John McCallum, Canada’s former ambassador to China, publicly sided with Beijing in Meng Wanzhou’s extradition case, dismissing Trump’s claims and citing political interference while excluding Western media—raising concerns over diplomatic neutrality. His past "more, more, more" strategy and ties to Chinese lobbying (like ex-PM Jean Chrétien) fuel accusations of favoritism. Meanwhile, Nick Sandman and Catholic school peers faced false racial attacks at D.C.’s March for Life, with Omar’s defamatory tweets later retracted; a $30K GoFundMe supports their legal defense against media smears. The episode exposes double standards in justice, diplomacy, and environmental rhetoric, questioning institutional integrity amid rising public backlash. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, Justin Trudeau's ambassador to China switches sides and starts making China's case against Donald Trump.
It's January 23rd and this is the Esch Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
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.
Shocking news, but not surprising.
John McCallum, Canada's ambassador to China, has publicly weighed into the legal case to extradite Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese business tycoon who was arrested in Vancouver for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions against Iran.
And McCallum has weighed in on her side, specifically criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump.
I'll show you the video in about 30 seconds, but just a quick reminder.
Okay, Hmong is the CFO, the chief financial officer of Huawei, one of the largest tech companies in China.
They make cell phones, amongst other things.
They've also been accused by many Western governments of using their phone equipment to spy on people who use that phone equipment, which is why Huawei is banned from installing next-generation 5G phone systems in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, places like that.
Hmong also happens to be the founder's daughter of the founder of the company.
So she's rich, she's powerful, she's connected, and she's wanted for various crimes in the United States.
And I don't know how the U.S. has jurisdiction over a Chinese citizen doing business in Iran.
That's for the courts to decide, I guess.
In the meantime, Hmong is on bail.
So she's in Vancouver, one of the world's most livable cities, which also has a large Chinese community.
So although her freedom and perhaps her dignity have been limited, she's still living the high life.
Compare that to what China has done in retribution to Canada for making this arrest.
China has seized at least 13 Canadian citizens who were in China as obvious retribution.
They say as much publicly.
They've also taken a Canadian who was convicted of selling drugs there.
I'm not supporting them.
They took him, they opened up his case again, retried him again in one single day, and sentenced him to death as opposed to the prison term he had already been received.
Sir, that's just plain murdering a guy as retaliation.
China has really ramped up their aggression.
Their ambassador actually accused this whole thing of being some white supremacist scheme, saying that's what this was about.
So at the very least, I would say it behooves us to let the courts deal with Hmong and that our diplomatic officers, including our ambassador to China, our foreign minister, our prime minister, ought to be fighting to get the remaining Canadians held hostage in China released.
And I'm not a fan of drug dealers, but if a guy was already sentenced to prison and serving that prison sentence, and then you suddenly declare that he's going to be executed, that's something we ought to stop too.
You can't let a foreign country literally kill a Canadian as a diplomatic move.
But look at this.
Look at what our ambassador to China said today at a press conference in Markham, Ontario.
But funny enough, a press conference to which no mainstream media were invited, just Chinese media.
Take a look at these apples.
I think she has quite good arguments on her side.
One, political involvement by comments from Donald Trump in her case.
Two, there's an extraterritorial aspect to her case.
And three, there's the issue of Iran sanctions, which are involved in her case, and Canada does not sign on to these Iran sanctions.
So I think she has some strong arguments that she can make before a judge.
Really?
So you have Justin Trudeau's hand-picked ambassador to China, former liberal cabinet minister, by the way, longtime liberal.
So he's not some neutral civil servant, career diplomat.
And this was obviously a planned scripted press conference.
And you saw those Chinese language media that you saw the little microphone flashes.
All Chinese media and the one that said CCTV, that's the state broadcaster in China.
And he's making China's case.
He's making Meng's case.
He's weighing in.
He says twice in 30 seconds that she has a really good case.
And any judge who wants to be elevated to, say, the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal had better please Justin Trudeau's man on this one, Wink Wink.
