Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s abrupt Instagram announcement to abandon senior royal duties while keeping financial perks mirrors Edward VIII’s scandalous abdication, with critics calling them "grifters" exploiting Sussex Royal for profit. The Queen may sever ties, stripping their titles—suggesting "Duke of Donuts" as a replacement. Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau’s leadership falters amid Iran’s refusal to investigate the Ukrainian plane crash (Jan 10), his Costa Rica vacation during heightened alerts, and Canada’s silent role in U.S.-Iran tensions, despite past $20M aid. With military inaction and diplomatic detachment, 2020 begins exposing Trudeau’s unfitness for crisis management, raising doubts about Canada’s global standing under his "whipped" leadership. [Automatically generated summary]
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Controversy00:10:01
Hello my rebels.
Today I tell you my thoughts on Prince Harry and Megan Markle and I tell you a historical story of the last time an American divorce say tried to get herself a king.
That didn't end too well.
I'll give you the details in my suggestion for the queen.
Before I get out of the way, let me invite you to become a premium subscriber to the podcast.
That means you get the video version of it as well as video access to Sheila Gunn Reed's show and David Menzies' show.
And it's only eight bucks a month.
So it's not going to kill you and it will help support the rebel.
So please go to premium.rebelnews.com, premium.rebelnews.com, eight bucks a month, and you get the video side of the podcast.
Okay, here you go.
Tonight, another American grifter tries to burrow into the royal family.
Should the Queen cut ties with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle?
It's January 10th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
This serious world has been riveted by the conflict in Iran.
That didn't include Justin Trudeau, who was partying in Costa Rica when that all started to go down, and he couldn't be bothered to cut short his vacation or even just take a phone call with Donald Trump about it.
He's still in vacation mode.
He's got his vacation beard that has the entire media party dazzled.
Well, now Canada is at the center of that conflict in a way.
Iran shot down a passenger airline that was taking off from its own airport.
But look at the map.
Look at where Tehran is.
You see that on the right-hand side there?
And look where the rocket attacks on Iraq's air bases are, hundreds of miles away.
How on earth did Iran choose to shoot down a passenger plane hundreds of miles away?
Why was it the only plane shot down?
Why didn't Iran stop civil aviation for the hours around its attack on Iraq?
And what did these cryptic comments from one of Iran's dictators what did they mean?
Published shortly before shooting down the airliner referring to them?
290 people killed a few years ago, when America actually accidentally shot down an Iranian passenger plane by the way, the U.S. Military attempted to contact that plane many times before shooting it down.
America apologized for that, paid a compensation to every family on the plane, but not that that excuses it, but rather the opposite.
When, when Iran's dictator mentions America shooting down an Iranian jet in a tweet about vengeance, and then Iran shoots down a passenger jet granted, it was from their own airport, but it was chock full of foreigners isn't that more than a quirky coincidence?
Alas, Trudeau doesn't think so.
He still thinks it's an accident, and the only person he blamed yesterday was Donald Trump, who he still hasn't phoned.
Do you feel that the US is partly responsible for this, given that they created the situation in which the missiles were launched?
I think that's one of the many questions that people will be thinking about and trying to find answers to.
So Canada has gone from being disconnected and disinterested in Iran and world affairs to being, well, I'd still call it disconnected and disinterested.
Trudeau has no plan.
He has no clue what to do.
He won't talk to the grown-ups like Donald Trump because he's afraid.
He literally phoned up the prime minister of the Netherlands yesterday.
Okay, I get it.
That's one of the few guys who will still take a call from Trudeau.
But how does that help deal with the attack?
CBS, look at this.
CBS crew just visited the Ukrainian airlines crash site west of Tehran at 9 a.m. local time.
Virtually all pieces of the plane were removed yesterday, say locals.
Scavengers now picking site clean.
No security.
Not cordoned off.
No sign of any investigators.
Does that sound legit?
Hide the black box.
Remove everything from the crash scene, such as any parts of the missile that shot it down.
But Trudeau knows who the real enemy is, doesn't he?
Donald Trump.
Yeah, the past week has shown the world that if you touch one hair on the head of an American, Donald Trump will flatten you.
