Justin Trudeau’s 24-hour media blitz—$660M journalism fund for allies while threatening platforms like Facebook with financial penalties for "hate speech" he dislikes—mirrors past censorship, from pressuring Cheryl Sandberg to silence Mark Norman’s SNC-Lavalin revelations. His 31% approval, plummeting Liberal support, and voter demands for reduced immigration (49%) clash with his policies, yet polls show skepticism toward his divisive rhetoric, including labeling critics as "neo-Nazis." Meanwhile, Project Veritas’s James O’Keefe wins a defamation case against Democratic operative Shirley Teeter, exposing frivolous lawsuits targeting investigative journalism. The episode warns Trudeau’s tactics—bribing compliant media while crushing dissent—will dominate Canada’s election, while his refusal to prosecute returning ISIS terrorists despite global precedents raises concerns about accountability and legacy. [Automatically generated summary]
Justin Trudeau's Carrot and Stick Approach00:15:23
Hello Rebels.
I have a conversation today.
That's a monologue, I guess you could call it, about Justin Trudeau's carrot and stick approach to the media.
The carrot is the $600 million payout to journalists he likes.
And the stick, will we talk a bit about that?
Because I know you haven't seen that in other media.
Before I get to it, it's a long one today.
I hope you like it.
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All right.
Here's today's podcast.
You're listening to a Rebel Media Podcast.
Tonight, in the course of 24 hours, Justin Trudeau threatens news media that he hates and bribes news media that he likes.
Oh, and he's coming to kill the rebel.
It's May 23rd, 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'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Look at what Justin Trudeau posted on Twitter two days ago.
He wrote, social media platforms must be held accountable for the hate speech and disinformation we see online.
And if they don't step up, there will be consequences.
We launched Canada's new digital charter today to guide our decisions.
Learn more about it here.
And there was a video that was attached to the tweet.
Here's what it looked like.
The platforms are failing their users.
And they're failing our citizens.
They have to step up in a major way to counter disinformation.
And if they don't, we will hold them to account and there will be meaningful financial consequences.
Hate.
Well, that's a human emotion.
Trudeau hates plenty of things.
He sure hates Jody Wilson-Raybold.
Oh, my God, does he hate Mark Norman?
He tried to throw him in prison.
Justin Trudeau hates criticism.
He's so thin-skinned.
But when he says hate speech, he really means speech that he hates, people that he hates.
He wants to get rid of the things that he hates.
And he doesn't like disinformation, I guess.
And we know what that means.
Like when the Globe and Mail broke the huge story about Jody Wilson-Raybold and SNC Lavland, Trudeau said that was disinformation.
The allegations in the Globe story this morning are false.
Neither the current nor the previous Attorney General was ever directed by me or by anyone in my office.
So his news about punishing disinformation and things that he hates, that's what Trudeau said two days ago.
I'll get into that digital charter in a moment.
So that's the stick.
That's the censorship.
That's the punishment of journalists he doesn't like.
That's the threat.
But there's a carrot too, a reward.
And that came yesterday.
Federal government names organizations that will help spend $660 million journalism fund, said the state broadcaster, the CBC.
Now, just last November, that number was $595 million.
They haven't even started spending this money yet and it's already ballooned to $660 million.
That's Trudeau for you, isn't it?
It's pretty clear.
Do what Trudeau says and you'll get free money.
Embarrass Trudeau.
Do something he hates.
Say something he disagrees with and that he'll call false and you'll be punished financially.
He was very clear on that, wasn't he?
That's our story for today, but it's really going to be the story for every day for the next five months until the election.
Justin Trudeau is down in the polls by about a dozen points.
The latest poll showed his personal popularity at 31%.
A poll just a day earlier put him at 28%.
That's barely half of Trump's popularity.
Trudeau's liberal candidate came in fourth in a by-election in the 90 BC with just 11% of the vote there.
There are new scandals every week, including the shocking story of how Trudeau tried to wrongfully convict this innocent man, Vice Admiral Mark Norman, because he blew the whistle on Trudeau's scheme to divert a shipbuilding contract to Trudeau's liberal buddies.
I went to the press conference of Vice Admiral Norman the day the charges were dropped against him, and I observed what I call the media party, all the big shots from all the big media on Parliament Hill.
Six months ago, they were all in love with Justin Trudeau.
They usually ignored his gaffes or downplayed them.
They were even willing to turn a blind eye to his sexual assault of Rose Knight, the reporter in Creston, B.C. Here's what he said.
Like I said, I do not feel that I acted inappropriately in any way, but I respect the fact that someone else might have experienced that differently.
Until six months ago or so, all the media party were still buying those lines, but I think it's broken apart now.
I think this cover story, Mike McLean's, says it all.
The media are disillusioned.
They feel like Trudeau tricked them.
They're calling him an imposter now.
So how can he win this fall?
On the carbon tax, by having old Yeller shout at us a bit?
So let's talk about climate change for a second.
Who believes it's real?
Who believes in science?
We got a report last year that said we have 12 years to take serious climate action.
We are all in this together.
We need to act.
Yeah, I'm not sure if that's going to do it.
Let me add one more fact.
Remember a week or so ago when I showed you a leaked survey of Liberal MPs from Ontario where those Liberal MPs ranked the issues they'd like to campaign on in the fall?
They really wanted to stop talking about global warming and the carbon tax.
They know how much Canadians hate old Yeller.
I'm sure they're feeling even more that way after watching the Australian Labour Party, which went all in on global warming and carbon taxes.
