Ezra Levant exposes Justin Trudeau’s Election Debates Commission rewriting rules to exclude Rebel News, despite allowing foreign state broadcasters like Russia and Vietnam, while banning crowdfunded media. T. Lee Humphrey, a private security expert, details the Taliban’s oppression in Afghanistan—stranding 40–60 Canadians—and accuses Trudeau of prioritizing daycare over evacuations or veterans’ aid, even consulting Hillary Clinton amid Benghazi controversies. The episode argues Western withdrawal signals weakness to adversaries like China and Iran, leaving allies like Taiwan vulnerable, questioning Trudeau’s hollow promises of support for Afghan women without action. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I go through Justin Trudeau's hand-picked Election Debates Commission.
Those are the folks who tried to keep Rebel News and True North out last time.
We ran to federal court and got an emergency injunction to get back in.
So this time they've rewritten the rules so bizarrely, so specifically designed to keep rebel news out, it's almost a joke the way they describe the one news organization they won't allow without using our name.
It's really funny.
It's sort of like Voldemort.
They just can't say Rebel News, so they talk about an organization that also crowdfunds civil liberties defense for people.
What?
Anyhow, I'll take you through it.
It's quite something.
That's ahead.
Can I invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus?
That's the video version of the show.
And I know we're making it available during the election campaign for free.
But I hope you like it enough that you subscribe on a permanent basis.
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All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, last election, we had to get a court order to let us report on the election debates.
This year, Trudeau's trying even harder to block us.
It's August 17th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
For decades, the way national leaders' debates were run during elections was decided freely.
Anyone could host a debate.
It was a matter of negotiation amongst different media companies and the candidates themselves, typically.
I mean, there were usually several debates, but most importantly, the government itself had no role in running them.
The government didn't choose the journalists who could ask the questions.
The government didn't choose the subject matter of the debates.
The government didn't decide who could or couldn't participate.
Why would the government be involved in any of that?
Well, Trudeau usually doesn't do well in unscripted situations like that.
He can't handle questions that he hasn't seen in advance, that he hasn't rehearsed the answer to in advance.
He crumbles quite often.
Even if he doesn't know it, I'll give you three examples of just disasters.
One was when he was asked a surprise question about which country he most admires.
So he answered honestly by mistake.
There's a level of admiration I actually have for China because their face it dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime.
Here's another example when he was surprised by a question at a Liberal fundraiser about the Grassy Narrows Indian Band and his broken promise to help them get drinkable water.
People in Grassy Narrows are suffering from mercury poisoning.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you very much for your donation tonight.
I really appreciate the donation to the Liberal Party of Canada.
And here's a third example, of course.
When a Canadian veteran asked why Trudeau was abandoning vets and fighting them in court, Trudeau, who just gave $10.5 million to a terrorist named Omar Cotter, he gave this astonishing answer.
I was prepared to be killed in action.
What I wasn't prepared for, Mr. Prime Minister, is Canada turning its back on me.
Why are we still fighting against certain veterans groups in court?
Because they are asking for more than we are able to give right now.
Yeah, Trudeau likes to control things.
That's why he's put the national media on a leash with his massive media bailout and his recent $61 million payment to journalists on the eve of the election.
And that's why he nationalized the debates.
So his hand-picked people could decide everything about them, leave nothing to chance.
Incredibly, they just released the names of the moderator of the debates in this election year, and Rosemary Barton of the CBC is one of them.
This Rosemary Barton, who was so enamored with Justin Trudeau, she literally took a fangirl selfie with him.
I bet a lot of CBC journalists do that.
It's good for job security, but Rosemary Barton is unusual in that she thought it was a good look for her to publicly tweet about her submissive affection towards Trudeau.
And sure, it showed she was unprofessional and biased, but then again, like I say, it's probably good for job security when you work for Trudeau's CBC State Broadcaster.
It's very North Korean of her to love Dear Leader.
But what really makes my head spin is that Barton was a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed in the middle of the last election suing the Conservative Party of Canada.
While she was a neutral reporter, while she was interviewing Conservatives and liberals on her show, unbeknownst to viewers, she was literally meeting with lawyers in secret, drafting a lawsuit against the Conservatives.
I say again, while she was publicly interviewing Conservatives on her show, she was privately building a plan to sue those same conservatives and beat them in court.
And then she sprung the trap.
She filed the lawsuit literally during the campaign as a campaign stunt, really.