Since when do senior politicians tell judges what to do without even hearing the evidence before the trial, by the way.
It's before the trial.
But even if the trial had been done, since when does a politician tell the courts what's right and what's wrong?
I mean that's how they do it in China, of course.
And come to think of it, that's the kind of waste no time with democracy style that Justin Trudeau personally admires.
There's a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime.
Here, watch that clip of McCallum just one more time.
Really, really listen to what he says.
Take a listen.
I think she has quite good arguments on her side.
One, political involvement by comments from Donald Trump in her case.
Two, there's an extraterritorial aspect to her case.
And three, there's the issue of Iran sanctions, which are involved in her case, and Canada does not sign on to these Iran sanctions.
So I think she has some strong arguments that she can make before a judge.
He specifically says that Donald Trump is wrong and she's right.
Oh, and he disparages Trump's sanctions against Iran, or at least disavows them.
John McCallum has not only taken the side of this accused criminal against the United States, and who knows?
She might be right.
She might be not guilty.
But we have the courts, and that's where these things are supposed to be resolved.
But no, he has made up his mind based on whatever political briefing notes he has that she's right.
She has a strong case.
She should probably be let go.
If you have a strong case, that means you should be let go.
And Trump is wrong, wrong on China, wrong on Iran, and he doesn't mind saying so in public, McCallum.
For the delight of the Chinese language media.
And you saw that mic flash.
It says CCTV.
That's a state broadcaster.
That's some diplomacy, isn't it?
Just a few weeks ago, Christy Freeland was begging Donald Trump's cabinet for help on this case.
Remember this?
The extradition process is a criminal justice process.
This is not a tool that should be used for politicized ends.
I can't say much about the process because we have a U.S. judicial process that is underway, an extradition process that is underway.
I can say this.
The unlawful detention of two Canadian citizens is unacceptable.
They ought to be returned.
The United States has stood for that, whether they're our citizens or citizens of other countries.
We ask all nations of the world to treat other citizens properly, and the detention of these two Canadian citizens in China ought to end.
So that's Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State.
And Christy Freeland was asking for his help because she knows that the Chinese laugh at Trudeau.
I think she slowly figured that out.
It's taken her a while.
A couple years ago, she was actually part of the joke, too.
We're quite proud.
The Prime Minister has been given a font nickname in China.
He is called Pudo, which I believe means potato.
And he's, I can't say the Chinese word, it's xian, tudo, little potato, because his father, Pierre Elliott Tudo, was senior potato.
So we feel we are off to a great start.
I'm sorry, that is humiliating to our country.
Oof.
So she's begging Pompeo for help just weeks ago, and then she's bashing Pompeo's boss, saying he's wrong.
Gee.
I wonder if the U.S. State Department will notice this.
I wonder if their embassy in Canada will notice.
And do you think this will make them more or less likely to actually help?
Maybe if Krista Freeland or John McCallum wear another one of her bizarre t-shirts, bad-mouthing Trump, I don't know.
Just thinking, what would the world's best diplomat do?
I note that Markham's ethnic demographics, according to the 2016 census, are 45% Chinese.
Almost half the people in Markham are Chinese.
Only 22% are old-stock Canadians.
So this is probably an election move also, I guess, to shore up the Chinese vote for Justin Trudeau, especially after they just kicked out Karen Wang as their candidate in Burnaby last week.
I don't know.
But one thing I do know, John McCallum is not on our side anymore.
He's on the side of the Chinese dictatorship.
I don't think he ever really was on our side to be candid.
Remember when he announced Canada's negotiation strategy for a proposed Canada-China trade deal?
Within 24 hours of arriving in China, I was invited to present my credentials to President Xi Jinping, and I conveyed to him a message from our prime minister that can be summarized in three words.
More, more, more.
Or in Mandarin, gungdua, gungdua, gung dua.
Yeah, you don't announce in advance in public that you will give everything to the Chinese side before you even start your negotiations.
Unless the Chinese side is your side.
But that's how they roll in the Liberal Party.
Let me read to you a headline from 15 years ago.
This was originally published in 2004.
