Ezra Levant critiques vaccine passports as illegal, privacy-invasive "health apartheid" tools, citing unproven EUA vaccines with risks like heart inflammation and allergies while governments push mandates without democratic debate. He warns of digital security threats and social credit parallels, comparing January 6th’s $1.5M damage to ignored $1–$2B summer 2020 riots, questioning its terrorism label amid Biden’s focus on conservative dissent over jihadist threats. The episode underscores how mandates and political narratives risk normalizing overreach while silencing opposition. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I give you 10 or actually I think it's 11 reasons why I think vaccine passports are a bad idea, probably an illegal idea.
I think they violate our privacy and I think they put government in a sort of ownership of us.
I'll take you through those 11 points ahead.
Before I do, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
It's the video version of this podcast.
I think there's a lot of value to seeing the visuals.
We often have great video, charts, images, stuff like that.
But also think about it from this point of view.
Your $8 a month, which is about half the price of Netflix these days, that's what keeps us alive here.
We don't take any government money.
So your subscription keeps us strong.
Even if you prefer the audio podcast, consider becoming a Rebel News Plus subscriber anyways as a sort of tip, so to speak.
You can do that at RebelNews.com.
Just click subscribe.
Thanks for your help.
Here's today's podcast.
Tonight, 10 Things Wrong with Vaccine Passports.
It's July 28th, 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 of why I publish them is because it's my bloody right to do so.
I've been thinking a lot about vaccine passports.
I think that's the next front line and it's the most serious one.
It's the most permanent one.
It's the one that all the other measures have been softening us up for.
They got us to wear masks.
They got us to endure lockdowns, to agree who we could or couldn't talk to, meet even our own family members.
I think they were softening us up for the digital lockdown, which is really what a vaccine passport is.
I've come up with 10 ideas.
I mean, I'm sure I should read smarter legal minds to myself, but just stopping and thinking, what's wrong with this idea?
Why am I against it?
I came up with 10 ideas on my own.
I'll share other ideas as I encounter them, but let me give you my own homemade list of 10 problems with vaccine passports.
And the first one, I think, is the most important, which is vaccine passports have never been used before, never in history, for a public health crisis.
Not even for AIDS, which has killed so many millions, not even for Ebola, which is so much more viral and deadly.
And I put it to you that the burden of proof that it works has to be on the proponent.
It's not that ordinary citizens have to prove that it doesn't work.
If you're talking about the largest civil liberties infringement in the history of the world, you've got to prove it does something.
We don't have to prove that it doesn't.
Like lockdowns, another novel public health invention.
There were no lockdowns before.
There were no lockdowns 100 years ago in the Spanish flu.
There were no lockdowns in Canadian history.
There was no proof that it worked as a public health measure, and yet they were accepted without proof.
And we have to prove they don't work now.
I want to let you know that right now we do have vaccines in society.
And I should tell you, I have some vaccines.
My kids do too.
I'm not an anti-vaxxer.
I just am worried about taking an experimental vaccine that has not yet been approved by regulators, that has rushed to market with a bullying political vanguard for a disease that we're learning more and more about, namely that it targets people in their 80s who are grossly ill with other matters.
It doesn't target young people.
By the way, for vaccines right now, we do offer exemptions.
That's not well known because it's not well advertised.
But for example, I went on the Ontario government's website and I found that you can exempt yourself for religious or other reasons, reasons of conscience, from other vaccines and still send your kids to school.
You have to sit through a propaganda video, but they will let you exempt yourself from existing tried, tested, and true vaccines.
So the idea that vaccines are now a mandatory requirement to live is novel.
I think it'll set about a health apartheid.
That's Afra Khan's word for apartness, a health fascism where we treat the sick or not even the sick, those who refuse to take an experimental drug as some sort of underclass that can be outlawed and abused.
I think they practiced on the masks and now they want to do it with injections.
My second reason is that the companies themselves say that vaccines are risky.
This isn't me saying that.
This isn't politicians.
For example, Pfizer.
I'm going to play for you a clip from my noontime show today where I read through some of Pfizer's official information sheet about the vaccine.
And I play this for you in contrast to this video from John Torrey, the mayor of Toronto, the other day, saying that vaccines are completely safe and effective.
Here's John Torrey saying that.
If you've received your first or second dose of vaccine, keep scrolling.
But if you haven't received your vaccine, your first or your second dose, what are you waiting for?
It's proven to be safe and effective.
It will help put this pandemic behind us.
And I promise, if you go and get your first and your second vaccine, I'll stop doing TikToks on COVID-19.
But that's not what the drug companies say.