Well, they lost an election last week that all the pollsters promised they'd win.
But the one fact in that leaked Liberal memo that stood out to me was that the number one issue that voters spontaneously were bringing up to liberal MPs was that of immigration and refugees.
Unprompted is what I mean.
I truly don't think anyone unprompted says, I'm really worried about carbon dioxide in the air, and I think paying a carbon tax is, that's not a normal thing for humans to say, especially since we exhale carbon dioxide when we breathe.
That's just not an issue, but immigration is the number one issue.
What makes me laugh is that the CBC claimed they couldn't figure out if that meant Canadians were spontaneously walking up to Liberal MPs to compliment them on immigration or to criticize them.
Yeah, spoiler alert, it was to criticize last fall.
Only 6% of Canadians told Angus Reid that they wanted more immigration, as you can see.
That's the dark blue line.
The red blue line, the dark red line, is 49% want less immigration.
Well, Trudeau and angry Ahmed Hassan went ahead and raised immigration levels nonetheless.
So, yeah, I'm guessing it's not praise.
So, what are they doing?
How are the Liberals going to win?
Well, they're doing what they always do.
They demonize, they divide, they insult Mr. Sonny Waze.
He's long gone.
I mean, he's still trying it sometimes, but only on foreign audiences.
This is Trudeau at some United Nations thing.
That's his base now.
Foreign bureaucrats and diplomats and low-information journalists who are still wowed by how woke he is because they haven't been disillusioned yet, like the Canadian media party.
Just watch this clip again.
I think I showed it the other day.
This kind of bluster worked in Canada in 2015.
Not anymore.
He's got to take it on the road to foreign audiences to get applause for this.
I'm going to keep saying loud and clearly that I am a feminist until it is met with a shrug.
Why does every time I say I'm a feminist, you know, the Twitterverse explodes and news medias pick it up?
It shouldn't be something that creates a reaction.
It simply is saying, I believe in the equality of men and women, and I believe that we still have an awful lot of work to do to get there.
That's like saying the sky is blue and the grass is green.
Yeah, I don't think those oily lies work anymore in Canada.
So they've changed tack.
The Liberals are now claiming that the Conservatives will ban abortion in Canada if they're elected.
Now, Stephen Harper didn't even allow a real debate on abortion during his nine years as prime minister, let alone a vote.
So yeah, not sure if that fear-mongering is going to work, but it'll work on some.
They're going full tilt on calling their opponents neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
The media party actually really likes that one.
Well, I absolutely do think that white supremacists, white supremacist movements are a very real, a very grave threat to Western liberal democracy.
I think they are a grave and real threat here in Canada, and they are a grave threat in many other countries around the world.
And now let me bring this all around to the news of the day.
You've got a Liberal Party that's so low in the polls, it's coming in fourth in by-elections.
When the economy is still positive enough, when the Liberal government is still in its first term, they're coming in fourth.
It's not supposed to work that way.
The media party is now actually, maybe grudgingly, reporting on things they would have ignored just six months ago.
Aboriginal protesters, for example, they're no longer ignored by the media.
Remember this?
I sit here, I honor my ancestors, my children, by protecting my lands and waters.
Thank you.
You threaten our lands and waters.
You're talking about the people.
I have dirty bring that to our waters.
Some fellow leaders of all.
You have no right to do that to us.
I have heard from some of your fellow indigenous leaders.
I've heard from some of your fellow Indigenous leaders who are in favor of resource development, who want to be part of the people.
Why don't you sit down with my people?
Why don't you talk to them?
You talk to everybody that wants to sign up on this?
No, I think it's not.
They have no resources.
They can't hunt no more than they can.
Will, I've heard you.
I hear you today.
I understand your view.
You've made your point.
Thank you, sir.
You're welcome to stay if you'd like.
If you're going to participate and let us continue.
If not, have a good day.
And please give everyone outside my best.
Their voices are really important as we approach this next election.
That was just yesterday, I think.
He's still got that sneering sound.
He'd say hi to your friends outside.
It's like his thanks for your donation comment.
He made at that Ritzy fundraiser about a month ago.
One last example.
This guy would have been pilloried by the media a few years ago.
Now it's presented at the very least neutrally.
Look at this heckler.
Do you know how long you've held up people picking up bags?
I've been waiting to line down the road for 30 minutes while you've been here soaking up the race.
Thank you.
You know?
Excuse me.
Excuse me.
You're not getting my boy.
This is a free country.
It's a free country, and I'm trying to speak to him, and he won't even acknowledge me.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
I'm sorry for your challenge.
It's not my challenge.
I'm a volunteer trying to help someone save their home.
Sir, sir, we've been filling sandbags as well.
Yeah.
And you know why you're here?
While you're here, nobody can pick up.
While you're here, no one can pick up sand.
I'm sorry.
Well, why don't you make yourself aware?
Yeah, I think the coverage of that clip was neutral at best for Trudeau, whereas a year ago they would have called him an angry white guy heckling our woke prime minister.
Things have changed.
So I think the Liberals are into a campaign of demonizing their opponents, name-calling.
But that's probably not really enough, is it?
I mean, it didn't win it for Rachel Notley in Alberta last month, didn't win it for Kathleen Wynne against Rob Ford.
So an authoritarian bully like Justin Trudeau, thin-skinned, vain, a narcissist, unused to criticism, used to being insulated from things his whole life, he's got a bit of an enemies list.
He's shown that.
He's shown that he hates people, for example.
