over the coals and kill them for it.

00:33:33.080 So that is something that certainly has evolved out there.

00:33:37.900 But social media still has a ton of power, and it's an incredible way to connect people together.

00:33:44.000 I am reminded of recently we had Judge Kavanaugh, now Justice Kavanaugh, on his hearings, and there were people that were rushing to his defense, and it was very easy for them to do it because there was a Facebook group with everybody who went to his high school.

00:34:00.860 And so all somebody had to do was send out one little message, and everybody who went to the high school knew about it and said, hey, I can, you know, weigh in on that.

00:34:10.580 So social media can be really powerful, and really there's a lot of negatives, but it just packs a big punch.

00:34:19.380 Yeah.

00:34:19.720 Well, I am so pleased with this film.

00:34:22.280 I want to ask you, and maybe it's too early, maybe you need a day off or something, but do you have plans for the future?

00:34:29.260 Because the phenomenon you detected and covered, the rise of the Tea Party, I think in some way, I mean, you mentioned to it some of those people became part of the Trump movement.

00:34:39.520 Again, against all odds, against the establishment, Trump was outspent, outpolled, outpundited, out, you know, expert-ed by the other side, and he won.

00:34:50.680 Here we are in the midterms.

00:34:51.760 We won't know the result for a day and a half.

00:34:55.280 Are you following this movement?

00:34:56.900 Do you see similarities?

00:34:58.020 Are you thinking of a sequel?

00:34:59.920 I don't want to put the pressure on you, but I like the style of this movie, and I would think that there's even more to tell now.

00:35:05.960 Well, thank you.

00:35:08.300 Yeah, I have ideas of something I'd like to do, but I'm going to hopefully get the film out there, get the film publicized to a lot of people and see what happens.

00:35:18.000 And if people want to talk to me about doing some sort of follow-up, and perhaps that might involve with what's going on with Trump and everything, it would be certainly something that I would enjoy doing.

00:35:28.200 You know, I'm not really thinking about that right now, because, you know, nobody knows about this film.

00:35:34.520 I mean, until you and I are talking, the number of people that know about the film is very small, and so we want to get the word out there and get people to watch it.

00:35:42.080 And if people watch it and people enjoy it, and I think they will, then we'll see what happens with me.

00:35:47.420 Well, listen, I mean, we have a friendship with Phelan McAleer, who you may know, you're both Los Angelenos, who are a little bit on the politically incorrect side of things, so there can't be too many of you in L.A.

00:35:59.700 And whenever Phelan's got a new project, we'd like to tell our people and email it out.

00:36:03.560 So I propose to take this discussion we're having here, along with the link from thegroundupdoc.com, and send it to our people, and hopefully we can spread the word.

00:36:14.020 We believe in this project enough that we want to help you push it out there.

00:36:17.300 If you had one thing to say to someone who says, well, you know what, I think I know the story, or I get my fill with daily Twitter videos.

00:36:25.300 If you had one thing to tell people that you thought was something special about the film that would make them go, wow, I'm really glad I watched it.

00:36:34.440 What's the one thing you think makes the film unique?

00:36:36.400 I watched it, and to me, it was Kelsey Grammer's beautiful narration that made me feel great, and it was the excitement of watching the history again, told after 10 years.

00:36:47.120 I really liked it.

00:36:48.220 What's the favorite thing you think about your own film?

00:36:51.700 Well, the film features mostly people that you've never heard of before, that you will never hear of again.

00:37:00.400 The interviewers average, everyday people who were not involved with politics, who were not famous, didn't have a lot of money, didn't have a lot of contacts, who got up off their couch and said, I'm going to change America.

00:37:13.560 And these people just impressed the hell out of me, because at the time, I would have never thought, I'm going to change America.

00:37:20.040 And these people just decided to do that, and every single one of them just impressed me so much, because they said, I'm going to do this.

00:37:30.000 And for the ordinary people who are angry, and being able to vent that angry and direct that anger, every time I watch the film, every time I see these people, I'm just so impressed by what it is that they accomplished.

00:37:43.040 And I'm glad I'm able to present that.

00:37:45.660 Well, it's a little bit inspirational.

00:37:47.400 I mean, I remember how it felt back then.

00:37:49.700 I thought, who will fight back against this?

00:37:52.520 And from that rallying cry of a tea party, the answer came.

00:37:56.880 David Laston, what a pleasure to meet you.

00:37:59.500 Again, our viewers, I recommend checking out from the ground up doc.com.

