Ezra Levant critiques media credibility, citing Gallup’s 2023 poll where only 13% of Americans trust mass media "a great deal," and partisan divides like 69% of Democrats vs. 15% of Republicans trusting it. He debunks claims that Trump refused to condemn white supremacy, highlighting his 2020 debate disavowal of the KKK and David Duke, while exposing CTV’s misrepresentation and CBC’s $1.5B government funding. Levant also recounts Quebec police disrupting a Montreal synagogue’s Yom Kippur service without a warrant, comparing it to authoritarian tactics, and notes pandemic restrictions crippled his business—from 20 to two employees. The episode reveals systemic media bias and overreach, questioning whether "fact-checkers" are truly neutral or just regaining trust through selective narratives. [Automatically generated summary]
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Okay, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, who fact-checks the fact-checkers?
Part 212 in our ongoing series called You Just Can't Trust the Media.
It's October 1st, 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 government.
But why?
It's because it's my bloody right to do so.
Trudeau's Racism Condemnation Controversy00:12:33
Donald Trump is right to call it the fake news media.
I'm sorry, it just is.
It's not my opinion.
It's the opinion of most people.
Here's a Gallup poll from a year ago, so it's probably even worse now.
Americans' trust in mass media edges down to 41%.
Only 13% trust the media a great deal, and 28% a fair amount.
Imagine being that guy, that 13%.
So what's that?
That's one in eight people.
Who says, yeah, I really trust the media a great deal.
I really believe that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself.
I really believe that Donald Trump works for Vladimir Putin.
I really believe that my SUV is why the globe is warming.
I really believe that Bill Clinton is a feminist.
And I really believe that Justin Trudeau just didn't know that dressing up in blackface was racist.
I'm serious.
Imagine what a lovely life that person leads.
It's like all of us before we ate from the tree of knowledge and stopped being like children of tender years.
If only we could get back to that childlike state of really trusting the media.
But look at this part.
Same story.
69% of Democrats, 15% of Republicans, 36% of Independents trust the media.
That's actually the real story.
Democrats are sort of fine with the media.
Republicans are not, which pretty much tells you everything.
We all know the media aren't neutral.
They're partisan.
It's a big problem in the U.S.
And I'm sure if it were ever properly polled in Canada, we'd see the same problem up here.
I mean, imagine actually trusting the CBC's Rosemary Barton, the chief political reporter, to give you the straight goods on Trudeau.
If you could do any other job and you have to answer, what would it be?
I'd be a school teacher.
I knew you were going to say that.
I know, that's a good idea.
What aspirational?
Aspirational.
Something you haven't done.
No, it'd be that.
it'd be maybe running the school.
Something at the UN, something at the...
Oh no, if I'm...
Once I'm done politics, I'm done politics.
Last book you've read or the book you're reading?
The just finished The patch, which was Chris Turner's history of the oil patch.
But I'm also about to start the new Ken Follett, the third book that is the sequel to Pillars of the Earth.
That's your nerdy side.
No, that's my...
Your sci-fi.
Nerdy side.
No, no, it's not sci-fi.
It's just a sweeping historical epic, I'm sure, but I haven't said it yet.
If that didn't convince you that she's Trudeau's platonic girlfriend, maybe the fact that she literally sued the Conservative Party in the middle of the last election might.
Yeah, no one trusts the media.
Here's an interesting story in Pew Research.
They're a liberal group, but they're pretty honest liberals.
Americans see skepticism of news media as healthy.
Say public trust in the institution can improve.
72% of U.S. adults say news organizations do an insufficient job telling their audiences where their money comes from.
Again, that's in the United States.
Imagine if we had an honest poll up here in Canada where the CBC takes $1.5 billion from Trudeau, where newspapers take another $600 million from Trudeau, where left-wing lobby groups like the Tides Foundation pour money into climate journalism everywhere that'll take it, including the Toronto Star.
So yeah, we're not stupid, except that lucky 13% of us who think everything's fine.
So some journalists have been trying to build back the credibility of their biased wreckage by saying, we're fact checkers now.
Which is odd because I thought that all reporters check their facts all the time.
Calling yourself a journalist who's a fact checker now makes me wonder, you mean you weren't checking your facts all along?
You mean other reporters in your company still aren't checking their facts even now?
Now, Daniel Dale is the fact checker at the Toronto Star who was then hired away by CNN to fact check Donald Trump.
So here's how that goes.
Trump said this in the debate.
But if you look at what we've done, I closed it and you said he's xenophobic.
He's a racist and he's xenophobic.
So here's a CNN fact check on that.
Did Biden say Trump was xenophobic for imposing travel restrictions on China?
This is lacking context.
It's not clear Biden even knew about Trump's China travel restrictions when he called Trump xenophobic on the day the restrictions were unveiled.