I mean, he hates us.
He hates us here at the Rebel.
He and Ahmed Hassan, his immigration minister, have literally used the same word-for-word talking points about us here at the Rebel because we're not with the official narrative.
Remember this?
We've shown you this before.
It is disappointing to see the Conservatives and the member opposite engage in peddling rebel media conspiracy theories.
It is disappointing to see the Conservatives engage in peddling rebel media conspiracy theories.
It is disappointing to see the Conservatives engage in peddling rebel media conspiracy theories.
Now remember, that's the exact issue that the Liberal MPs in Ontario said was the number one thing the voters were asking them about, immigration.
And Ahmed Hassan and Justin Trudeau were furious that we were talking about as journalists.
Illegal immigration, people are fed up with illegal immigration, immigration that mocks our laws.
As you can see, these folks illegally crossing in from the United States, sure.
But legal immigration is upsetting people too.
That's what that Angus Reid poll showing 6% was about.
It said there's too many people even coming in legally.
So put it all together.
All right, put it all together.
You got panicky Justin Trudeau.
His sunny way's image is dashed.
His feminism talking points are laughed now.
His conceit that he's some great white giver who will heal problems with Canada's Aboriginal peoples, yeah, that's off.
They hate him.
So the plan seems to be buy off the media and shut off the media.
Buy off those who can be bought.
And given the perilous finances of Sony Legacy Media, that's most of them.
And shut off the rest of the media, especially social media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, the citizen media.
Bribes and punishments, carrots and sticks.
Bribes and Punishments00:15:13
I've been warning about Justin Trudeau's plans to censor the internet for years.
We've seen strands of it.
We've seen hints of it.
About 18 months ago, what I consider to be a shocking story was published in, of all places, the Toronto Star.
It was a threat from Justin Trudeau to the number two executive of Facebook, their chief operating officer, a billionaire named Cheryl Sandberg.
Trudeau threatened her if she didn't censor political content in Canada that he, Justin Trudeau, didn't like, in advance of his re-election, he was very specific about that.
He would force Facebook to do it through government regulations.
What was interesting about this was that the threat was obviously made face-to-face when Trudeau met with Sandberg, and it was obviously done in private.
But someone in Trudeau's office later felt the need to leak it to the Toronto Star, who dutifully published it.
I'm not sure why that threat was leaked.
Maybe the message wasn't getting through.
Maybe Sandberg ignored Justin Trudeau, as so many important people in the world ignore Trudeau or mock Trudeau.
Trudeau doesn't seem to do well with powerful women.
Maybe that's it.
I mean, he doesn't know how to handle powerful women who disagree with him, ask Jodie Wilson-Raybold or Jane Philpott.
It was odd, though, because Justin Trudeau already has his key man embedded in Facebook.
This guy, their head of policy in Canada, which means they're head of censorship.
His name is Kevin Chan.
Kevin Chan used to be a senior staffer in the Liberal Party of Canada.
So this is an inside job.
Trudeau could just outsource his censorship to Facebook.
He doesn't have to get his own hands dirty, at least not in public.
It looked like Facebook might have been pushing back a bit.
So he had to threaten them in the Toronto Star.
That's how I explained that story.
I think that story in the Star was probably the most important story of 2018, at least in regards to free speech, the internet, and the upcoming election.
But I have not seen this story referred to anywhere else.
I give the star credit for running it, though I think they were running it as a favor to Trudeau to pass on a threat to Facebook.
But I saw no reply to the story from Reporters Without Borders or the Canadian Civil Liberties Association or the Canadian Association of Journalists or Penn Canada, all these free speech groups, nothing.
Because they're not really civil libertarians anymore.
They're not really for free speech anymore.
They're for free speech, but.
You know what I mean?
Free speech, but.
Here, I'll let Salman Rushdie explain the difference.
I've got so sick of the Goddamn Butt Brigade.
And now the moment somebody says, yes, I believe in free speech, but I stop listening.
You know, I believe in free speech, but people should behave themselves.
I believe in free speech, but we shouldn't upset anybody.
I believe in free speech, but let's not go too far.
The point about it is the moment you limit free speech, it's not free speech.
The point about it is that it's free.
Yeah, he's exactly right.
So why wouldn't Trudeau move against his enemies?
That Toronto Star article was like a tribaloon, you could say, and it elicited precisely no reaction other than maybe from us here at the Rebel.
So let's look at what's coming now.
I showed you a glimpse of this last week when Trudeau flew to Paris to meet with New Zealand's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who is clearly in some sort of post-traumatic stress from the mass shooting on the mosque in Christchurch.
And fair enough, but she's been traumatized and she's just banning everything.
She's lashing out.
I think she's gotten a bit mad banning guns, banning free speech, banning things on the internet.
I don't know if it's just the psychological stress of what happened or if it was a long-standing desire on her part, but she is literally doing what the terrorist himself said he hoped would happen, provoke a massive change in public policy through his violence.
That's not good now, in a sense, other than the five million souls who live in New Zealand.
It's a great little country.
They're our friends and our allies, but it's smaller in population than Toronto, and it's so far away.
But it's our problem in that her overreaction, her censorship, is being exported around the world with the cooperation of tech companies themselves who co-sponsored this censorship mission by her.
That's the creepy part.
They're all in on it.
So Trudeau was all aboard that censorship.
And this week he brought in his own censorship.
That's that digital charter I mentioned at the beginning of the show.
I know what the charter is, the charter of rights and freedom.