00:38:04.380 So, I'm really glad I watched this, David, and hopefully we can catch up with you a little bit later, and hopefully this thing will be a runaway success.

00:38:13.220 I think a lot of people need to see it.

00:38:15.640 Thank you so much.

00:38:16.580 I hope so.

00:38:17.240 All right.

00:38:17.640 Good luck to you.

00:38:18.440 We've been talking with David Laston, the filmmaker.

00:38:21.280 The documentary is called From the Ground Up, How the Tea Party Changed America.

00:38:26.420 I'm a Canadian.

00:38:27.240 I follow American politics.

00:38:28.620 I found this a very gripping film.

00:38:30.000 I loved Kelsey Grammer's role in it, but it was just a pleasure to have the reminder of what was done to save the world.

00:38:38.640 I really believe that.

00:38:39.580 Check it out.

00:38:40.680 All right.

00:38:41.100 Stay with us.

00:38:41.980 More ahead on the road.

00:38:54.080 Hey, welcome back.

00:38:54.960 On my monologue Friday about cultural appropriation on Halloween, Liza writes,

00:38:59.120 All Halloween costumes are cultural appropriation.

00:39:02.140 We should stop teaching our children that there is something wrong with it.

00:39:04.660 There isn't.

00:39:06.580 I think you're right.

00:39:07.580 I mean, that's what a costume is.

00:39:09.100 It's like that debate in Canada that got a whole bunch of journalists fired for saying you can write fiction in someone else's viewpoint. 0.78

00:39:21.000 So you don't have to be a black man to write about a black man's experience.

00:39:24.420 You don't have to be aboriginal. 0.90

00:39:25.980 Well, that's what fiction is.

00:39:27.560 You can't write fiction without imagining you're somewhere, someone, someplace else.

00:39:35.580 And a costume party is that, in a way even a simple child could understand.

00:39:40.040 But you have to have a PhD in grievance studies to understand how wrong that is.

00:39:43.680 On my interview with David Menzies, who was reporting from the caravan in Mexico, Ted writes,

00:39:50.400 Why are the caravans all heading to the awful capitalist hellhole known as the USA instead of heading for the socialist paradise of Venezuela or Cuba?

00:39:58.500 Can someone explain this to me?

00:40:00.220 Well, we've got a couple of new videos from David Up today, and I highly recommend them.

00:40:04.820 And we've got a bunch more coming out tomorrow.

00:40:06.780 And some of the migrants he talked to are very honest, very candid.

00:40:09.660 They just say, look, America's where I want to go.

00:40:12.380 I want to make money.

00:40:13.520 Not a lot of jobs here in Central America.

00:40:15.420 And it's too long to apply regularly.

00:40:18.300 That's the truth of it.

00:40:19.700 They're not coming to America, as the Guardian newspaper said, for climate change reasons.

00:40:25.160 I swear they said that.

00:40:26.320 They're not coming because they're political refugees. 0.53

00:40:28.360 They're not refugees. 0.85

00:40:29.540 They're coming for free stuff.

00:40:31.300 And the Democrats know they'll vote Democrat.

00:40:33.680 And that's why this is being ginned up.

00:40:37.880 Eric writes,

00:40:39.500 Tremendous to see an organization, the rebel, going to the very source of all the rumors and telling the truth.

00:40:44.420 Thank you for performing an extremely valuable service by simply exposing the truth.

00:40:47.700 Well, I like David's style.

00:40:50.860 He's very friendly, asks basic questions that, you know,

00:40:54.820 asks the obvious question that all the fancy pundits in Toronto and Ottawa and New York and L.A. aren't even asking.

00:41:02.200 I like the fact that he went out there and saw things with his own eyes.

00:41:04.980 And I've seen a couple of his videos that we were putting out tomorrow.

00:41:07.980 They're very good.

00:41:09.200 One video, you've got to watch it tomorrow.

00:41:11.060 It should be up on YouTube by midday tomorrow.

00:41:13.060 He talks to a migrant from El Salvador who says he's coming for Canada.

00:41:19.180 Well, you bet Trudeau would welcome him.

00:41:21.340 Well, that's our show for today.

00:41:22.660 By the way, if you want to see these, go to caravanreports.com.

00:41:28.320 Caravanreports.com.

00:41:29.100 That's where all of his videos are.

00:41:31.040 All right.

00:41:31.300 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.

00:41:35.000 Good night.

00:41:35.940 And keep fighting for freedom.

00:41:36.940 Good night.

Rebel News Podcast - November 06, 2018

Trudeau's environment minister visits China — the most polluted country on earth — but saves her scolding for Canadians

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