Derek Sloan, expelled from Canada’s Conservative caucus on January 20th via a secret Zoom vote after 28 MPs—including Phil McColeman—sought his removal under Tom Kimmich’s leadership, blames the purge on his grassroots opposition to policies like the Paris Accord. He denies racist ties despite a $130 donation from "Frederick P. Fromm," linked to a known extremist, and criticizes the party’s silence amid cancel culture. Meanwhile, Biden’s inaugural address—praised for unity but critiqued for endorsing divisive "truth" rhetoric—mirrors Trudeau’s push for social media regulation, raising concerns about unchecked political violence and selective accountability. Sloan’s defiance highlights deeper fractures in conservative leadership, while Trump’s potential retreat to a Florida think tank signals a strategic shift to rebuild the GOP from outside. [Automatically generated summary]
An exclusive interview with Derek Sloan, the member of parliament who was just kicked out today from the Conservative caucus in a secret vote.
I talked to him just minutes after that vote.
That's ahead.
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All right.
here's today's podcast.
Tonight, the Conservative Party votes to throw out Derek Sloan.
We'll have an exclusive interview with Sloan himself.
It's January 20th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government will buy the house is because it's my bloody right to do so.
On Monday, Aaron O'Toole announced in a tweet that he wanted to fire a conservative MP named Derek Sloan.
You might remember Sloan as a conservative candidate for the leadership of the party, a rival to Aaron O'Toole.
Now, during the campaign, O'Toole came to Sloan's defense, saying that just because Sloan had some conservative ideas doesn't mean he should be canceled or deplatformed.
In fact, O'Toole went much further, saying he was against cancel culture in general.
Well, all that ended on Monday when O'Toole used a trumped-up excuse to say he wanted Sloan out.
I won't go deep into the excuse now.
We've talked about it in the past few days.
It's basically this.
One of the many thousands of online donors to Sloan's campaign was a Frederick P. Fromm, which was a nom de plume of Paul Fromm, a racist.
Who would possibly know that?
Well, as soon as Sloan heard about it, he refunded the money.
But Aaron O'Toole in that tweet said that was an atrocious and unforgivable, gross lack of judgment and due diligence.
No, it wasn't.
And now, Aaron O'Toole has set such a low bar by which he will be expected by the media and the liberals to sack his own MPs.
Well, it came to a vote today.
That's one of the new rules of the Conservative Caucus is the leader himself can't kick anyone out.
And in the end, the caucus did vote to kick out Sloan.
Moments after that vote, I interviewed the man via Skype.
Here's that interview.
Come back afterwards because I did another interview today, too.
And joining me now via Skype from his home is Derek Sloan.
Mr. Sloan, welcome back to the program.
We spoke to you last during the conservative leadership campaign.
As of now, you are no longer a conservative MP.
Is that true?
That is definitely true.
As of about an hour ago, or even slightly less, I was notified that I am no longer a conservative MP.
Now, tell me about the process by which you were terminated.
I understand there was a caucus meeting via Zoom.
Is that correct?
Were you a part of that meeting?
How did that meeting go?
So I was a part of that meeting, and in that meeting basically, and I should say up front that procedurally it was entirely fair.
You know, I was able to make as much time as I wanted to make an opening and closing statement.
And then in the intervening, others had some time to make comments as well.
Obviously, the outcome is ridiculous.
And of course, will damage the party immensely.
But they've made their bed and now they have to lie in it.
Now, I'm unfamiliar with the process by which an MP can be ejected from a caucus.
Were there rules?
Was there a prosecutor?
Who made the case?
How was the resolution framed?
Can you tell us a little bit how it went down?
You say you felt it was a fair process.
What exactly was that process?
Well, there were some changes to the Reform Act, or I believe the Reform Act made these changes several years ago.
And what it did was at the beginning of every parliamentary session, each party gets to decide several things.
One, whether caucus will have the ability to eject a member or the default position is that the leader can unilaterally do so.
The other thing that they decide is whether the caucus can eject the leader, for example.
And then there's a third thing relating to interim leaders and another thing relating to, I believe, the caucus chair.
Now, our party is one of the only parties that consistently votes to allow caucus to have that prerogative.
And typically, that's a good thing as far as democracy goes, because it's better that a plurality of caucus has a decision over one member than just the arbitrary whims of the leader.
Now, no one else really says how they vote on these things.
And there was some speculation as to whether the Liberals had done this or not in the last parliament with regard to Jody Wilson-Raybull.
But in any event, that's the process.
So our party has always voted that we would give caucus the right to determine whether a person should stay in it or not, which is actually a positive thing because the default is that the leader on his whim could kick somebody out.
