UK’s £90 facial recognition fine and £1,000 TV license fees expose democratic police-state risks—warrantless scans and surveillance targeting citizens like Tommy Robinson, blocked by 38 officers despite no crime. Meanwhile, Trump’s China tariffs, praised even by critics like Tom Friedman, reshaped trade policy, swaying union voters from skepticism to support after economic gains. Democrats may back his tough stance but fear his governance style, while Biden’s 35% poll lead raises questions about party alignment. Canada’s potential censorship ties with the UK, like Freeland’s joint conference, demand scrutiny—could compliance with overreach become the new norm? [Automatically generated summary]
Hello my rebels, I got an interesting show for you today.
It really is video dependent though.
You've got to see these videos.
I show you a video of a Brit who was arrested for not allowing his face to be scanned as he walked down the street as a pedestrian.
Just unbelievable.
And then videos of how police in the United Kingdom are outrageously interfering with election campaigning.
I really want you to see the videos.
I know most of you are listening to this podcast because you have to, you're driving, you're commuting, something like that.
But you got to see the video version of this.
I tell you, you can't unsee the things I've just mentioned.
That video version is available in what we call premium content.
It's $8 a month or $80 for the whole year.
You go to the rebel.media slash shows to sign up.
You can use it on your app.
You can use it on your laptop, whatever.
You get access to the video version of this podcast plus Sheila Gunread and David Menzies.
Obviously, the money helps us, so thank you for that.
But I just, especially this show today, it is so video dependent.
I know you're listening to this on a podcast, but you've really got to watch the video too.
Okay, enough of a pitch from me.
Here is the story about our dystopian future.
Tonight, what might it look like to have a police state in a democracy like Canada?
I have two videos that will cause the hairs on your arm to stand up.
It's May 20th, and this is the Ezra 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 is because it's my bloody right to do so.
I saw an incredible video on Twitter from the BBC of all places, the state broadcaster of the United Kingdom.
I'll show it to you in a moment, but I want to tell you the irony.
You see, in the United Kingdom, you're forced to pay a BBC tax.
They call it a levy.
Unlike here in Canada, it's not just included in your regular tax bill.
It's a special tax, which I think is a good idea because people then know just how much they are being gouged to bail out a group of smarmy journalists who sneer at the people all day.
I like it because it's honest that way, this TV tax over there.
But it's brutal too.
See, they harass you endlessly for your money.
You have to pay it.
I mean, you think the CBC in Canada is hated now?
Imagine if you were phoned, texted, mailed, demanding your CBC tax.
And if you didn't pay it, your TV would be cut off.
But this isn't by the cable company.
It's by the BBC's collection agency.
They have all these irritating public service ads about collections.
Here's a snippet.
Most of us need a television license.
And now there's even more help for those who are struggling to pay.
The annual cost of a standard license can be spread by monthly or quarterly direct debits or even by weekly cash payments.
We help direct debit customers by allowing them to pay any missed payments in smaller amounts.
For payment cardholders, we send text reminders and they can even pay by text.
We call customers whose schemes are at risk and customers who miss payments, offering to help before they become unlicensed.
That goes on and on.
I'm serious.
That is real.
You hate dealing with cell phone companies.
You hate dealing with cable companies being on old.
Imagine that.
Imagine that.
Now I read all about these BBC detector vans, these detector vans that somehow claim to detect if you're watching the BBC but didn't pay for your license mate.
Now I thought it was an urban legend.
I mean how could they know, right?
And by what right could they spy on you and what you were doing?
Well read this.
This is from their official website.
How do the detector vans work?
We have a range of detection tools at our disposal in our vans.
Some aspects of the equipment have been developed in such secrecy that engineers working on specific detection methods work in isolation.
So not even they know how the other detection methods work.
This gives us the best chance of catching license evaders.
I'm serious, that's a real thing.
Oh, believe me, I thought that was a satire.
I thought that was someone mocking it.
No.
They snoop on you.
The BBC snoops on you.
I don't know, through your Wi-Fi or something.
I don't know.
Or maybe that's just a psyops, a way to make you think you're being spied on so you pay out of paranoia.
