John McCain’s death reveals the left’s opportunistic shift from vilifying him as a "warmonger" (2008) to praising his anti-Trump stance, ignoring his POW-era communist sympathies or abandonment of his disabled wife. Meanwhile, Canada’s exclusion from a U.S.-Mexico trade deal risks 100,000 Ontario auto jobs due to Freeland’s divisive focus on feminism and environmentalism over negotiations. Climate alarmists escalate censorship by blacklisting skeptics—60 European figures demanded media bans, while outlets like the LA Times already suppress dissent, mirroring academic intimidation. Ezra Levant strategizes pushing Canada’s Conservative leader Scheer rightward despite viewer calls to prioritize ousting Trudeau, arguing long-term ideological battles matter more than short-term pragmatism. The trend underscores how mainstream narratives stifle debate, leaving space only for unchallenged orthodoxy. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, Republican Senator John McCain passed away.
Why does the left love him so much?
It's August 28th, and you're watching The Ezra LeVant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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.
John McCain has died.
He was the Republican senator from Arizona.
He ran for president in 2008, losing to Barack Obama.
During that campaign, he was brutally smeared by the Democrats and the U.S. media party.
They called him the obvious warmonger.
Probably some truth to it.
He loved to get in the weeds with local fights anywhere around the world, some of whom were local soldiers, some of whom more accurately could probably be called terrorists.
Here he is with the Syrian rebels who happened to be allied with ISIS.
Oh, well, war is war.
He even joked about war.
Here he is, answering a question at a public forum, making a bit of a joke.
That old Beach Boys song, Bomberan.
Bom, bom, bom, bom.
Anyway, I don't know.
Bomb Bomber Ran.
Americans gave a lot of deference to McCain because he was a war hero.
He was a Navy fighter pilot who was shot down over Vietnam.
He was tortured endlessly because he was the son of a senior admiral who was also the son of an admiral himself.
First time that had happened in the U.S., actually.
This is a picture of McCain's dad.
John McCain Jr. is his name, the Admiral.
He was in charge of the entire U.S. military in Vietnam.
He was the commander-in-chief for the Pacific Command.
So he was prosecuting the war against Vietnam when his son, John McCain III, the one we know as the late senator, was shot down.
The Viet Cong wanted to let him go early as a propaganda gesture or a diplomatic gesture, given who his father was, but McCain refused.
And he stood by the tradition that POWs would leave the prison in the order that they were captured.
As in, he refused to be released earlier than other soldiers, especially lower-ranked men, less connected men who were captured before him.
That's an incredible thing.
That's very impressive.
And perhaps it's the most important thing he ever did in his life.
Normally such acts of valor, though, are disparaged by the left, and certainly by the media.
They seem to hate soldiers, especially those who actually try to kill the enemy.
They hated anyone who served in Vietnam, didn't they?
That's for sure.
They hate anyone who talks like this.
Even a veteran who was kept in a cage for years, starved, had his bones broken, was beaten regularly every week.
McCain uses a racial slur for Vietnamese people, the word gook.
It's a bad word.
And in the 2000 presidential election, he didn't win the nomination back then, but he ran in the primaries then.
Of course, tried again in 2008, but in the year 2000, when he was running in the Republican primaries, he was bantering with reporters on the bus, and he said that bad word.
He said, I hate the gooks, McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus.
I will hate them as long as I live.
So how could such a man be treated as such a saintly hero by the left?
I mean, just take a look at this.
Just for example, here's George Soros, the arch globalist, the key funder for not only the hard left wing and the Democrats, but of the shock troops on the left like Antifa.
He wrote, remembering John McCain, a brave warrior for human rights who stood up against repression and torture.
And at the same time, and this is weird, one of America's largest arms manufacturers, a weapons company called Lockheed Martin, put out a tweet too.
Odd Tributes00:09:56
You don't see that every day.
I won't read the whole thing.
I'll just, you know, the military-industrial complex is saying goodbye to their best friend.
I'm just going to read the last letter, the last line of you.
You will be greatly missed.
Yeah, you bet.
It was odd that the left loved them, though.
I mean, here's Justin Trudeau's comment, calling him a patriot and hero, which is weird because Justin Trudeau hates those things.
He's never used those words to describe things he likes, patriot and hero.
He never uses those words to describe our own military.
Isn't that weird?
Same with Christie Freeland.
And at the same time, Donald Trump was more reserved in his own comments.
Almost immediately, Trump tweeted, my deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain.
Our hearts and prayers are with you.
That sounds nice.
But the left, weirdly, it was the left, and of course the media, pounced on it and said, well, it wasn't loving enough.
It wasn't full of enough praise for McCain himself.
It thoughtlessly focused on the family.