I mean, it's one thing to sue the Conservatives, but to splash it in the middle of the election to embarrass the Conservatives.
And even then, the CBC didn't take her off the election file, take her off the election file.
They were working with her on the project.
I've never heard of anything so partisan in my life.
And she's on the debate panel?
I wonder what kind of tough questions we can expect her to grill Trudeau with this time.
Oh, right.
Questions like these.
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'm not a cash programmer.
But it's what I am.
Last book you've read or the book you're reading?
The just finished patch.
What kind of music are you listening to?
If you have time.
Or podcasts.
Yeah, can you see why Trudeau likes to appoint his own hand-picked journalists to his own debates?
Last election, his hand-picked debates commission knew their job, keep out independent journalists who might ask real questions.
So they did.
They banned two of our rebel reporters, Kian Beckstee and David Menzies, and they banned a reporter from True North, Andrew Lawton.
And they said the reason was that we were too opinionated.
We were tantamount to advocates.
Can you imagine a debate commission that chooses someone who literally sued the Conservatives out of spite?
Someone who poses for selfies with Trudeau.
Someone whose media union funds a pro-Trudeau super PAC.
Can you imagine them keeping anyone else for being too opinionated?
It was a laugh, but it wasn't funny.
So we went to court on an emergency basis, and incredibly, we won.
The Federal Court of Canada said Trudeau's Debates Commission was unfair and acted illegally towards us.
They issued a court order compelling Trudeau's Debates Commission to let us in, and it was great.
Here, watch our questions.
Hi, Mr. Trudeau.
Since your multiple use of blackface became an international scandal, Canada's international reputation has been irreparably harmed.
Have you reached out to any African leaders or any leaders from the Middle East to apologize for your conduct?
Have you, your campaign, or any other agents secured non-disclosure agreements from anyone about inappropriate sexual personal conduct?
No.
Follow up.
The 2001 yearbook from West Point Grey Academy says that you and convicted sex offender Christopher Ingboldson made a young student's, quote, life at WPGA a lot more interesting/slash amusing, end quote.
How did you two keep her amused?
We were teachers.
David Mendes, Rebel News.
Mr. Prime Minister, you left West Point Grey Academy in the middle of a term, which is highly unusual.
It was a law firm that made this announcement, which is also highly unusual.
Sir, can you tell us the real reason why you left so abruptly and did it involve any kind of sexual misconduct at the school?
I wrote three pages on that in my autobiography, and it involved absolutely nothing of the sort of the rumors that you're trying to spread.
Even so, Mr. Prime Minister, follow-up question.
Why did so many teenage girls write so passionately about you in the yearbook?
Was there any connection to having a relationship with these girls or their mothers?
I was a good teacher.
Well, that's exactly what was supposed to be stopped by nationalizing the debates.
It was too embarrassing.
Trudeau was furious.
So he ordered the Debates Commission to change their rules to make it impossible for us ever to come in again.
See, one of the reasons why the court let us in last time was that the rules were so vague and the decision was so obviously arbitrary.
Well, they'll show us.
They'll make the rules so clear, there's no way anyone could think we could be allowed again.
They'll just say, rebel news is not allowed.
Now, I'm kidding.
If they actually wrote that, it would be too ridiculous even for them to do it with a straight face.
But they did the next closest thing.
They actually said they will ban any media that uses crowdfunding to fund civil liberties work for strangers.
What?
Of course, there's only one Canada, only one company in Canada that does that.
Us.
There's only one media company in Canada that relies on crowdfunding.
That's us.
I suppose True North does too, to a degree, and Western Standard Online.
I mean, I mean, what does crowdfunding really mean other than taking donations from the public?
But really, in Canada, we're the ones who do it the most prominently and in such a sustained way.
And I don't know of any other group in Canada that crowdfunds civil liberties lawyers for low-income Canadians.
They only mean us.
That's the Rebel News section of their rules.
I'm going to read it to you because I bet you think I'm joking or exaggerating.
I'm not.
This is from the government release.
You know, they have a long list of rules.
They talk about conflicts of interest.
They don't exclude members of unions that donate to anti-conservative attack ads.
Most Canadian journalists are members of Unifor or the Canada Media Guild.
Unifor just rolled out this attack ad in recent weeks.
So they're not banned.
Government journalists like Rosemary Barton, that's not considered a conflict of interest.
Government journalists from foreign countries like Putin's Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, all of them are specifically approved by Trudeau's Debates Commission.
Seriously, it's our task.
Huge Russian news agency owned by Vladimir Putin.