Of course, if you don't pay the £15450p, which is more than $200, they'll prosecute you and they'll fine you £1,000 plus legal fees.
That's the BBC.
They are odious.
Okay, I just wanted to tell you who we're dealing with here because it makes the fact that they made this next video surprising, okay?
Back to the video I want to show you.
you will agree it is a bit rich that this is coming from the BBC, them and their spying bands.
I'll cover my face.
When I'm walking down the street here, Bruce.
How would you like if you walked down the street with someone...
Hold yourself down.
You're going to hang up.
Thank you.
What's your suspicion?
Yes, the fact that he walked past clearly myself.
I would do the same.
I would do the same.
No, it doesn't.
The chap told me down the road.
He said he's got facial recognition.
So I walked past like that.
It's a cold day as well.
Because I've done that, the police officers asked me to clump him in, so I've got my backup.
I said to him, off, basically.
I said, I don't want my face shown on anything.
If I want to cover my face, I'll cover my face.
It's not for them to tell me not to cover my face.
I've got on there a £90 fine.
There you go.
Look at that.
Thanks, Lex.
£90.
Well done.
We ought to explore all technology to see how it can keep people safer, how it can make policing more effective.
However, we are completely aware of some of the concerns that are raised, and what we're doing with these trials is actually trying to understand those better so we can actually protect human rights but also keep people safe at the same time.
That's incredible to me.
It seemed too perfect too on the nose.
Again, I thought that was fake.
But there is nothing too absurd in the United Kingdom these days.
I mean, they had a vote to leave the European Union, right?
It was called Brexit, right?
The vote was held way back in 2016, right?
They were supposed to leave on March 29th of this year, right?
And they just didn't.
Their government just refused to follow the will of the people.
So yeah, it's clown world.
Up is down, down is up.
So a man sees the police are spying on the streets, spying on everyone, indiscriminately, without any probable cause, without any reasonable suspicion of anything.
They're literally searching, in a way, everyone who goes out of their own private house, probably searching them in their house too, if the BBC vans are any guide.
And a man thinks, well, I've done nothing wrong.
So saw it off, as the Brits would say, sorry to swear.
I think that's a British swear.
He chose another swear, sounds like.
And the police arrested him for not showing his face.
But he did nothing wrong.
They admitted he did nothing wrong, but to say or act like he did nothing wrong was wrong.
So it's a catch-22.
If you submit to the warrantless search of your face to be matched against a government database of faces, if you submit to it, oh, you're fine.
Maybe.
They didn't say what the three people arrested were arrested for, did they?
So if you comply with their illegal, warrantless search of you, you're not in trouble.
But if you don't comply with their illegal search, then you're in trouble.
And they will search you anyways and fine you 90 pounds, more than 150 bucks.
And they'll touch you and push you and psychologically assault you.
No privacy anymore.
And the cherry on top was that cop at the end.
He's very sensitive to the community, you see.
It's for your own safety, you see.
And he really, he deeply cares about your human rights.
And that's why he has to violate your human rights to protect your human rights, you see.
It's like the gallows humor about My Lai in Vietnam.
To save the village, it became necessary to destroy the village.
Hey, I got a question for you.
What if it wasn't an indigenous Brit of middle age who seems to have an instinctive understanding about his ancient rights?
He doesn't sound like a lawyer to me.
He sounds very middle class, as they would say in the UK, normal guy, maybe even working class, but he knows he can walk on the streets without being molested by a police officer.
It's not like the stereotypical scene in movies made about Nazi Germany where any cop or any agent can call you over and command, I'll papir and beater.
Show me your papers, please.
Yeah, no, no, no, no.
That's what they all fought against in the Second World War.
Not in a free country like the UK.
The Magna Carta took care of that in 1215.
You should read it.
But hey, do you think that cop would pull over, let alone touch, let alone fine and prosecute?
Ooh, a Muslim woman wearing a face obscuring the cab?
Facial recognition don't work on that now, do it?
Are you kidding me?
We know the answer to that.
Of course not.
You'd be drummed out of the police if he tried.