It's a weird criticism, isn't it?
And then immediately came hundreds of cookie-cutter complaints that Trump didn't lower the flag at the White House long enough.
That story actually, the flags, actually led all the U.S. cable networks and, or the TV networks rather, and our own Canadian media thought that piece of U.S. vexillology was newsworthy.
Here's the National Post about the White House flag.
The CBC was furious about the White House flag.
It's funny because the media party doesn't like the flag most of the time.
In the U.S. and at the CBC, they're clearly on the side of the anti-American NFL football millionaires who take a knee rather than salute the flag.
They hate the flag on the left.
In Canada, we are literally getting cranes to tear down statues of our father of Confederation, Sir John A. MacDonald.
But we really, really care that the U.S. flag is properly handled when John McCain dies.
That doesn't make any sense.
The fact is, by the way, there's a U.S. law called the U.S. Flag Code.
Pretty straightforward.
When a senator dies, the flag is to be flown at half-mast on the day of death and the following day.
Not for a whole week.
It's not a month of mourning.
It's one day and the next.
Did they, the left-wing media, did they really love McCain that much or was it just about bashing Trump, who complied with the flag code?
Well, you know the answer.
And just in case you don't, watch this amazing clip from CNN.
So Governor, what do you think about President Trump rejecting the practice of putting out an official White House statement about John McCain's service and sacrifice?
Look, that was printed in the Washington Post, and I have to be honest with you, I don't give much credence to what I read.
We also have that reporting.
Yeah, well, same thing applies, Alice.
Governor.
You come on CNN, and we appreciate you coming on CNN, and we appreciate your take on it.
But I don't appreciate you denigrating our reporting.
I think that you know we have excellent reporters here, but are you saying that you don't want to believe that?
You don't want to believe that President Trump would do that about the United States.
I'm saying that I don't want to comment on a report that I haven't satisfied myself is correct.
And if that report were true.
I'm not going to answer the hypothetical.
It's not hypothetical.
This is all reporting.
We have rock-solid sources in the White House that there was a significant thing.
You asked me to come on to talk about John McCain.
I'm here to talk about John McCain as I remember him.
I'm not here to talk about the press's handling of a difference between the White House and the press corps at this time.
It's not the press's handling.
It's President Trump's handling of John McCain's death.
That's why they like John McCain.
They hated John McCain when he ran for president, especially against the precious Barack Obama.
They only loved him because he quarreled later against Donald Trump, and they love him now that he's dead.
It's almost like the only good Republican to the media is a dead Republican because they can use him to bash Trump.
Tell me that CNN clip didn't give it all away.
That's why they care about the flag that, by the way, Trump did lawfully.
Here's John McCain's best friend over the past couple of years.
But look at this headline from 2008.
Hit McCain harder.
That's his advice to Democrats.
Hit McCain harder.
And there was a lot to hit him on, including, by the way, enormous corruption in U.S. banks.
First, with the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s, and then again with the bank meltdown in the 2008 recession, John McCain was at the center of both financial meltdowns.
No wonder George Soros loved him.
You could say he was the welfare state and the warfare state.
There was rarely an occasion where he'd meet a spending program he didn't like.
I agree that John McCain was a hero when he was shot down, that he endured true torture.
It was pure evil what he went through.
His captivity was not without controversy, though.
He succumbed to his torture and recorded an audio recording at the behest of the Viet Cong denouncing America and praising the communists.
That audio was later released by the U.S. Archives.
Here, take a listen.
I, as a U.S. Airman, am guilty of crimes against the Borgian country and people.
I was honorable for his parents and villagers and caused injuries, even death for the people of New York.
Now, it's not for me to judge.
I surely would have buckled to the torture that he did.
But it is against the U.S. military code to do propaganda like that for the enemy.
But it's part of the picture.
It's part of the flawed man that is never remarked upon, at least not these days.
As soon as John McCain returned to America after his years in prison in Vietnam, he abandoned his wife who had loyally waited for him back home.
She had been injured in a car accident.
That was going to be a liability for him, a distraction for him as a rising political star.
So he started dating a pretty heiress, and he pressured his loyal, disabled wife for a divorce.
I don't know, maybe that's not relevant.
Maybe it is.
There's something about politicians like John Kerry and John McCain who abandon wife number one, who gets them close to their ambitions and then trade up to a wealthy heiress to take them the rest of the way.
I guess I raised that point like I raised the Tokyo Rose propaganda recording to say, look, he's not a saint, despite the love for him by the liberal left.
John McCain was not a conservative.
He was universally regarded as a recalcitrant, quarrelsome senator.
That's why Democrats hated him when he fought against them, but they forgave him because he had the one essential quality that Democrats require in a Republican.