Probably for reasons of liability, but probably for reasons of just telling the truth.
They say that these are unproven.
Mixing and maxing, matching vaccines is unproven.
We don't know what happens on pregnant moms and breastfeeding moms because it hasn't been studied yet.
Here, watch a minute from what Pfizer has to say.
This is from my noontime show.
Yeah.
Can you pump that up a bit?
So this is, as you can see, it's on the Pfizer website.
I'll read in the bold.
The Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has not, do you see the word not there, being approved or licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration?
But has been authorized for emergency use by the FDA under an emergency use authorization, EUA, to prevent coronavirus in individuals 12 years and older.
The emergency use of this product is only authorized for the duration of the declaration that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of emergency use.
So scroll down a bit.
Okay, maybe click the fact sheet.
Like I said, click on the fact sheet here.
You see that?
Okay, can you pump that up?
Thank you very much.
And can you go down to science?
Oh, it may not be for everyone.
Oh, I thought I was told it was, may not protect everyone.
Two-dose series three weeks apart.
Oh, because Canada said it's mix and match.
This is a Pfizer document.
What is the vaccine?
It's an unapproved vaccine that may prevent COVID-19.
There is no FDA-approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19.
Oh.
And look at the date on that, June 25, 2021.
Because John Torrey, that great scholar and trustworthy sage, said it's perfectly safe and effective.
The FDA has authorized it under emergency use.
We talked about that.
What should you mention to your vaccination provider before you get the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19?
Tell the vaccination provider about all of your medical conditions, including if you have any allergies, have had myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, or periocarditis, inflammation of the lining outside the heart, have a fever, bleeding, on a blood thinner, immunocompromised, on a medicine that affects your immune system, are pregnant or planned to become pregnant, are breastfeeding, have received another COVID-19 vaccine, have ever fainted.
Do you think that they're asking all these questions in Canada?
I actually don't think they are.
Who should get the Pfizer vaccine?
Well, FDA has authorized the use of it for people 12 years and older who should not get the Pfizer vaccine.
Oh, I thought everyone should.
That's what John Torrey said, and he's really smart.
If you've had a severe allergic reaction after a previous dose of the vaccine, if you had a severe allergic reaction to any ingredient of the vaccine, do you think anyone in, let's see, these free clinics in Toronto where they give ice cream out if you take the vaccine, do you think they even ask that question?
What are the ingredients, by the way?
And then a bunch of ingredients there.
How is a vaccine given?
Injection into the muscle.
Two doses three weeks apart.
That's weird.
In Canada, they do it differently.
I'm sure that science is different in Canada.
If you receive one dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, you should receive a second dose of the same vaccine three weeks later to complete the vaccination series.
Has this vaccine ever been used before?
It's an unapproved vaccine in clinical trials.
Approximately 23,000 individuals 12 years of age or older have received at least one dose.
So that's another way of saying, no, it hasn't been used before.
We're just testing it.
What are the benefits?
Well, prevent COVID following Tuesdays.
The duration of protection is currently unknown.
Thanks for being honest, more honest than politicians.
I think they have to be honest because they'll be sued into oblivion if they lie.
So we are being asked to have a passport for a risky experimental drug that has not been tested yet.
What are we doing?
My third reason is that the passports themselves violate your privacy.
You have to tell the passport issuer and you have to show your passport your private medical history.
Catherine Karzanowski, one of our young reporters, went out and about the streets of Toronto and asked people, would you have an unvaxed person over for dinner?
And a shocking number of people said no, they wouldn't even be my friend.
Here's a quick clip of that.
If I would invite someone to my home and they're not vaccinated, I think I would.
You know why I would?
Because I know I am healthy and I know I can't get the virus or even pass it on.
And if I do get any kind of virus again like before, I beat it naturally.
Like if I trust them.
No, it's like your homie.
If I trust them and I know where they've been and where they're going, then like I feel more safe and more comfortable.
Because I have my first dose already.
But I feel like there is that kind of sense of like security that I like.
I would never invite anyone.
But if I'm double vaccinated, I feel like I would feel safe.
Imagine saying you wouldn't even have a friend anymore if they weren't vaccined.
Well, hang on.
So you're testing them for COVID-19, which for anyone under 70 has a tiny rate of death.
But you're not, are you also going to quiz your friends about other communicable diseases?
Especially if you're in your 20s and 30s, are you going to grill your friends about sexually transmitted diseases?
Do they have vaccines for herpes?
Are they on AIDS medication?
Could you imagine grilling your friends about the most intimate details of their private life and making them carry some sort of passport?