Now, I am very sympathetic to laws against covering your face in certain times and places.
I'm against Burqas obscuring the face in court, for example.
I think you shouldn't go into a bank or a jewelry store with your face covered.
You could be a thief.
It's a disguise.
I think our customs and our politeness and our social cohesion depend on seeing each other in the eye.
It's the essence of trust.
We call someone shifty-eyed.
We say someone can't hold our gaze.
We say someone is dishonest merely by how their eyes move, where their eyes move.
It's an amazing thing.
We don't even think about it.
It's second nature, rolling your eyes.
I like seeing people's eyes.
But it's different when showing your eyes lets a policeman inspect you and log you and your movements in a database with who knows what else it's being matched against.
And it's a bit different, isn't it?
It's like if police could pick up your fingerprints from afar, electronically in some way with like some super high-res camera, but they actually can.
You bet we'd all wear gloves if we thought that could happen.
What are the police doing over there?
When I was in London last week, I saw a bunch of prosecutors try to put Tommy Robinson back in prison for contempt of court.
They admitted before the judge that Tommy did not actually disrupt a trial.
No one alleges that anymore.
One of the convicted rapists did, but that was rejected as nonsense by the high court.
So they're prosecuting Tommy again on July 4th for causing stress to several of the rapists on their way into court when they were convicted because Tommy heckled them gently as they went in on their judgment day.
Serial child rapists.
Tommy was mean to them, said the Attorney General.
So the police and the prosecutors are going after him yet again.
That's what they're doing in the UK.
There are 23,000 real jihadists on a watch list in the UK.
You know that.
And 3,000 of them are apparently being watched around the clock.
You know how many police officers it takes to watch one person around the clock?
It takes dozens.
Now, I'm not sure what it even does.
Why are you watching them?
What are you watching for?
Why are you not arresting them?
Prosecuting them, deporting them.
So you watch them, but you don't do anything?
I mean, not even pulling them over to give them a 90-pound fine and a talking to?
Last year, I met one of those jihadists, literally on the street.
He was stalking Tommy at his earlier trial.
He was just on the street.
I don't know.
We talked for about 20 minutes.
You can find that YouTube on a video on YouTube.
He didn't deny anything I put to him.
He was sort of obscure, I suppose.
That's the United Kingdom.
He's just on the street.
That's a jihadi.
But be a law-abiding Brit and the cops will come for you.
Here's a tweet by a police force in Regents Park.
This is a real police force.
They're so proud of themselves.
Let me read the tweet.
Yesterday we conducted weapons sweeps, dealt with a person injured from a van reversing on them, reported a burglary, and collected all these from a charity shop who diligently didn't want them to get into the wrong hands and disposed of correctly and safely.
So it was a weapons sweep.
So there's some kitchen knives.
And do you see there's a spoon there on the left-hand side about the middle?
There's a spoon there.
So the cops are collecting spoons now.
I could make a stupid pun about going after serial killers.
But I'm not feeling that laughy right now, I'll tell you.
So that's the state of policing in the United Kingdom.
But then I saw a video by our own Jessica S., who was with me covering Tommy Straw in London.
And she has stayed on to report from the election and covered Tommy's campaign.
Same reason we went to the trial, because we simply can't trust the media party to tell us what's going on.
So she was at a Tommy campaign event.
I gave her standing orders for her reporting.
I said, interview people who like Tommy and interview people who don't like Tommy and show us both.
It's called reporting.
So she tried to do that.
Jessica's Election Coverage00:06:58
And guess who stopped her?
Well, see for yourself.
Can you just go back past that cordon?
Sorry?
Can you just go back past the cordon of offices for me, please?
Can I talk to the protesters?
No, behind the colleagues, you can, yeah.
I can ask them a question.
From behind my colleagues, there you can.
Yeah, we're just keeping the groups separately to prevent any issues.
I wouldn't be able to catch the audio from somewhere away.
Right, well, that's what we're doing.
So if you can just go back behind my colleagues.
So I can't talk to the protesters.
It's not fair to antagonize people from H Science, so we're not letting them pass us.