That's what Trudeau's dad, Pierre Trudeau, introduced a generation ago.
Can I read section two of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for you?
I bet you a dollar that Justin Trudeau couldn't tell you what section two of the Charter of Rights and Freedom says.
Let me read it for you.
Fundamental freedom.
Two.
Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms.
Freedom of conscience and religion.
Freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom in the press and other media of communication.
Freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association.
There are other freedoms in the charter, but these ones are so important, they're called fundamental freedoms.
They have their own section first.
They're what the other freedoms sort of depend on.
Freedom of thought, belief, opinion, expression, the press, the media.
That's real constitutional talk.
That's a charter.
That's a charter.
Justin Trudeau stole the word charter for his digital charter, but as in so many other ways, he's just a cheap copy of his dad.
It's a joke, really.
He's undermining freedom.
Here's the digital charter page that he mentioned in that tweet.
Now, just scroll down here.
So much of this is buzzwords and gobbly gook from clueless politicians and bureaucrats and lobbyists and scammers who have no idea what they're doing.
But they love to make it.
Look at this chart, for example.
I don't know if you can see that in gray there.
Current waves, future waves, new ecosystems.
Who talks like that?
Trudeau the fool trying to sound smart.
That's who.
We have to realize that the way of thinking that got us to this place no longer holds.
We have to rethink elements as basic as space and time to go all science fiction-y on you in this sense.
Whenever I watch that clip, I come out five IQ points dumber.
Let me show you some more of this digital chart.
I mean, come on, look at this.
Do you see that there?
Super cluster initiative.
Do you see that there in black?
Look at this.
Digital engagement lead.
Hey, guys, here's your digital engagement leaders for your digital charter.
Sorry, that's not a thing.
That's just not a thing.
That's a fake way to milk a stupid government with huge consulting contracts.
Hey, we're digital engagement specialists.
And look at the bizarre identity politics here.
What women said, what young people said, what immigrants said, what gay black people in wheelchairs said.
What a bizarre way of thinking, putting Canadians into boxes as if all women or all Aboriginal people think the same way.
What a moron we have as a prime minister.
And look at this bizarre graphic.
This is in the digital charter.
It looks like some weird cult thing drawn by someone on drugs, which it probably was.
Just 20 pounds of stupid stuffed into a 10-pound bag.
Look at that.
Are those doodles?
Is that a doodle?
Justin Trudeau, did you doodle that?
Mr. Prime Minister, you're asking us to take your doodle and call it a digital charter.
I wonder if the whole thing is just like a giant practical joke.
I think this might be like what it is inside Trudeau's mind, along with lots and lots of pot smoke.
It's all baffle gab like this.
Makes no sense, but it gets government money.
But if you scroll all the way down this document, buried under tons of manure, you get to the hidden point of it.
Do you see this?
It says principles.
And you see down near the bottom, number eight, strong democracy.
Number nine, free from hate and violent extremism.
Number ten, strong enforcement and real accountability.
These are not clickable, even though it's on a website.
You can't click on them, because it's—I read through this whole pile of junk for you, and I think I found the needle in the haystack.
It's really just an excerpt from that New Zealand censorship plan.
Look at this.
I'm going to read the whole passage because it's just very small in this mountain of manure.
Governments and major online service providers have made voluntary collective commitments to prevent people from abusing the internet for violent extremist and terrorist purposes.
These commitments include increasing transparency and accountability in expressing community standards, terms of service, and content moderation on the part of online service providers, building more inclusive, resilient communities to counter violent radicalization, enforcing laws that stop the production and dissemination of terrorist and extremist content online, and encouraging media to apply ethical rules when reporting on terrorist events to avoid amplifying violent extremist and terrorist content.
Okay, so let's just go through that a little bit, okay?
Major online service providers have made voluntary collective commitments.
So it's past tense.
They have made those commitments.
So it's done.
Did you know that?
Did you know that that's already done?
Did that happen at that New Zealand Cult meeting?
I think it did because there was no public debate.
What exactly are those commitments?
Can we get a copy of those commitments?
Journalists weren't allowed into those meetings.
What was said?
When a government meets with a business and the business leaves by making some sort of voluntary promise, it's not voluntary.
It's either based on some sort of threat, like the threat Trudeau made to Facebook last year, or some sort of stick or a carrot, some promise, some contract or something.
What were these promises?
What were these threats?
What were these commitments?
It says to prevent people from abusing the internet.
So something new that these companies weren't doing before.
They were weeding out terrorism before, or they were trying to.
So what's new now?
They're just going to try harder now?
Or more likely, they're going to expand the definition of what they call terrorism and extremism and make it apply to Trudeau's personal enemies list, like Trudeau told Cheryl Sandberg 18 months ago.
Which of these do you think it means?
And why don't we know?
We're given an outline, new community standards.
Is that the new rules that caused, say, Paul Joseph Watson, a very popular mainstream conservative commentator, to be banned from Facebook?
Paul Joseph Watson is about as violent as a little lamb.
So what was the new rule that had him banned?
Was it Justin Trudeau who called for him to be banned?
Was it his own Prime Minister, Theresa May, over there in the UK?
Who in this secret meeting asked for what?
Content moderation.
Does that mean silencing voices that criticize Trudeau?
Why would the government have a hand in that?
What's that got to do with terrorism?
In fact, isn't the point of media to hold governments to account?
Why does the government hold media to account?
And why were the media companies compelled to go along with it?
And ethical rules for reporting.
Whose ethics?
Justin Trudeau's?