What a gross thing.
So the issuing in the process of the passport is gross, but my fourth reason is that the use of them will be abusive too.
For example, I showed you the other day the airport lines of shame where you're forced to stand.
It's not just the vaccine passport on your phone.
You now have to stand in a line for an hour and have people look at you.
Schools will segregate you.
Maybe apartment buildings or dorms will segregate you.
Maybe offices will.
Here's Bonnie Henry talking about what she's going to do to unvaccinated people.
I have very little patience for people who aren't immunized in healthcare.
And that will be, we've had a vaccinator mask policy for influenza.
We will have a very similar policy that if people choose not to be immunized and you work in the healthcare, then you will not be able to work in certain settings without taking additional measures.
There will be consequences for that.
We don't even know other ways that this vaccine passport will be used to divide us.
Here's a video of Ontario's chief health bully.
He had heard that Doug Ford wanted to open up the schools and he thought, I'll fix that.
Take a listen to his novel punishment for children.
Children who have an almost zero risk of dying from this virus.
Listen to what he wants to do to them.
20-day suspensions of children who even come near the virus if they're not vaxed.
Look at this bully.
Will there be a separate set of rules for vaccinated students versus unvaccinated students in the school system?
Yeah, very good question.
So we're working on the outbreak management for school settings in particular.
And there will be a different approach to those that are vaccinated.
If you are two-dose vaccinated plus 14 days, we'll offer you a test if you've been a contact of a high-risk person.
So someone that's had ongoing fever and cough or increasing shortness of breath.
If you test negative, you can go right back to school.
You can go right back to work.
So terrific advantage of being two-dose immunized by being able to stay in school and attend sports and participate fully in all the social activities of the school setting.
If you are not immunized and you've been in contact with a high-risk contact, you'll be off for a minimum of 10 days.
You'll have to get two tests, one initially and then another around day seven.
If that test at day seven is positive, you're off for another 10 days.
And you can see that that is a potential for up to 20 days from school directly because you weren't immunized and because you were infectious to others and putting others at risk.
So there is an advantage just alone not to being present in school, full participation in all sports and activities by being immunized.
And I hope parents and students see that advantage.
That's outrageous.
Imagine the Things They'll Do00:08:56
Imagine the things they'll do with this.
Here's my fifth reason.
It's just the simplest.
It's logic.
If you're vaccinated, why do you care if I am?
I mean, if the vaccine works, right?
If you're vaxxed, doesn't it protect you?
What do you care what I do with my own choices?
The sixth reason is that obviously this is government power over us.
I mean, if you want to carry around your vaccine passport and boast about it, like vegans can't stop talking about being vegan, or if you're on a gluten-free diet, everyone within earshot of you will know that by the end of the day.
Okay, you want to have some sort of tell the world about yourself, sharing too much information?
All right, I can't stop you.
But this isn't some voluntary disclosure on your part.
This is government power over us, corporate power over us.
This isn't voluntary.
I want to show you an example of this.
This is a video from the United Kingdom.
Nurses telling a mom who's about to give birth that they're going to check the newborn baby for COVID, jamming a rod up its nose.
And they're having a little debate about whose property the baby will be.
Take a listen to this.
Right on?
Because it is my property.
So you will, while the baby's in your abdomen.
So you're saying, hey, once the baby comes out, it's not my property no more.
Yes, it is.
I gave birth to it.
It's all my blood running through its body.
Okay, Stacey, I'm just trying to explain.
Well, you're not helping me.
You see what you're doing?
Right, now you're getting away from it.
Now you're stressing.
I'm letting you know.
If I'm not going to stop you now, you don't want to hear no more of it.
Okay, well, that's my duty.
Yes, and you don't, Jane, because you told me about it five bloody times, and I'm sick of hearing it.
I don't need the stress.
Once again, oh, look, you're stressing me out.
I've leaked all day.
Now I'm leaking.
Do you really think I need this COVID when I've got a risk of losing my baby or possibly something?
You're more worried about the COVID than the baby.
No, but it's COVID than anyone else.
Do you know what I'm saying?
So let's get our stuff and get out of here now because this is pissed me off.
Everyone's worried.
What is going on?
We're signing ourselves out now.
So they say they're going to get security if we don't apply now.
This is wicked.
Do you know this is going viral?
I've been sitting outside all day long.
So I'm not in your company because I know how you all feel.
That's terrifying and that's outrageous.
My seventh objection is that the collateral uses of the information in this vaccine passport, we don't even know the way this will be gamed.
Think of the commercial uses.
Think of what happens if insurance companies will start making decisions or deciding to insure you or not.