I'm not letting you pass them.
That's just.
I'm not taking any sides.
I'm talking to everyone.
I'm not suggesting you are.
I'm just asking if you go past my colleagues.
Okay.
What was that?
Were the police calling Jessica a protester or implying that she was antagonizing people, that she was a troublemaker?
She wasn't protesting.
She wasn't antagonizing.
She was there to ask questions.
She had a camera.
She had a microphone with her affiliation clearly marked on it.
She would simply go up to people.
Why are you here?
Who are you?
What do you have to say?
Or is it that the police thought that the leftists would get violence in response?
I don't know.
Or was it that the police don't like the rebel and they know the rebel?
I don't even suspect that was the case.
Or were the police just being their capricious selves, as they more often are.
Just doing and saying what they please, because what are you going to do about it?
You want a 90-pound fine?
Come back here!
Show your face, or you'll get a 90-pound fine.
And it's much easier to push around a young woman than to handle a mob of leftists, ain't it?
By the way, I think those protesters would have spoken to her.
I mean, they came to the protests with signs.
That's an indication that they have something to say and they want the world to know.
The police officer was being a censor.
There was no probable cause.
Again, like the bloke on the street, there was no reasonable grounds.
The trouble with Jessica was afoot.
But look at this, look at this, look at this.
Tommy has a little truck.
This was from at the courthouse that day.
Tommy has a truck with a billboard on the back and a PA system.
It's not that big a truck.
It's sort of a retractable screen.
And he drives, as you can see, he parks it in a town center.
He hops on the flatbed of the truck and he gives a little speech.
It's not that big a truck.
It's the size of that sign there and a cab.
Yeah, you can see the length of it.
It's not like a bus length.
Now, it's how all the politicians campaign in the United Kingdom.
Here's a double-decker bus of Nigel Farage when he was with UKIP.
I can tell those are the purple UKIP colors.
Now he's the leader of the Brexit Party.
He's got another double-decker bus in Brexit Party colors.
It's what they do in the UK.
It's a small country, unlike Canada, so they don't have to jet around.
So Tommy rolls into a town with his little truck, much smaller than the double-decker bus you saw in Nigel Farage there.
Tommy is a registered legal candidate, paid his filing fee.
He is campaigning.
The election is next week, actually.
And the police, they just stop him.
They stopped that bloke on the street because he didn't want to have his eyeballs red or whatever.
They stopped Jessica on the street because she wanted to ask a question.
You can't do that in the UK.
Where do you think you are?
And they just stopped Tommy's vehicle.
It wasn't speeding.
It wasn't in any way improper or illegal.
They just decided to block the roads, just for him, though, just him.
And they deployed 32 police officers to do it.
There were no counter-protesters where Tommy was.
They just stopped him.
He was so revved up by all this, Tommy actually grabbed one of our microphones and interviewed the cops himself as a reporter.
I wasn't thrilled about that part.
But listen to what Tommy said to the cops.
We're just filming yourselves, guys.
I saw.
Why are you filming this?
Exactly the same reason you're filming us.
No, no, I'm filming you now.
So exactly the same as what you're filming us.
What's the reason?
So you're filming.
Why are you filming me for the prevention of crime?
You're filming me for the prevention of crime.
Can you explain?
You've got 38 officers in this small square.
There's a few more things on that list.
Do you not get any crime in Carlisle?
There's no crime.
Can you explain?
So why are 38 police officers here for me walking around talking to people?
Can we find out why they're not?
So I spoke to our chief inspector, okay, who is our silver commander, and he's told us that we have the power to prevent anyone parking in a restricted area, which that is, as we explained, Tommy, it's disabled only.
And that's what we're doing today.
And that's why the police officers were there.
That's for everybody.
That's for everybody, they said, yes.
What about the vans down there?
What about the other car?
What about the micro car there?
The only other thing I can say to you is when I question things like that, the chief inspector said that if you wanted to make a complaint, make one direct to him through the proper channels.
What police law is it that you're using to do that?
Do you know?
Regulations under the Road Traffic Act, yeah.
So how come you're not stopping any other cars coming in?