Biden has never explicitly linked his accusation of xenophobia to these travel restrictions.
So a fact check is that Biden, well, sure, he did say the word xenophobic, but it's unclear what he meant.
How is that even a fact check?
Oh, I guess you could literally read Biden's tweets on the subject.
Back in March, Trump tweeted about closing borders to China, and Biden said, stop the xenophobic fear-mongering, be honest, take responsibility, do your job.
It's right there.
He wrote it himself, or his staff did, but CNN says that, fact-checked Trump, and he was lying again.
Biden never said he was xenophobic.
Do you see why no one trusts the media?
At least no one who was conservative or even middle of the road.
That's not a fact check.
That's actually an anti-fact check.
Trump got it right.
CNN sent in the liars to mop it up for the Democrats.
Which brings me to this story by CTV.
It says, Trudeau, other leaders, condemn white supremacy in wake of Trump's refusal to do so.
There's someone's even in that headline.
Did Trump really refuse to condemn white supremacy?
Well, take it from the fact checkers at CTV.
U.S. President Donald Trump refused to condemn white supremacy during his debate against former U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday.
Now, is that true?
Because I watched the debate, and he not only condemned them, he pointed out he's repeatedly condemned them before.
Take a listen.
We criticize the vice president for not specifically calling out Antifa and other left-wing extremist groups.
But are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, as we saw in Kenosha and as we've seen in Portland?
Sure, I'm willing to do that.
Here's the transcript of that because there was a lot of crosstalk.
Let me read it slowly.
Chris Wallace said, you have repeatedly criticized the vice president for not calling out Antifa and other left-wing extremist groups.
Trump says, that's right.
Chris Wallace says, but are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacist and militia groups?
And Trump says, sure.
Chris Wallace says, and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we've seen in Portland.
Trump says, sure, I'm willing to do that.
And he goes on, he says, stand down.
Of course, he's willing to say that.
He actually answered the exact same question four years ago to the exact same reporter, Chris Wallace.
I totally disavow the Klu-Klux Klan.
I totally disavow David Duke.
I've been doing it now for two weeks.
This is, you're probably about the 18th person that's asked me the question.
It was very clear.
That question was also talked about in the form of groups.
Groups.
I want to know which groups are you talking about?
You have to tell me which groups.
Ultimately, he got to the Klu-Klux Klan, which obviously I'm going to disavow.
And by the way, if you look on my Twitter account, almost immediately after the program, they were disavowed again.
You know, it's amazing.
When I do something on Twitter, everybody picks it up, goes all over the place.
But when I did this one, nobody ever picks it up.
Take a look at my Twitter account.
Yeah, in fact, just a couple weeks ago, Trump called for the KKK, which was a Democrat Party creation, to be labeled a terrorist entity.
Hey, why didn't Chris Wallace, the journalist there, ask Joe Biden if he would condemn Antifa and Black Lives Matter writers who've actually been burning and rioting and murdering their way across America for six months?
I wonder why he didn't do that.
Because I'm not one of the 13% who trusts.
But back to the CTV story, which starts off with a lie, as you can see.
Now, Canada's political leaders are all speaking out against the issue of white supremacy, one that many acknowledge is present in Canada, too.
The Prime Minister has condemned and will continue to condemn right-wing extremism, white supremacy, and racism in all its form, read a statement from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office, sent to CTV News Wednesday.
Well, two thoughts.
How do you write a whole story in CTV about that without mentioning Trudeau in Blackface?
How do you talk with a straight face about Trudeau condemning racism when he himself was racist so many times he lost count?
And by the way, he fires any women of color who stand in his way, whether it's Selena Cesar Chavan or Jody Wilson-Rabel.
But hey, CTV has some fact-checking to do here.
And again, in Canada, is it right-wing right supremacists, white supremacists?
I mean, I don't know, blocking roads and railways and pipelines with eco-terrorism.
Why won't Trudeau condemn them?
And why won't CTV ask him to do it?
Because they're liars.
Boy, sometimes I wish I were part of the 13% who believe the media.
Life would be less stressful.
Now, for some reason, CTV didn't quote what Trump actually said in the debates.
I showed you the clip and I read the transcript.
CTV said this.
During the debate, Trump was asked whether he condemns white supremacist groups and the violence they participated in during summer protests.
No, he wasn't.
That's not even what the question was.
He refused to do so, opting instead to brand it solely a left-wing problem and even telling one far-right hate group to stand back and stand by.
He refused to get no they just made this up But that far-right hate group to stand back, they're referring to the Proud Boys.
The far-right group Trump refused to condemn was first founded in Canada and has since taken root in the United States, which is something interim Green Party leader Joanne Roberts made a point to mention in the statement she sent to CTV News.