But if you kill 63 Canadians, Justin Trudeau will just mumble something about seeking justice and then take another personal day.
I'm not even kidding.
If my math is right, today marks the 22nd day in a row that Trudeau's either been on vacation or taking personal or private days.
I really think he's the laziest prime minister in Canadian history.
I mean, he wants all the perks.
He wants the private jets.
He wants the luxury vacations, the status, the money, but none of the responsibility, none of the hard work, certainly none of the hard decisions.
I think people are noticing, and I think he knows.
He's got to know he's an imposter.
I think when his vote count and seat count fell in the last federal election, when he lost his majority government, when people saw through him, saw that he's a faker, he's a fake feminist.
We sort of already knew that, but the Jody Wilson Rabel thing proved that.
But the blackface, because it showed his whole woke thing was just an act, that he's an imposter.
I think he's always known that he's an imposter, but he just bluffed it out.
And I think serious leaders around the world knew pretty early.
But now Trudeau knows that we all know that he's an imposter, so he's just checked out.
I mean, he knew.
He always knew.
I've shown you this video before, but let me add a laugh track to it.
Look at this guy.
Look at this dude.
Wait till you see the...
No, no, no, no.
Yeah.
I think that's about right.
So a lazy man in an empty suit won't quit because he'd be a nobody again.
Trudeau loves the perks.
He's a gold digger as a wife.
And I say that as an observation, not a condemnation.
You'll recall that whole illegal trip to the Aga Khan's private billionaire island in the Bahamas.
That was Sophie Trudeau's doing.
Here's an excerpt from the Ethics Commissioner's report.
You know, she kept calling the Aga Khan's daughter, asking him to go there with her rich girlfriends to show off like she's some Kardashian or something.
She went back without Trudeau himself.
The Aga Khan and his family weren't even there.
But Sophie didn't care.
She just wanted the free stuff.
She's a grifter.
I think that's one big reason why Trudeau won't quit as prime minister.
His wife demands the free stuff.
I mean, their eight-day trip to India had seven days of family vacations.
One day of work.
It's him, but it's her too.
And I can't think of another lazy entitled, well, I can think of one.
Now the lazy entitled fake celebrity couple, Prince Harry and his grasping wife, Meghan Markle.
Taxpayers just spent millions of pounds on their glamorous royal wedding and then millions more renovating their house.
I mean that happened, what, just five minutes ago, it seems.
So millions, and now they want to quit.
They want to quit.
They want to quit doing the work.
They want to stop having to do the hard parts, the boring parts, the uncool parts.
They want to stop going to every hospital and school and food bank and orphanage and veterans hospital.
And they want to stop shaking hands with lowly people and cutting ribbons and smiling even if they're not happy.
They want to stop clapping even if they're bored.
They want to get rid of all that part, the duty part, the service part.
They want to leave all that and just keep the celebrity part, the riches part, the fancy titles.
The queen's over 90.
She can do the hard work.
These youngsters, they want to party.
Harry and Meghan Markle, they're just grifters.
They're like the Trudeau's.
They're literally trying to monetize the brand.
They're trademarking Sussex Royal, trademarking it, like they're the Kardashians with a new line of makeup or something, except that Kim Kardashian, she has no official duties, no constitutional duties, no public responsibilities, and her money is her own.
She's not living out the avails of the state.
She's not living off the taxpayer.
In fact, Kim Kardashian West and her husband Kanye West, the musician, they pay enormous taxes in because they're enormously successful.
They're not moochers.
Meghan Markle was a B-list or more accurately a C-list celebrity.
One step up from a nobody really, not a starving wannabe starlet working as a waitress in poverty just waiting to be discovered.
But maybe one notch above that.
She had a minor role in some shows like this one on the screen here.
Meghan's Reality Check00:09:24
She wasn't a multi-millionaire by any stretch.
She probably made high six figures, low seven figures as an actress, but once taxes and expenses and managers and agents are all paid, I mean, she had enough to live comfortably, but she didn't want to live comfortably because she was in Hollywood and she saw how the real stars, the superstars, lived.
She went by Beverly Hill.
