Donald Trump confronted Justin Trudeau at a December 3 NATO meeting over Canada’s 1.27% GDP military spending—not the claimed 1.4%—exposing a $2.6B annual exaggeration, critics say, while Trudeau dodged specifics with social programs like healthcare and a $50M Trevor Noah-linked donation. Past moves, including scrapping Harper’s ship and prosecuting Vice Admiral Norman, fueled "free-loader" accusations. Meanwhile, Mary Margaret Olihan debates media bias against Melania Trump’s decorations, contrasting them with Michelle Obama’s polarizing choices, and Andrew Scheer’s Conservative leadership struggles over LGBTQ and abortion stances highlight Canada’s political divide. Trump’s bluntness stands in stark contrast to perceived Canadian ambiguity. [Automatically generated summary]
Today our dear leader, Justin Trudeau, was at a NATO meeting and Donald Trump asked him a very simple question in their press conference, cameras rolling.
How much do you spend on your military?
Oh, he didn't like to answer that.
I'll show you the video clip and I'll show you the truth.
Even the CBC did a fact check on Trudeau the fibber.
Before I do, can I invite you to become a premium member of The Rebel?
It's eight bucks a month.
You get the video version of this podcast, plus access to other shows.
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Okay, here's today's show.
Tonight, at the NATO meeting, Justin Trudeau is grilled by Donald Trump.
It's not pretty.
It's December 3rd, 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 is the government will watch is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Here's Justin Trudeau getting on a plane to London where the NATO leaders are having a meeting.
That's his son with him.
I don't blame him.
It's more interesting than going to school.
And Sophie isn't seen in public much with Trudeau anymore.
I like that Trudeau, I like that he waves even when there's no one there other than a media party photographer.
He knows the media party will make it look like he was waving to adoring crowds.
Speaking of children, look at the submissive pose that Trudeau strikes when he's in the presence of Trump.
He always does this.
He sits with his legs crossed like a good boy or something.
I find it very odd, very odd.
He sits in a submissive way in the presence of powerful men.
Legs aren't crossed here, but he's very much being lectured by a master.
That's George Soros.
It's different than how he is in the presence of women, including powerful women.
With them, he always asserts physical dominance.
He touches them, he hugs them, even touches their bums, as he does in the case with no one less than the governor general.
He's really weird about things like that.
I think a lot of this traces back to his father and how his father, Pierre, treated women and men.
I don't quite get it.
But enough amateur psychology on my part.
Look at what actually was said.
Donald Trump is trying to get NATO allies to increase their military spending to raise it to 2% of GDP.
It's not really that much.
That's 1 50th of our GDP.
Think of it as an insurance policy on being free.
I mean, it's not nothing, but it's hardly onerous.
Now, when actual Canadian soldiers ask Trudeau to spend more on the military, serving military, or veterans, including wounded veterans, here's what Trudeau has to say to them.
First of all, why are we still fighting against certain veterans groups in court?
Because they're asking for more than we are able to give right now.
Yeah, but Trudeau always manages to find money when it's, say, Omar Cader or something that Trudeau thinks is really cool.
You know, he literally gave $50 million of our money to some scheme just because Trevor Noah, the U.S. late night talk show host, was pitching it just for some momentary buzz on a viral tweet.
But our military, not so much.
We're barely spending half of our NATO requirement.
1.27% of our GDP.
I'm sorry to be mean, but we're freeloaders.
Of course we are.
We have been for almost a century, and no one would quarrel with that in absolute terms.
I mean, we have one-tenth the population of the United States, less than one-tenth the wealth of the United States, but we're the second largest country in the world geographically with a huge coastline.
So obviously we're going to need some help defending our airspace, our territory, especially in the north.
The Yanks were only too happy to help, especially considering how we punched above our weight in the Second World War.
And in Korea, too, we were there.
But over the years, really starting during Pierre Trudeau's tenure, we pretty much shut down our military, at least in many respects.
Did you know Canada used to have an aircraft carrier?
And instead, we used the money for social programs.
In a way, the United States simply subsidized us.
They took care of our defense spending, so we spent the money on welfare and hospitals and schools.
Actually, come to think of it, all those things are provincial matters.
So more like the Fed spent their money on things like the CBC and official bilingualism and multiculturalism and foreign aid, including the China.
So now Donald Trump is saying, hey, NATO allies, pull your weight.
He's saying that to every NATO ally, especially to France and Germany.
And they hate it, but they are doing it.
I mean, just strictly from an economic point of view, imagine if the United States withdrew its military from Germany.
It's had bases there since the end of the Second World War.