Kretchen Builds Links with Chinese Conglomerate by Jeffrey York.
Less than two months after stepping down as prime minister, Zhang Kretchen is moving quickly to forge a relationship with China's wealthiest and most powerful business conglomerate, making a surprisingly speedy entrance onto the global business stage.
Mr. Kretchen will arrive in China this weekend with a team of PowerCorp executives to meet some of China's most influential business leaders.
The Globe and Mail was so excited.
They're so proud.
They love China.
Five weeks after Cre Chen stepped down as prime minister, five weeks, he was already a senior lobbyist working with the Chinese government.
Do you really think that was only all set up after he left office?
You know, Kretchen's son-in-law is a demire.
He runs the family businesses, that power corp they mentioned.
Massive billion-dollar investments in China.
That's how the liberals roll.
Do you doubt that when he retires as Canada's ambassador to China, that John McCallum will immediately get a huge lobbying consulting gig with China, in China, for China?
Of course he will.
And that video of him at the press conference today was his audition tape.
Justin Trudeau was asked about this bizarre statement by McCallum today.
Take a look at his answers.
Do you agree with your ambassador to China that Ms. Meng has a strong case against extradition?
We have always highlighted that Canada is a country with a rule of law, and we will make sure that the rule of law is properly and fully followed.
That, of course, includes the opportunity for her to mount a strong defense.
That is part of our justice system, and we are going to apply that justice system in its integrity, as all Canadians, and indeed as people around the world, expect us to do as a country.
We are a country of the rule of law.
We will stay grounded in that at the same time as we advocate and engage in serious efforts to support the Canadians who have been arbitrarily detained in China.
So, do you agree that she does have a strong case?
I think part of the strength of our justice system is people get to mount their own defense, and I know she will do that.
We will ensure as a government and as a country that all the rules and the independence of our justice system is properly defended and properly supported.
Kids Under Attack00:14:41
Yeah, but that didn't happen, buddy.
Your handpicked ambassador specifically, deliberately, forcefully did weigh into the courts.
He ended their independence, and Trudeau didn't disown it.
You saw it.
He answered twice again in French also.
He didn't disown McCallum at all.
Why would he?
He approved it.
He probably wrote it.
He knows that China laughs at the little potato.
He knows he's too weak to fight, so maybe he'll bow a little bit lower.
Maybe he'll make it a little bit clearer.
He hates Trump.
He loves China.
Too bad, really, because an ambassador who was loyal to Canada would probably have used the opportunity to go to bat for our hostages still held in Chinese prisons, not for Chinese Communist Party elites still living the high life in Vancouver.
Stay with us for more.
Do you feel from this experience that you owe anybody an apology?
Do you see your own fault in any way?
As far as standing there, I had every right to do so.
I don't, my position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr. Phillips.
I respect him.
I'd like to talk to him.
I mean, in hindsight, I wish we could have walked away and avoided the whole thing.
But I can't say that I'm sorry for listening to him and standing there.
A disgraceful question by NBC put to a teenage boy from Kentucky who was waiting around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, waiting for a bus to take him back to Kentucky from the March for Life, when he was accosted first by a gang, and I'm going to call them a gang, of so-called black Israelites, a bizarre sect that shouted racial abuse at the boys.
They responded by having upbeat, positive school chants, at which time an Indian activist going by the name Nathan Phillips walked right up to them and started banging a drum inches away from that boy, Nick Sandman's face.
Inches away.
As you can see, that young boy didn't flinch, was not aggressive, did not raise his hands, did not say a word.
He just smiled and he later said was praying that things would work out right.
And the disgrace of NBC saying, will you not apologize?
Do you not have anything to say about being at fault?
Shows that the media is not done demonizing this boy.
Joining us now via Skype from Washington, D.C. is the first reporter to call BS on this official media narrative, the narrative that Nathan Phillips, the drummer, was somehow the victim, and that this boy who stood silently was somehow the aggressor.
I'm talking about our friend Cassandra Fairbanks, a reporter for the Gateway Pundit, who joins us now via Skype.