He said that the report about his corruption at SNC Laveland and Jody Wilson-Raybold, he said it was untrue.
He said that was unethical reporting.
Turns out he was the unethical liar.
Would his new rules have shut down that report about him?
The secrecy here, the secret meetings, the secret deals.
That's pretty much the opposite of what the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees.
Where are my rights?
That's what a charter is.
My rights is against the state.
Where are my digital rights in this digital charter?
All I see is a bunch of baffle gab from consultants, a bunch of weird doodles, and then the censorship hammer buried in the manure.
Oh, well, hi-ho.
I didn't see any stories about that, did you?
Not in the mainstream media.
Tell me if I missed one.
And not actually from the conservative opposition.
Did you see Andrew Scheer or his critics take aim at it all?
They didn't.
I wonder if they would like to have these powers too.
Most governments do.
Now, in terms of the media, maybe the silence of the lambs has to do with the second part of my story, the big payoff.
Who's watching the watchmen is an old saying?
Well, when the watchmen pocket a $660 million bribe from the people they're supposed to be watching, maybe it turns out no one's watching them.
Let me read to you my least favorite part about all this.
I mean, if you take money from Justin Trudeau, you are owned by Justin Trudeau, or at least rented by him.
That's pretty much a law of nature.
Look at the CBC state broadcaster if you need proof.
This is the de facto nationalization of the rest of the Canadian media, or at least those willing to rent themselves out by the hour.
The federal government, I'm quoting from the state broadcaster, the federal government has named the eight Canadian organizations that will sit on a special advisory panel tasked with recommending news operations for participation in a $600 million media support fund.
Is it $660 million, as the headline said, or $600 million, as this?
Who knows?
But let me read the friends of Justin Trudeau who will purse out this $600 million.
Let me quote.
The eight associations that have been asked to select a representative to sit on the independent panel by the middle of June are News Media Canada, the Association de la Presse Francophone, the Quebec Community Newspaper Association, the National Ethic Press and Media Council of Canada, and the Canadian Association of Journalists, the Fédération Professionnel des Journalistes de Québec, Unifor, and the Fédération Nationale des Communications.
Sorry for my awful French.
So they're all lobbyists, really.
News Media Canada, Newspaper Association, they're all lobbyists.
They'll divide up the pie.
Huge disproportion from Quebec.
I mean, of course.
I mean, Quebecers are better.
Quebecers are better than the rest of Canada because, you know, we're Quebecers.
But seriously, what did you think a corrupt liberal from Quebec would do?
But look at that one, that one I mentioned, Unifor.
Unifor's Dirty Tricks00:03:55
Unifor run by this guy, Jerry Diaz.
Unifor.
The union that publicly declared it was going to war against Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives, and they were going to be their worst nightmare.
Unifor, that's taking huge amounts of their own members' union dues and using it to campaign against the Conservatives, just like they did in 2015.
So in case you had any doubt, yeah, no, this is a liberal media campaign fund.
Justin's Journos, let's call it.
So let's recap.
$600 million, or is it $660, for Trudeau's friends, but he won't choose them, people.
No, This is independent.
The CBC just said so.
It's just Trudeau's close partisan ally, Jerry Diaz, the Unifor boss.
He'll choose who gets some money.
Champagne for my real friends.
Real pain from my sham friends.
That's his motto.
Censorship through voluntary private agreements with internet companies like Twitter and Facebook and YouTube.
It was voluntary, people.
We just couldn't show you how the deal was made.
What's in those agreements?
Don't you worry your pretty little head.
I mean, you can trust Justin Trudeau, right?
Stay with us for more.
And he stopped in his tracks and he turned around and just cold cocked me.
She was one of our activists.
She was one of your activists.
Who had been trained up to bird dogs.
Yes.
So the term bird dogging, you put people in the line at the front, which means they have to get there at 6 o'clock in the morning.
They're getting the front of the rally so that when Trump comes down the rope line, they're the ones asking him the question in front of the reporters because they're pre-placed there.
To funnel that kind of operation, you have to start back with people two weeks ahead of time and train them how to that's a clip from a Project Veritas video that blew the lid off Democrat dirty tricks in the 2016 presidential election.
That lady, Shirley Teeter, who looked like a lovable, kindly grandma with an oxygen mask, the last person you would ever think of being a political trickster.
Well, you heard the Democratic operative saying, yes, she's one of ours.
And he described what's called bird dogging, having her place there so that when Trump comes out, she's at the front of the line to ask him questions or even to provoke some sort of a quarrel.
Well, this was a devastatingly effective video by Project Veritas, one of several in the 2016 election campaign.
President Trump himself said that these undercover sting videos by Project Veritas helped win the election.
Well, not surprisingly, the Democrats who were exposed in this video sued Project Veritas, including in this case, Shirley Teeter herself sued Project Veritas for defamation.
And I'm delighted to report, and we have him here right now, our friend James O'Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, won in a blowout court victory.
James, great to see you again, and welcome back to The Rebel.
Thank you very much for having me, Ezra.
It's been quite a week.
Well, thank you for making the time.
You've had a chance to celebrate, and I'm sure you've been doing a lot of media interviews.
Can you give our viewers any more background?
We showed that short clip, and I did my best to explain bird-dogging.
Tell us a little bit more about the dirty tricks you exposed, and then tell us about the lawfare against you.
The Cost of the First Amendment00:15:13
Well, Ezra, this was an I don't even know where to begin, the feelings of justice when you are vindicated by a sitting federal judge.