He lost.
Hey, the next time anyone tells you McCain was a great senator, ask them to name one thing he did to deserve that recognition.
You don't have to be mean about it, like Donald Trump is sometimes.
Remember this?
He's not a war hero.
He's a war hero.
He's a war hero.
Five and a half years.
He's a war hero because he was captured.
I like people that weren't captured, okay?
I hate to tell you.
That's mean.
That's not classy.
But it's certainly no more quarrelsome than McCain was in return.
Let me close with a comment from the left-wing website called Vox.
Not Vox, but Vox.
John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the rise of reality TV politics.
McCain empowered a demagogue who put the Republican Party on the path to Donald Trump.
It's an interesting thesis, but I have a different take.
In the year 2008, Republicans nominated John McCain.
You could call him a hero.
And he campaigned the way he was supposed to.
He played by the rule book.
He was polite enough.
He was normal enough.
And the liberal media tore him to shreds, calling him a racist, saying he was mentally ill, an extremist, a sexist, and he lost.
And in 2012, the Republican Party nominated Mitt Romney, who did what he was supposed to do.
He played by the rule book.
He was superlatively polite.
He was as normal as a politician can be.
And they tore him to shreds, calling him a racist, an extremist, a sexist, and he lost.
So in 2016, the Republicans nominated Donald Trump, not polite, not normal.
And they tried to tear him to shreds, calling him racist, extremist, sexist, but he won.
Because by now, we all know that's just what the liberal media does, no matter who you are.
Trudeau's Diplomatic Maneuvering00:16:02
It's what they do in Canada, too.
Donald Trump and John McCain are temperamentally different, both have their flaws.
But the hagiography of John McCain and the hatred for Donald Trump comes down to just one difference.
McCain lost and Trump won.
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, it's very interesting, this deal between Donald Trump and Mexico for so many reasons.
I mean, Donald Trump attacks Mexico on Twitter at least more than any other country other than maybe China.
Trump makes fun of Mexico.
He talks about building a wall and making it higher every time a Mexican quarrels with him.
He has Twitter feuds, for example, with the former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox.
But in a stunning development, yesterday, Trump and the outgoing Mexican president had a joint phone call on speakerphone announcing they've done a trade deal and cut out Canada.
And as we discussed yesterday, Christia Freeland, our foreign minister, was halfway around the globe in Berlin giving a talk to German diplomats about something or other.
I want to play you a clip from Christia Freeland in a speech she gave earlier this year.
And then I'm going to introduce you our special guest for this discussion.
This is a speech that Christia Freeland gave when she was receiving the award by Foreign Policy Magazine for Diplomat of the Year.
This was in Washington.
The foreign policy press and all the poo-bahs were there.
This is a clip of Christia Freeland dissing Trump in his own backyard.
Take a look.
You may feel today that your size allows you to go mano-amano with your traditional adversaries and be guaranteed to win.
But if history tells us one thing, it is that no one nation's preeminence is eternal.
That is why the far wiser path and the more enduring one is to strengthen our existing alliance of liberal democracies, to hold the door open to new friends, to countries that have their own troubled past, such as Tunisia, Senegal, Indonesia, Mexico, Botswana, or Ukraine.
To reform and renew the rules-based international order that we have built together.
And in so doing, to require that all states, whether democratic or not, play by these common rules.
That's just a short clip of Christia Freeland siding with the Senegals and Mexicos of this world.
Funny that, Mexico threw Canada under the bus and got a deal for themselves.
Even Vicente Vox, a hater of Trump, was applauding the agreement.
Joining us now via Skype is our friend Anthony Fury, a columnist at the Toronto Sun newspaper.
Anthony, great to see you again.
Am I overstating the animosity between Christia Freeland and her little poking at Trumpism and Trump's reaction?
Am I, I mean, everyone in the media likes to play gossipy games and like back in high school, look at who's being mean to whom.
But I actually think that there was a personality, a quarrel between Freeland and Trump.
And I think the Canadian side let that get in the way of us getting a deal.
Well, you know, there's one story, Ezra, from Global News where they say that they heard from American sources that Trump has been very personally frustrated at Freeland since June.
And not just Trump, who we can all kind of agree can be a bit of a capricious individual, but Robert Lighthizer as well, who I guess would have been the person working closest in the room with Christia Freeland.
He is the U.S. trade representative, and he might have looked at this speech and said, I don't know, we were getting along so well.
Why did you do this?
And I read this speech, Ezra, with great interest back in June because it was a big idea speech where she talks about the Francis Fukuyama thesis about the end of history and the changes of liberal democracy.
And she says, don't forget, folks, liberal democracy is not forever.
All the things we cherish could fall apart in a moment.