They typically, we have not chosen as a caucus to be able to give the leader a review.
And the rationale for that is typically, well, listen, it should be up to members who the leader is.
And so, you know, if caucus kicks out the leader, then you may have a situation where you have a leaderless party, but the members have elected a certain leader.
I understand that process, and I'm somewhat familiar with the laws and their rationale.
But tell me a little bit more.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but tell me a little bit more about how it went down today.
Was there a prosecutor?
Was there a particular accusation or a charge?
Was there a list of quarrels with you?
Or was it all just vague and holistic?
Yeah, so basically to kick off this thing under the Reform Act, you need to have a certain number of signatures.
So I believe, so for our caucus, it's 25 signatures will trigger this.
So I suppose that might mean 20% of caucus or something like that.
So our caucus chair got a sheet of paper and it didn't have any list of charges.
It just was the following names want to review the status of Derek Sloan in caucus.
And now those names were not revealed to me other than the person whose name was on the letterhead itself.
And so that person, I do know.
Everybody else, I do not.
But 25, I think it was 28 signatures were submitted, which got the ball rolling on this.
Okay.
Are you at liberty to tell us whose letterhead it was?
Right now, I'm at liberty to do anything, Ezra.
That's one of the bonuses of being an independent MP.
Right.
And will you tell us who put together the letter?
Was it Aaron O'Toole himself?
It was not Aaron.
It was Phil McColeman, an MP from the Brantford area, who has had a vendetta against me since the Dr. Tam comments in the spring.
If you say there were 28 names on it, now in any votes, you want to have a scrutineer.
You want to check the integrity of the vote.
Did you have a scrutiny or was there some sort of authority who counted the votes?
I mean, you say you think there were 28 names on it, but it sounds like you don't know there were.
So right there, my instincts as a former lawyer would be who checked, who confirmed, who verified?
Was there some sort of presiding judge over this whole process?
So the judge, as it were, was the caucus chair.
Who's that?
So that is Tom Kimmich.
He is an MP from Alberta.
I would say that I get along quite well with Tom and I trust him.
And I don't believe that any foul play occurred in any element of this with respect to process.
So you made an opening statement, I think I heard you say, and then various MPs criticized you.
Is that correct?
Yeah, so both Phil and I were given opening and closing statements.
The leader was able to talk twice and everybody else was able to talk once.
So in the intervening time between closing and ending, anybody could talk that wanted to for up to two minutes.
And so, yeah, and so the bulk of the comments, nearly all the, many comments were critical.
Now, you know, caucus meetings are a weird beast because, you know, those who may be in favor of me, you know, may have may very well have voted in favor of me, but wouldn't necessarily have wanted to make comments publicly for fear of being targeted in the future.
So, you know, so it doesn't, just because it was predominantly negative doesn't, you know, necessarily mean that every single person was against me.
But the comments, yes, were largely negative.
And, you know, the interesting thing is that, you know, the common understanding is that the communications on this have been completely botched.
Nobody bought into this donation garbage with the Paul From.
It turned into just, well, we don't really like the way Derek operates.
He's always getting us into trouble.
He's going to, you know, we're going to lose the next election.
You know, to borrow a quote that you may have seen when you watched The Passion a few days ago, is it better that one die for the nation?
Or in this case, is it better that one person be sacrificed for the safety of the party rather than that we all suffer?
And of course, I don't agree with that logic, but that was essentially what came forward.
Now, I think I heard you say we are unaware of the vote count, or do you know how the votes split at the end of the day?
I do not know.
I know that, you know, again, I trust the process.
We use some sort of a company, not Dominion Voting.
I was going to ask.
We used some Alberta company that's apparently owned by conservatives.
Frankly, I don't in any way doubt the results.
And I do trust Tom.
Tom Kimmich is an honorable person.
I show him.
I mean, he's a good egg.
And, you know, I would never trust any politician, but if you had to trust one, I'd probably put him on the list.
Well, let me ask you this, because I think there's a lot of problems with the way you were sacked and the way you describe the criticisms of you.
It sounds like the donation from Frederick P. From was just a fig leaf for other pre-existing disagreements with you.
The thing is being done in the name of that trivial donation that no one caught.
I mean, I follow anti-Semites because I'm Jewish and I'm interested in it.
And I know the name Paul Fromm.
I do not know the name Frederick P. Fromm.
And I think I follow this stuff more closely than 99.9% of people.
So I think that's, I don't think anyone credibly thinks that that's the real charge against you.
Here's my point.
And you tell me, was this addressed by anyone in the debate?