Any other cars?
I'm not down there at present, so I can't do it.
So your police officers are all around the whole town, the whole town centre.
They're positioned at every entrance and road into the town centre.
And everywhere we try to drive, they stand in the road.
They literally stand in the road and say, you're not allowed to drive down there.
What police law am I breaking if I drive down there?
As I've just said, regulation, the road traffic acts.
What happens then?
So if a car drives down there, what happens?
They'll get fine.
Fine.
So what police, what law where the police block the road?
Because it's not a police criminal offence, is it?
So we've got a duty to prevent things from happening.
But it's not a crime.
It's not a criminal offence.
It's not a recordable offence, correct?
But it's still an offence under the Road Traffic Act.
So it's enforceable by the police to stop a car parking on a W Yellow Line.
Yeah, that's right.
We can't, in good conscience, stand and watch something happen that shouldn't happen.
It went on for a bit.
So the cops admit the obvious.
He didn't do anything wrong.
But that last guy there, you know, something might happen, you see, and something might happen that has to be stopped.
So we're stopping something that might happen.
38 cops.
Yeah, you know, something might happen with those 23,000 jihadis, too.
But they're never stopped now, are they?
Something might happen with Tommy, though.
Better stop him.
He's a candidate in the election.
Better stop him, though.
China's Trade Toughness Reconsidered00:14:51
That's my time machine, folks.
That's what I like to say.
I go to the UK.
It's like my dystopian time machine.
I can see our future.
I like Tommy.
I'm a friend of his.
I have a connection to him in that he's a former employee.
We helped crowdfund his legal bills.
I agree with much, if not most, of what he has to say.
But even if none of that were true, even if I did not like him personally, and even if I disagreed with every word he said, I would still find it appalling that a free citizen of the United Kingdom running as a registered political candidate for an election to public office would be censored this way by police.
But how's that any different from scanning the face of any private citizen and finding them if they don't agree to be scanned that way?
How is it any different from seizing spoons but letting jihadis go?
That's the UK, my friends.
Visit the London Bridge while it's still standing.
Visit Buckingham Palace and Westminster while they're still up.
One day we'll wake up, I fear, and those places will be torched or demolished like Notre Dame in Paris was on fire.
I wonder what caused that.
We still don't really know, do we?
It was destroyed in some way.
But really, who cares about bricks and stones?
It's the British history and culture and law that's already being destroyed.
Surely the stones will be the last to go long after the laws and customs are gone.
Stay with us for more.
We're having probably the greatest economy that we've had anywhere, anytime in the history of our country.
We're having a little squabble with China because we've been treated very unfairly for many, many decades for actually a long time.
And it should have been handled a long time ago, and it wasn't, and we'll handle it now.
I think it's going to be, I think it's going to turn out extremely well.
We're in a very strong position.
We are the piggy bank that everybody likes to take advantage of or take from, and we can't let that happen anymore.
We've been losing for many years anywhere from $300 billion to $500 billion a year with China and trade with China.
We can't let that happen.
There you have it, President Donald Trump talking tough about his trade negotiations with China.
I don't know if you recall us playing that mashup clip of Trump saying China, China, China, in the campaign.
It's fair to say Trump has been, I'm not going to say obsessed with China, but let me say seized with the matter of China for decades and before it with Japan and other countries that he said have had unfair, one-sided access to U.S. markets.
Now, of course, libertarian purists would say, oh, there's no such thing as a bad trade deal.
Any trade is better than no trade.
And some actually say we should unilaterally declare free trade with the world and our consumers would benefit.
But Donald Trump's point of view is that hollows out U.S. industry.
And he's fighting back.
Well, how is it going?
How is it working?
Is it a proper conservative or Republican point of view?
Joining us now to help answer those questions is our friend Joel Pollack, senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com.
Joel, great to see you again.
Good to be with you.
Joel, I grew up, as some conservatives of my generation did, being a libertarian purist, sort of a Koch brothers, Milton Friedman-style believer in open markets and let people in good cross borders.
But that just never really worked with China.
They never really let our stuff in, either from Canada or the United States, on terms that were meaningful.