And I think she's completely right about that.
But then she does a wink-wink nudge-nudge and basically says, this fellow you have in the White House now, he is precipitating the downfall of liberal democracy.
And he is reminding us of all these horrible dictatorships we had in the past.
And that's basically the subtext of what she says.
And then she says, facts matter, truth matters, and does all these zingers there that she doesn't directly point towards Donald Trump, but you know what she's getting at.
And I'm sure she received a lot of applause from people in the elite chattering classes in the Washington Circuit, in the Beltway, and up here in the Laurentian elites.
And I just thought, okay, it's one thing for an MSNBC contributor to go and give that speech at some event, whatever.
That's what I expect from them.
But hang on a second.
You are our lead trade negotiator, our foreign affairs minister, at a time, and Ezra, this happened just after Trump had initially announced the first tariffs against Canada.
And I thought, this is absolutely bizarre.
This is not poking the bear.
This is coming up and whacking him on the back of the head with a chair, like in one of those WWF wrestling matches.
How do you not expect him to turn around and respond?
And he did not for a while, but now we learn he has actually been frustrated about it all this time, perhaps pushing us to the direction we find ourselves in now.
And when she goes into his backyard, you know, the phrase digging up his backyard, giving a speech to his American Washington foreign policy elite, and that comment about multilateralism and globalism, that's basically saying, stop having your own opinion, Donald Trump.
You have to obey the United Nations, whether it's global warming or trade.
It's basically saying we reject the entire philosophy of Donald Trump.
Well, that's fine to say, like you said, if you're a pundit, but if you are in the middle of the most important trade negotiation in your term, maybe you should just cork it.
What's so interesting, Anthony, is that she gave a repeat.
Like the speech she gave yesterday in Berlin that she boasted about on Twitter when she was doing it was the same theme.
I bet it was very, very similar in its wording.
It was on multilateralism and how that's the better way, not Trump's way.
I have to think that that's on purpose.
I can't believe that that's accidental or just carelessness.
I think it lends credence to the conservative accusation that maybe Justin Trudeau actually wants a fight with Trump so he can run against Trump in the next Canadian election because Canadians hate Trump and Trudeau can run against Trump.
I think maybe they want to throw the game.
Well, and why wouldn't they want that?
Because polling numbers have shown that a lot of Canadians, immaterial of their politics, they see Trump getting a little tough on Canada and they're turning around and they're saying, oh, I don't like that at all.
Maybe I'm not actually crazy against Trump or crazy for Trudeau, but I'm not liking being pushed around.
So he has gotten a bit of a net benefit in the polls for this.
So they are exploiting it.
But I mean, wowsers, Ezra, the idea that you would exploit basically people's jobs, which is what NAFTA is, particularly for the manufacturing sector, to just keep yourself a few percentage points in the polls.
I got to say, that is a really troubling thing to think that they would do that.
And I must say, I was previously rather complimentary to the prime minister's office on this issue.
I'm not so much on a lot of issues, but I thought, well, since the inauguration period, since before the inauguration, from November 8th to January 17th or so, back then in 2016 when heads were exploding, Trudeau actually sent some of his people down to meet with people like Jared Kushner and of course Donald Trump.
And I thought, oh, good, this is quite reasonable progress.
But the wheels came off the bus about a year ago when Christy Freeland was putting out those videos saying feminism and environmentalism and First Nations rights.
That's the whole point of a NAFTA deal.
I thought, well, you can support those issues, but that is not the point of a NAFTA deal.
So Ezra, we're finding ourselves in very bizarre terrain where the liberals are pushing in odd directions where you'd think, come on, guys, you've got to know this won't read well.
And to your point, do they like that?
Yeah.
You know, I want to show you something very interesting, and I've only read it in one newspaper today.
The Wall Street Journal, which is a very reputable business newspaper, they gave sort of a behind-the-scenes TikTok of how the deal went down.
And let me put it on the screen here.
Amazing, the foreign minister of Mexico has visited the White House.
You know how many times, Anthony?
45 times negotiation.
Plus an additional 10 visits to the personal home of Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kirshner, who's sort of a fixer, sort of a, you know, he goes in and does special projects for the president, especially sensitive diplomatic projects.
So that is 55 personal meetings.
I mean, I don't think the foreign minister of Mexico has been doing anything else.
If you have 55 meetings in another country, I think that's more often than many people visit their own family.
I mean, if your in-laws are in a different city, I don't know if you visit them 55 times.
Compare that to Christia Freeland, who hasn't been in a negotiation with the Americans in months.
Compare that to Justin Trudeau, who when he goes to the States, he takes in a show in New York or he visits with Democrat activists in Chicago like David Axelrod.
55 visits, 45 in the White House, 10 at Kusher's house.
