Ezra Levant visits Baltimore to investigate Trump’s claims of "rat-infested" decline, contrasting media narratives with Kimberly Klesick’s viral footage showing trash-filled alleys and abandoned homes—some squatted by homeless addicts. Klesick, a local activist (not a GOP strategist), reveals Elijah Cummings’ constituents face rodent infestations and dumping, not Trump-related fears, while Cummings’ own home was robbed. Her videos spurred private cleanups, but she criticizes Brian Stelter’s dismissal without on-site verification. Residents like Maurice prioritize city services over politics, proving Trump’s framing oversimplifies Baltimore’s complex struggles. [Automatically generated summary]
I went to Baltimore, Maryland, which has been a place much discussed by Donald Trump and the leftist media.
Is it a Democratic-run, crime-infested, high-unemployment, low-hope hellhole, or is it a workers' paradise?
Well, let's go on the ground and find out.
It was exciting to get out on the road.
I hope you enjoy my report, even though the subject of it is not enjoyable.
Before I get out of the way, though, please consider becoming a premium subscriber.
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I mean, this will be interesting enough as a podcast, but the main thing is to see with your eyes what West Baltimore looks like.
I take a camera into abandoned homes and alleys, and you can't see that in a podcast.
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So there's that.
Anyhow, here's my show from Baltimore.
Donald Trump says Baltimore is a dangerous place and that it's rat-infested.
Is that true?
Or is he just being racist?
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 about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Well, Donald Trump set the cat amongst the pigeons again.
He tweeted that the city of Baltimore, Maryland, well, at least parts of it, are rat-infested, that it is a criminal, that there's a criminal infestation, that it is dangerous.
He even, at a rally, said it was more dangerous than Afghanistan.
He poked at Representative Elijah Cummings, a longtime congressman for this district, calling him King Elijah, implying that he's always been in power, always will be, not a very Democratic Democrat.
Critics of the president said it was a racist commentary, but was it really?
Is it possible to criticize Democrat-run cities like Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Detroit, and the squalor in some of the urban landscape without being called racist, without being a racist?
Well, I'm from Canada.
I don't have a good grasp on these questions.
But today we're going to spend some time with someone who does.
Her name is Kimberly Klesick.
She's a Baltimore urban activist who doesn't just talk the talk, she walks the walk.
And in the last week, holy moly, did she get things going viral with her own video from the streets of Baltimore?
And she joins me on the street right now.
Kimberly, thank you so much for letting me rope you into the Rebel.
I appreciate you taking your time.
No problem.
Thanks for having me.
Well, we're in a very interesting part of the city.
Can you give me a quick recap of how you got in the middle of this?
How did it come to be that Donald Trump tweeted about your story?
Yes, so we all know that President Trump is running for re-election.
So obviously this is probably a great story for him, especially with Cummings and the border situation.
But I originally came to the neighborhood to ask a question regarding a statement that Congressman Cummings made on ABC politics Sunday morning, and he said that his constituents were afraid of Trump.
Now, I've been in this area many times before, and I thought there's no way his constituents are thinking about Trump.
So I said, I'm not going to assume.
I'm just going to go out there myself and I'm going to ask questions.
And the two gentlemen that I came across, the first two guys I saw, I said, you know, can I ask you what your reaction is to Congressman Cummings saying that his constituents are afraid of Trump?
And they laughed.
They literally laughed.
That because it wasn't even on their mind?
Right.
They thought that was funny.
And so one of the gentlemen offered to take me to show me something that was truly scary for him and, you know, his neighbors.
So I don't suggest that anyone know this.
I let a complete stranger get in my car and we drove two blocks down to a house where he and his wife lived.
And he showed me throughout the entire alley just piles and piles of trash.
And you could tell that a lot of it had come from illegal dumping.
There's drywall, there's rolled up carpet.
And then a lot of it came from the homeless addicts that were using these abandoned homes, which was right next door to him and other things to find shelter.
So there was a lot going on.
You know, there were just kind of used paraphernalia, I guess you can say.
But, you know, it did track rats and rodents, and that is true, and that's what he told me.
So I just took the story and told him I would get it out there for him, and hopefully somebody will see it.
Now, you tweeted about it, and before long, you were invited to go on Fox News.
Well, that's when it, I mean, Donald Trump watches Fox fairly often.
He obviously saw your clip, right?
Yes, he saw it, and he actually tweeted out basically the exact words I used.