Imagine the billions of dollars a year that would cost the German economy.
Trump's just saying, hey, we're happy to put the men and machinery there, but can you pay a little bit yourself?
Here's Trump at an earlier NATO meeting making that exact case.
After years of cutting defense budgets, I started to add billions to the defense budgets.
And last year was the biggest increase in defense spending across Europe and Canada in a generation.
Why was that last year?
It's also because of your leadership, because you're clear message.
They won't write that down.
No, I have said it before, but the thing is that your message is having an impact.
Yeah.
By the way, in the feverish imagination of the left and so much of the media, Donald Trump is supposed to be the secret agent for Vladimir Putin.
Now, if that's true, he's got to be the worst Russian spy in history.
He's spending his time pressuring European countries to rebuild their armies.
Oh, and by the way, to not buy natural gas from Russia.
Pretty bad Soviet agent, if you ask me.
Anyways, back to today.
Here's how it went in London.
Just watch.
Mr. President, Canada does not meet the 2% standard.
Should it have a plan to meet the 2% standard?
Well, we'll put them on a payment plan, you know?
We'll put Canada on a payment plan, right?
I'm sure the Prime Minister would love that.
What are you at?
What is your number?
The number we talk about is 70% increase over these past years, including and for the coming years, including significant investments in our fighter jets, significant investments in our naval fleets.
We are increasing significantly our defense spending from previous governments that cut it.
Okay.
Where are you now in terms of your number?
We're at 135.
1.3.
1.3.
1. 1.
And they're getting there.
They know it's important to do that.
And their economy is doing well.
They'll get there quickly, I think.
And look, it's to their benefit.
And the President knows well as well that Canada has been there for every NATO deployment.
We have consistently stepped up, sent our troops into harm's way.
We're leading in Iraq.
We're leading in NATO, in Latvia.
We continue to step up like most of our allies.
There are some countries that, even though they might reach the 2%, don't step up nearly as much.
And I think it's important to look at what is actually being done.
And the United States and all NATO allies know that Canada is a solid, reliable partner that will continue to defend NATO and defend our interests.
And we do have tremendous coordination with radar, with all of the different things that, you know, technologically, we have tremendous coordination between Canada and the United States.
How amazing was that, that bluster from Trudeau, avoiding the question of what our percentage is, just throwing baffle gab in the air.
Now, that's normal for Trudeau.
And back here in Canada, the media party just accepts it.
They don't push back.
Trump is used to that, I think.
Trump himself has a young son, not as young as Trudeau's son.
Trump's youngest son, Baron, is 13.
I'm guessing that Trump has to ask difficult questions more than once to get through a teenager's non-answers.
It's probably growing up to take responsibility even for tough questions.
So I think Trump's used to Trudeau's BS style.
He just waited for Trudeau's BS to end, and then he calmly asked the question again.
So what's that number again?
How much are you spending as a percentage of your GDP?
What's the number?
That's all he wanted to know.
You could hear a voice saying 1.35%.
Trudeau rounds up to 1.4%.
Yeah, no, that's a lie.
Here's a CBC article of all places written literally this afternoon.
Trudeau's own state broadcaster.
So you know they love him.
You know this is the most favorable possible interpretation.
They're his stenographers.
He pays them.
But even they just couldn't lie with a straight face on something so easily checkable.
Let me quote.
In fact, at 1.27% of GDP, Canada's defense spending is nowhere near that level.
Oh!
The CBC's saying that.
So yeah, Trudeau lied.
Do you think Donald Trump didn't know exactly the amount that Canada spends as a portion of our GDP before he even asked that question?
Do you really think he didn't know that he wasn't told, that he wasn't briefed?
That's all he cares about is that number.
You saw that in the earlier NATO meeting.
All Trump has ever done in his life, by the way, is negotiate and make deals.
Do you doubt he knew in advance Trudeau's position?
What Trudeau was at before asking for more?
I mean, we know Trudeau doesn't do his readings, doesn't prepare, doesn't look at his briefing notes.
He's more about smiling and selfies.
But all Trump does is deals.
And think about it.
Trudeau's lie of 1.4% of GDP instead of the truth, 1.27% of GDP.
Well, what do you know?
That's actually pretending we spend 10% more than we do.
So work with me here.
Follow me.
Just by embarrassing Baron von Francy Sox, just by making him panic under this questioning under live TV, making him lie in the heat of the moment, Trump got Trudeau to commit to a significant spending increase.
You can look at it that way.
The difference between the truth, 1.27% of GDP, and the lie, 1.4% GDP, is 0.13% of GDP.
It sounds so tiny, right?