No wonder they got a deal, Anthony.
It is very bizarre, though, because like I said, I do credit the liberals for on this one issue, getting it on the ground floor, and they did not take the anti-Trump hysteria bait initially, and they were very mature and serious about the issue.
But I don't know what happened, Ezra.
Perhaps your theory is right, that it evolved such that they realized, well, you know, screw this deal.
Why don't we go and get some positive points by being seen as puffing our chests and sticking up to Donald Trump?
How else does one explain it?
Because I do think it was initially going okay.
And if they wanted to do a Cherum offensive, they could.
I mean, you always hear people lie about that fact.
Oh, Trump said every single Mexican is this and that.
And of course, we know in the tape he did not.
He just said that there are people from Mexico who have committed those crimes.
And clearly the Mexican foreign minister is able to overlook that and is clearly aware that Trump is not maligning every single person from Mexico.
And he's able to come and sit down and have these discussions and put all of that sort of anti-Trump derangement syndrome aside to get a deal.
I would assume that Canada should be able to do that too, particularly because on the outset, we were not being maligned by Donald Trump.
He didn't have anything to say about us, really.
A few positive things.
That was it.
Mexico, he was saying we're really upset with NAFTA because of Mexico.
And suddenly, and you remember it was Stephen Harper, Ezra, who pointed this out in a memo to his clients that was leaked a year ago.
He said, I don't get this.
Canada is sort of making a spectacle out of itself.
And this is going to make Donald Trump turn over and look at Canada and go, oh, maybe I should be frustrated at you guys.
And that is exactly what happened.
Yeah.
I mean, again, I can't think of a more important file for Canada's foreign minister, especially if you care about the auto industry, which is right in liberal turf of Ontario.
I mean, the oil patch, we understand they don't care about oil and gas pipelines.
But Trump has specifically threatened a 20% tariff on Canada's auto industry.
I mean, he says those words.
And you could think he's bluffing, but he wasn't bluffing when he hit China.
He wasn't bluffing when he hit Canada with other tariffs.
It's incredible to me that people think maybe he doesn't mean it.
Let me throw one last thing at you.
And it goes to reporting.
I learned about how many meetings the Mexicans have had in the Wall Street Journal.
That's appropriate.
That's a good place for me to learn it.
I think so much of the background here, I think the media party, the mainstream media, the CBC in particular, which has the most resources, I don't think they've done genuine investigating.
I don't think they've asked questions like, why haven't you met with them in months?
If it were Stephen Harper that was fiddling when NAFTA was burning, if Stephen Harper, like right now, as we're recording this, Justin Trudeau is meeting with a youth council in Papineau.
Christy Freeland yesterday was in Germany.
If this were melting down under Harper and Harper was meeting with some 4-H club in Alberta and Harper's foreign minister was off on the other side of the world, our entire Canadian media party would be digging up every fact and shaming him.
I think Canada's media party let Trudeau get away with this because they don't like Trump either.
And they don't want Christia Freeland to have 55 meetings with Trump because they don't want them to be friends.
And perhaps people don't want her to fail.
So they want to hold her up and bolster her up.
I've been pointing out that it's bizarre that she emphasized this feminism issue, this environmentalism issue.
Stephen Harper talking to people on the ground says that they're baffled by that in the U.S. as well.
And we've heard that from one or two other sources.
But I suspect if people really worked on their U.S. sources as opposed to just calling up the person they knew in the PMO and asking for what the message there is in the Canada response, which is going to be a spin just as much as anything else is going to be a spin, you might hear that, yes, people are saying, what on earth is this going on about feminism during a trade deal?
That's what really destroyed the signing of the TPP deal.
Trudeau showing up last minute and stressing those issues.
And then the PMO tried to say, oh, that was false.
That was bogus.
And a lot of people bought that hookline and sinker, the PMO just doing a denial.
Were it not for the fact that one of my colleagues at Post Media, she was actually on a visit in an Asian country a few weeks later, and she met with some people there, some government officials, and they reaffirmed, yes, that was the case.
It was Trudeau going on about thinking a trade deal somehow has to be a feminist trade deal.
That's what rankled a lot of people.
So to your point, do we have a wide enough sort of source situation here?
The answer, I think, is no.
Yeah.
Very interesting.
I am truly worried about the auto industry.
I've read all the banking reports.
If these tariffs come, it will be a disaster for Canada.
It'll be a little bump in the road for the U.S. Their economy is so big and it's growing so fast.
It will throw Ontario into recession.
I've seen banking studies that say over 100,000 jobs will be lost.
I hope that does not happen.
I will find out in the days ahead.
Anthony, I'm sure you'll be writing more about this.
We'll keep our eyes peeled for your Toronto Sun column.