They stole intellectual property.
They never really let us have proper access to their market.
But boy, they had access to ours.
Right, exactly.
Well, what's really been interesting here this week is to watch many left-wing critics of Trump suddenly come around and support his China policy.
I think what really seems to have brought people together is the realization that China may not be as tough as people thought it was.
The Chinese economy is not in the greatest shape, and it turns out they're more dependent on the U.S. economy than the U.S. economy is dependent on them.
And so the tariffs that we've already had have not stopped our economy, but have hurt China.
So raising those tariffs, as President Trump did last week, has accelerated the trade war, but has not really hurt the U.S. economy.
Very mild damage in the stock market.
So pundits on the left and the right and politicians too are lining up behind the president, which is not true of any other issue.
People have the sense that he can win this and that he needs to win it.
So that's been very interesting.
Of all the manifestations of Trump's braggadocio, I mean, that style, that Manhattan property developer style, that chutzpah, whatever you want to call it, braggadocio seems to be the word.
It rubs some people the wrong way in many occasions, even though it's just an aesthetic thing.
But in terms of foreign trade negotiations, that might be the place where it's a best fit if Trump cannot blink.
I mean, I watched in horror as my own country of Canada, Joel, was devoured by Trump.
I don't think it's because he has an enmity towards Canada.
I think we just had a Trump-deranged prime minister who really was looking to pick a fight.
But I think Trump can be a brutal negotiator on things that it really matters, whether it's getting NATO countries to spend more on their defense.
or getting trade deals that really open up foreign markets.
I think he's a winner.
Let me tell you this.
He's made a fair trade supporter out of me, and I used to be a libertarian free trader.
I've been convinced by Trump.
Well, I still believe in free trade, and I'm opposed to tariffs.
I think what has saved us in this round are a couple of things.
One, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates over the last year.
They've stopped doing that now, but they raised rates and that kept inflation low.
Number two, the Chinese economy just happens to be not very strong, and the other economic policies of the Trump administration have been very good.
So you can have tariffs if you're also at the same time drastically lowering the cost of doing business in the United States, which we are.
So that has helped companies move back to the U.S. and produce here, meaning that the prices of goods haven't necessarily changed.
They're finding it cheaper to produce here.
So there's been some things that Trump has done very well and that his administration, if you want to include the Federal Reserve in that, have also done well.
And we've also been lucky.
It's not to say that prices won't go up or there won't be economic damage from the much higher tariffs now, but we'll have to see.
What is interesting is that China's response has been largely ineffectual.
And we're making it clear not just that we can compete with China on price, but also that there is a risk to doing business in China that is greater than people have perceived it to be.
So they'd rather do business in the United States than in China.
And I think the Chinese are starting to realize that if they want to hold on to some of these multinational companies that have set up shop there, they're going to have to play ball.
Yeah, I mean, when Apple announced it was going to repatriate its foreign cash and some of its high-tech factories, I think that was a shock.
The idea of companies like that reshoring to America was thought impossible.
You know what?
I mean, you're right.
I don't think tariffs themselves are the goal.
I think they're the stick to beat the other guy until the goal is achieved, which is, you know, open access and no more dumping in America.
I actually think that Trump doesn't want the tariffs.
He's boasting about them to try and rub them in.
I think he would actually want China to do a deal that is more of a level playing field.
Would you agree with me that that's his actual ⁇ he's a bully to get to what he wants, which is trade peace.
He would rather have ⁇ I mean, he said something, sorry I'm going on, but he said, we've been in a trade war for decades.
We just never fought back.
He's sort of implied that this is how you end the trade war by finally shooting back.
Would you agree with that?
Yes, well, that's been the pattern throughout his career.
And there may be a New York style to that where he's been very confrontational and aggressive.
But in dealmaking, he's very gentlemanly and he delivers on his promises.
So he's not just a bully, but he can use very harsh tactics.
And I think he's doing that with China.
Look, he's doing it with Iran as well.
I mean, he's got sanctions in place.
He's got the military moving there.
And all of a sudden, the Iranians said, we don't think there's going to be a war.