And the transcript of this, this is a jury trial, a defamation jury trial.
First of all, most issues don't make it to trial.
So it's pretty extraordinary when a defamation case gets to the jury.
But in this case, Ezra, what happened was this woman that you just saw, that Scott Foval, which is a Democratic operative who was disgraced and terminated.
Scott Foval referenced this woman without mentioning her by name, but he was clearly referring to her in the raw tape.
You can see all the surrounding facts.
An old woman from North Carolina who had COPD.
There's only one such person who was beat up at this Trump rally.
And Scott Foval took credit for what she did.
And some of the actions that Teeter took at this rally in court, she contradicted herself about whether she touched this guy first, chased after him, so forth and so on.
There were some contradictions.
So we reported what Scott Fogel said accurately.
That's our duty as journalists.
It's newsworthy when Mr. Foval makes these comments taking credit for what Ms. Teeter did.
Teeter sues us for defamation.
It gets to a jury trial in North Carolina.
And a federal judge rules yesterday.
He does what's called a directed verdict, meaning that before the jury could reach a verdict, the judge throws the entire case in a trash can and says there is zero evidence of defamation in this case.
Mr. O'Keefe, me, was reporting accurately what the woman said, and that's it.
I'm sorry, what Mr. Fogel said.
So it's been an extraordinary few days.
This case went to trial.
It was like something out of a movie.
It was like the person teeter, where they're trying to play up the sympathy card.
She had breathing tubes, and they were trying to play up the sympathy card, which had nothing to do with the issues and the facts.
So it really was standing on principles.
It was standing about the First Amendment and my right to inform the public.
And we won.
And we've won every lawsuit that we've litigated, which is rather historic.
So it's all I can say is it's a feeling of vindication and justice right now.
Well, let me read from the judge.
I have an excerpt here from his ruling.
And the judge is speaking of the plaintiff.
Any one of these points of the plaintiff's argument, if they are evidence at all of actual malice, would constitute really the thinnest of thin reads.
I got a question for you.
I know how expensive lawyers are in Canada, and I think in the United States they're even more expensive.
Litigation is even more overwhelming.
This senior citizen, this elderly lady, doesn't look to be a woman of great means.
How could she afford to take litigation, as you say, all the way to the doorstep of a trial before the judge said, we're not even going to hear this?
This is thrown out.
I don't know ordinary Americans who could sue with that kind of firepower based on their own cash.
Do you have any information about that?
I mean, that's got to be a couple hundred grand that she miraculously came up with to sue you for.
Yeah, I think that the costs of going to trial, I think it's about right.
It's in the realm of a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Let me say two things on that, Ezra.
First, people might be wondering, people need to know, most things don't make it to trial in this country.
People settle out of court.
I don't settle.
I did settle an Acorn lawsuit about 10 years ago, and I feel like I made a mistake.
I guess you learn from mistakes, but I decided I'm never going to settle a lawsuit again, even if it bankrupts me.
I'll go pro se.
I'll fight on principle.
In other words, I will stand on principle, period.
That makes me an unusual client.
Most people, most major corporations, including the New York Times, will settle lawsuits because it just doesn't make sense to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars when you can give someone 25,000 bucks and everyone's happy.
But I decided I'm not going to do that.
I'm going to stand on principle and appeal it all the way to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals because I did nothing wrong.
In fact, I am standing up for something that's greater than the First Amendment.
I'm standing up for the ability for citizens to be treated equally under the law.
If I report what someone tells me, I'm not going to apologize or write checks to people, settle lawsuits.
So your question was, the second point was, well, how can she afford it?
I don't have any evidence that someone's paying her bills.
Do you think something's afoot when there are half a dozen lawyers working for her, some of whom are from Ohio, Bernie Sanders-affiliated individual.
This one guy in the case was actually a Sanders surrogate.
Teeter testified that she was a supporter of Bernie Sanders.
So yes, it's very, very confusing on how there are so many lawyers.
I had two lawyers and one of them was blind.
It was like something out of a movie.
And we won.
So yes, there's some serious questions there, Ezra.
Yeah, I mean, if you say there were as many as six lawyers against you, that's what a multinational bank has in complex litigation.
I just, my BS detectors going ping, That was another political move.
Well, I got a question for you about the legal process.
In Canada, if you file a false lawsuit, if you lose, one of the better things about Canada's civil litigation system in every province is that the loser has to pay costs of the winner.
In the United States, does that apply?
So this Shirley Teeter, she puts you through the grinder.
I know that lawyers are a huge part of your budget to defend your journalism.
Was she ordered at all to pay any costs to you?
Not yet.
In the other litigation, the judge hasn't even issued his formal order.
He did rule and he dismissed the case.
And there's a transcript of his remarks, which, by the way, you must read.
This is the transcript of the Rule 50 proceeding, which is basically just throwing it out of court before it goes to the jury.
But he hasn't actually written the order yet.
That's a formal document which will come out.
And then maybe they'll try to appeal the decision.
But the judge said about that, if the appeals court overturns what I have decided, I can't imagine where we're going in the First Amendment in this country.
We have gotten fees back in a lot of the cases that we've litigated, not all of them, but some of them.
And people don't realize that when they sue me, they never imagined in their wildest imagination that they'd be paying me.
So that's one of the most extraordinary things about this, Ezra.
People, there are emails that are going to come out next week.
We do plan just teasing this.
We do have emails showing coordination of lawsuits against me.
It's pretty extraordinary.