Absolutely.
Thanks, Ezra.
All right.
Thanks for spending the time with us.
That's Anthony Fury, who has been watching Christia Freeland.
And he remarked on how she was pricking Donald Trump and the administration, turning them from a passive, sleeping elephant, you could say, to an elephant on a rampage.
I'm worried we're going to get stomped.
Let me just say one more time, just fascinated by that.
55 visits, 45 to the White House and 10 to Jared Kushner's own home.
Have you been anywhere 55 times?
That's all you do.
I mean, you know what?
The more I think about it, I think the Mexican foreign minister will have to do some research.
I think he probably moved to Washington and stayed there.
Like, you wouldn't fly back and forth to Mexico City 55 times.
He would just move with your family to Washington and say, I am going to stay here as long as it takes and do nothing but get a deal.
Members Piling On00:06:01
And I bet he actually became personal friends with his White House counterparts.
And I bet he would never in a million years have given a public speech disparaging his American counterparts.
And I bet if he saw the tweet about Donald Trump making fun of a taco, as Trump did on Sanco de Maya a few years ago, I bet he just bit his tongue and said, that's not important.
What's important is jobs for my country.
And what a difference in professionalism that the foreign minister of Mexico would have 55 meetings while our gender quota appointee was off gallivanting somewhere and giving selfie photos.
Unbelievable.
Stay with us.
Welcome back.
Well, one of the themes of our news coverage over the last year or two has been how censorship is the new central principle of the left, where once they would debate you and argue things, now they want to de-platform you.
It's coming through social media, but that's not quick enough or hard enough for some of the alt-left environmental extremists.
There's an interesting story in the Daily Colour about how 60 global warming campaigners are now insisting that media formally ban climate skeptics.
Let me read the headline here.
Climate alarmists throw temper tantrum, refuse to debate skeptics.
Well, that's one thing, just simply to refuse to debate.
But in their public letter, signatories said they would no longer appear in the media alongside their critics.
We are no longer willing to lend our credibility to debates over whether or not climate change is real.
Their goal is to get the media to choose.
Well, if we can't have both sides of the debate, we will ban the skeptics.
Joining us now via Skype is our friend Mark Moreno, the boss at climate.com.
Mark, great to see you again.
Do I have that right?
Basically, it's a boycott.
They're saying if you talk to the wrong people, even for a rebuttal, even if you're disparaging or criticizing them, if you even talk to the other side, we will blacklist you.
So you better choose wisely.
That's what they're doing, right?
Yes, that's what they're doing.
And they actually think that they're so valuable as news sources and news information that these journal editors and others will bow and be, oh my gosh, we can't lose them.
But they probably will bow, but not because they think they're valuable, but because it's the expected thing to do in our culture of political correctness, if you will.
And so this, now keep in mind, this isn't climate scientists signing this letter, although there might be a few sprinkled in there.
These are people like Clive Lewis, George Monbiot, UK European writers who are just general alarmist writers.
This is their way to try to influence the climate debate.
They literally have had it with the idea that there is a debate.
They're so sure that they're right that they don't want to hear any dissenting opinion.
And by golly, if they do, they take their ball and go home and they're going to take the media outlet with them.
And we've seen this in the Climate Gate emails.
We see it in the actual journals.
If a journal editor dares publish a study that's threatening any aspect, they're threatened with their career.
In many cases, they are ousted from that journal.
So now they're making it more formal and they're going after it.
Of course, this is in Europe.
And I have a whole section in my book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change, that deals with this very issue happening in America as well.
The Los Angeles Times, being one example, has already stated they won't even publish letters to the editors from global warming skeptics.
They ban letters to the editors.
That's how bad it's gotta.
You know, and that's where, that's the place where you really allow almost anything.
That's a well, you can write a letter.
That's almost like a put-down to telecry, well, write a little letter.
Now they won't even let them have that.
As you were talking, we were scrolling through some of the names.
I'd like to put that up there again because what's so shocking about the signatories here is you're not just politicians or extremists.
You can see a great many professors.
You can see a great many members of parliament or members of the European Parliament.
That's what MEP stands for.
So, I mean, it's one thing for Greenpeace to be on this list, and there are some lobbyists like that, I get it.
But for people who run a class, like if you're in class, how could anyone have a fair hearing in university as a student?
If their own professor would ban them, how could anyone in the idea of a parliamentarian, Mark, saying they were going to ban things?
That's too much.
That's crazy.
It's crazy.
And what we're finding is we have a branch of our organization, Collegiate CFACT, a collegiate organization that deals with on all the college campuses.
And what we're finding is these kids from kindergarten all the way through college, even conservative libertarian kids, have just punted on the climate.