Again, this is for an experimental medicine, including new gene therapy.
That's how these mRNA vaccines are described.
We don't know all the facts yet.
For refusing to be part of the experiment, that's what the drug companies call it.
You'll have other ways this information will be used against you, of course.
The eighth reason I'd like to point to is the security and the spying and the hacking and the malware problems.
So where will this information be stored?
Obviously on some computer system.
Do you doubt that it'll be done a sloppy job?
We see stories out of Quebec, for example, that their QR code, that's a little scannable code on your cell phone, reveals information that's not encrypted to anyone can see it.
Do you really think that the morons running, you know, I mean, Patty Haidu and Justin Trudeau, who are making it up as they go, do you really think they'll have your private health information secure from either Chinese spies or corporate spies or just some hackers for hire?
My ninth point is that of a larger social credit system.
And by that I mean what they're doing in China.
I want to show you a clip.
I showed it the other day of how China is making your passport on your phone your everything passport.
It's not just your health passport, your vax passport.
It's your life passport.
I put it to you that a vaccine passport is just the first building block for a total Chinese social credit system.
Remember this video?
My tenth reason is simply discrimination, including against social class and race and religion and any conscientious objectors.
It's a fact that different classes in society, different kinds of people, choose to get vaccinated and others don't.
You know, we talked before about the Tuskegee air, not the Tuskegee Airmen, sorry, the Tuskegee experiment, where black Americans were tricked by the government to be part of an experiment where they were positively injected with syphilis and studied over decades.
They were lied to and told that they would be given free health care by the government.
In fact, they were part of an unethical experiment.
We know from Montreal over 100 years ago, a bad batch of vaccines caused many people to get sick from smallpox.
There are people who, for reasons of history or reasons of trust, or reasons of religion, say, no, I don't want to be injected by you, sir.
Well, those people will now be the underclass.
I feel it already with masks.
If you're in part of the country where you can go into a restaurant without masks, but the servant class has to wear masks, get ready for that with vaccines.
I see reports of people in woke stores like Whole Foods, where if you're double vaxed, you don't have to have a mask.
So in the store, the workers with masks happen to be the black workers.
Don't think you won't see fault lines like that.
And I guess my last point, I'll call this point 11, is that the vaccine passport ignores natural immunity, which you get if you have the disease normally.
And what exactly will be on the vaccine passport?
The devil in the details.
Is it one shot?
Is it two?
Is it the annual endless boosters they're talking about?
We don't know, but once that platform is in place, do you really think it's going to be temporary?
It'll be about as temporary as the income tax.
I don't know.
I look at this vaccine passport and how quickly we went from two weeks to flatten the curve to you have to give us all your private information and be injected with an experimental drug or you can't go back to your life.
That happened pretty quickly, didn't it?
There was never a vote on it.
There was never an election on it.
There was never a debate in Parliament on it.
It's just happening.
And I think about it, and I think about those new nine pharma billionaire bros.
And I think, since when did the left and the media love big pharma?
I think vaccine passports are a very dangerous thing.
I think that the vaccines themselves may or may not be dangerous, but forcing it on us, which is what these passports do, is the dangerous part.
I want to tell you that we are looking for a case to fight vaccine passports.
What I mean by that is we do civil liberties litigation, as you know.
We're looking for a strong client.
By that, I mean someone who's not just cranky, but has a religious or medical exemption from taking the vaccine, but is being forced to do so.
So I want a strong, sympathetic client, and I want an odious offender, preferably a government agency.
What I mean by that is someone who has harsh rules with no exceptions that's really being a bully about it.
We want the strongest fact pattern possible to take to court because we don't want to lose.
Well, you might not know it, but President Joseph Biden says that the riot, the insurrection on Capitol Hill in January was the worst crisis in America since the Civil War.
I was unaware of that.
I would have put the First and Second World Wars.
I would have put 9-11 in there, but not the president.
So the Democrats are holding an inquiry into the matter.
January 6th Riots Debate00:15:15
And wouldn't you know it, a Never Trumper Republican named Aden Kinzinger was there to lend his emotional assistance.
What a roller coaster day it was for him yesterday, going from laughing to crying in the course of a minute.
Take a listen to him.
Mogi Jesus.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to my colleagues on the committee.
Thank you to our witnesses.
I never expected a day to be quite as emotional for me as it has been.
I've talked to a number of you and gotten to know you.
I think it's important to tell you right now, though, you guys may like individually feel a little broken.
You guys all talk about the effects you have to deal with.
And, you know, you talk about the impact of that day.
But you guys want.