I know a little bit of the Proud Boys.
It's basically a loose fraternity that Gavin McInnes started years ago.
When I was in Israel, three and a half years ago with Gavin, he had to meet up with some Proud Boys in a bar in Tel Aviv.
Let me just say that part again.
They were Jews in Tel Aviv, meeting up for drinks.
Doesn't sound very neo-Nazi to me.
Here's their leader, Enrique Tario.
I've never met him, never spoken with him.
I don't know anything about him, actually, other than he's a Cuban-American and he's a person of color, as they say.
There were two Proud Boys who were sent to jail for getting into a street fight with Antifa rioters in New York.
Here's a photo of one of the Proud Boys, John Kinsman.
That's his black wife and their black child.
So yeah, if he's a racist, he's doing a really, really bad job of it.
I mean, I don't mean to laugh.
He's in prison.
But anyone who thinks that man is racist, well, it reminds me of that Steve Martin movie, The Jerk.
It's your birthday, and it's time you knew.
Navin and not our natural born child.
I'm not You were left on our doorstep.
But we raised you like you were one of us.
You mean I'm going to stay this color?
Naven, I'd love you if you were the colour of a baboon's ass.
Yeah, no, no.
He's not racist.
But CTV knows.
CTV knows they're white supremacists.
They're a hate group, whatever that is.
Trump won't condemn white supremacists.
Here's Trump's own daughter, Ivanka Trump, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Police at Synagogue on Yom Kippur00:10:20
They're Jewish.
Here they are celebrating Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday.
Both have senior roles in the White House.
But sure, Trump's a racist white supremacist, sure.
And you know it's true because CTV's fact checkers checked the facts and they would never lie to you.
Would they?
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, the pandemic laws are so vague and arbitrary, it almost depends on the individual police officer and the individual suspect.
There's quirks, of course.
In Las Vegas, churches were shut down, but not casinos.
I've seen churches hold ceremonies in Walmarts that never had to close.
And it brings us to a case that I saw in Montreal.
A few days ago was the highest holiday in the Jewish calendar called Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, one of the days of the year where even irreligious Jews go to synagogue.
And so it was a shocking report I heard out of Montreal that one such synagogue where the Jews were praying socially distanced and whatnot, police raided the synagogue without a warrant, demanded that the Jews inside disperse out into the streets, and then shooed them home.
I heard about this online from a Montreal resident who was in the synagogue.
His name is Beryl Solomon, and he joins us now via Sky.
Beryl, nice to meet you.
Thanks for being here.
Thank you for having me.
Did I accurately represent what happened on Yom Kippur earlier this week?
Why don't you tell us where you were, what it looked like, and how it transpired?
Yeah, so it was accurate.
We were all praying at the last part.
You hit on something very, very important is it's up for interpretation.
We're living in crazy times, and I think that everybody's trying to do their best, but this is where doing your best runs and begins becoming problematic.
Is the day before the police had showed up, they said we were respecting all of our duties.
Everything that we had to do, we were respecting.
The next day, another new police officer showed up and said that we were not.
And therefore, everybody had to vacate the premise during the highest part of the day, which is called Nailah during Yom Kippur.
It's the highest prayer of the day.
It's like really the crescendo of the whole prayer service.
And the rabbi had asked the police officer if we could have, you know, we needed about 20 more minutes to finish up.
He said, you have 10 and everybody has to get out of the building.
And the police officers stood there in their car and they were telling everybody, go home, go home, go home.
And they were causing people to leave.
And it just created a mass panic for absolutely no reason.
And I was raised, you know, I was raised to say, when you see something, say something.
Meaning, when you see that there's an injustice, stand up to it and face it dead on.
And that's what I decided to do.
After this experience, I took out my phone and I shared and documented what had just happened and what had just transpired at my synagogue.
And there were other people who had said, well, you know, there was other synagogues that the police showed up to during Yom Kippur and nothing happened.
And they passed inspection.
And I said to myself, have we gone, when did it become okay for, now we have to be inspected?
Like, am I living in Canada or am I living in a communist country?
Now the synagogue is Beth Chabad Cote St. Luke.
I'm familiar with the Chabad synagogues.
It's a religious, it's a more observant denomination, if you use that word of Judaism, but very friendly and very public-facing, very sociable.
You said that the day before other police officers came, sort of checked things out and gave it the thumbs up.
Tell me how it happened.
So the police car showed up.
Did the police come into the building itself?
Did they talk to the rabbi?
Did they use loudspeakers?
Like, how did they introduce themselves?
What did they say?
And it's sort of a strange negotiation.
The rabbi saying, we just need 20 minutes and we're done.
And the cop's saying, well, you have 10.
I'm not sure if that's a medical determination if the virus only attacks you on the 11th minute, but not on the 10th.