She saw the fancy cars and she started comparing herself to those around her.
Megan Markle was never going to be an A-lister.
She knew it.
But she had a plan.
She divorced her husband.
Get rid of him.
He's since remarried.
And she remarried.
She married herself a real prince.
Gold digger, social climber, sure, like no one's ever seen in 90 years.
Since the last American divorcee, Wallace Simpson married herself a royal King Edward.
It was a constitutional crisis.
And on the eve of the Second World War, no less.
And she was a Nazi sympathizer, can you believe it?
You know, they visited Germany and met with Hitler.
So that woman, Wallace Simpson, met Edward when he was still a prince.
Now, he became a king when his father died.
Simpson wasn't even divorced yet.
She had become his mistress, boasting, soon I shall be queen of England.
Yeah, it did not happen.
King Edward resigned.
He was pressured to resign, abdicated the throne, as they say.
Crisis averted, let those philandering Nazi sympathizers go.
Give them a few pounds to live off.
Give them modest titles.
They were sent to the Bahamas far away where Edward was made the governor.
What a disgrace.
I guess that grifter, Wallace Simpson, still got her title, Duchess.
And I guess in the end, Edward did the right thing, sort of, and paid a bit of a price for it.
He wouldn't be king anymore.
But what about Harry and Megan?
They want their cake and eat it too.
They just decided this.
They didn't consult with their family.
They didn't consult with the Queen.
They didn't consult with anyone.
They just announced their plans on their Instagram page because they think they're stars that way or something.
Let me read their Instagram message.
After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution.
We intend to step back as senior members of the royal family and work to become financially independent while continuing to fully support Her Majesty the Queen.
It is with your encouragement, particularly over the last few years, that we feel prepared to make this adjustment.
We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America.
Oh, really?
Continuing our duty to the Queen, the Commonwealth, and our patronages, this geographic balance will enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter, including the launch of our new charitable entity.
We look forward to sharing the full details of this exciting new step in due course as we continue to collaborate with Her Majesty the Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, and all relevant parties.
Until then, please accept our deepest thanks for your continued support.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, for more information, visit our website, Sussex Royal.
Please hit the tip jar.
They were lying there, by the way.
They didn't talk to the Queen about any of this.
That website, Sussex Royal, apparently they've trademarked that name.
Are you going into the trades, are you?
You're getting a job, are you?
Real job, are you?
You're renting out the name, are you?
Sussex Royal.
Because they want to make money.
And the Queen and her family, look, they're already amongst the richest people in the world.
I mean, castles, huge property, servants.
But these two little grifters want that Kardashian style.
They want it to be about them, then, them, They want to rent it out.
They want to monetize.
They had a PR firm write this weird memo on their private website about funding, trying to spin the fact that they're quitting the work part of being royals, but keeping the money part of being royal, keeping the money part, the funding.
It goes on and on and on.
They want to keep their multi-million dollar residence that just had millions in Renault's.
It's called Frogmore Cottage.
I love that part.
Cottage, like it's a little shed or something.
Their Instagram post said that they've had many months of reflection and internal discussions, but the royal family says that's a lie.
None of them are consulted.
I think the Royal Sussex, I think they were just talking to their C-list Hollywood friends who see a gravy train here.
Harry brings the name and the wealth and the titles and the class, and Megan will take care of the grifters and the graspers and the PR firms.
You know, she came to Canada two weeks ago with Harry.
Actually, they landed the day after Trudeau left for Costa Rica.
He couldn't be bothered to stick around to greet them.
Now, they flew back to the UK, but apparently Markle is back in Canada again.
I guess things aren't going so well with the reflections and discussions with the Queen.
I'm guessing the Queen and the rest of the royal family are using words like, well, the four little word, you know what I'm talking about.
Duty.
Yikes.
And responsibility and constitution.
not words like Instagram and self-actualization.
I note that Markle left her baby with the nanny as she jetted around back and forth.
Of course she did.
The royal family isn't the most important thing to her.
Neither is her own family.
She is the most important thing to her.
It's pretty gross and it's pretty sad what she's made of Harry.
You know what I liked about Harry?