You guys held.
Wow, he's a very emotional man.
I'm not sure why he's crying, but he was crying.
He's a famous Never Trumper who, I think, is ingratiating himself with the Democrats.
He said that there were deaths that day.
There was a death.
A protester named Ashley Babbitt was shot at point-blank range by a police officer.
We don't yet know the identity of the police officer, and the government has not released footage of it.
At the time, we were told that another police officer was killed by rioters.
His name was Officer Brian Sicknick.
That certainly was the media narrative, but the coroner's office released an official report that he, in fact, did not die at the event.
He later died of natural causes.
Very strange, but it was quite an emotional show.
Here's a Democrat activist named Harry Dunn, famous on Twitter for denouncing Trump and supporting rioters on the left, breaking down in tears for what happened on January 6th.
Take a look at him.
I decided to stand my ground there to prevent any rioters from heading down the stairs to the Lower West Terrace entrance, because that's where officers were getting decontamination aid and were particularly vulnerable.
At the top of the stairs, I confronted a group of insurrectionists, warning them do not go back, go down those steps.
One of them shouted, keep moving, patriots.
Another displayed what looked like a law enforcement badge and told me, we're doing this for you.
One of the invaders approached me like he was going to try to get past me and head down the stairs.
I hit him, knocking him down.
after getting relieved by other officers in the crypt i took off running upstairs towards the speaker's lobby and helped the plainclothes officer who was getting hassled by insurrectionists some of them were dressed like members of he's an emotional man and you know it because of his tweets supporting the riots Well, what exactly happened on that day?
Was it a riot, or was it more of a meandering by protesters who broke into a building and didn't know much what to do?
Were police on guard or did they stand down to make the event a media shock and awe?
I'm not quite sure.
I'm not sure if this inquiry will let us know, but instead of giving my speculation, let's go to a man who's been following it very closely, our friend Ben Weingarten, who is a senior contributor with the Federalists.
Great to see you again, Ben.
It was nice to have you on our show on election night.
I don't like any violence against property.
I don't like smashing windows.
I don't like trespass.
Do you think what happened on January 6th rises to the level of a riot?
I'm not sure what to call it because, with the fullness of time, the only person who was killed was a protester.
The place wasn't ransacked.
And for some reason, the government won't release thousands of hours of closed-circuit TV footage.
I'm not sure exactly what went on.
I don't know if we'll find out.
Yeah, well, don't take my word for it, but the administration itself, via FBI Director Christopher Wray, hasn't just classified what transpired as a riot.
Christopher Wray testified that it constituted an act of domestic terrorism.
That puts it on a different plane, even from a riot.
And of course, the broader narrative is that it was a murderous armed insurrection and the Republic hung in the balance.
And that is belied by everything that we know.
The murderous part by the fact that, as you noted, the sole person to die in violence that day was Ashley Babbitt, who was shot by a Capitol cop.
The notion that it was armed, well, there is evidence that people had all manner of instruments that could have been used to injure people.
And it does appear, based upon footage and testimony and court documents, that there were protesters who engaged in deplorable acts, bludgeoning people with polls and posts, destroying property, as you noted, crushing people into doorways, et cetera.
Behavior that everyone condemns and has condemned from the moment all of this transpired.
But no one in charges, at least, has been charged with having a firearm while in the Capitol.
Again, the FBI director says he can think of at least one person who did, but we haven't seen evidence of it.
As you noted, thousands of hours of tape have not been released.
So we have no way to really assess the claims.
All we have to go on is the fact that there were substantial injuries incurred.
The numbers that have been reported by authorities, around 140 people sustained injuries among cops.
And again, deplored, this was condemned from the start.
But the notion that this was a riot or an act of domestic terrorism, the act of domestic terrorism shows you the hysteria that's being ginned up around this event.
And what I argued about a week after in an article at the Federalist was that what occurred was deplorable.
It was disgraceful.
It should never happen.
And by the way, it overshadowed legitimate questions about the integrity of the 2020 election and was being used at the time to smear tens of millions of Americans based on the actions of a fraction of a fraction of a massive crowd that was overwhelmingly peaceful in Washington, D.C. that day.
And as you know, there were people who were led into the Capitol seemingly.
There are other people forced their way in.
Again, we can't really assess any of these claims because we haven't seen all the evidence of what transpired.
But the reaction to January 6th, which is being leveraged as one point to make the claim that up to tens of millions of Americans constitute domestic violent extremists for holding views that run afoul of the kind of ruling class party line about elections or a whole host of other topics indicates that that poses a far graver danger to the Republic than anything that transpired that day, even if we take it at its worst possible reading.
