Ezra Levant celebrates Mueller’s March 25 report—no Trump-Russia collusion after 19 Democratic lawyers, 40 FBI agents, and $30M spent—while blasting media outlets like CNN and CBC for amplifying baseless conspiracy theories. He contrasts this with Clinton’s $25M Saudi/Russian donations as Secretary of State and questions whether outlets will reflect or pivot. Trump’s post-report strength may shift during re-election, but Levant warns media-driven narratives still distort politics, leaving voters misled. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I look at the Robert Mueller report on Donald Trump and I can sum it up in two words, no collusion.
I go through some of the details.
I read Bill Barr's letter and I review some of the media madness.
I hope you enjoyed.
Hey, by the way, can you do me a favor?
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Without further ado, here is today's podcast.
Tonight, after two years of hunting, Robert Mueller's massive investigation into Donald Trump comes up empty.
There was no collusion with Russia.
It's March 25th, and this is 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.
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.
Hey, let's start with pure glee.
Do you want to know what absolute joy and happiness and vindication and relief looks like?
Take a look at this man.
So after a long look, after a long investigation, after so many people have been so badly hurt, after not looking at the other side, where a lot of bad things happened, a lot of horrible things happened, a lot of very bad things happened for our country.
It was just announced there was no collusion with Russia.
The most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
There was no collusion with Russia.
There was no obstruction and none whatsoever.
And it was a complete and total exoneration.
It's a shame that our country had to go through this.
To be honest, it's a shame that your president has had to go through this for before I even got elected.
It began.
And it began illegally.
And hopefully somebody's going to look at the other side.
This was an illegal takedown that failed.
And hopefully, somebody's going to be looking at the other side.
So it's complete exoneration.
No collusion, no obstruction.
Thank you very much.
He's talking about the two-year investigation into the preposterous allegation that he was a Manchurian candidate.
You know that old movie?
That he was secretly in league with Vladimir Putin.
Complete and Utter Surprise00:02:51
I'm not even kidding.
Do you remember the insane cover of Time magazine blending the White House and the Kremlin?
Or this one, also from Time, photoshopping Trump and Putin into one person?
Or this one from the Daily News.
Or this one from the New York Times saying that Trump has a secret gay fantasy about Vladimir Putin.
I'm serious.
But perhaps nothing was as insane as the New York magazine story alleging without any evidence that Donald Trump has actually been a Russian spy going back to Cold War days, that he was a Soviet intelligent asset, a KGB agent going back to 1987.
I swear that actually was published and the author of it, Jonathan Chait, did the media circuit endlessly.
Look, it became conventional wisdom.
Here, just at random, here's a promo from CNN.
Sunday morning, the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki.
Can we trust the president to give us all the facts?
And if we can't, how can journalists report on it?
Brian and his panel discuss reliable sources.
That was just one of a thousand little moments like that.
It was so ubiquitous, at least a dozen best-selling books on the subject, and yet it was completely 100% false.
Not a word of it was true.
It was exactly like the mainstream media in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
They all just knew, they just knew that Hillary Clinton would win.
Their polls said so.
Their friends said so.
I mean, they literally didn't know anyone who would vote for Trump.
Yuck.
That's so deplorable, those people.
It was a done deal.
Boy, were they surprised when that didn't go the way they thought it would.
Remember the election night shock back in 2016 when Trump won?
Sure, it was sadness, as any political party feels when they lose, but in this case, it was mainly complete and utter surprise.
They had convinced themselves that Hillary Clinton was a sure thing.
They were utterly disillusioned.
didn't know that they had been living in a bubble until that moment.
Wish Mother Christmas00:09:14
And so they did it again.
They did it again immediately after 2016 to psychologically keep it together.
Instead of admitting their theory about the whole world was wrong in the light of the facts showing it was wrong, namely the election, they simply threw out the facts they didn't like and kept the theory.
The only way Trump could have won, they told themselves, was as a Russian spy who hacked the election, whatever that even meant.
And they were so, so certain that Robert Mueller would prove that in his two-year deep dive.
I mean, have you seen this?
I want to play a full minute of this for you.
I'm going to play the whole thing.
And you're going to say this is too long.
No, it's unbelievable.
Look at these people.
Look at them.
This is a cult.
This is delusion.
I think these people are probably in the hospital today.
Take a look at this.
We wish you a Mother Christmas.