They're accredited.
But not Canadian grassroots media who rely on crowdfunding and help people with lawyers.
What?
Here's what they say about us.
It was literally written to keep us and only us out.
They used the word CAJ, and I'll come back in a minute to tell you what that means because it's interesting.
But here's what they say.
This is from Trudeau's hand-picked debates commission, and I quote, according to the CAJ, there is a conflict of interest when an organization becomes an actor in the story it tells, including providing and applying financial and legal assistance to some of its sources to work toward a desired outcome or offering free legal services, crowdfunds to help some individuals in stories hire lawyers, purchases political advertising and launches petitions.
or when a reporter writes opinion pieces about subjects they also cover as journalists, endorses political candidates or causes, takes part in demonstrations, signs petitions, does public relations work, fundraises, and makes financial contributions.
Okay, right off the bat, this would obviously disqualify Rosemary Barton and the CBC, who used CBC resources to sue the Conservative Party in her feud with them last election.
That's working towards a desired outcome.
That's legal stuff.
Obviously, those foreign government media break this rule too.
But it's a weird rule, that legal thing, that crowdfunding thing.
What does crowdfunding civil liberties lawyers have to do with covering a federal election?
We've crowdfunded civil liberties lawyers for over 2,200 Canadians now, I think you know.
And we do not discriminate between conservatives or liberals or NDPers.
We don't even ask.
We don't even care.
We don't ask people their race or their religion or anything.
Working with a registered charity, we crowdfund civil liberties lawyers for people.
How on earth is that even relevant as a reason for keeping our reporters out of a room where the media gather to watch a political debate?
What's that got to do with that?
And what about this part?
Writes opinion pieces about subjects they also cover as journalists, endorse political candidates or causes.
That's every single opinion journalist in Canada.
That's Rosemary Barton, obviously.
That's every newspaper.
Every newspaper in Canada makes editorial endorsements.
The other journalists on the debate panel, Evan Solomon, Mercedes-Stevenson, they express opinions on the news all the time.
I happen to like those two reporters, actually.
Mercedes has strong opinions about the military and veterans.
I like her opinions, by the way, but it's a laugh to think that they would actually keep our journalists out because of our opinions, but they got around that in a sneaky way.
How do they let their journalists in with opinions?
Well, any journalist who is already part of Trudeau's parliamentary press gallery is exempt for that reason alone.
Let me quote.
Any media representative who is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery would automatically be eligible for accreditation.
Upon review of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery's membership requirements, the Commission has determined that it will accredit members of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery.
This is because they cover Canadian politics as a regular part of their activity, and the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery has published a white paper which recognizes the principles of responsible and ethical journalism, including the absence of conflict of interest as defined by the CAJ and other journalism and professional media organizations.
Okay, but we at Rebel News cover news and politics regularly.
And the weird test I just read to you about not having political opinions, that's clearly not the rule at the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
I mean, if you scroll through these names of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, you can see plenty of opinion journalists in there.
David Aiken, Joan Bryden, Susan Delacarte, John Ibotson, John Ibbotson, John Ibison.
Canadian Association of Journalists Controversy00:04:54
Ibison actually has a whole opinion book about Trudeau.
He wrote a pro-Trudeau book in the last election.
But since he has the right opinions, he wasn't prosecuted for it by Elections Canada, and he's not banned from the debates.
Carl Narenberg, he writes for a hard left-wing union propaganda rag called Rabble Dot.
See, Althea Raj, she wrote a loving book about Trudeau.
She's his official biographer.
So they're brought in by this weird rule that you can't have any opinions.
You can't endorse candidates unless you're a member of Trudeau's Parliamentary Press Gallery.
Now, I'm not sure why opinion journalists should be excluded from the elections at all.
Anyway, why would that make sense?
Opinion journalism is obviously a form of journalism.
It's just weird, but it would obviously keep out half the journalists on Parliament Hill, so they just exempt them all by saying if you're already in Trudeau's press gallery, you're fine, even foreign state broadcasters.
But if you're not already on Trudeau's friends list, you're not allowed to have editorial opinions, and just in case that doesn't stop us, you're not allowed to be involved with someone who uses crowdfunding to help poor people afford civil liberties lawyers because reasons.
Now, there's only one reason here.
They're afraid of being asked real questions, and so they've tried to draft this in a way to ban rebel news and rebel news only.
Normally, this wouldn't just be appalling to us.
It would be an affront to all journalists.