It's like out of a John Grisham novel, except if you brought the screenplay to Hollywood, people would laugh at you because it's so outrageous and it's so unbelievable that people would say, this is not real.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
They coordinated lawsuits against me in order to bankrupt me.
And they said in these emails, we're going to try to find ways around his insurance company such that we can harm O'Keefe.
And listen, that might be something that I sue them for, but I don't want to get lost in litigation.
I want to focus on what I'm doing.
I want to stop people from suing me.
I think this is going to successfully stop future lawsuits because I don't think people want to pay money out of their pocket.
And that's exactly what What they're now being forced to do by bringing frivolous and malicious claims against me.
Yeah, well, if it's being bankrolled by someone like, I don't know, a George Soros or a Tom Steyer, you know, a few million dollars in costs, that's just a cost of doing business for those folks.
I don't want you to give away confidences, but I can tell you, and we post this on our financial disclosure at the Rebel.media/slash trust.
We spend, and I know this is peanuts compared to you, we spent about $350,000 on lawyers last year, almost all of them on defensive actions, whether it was someone like the election commissioner in Alberta roughing us up or whether it was civil actions against people who physically assaulted one of our reporters.
Litigation is our second largest cost after journalists.
We pay more for lawyers than we do for rent.
Like you, we want to be journalists, but we are so attacked all the time, we need lawyers as a bodyguard.
Is it the same for you?
Are you at liberty to tell us how much you're forced to spend to defend your First Amendment rights?
Well, I'm a very transparent person.
I don't have a problem with getting into that information.
I'm a nonprofit organization, and our financials disclosures are all public.
My salary is public.
My board of directors are public.
We spend about as much on legal as we do on payroll.
And we have a few dozen people, so it's in the millions of dollars.
It's in the millions of dollars.
And people might go, oh my God, that's so much money.
And I say, that is the cost of freedom.
That is the cost of the First Amendment.
That's what happens when you stand on principle.
Now, it's not going to always be that much.
We have not gotten sued in the last 18 months.
And that's partially because we're bulletproof.
And that's also because I haven't settled.
And people are seeing that.
Make no mistake, Ezra.
My adversaries, and I hate to call them that, but they consider the First Amendment to be an adversary, so they make that choice.
My adversaries are probably with their mouths open watching all this, thinking to themselves, I can't believe that we tried to hurt O'Keefe, but now we're giving him all these gifts because the statement by the Article III appointed federal judge, and you have to read this transcript.
I'll put it out in the next 24 hours, saying that it would be irresponsible for me to have done it any differently.
It would have been irresponsible for me to opine as opposed to report the quotes out of the guy's own mouth.
This is now giving is a testament and a vindication of our methods in a way that I never could have anticipated.
So in many ways, I'm grateful that they've sued me.
I'm grateful that they have now sent a beacon to the world that if you sue Project Veritas with a meritless claim, you will pay.
You sue, you pay, and we get vindication.
That's the message being sent out.
And I hate to fatten the pockets of lawyers, but I'm proud of our attorneys for what they've done.
It's the cost of freedom.
It's the cost of the First Amendment.
And it's baked into the cost of doing our investigative reporting.
And I can't tell you how many warm and kind notes I've gotten from our supporters, thousands of donors across the country.
They are so proud to have donated to us, even though 30% of our budget is legal.
They're proud of that because it's all part of a greater destiny to stand on principle, stand for truth, and show the country that we stand for the truth.
Yeah.
Well, it's interesting if I understand you right.
The judge is saying the fact that you showed the primary footage of this Democratic operative saying it was your bulletproof vest.
And that's a credit to the fact that you film everything, you show everything.
Am I understanding you right there?
That's a huge point.
Yeah, I mean, and there's, we're going to put out a video shortly that lays out, we're going to quote the judge and put it all together.
It's almost like a little mini 48 hours episode.
I mean, I can't even tell you how powerful this judge was.
I mean, he basically said that.
He said something to the effect of we preserve the videotape.
I mean, I film everything and people attack me for it, but if I don't, can you imagine?
Can you imagine if I didn't have the raw recording of Scott Foval referring, clearly referring to this woman?
How would I be able to defend myself in court?
They wouldn't believe me.
They would throw everything with the kitchen sink in my credibility.
So it's just such a vindication of everything that I do because I film people because if I don't and make claims about them, no one would believe me.
They just sue me for defamation.
So you can't have it both ways.
You can't attack my methods.
You can't say you're not allowed to film people, but also say, you know, you've lied about people because I have to, you know, so it's just the whole thing's a vindication.
We're going to put out a video in the next, you know, tonight or tomorrow morning articulating all this, and it's a pretty powerful day.
Yeah.
It's like a cop wearing a body cam.
It stops the suspect from lying about the cop.
I'm a big fan of those body cams.
Well, listen, I'm grateful for your time, and I was very happy to see this news.
I think you're now six wins in a row.
Am I right on that?
Yes, we've defeated a Common Core lady in California, actually a couple of them.
We've overturned the law in Massachusetts to prohibit filming.
We've won on summary judgment against a teachers union guy who cursed about a student, and we won that lawsuit.
We've won in this litigation a jury verdict not guilty of defamation, a directed verdict, and a couple other ones I can't remember there, but we have won every single lawsuit that we have litigated.
We're basically 6-0, and then some.
And we're going to win the Democracy Partners case next, which is about whether we had a fiduciary duty to someone by filming them.
These are absurd issues, but we're winning every time, and I'm excited to report that.
You know, the fact that you're sued is irritating.