We wish you a Mother Christmas.
We wish you a Mother Christmas and impeachment next year.
We wish you a Mother Christmas.
We wish you a Mother Christmas.
We wish you a Mother Christmas and impeachment next year.
Indictments will come to you and your kin.
Indictments for Christmas and impeachment next year.
We wish you a Mother Christmas.
We wish you a Mother Christmas.
We wish you a Mother Christmas and impeachment next year.
Indictments will come to you and your kin.
Indictment for Christmas and impeachment next year.
We wish you a Mother Christmas.
We wish you a Mother Christmas.
We wish you a Mother Christmas and impeachment next year.
Subpoena Scholar for all of Trump's men.
Indictments for Christmas and impeachment next year.
Bring forth the grand juries.
Bring forth the grand juries.
Now bring forth the grand jury and bring them all year.
We know you're in bed with Putin.
We know you're in bed with Putin.
We know you're in bed with Putin because your treason is clear.
Your treason is clear.
We wish you a Mother Christmas.
We wish you a Mother Christmas.
We wish you a Mother Christmas and impeachment next year.
How's that, Natasha?
Ah, I'm glad you like that.
So I can't look away from this.
It's like a car crashed.
I think that is the saddest thing I have ever seen in my life.
All right, well, let's get to the news.
I don't usually refer to the Washington Post, which is a plaything of the world's richest man, Jeff Bezos, or to the New York Times, which is a plaything of Mexico's richest man, Carlos Leem.
But because they do some valuable journalism, it's all colored by the political and personal ambitions of their owners.
They don't own those newspapers to make money.
They own them to give those billionaires a seat at the table in American politics.
And they both hate Donald Trump for their own reasons.
And I generally don't refer to them.
But today, let me show you their front pages unironically, because today, at least, they reported the truth without spin.
Here's the New York Times.
Mueller finds no Trump-Russia conspiracy.
Just look at that.
It's pretty clear.
Not a lot of wiggle room there.
And here's the Washington Post.
It's even shorter.
Mueller finds no conspiracy.
Those two liberal newspapers who have been claiming for more than two years that Donald Trump had colluded with Russia to somehow steal the last election.
It was a conspiracy theory.
They never even explained exactly how such a collusion could have happened.
They just kept repeating it.
And then they got a two-year $50 million investigation led by Robert Mueller, a longtime Washington insider, king of the swamp, you could say, a lifelong insider, part of the permanent government that stays in place no matter who's elected, Democrat or Republican.
Oh, and Mueller had 19 lawyers working for him in his investigation.
And all of them were Democrats, not one Republican.
And the left loved it.
I mean, talk about a small town.
Mueller's been friends with the deep state elite literally since he was a boy.
Look, here's a picture of Robert Mueller.
He's number 12 there on the front row, sitting next to his buddy.
Can you recognize the guy right in the middle, number 18?
That young man grew up to be John Kerry, the Democrat who ran for president in 2004.
He's wearing number 18.
That's when they were both teenagers playing hockey.
I think that's what they were playing.
And here's Robert Mueller with his personal best friend, Bill Barr, who just happens to be Donald Trump's new pick for Attorney General.
Isn't that cozy?
I mean, get ready for impeachment, right?
Get ready for prison, right?
It feels like the walls are closing in on the White House.
It feels as if the walls are closing in here.
I think the walls of justice are closing in on President Trump.
It does feel like the walls are closing in.
I think that the administration at this point can start to see the walls closing in.
He feels the walls closing in on him.
The walls are closing in on the president right now.
Donald Trump feels the walls closing in.
They were pretty sure of it.
They were pretty sure he was going to prison.
That was the American coverage.
But Canadian coverage was even more insane, especially the CBC.
Here's Wendy Mesley just a few weeks ago interviewing some U.S. crank about how Donald Trump Jr. was probably going to go to prison.
And another possible lie by Don Jr., this time about the negotiations to build that tower with Vladimir Putin's help.
Don Jr. has said he knew very little.
Again, he said it under oath to U.S. lawmakers.
And you can go to jail for lying to Congress.
Actually, even yesterday, after Mueller had submitted his report, Mesley and her weekly conspiracy theory show on the state broadcaster led the news with her prediction that Trump was still on the run.
It's Mueller time.
The Russia report is signed, sealed, and delivered.
Will it bring Trump down?