But Canada's GDP is around $2 trillion.
So that little fib there, that's about $2.6 billion a year more than Justin Trudeau just pretended to spend, just committed to.
Well, he didn't really commit to it.
He claimed he was already doing it.
That's a 10% increase in our military budget.
Isn't that amazing?
I think that's the fastest negotiation and surrender negotiation in history.
Trump, in 90 seconds, got Trudeau to blurt out a commitment to a 10% increase in military spending.
I don't think Trudeau will keep that promise, by the way, but he made that promise sitting, what, three feet away from Donald Trump?
I mean, sure, there were lies even in those numbers and even in his explanations.
A significant investment in fighter jets?
Don't lie.
I mean, I suppose if by that you mean buying 30-year-old used fighter jets from Australia, we're buying their old F-18s that they're getting rid of so they can buy the new F-35s like the rest of the first-ranked militaries in the world.
So yeah, new fleets of ships?
Yeah, I mean, I guess so.
I mean, Trudeau himself tried his best to cancel a ship that Harper had commissioned.
Remember that?
Vice Admiral Mark Norman stopped that cancellation and in vengeance, Trudeau falsely accused him of breaching his oath of loyalty and prosecuted him for a crime.
Deployments overseas?
It's true.
It's true.
We have some.
There's no doubt about that.
It's also true that the very first thing Trudeau did when he became prime minister in 2015, in fact, even before he was sworn in, he told the United States that he was pulling out our CF-18s from the war against ISIS.
Even Barack Obama, who was still U.S. president, then thought Trudeau was a slacker, a free rider.
If Obama's calling you a slacker, huh?
But as Mercedes-Stevenson, a military expert and pundit, tweets out, even Trudeau's juiced numbers are fake.
It includes pension spending on bureaucrats.
It includes our CMP deployments to Afghanistan.
I mean, maybe that's military spending, I guess if you really stretch it, but it's like a schoolboy coming up with excuses right down to the weird leg crossing.
So yeah, Trudeau.
Embarrassing on the world stage, you bet.
Absolutely taken to the cleaners by Donald Trump again, the way we were on the NAFTA renegotiation, you bet.
Shown to the world to be like a teenager explaining why he didn't do his homework, you bet.
Humiliating, I guess, but nothing we didn't already know about Trudeau.
He's dumb.
Like I say, maybe something good will come out of it.
It's also one more thing.
It's a reminder of how weak and submissive Canada's media party is.
In 90 seconds, Donald Trump can get better answers and more accountability from Justin Trudeau than four years of fake questions from our fake news media.
Stay with us for more.
Melania's White House Christmas00:11:10
Well, that is a video vignette from a couple years ago.
Melania Trump at the White House.
I don't know if you heard some of those kids.
They said she was so beautiful, she was like an angel.
And indeed, it's true.
Melania Trump, a former supermodel, a high fashion glamour queen who is now the first lady and yet has not graced a women's magazine since Donald Trump has become president.
It's clearly a political snub, but she still has her style, even if the fancy people don't think so.
And she has decked out the White House this year again.
in her exquisite style.
Here's some images released by the White House of her designs.
Surely they're newsworthy.
Surely they're beautiful, but for the fact she's married to Trump.
And so the media party has been trashing her and her style.
Joining us now to talk about this inversion of beauty is Mary Margaret Olihan, the social issues correspondent for the Daily Caller, who joins us now by Skype from Washington.
Nice to meet you, Mary Margaret.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Well, I read your Twitter stream and I had no idea that the media party, which is I call the mainstream media, has moved from just ignoring Melania Trump to actually claiming she looks ridiculous.
This is awful.
I mean, it's one thing for them to ignore beauty, but for them to call beauty ugly, it's crazy.
Yeah, it's very weird.
It's very, very odd, to say the least.
So she decorated the White House so beautifully with all these decorations, very classic Christmas decorations.
And, you know, you'd think they would look at them and say, okay, these are classic Christmas decorations.
Like, we'll sit back on this one, but no, they have to go and attack her over this.
So she's been lambasted over these Christmas decorations.
Critics have said that they look like they're out of the shining or that they look cold and creepy.
And there was one Washington Post article that said that her coat was ridiculous as it said, okay, okay, the Christmas decorations are fine, but Melania's coat looks ridiculous.
So they're just trying to find every way to mock her and to make fun of these beautiful Christmas decorations.
And it's very concerning as to why they would be doing this.
And the answer probably is that she's married to President Donald Trump, as you were saying.
Well, I can't think of any other possible answer.
I mean, Jackie Kennedy was very beautiful.