Cassandra, great to see you.
And first of all, congratulations.
I think you were really the one who first said this is fake news.
This isn't a racist incident by the boy.
It's racism against him.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
The first, when this first came out, people were jumping down my throat.
They were so angry because I was a little hard on the Native American far-left activist.
But it turned out I was right and they were wrong.
And a lot of them still haven't apologized.
Yeah, there were so many elements of fake news in it.
I mean, one of the early versions of the video that was circulated, the sound was off.
So the allegation that the boys were taunting the man couldn't be instantly disproven.
Then a video of the Indian activist saying he was taunted with Build That Wall was proved false when the audio was finally released.
And there's one more point, and I think you were the first to report this.
That Native American, whose real name is not Nathan Phillips, by the way, he is not a Vietnam veteran.
He never served in Vietnam.
And he's a perpetual liar about it.
That's what we call stolen valor.
Every single element about this was fake news.
How did you know, Cassandra?
Everyone else was saying, yikes, it looks real, and I don't want to speak against the tide because I don't want someone to call me racist.
How did you know in your bones this whole thing was a hoax?
Well, I'm a mom, and apparently, like, it seems that a lot of these liberal journalists and celebrities who immediately jumped on bashing these kids have never been around teenage boys.
The fact of the matter is, when kids are uncomfortable, they do awkward things.
They look awkward and they kind of freeze up.
And I've seen this happen in person.
Like, when an adult confronts a younger child or a teenager, they freeze up, they feel awkward, and that's what happens.
And I immediately recognized that.
And I was like, he's not being smug.
He's uncomfortable.
Have you people never been around children?
And so I was immediately angry at this man who was confronting and harassing these children and mad at everybody who was blaming the kids.
They were victim blaming him.
Like, why is an adult man confronting these children?
That was my immediate reaction.
Yeah.
On yesterday's show, I played about four minutes worth of the drumming in his face.
I sped it up because just to sit and watch that for four minutes would be too much.
We played it in fast forward.
It was still excruciating watching this man, 64-year-old man, pound a drum in the face of a, I mean, he's 16, so he's not a child of tender years.
I would not have had the patience and self-control to take that kind of physical invasion of space and abuse without comment.
I don't have that child, that 16-year-old boy, and even in that interview with NBC, showed more restraint than I certainly would have, Cassandra.
Yeah, these kids are amazing.
They're such good kids.
Right now, there's a GoFundMe that is raised.
I haven't even looked at it today, but last night it was over 30 grand.
They went 100% of the money to go to students for life.
These kids, they were in town protesting on behalf of unborn babies.
These are good kids.
And as Nick said, he was standing in silent prayer, hoping that by being calm, he would de-escalate the situation.
What they did was more adult than how any adult that I know would have handled this at all.
I mean, I'm proud of them.
I think they are amazing kids and it's horrifying what's being done to them.
I think you're right.
And I want to tell you the most disappointing part of this whole thing in my mind.
The media, the fake news media, as Donald Trump calls them, they lived down to their expectations.
These professional activists, you know, in one case, the trickery was exposed, but 48 hours too late to stop the damage.
To me, the great disappointment, Cassandra, was the school, the Catholic school, Coming in Catholic in Kentucky, that immediately, without doing any due diligence, without finding the facts, put up a page.
When you go to their website, it jumped up at you.
A pop-up ad where they condemned these kids, said it tainted their whole trip, and threw them under the bus in such a disloyal way.
And this is a Catholic school that was so immoral in my mind.
I was angry at the media, angry at this provocateur, but I was disgusted and furious with their own school.
Tell me a bit about that.
And I know you've been in touch with some of the parents of the kids.
What's the latest on the bad behavior from their Catholic school?
Yes, I've been in contact, constant contact with a couple of the mothers.
One of them, especially me and her, hit it off very well.
She's super cool.
But if you go on Gateway Pundit, I have an interview up that I did with them over the weekend.
They are more upset with the bishop and the school than they are with pretty much anything else going on.
One of the mothers said to me, these boys have been victimized twice.