Oh my God.
Even yesterday, she was holding out such high hopes.
Well, here's Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump group.
He did some math about the number of stories on Russian collusion just since September, just the last six months.
He writes, Washington Post, 1,184.
New York Times, 1,156.
CNN, 1,965.
And look at that.
MSNBC, 4,202.
These are the number of stories ran on the Mueller investigation since September.
On average, 13 stories per day, all about an investigation with no evidence, no grounding in the truth, and no crime.
So how bad was it up here?
Well, I went to the CBC's search engine on their website, and I typed in three different things just to check.
I typed in Mark Norman, and I put the name in quotation marks so it wouldn't give me just any old Mark and any old Norman, but rather that exact phrase.
He's the vice admiral of the Navy who's being prosecuted by Trudeau in a clear attempt to punish him for whistleblowing on political interference to build ships.
It says SNC Lavillan type interference.
We'll have to do a big story on it one day.
It's widely considered to be why Scott Bryson left cabinet in disgrace.
Huge trial going on.
Top flight lawyer, Marie Hinane.
I think they're going to win.
Anyways, 135 stories on that huge case, according to the CBC website.
135 stories.
That's a lot of stories.
And then I typed in Michael Kovrig.
You know who he is?
Look at that.
You see in yellow there?
I typed this in the search engine.
That's one of the Canadian hostages taken by China back in December to punish Canada over the Huawei extradition matter.
145 stories.
That's a lot of stories.
That's a huge story.
But then I typed in Trump-Russian collusion in quotes.
303 stories.
More than all their stories about Vice Admiral Mark Horn and all their stories about Michael Coverage covered the hostage combined.
Did they ever love that conspiracy theory at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation?
And I bet Trudeau's office kept encouraging them.
He despises Trump on a personal level, and he uses the CBC to act out against Trump.
But let's come to reality today because it's just like Election Day back in 2016.
The fake news was replaced by reality.
Here, let me read to you from the four-page summary of the Mueller report that was released by Bill Barr yesterday.
The entire report itself has not been fully released because it contains confidential legal matters currently before the courts in some cases that have to be redacted.
The memo itself explains why.
But let me read you the cold, hard truth as published yesterday.
The special counsel and the staff thoroughly investigated allegations that members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump and others associated with it conspired with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election or sought to obstruct the related federal investigations.
Mueller Report Revelations00:15:27
In the report, the special counsel noted that in completing his investigation, get this, he employed 19 lawyers who were assisted by a team of approximately 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants, and other professional staff.
The special counsel issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses.
So there were 60 people working on this full-time for two years.
2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants?
Was it 500 witnesses?
Pen registers, by the way, that's tracking every phone call made or received on a cell phone or other similar communication stuff.
500 witnesses, 500, and they found nothing.
Again, this is just a four-page summary of the findings.
Barr says he will likely release more and is still reviewing the full report.
And of course, some matters must be redacted.
But he quoted this word for word from Mueller's report.
He said, as the report states, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities, unquote.
Nothing.
It's just not there.
In fact, more than that, the investigation found that Russia did, in fact, try to hook up with Trump's campaign in some way.
But the offers were rejected by Trump or his staff.
So they were tested morally and they passed the test.
I mean, quote, the special counsel did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.
Wow.
Hey, do you think Hillary Clinton has ever turned down an offer of help, especially from foreign sources?
Well, we know she, in fact, did accept help from foreign sources.
Just for example, $25 million from the Saudis, tens of millions of dollars from other entities from Russia, from the Middle East, from around the world.
These are donations to their, quote, family charity, the Clinton Foundation.
While Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, her family foundation, run by her husband and her daughter, rinsed foreign governments and lobbyists for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Trump?
He actually said no.
In fact, Clinton took money from Russians at precisely the same time she was approving Russia's takeover of a major uranium company, a strategic acquisition that is surely against America's interest.
But hey, it paid well.
Here's Bill Clinton yucking it up with Vladimir Putin right when the deal was going through.
He was paid half a million dollars for a single speech in Russia.
Do you think they really cared what Bill Clinton said?
Or was it just a convenient way to launder a half million dollar gift to him?
Oh, and speaking of American foreign policy and collusion with Russia, I don't think we ever did get a proper explanation to what Barack Obama meant by this, did we?
This is my last time to say.
I tell Vladimir.