He served.
He served in the Army dangerously in Afghanistan on the ground for years in real danger, real work, real service.
He once said it was the best thing he'd ever done, the most real thing.
He got to meet other real people in the army.
I get it, living in the royal family must be like a fantasy or a bubble or maybe a gilded cage.
In Afghanistan, he could be real and just a man in the army.
And he started a charity and a competition, the Invictus Games for wounded vets.
Good for him.
You know, that's great.
That's service, isn't it?
That's duty.
And something he actually knew a little bit about.
How different from the vanity and narcissism his American wife is pulling him into.
And Canada, too.
Here's the big scoop on them that ran in the sun tabloid.
I understand this huge report in the sun is why Harry and Megan made their huge announcement in an Instagram post because they panicked because they hadn't set it all up yet and it was still being planned and the sun was about to reveal it.
So they just blurted it out on Instagram.
Sounds like they want to move to Canada so that they can say they're still in the Commonwealth, but they'll be close to Hollywood and Manhattan whenever they like.
I think I actually know, you see this forest here that's on their page on their website, Sussex Royal.
There's some wider angle pictures of the forest.
I know this sounds crazy, but I think I actually know the forest.
I think it's a forest between Nanaimo and Alberni on Vancouver Island.
I think I've been to that forest.
I know that sounds absurd, just to look at some trees, but I think I know where they are.
The sun says they rented a $14 million home over Christmas.
I think that's in Tofino.
I think they're in Tofino.
They're doing what Trudeau does when he runs away from his duties.
I wonder if it's in the exact same house or on the exact same beach where Trudeau goes.
Now, look, I'm a huge monarchist, despite Prince Charles.
And despite Prince Andrew, the super gross friend of Jeffrey Epstein.
But there's a lesson there.
You know, after Epstein was killed, the BBC interviewed Prince Andrew about his role.
Did he rape young girls like Epstein did?
Here's how it looked on the BBC.
One of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Roberts, has made allegations against you.
She was very specific about that night.
She described dancing with you and you profusely sweating and that she went on to have bars possibly.
There's a slight problem with the sweating because I have a peculiar medical condition which is that I don't sweat, or I didn't sweat at the time, and that was, oh, actually, Yes.
I didn't sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when I was shot at.
Earl Sandwich's Dilemma00:03:27
And I simply, it was almost impossible for me to sweat.
Yeah, mate, I think you're a liar.
Well, after that interview, the Queen fired him.
I mean, the Queen is his mum.
He is still who he is, but she essentially said, you're not representing our family or our country anymore.
You're a disgrace.
Now, she let him make the announcement to save whatever scraps of dignity he has left.
But he's done.
If that's how she handles her own son, I bet she'll be as tough with her grandson and his grasping American wife.
I wouldn't be, wouldn't that be just the thing?
I mean, what do they want?
What are they after?
Free stuff, but obviously the title to rent out, to ring out Sussex Royal.
Well, that's exactly what the Queen should take away from them.
Take away all the free stuff, all the money, all the glitz and glamour and the perks, but take away the word Sussex.
Just like King Edward became the Duke of Windsor, that's still a pretty nice title, isn't it?
And that governor of the Bahamas thing.
And Prince Harry is not the king.
I think he's about fifth or sixth in line, so he'll never be king.
He's not that high.
I think Megan and Harry need a new name.
They need a low name, but one that won't sell in America.
One that's a bit too quirky, a bit maybe even gross or weird sounding.
One that'll make Americans say, huh?
Like the Earl of Sandwich.
You ever heard that?
There's nothing wrong with sandwiches.
I love sandwiches, you can see.
I think most people do.
There are, you know, the Sandwich Islands, that's what Hawaii used to be called.
There's still a place called the South Sandwich Islands.
This is a map.
Do you see how far away they are?
They're near the Falklands, near Antarctica.
They're near the South Pole.
I think that is perfect for these two grifters to be the governor of the South Sandwich Islands.
Now, the trouble is, this guy is already the Earl of Sandwich.
He's a real guy, John Montague.
And he has plenty of heirs.
So I'm not sure if he'd give up the title.
It's his title by right.