First, they were victimized, well, three times, because first they were victimized by these protesters who went after them.
Then they were victimized by the media.
And then they were victimized by their own school and the diocese.
And I think she nailed it.
I think you're right.
You know, President Trump, and I'm talking about him again, but he was the proximate, he was what sparked the lighting of the fuse here, because those Make America Great Again hats, that's what set off the media.
Trump has said that he wants to host these kids in the White House.
I think that's great, and I think that will help redeem them.
And Trump's tweet was actually very positive.
We'll put him up on the screen.
He says it was very unpleasant, but it might end up in a dream that this might turn, something good might come out of it.
thought Trump was actually very grown up, too, if I can use that phrase.
But I see one of your stories, and you've published at least 20 stories in the last three days on this, that the bishop has no sleep.
Well, listen, let me just read this headline here from one of your latest pieces, Coming In Catholic Bishop and School Administration, who threw the kids under the bus, now barring them from speaking to media to defend themselves.
I'll just read the first sentence of your story, and then you can tell us a bit more about this, Cassandra.
The bishop and school administration, a coming in Catholic, that immediately threw these kids under the bus without full information, has now told students they cannot speak to the media to defend themselves.
Neither the diocese or school has apologized to the kids for believing leftist activist Nathan Phillips and the liberal media as they smeared the students both even apologized on their behalf and have not yet retracted it, even though the original narrative has been thoroughly debunked.
So I've spoke to some of the mothers about everything that's been going on and they've made the great point that these kids have been victimized three times.
First they were victimized by the protesters and the adults who were bullying them in Washington, D.C.
Then they were victimized by the media and then they were victimized by their own school and their bishop in the diocese who threw them under the bus without even getting the full story or attempting to get the full story.
And I think that they pretty much nailed it.
That sums it up really well.
And now these poor kids who have been thrown under the bus by their school, who is supposed to protect them, can't even go defend themselves.
I want to show you one last thing, Cassandra, because I think the I said that the school's reaction was the most disheartening to me, but let me show you a tweet by a new congresswoman from Minnesota, a Democrat, the first Somali Muslim woman in Congress, Ilhan Omar is her name.
And here's what she wrote.
She said, the boys were protesting a woman's right to choose and yelled, it's not rape if you enjoy it.
That's a damned lie.
They were taunting five black men before they surrounded Phillips and led racist chants.
That's three damned lies in there.
They weren't taunting the black man.
They didn't surround Phillips and they didn't lead racist chants.
Sandman's family hired a right-wing PR firm to write his non-apology.
Well, that may be true, and I'm glad he did.
It was the first time we heard the truth.
After a day of this tweet being up, she finally took it down.
That's absolutely gross, false and defamatory.
Does it make sense for these kids or their families to sue anyone for these smears?
Or is that just like trying to chase the wind?
You can't sue a thousand lying defamers.
Oh, I have so much to say about this.
When I saw that tweet last night, my blood was on fire.
First of all, she is calling these men who, the black Israelites, who were calling these kids anti-sexist, I mean, homophobic slurs, racist slurs, and calling them future school shooters.
These men were berating these teenagers.
And she has the audacity to say that they were taunting them.
Are you kidding me?
First of all.
Second, I hope that Nick's PR guy is right-wing because obviously the left can't be trusted on this issue.
They're coming after our children.
And then regarding lawsuit, Robert Barnes is representing multiple families.
He's in talks with even more families, and they've compiled a huge list of verified accounts, representatives, media outlets, and they are giving them 48 hours' notice.
So if they don't retract and apologize by Friday, then they're potentially going to be named in the lawsuit next week.
And I'm sure that her name is going to be at the top of the list.
Well, I am very excited about that.
I believe in freedom of speech.
But if you say, if you smear a national, an international, we're in Canada, obviously, in international news, if you say that a young man had Nazi racist taunts surrounded and bullied and shouted at an Aboriginal man, and if that yields directly death threats to the boy, yeah, that's pretty much actionable anywhere in the world, including in the home of the First Amendment.