Yeah, was he talking about letting Russia invade the country of Ukraine?
More flexibility?
What was he talking about?
Who knows?
Maybe we'll get a two-year, $50 million, 60-staff inquiry into it.
Just kidding.
But still, the damage was done.
Thousands of hours of full-tilt propaganda in the media has soaked into the American people.
Trump Putin, Russian collusion.
Russian sort of collusion, possible collusion, possible collusion, possible collusion collusion, possible collusion act.
Our election here comes a big change because all of a sudden, Trump Russian possible collusion, Russian colleagues.
Trump Russian possible collusion.
Trump Russian possible collusion.
Trump the Russians collusion.
How do you undo two years of fake news like that?
Conspiracy theories like that.
You know Alex Jones, the colorful character who runs InfoWars, he was kicked off every single high-tech platform, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, even LinkedIn, even Apple.
He was just kicked off of all of them because he was alleged to be a conspiracy theorist who pushed fake news.
Really?
Well, his millions of followers seem to like what he said.
But if that's the precedent, what did we do with CNN and MSNBC and up here, the CBC and the rest of them who pushed two years of fake news breathlessly?
Well, the media knows who's to blame now.
Trump is.
Look at this from Politico.
But after the nearly two-year investigation found no collusion or clear obstruction of justice, Trump and his aides showed little interest in healing or national unity.
Yeah, man, Trump is so angry.
I mean, come on, dude.
Just show some interest in healing.
Sure, you were lied about for two years.
Sure, we called you a spy.
We called you a traitor.
We even retailed gossip from a secret dossier paid for by the Democrats that claimed Trump was filmed in a Russian hotel with a bunch of prostitutes.
That was literally one of the stories shopped around Washington by the media, including by James Comey of the FBI.
And even the late Senator John McCain did.
Fake, fake, fake.
But come on, Donald Trump, stop being so mad.
Start healing.
There will be no contrition, no reflection, no post-mortem from the media.
The media didn't learn from their 2016 debacle where they said Clinton was a shoe-in and they missed the political earthquake that was happening under their feet.
In fact, this was just a continuation of that denial.
There will be no reckoning.
They'll move on to the next fake news scandal.
Their goal is not the truth, but the destruction of Trump.
I mean, here's John Brennan, a former CIA boss, and now a media pundit, just a few days ago.
What makes you believe that he has more indictments?
Because he hasn't addressed the issues related to criminal conspiracy as well as any individual.
Criminal conspiracy involving the Russian industry.
Yes, yeah.
I think it was very American person, U.S. person.
That's an area you know something about.
That investigation was developing while you were still on the job.
Well, it was in terms of looking at what was going on with the Russians and whether or not U.S. persons were actively collaborating, colluding, cooperating, and involved in a conspiracy with them or not.
But also, if there's going to be any member of the U.S., did you see enough at that stage to believe that that would result in indictments once investigated?
I thought at the time that there was going to be individuals who were going to have issues with the Department of Justice.
How can someone that bad at predicting the future and gathering intelligence have been the head of the CIA?
Imagine what he got wrong on the job.
That's the deep state, plus the deep media, plus the Democrats, all proven to be liars today.
And they're the ones who would censor you because you don't want to consume their lives.
You want alternative news sources.
Our Canadian media are just as bad, and they delighted in Mueller's investigation as much as any American did.
But for my Canadian viewers, I'd say, look, at least America has checks and balances.
It was a costly exercise, this Mueller inquiry.
It was abusive.
It was unnecessary.
But at the end of the day, I guess it worked.
The system worked.
The rumors were chased down to the source and found fake.
And they were reported as such.
Along the way, some unrelated crimes were uncovered.
Some fraud years ago by a lobbyist, some fraud years ago by a lawyer, but nothing related to Trump's campaign, and nothing related to Russia.
You send out 2,800 subpoenas, you interview 500 people, you're going to find something on someone.
But nothing on Trump.
It was a disaster, but the legal system worked in the end.
Hey, do you ever think the Canadian media who delighted in Mueller's investigation, do you ever think they'd support a Canadian investigation like this?
With that kind of staff and budget and power and independence, do you ever think our media party would support such an investigation into Justin Trudeau and his SNC Lavalan collusion?
Yeah, me neither.
Stay with me for more on this with Joel Pollack.
I love this country as much as I can love anything.
My family, my country, my God.