But if he's the Earl of Sandwich, I don't know.
Maybe Harry can be renamed the Duke of Donuts or something like that.
I don't know.
Megan can become the Duchess of Donuts.
No problem.
I think they might actually love it.
They could open up a really, really classy donut and coffee shop in Tofino, in Beverly Hills, charge all their sea list friends $10 a coffee or something.
Really living the life.
Just get them out of the senior ranks of the royal family, as Harry calls it.
Like the royals removed that Nazi sympathizer Edward and his gold digger wife 80 years ago before they destroyed the whole place too.
Stay with us for more.
Aircraft Crash: Glitch or Vengeance?00:15:11
Welcome back.
Well, when I first heard that a passenger airliner crashed in Iran at precisely the same time as Iran's missile strikes on Iraqi air bases, I put the two things together, but it was another day or so before intelligence agencies said, in fact, that's what had happened.
The missile had down the airliner, killing more than 175 civilians.
But I didn't realize till even later that the jet that crashed was hundreds of miles away from the Iranian attack on those Iraqi air bases.
That's just one of the very many strange things about this.
I haven't been in a war, thank God, but our next guest is someone who has.
And I'm hoping that he will help us shed a light on what might have happened, what could have happened, and what we can do now.
I'm talking about our friend Lee Humphrey, who is a Canadian forces veteran, and he, in fact, helped start Veterans for the Conservative Party of Canada.
Lee, it's great to see you again.
Thanks for being here.
You're very welcome, Bowser.
It's good to talk to you.
Well, I mean, one of the terrible things about war is that it doesn't just have casualties amongst the combatants, but of course, civilians, collateral damage.
Often there are more civilian deaths in a war than soldiers themselves.
There's a lot of questions about this.
Give me your thoughts.
Were these people, do you think, likely shot by accident?
Do you think this was some bizarre vengeance or message sent to the West?
Just to help us wrap our heads around what went on with this passenger airliner.
Yeah, so the system that is most likely to have been used is called the SA-15, which is a Russian-based mobile, medium-range surfaced air missile system used to shoot down enemy aircraft.
And it has two functions.
It has an automatic function where a computer based on algorithms of flight patterns for aircraft determines that something is an enemy aircraft, or it has a manual function and an operator using the built-in radar system that the system operates under can launch missiles.
So the real question, and something we will probably never learn, is whether it was in automatic mode and it failed because the Russians hadn't updated the algorithms properly for the Iranians, or whether it was in manual mode and you have a nervous young officer who is concerned about incoming American missiles or incoming American aircraft attacking Tehran,
who panics and misreads what he's seeing on his radar screen.
Those are definitely two possibilities.
A programming glitch, terrible, terrible glitch.
The other is a nervous, young, panicky officer.
But would you say that there's also perhaps another alternative, which is that this wasn't a glitch and this wasn't a panicky young officer, but rather this was a willful, thoughtful, evil decision made wittingly.
And the reason I suggest that, and again, I have no experience with Iran or with the world of military things.
But if I understand it, there were other jet airliners coming and going.
This was taking off from Tehran, heading out.
This was many miles away from an Iranian border.
The possibility that this was some bizarre, deliberate decision from Iran, I can't, I mean, I'm so paranoid about the Ayatollah's and their attempts to harm the West that I can't help but think maybe it wasn't a glitch or a panicky young guy made a mistake.
Maybe this was a sober-minded, positively made decision.
Yeah, so the willingness of the Ayatollah to kill their own people makes this a simple and easy thing to conclude.
And had it occurred closer to the battlefield, if you will, where missiles were being launched, had it occurred in the middle of a U.S. retaliatory strike, which never did come, I'd be more inclined to include that as a more distinct possibility.
The fact that it occurred right in Tehran, I mean, the plane literally was hit within four to six minutes of takeoff, meant it crashed into the suburbs and the farming agriculture land just on the outskirts of Tehran, made it very obvious and very easy for U.S. intelligence, which monitors all of these areas for missiles being launched.
And they have satellite communication intercepts of the crews talking and of government officials talking.
So I find it hard to believe that this would have been willful simply because of where it took place, how it took place.