Aaron O'Toole has just set the most ridiculous hair trigger standard by which, I don't think other MPs will be sacked, by which the party will be hoisted on its own petard.
If you take a donation from anyone, even if they're using a pen name, even if it's trivial, even if it came in online, you now have that entire person's baggage put around your neck.
And I think that's insane.
Please tell me some MPs in the Conservative Party pointed out that having that kind of a hair trigger standard is nuts.
Everybody recognized that, and that's why they tried to make it about, you know, me personally or other things.
You know, I will say this, Ezra.
What I believe this is all about, I have been working hard to recruit grassroots members to be delegates in our upcoming convention.
And I've been very successful at that.
And I believe higher-ups were terrified at the, you know, the possibility of basically delegates that believe similarly to me when it comes to against the Paris Accord and all these other types of things, actually going to the convention and passing policies that would embarrass Aaron O'Toole.
And so I believe that this was created exactly for that reason.
And frankly, a lot of MPs were saying, oh, well, you know, how dare you interfere in my EDA?
And, you know, MPs need to realize they're not the prince of their EDA.
They're not little earls of fiefdoms.
They are the servant of the members of their riding.
And if I have more control over their EDA and their riding than they do, then that's a problem.
And it's not my fault.
And so that is what this is about.
It's about the influence that I have.
And frankly, listen, this isn't for nefarious purposes.
I strongly believe that the principles I stand for are what will make this party strong.
And I will fight.
I will use my influence, whether it's Facebook or whatever else.
So, you know, these people are jealous.
They made a foolish error.
And they will see the fury rain down.
And, you know, it's just beginning.
You know, you mentioned, I think you said Phil McColeman was the one on whose letterhead the accusation was made.
Influence and Jealousy00:02:18
Is that right?
That is correct.
Okay.
I am not well familiar with him.
So obviously he was a condemner of you.
Are you willing to tell us any names of any other MPs who condemned you or senators or any who stood with you, even if they disagreed with you?
I saw online a lot of people who have had policy disagreements with you or even personality disagreements with you saying this is nuts, whatever you think of Derek Sloan.
Are you at liberty?
Is there any reason why you wouldn't tell us some of the players behind the scenes?
And the reason I think it's relevant is because I want to know as a small C conservative who believes in cancel culture and who doesn't, who believes in due process and who doesn't.
I want to know who has the courage to stand up to Aaron O'Toole when he's wrong and who doesn't.
That's a real question.
And I want to know who's sticking the dagger in your back for what I think is a Trumped-up charge.
I want to say something.
I haven't heard you say.
I'm going to come back to that question, but let me interrupt myself.
I have not heard you say something Which surprises me, your wife and your beautiful children, who I've never met, I just see pictures.
You know what?
Mike Jen is right here.
Like, I mean, let me just say, let me just talk about the elephant in the room.
You are married to a woman of color and your children are the same.
And the idea that you would take 130 bucks from some washed up, you know, Septuaginarian racist failure as some secret symbolic alliance is so absurd.
But you don't mention that, I mean, why didn't you, you didn't play that card?
It's not a conservative card to play.
You don't like to mention that your whole family is minorities?
You know, listen, this was so ridiculous.
I didn't want to drag them into this.
But you're right.
I mean, listen, I was joking earlier today.
My wife has a West Indian background.
I eat more curry at home than I do other types of food.
So listen, the idea that I'm, you know, some kind of racist or something is just, it's preposterous.
Dropping Names Later00:02:01
And people know that.
I mean, my family has been in all kinds of photos that I post publicly.
So this, I mean, this was just so absurd.
I didn't want to drag them through the mud and be like, a C, I have a, you know, a such-and-such friend or I have a this or that.
I mean, you know, it was ridiculous.
But you raise a great point.
You know, I just think it's atrociously unfair.
And this is done to conservatives all the time.
Conservatives who live a colorblind life are accused of that which the other side does.
I mean, hearing that from blackface Justin Trudeau gets my dander up.
Now, I interrupted myself, which is not rare.
I was asking you if you were in a position to tell me and other viewers who have a public interest in knowing the character of the Conservative Party caucus.
Do you feel motivated to tell me and our viewers any of your attackers or defenders and if they made particularly thoughtful or cruel remarks?
Well, I will say this.
I will be dropping names as time goes on.
When it comes to those who defended me, I actually don't want to do them any disservice in terms of having them targeted.
I will say that there were a group, a group of people, the same types that defended me before, or many of them, who were actively calling around and actively defending me.
And I have, there are certainly some very close friends that I have in caucus, but I don't want to make their current life miserable by pointing them out.