So, you know, he said it, and, you know, it was accurate.
I reported what I was told from the residents, and it was an accurate statement.
You know, a lot of these Democrat cities have been Democrat for decades, and it's almost like it's a one-party state.
I don't know.
People accuse Donald Trump of being racist all the time.
I don't believe it.
And even if it were true, and I don't believe it is, I think you have to talk about a problem if you're going to solve it.
And I think maybe King Elijah, the permanent congressman, maybe he doesn't want scrutiny of his district that still has so many problems for so long.
I don't know.
I think Donald Trump knows a little bit about how to fix up a decaying city.
He did it in New York.
He's a developer.
How do you think local folks in these neighborhoods would react to a white Republican president saying we got to fix it?
That to me sounds like the opposite of racism.
Yeah, I mean, the whole racism part is a non-story here.
People Living Among Abandonment00:05:03
I mean, you talk to the residents.
They don't care if you're black, white, Democrat, Republican.
They just want you to move the trash.
That's just sort of CNN's angle.
That's Brian Selter's.
I mean, they want to call Trump racist whenever, but the folks on the street here, they have real problems that have nothing to do with party stripe.
Oh, yes.
And these problems have been going on for decades, long before Trump came into the picture.
All right, well, you've been through these streets, you know the people on them.
You've arranged for us to meet a local resident, Maurice, give us a bit of a tour here.
Let's go meet him.
All right.
Well, Maurice, it's nice to meet you.
And do you live here on Arlington?
Yes, sir.
Can you take us around the neighborhood a little bit and tell us what it's like?
Do you want to start with that?
Well, we can start right here in this alley.
It's been a like a dumping round in a way because they kind of like dump stuff in all the alleys around here.
So this is one part if you go back there with me.
Sure.
So there's just no proper garbage pickup is what you're saying.
No, and then this is what this is what the outcome of it is right here.
This looks like it's been here a very long time.
Look, over here.
This is just the outcome of this.
Whoa, is this someone living there?
Or is that the well that's the abando right there?
But people live in that abandoned building right there.
So there are people living here, but they're just sort of squatting kind of thing?
Right, exactly.
So who would normally be in charge of this?
I guess the folks who would own it, but does anyone own it?
Does anyone care about it?
To me, nobody cares about it because it was worse than this.
And we got our gloves together and stuff, and we moved it out the alleyway because this whole alley, you couldn't even walk down.
I bet that looks like it would be a home for rodents.
Pill bottles, everything.
Yeah, and pill bottles, I mean, who knows?
Maybe even some syringes at Capoki or something.
Oh, I know, it's definitely that.
Especially in the bandos over there.
That's where the homeless people live at.
So there's all kinds of stuff going on.
This looks like it's been here.
I'd even say years.
Oh, I know, definitely been here for years because we've been here for over five years.
It was worse than this one time, but it seems like that I don't know what they're doing with the trash.
But whatever we set out that way, they take sometimes.
Just the regular trash people, but the bulk stuff like this, they don't take nothing.
Now, how common is this?
This is just right behind your house.
Is this common in parts of Baltimore?
Oh, this is all over the city.
This is everywhere.
I mean, this ain't just here.
It's not good for kids to play in.
I mean, kids would stay away from here.
They'd get cut and bit and whatever.
Well, you see the bugs and stuff.
Yeah.
This is real, man.
So you and the neighbors cleared this alley, but the city won't come and take the trash?
No, we had some other help outside of the city, and the lady Miss Kimley, she's helping.
But they still ain't did it yet.
And that's been over a week now.
They ain't did nothing yet.
So what's down the alley down there?
Is that a little park or something or just another lot?
Just another lot down that way.
So how many of these houses are abandoned or empty?
In the city or this west?
It's in this neighborhood.
In this neighborhood here, it's more abandoned than it is people to live here.
Oh, really?
I definitely know that.
It's more abandoned houses here than people live here.
You got to be careful when you come through here.
If you want me to go first, I will.
But it ain't nobody here.
Hello?
So it looks like someone was sleeping there.
I don't have a light.
Oh, I don't know.
No, that's nobody.
It's not a body in there.
Right.
You know, I guess I can't see.
This is what all these abandons look like in here.
And so obviously there's been human activity here.
People sleeping here, people eating here.
you some plates this is not you live here you'd be in physical danger Exactly.
This is crazy.
This is not healthy.
This would be condemned.
Has this place been condemned?