But what they did, it was a false narrative.
It was a terrible thing.
We can never let this happen to another president again.
I can tell you that.
I say it very strongly.
Very few people I know could have handled it.
We can never, ever let this happen to another president again.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you.
Well, that was a gleeful Donald Trump.
And joining us now to talk about it is our friend Joel Pollack, senior editor-at-large with Breitbart.com.
Hey, Joel, great to see you again.
Good to be with you.
Well, I have to say, the president looks a combination of gleeful and relieved.
And, you know, frankly, it feels like he won the election again.
That's how it feels.
That's how it feels to me up here in Canada.
Tell me the mood down there in America.
And Breitbart, of course, was one of the early believers and supporters in Trump.
Give me a sense of things down there in the States.
Well, there are, as you might imagine, two reactions.
Trump supporters are gleeful, not only because this is the version of reality we always suspected was true, but because it's a total exoneration.
The idea that you would have Robert Mueller, who had a staff of Democrats who did not like the president and who had gone after some of the president's associates in a very heavy-handed way, the idea that he would exonerate the Trump campaign of collusion with Russia was something few of us had dared to hope.
We didn't believe there was any collusion, but we didn't think that Mueller would give Trump a clean bill of health.
Now, he didn't exonerate the president on the question of obstruction, but that's a much more difficult question.
And the Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General decided there was not sufficient evidence to pursue that.
So effectively, that is an exoneration.
On the other side, you've got the media and the Democrats.
And there, there are two reactions.
You have some stunned by the developments.
They did not expect this.
They're disappointed in the outcome, but they accept it and they are looking for the next thread to pull on this story almost out of habit.
Then you have those who simply refuse to accept reality.
And these include members of Congress, some journalists who are still saying they need to see the entire Mueller report.
They need to see all the evidence that Mueller obtained.
They need to look again at the question of obstruction.
This is Chairman Jerry Nadler, who heads the House Judiciary Committee, which is also, by the way, responsible for drafting articles of impeachment, and other people like that.
So there's a split among Democrats.
I give it another 36 to 48 hours before they pull themselves together and either find a new set of talking points or a new conspiracy theory.
But essentially, it's a great day in America.
And it is like the president was elected all over again.
This is a confirmation that he was elected by the American people.
He did not steal the election.
The Russians didn't rig the election.
That Donald Trump was elected legitimately according to our Constitution.
And his election represents the voice of the American people, the genuine political will of the American people.
And that to many on the Democratic side and in the media is a complete revelation.
And I would argue he's been denied the opportunity to govern fully for the last two plus years.
And I don't think he's going to get that time back.
But it may help him win a second term, to be honest, because the Democrats, believing this to be true, have gone so far out on a limb in declaring the president illegitimate and making all kinds of other accusations and goading each other to take progressively more and more left-wing positions on various issues.
I think they've gone so far out there, it's very hard for the presidential candidates to walk some of these positions back.
The smarter ones are going to be the first to do it.
But very few of them were standing outside this kind of herd consensus.
And it's going to be difficult for them to make the case now that Trump has used the opportunity.
If he couldn't govern completely, at least he could seize the middle ground on the issues, which he's done.
And the left has taken over the Democratic Party, and that's where most of the presidential candidates on that side now find themselves.
So Trump is actually in a very good position right now in 2020.
We'll see how things go.
And I'm always pessimistic about these things because I think that elections do tend to favor Democrats just by the way they're set up and the way the media work.
But for some time, the media are going to be wearing this around their necks.
They created this conspiracy theory and treated it like a legitimate news story when there was no evidence whatsoever.
You know, I think of some of the big players in the Democratic Party, Tom Steyer, who threw a ton of money behind an impeach Trump campaign and really radicalized the party.
That's quite a radical thing to say to impeach a president.
And now that all the basis has fallen away, I have two revelations.
One is how empty the Democrat pantry is now that this is gone.
I mean, what have they been talking about for two years?
You've had a few goofy ideas lately floated by Alexandria Oquesia-Cortez, a new Green Deal or whatever, but nothing meaty, nothing substantive.
I think it's taken up all the energy in the Democrats.
But it's also, as you point out, taken up a lot of time and energy from the Republicans, too.
Who knows what works they could have done.
I was just reading, you know, I mean, the terrible things that are happening in the world that I don't think have had proper American attention.