But I will certainly, as time goes on, be dropping more names of those turncoats who are using fancy words and caucus solidarity and, oh, you're not playing as a team as cover for basically trying to sideline a large part of hardcore conservatives that support them.
Dropping Names Politely00:02:31
Yeah, I just don't get it.
I mean, you know, I'm, I think I'm older than you.
Back in the day, I was in Calgary Southwest when the party was fractured when it was called the Canadian Alliance.
And I remember when Stephen Harper came in, the first thing he did was he bolted back on the splittists in the Democratic Representative Caucus.
You might remember Monty Solberg, Jay Hill, Deborah Gray had split off.
Harper welded them back on.
Then he met with Peter McKay, welded that part back on.
And he spent years adding, not subtracting.
I just don't get it.
How do you move from minority opposition to majority government by splitting and pushing out?
I don't get the math.
I don't understand how throwing not just you and your squad and maybe people who affiliate with you, but anyone who hates this splitism and this cancel culturism, how is that going to win things for Aaron O'Toole?
I don't even get it.
Yeah, in all honesty, they think if they sacrifice me, they're going to win some more soccer moms in the 905.
That's literally the calculus.
And we'll see how wrong they are when this next election happens.
Yeah.
You know what?
I know you probably have a gazillion other calls to take.
I'm sure Rosemary Barton is next on your list of people that call if she's not suing you already.
Looks like you have a little person there.
Oh, those are cuties.
Who do we have there?
Hi, Fiona.
Hi, Fiona.
Nice to meet you.
And who's on your other side?
Who are you?
Nora.
This one is Nora.
And this one is Coward.
Well, aren't you cute as a button?
The three of you, like peas in a pod.
Lovely, lovely family, lovely children.
Thanks for saying hi, kids.
That's perfect.
What a beautiful family.
And you know what?
I mean, in these wretched days of ugly, dirty politics, I am absolutely certain, just looking at those cherubic faces, that that is solace for any slings and arrows that can be thrown at you in that dirty building called Parliament.
I'm sure you come home to those beautiful kids and you really don't even care.
That's a fact.
That's a fact.
Well, listen, beautiful family.
I do have one last question, and I'll let you go because it's a very busy day for you.
I hope your answer is yes, because I like to be an optimist at the end of the day.
Deeply Disappointed00:05:15
Please tell me that there were people in senior positions, senior critics, longtime conservatives, shadow cabinet positions of note.
Please tell me that there were people of influence in the party who talked not about your personality or quarrels and not about this trumped-up charge of taking 130 bucks from some anonymous crank.
But please tell me there was someone senior in the party who was talking about fighting against cancel culture and deplatforming.
Can you give me that?
And I'm not asking for a name.
I'm just saying, please tell me that there is something conservative left in the Conservative Party.
The only people who were fighting for me and who spoke up at all were some rank and file.
I'm not aware of any high-level person that actively defended me.
And I don't know what happened behind the scenes.
I can't speak to that.
But to my knowledge, just rank and file.
Well, I am deeply, deeply disappointed to hear that answer.
I was so hoping that you would have thrown me a bone there.
I am deeply disappointed in the shadow cabinet, but I should not be surprised.
That is very frustrating.
How many people were on the call?
Was it you got 141 MPs and senators?
How many folks were on the Zoom call altogether?
You know what?
I think it was in the 130s.
I forget the exact.
So everyone was engaged.
It was pretty involved.
And my guess is that some of the senators may not have been there because under the rules of this legislation, they don't actually vote.
They can talk if they want, but they don't actually vote.
So it could be that the missing numbers were senators.
So you had about 130 out of 141.
That's an incredible turnout.
Clearly, it's well, I mean, it's the most important issue in the party right now because I think it goes to the character of the party.
I think that the party failed the character test.
Derek, I don't know what you think about it, but I mean, I'm a fan of yours.
I think Your policy stances in the leadership were excellent.
I think people are being politically correct about your comments.
I think you're really one of the few conservative MPs who criticizes the government.
And so we have set up a website.
We call it standwithloan.com.
And we just launched it about five minutes ago.
And I can see it has 188 signatures on it.
And this is for people who either stand with you personally, stand with your ideas, stand with your projects, or simply stand against the cancel culture.
I'm going to sign this petition myself.
I'm not a party member.
I'm just someone who thinks that you should never cancel an MP this way.
And I understand you were actually that you weren't actually ever called by Aaron O'Toole before he announced he was going to seek your termination.
Is that true?
Yeah, not before and not after.
Aaron O'Toole has still not contacted you other than his general remarks on the Zoom call today.
That's correct.
You know, firing people is an unfortunate job that every boss has to do.