There's no boards up, so obviously they didn't condemn this one, but most of the ones that's condemned are boarded up.
The city boarded them up.
I see some boards there, but that's just in the front part.
Now, I don't know if the homeless people took them down.
I don't know.
But they had to have somewhere to stay.
And obviously the electricity is not working.
So, I mean, maybe it's better than sleeping in the rain, but not much better.
Exactly.
That's what I would.
Not much better.
I mean, if it was snowing, maybe I would come in here, but otherwise let me take my chances on the street.
Right, bugs and stuff.
You know the rodents and stuff.
There's.
Maurice's Personal Food Bank00:10:45
It did look like a person at first.
I know, but then, like you said, we would smell it.
Some of these places where people obviously living, you know, they take care of their place.
They got pride of their property.
But I guess what you're saying is a lot of these places are just abandoned, so no one cares about it.
Exactly.
Correct.
The people that live here have pride.
The people that come and dump here are the problem.
There's a lot of people that just come and dump trash over here on this side because they see that it's looking.
You see the trees growing in.
Whoa!
I did see a rat.
I did see a rat.
It scurried when I walked up there.
Holy moly.
It's not all despair.
Maurice took us to a house where someone has set up sort of a personal food bank.
She has, every Saturday she gives away food and clothes for anybody needs food and clothes right here on Arlington Street.
This lady here is awesome.
She'll help you do anything you need to do.
She has a pantry thing she has out there.
Every day she fills it up with cans and stuff if you need food or whatever.
And that's just her own private project.
Right, she's doing that out of, you know, this is what she wants to do to help people.
We were only a few blocks away, but a world away from Representative Cummings' personal home, and we had just learned that his house had actually been robbed at the very time he was saying his city was so safe.
So we decided to drive by there just to see if he was home.
And we encountered other journalists waiting, and they were actually waiting for Kimberly, too.
I just really wanted to come and film what is going on in West Baltimore and hopefully give the people here a voice.
Well, the first time that we realized that you did give the people a voice, it really took off.
Are you taking credit for, it may not be a positive light, but at least people are talking about fixing things?
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't take credit for it.
Obviously, President Trump is the one that got the ball rolling.
When I did the videos, I posted them on my Twitter and somebody from the Daily Wire saw them.
And so they started retweeting them.
And then that's how Fox News saw them.
So Fox News called me Friday afternoon and asked me to come in and kind of explain what I was doing or what was going on.
So I went in and did that.
And then I guess Trump was watching.
And even though he tweeted like an hour later, so I'm guessing he even saw the replay because they were replaying it.
So then he tweeted about it and I'll help Rookleys.
Do you have any regrets about how everything is blown up or do you think all of it is good to focus a spotlight on the city?
I have no regrets.
None.
Because I think if it didn't blow up this way, no one would be doing anything about it.
Like just now I was over at North Ellington where I was originally.
There are grass cutters there.
They said dump trucks are on their way.
There's actually people volunteering, private contractors coming to get things and taking out large debris.
So, you know, things are now happening and moving and hopefully they'll end up with less trash.
I was just over there 20 minutes ago.
We almost stepped on a rat.
So, you know, this situation is real.
And no matter how any of the media wants to spin it and say, oh, well, it's not his entire district.
Sure, it's not his entire district.
But if you tell people in West Baltimore in that area where I was that his district is so beautiful and there's lots of rich people, they would probably look at you like you have two heads because that's not what they see every day.
Do you think the president needs to stop talking about it?
I mean, you know, last night he made the comment at his rally about the crime rate and talking about comparing it to Afghanistan.
And every day since Saturday, there's either been a tweet or some sort of comment that the people of Baltimore are living in hell.
I mean, do you think all of that is helpful?
Do you think, you know, it's going to die down should it die down?
I mean, he's running for reelection.
What would you do?
You know, I mean, he wants to win again.
Of course, he's going to use this to his advantage.
And he just had this spat with Congressman Cummings talking about the border.
And so it's like, of course, he's going to use this to his advantage.
Is it helpful with the rhetoric and how people are taking it emotionally?
No.
But I don't look to my president for a kumbaya moment.
I look for him to lead.
And if this is getting results, then so be it.
And just a last question.
What brought you here today to like his block?
I mean, did you intend to come to the congressman's home?
No, I have a friend here from Canada and he's actually just kind of putting the whole story together.
This is international news now.