They just don't think there's any dissent anymore because they're told and it's reinforced.
And it's not just told that there's a consensus.
They're made to feel stupid if they question any aspect of the debate, of the climate claims.
And that's what this is about.
It's about intimidation, pure and simple.
And you got the members of parliament piling on.
Why would they be piling on as very simply?
They're going to be supporting fuel standards legislation, the UN-Paris agreement, and they don't want to hear any of those pesky dissenting voices.
And this is why in the U.S., we have the New York Times openly major writers like Tom Friedman praising China's one-party rule and how they handle environmental regulations.
You're so right.
You know, let me throw one thing at you.
You just made me have a thought.
Intimidation Tactics00:10:29
I mean, I went to school, I think you and I are about the same age, so we went to college about 25 years ago or so, and political correctness was getting going.
But back then, I don't think it was that bad.
Now it's just absolutely total.
And the punishments for deviating from it are even more shocking.
And I can imagine someone who's come up through the schools in the last 20 years has only heard one point of view.
But you made me think of something about Dr. Jordan Peterson.
Do you know who I'm talking about?
The Canadian who's got the best-selling book, 12 Rules for Life.
He's a free speecher.
Yeah, I read this book.
I mean, he's a huge name up here in Canada, Mark.
And he's getting pretty big in the United States, Australia, the UK also.
And he's an unlikely hero because he's a, I don't know exactly how old he is.
I'm going to guess he's almost 60.
He's got sort of a professorial manner.
Like he talks a great length and he goes down tangents and he's a little bit obscure and he's slightly humorous in his stuff.
Like he's a great professor.
I can only imagine how great he is to have in class.
So he's not cool in the traditional, he's not charismatic, he's not hip and sexy.
He's actually anti-charismatic in a way.
I mean, he speaks with, anyway, I'm just telling you this because why has Professor Jordan Peterson got such a strong following on campus with kids who would normally say, yeah, you're Squaresville dude.
And the reason I've heard it is because Professor Jordan Peterson is the first person who thoughtfully and at great length and with as much detail as you can handle will give you the other side of the story to the feminist postmodernist Marxist worldview that young people have never ever actually heard before.
So he's the first time any young person, especially young men, have heard the rebuttal, the antidote to cultural feminism, Marxism.
And thank you for giving me that two-minute preamble.
My question to you, Mark Murano.
Is that an analogy that young people have never actually heard the other side of the story?
They've just accepted the talking points of the environmental extremist left.
And if someone, especially someone anti-charismatic, a little bit old, maybe a little bit eccentric, were to hit the campus circuit now, maybe someone like our old friend Lord Moncton would be charming in the fact that he's old and on cool and on hip.
And he would go on a great length and debate anyone.
And all of a sudden, thousands of young eyes would say, oh my God, I didn't know there was another side of the story.
I always had this feeling that I wasn't being told the whole story.
And now I know the whole story.
Maybe Jordan Peterson proves that you can never say never.
And if Lord Moncton or someone like him went on tour, maybe he'd have a hit with young people who were craving the other side of the story.
What do you think?
I think you're absolutely honest.
There's a craving out there. for people to hear this.
I recently did a Facebook video, which was really my first Facebook video that I'd done, two minutes long.
It's now, I think, 8.5 or so, over 8 million views.
It's been so successful, and this was out through conservative think tanks, and it went out to a lot of young people.
It's been so successful, Ezra, that they're using it as the poster child for Facebook and going after Mark Zuckerberg to ban climate deniers.
So keep in mind, this letter today to the UK Guardian, what you're describing, the backlash and the thirst for it, this is now YouTube is going to be shutting censoring.
Facebook's going to be censoring.
Twitter is censoring.
Now you have them going the final nail to get any of the traditional media to censor.
So you're absolutely right.
College campuses, these kids know instinctively when they hear that there's another side, they're interested automatically.
They want to hear it.
And you're right.
It might take a Lord Moncton and someone a little bit more non-traditional to reach them and tell them that they don't have to take what their professors tell them hook, line, and sinker.
In fact, it's the opposite.
The 1960s, it was always question authority.
That's what it was all about.
Go after the government.
Now, the same left wing is telling you to accept the government.
Accept the government's consensus.
Accept the government's studies.
Don't question a thing because if you do, you're stupid and we won't cover you and we're going to take our ball and you're going to be all left alone.
It's the exact opposite of what college campuses should be about.
Tolerance, dissent, free speech.
Well, I hope we find a Jordan Peterson of the environment to red pill, as they say, holding it.
That's right.
Mark, it's great to have you on the show.
Thanks for your time today.
Thanks a lot, Ezra.
I appreciate it.
All right, our pleasure.
There you have it, our friend Mark Moreno from climatepot.com.