Terrible problems that were not solved because we had a president with one eye on this, you know, being defensive, looking over his shoulder the whole time.
I think both sides were hampered, which means America suffered.
You know, I think there's a very strong argument to be made that the president was unable to pursue his agenda to the extent he would have liked to have done because of this.
Introspection Risk00:05:54
I think it probably interfered with his ability to build relations with Russia the way he sought to do.
And I think it did weaken America on the world stage a bit.
You know, other leaders want to know they're dealing with someone who's not going to disappear.
So it did weaken him when it looked as though he might not serve out his full term, which at a couple of instances seemed possible.
Not to those of us who never took this seriously, but to the media, to the stock market at times.
But look, you have to give the president credit for working through all this.
It's not easy to point to any one foreign policy outcome that would have gone differently.
And I think he's pursued his agenda regardless.
And maybe in some ways, this problem has been a boon for him rather than a burden because I personally disagree with the president's policy of moving toward better relations with Russia.
And maybe given some of the time to consider that relationship more carefully that was afforded by this hoax, he has had a chance to reconsider.
He's much more careful now.
So maybe there's been some positive spin-offs.
Of course, he probably would have arrived at that conclusion eventually because Russia's interests just don't align with ours on many issues, although they do on other issues.
But I think it's to his credit that he worked through this and he's now come out the other end much stronger.
I think he has, to some degree, the honeymoon he was denied back in 2017.
He'll have it for about 36 hours, but he'll have a honeymoon.
I know you've got to run, Joel, so I have two quick questions for you.
After the disconnect between the media party and the pollsters and the pundits and the experts in 2016 in the electorate, there was some introspection.
I remember Nate Silver, the prognosticator, said we really have to look about if we're just sampling our own biases and going to our friends.
You know, it's like, well, I didn't know anyone who voted for Trump.
Well, it's because you're in a bubble.
There was a moment of introspection back then.
Is there any evidence that the CNNs or the MSNBCs, the New York Times, or the Washington Post realize that they have screwed up by getting this so wrong and they bought their own BS?
Is there any evidence that there'll be some introspection there?
Or like you say, they're just going to move on to the next scam?
No, I don't think there is.
I think there is some infighting you see on the occasional CNN panel where some of the journalists are beginning to question some of the pundits they bring on from the Democratic side who are still struggling to grapple with the reality.
But I don't think the media have yet done any self-examination.
And the problem after 2016 was there were journalists who were promising them that, or promising each other and promising the public that they could bring down the Trump administration.
And in a kind of hysteria, it's very difficult to be rational.
It's difficult to be the one left behind or left out.
So even responsible journalists were caught up in this once it seemed to be a story.
Also, the way the media often work, people are competing for traffic, for eyeballs, for subscriptions.
And once your competitors are offering a breaking news story that seems exciting and thrilling, it's very hard to stay away from it.
And if those competitors are mainstream sources that are widely trusted and seen as credible, then it's very easy to link to those or cover what they're covering and claim that it's okay because CNN covered it or the New York Times covered it or the Washington Post covered it.
So in a way, this was like the stock market crash of 2008, where the ratings agencies blessed a number of securities that were really fundamentally unsound.
Here we have the credibility of the major mainstream networks creating a false sense of reliability around this story, which is why it all collapsed.
I don't think there's any introspection.
I think they're on to the next conspiracy theory again by the end of the week, but there ought to be.
There really ought to be.
You know, that's an amazing analogy how the credit bureau sort of said, hey, everybody, there's no problem.
Trust us.
We're the trustworthy ones.
I got one last question because I know you've got to run.
Ann Coulter is someone I follow because I find her interesting and tough.
And I know she was an early backer of Trump who has grown skeptical of him because of his slowness on the wall and his statements occasionally that he wants to bring in more immigration.
She has tweeted her fear that because this existential threat is now removed from Donald Trump, that he's no longer at genuine risk of impeachment or whatever, that Trump may take his base for granted, the base that was there fighting hard from every day, and that he might abandon some of those base-pleasing policies like building the wall.
She's nervous about this, that Trump might say, oh, I don't need anyone anymore.
I'm free now.
What do you make of that worry?
Well, I think that's always a worry with any Republican president or Republican-appointed judge.
The pressure is always on to move to the left, and so one always has to wonder.
I don't know that that's a particular risk right now.