Tell me a little bit more about how it actually went down.
And that's what it comes down to, by the way, is this whole thing, in my humble opinion, has gotten so blown out of proportion that, you know, now in Quebec, they just announced that now we're in the red zone, which means that restaurants now have to be shut and they want to essentially force us back into a shutdown now for the next 28 days.
And, you know, I'm a business owner, okay?
I had, before Corona, I had 20 people on my payroll, on my staff.
20 people that were getting, they were getting paychecks from me every single week.
That number has been cut down to two.
There was 18 people.
Now I use those other those 18 people.
I use them as contractors.
Not all of them.
Some of them I don't have enough work for.
But all those 18 people are now are labeled as contractors.
And that's how I feel.
Let me put that aside for a bit.
I understand the point about the lockdown and the red zone, which I think is a terrifying phrase designed to terrify.
But bring me back to the Yom Kippur Eve itself.
It was one police car with two officers.
Is that how it was?
One police car, two officers.
They came into the building.
They asked, who's the organizer here?
The rabbi said, this is on the second day.
The first day was not a problem.
The first day they said, okay, you're fine.
You pass inspection.
Everything looks kosher.
And that's the problem, is it's up for interpretation.
When the day they came back the second time, the different officers, the rabbi said, we just need 20 minutes to finish up the coffee.
He needed 20 minutes to finish.
It was 7.20.
He said, we need it to 7.40.
He said, the police officer said at 7.30, everybody has to be out of the building.
And again, did he give an or else?
I mean, sometimes when cops want you to do things, they just sort of declare it.
And did he say an or else or else you get fined?
Or else I'll give tickets or else you'll be arrested?
Or did he just say everybody done in 10 minutes?
Because I've had enough experience with police recently to know that sometimes they just speak with great authoritative tone and people obey them.
Could I tell you, I actually don't have a problem with police in general.
I actually have a lot of respect for police officers.
I feel that what Corona has done is it has turned, you know, it has turned somebody that is supposed to be policing and protecting into using those resources to check on our synagogue.
Meaning, those police officers, how nice would it have been if they were there to protect us during Yom Kippur?
You know, let's be honest, the Jewish community is a target, unfortunately, and God forbid.
So there was no or else?
They just said, everybody out in 10 minutes?
Everybody out in 10 minutes.
And they stood there, asking people to leave.
You must leave.
You must leave.
They said, enlonzie infringe, which means let's go.
They were saying, enlonzi.
And again, I'm not.
The police, at the end of the day, are just doing their job.
Well, this thing has gone way too far.
Did anyone in the synagogue object other than the rabbi saying, give us 10 more minutes?
Was there any dissent?
Was there any emotion show?
Did anyone cry?
Everybody was upset.
Everybody was upset.
Did anyone say anything back to the police?
One of the reasons why I think Jewish people get picked on is because we don't fight.
We're not fighters.
We're not fighters.
We respect the law.
A police officer asks us to leave, even if it's on the holiest day, we're going to leave.
Well, I mean, there's a matter of entering private property without a warrant.
There's a matter of a police officer saying something, but what is the underlying law that gives him the authority to command that?
Let me ask you this.
It's been several days now.
Everyone complied with this police officer, sounds like.
Has the synagogue protested in any way?
Has it sent a letter to the police or any other authorities?
So yes, they have been.
The mayor of the city has been in touch with the mayor of the city of Côte-Luc has been in touch with the synagogue.
And the police department has been contacted.
And there is a meeting underway this week between the head of the police department and the mayor of the city and the synagogue to get to the bottom of what happened.
Yeah.
Well, I think we have to keep an eye on these things.
The red zone, I mean, we were all told two weeks to flatten the curve, two weeks to save our hospitals.
It's been six months now.
I think it's longer than six months.
Yeah, and, you know, this whole story, the law says you have 10 minutes in a synagogue, not 20, is awfully arbitrary.
I look forward to hearing how this is resolved.
Beryl, I appreciate you taking the time to tell us the story.
Thank you so much for your time.
All right, there you have it.
Beryl Solomon, who was at the Beth Chabad Cote St. Luke Synagogue on Yom Kippur when two police officers came in and told everyone to get out.
Stay with us.
Lawyers and Cowardice00:00:33
Welcome back to my monologue last night.
Gabriel writes, Other than Rocco, where are the lawyers across Canada suing the government?
Why are the lawyers so cowardly?
Well, I'll have a lawyer on tomorrow's show, and we'll talk about that very subject, so tune in then.
On my interview with Benjamin Weingarten on the presidential debate, Cece writes, the free world stands with Trump.
Is he perfect?
Hell no.
But if America is to survive this current Marxist attack, Trump is the only man for the job.
It's rather terrifying that so much rests on the survival and victory of one man, isn't it?