Yeah, I saw yesterday a tweet from a New York Times reporter basically giving the game away.
This was about rebranding an entire political base as terrorist.
If you question the 2020 election, if you are upset by the authorities, if you have sympathy for Trump, you are a domestic violent extremist.
That's a new phrase.
The New York Times tweet was deleted, but not before it was seen.
I'm going to show you a clip from, like I say, thousands of hours of videotape not released, but here's some footage that was released.
I mean, there were some goofy guys, like a Viking in like a moose outfit or something, Viking Chabaca, I think he was nicknamed.
He was, you know, quite a sight.
But what's so curious about these video clips I'm about to show is that the police were there.
They didn't seem particularly fussed.
There weren't sackings or lootings.
The cops seem sort of cool with things.
They don't quite understand how this fits in with the riot.
Take a look at this.
Hey!
Fucking hey, man.
Glad to see you guys.
You guys are fucking patriots.
Look at this guy.
He's got covered in blood.
God bless him.
Yes?
You good, sir?
Do you need any better pull attention?
I'm good.
Thank you.
I got shot in the face.
Where are you at?
I got shot in the face with some kind of plastic bullet.
Any chance I could get you guys to leave the Senate wing?
Wait, wait, wait.
I'm not making sure that I disrespect in the place.
Okay, just want to let you guys know this is like the sacredest place.
No, hey, no, I'm going to take it.
I'm going to take a picture of the sea.
I never done that.
I'm not one to usually take pictures of myself, but in this case, I think I'm making exceptions.
Hey, you and the ready.
Can you take a picture of me?
I'm enjoying my phone.
Here, I'm just...
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah, they ain't got a choice.
There's half a million people here.
Come on, straight on.
You should be stopping us.
No, no, no.
He's doing the right thing.
He's obeying his oath.
Ben, I'm not justifying.
I believe in the laws of trespass.
I don't believe in mischief or vandalism or break and enter.
And I think those things happened.
As you said, there were instances of police seeming to let people in.
Let me show you other violence at the White House over the past few years.
I think this actually counts as a riot.
Take a look.
Not until 10 p.m. that thing started to devolve into chaos.
And that is when the MT for protesters showed up and they began setting fires.
They began burning buildings.
They began defacing war memorials.
I'm actually just outside of one right now that's being taken care of by the police.
And it's not the first time that people sort of broke in and had a noisy kerfuffle.
I mean, the appointment of various Trump Supreme Court justices and their nomination hearings, they were quite rowdy.
a look at this.
These are live images folks at the doors of the Supreme Court where you can see protesters have gathered.
They are demanding that their voices be heard as they anticipate the person who will be a new Supreme Court justice, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, be sworn in here any moment.
In a bigger picture, you can see approximately how many people who have gathered there.
It looks like there are dozens, and they are chanting.
Kavanaugh has got to go, is what I'm hearing them say.
You see, there is high security there.
I'm not sure if I would call that a riot.
I certainly wouldn't call it an insurrection.
I don't think I would call it terrorism.
Look, Ben, I'm not excusing the lawbreaking that was done, but I think to call it a terrorism act and to hold some of these meanderers in solitary confinement now for six months, that seems like this whole thing is a bit of a stitch-up.
I could be wrong.
Maybe they really are terrorists, but it seems like the punishment does not fit the crime.
Well, they're certainly being treated as if they are terrorists.
In some cases, several dozen people being held in a specific jail in Washington, D.C.
And there's substantial reporting to suggest, well, there's allegations that guards are beating people.
Individuals are being held in solitary confinement for over 20 hours a day, many without bail.
Many of these people have no criminal records.
They're not hardened terrorists like those that would be held in Guantanamo Bay.
And from everything that's been reported, it seems like their conditions are significantly worse than the conditions at Gitmo.
And certainly the media treatment and kind of the elite treatment of these individuals pales in comparison to the way actual jihadists have been treated.
And to your point, the double standard appears to be staggering.
If you look at the damage that the government has assessed associated with January 6th, for example, they put it at about $1 million and a half dollars in damage.
The estimates are $1 to $2 billion in damage during last summer's riots cumulatively in America.
There were hundreds of events where there was violence in America last summer.
Arson, obviously obstructing traffic, masses of assaults, murders.
They're incomparable in terms of the size, scope, and nature of the events on their face when you look at the raw data.
And basically, the argument has been made on the left that it's not a double standard.
You just can't compare these events because on the one hand, democracy hung in the balance and these people were contesting an election and threatening to throw the Republic into chaos.