And Trump is saying, we can be great friends if you agree to do X, Y, and Z. X, Y, and Z, of course, are things Iran probably doesn't want to do, but at least the regime doesn't want to do.
But he is always showing that other side.
When he's doing something harsh, he often shows at the same time that he can be very gentle.
Likewise with North Korea, he threatened fire and fury, but then also said, maybe we can be friends someday about Kim Jong-un.
So this is the Trump style, and I think that China is starting to understand that.
Yeah, you know, and I think you and I have talked before about that key moment in Ronald Reagan's first term when the air traffic controllers threatened to go on an illegal strike.
It was a real who-will-blink first moment.
Trump fired them all.
It was an illegal strike, fired them all, put in the military.
And that wasn't just a signal domestically.
That's when the Soviets knew they had a different kettle of fish in the White House as opposed to Jimmy Carter.
I think that whether it's his extremely harsh sanctions on Russia, which are far tougher than anything Obama did, his tough approach to China, tough approach to, is carrot and stick with North Korea.
And he really hasn't given North Korea that much yet.
And you're right, with Iran and Venezuela, I think the guy's building up a track record where whatever people say about him, they at least know that his threats are probably going to come true.
And his promises, well, they could come true too.
I mean, just today, Trump lifted tariffs on Canadian and Mexican steel.
I think that was sort of a sign that he, you know, he's not looking to fight for fighting's sake.
Right.
And also he's showing China that he can play ball.
If they want to come to an agreement, the Chinese will have some benefits from that.
Right now, the only obstacle to that U.S.-MCA agreement is Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, who are reluctant to give Trump a win, and so they're insisting on new wage provisions in the agreement.
Something that's very unlikely to happen.
But who knows, maybe I can convince Canada through you.
No, I'm just kidding.
Basically, the Democrats don't want to give him a win.
But on China, interestingly, they are lining up behind him.
Trump has been incredibly effective in these negotiations.
And even Tom Friedman of the New York Times, who's a Trump opponent, said that it's possible that only Trump could do what is necessary to correct our trade imbalance with China.
Isn't that interesting?
You know, can you expand on that?
I mean, the New York Times despises Trump, and the particular New York Times columnist you mentioned, I mean, it looks down on Trump intellectually, aesthetically, socially, in every way.
So expand on that.
I haven't read the column this or the column in question.
Is it because Trump can be so tough and no one else who would have been president would have been that tough?
Or is it because Trump is not?
He said it on television here.
He said he doesn't think that Trump is the president America deserves, but he is the president China deserves.
He's the American president China deserves in the sense that we don't like the way he governs.
This is Tom Friedman.
He's harsh, he's a bully, et cetera, et cetera.
But we definitely want China to feel the impact of that behavior.
We want a tough guy to stand up for us against China.
So it was very interesting, especially because Friedman's a big admirer of China.
Yeah, isn't that the truth?
Well, you know what?
I remember during the 2016 election campaign, I thought that, I mean, look, I'm a Canadian, I'm an outsider, so I don't really know things in a deep or personal way.
But there was one TV ad I saw by the Steelworkers Union that was, I thought it was devastating.
And it claimed that Trump was all talk on China and he used foreign steel for his own buildings because it was cheap and it was Trump's soft-handed boss.
And they interviewed this really big steel worker from Indiana.
And I thought, oh my God, this video is not only incredibly persuasive.
but it speaks to those blue-collar white Rust Belt voters that the steel workers knew were the key.
Hillary Clinton didn't care about them.
She found them de-classé.
And I don't think that steelworkers ad got a lot of play.
I think it was just really to please their base.
I reached out to the steelworker in question in that ad, and I've had a very slow-motion Facebook conversation with him.
And I used to say, well, are you impressed with Trump yet?
And he was skeptical and skeptical and skeptical.
And he's come around.
I should probably do a show on that, Joel.
The actual steelworker in the United Steelworkers ad from Indiana, who I found a terrifying voice against Trump, he's come around, and he's a boss.
Steelworker Turnaround00:04:17
He's not like a grassroots guy.
He's a union boss.