Do you know Lord Moncton?
It's been a while since I've interviewed him.
Very interesting character.
Lots of Britishisms, a slightly eccentric fella, brilliant man.
I find him endlessly engaging.
I think maybe he could be the anti-charismatic hero.
Although he's charismatic in his own way, I think he's just, maybe he's just what the doctor ordered.
Stay with us.
We'll head on the Rebel.
Hey, welcome back.
Your viewer feedback on my monologue last night.
Robert writes, I may just sit on my hands this go round.
I really hate someone who throws the rebel under the bus while saying they believe in free speech.
Well, that's the thing.
It reminds me a little bit of Patrick Brown, the former Ontario leader, who campaigned for the leadership on the right.
And as soon as he got all those conservative votes, he abandoned them and tacked to the left.
Now, I don't think that Andrew Scheer has the personal skeletons in his closet that Patrick Brown does.
But I think other than that, he's trying the Patrick Brown strategy of campaign right to get the leadership and then tack left because seriously, where's a true conservative going to go?
Peter writes, I will vote for Bernier if and when he has his party up and going with 338 candidates and a fully ratified party constitution.
However, common sense says that will not be done in one year.
Hence, I will bite my tongue, hold my nose, and vote for the party that can oust Justin, the major embarrassment, Trudeau.
Yeah, well, I think that there's two things there.
First of all, I think you are correct.
I observed firsthand, I was in the Reform Party in its early days, not in its super-duper early days, but I was there when they had just one MP, Deborah Gray, and one Senator Stan Waters.
And I remember how hard I was Preston Manning's assistant when he was first in parliament, and I remember how hard it was.
Preston was on the road 200, 250 nights a year, and painstaking church basement by church basement.
You don't just create a party like that.
It just doesn't happen.
You can do a lot of things on Twitter, but you can't create a real party just on Twitter.
Donald Trump, everyone thinks he was just a Twitter candidate.
No, he was a master of Twitter and Facebook, but he had organizers on the ground.
Ian writes, Ezra, you are upset at Scheer for not allowing Rebel at the convention.
Understandable.
Also upset about the insult and injustice of Soviet marketing policies.
Understandable.
But you have to let this go for the next 12 months.
After that, we can get a true conservative leader in there and work to reform the policies from within.
If you don't let this go for now, you and Rebel are just working for Trudeau, another five years of Trudeau.
P.S. Unblock me on Twitter.
What are you thinking?
Well, Ian, I'll have to check out what your Twitter handle is because I don't know why I would have blocked you.
I block people typically who come at the Rebel or me in bad faith.
Your email here is obviously in good faith, so I'll have to check out who your Twitter handle is and let you see my super important tweets again.
I hear what you're saying, and that is the cold-blooded argument which says, look, you know, Scheer may be pretty weak.
He may be fairly unconservative, but surely he's preferable to Justin Trudeau.
And I would absolutely agree with that.
Obviously, Andrew Scheer would be better than Justin Trudeau.
But I don't see today as ballot check mark day.
Obviously, I'm going to vote for the Conservatives.
I see my job today and over the next course of the year is to do two things, is to talk about things that Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives can't or won't, and to exert pressure on Andrew Scheer to pull him to the right as a counterbalance to him being pulled to the left.
Do you understand?
Those two things are a little bit different.
One is the CBC is always saying, come this way, come this way, come this way.
We're going to say, no, come that way.
So we're pulling on him himself.
And the other is to talk about issues to shape the battlefield, as they would say, so that people can start talking about things that they didn't have the courage to or the information to before.
I believe we played an important role to shape the battlefield when it came to the carbon tax.
You may recall our big rallies in Alberta that were mocked by the media, but I believe we were part of the turning point on that issue.
Same thing with M103, the anti-Islamophobia motion.
I believe that we were the ones who really brought it to the attention of Canadians more than, and certainly earlier than any other media did.
I see our role is to talk about things that Andrew Scheer is still too timid to talk about.
Most obviously, extreme multiculturalism and immigration.
Maxime Bernier was starting to have that effect too, and I'm disappointed that he quit.
So I would say, Ian, you're right.
If the vote were held today, obviously I'd vote for Andrew Scheer.
But that doesn't mean that I'm not going to, for the next year, try and pull him to the right and give him a reality check.
Don't listen to the media party.
Don't listen to them on all these issues where they're so wrong.
And we're going to talk about things we know he can't talk about.
So that's my mission.
I'm not just going to say, oh, well, got to vote for Scheer.
That's it.
That's that.
No, we're going to try and reform him in the next year.
That's our show for today.
Ian, I'm going to check it out and find out what your email is, and I'll unblock you on Twitter if you're not mean to me.