And I don't think that passes muster when you look at, to your point, first of all, the way that authorities responded that day.
And second of all, the nature of some of the characters that did breach the Capitol.
But this is being treated by the government as the ultimate terrorist attack on American life.
DOJ officials up to the Attorney General have said that essentially this is their top priority and it's going to be the most complex and deep investigation among the most complex and deep investigations in the history of the Republic.
And it's clear that it is being elevated to the kind of thing that is going to lead to something like the global war on terror powers being turned on American citizens.
And the Biden administration, as I've covered at great length, has codified that in their first of its kind national strategy on countering domestic terror, which isn't targeting jihadists.
In fact, they're barely even mentioned in the entire document.
It's targeting so-called anti-government individuals as well as Witted castes as a racial supremacist, ethnic supremacists, violent extremists.
Of course, and the examples they cite, they try to argue are examples of right-wing violent extremism.
But all of this goes to trying to potentially smear up to half the country.
And the document speaks in euphemism, but where it's very clear is that it even goes to policing so-called misinformation and disinformation on social media platforms, which it argues create the conditions for terrorism.
And so the logic ends up pretty simple at the end of the day, and it's personified, typified by what we're seeing with respect to January 6th.
It's conservatism equals bigotry.
Bigotry is the precursor to violence and domestic extremism.
Consequently, conservatives have to be pursued.
And obviously, the administration isn't framing it that way.
And they always include boilerplate language in their statements and documents about respecting differences of political opinions and that differences of political opinions don't constitute violence.
But it's very clear when they're going out and censoring people, working with big tech to try to censor people, and as you noted, treating these people like they are hardened terrorists, how the government feels about those who hold views that don't comport with the establishment's agenda.
And it ought to be very chilling for the country.
And it's one of the reasons why I think, well, this is a show trial, clearly what we're seeing with a select committee, and it's aimed at smearing tens of millions of people.
And of course, it's aimed at the midterm elections as well.
Government's Partisan Censorship00:04:49
And beyond the broader issue, is that the narrative about January 6th being a murderous armed insurrection has, in many respects, collapsed based on the information that we do have.
Yet, being built on that foundation is an entire, I would argue, war on wrong think.
And I've argued that at great length in a number of pieces.
Yeah.
You know, when you were talking about the Biden administration making this the largest and most complex investigation in their history, I was thinking of the Mandalay Bay shooter in Las Vegas, which actually was the largest mass shooting in American history.
Dozens killed, I think around a thousand injured.
You know, the FBI has sort of sort of given up on that.
Who knows what it is?
Who knows why?
Let's stop talking about it.
The FBI, I think, has disgraced themselves during the Trump administration.
They've revealed themselves to be not only highly partisan, but even have engaged in some law breaking.
There have been some guilty pleas to that effect.
The way they misused the spying court to, well, heck, to this day, they're spying on Tucker Carlson.
I think that the deep state, the national security deep state, has so discredited itself, but it doesn't care if it was in any jeopardy under Donald Trump.
Now it's got home free under Biden.
I am worried about it.
Again, I'm not diminishing the vandalism and the violence that there was, but I can't help but compare it to New York City, where all of the violence from last summer's riots was just all dropped by the prosecutors, just nothing more.
That was billions of dollars, not just direct losses, but basically shutting down the city, certainly as much or more than the virus did.
Just, you know, in fact, the mayor's own daughter was arrested and just move on, just nothing to see.
I'm worried about it.
The last point on Gitmo, I've seen how the Guantanamo Bay detainees are treated.
They're not actually treated like a prison.
They're just in a holding center.
They're allowed sports and video games and halal meals and specialty items.
And these grandmas and Viking Chibaca types, I think they actually be treated far worse than terrorists.
Help me out here.
Do you think it's credible to say that security was stood down deliberately to create a Reichstag fire type moment, an excuse like Hitler had when the Reichstag was burned, oh, this is proof that I must destroy the enemies of our state.
Do you think that there is any credence to the speculation that this is what the left wanted?
They're certainly capitalizing on it now.
Do you think that the police stood down so that this might happen?
I think we can certainly say that the left used this as I've termed it an accelerant to an effort that they already wanted to undertake and really a rolling perpetual effort, first to take out Trump, but really as a proxy for the tens of millions of Americans who agreed with his agenda.
And I think when you look at the way these defendants are being treated in the worst cases, it's clearly meant to send a message to others.
And the government even admits that and talks about the fact that their views make them a danger and consequently a flight risk.
And consequently, they shouldn't be granted bail.