And I think it's a sign of someone's character to at least call someone, if not look at them in the eyes when you fire them.
Has he sent you an email or a text?
I've had no communication with him at all before this event or through or after.
I am very disappointed in that answer.
If you're firing a man for good reasons or for bad, you look him in the eye and you tell him, and maybe you listen to what he says in reply.
I'm deeply disappointed in that answer.
But again, I'm not surprised if you stand with Sloan.
Go to standwithsloan.com.
I see we're now up to 244 signatures.
Derek, thanks for being here today.
Thank you for showing us your beautiful family.
I know that you'll be fine because you've got them.
And I don't know what the future will hold for you.
The future for independent candidates in Canada is lean.
But perhaps there are other important jobs for you left to do.
I don't know if you have any thoughts of what you'll do next right now or if you're going to think about it for a while.
There are no thoughts other than I'm staying here to fight and I'm staying here to be even more vocal advocate than before.
In fact, I've been unleashed in a way to fight for the things that matter to all of us, so I'm not going anywhere.
Well, I hope you'll continue to talk with us.
I've enjoyed our conversations over the year.
As always, we extend invitations to your former boss, Aaron O'Toole.
He did talk with me in an email interview, and then he was scared of his own shadow.
In a strange way, I think that may have been a snowflake that turned into an avalanche.
For 10 days, the party's been devouring itself, and it has not been a pretty sight.
I think he should have a little more courage, but I don't think you can get a courage transplant at his age.
Truth and Reconciliation00:15:41
Oh, well, he's welcome to come on and make his case.
I doubt he will.
Let me reiterate our invitation to any conservative MP or senator to come on the show on the same terms everyone else is invited on.
Derek Sloan, great to talk with you.
Good luck.
Thank you.
Talk to you soon.
Well, you can watch the rest of that live stream where I go in depth in the issue and take viewer comments.
You can find that at our YouTube page.
Up next, a review of the inauguration of Joseph Biden, including a review of his speech with our friend Joel Paul.
This is America's Day.
This is Democracy's Day.
A day of history and hope, of renewal and resolve.
Through a crucible for the ages, America has been tested anew, and America has risen to the challenge.
Today, we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate, but of a cause, the cause of democracy.
The people, the will of the people, has been heard, and the will of the people has been heeded.
Well, that's a clip from Joe Biden's inaugural address today.
I watched it.
I found it fairly, well, I have to say, I didn't find it convincing because the whole time I was thinking, he looks like someone who didn't write a speech, barely understands it as he reads it, and will forget it as soon as he's done saying it.
I truly believe that Joe Biden is not at the height of his cognitive powers, and that this is something that will actually be used by the Democrats to their advantage.
They'll trot out this friendly old man who smiles and reads a few pre-printed lines in a teleprompter.
He'll answer few, if any, questions, and he'll be trotted off, while the real work of the Democratic administration is done by other people off screen.
So I don't have much to say about the inaugural address because I don't think it means anything other than what some speech writers thought.
I don't think it truly represents a vision of the president.
In fact, those things that did have any meaning seem to me to be a bit of a lie.
Talks about unifying America, red and blue, didn't ring true with the extreme divisiveness and the hunting down of Trump with an attempt to impeach him a second time in his final days and the vetting of soldiers in the National Guard now for political ideology and just the ratcheting up of the rhetoric in real life, not the ratcheting down.
That's my point of view.
But look, I'm just a Canadian up here in Toronto.
I don't know what's going on.
But one of my favorite guys to help us navigate these politics is a Republican who lives in a very Democrat state.
You know who I'm talking about, our friend Joel Pollock, senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com.
And we've caught him now on the highways of that very state.
Joel, you've got to promise me that you'll keep your eyes on the road.
I appreciate you talking to us while you're driving, but don't crash, okay?
If I keep my eyes on the road, that'll be an improvement from my normal practice.
Well, that's very funny.
Now, I'm sure you watched the inauguration, or at least listened to it on the radio as you were driving.
I'm not going to pay a lot of attention to it because I don't think it reflects the president.
Am I wrong?
Well, let me give you my assessment of the speech as a speech, first of all.
I thought it was a very good speech, and I think it was probably the best speech Joe Biden has given that I can remember.
There were some weak points and very concerning things in the speech that I'll get to in a moment, but let's just talk about the good, first of all.
I think it's good that he talked about unity.
And he didn't just talk about it as a line or two.
It really was the entire speech.
And I think that's important.
I think he has a lot to do to unify the country.
He ran a very divisive campaign.
His party is busy trying to punish Trump out of office, you know, post-presidency.
And, of course, there was the Capitol riot two weeks ago.