I think that she's perhaps the only rival in just standard, objective terms of beauty to Melania.
And Melania is completely inoffensive.
She never takes stands.
She's not a crusader like Michelle Obama was.
She's not trying to ban tasty snack food from high schools.
I mean, she's not a crusader.
There's really no way to dislike her other than the obvious, which is she happened to marry a Republican president that the media doesn't like.
Right now, she's very graceful.
She's very composed.
She spends a lot of time on her Be Best campaign, which I know it's part of this Christmas theme.
I think she had scrabble letters on some of the Christmas trees spelling out the words be best, which is, you know, a very like bipartisan campaign designed to unite people across the board to help children.
But again, she's still being attacked for these things.
And if you compare this to how Michelle Obama was treated with her Christmas decorations, you can go back and look at what Michelle Obama used.
Her decorations were also beautiful.
I mean, you can compare and contrast.
Other people might have different tastes, but they were fine Christmas decorations.
But she was treated with no disrespect whatsoever.
Everyone just praised her decorations.
Now, Michelle and Barack even allowed Christmas decorations to be sent in from different groups, which had put these Christmas decorations together.
And they allowed a Christmas decoration with a picture of Mao on it, a Chinese dictator who killed thousands of people to hang on a Christmas tree in the White House.
They also allowed a Christmas ornament to hang on a tree in the White House showing a drag queen, which are things, you know, like those are controversial elements.
You don't see controversial elements like that in this year's White House.
There's a nativity scene, which is actually like welcomed by many Christians across the country, considering that's what Christmas is all about.
So it's just two very different playing fields that we're looking at here, Michelle and Melania.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, Mao, of course, killed 50 million by modest estimates.
It was shocking to me.
And he was an atheist.
It's not just that he was a murderer, Mao Zedong.
He explicitly rooted out any religiosity, punished any Christians, especially.
Right.
You know, sometimes when, I mean, I'm not a model, despite a lot of people saying I got it in me.
I'm joking around, of course, I got a face for radio.
So I try not to criticize other people because I know how hideous I am.
But the critic who you mentioned, who said Melania looked ridiculous in her coat, I just couldn't help but saying, well, who is she?
And it's this lady, Robin Given, of the Washington Post shown here.
And I don't know, if I was Robin Given, I'm not sure if I would be calling Melania Supermodel Trump ridiculous, but that's just me.
Maybe that's the job of the Washington Post is to call it.
Sorry, go ahead.
I don't think any of us should be calling a supermodel ridiculous.
I think that's taken a lot on ourselves there.
Well, I mean, listen, I just think that of all the people in the White House, the only people who are nonpartisan are Melania, and even more so, Baron Trump, who is frequently attacked by the media or criticized in weird ways, especially up here in Canada.
I don't know why.
I find it very strange.
Do you think it hurts Melania's feelings?
I saw her at an anti-drug event.
I think it was in Baltimore.
I can't remember where.
And there were booze.
I mean, she was there.
It was the most nonpartisan thing you could imagine.
She's there to talk about, hey, let's stay off of opioids.
And she was booed.
She was booed.
And I got to think if you're a human being, that's going to sting, that's going to sting you, even if you are a supermodel first lady.
No, that's definitely got to hurt, especially when you're trying to attempt something that's going to help people and that you don't think is a partisan issue.
But I think at this point, she probably understands that this is going to happen no matter what, because of who she's married to and because of what her first lady status represents.
I mean, she comes part and parcel with Donald Trump now because she's his first lady, and she probably understands that at this point.
And when she was booed in Baltimore, actually, she responded really well.
And later she said she respects everyone's opinions and that she's glad that everyone is able to express themselves.
And she hopes to continue to do her best work for her Be Best campaign.
So that's a dignified response, which I think everyone can respect.
Yeah.
You know, there's a theme in the media because she's so reticent.
She's not chatty with the press like Michelle Obama was.
I think one reason is she's not invited to do the view.
She's not invited to do the circuit like Michelle Obama was.
And I think they would try and tear her to shreds if she did.
So she's a bit of an enigma.
But I have a theory, and it's that the media either hates her, but they know they don't really have a basis for that, and that's sort of unfair.
So they have an alternative thesis, which is she's a prisoner of Donald Trump, and she really wishes she could flee.
And look, here's a picture of her we snapped where she's not smiling.
I think there's a deliberate photographic choice by photo editors in the United States to choose pictures of Melania Trump that are not smiling.
A smiling picture of a supermodel would sell copies.
So economically, commercially, newsworthiness, a smiling Melania Trump would be a golden picture.
But they so much want the narrative she's trapped, she wants to flee.