There is some crazy willfulness on the idea that they allowed their airport to continue to operate only four hours after they launched missiles at a sovereign nation attacking the United States and its coalition partners and were expecting retaliation unless they had communications from the United States back saying, you know, you do your save the face attack and we won't respond.
But, you know, I struggle with the idea that this was a purposeful attack simply because of where it occurred and how it occurred.
Well, let's say it was a nervous, panicky young officer or a technological glitch, the two other alternatives you put forward.
Occasionally, airlines are shot down by accident or on purpose.
I mean, in fact, the United States shot down an Iranian airliner some years ago.
They claim they tried to hail it 12 times.
They claim it was coming for their airspace.
It happened.
Now, America sent a letter of regret, paid tens of millions of dollars in reparations to the families.
Obviously, a terrible thing.
So terrible things do happen.
And I don't believe for a second that when America downed that Iranian jet years ago, that anyone would have done so willfully, perhaps, God forbid, negligently or accidentally.
But that's just not how America fights.
And it certainly did great harm to America's reputation.
Let's say it was those first two possibilities you outlined, an accident or a panicky young guy.
How would or should Iran deal with this?
Not how should they?
We know how they should.
How do you think they will?
They've already said they won't hand over the black box.
They already, quote, cleaned up the scene of the crash, removing, let's say, that remnants of the SA-15 missile.
What will Iran do now?
Will they make an acknowledgement?
What do they do or say?
Yeah, well, I think they're going to follow the same pattern of behavior that they've always followed.
They will deny this completely.
They will never admit this occurred.
I will be really, really shocked if the data associated with those black boxes makes it out of Iran.
I'll be shocked if the Canadian investigative team actually gets into Iran until the site is fully cleaned up.
I doubt they'll get access, the kind of access that they would normally get in a normal plane crash or an incident where an airliner is down regardless of how it is down.
I think you'll see a lot of the same sort of denials that Russia made when they downed the Malaysian airliner over the Ukraine.
And it will be up to the world community to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt to the rest of the world.
And it took four to five years for the world community to do that in the case of the Malaysian airline, while Russia still to this day denies that their puck anti-missile system or Buck anti-missile system brought that airliner down.
Iran will never admit to this.
Yeah.
You know, I want to note something.
I mean, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya was certainly no kind gentleman.
But in the brief moment where he tried to realign himself towards the West, I think maybe in the first time in history, he acknowledged that Libyan forces knocked down a commercial airliner over Scotland, took responsibility, and they actually paid more than a billion dollars in reparations, which, I mean, he was trying to realign and synchronize his country with the West, how that country has fallen since then.
So it's maybe in the future, some possible Iranian government trying to change its place in the world might own up to it.
But I think you're right.
I think they're going to stonewall.
So what should Trudeau do?
I mean, I paid very close attention to his press conference yesterday.
He did not have any words that even came close to accusation, condemnation, or even criticism of Iran.
There just were no negative words, let alone insults or threats.
In fact, he led with the statement, this is probably inadvertent.
The only person he obliquely blamed in three answers to three separate questions, he implied that Donald Trump set things in motion with their drone strike against the terrorist general.
So I think that Trudeau is extremely acquiescent and submissive right now.
Do you think that will ever change?
Do you think Trudeau, what could he do?
What should he do?
I understand if he's sending a team over there to get access and investigate.
Maybe he has to hold his tongue a bit.
But I think that he's going to be stonewalled.
What should he do in that case?
Yeah, so I agree with your assessment that I gave the Prime Minister a minor pass yesterday.
I was disappointed that he didn't use one of those three questions to take that off-ramp and say, no, this is not Donald Trump's fault.
This is Iran's fault.
It's an Iranian missile that took down an aircraft, a civilian aircraft, whether accidentally or purposefully outside of the capital of Iran.
So I was a bit perturbed that he didn't take that opportunity in one of those three questions to say, no, this is not Donald Trump's fault.
But at the same time, to be fair to the Prime Minister, I do believe that at this point, because they have the bodies of 63 Canadians and under Iranian law, they do not recognize dual citizenship.