So given the setting and given the context, I think the speech was very good in terms of its focus on unity.
I think he had some very good lines.
We must end this uncivil war.
I think that was the line of the speech.
And I think that'll be remembered.
I think that he'll be remembered for that.
I think that's the way he wants to be thought of as a president.
And I think he did himself a really good turn by making unity the focus of the speech.
Now, the negative part of the speech was a section about truth.
And Joe Biden has promoted this conceit that somehow he represents truth and the opposition represents lies.
And he went after what he called lies for power and for profit.
I'm paraphrasing slightly.
It may have been the other way around.
Lies for profit and for power.
But first of all, it's not true that other people lie and Joe Biden tells the truth.
I mean, Joe Biden is one of the most notorious liars in the history of American politics.
He dropped out of his first presidential race because he faked his resume and he plagiarized the speech.
He also campaigned on the fine people hoax and many other lies.
He continues to lie.
A couple weeks ago, he lied about the president holding a Bible upside down.
I mean, Joe Biden can't tell the truth.
But aside from the hypocrisy, it was a subtle endorsement of the cancel culture, the idea that the social media platforms are going to try to get rid of users and groups that hold alternative views that the left considers untrue.
But on issue after issue, like climate change, for example, you're going to find that what the left considers untrue is simply skepticism or an alternative view that might actually turn out to be correct.
So I was very concerned about Joe Biden's line or paragraph about going after lies and pursuing lies.
He didn't specify what he would do.
He said, we have a responsibility to tell the truth.
Well, that's fine.
But he did not emphasize free speech.
And that was a big problem.
In Trump's farewell address yesterday, he spoke about the importance of free speech.
It would not have been difficult for Joe Biden to do the same.
He didn't really do that.
So I think that's very concerning.
That's why, if you look at the Breitbart headlines today, they're all about how Joe Biden called for unity and then demonized his opponent.
I think that's perhaps a less charitable reading than the one I just gave, but it's not untrue.
I mean, I think that is actually pretty accurate.
After making this great call for unity, he signaled that there's going to be a kind of intolerance for views that he considers to be untrue.
And that's where the fight is right now.
So that's why there's division, because Democrats insist they have a monopoly on truth.
And of course, they don't.
Many of the things they believe are simply false.
And they think they're true because they live in a media echo chamber that doesn't encounter an alternative perspective.
So that was what was bad in the speech.
The other noteworthy thing about the speech is that it had no policy in it whatsoever.
This is one of the few inaugural addresses that I can remember.
It may be the only one in recent memory that had no declarations of policy or even policy goals, really.
It was just completely bereft of any kind of policy.
And that might have been fine, given the context.
Maybe we don't want to talk about policy when the country is trying to come together.
That's the most important priority.
But there are going to be some big policy moves.
There already are some underway on his first day in office.
So it was kind of interesting that he didn't signal a policy direction the way Obama did, for example, and the way Trump certainly did in his inaugural address.
So I don't think it was a remarkable address on its own.
I don't think it was particularly well written, but it was a very good speech in that it emphasized unity.
And I do think Joe Biden believes in it.
I'm not sure he knows how to do it.
And his party is busy making everything worse with this continued impeachment and so forth and the pursuit of dissident views, the attempt to stifle free speech online that he's kind of endorsed.
In fact, it's more than kind of.
He actually has endorsed it.
His campaign pushed Facebook to get conservatives offline and that sort of thing.
So I think it remains to be seen if Joe Biden can follow through on that commitment for unity.
But it wasn't a bad start.
And one other thing I'm just reminded of, he asked the nation to join in a moment of silence or public prayer over the victims of coronavirus.
Now, I'm not so sold on the idea of public mourning for the victims of coronavirus in quite the way the Democrats want us to do it.
It's almost as if they want us to be continually mournful.
Joe Biden talked about, I think he called it a dismal winter or something like that.
I'm not into that.
I do think people need to be remembered and honored and so forth, and there need to be memorials, but it can't be a constant memorial.
We can't walk around under a dark cloud.
But I do think it's important that he said his first act as president would be to offer a prayer.
That's really a social conservative thing to do.
And so if there's any hope that he can follow through on this promise of unity, it was in that gesture.
So I would grade the speech as very good.
I don't know if it means anything for the future of his presidency.
In fact, I said earlier today that this will probably be the best day of Joe Biden's presidency because it was the one thing he was supposed to do, right?
It was supposed to win the election and take Donald Trump out of the picture.
So he's done that now, and I don't think there's much left for him to do.
But I think it's a good start, a better start than I anticipated.
Well, you're always optimistic, and that's one of the reasons we like to hear from you.