They'll literally wait for the unhappy picture and say that's the state of our first lady.
So they either hate her or they want to portray her as yet another victim of Trump.
What do you think of that theory?
I mean, she looks good when she's not smiling too, so it's a win-win for her.
But no, I think, I definitely think you're right that they do seek out positions to make her look unhappy.
They would love to have as much animosity as possible.
I remember a couple years ago, they were really excited about photos where she wouldn't let Trump hold her hand.
And they made such a big fuss about that.
But at the end of the day, I think there's every married woman has a day when she doesn't want to hold her husband's hand.
You know, nobody's perfect.
So there's just a lot of hype around their relationship, and the media would love to get in there and stir up animosity where maybe there is none.
So we all just need to stay in our place and report the news and not go looking for trouble where there is none.
Yeah.
There was a moment a few months ago where Melania was out of the public sight for a few days because she actually had surgery as an inpatient in the hospital.
And oh my God, the rumors, she's left him.
Where is she?
Well, she was just in the hospital.
I mean, it's utterly insane.
But listen, I agree with you.
And it's fun for us to show some beautiful images of Melania Trump making the White House beautiful.
I mean, not every single second of every single day needs to be an adversarial political moment.
And I think Melania Trump is classy and certainly a lot classier than the haters who hate her.
Mary Margaret Olihan, it's a pleasure to talk with you today.
Thanks for being here.
Oh, thanks so much for having me.
Our pleasure.
Well, there you have it.
Mary Margaret Olihan is the social issues reporter for the Daily Caller in Washington, D.C. Stay with us.
Andrew Scheer's Dilemma00:03:28
More ahead on the run.
Hey, folks, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about China.
Peter writes, if this is coming to Canada, I'm moving to Poland.
What a disgrace to humanity.
I take your point, but of course, in Poland, people use Facebook, Twitter, and I'm sure they use WeChat and TikTok too.
Neil writes, reminds me of Sadiq Khan's hate crime hub, where the police will happily come around for a chat or arrest you for social media posts.
Oh, you're so right.
I told you before the Metropolitan Police itself has 900 hate crimes cops that just do nothing but prowl Facebook all day.
900.
Maybe that's why they had another terrorist attack on London Bridge the other day, because the cops are busy knocking on old ladies' doors saying you're too mean when you talk about Brexit.
On the civil war between Canadian Conservatives, David writes, I don't think Scheer is the right guy to beat Trudeau.
Otherwise, he would have.
We need someone more edgy, combative, and unafraid to take on the mean girls in the media and the climate emergency zealots.
I'm not sure who that is right now, but I'm hoping someone emerges.
Well, you might have seen my friend Corey Tanike on other media saying Andrew Scheer's got to go.
asked Corey and I don't think he'd mind me sharing his answer.
I said, well, who are you going to beat him with?
You can't replace someone with no one.
Jason Kenney chose to become the Premier of Alberta.
Who really is there to succeed Andrew Scheer?
Please don't say Peter McKay.
Well, Corey responded to me, and again, I don't think I'm speaking in confidence.
He said, well, if you have a leadership review, names will emerge, and that's quite likely true.
As you know, I'm not a real booster of Andrew Scheer, but right now I'm looking around and thinking, well, who else is there?
And it's not a long list.
As to your point about showing courage and spine and backbone, what's so interesting to me is I observed that the attacks on Andrew Scheer are coming from both the social conservative left and right.
So for example, you have LGBTQ Tories saying you have to be more with it and hip on gay marriage.
And you have pro-life conservatives saying you were so wishy-washy you didn't stand up for us.
How can they both be mad at him?
Well, it shows that he's not clear about being who he is.
Contrast that to Donald Trump, who, by the way, is pro-gay.
I mean, he held up an LGBT sign at a rally.
But he's also pro-life.
And he is who he is.
And both sides know who he is.
And he's not trying to trick anyone.
He's not saying different things to different people.
And I think there's a lesson there.
Donald Trump certainly has his rough edges, but there's no denying he'll tell you exactly what he thinks about things, and he'll fight you for it.
Andrew Scheer is sort of the opposite.
He won't tell you what he believes in things.
He'll sort of mutter, and he won't fight you for it.
He's as impressionable as a seat cushion.
I think that's the problem.
Even if he were a red Tory, at least if he were with conviction, people could say, all right, he's got some flaws, but at least I know who he is.
Can you tell me who Andrew Scheer is even after going through this election?
We should do a thing, you know, we call it streeters.
We go onto the street and interview random people.
We should do streeters to see if anyone even knows his face even after an election.