And I'm not sure how many of the 63 are dual citizenship Iranian Canadians or how many were actually born in Canada and are strictly Canadian citizens.
But Iran could keep those bodies and bury them in Iran under their law and treat them as Iranians and not return them to their families here in Canada.
So I will give the prime minister somewhat of a pass for holding his tongue until we can get our people out of Iran and we can get our accident investigators in there to get whatever it is they can get.
It may be very little in the long run, but is certainly worth a shot.
And I'm sure the Americans in the background would truly appreciate if professionals from Canada were able to get access to the black boxes.
And I know the executives at Boeing that want to find out what happened to their aircraft would want that information as well.
Yeah.
Well, yesterday, one of the strange things in Trudeau's press conference is he mentioned he talked to several world leaders.
He mentioned, it stuck in my mind, the prime minister of the Netherlands.
Of course, there was the connection to their downed airliner a few years back.
But it seemed to me that one person that Trudeau didn't phone, and I think he would have said if he had done so, was President Trump.
He mentioned Trump obliquely by implying there's blame there, but it sounds to me, Lee, like Justin Trudeau has not spoken to Donald Trump since that NATO meeting late last year where Trudeau sort of poked fun at Trump for being too talkative and being slow, like where he was sort of giggling with the other NATO leaders about Trump.
I would think that Trudeau would want to talk to Trump to get Trump's either intelligence, to understand Trump's strategy, to get advice from Trump, to get help from Trump.
I think that if they would have spoken, we would have known about it.
I don't think they've spoken, and I think that's a problem to me.
What do you think of that?
I absolutely don't think they've spoken, and I highly doubt they would speak about anything other than a cursory call where Trump expressed his condolences.
But my bet is that the only relationship left is at levels below the head of state level.
So you might see a bit of a relationship between Pence and Freeland, but even that might be a little dicey.
Pence and Freeland's Dicier Dance00:08:55
And I think it might have to fall on the shoulders of the ministers working with the cabinet secretaries in the United States.
I know that Secretary of State Pompeo spoke with our foreign minister today and exchanged both condolences and had a bit of a working meeting.
So my guess is it's going to be at that level because Trudeau just can't help himself.
He gets every opportunity to get back into the good graces of President Trump, which is so necessary if we're ever going to get the two Michaels out of China.
And every time he has that opportunity to repair that relationship, he does something immature, silly, or downright foolish to further crater the relationship.
Yeah.
You know, he had a 17-day trip to Costa Rica, which is an extremely long holiday for a world leader of a G7 country.
Things started to get hot in Iraq and Iran December 31st.
That's when the attack on the embassy happened.
Things really heated up over the next 48 hours.
Trudeau did not break away from that holiday.
He seemed detached from the world, and I suppose that's okay when Donald Trump is doing the heavy lifting.
But all of a sudden, Canada was thrust into the middle of it.
And I sense that Trudeau is saying, Oh, okay, I guess I have to come back to work.
I guess I got to put on a suit and show myself to the public.
But he seems really disengaged on this file.
I don't think you're correct to mention the two Michaels, the two hostages in China.
I just think that Trudeau feels like he's in shell shock or he's tuned out.
I don't want to engage in some diagnosis, but he almost seems like he's depressed and unmotivated.
I think that he's disengaged.
It's like he's not even there mentally.
I don't know.
Maybe that's too much speculation on my part.
Let me leave you to give the final word.
What do you think is ahead for your 2020?
I think we're off to a terrible start.
Yeah, so and I'd even back you up a little bit, Ezra, in the sense of on the 27th when the PMUs, the popular mobilization units, which are Shia militias, when they struck coalition bases in the northern part and western part of Iraq, the Canadian base in Erbil at the airport and the Baghdad area bases were put on high alert and the prime minister didn't engage.
The next day, the U.S. struck back and killed almost 50 members of the Shia militia, various militias, and hit storage sites for rockets and such all over Iraq.
And the Canadian government, Trudeau, was not heard from.
So it was even a week before that when Canadian forces directly went on high alert and their force protection levels were raised significantly as this tit-for-tat began with the Shia militia.