And so, you know, I took him on a tour and showed him around where I was and all the trash and everything.
And so I guess the hopes were to knock on Cummings' door and ask him if he would like to also take a tour because, like I said, those residents haven't seen him in years.
Does he have a doorbell here?
Looks like the light's on.
There's definitely a light on.
When he's ready to talk, we can talk, I guess.
It's all good.
What would you have asked him if he had come to the door?
If he wants to take a tour of the streets that I've been on, because we can go today.
We can go now.
What do you think of the fact that his house itself was robbed after he was pushing back against the president for calling the neighborhood dangerous?
Well, that is unfortunate.
I don't want anyone to be robbed or hurt in any way.
So hopefully it wasn't anything personal.
You know, hopefully, not that I want anyone to be robbed, but hopefully it was random and it wasn't like a target to him because, I mean, I don't want that.
Earlier today, we heard residents on Arlington say they hadn't seen Representative Cummings in a very long time, if ever.
Do you think he should take you up on your invitation to go visit, or do you think he would?
I mean, he might.
You know, I've never heard anyone say that he was, you know, a bad guy or not willing to listen.
So maybe he would come and take a tour.
I would love to give him a tour.
Do you want to try ringing those doorbells?
I think those are doorbells, actually.
How do you know?
Where?
Like this?
I think so.
Where is this fish here?
It's a camera.
Maybe he'll see it to me.
Yeah.
Well, I can always reach out to him, I guess, another way.
Not going to bother him after being robbed.
Well, here we are after a big day in West Baltimore.
It was an interesting day.
I appreciate the tour.
Thanks for showing me around.
It was interesting that we bumped into some journalists finally covering the story.
Yeah, definitely.
That was nice because I haven't really spoken to anyone about it.
I wanted it to be more about West Baltimore and not about me and the story breaking.
But it was good to be able to tell my side of the story without all the spin to it.
You and I talked a little bit earlier about Brian Stelter of CNN.
It really bugged me that he was telling you what you see in the heart of your community isn't true.
It's fake news.
He couldn't even get the pronunciation of your name right.
Couldn't even get facts right.
Then, Fox brought in a guest named Kimberly Klack, who went to impoverished parts of West Baltimore and made videos of trashed lots and ruined row homes.
Fox called her a Republican strategist.
They've caught her that for more than a year now.
But there is no evidence that she's ever been employed by a campaign.
She did run for a local county GOP position and lost last year.
So they call her a Republican strategist, maybe because she wrote right-wing blog posts for this website for a while.
Then she started getting booked on TV again and again, again, as a so-called strategist on The Hill and on Fox and other shows.
Her LinkedIn profile pointedly says she's a commentator, quote, not under contract, which means she's going on Fox for free.
Earlier this month, she decided to take on Cummings by making web videos about Baltimore's rundown neighborhoods.
But I tell you all this to explain here is where the president is getting his information.
Klackick was booked on Fox again on Saturday.
The president was watching, and then an hour later he tweeted.
Why do you think guys like him don't come here and see with their own eyes what's going on on the ground?
Well, you know, it's very easy to sit in the comfort of your newsroom and kind of just make your own opinion, your assumptions.
But, you know, that's what I did.
I took my camera out here and I tried to talk to people that actually live here and get the real story.
So if Brian Settler wants the real story, he should do a little bit of journalism and actually come to the neighborhood.
Well, listen, I'm grateful to you for showing us around today, for introducing us to Maurice, an interesting character who's got a big heart, completely nonpartisan.
He wouldn't even really answer my questions about politics.
He doesn't care about politics.
He cares about his block.
And he cares so much, someone's got to help him.
I'm glad you are.
Okay.
Well, listen, I hope we can keep in touch.
I think you're very courageous, not just taking on critics like Brian Stelter, but even some of the local media were a little bit prickly.
Tell our viewers if they want to follow what you're doing or even chip into your nonprofit, how can they track you?
Do you have a website or do you have something people can follow you at?
Yeah, so my Twitter handle is KimK Baltimore.
On Facebook, it's Kimberly Klasick, K-L-A-C-I-K.
And then Potential Me is the name of the nonprofit, potential-me.com.
You'll see a lot of the work, a lot of our makeovers, and a lot of those that have gotten the job.
Right on.
Well, congratulations to you, and thanks for showing us such hospitality.
And I wish you and Baltimore all the best.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, that's it for the show today from The Road in Baltimore, Maryland.