I use the phrase lawfare, but the fact that you're winning is not only vindication for you, but it's a vindication, as you say, of the First Amendment, something we do not have here in Canada.
And had we have, if we did have the First Amendment, I know that not only would we be spending less money on frivolous lawsuits, but we would be more successful, and there would be more bolder journalists.
The lack of the First Amendment is, I believe, the greatest flaw of Canada's democracy.
We're a wonderful country, and I don't want to become American.
I love Americans, but I like being a Canadian.
But our lack of a First Amendment and the defense it's given you that you've just outlined, I think is the greatest problem with being a Canadian.
Last word to you, James.
Maybe say something to our viewers, some of who might be thinking about becoming citizen journalists themselves.
What words would you have for them?
I've learned some things this week.
You probably have seen me interviewed before, so I don't want to repeat everything I've always said about what I do, but I've learned some things this week.
There were principles on trial here.
There were fundamental principles.
It was not just about me.
I've learned about the law.
Lack of First Amendment00:04:35
I mean, go through a jury trial.
You learn a lot about evidence.
You'll learn a lot about logic.
You'll learn a lot about emotion and sympathy and how they play to jurors.
And what I learned was that there were certain fundamental things on trial here.
And there are forces in the United States that want to strip away certain liberties that we have.
And they wanted me to be treated differently under the law.
They wanted me not to be given certain First Amendment protections simply because they disagreed with the effects or public policy outcomes of what we exposed.
That was on trial, not me.
That was on trial.
The law is blind, and so is my attorney.
My attorney is actually a blind guy, which is very metaphorical, fitting, I suppose.
The law is supposed to be blind.
And the reason why this is so sweet, the reason why this victory is so just, is that all across the country, we require citizens to go out there and do this sort of work because the media won't do it.
And they're trying to put us on trial, the citizens of this country.
And we won.
And that's a very important victory.
And I hope you guys go out there, go to projectveritas.com slash brave.
If you're on the inside of Facebook, Google, Twitter, the government agencies, and you want to blow the whistle, you can be a citizen journalist.
I will hire you and I will pay your legal bills and I'll have your back.
I've never, ever abandoned the back of my people.
And my record and my actions winning every lawsuit speaks to that.
So thank you very much for having me on, Ezra.
Well, it's great to see you again.
Congratulations.
Appreciate you taking the time out of your very busy day to be with us.
You're a role model to so many of us, including to me personally.
Thanks, my friend.
Thank you.
All right, there you have it.
That's James O'Keefe.
He's the founder of Project Veritas.com, and he has notched up another win in the battle for free speech.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back to my monologue yesterday about Justin Trudeau getting ready to bring ISIS terrorists back to Canada.
Linda writes, Trudeau and his gang have done and are doing so many things to Canada that are disturbing to all who love truth and freedom, but the way he treats veterans is way beyond the pale.
Yeah, you know what?
And I think he gets that from his father.
You may recall that when his dad was young, I mean, Pierre Trudeau was so much older than Justin Trudeau.
I mean, remember, Trudeau married, Pierre Trudeau married Margaret Trudeau.
There was a huge age gap.
So Pierre Trudeau, as you may know, was a young man during the Second World War.
And he was against conscription, obviously.
He was against fighting for the English queen, even though it was France that was overrun.
And he would drive around Montreal, Pierre Trudeau did, on a motorcycle, wearing a Nazi helmet.
Now, I don't think he was a Nazi, although we know he's an authoritarian.
It was his mockery of the war, of the war effort, and any chumps who went to fight.
This was part of his contempt for the queen.
Of course, the Queen didn't lose any soil of the British mainland to the Nazis.
It was France that was overrun.
That's how gross Pierre Trudeau was.
And I think Justin Trudeau inherited that contempt from his dad, that contempt for the armed forces.
Geth writes, disgusting behavior, strip their citizenship.
I'm UK and we have the same crap here.
Well, I actually think in the UK, there is a law that if someone has joint citizenship, dual citizenship, as in they're a British citizen and a foreign citizen, if they're a terrorist, the Brits can remove their citizenship.
Australia has the same law, if I'm not mistaken.
Harper brought in the same law, but Justin Trudeau said, no, no, no, these terrorists are good people.
We won't strip their citizenship.
Remember, it won't make them stateless.
They'll still have a foreign passport too.
But no, Trudeau wants them here.
He positively wants them here.
He says they have a powerful voice that we should listen to.
Eliza writes, yeah, we don't prosecute them, only insult our in our insult of a PM gives them medals and money.
It's true, but as I tried to point out yesterday, I'm not sure if I was clear.
Maybe I read too much law.
Proving Returnees Guilty00:00:57
But what I was trying to show you is how easy it is to prosecute a returning terrorist.
You don't have to prove that they did anything.
You just have to prove that they went to help, that they tried to leave to help, that they were part of an organization, that they don't even have to have achieved anything.
If they were doing something that could have or would have or was meant to assist a terrorist group, they're guilty.
Ten years in prison just for that.
We don't have to prove who they murdered and who they raped.
That's impossible to do legally.
Every one of these ISIS returnees, by the fact that they're returning from over there, unless they have some stark proof that they were doing something else, like humanitarian work, which none of them do, obviously, every one of them simply by virtue of returning from there, that's all you need to convict them.
And yet we don't have a single prosecution.
That's a disgrace.
Well, that's the show for today.
I look forward to your thoughts on it.
If you have any, feel free to email Ezra at the Rebel.media.