Hopeful might be another word.
You know, it's funny because I remember when he was talking about truth, and whenever a politician, whenever a government starts implying it will be truth, that's when I get nervous.
And we see in Canada Justin Trudeau tracking a parallel track.
Just two days ago in the Globe and Mail, senior Trudeau officials announcing that they plan to create a new department that will be in charge of social media regulation.
So obviously working in tandem with the Democrats on that, no doubt about it.
But I was thinking about his talk about truth and a little bit about reconciliation, which I didn't believe.
And those two words reminded me of something from South Africa.
And I know you're originally from there a long time ago.
After apartheid, there were truth and a truth and reconciliation committee.
And you correct me if my memory is wrong, Joel.
But the idea was to air things out, not in a way to inflame things, but just to let people have their say, to let people put on the record their grief and grievances, to let people face opponents they could never face before and speak truth to defrock power.
I don't know.
It just seemed like it was, at least the reports we got in Canada, that it was a healthy airing out of the history, something that maybe should have been done in the Soviet Union after it fell, something that was done to some degree after the fall of Nazi Germany.
A truth and reconciliation committee, not a vengeance committee.
I think that Joe Biden and the Democrats are going to be the opposite of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Committee.
I don't think they want the truth.
I don't think they want reconciliation.
I think they want to say what they believe in is the truth.
And the only reconciliation that is offered to the right is the reconciliation of surrender.
I threw a lot of things.
Yeah, I think that's probably true.
And let me talk about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for a second.
And, you know, if you want to read more about it, by the way, let me plug my book, which is new, just came out a week ago, called How Not to Be an S-Hole Country, Lessons from South Africa.
So you can find that on Amazon.
It's done quite well.
And the whole first chapter really is about this idea of reconciliation.
So South Africa had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
And you're right.
Part of the point of it was to allow victims of the apartheid regime to confront people who had committed human rights abuses.
But the reason that the TRC, as it was known, was successful wasn't just that.
That's the part that got reported in the Western press, especially in the United States and Canada and elsewhere in Europe.
But the reason the TRC was important to South Africans goes beyond that.
It was also a chance to admit that the liberation movements, the African National Congress and others, also committed human rights abuses in the anti-apartheid struggle.
That they themselves had committed acts of terrorism.
They had killed innocent people.
They had bombed bars and restaurants.
They had their own system of prison camps where they tortured suspected informants and suspected dissidents, often innocent people.
There were reports of ANC fighters outside the country and these military camps raping women from local communities.
All of that got aired out as well.
Now, the ANC was not happy about that, and they argued It was a book by a couple of ministers, future ministers in the Mandela government, who argued that you cannot judge the liberation struggle by the same moral standard as you judge the apartheid regime, that these were good versus evil, and you can't judge the good struggle by the same standard that you would judge the evil regime.
The TRC, under the leadership of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who's also a morally complicated figure, but in this regard, he was really in the right.
The TRC said, no, we apply a common standard to human rights abuses no matter who commits them and for what purpose.
And that was why the TRC succeeded.
What the Democrats in this country don't understand is that they are accountable to the same standard.
So it's not okay only to condemn the riot at the Capitol unless you also condemn the Black Lives Matter riots that caused $1 to $2 billion of damage, claimed several lives, and destroyed cities like the city I'm in right now.
I'm in the city of Santa Monica, California, where the downtown area was completely devastated during Black Lives Matter protests.
Not the same.
It won't be the same for years.
And the Democrats allowed that to happen.
In fact, they condoned it.
Some supported it.
So it's not okay just to say these people who stormed the Capitol are evil and so forth.
You have to apply a consistent standard.
Now, Democrats don't want to do that.
They believe that violence in the service of their cause, in the service of racial justice, is justified and necessary.
And they will point to examples like the Stonewall riot in the gay rights movement.
They will say, without violence, you don't get anywhere when you're looking for equal rights.
And that's a misreading of history.
As James Kirchyk pointed out in the Wall Street Journal on the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, there was actually a nonviolent gay rights movement that existed before Stonewall.
And the problem is the way the left tells history, it's that it's always these uprisings that create change.
And it is sometimes, it happens in history that change only happens as a result of confrontation.
But you can't excuse the things people do.
And it's always better to use nonviolence.
Nonviolence creates a moral basis to make the change and to make it permanent.
You know, you can date the death of the civil rights movement in this country to the point where it became militant.
You know, the Black Panther Party really alienated a lot of Americans, whereas Martin Luther King had reached out with love and nonviolence and tolerance and so forth.
So Democrats don't understand this idea of truth and reconciliation.