Well, Cassandra.
We actually, sorry.
Sorry, last word to you, Cassandra.
We actually set precedent for this case with my case.
I ended up suing a reporter who had accused me of making a white supremacist hand gesture and gesture in the White House.
We had done the okay sign, which everybody was doing just as a way to show that we support Trump because he does it when he's giving a speech often.
And I had sued her, but the judge decided that, well, what she said was illegal libel because you can't accuse people of being racist if they're not.
I failed my case because I was a public figure and we couldn't prove actual malice.
In the kids' case, because they're not public figures, you do not have to prove actual malice.
You only have to prove that they didn't do due diligence or that they were slaughtered, you know, that they had acted inappropriately.
So they have the lawyer who's representing the families, actually represented me in this case, so he knows it inside and out.
It's So Gross To Me00:02:34
Isn't that interesting?
Well, we'll have to keep in touch with him once that deadline passes.
Cassandra, we lost the video feed from you via Skype, but we continued our conversation on audio, and we showed some of the infuriating clips from that day in Washington.
I want to salute you for being the first journalist to push back on this and the best journalist.
You have two dozen stories on this, and I would encourage all of our readers, if they haven't already, to go to thegatewaypundit.com where you're just on fire on this stuff, and I'm so glad you are.
Thanks for taking it.
Thank you so much.
All right, there you have it.
Our friend Cassandra Fairbanks.
I should remind you that she was one of the four independent journalists that traveled all the way to London to report on Tommy Robinson's trial when he was set free at the Old Bailey.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back.
On my monologue yesterday, Mark writes, Hey, Victoria, I get a climate change charge on my utility bill every month.
It's called a sewage treatment charge.
Do you?
It's gross.
It's so gross to me that I was reading about it.
I don't want to gross you out, especially if you're eating or something.
I was reading.
All they do is like, they like have a very, like a grill just to strain out like the biggest, grossest items.
And the rest of it just goes into the ocean.
Oh, that's gross.
From the eco-leaders of Canada.
No surprise.
Well, listen, San Francisco is a toxic dump, too.
Jerry writes, nice piece on Victoria and the sewage pipeline.
They love.
You forgot to mention the 13-kilometer pipeline from Washington State through Richmond to Vancouver Airport that was approved because Vancouver International couldn't run out of jet fuel.
Hey, thank you for the reminder of that.
Yeah, they love their jet fuel.
They love their oil and gas.
Kinder Morgan Transmountain pipeline that exists comes right.
I've been there.
I've seen it with my eyes.
It comes right out where this old chevron refinery is.
It's been there, I think, since the 40s.
And, you know, I'd like to see Vancouver go without gasoline for 12 hours.
Let's just start for let's start with one day.
Can they not use their cars or their planes for one day?
Are you kidding me?
On my interview with Pardes Sala, Wendy writes, the left needs to learn that children are off limits when it comes to their grubby politics.
Yeah, I mean, 16-year-old, I mean, you saw a clip of the boy today.
16 years old is still a child.
Vancouver's Gasoline Challenge00:01:08
The national media not only criticized him, but called for violence against him.
And I mean that the media did, first of all, they just called him a Nazi, which is so atrocious.
Frankly, when you're calling that kid a Nazi, that's a form of Holocaust revisionism.
Because you're saying, oh, Nazis are nothing.
Oh, I don't like him, so he's a Nazi.
So Nazis couldn't have been that bad.
But forget about just the name-calling.
They called for violence.
That's a fact.
Well, that's our show for today.
What do you think of John McCallum?
Holy cow.
And I'm not even going to make a drunk joke because I think he was stone-cold sober.
I think he was as sober as, I don't know, a sober person.
I think that was a scripted planned press conference with Chinese language media, and you saw the Chinese state broadcaster microphone right in the middle.
That is super gross.
And I bet you a dollar that Jean-Cret Chen had his hand in it too.
All right, folks, until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters.
Oh, by the way, let me tease you a little bit.
I will have some more news for you about the elections commissioner in Alberta tomorrow.