But to your broader point on the prime minister, I'm no psychologist, but what I have seen before is people that are motivated to win fights and people that are whipped.
Yeah.
And Prime Minister Trudeau looks like the recruit that's just about to quit and call it a day and say the Canadian forces is not for him.
Yeah, you know what?
That's exactly right.
And I got no problem with the guy having a beard.
You've got a handsome beard yourself.
But just that look of like he feels like he's not.
I mean, we've had great prime ministers with great beards.
I mean, it's been a while, I suppose.
But it just feels like he's mentally, he wants to go back to Costa Rica, take it easy, go into town, shop for beer, hang out on the beach.
Like it feels like he's still in vacation mode.
That's his happy place.
Whereas Trump, whatever else you think of him, the guy thrives on the action, the deal.
He's always kinetic.
He's always going.
And he takes the odd round of golf, which I think he uses for business purposes.
But I don't think Donald Trump's taking a vacation in his term.
You wouldn't think that Trump is almost twice as old as Trudeau, given his engagement, his energy, his schedule.
I'm worried, and I don't even know who the backup PM is because I don't think the answer, Christy Freeland, is a satisfactory one.
Last word to you, my friend.
Well, you know, we ended 2019 with several world crises occurring at the same time as we have a lot of political protests in South and Central America and throughout Europe.
France has been in turmoil for better part of a year and it's only increasing as they move to a general strike.
Mr. Trudeau was reduced to a minority government, meaning a whole new host of challenges for him.
And we kicked off 2020 with literally quite the bang and sadly a lot of dead Canadians on the other side of the world.
And this is no time. for a prime minister that has taken his walk in the snow and is debating the timing of when to pull the pin.
We need somebody that is out there and advocating for Canada and has the energy to do the job.
And if he doesn't have it, then he needs to get out of the way and let Christina Freeland take over or whomever, but somebody that wants it.
Yeah.
Wise words.
Well, we'll have to have you on another day to get your thoughts on the Conservative Party's leadership contest.
It's not really in high gear yet.
We've had a couple of names, but once that's up and running, I'd be very curious to have your rundown of the various candidates, the pros and the cons, because I know you were very engaged in those things in the past.
And I think foreign affairs and military matters are a legitimate policy area we need to know from our prospective leaders.
Lee, it's great to have you.
Thanks for being so generous with your time and your experience and your wisdom.
Thank you, Ezra.
All right, there you have it, our friend Lee Humphrey.
He's with Veterans for the Conservative Party of Canada and also James International Security Consulting.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about banning Iran.
Daniel writes, Trudeau will not retaliate in any form.
He'll probably send him a pallet of cash.
Well, it's funny, today, I think it was today, I'm getting my hours mixed up, Donald Trump rolled out new sanctions against Iran, like additional sanctions.
As far as I know, Canada hasn't matched them yet.
Why?
It wasn't 63 Americans who were killed.
Why is Trudeau not matching Trump's sanctions?
Steve writes, why is anyone sending foreign aid to Iran?
Well, I showed you that under Trudeau, about 20 million bucks have gone to Iran from Canada.
Then again, Trudeau is still sending foreign aid to China.
Naz writes, as an Iranian Canadian, I'm glad that we were at least told the truth about the crash.
What a nightmare.
Well, Naz, there's a large Persian population in Toronto and in Vancouver.
And of course, in the United States, it's a very large Persian population, especially in Los Angeles.
I think a lot of Persians who came over when the Ayatollah seized power are very liberal, Western, moderate people.
And I think there is still a core of Iran that way.
That's why it's so interesting to watch Donald Trump.
I think a lot of people thought he was going to just dumbly, blindly attack or invade even.
I don't think Trump wants to invade.
I don't think he wants a foreign military adventure.
But what if he could topple the Ayatollahs and allow some sort of organic civil government to emerge from Iran?
I think that's actually possible in a way that's probably not possible in Iraq and definitely not possible in Afghanistan.
What's so weird is that the Iranian-Canadian MP for Richmond Hill is like the only Persian I know who's pro-Ayatolla, whereas most Canadian persons are pro-democracy.
Well, that's our show for today.
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night.