If anything, the risk was greater when there was a chance he would be impeached because he would try to do a deal with the Democrats to get out of impeachment.
So we'll have to see, but he certainly was adamant today.
He signed a memorandum verifying that the United States recognized Israel's claim to the Golan Heights.
That's hardly a SOP to the left.
And I think right now he's feeling like it's time to hold some people accountable.
So I don't think he's thinking about compromise right now.
We'll see further down the road if that happens.
It may happen during the course of the re-election campaign.
That's fairly typical of re-election campaigns, but we'll see.
Yeah, very interesting.
Well, Joel, thanks for your time today, and we'll follow your stories on Breitbart.com.
New Zealand's Political Climate00:04:22
All right, take care down there.
Thank you, YouTube.
Cheers.
Well, that's Joel Pollock, senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com.
Joel, of course, covers the president very closely.
I have to tell you that I feel a little bit how I felt the night of the election in 2016, that the official opinion, the conventional wisdom was so hostile to Trump, I felt like it was a bit of a miracle, like being shot at and missed.
And I feel that exact same way again here.
Stay with us.
More ahead in a moment.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue Friday about the New Zealand shootings and the following push for censorship.
John writes, if it's not a gun, it's a vehicle or a bomb.
The left using crazy acts of crazy people to force through their agenda is both political trickery and wrong.
Yeah, I mean, of course, the Columbine massacre used guns, and that was a huge impetus for cracking down on guns.
But did you know that they brought propane tanks with them to the school?
They tried to blow them up.
Had they been successful, God forbid, would we try to ban propane tanks too?
Of course, 9-11 used aircraft.
You can't stop a tool.
You could stop a person.
You can fight an ideology.
But in New Zealand, they're just being opportunistic.
They're trying to crack down on gun ownership and free speech for exactly their pre-existing reasons.
Nothing to do with the terrorist attack.
Hansen writes, does everyone start wearing a cross when Christians are murdered at a church to show their solidarity?
No.
So why the hijab?
That's a great point.
I think it's a form of virtue signaling.
The irony is the hijab is a form of submission.
It's a lack of freedom.
It's a symbol of the subordinate status of women in a culture.
So for the prime minister of New Zealand and newscasters in New Zealand to do that is so, it's so untowards.
And it shows their deep lack of understanding of what the hijab means.
And I understand the desire to be sympathetic to a community that was attacked.
But you don't have to pretend not only to be Muslim, but to be a submissive woman in Islam.
That's bizarre.
On my interview with Alessandro Bocchi, Paul writes, the Italy incident was stopped in time.
Meanwhile, in Nigeria, 120 Christians have been slaughtered by Muslim terrorists.
Yeah, and I noticed Justin Trudeau didn't fly the flag at half-mast or put out a...
There was a statement put out, but it was terse and perfunctory by comparison.
And he hasn't gone on in a rant trying to demonize his opponents as Trudeau has tried to do and Catherine McKenna has tried to do following the New Zealand shooting.
Douglas writes, this is a serious inquiry and I am looking for an honest answer.
Would you ever consider running for prime minister?
I feel like my country is falling apart due to both the liberals and the conservatives.
I want a leader that I can trust.
I want a leader that will be transparent with all issues.
I think that leader is you, Ezra.
Start the Rebel Party of Canada.
You will have my vote.
Well, Douglas, I appreciate the compliment.
I think what we do here at the Rebel is important because it certainly fills a gap.
And once a long time ago, I don't know if you know this, but when I was 29, I think I actually ran for Parliament in Calgary Southwest five weeks ago until the by-election, but Stephen Harper needed that riding and I grudgingly stepped aside.
You know what?
I like to joke, though.
If we ever had proportional representation in Canada, as fringe parties like the NDP or the Greens like, maybe we'd run a rebel party.
Wouldn't that be fun?
The candidate list would be me and Sheila Gunreed and David Menzies, any rebel reporter.
Because under proportional representation, if we got, what, 5% or 10% of the vote, we would get our list elected, not in any particular writing, but just in general.
Wouldn't that be fun to have the Rebel Party in Parliament?
I think we could get 10% of the vote.
And probably the cutoff would be 5% because the Green Party would vote.
I think we could get as many votes as Elizabeth May.
Wouldn't that be fun?
So a little bit of daydreaming right back at you.
Folks, that's our show for today.
Until next time, just imagine David Menzies in parliament.