Do you think that's a wide ⁇ I mean, that's a one-person data point. That's barely an anecdote. Well, it is anecdotal, but we are seeing similar things elsewhere. The Associated Press, also no fan of Trump or no friend to Trump,
I should say, they did a similar piece recently where they went to Wisconsin and basically explained why Wisconsin is still very much a state Trump can win again in 2020 because he has done so much for the economy that people there simply say,
well, are we better off than we were three years ago? And the answer is yes. As the article put it, the kids are moving out of their parents' basements. And so it's hard to argue with that. I think that Trump will start to see more and more of that kind of reaction as long as things keep going the way they do. Now,
he has got some problems on particular issues where Democrats are strong, like healthcare. He also has not solved the country's immigration problem, although he made a nice speech about it yesterday. So he's got to do as much as he can to convince the voters that he's moving forward, that there's some progress on these issues. And that's going to be key to his reelection. One last question for you. And I appreciate your time. You know, when things are really rough,
people vote for change. But sometimes when things are really good, people vote for change too, because they say, you know, things are so good, I feel comfortable to take a risk. I mean, I think you could say that after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Americans thought, well, we're in the post-historical era, perpetual peace. Yeah, let's elect Bill Clinton, and it doesn't matter because things are so good. Do you think there's a risk that America could be made great again? And people would say, yeah, okay,
Donald Trump did his part, and now let's choose someone that we find emotionally more connecting to us, that makes us feel better than Trump. And that America, when things are great, like you say in Wisconsin, kids moving out of their parents' house, they say, okay, because of that, we're comfortable to take an electoral risk. Is that a possibility, or is that really not how it works in America? There is that possibility,
and it's hard to say. Although usually when people have gone in the other direction like that, it's been because things are going poorly economically. People don't usually switch. As you say, yes, the end of the Clinton era, people switched to Bush. But then, of course, there was the recession of 2000. Things tend to shift when the economy shifts, not when it's stable. It is possible people could decide, thank you very much,
Donald Trump. You did your job. Now we feel confident enough to elect someone else. I just don't see who that is yet. And there's a growing feeling that the Democrats haven't really found their candidate yet. Joe Biden is leading the field really by a long way. I mean,
the latest Fox News poll has him up by twice what Bernie Sanders has, 35 to 17. But he doesn't seem to have captured the imagination of the Democratic electorate. So we'll see. I think the Democrats will have to find someone else to do the extra stuff that they would like done. I'm not sure if it's Biden. All right. Well,
very interesting days. And I thank you for your perception, your perceptive comments on China. I think you're right. I think everyone thought China was a tougher nut to crack, or maybe they just thought that no president was up to it. But I think they have found their match. And I think not only will it yield economic results for America,
but it will yield political and geostrategic results too. I'm delighted by it. And it's one of the things that probably doesn't matter to your average person in Wisconsin, but I think it matters to the state of the world, including us up here. Great to see you again,
Joel. Thanks for your time. You too. All right, there you have it. Joel Pollock, the senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com. Stay with us. We're ahead of the Rebel World. Hey,
Censorship Concerns Abroad00:01:08
thanks for watching the show today. What do you think about my stories from the United Kingdom? I know some people really like it, and I hope I'm not boring others who don't care about the UK, don't care about Tommy, or maybe don't even care for Tommy. But I tell you, every time I go over there,
I see abusive conduct that I know would not have been acceptable in the UK a generation ago, let alone under Churchill or a great British leader in the past. And it makes me deeply worried because I see the seeds of those ideas being planted in Canada. In fact,
I see our own government cooperating with the UK government on censorship matters. In fact, they're having a joint conference on censorship this summer. I'm going to see if I can go to that. I get the feeling I will be censored from attending that censorship conference. It's being co-sponsored by Candace Christy Freeland and her counterpart in the UK. I'm very worried about what I see there,
and that's why I tell you about it. I'm interested in Tommy. I think he's an interesting character. I share most of his views, but what really scares me about him, and every time I go to the UK, it's a very brief trip, but I come back and that whole seven and a half hour plane ride home, I'm just thinking,