Confrontation And Change00:05:46
They use that term because they want Donald Trump to be considered on the same level as the apartheid regime.
They want Donald Trump to be considered guilty, and they want to use that commission to kind of create a show trial of anyone who supported Donald Trump.
It's the most ridiculous idea, and it basically criminalizes opposition in this country.
But if they want to take the positive idea that everyone is judged by the same standard, I'm fully on board with that.
If you want to reconcile, you have to say, look, everybody needs to obey this common standard of rejecting political violence.
I tweeted today, I don't want to hear any complaints about insurrection when you spent four years mounting what you call the resistance.
And that's what they did.
I don't think they're aware of it.
It really has to be emphasized because they've only just now awakened to the idea that political violence might not be good.
They spent a year justifying it, defending it.
And now that was a drawback in Joe Biden's speech.
He talked about the forces that divide us.
He named racism, nativism.
Okay, but how about leftism?
How about anarchy?
How about socialism?
I mean, how about all these forces on the left that pit one group of Americans against another?
How about identity politics?
I mean, the forces that divide Americans are not just extremists on the right.
There are extremists on the left, and those extremists have the ear of the governing party and the mainstream media.
So I didn't think he did enough to really put his own side on notice that he was holding them to the same standard.
And that's a consciousness I don't think he has.
And that's why I think I'm very skeptical of his calls for unity because that's what unity would require.
It would require that kind of self-criticism, that kind of humility.
And the Democrats, as you say, are not interested in that.
They're interested in maximizing the opportunity that power has given them.
They're not interested in bringing both sides together.
Having said that, it was a good speech.
If you wanted to start on a good note, that was the way to do it.
But I agree with you.
The proof is in the pudding.
And so far, there's not much pudding there.
I know you've got to go.
I think you've pulled over in your car, and I don't want to make you late for your appointment.
Let me just ask you one last question.
The article you write today, you do a lot of articles.
One of them is called Where Trump Supporters Go From Here.
I think part of that is answered from where does Trump go from here?
There's chatter.
Maybe he'll create a new party.
Maybe he'll have a super PAC.
Maybe he'll try and get back into business.
I'm skeptical about that.
What do you think he's going to do?
If I were Donald Trump, I would enjoy a few months of quiet in Florida, and I would build a presidential library.
Barack Obama still hasn't built his presidential library more than four years later.
And it says a lot about Obama.
He was always very good at oratory and argument and concepts, but never good at executing anything.
It's why he wasn't an effective president.
It's why he wasn't a good world leader, really, and a good leader of the United States.
I would like to see Donald Trump get a presidential library up and running.
It can be different from the other libraries.
It can be a resort in Florida.
It can be beachfront property.
It should have archives and so forth, but it should also have a kind of foundation of scholars.
It should have a resident think tank that should promulgate the ideas of the Make America Great Again movement, the MAGA movement.
And I think that's a first step.
I think create that foundation for your legacy, which Obama hasn't done.
Donald Trump is a builder, and now I think he needs to build institutions.
Beyond that, whether he gets back into the political race, whether he becomes a kind of Republican kingmaker, I think people will seek his endorsement.
But I think it would be healthy for the party to find its own way for a while, to figure out how it's going to conduct itself.
There are a number of leadership changes that are probably necessary, particularly in the Senate where Mitch McConnell led the party to defeat.
Okay, the party lost three seats in the recent elections.
That's usually a prescription for leadership change.
So hopefully that'll happen.
And Donald Trump, I think, needs to let it happen while creating, hopefully, an institutional basis that'll carry his legacy forward beyond this next coming election and really beyond his lifetime.
I think that these principles and policies that he stood for are the keys to American success and really the guarantors of freedom around the world.
If we go the way the Democrats want, I think all of that is at risk.
All right.
Well, we'll let you get back to your day's journeys.
Thanks for talking to us from the car, and I'm glad we didn't cause a car accident.
Joel Paul, great to see you again.
Thanks for your time.
Thank you.
All right, there you have it.
Senior Editor at Large at BrightBark.com.
Stay with us.
Well, it was great to have Derek Sloan on the show.
I find him intelligent and thoughtful.
The idea that he's racist is a laugh.
Weren't those cute kids?
I loved having him on.
I think Aaron O'Toole is making a very bad decision.
You know, he survived this vote, which was really him or me was the showdown.
But I don't think it's going to do him well.
I think he's demoralized so much of the party's base, even if you don't like Derek Sloan.
I find him likable enough.
How can you support this kind of cancel culture process?
I just don't think it makes sense.
The saddest thing I heard from Derek Sloan is that not a single critic or shadow cabinet minister stood up for his freedom.