I have not seen evidence to suggest that this was planned, but there's clear evidence in the words of the officials involved in making the decisions that they didn't take the fortifications necessary, even though there was ample evidence to suggest that there might be something that occurred that day.
And it's unimaginable to me that if there was an assault on the Capitol by jihadist terrorists, that there wouldn't have been a massive rush to defend that building.
It's incomprehensible if you consider the size, scope, scale, firepower, technology that we have in our federal government, that they wouldn't have adequately defended the Capitol of the United States.
And the people who rushed the Capitol in this case had weapons that were, in often cases, you know, items around the home.
They didn't have incendiary devices.
They didn't have Molotov cocktails like we saw in riots around the country.
There weren't fires that were being set everywhere.
So how do you explain that you're talking about some of the most sacred buildings in the land and with the billions of dollars that we spend on security, that this could have transpired?
It really strains credulity.
It's hard to explain.
Nancy Pelosi ought to be one person questioned about that.
And of course, she's refused to.
She's controlling the trial and will never get answers, in my view, on those types of questions from her, certainly.
Straining Credulity00:02:49
Yeah.
Well, Ben Weingarten, great to see you again.
Let me just say again: I do not believe in trespass or vandalism or mischief or any violence, whether it's light or heavy.
But you have to be blind not to see how this is weaponized and how they're trying to create an emotional narrative of terrorism.
I think that the disinformation is coming heavy from the other side, claiming that Officer Brian Sicknick was murdered when the coroner himself said that did not happen.
I'm worried that this narrative is already set in concrete by the mainstream media, no matter what the facts are on the ground.
And I fear you're correct.
This is all a pretext for going after wrongthink amongst domestic conservatives.
These are dark days, and I think they're going to get darker.
It's great to have you writing where you do in Epoch Times, Newsweek, The Federalists.
Keep it up, Ben.
Great to see you again.
Thanks so much for having me, Ezra.
Really appreciate it.
It's our pleasure.
There you have it, Ben Weingarten.
Stay with us.
more.
Hey, welcome back on my show last night.
Fred writes: if that sign said whites and blacks, there would be an outrage and a discrimination lawsuit.
But when it comes to vaccinated and unvaccinated, it's somehow okay.
You're exactly right.
But I've got to tell you, as I said in my monologue, there are cultural, ethnic, religious, and even medical breakdowns.
If you're allergic, if you are, you know, I'm not sure what the Jehovah's Witness take is on this, but I know they're against blood transfusions.
You will have other things.
I mean, what if you have natural immunity?
Why should you be forced to take some risky experimental vaccine that has not finished being approved?
I think there's a lot of danger here.
Crispin writes, I predict human rights lawyers from now on will be very, very busy.
You're wrong.
You would have thinked human rights lawyers would have been very, very busy the last year and a half, but they were very busy hiding under their desks.
Paul writes, expect pictures of Pastor Arthur Pavlovsky to dominate the next Alberta election.
The UCP has proven itself to be unfit to lead or to continue existing at all.
Total disgrace.
You know, we're putting up another big video.
I had a 45-minute talk with Arthur Pavlovsky's lawyers.
We're going to put that online.
I hope you find it interesting.
But again, I'm going to disagree with you.
I think you're too optimistic.
What party would have images of Arthur Pavlovsky in the upcoming election?
The NDP?
I just don't see it happening.
Yeah, I think our political class has had a terrible year and a half, especially with civil liberties.
Let me leave you with something hopeful, though.
Here's a quick clip of Ron DeSantis talking about how he's not going to let Florida backslide on masks or lockdowns either.
Protecting Floridians' Rights00:01:16
I like his talk about personal responsibility here.
Here, take a listen.
Well, look, Son, if anyone is calling for lockdowns, you're not getting that done in Florida.
I'm going to protect people's livelihoods.
I'm going to protect kids' right to go to school.
I'm going to protect people's right to run their small businesses.
We have a situation where we have three vaccines that have been widely available for months and months now, and people need to make decisions what's best for them.
But to have the government come in and lock anyone down or restrict anybody is totally unacceptable.
And it's easy for some physician to advocate that because it doesn't affect them.
It does affect the people in this state.
So we're going to lift people up.
We're not locking people down.
And we're going to make sure that folks are able to exercise their decision-making, that what's best for them.
And I think millions of Floridians have obviously done that for the last year and a half.
And so we want to continue to support their efforts.
I show you that not just because I'm jealous, but to say, look, he's so popular.
He's so successful, both in terms of the polls and his policies.
Why can't some Canadian politician say, hey, it's working for him.
I might try that up here.
Well, you can hope.
That's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.