Since when does the government get to decide who is a journalist and who isn't?
Since when does the government get to decide who can even report on a campaign debate?
By the way, the CAJ, I mentioned that stands for Canadian Association of Journalists.
See, the government is trying to pawn this ban Rebel News decision off on them.
But if you click on the link to the CAJ statement that was selectively quoted by Trudeau's Handpick Commission, it says this, and I'm going to quote at length.
The CAJ also supported Rebel News' access to the federal leadership debates in 2019 because the Leaders Debate Commission was not transparent in its accreditation process and waited until the last business day to issue its decision and had no appeal process.
Further, we objected to a government body using the Canadian Association of Journalists' Ethics Guidelines to try to define who is a journalist.
Indeed, journalism in Canada is not a licensed profession.
There is no industry accrediting body, such as a College of Physicians or a Law Society, as is the case for lawyers.
Nevertheless, in Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides a constitutional guarantee for the freedom of expression, which ensures the ability to express ideas freely.
So they are literally saying their own rules do not decide who is a journalist and who isn't.
They specifically say there is no rule for who is a journalist and who isn't.
And they specifically said they wanted us in last time, and they object to the government saying that these are rules for who's a journalist and who's not.
I wonder what the Canadian Association of Journalists has to say about the government using them as an excuse to keep us out.
I wonder what they think about every other Trudeau being journalist who has opinions, who is an advocate, being exempted from the do you have opinions test.
I wonder what they think about the really weird rule that you can't come to a debate if in a different place on a different subject you crowdfund civil liberties lawyers for people in unrelated matters.
That's just made up.
That's the Rebel News poison pill that Trudeau put in there.
I wonder what they'd say about all this, but I'm going to guess they'll say nothing.
Because if you look through the CAJ board of directors, you'll see that almost every one of them works for a company that takes Trudeau's media bailout money and likely took the $61 million top-up just last month.
But hey, look at the bright side.
If Trudeau really, really, really wants to stop Rebel News from reporting on them, it sounds like we're doing something right.
I'll keep you posted on this, by the way.
I promise you we won't let it slide.
But in the meantime, if you want more of the journalism that Trudeau hates, visit realreporters.ca to learn about what we're doing and to help us out.
Kabul Airport Chaos00:10:20
Those were shocking scenes from the Kabul airport, the capital of Afghanistan.
Both Western nationals, Americans, Brits, Canadians, etc., scrambling to get out of the capital city, but also thousands, maybe tens of thousands of local Afghans who have worked closely with the Western allies these 20 years.
As I mentioned yesterday, the median age of an Afghan is a teenager, 18 and a half years old.
So most Afghans have grown up their entire life under a sort of Western protectorate that collapsed so quickly.
What will happen to the people on the ground?
And what should Justin Trudeau do?
Joining us now to talk about this is someone who's been to Afghanistan as a veteran, as a soldier.
I'm talking about our friend T. Lee Humphrey, the boss of James International Security Consulting League.
Great to see you again.
Welcome.
I wonder if you could start by sharing with us some personal reflections, if you felt like sharing them, on places that you know and places that you fought to free now returning to the hands of the Taliban.
Yeah, so, you know, I spent well over a year as the head of the private security force that protected the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
And then while working for an engineering firm that was doing infrastructure projects throughout the country, I was blessed to visit the south, the north, Kandahar, Kabul, or Kandahar, Helmand, Mazi Asharif, you name it.
I got around the country.
And then, again, working for that same country in the past years, places like the Salang Tunnel, going back into Kandahar to an old Canadian forward operating base called Frontenac and working on a dam project that the Canadians began and U.S. Corps of Army Engineers finished.
So I've been blessed by not only working in the big cities, but also getting out into the rural districts and seeing the differences and meeting vastly different types of Afghans from all parts of that country.
And it's incredibly sad.
I've been snowed under with phone calls, texts, emails over the last two weeks seeking help and reminding me of some of the conversations I had.
I think the saddest I can share with Canadians was I got particularly close to a gentleman who was a driver fixer for me for many, many years.
And I went to his wedding.
And when his first child was born, he allowed me as the first Westerner to hold that young daughter because he knew I had two daughters.
And we had talked about my daughters and fatherhood and the responsibilities of that many times.
And he reminded me that I told him at the time that his daughter could now have the same opportunities as mine.
She's 12 now.
And he reminded me again that there's no hope for her to have those opportunities and how disappointed he is.
And I'm gutted, literally gutted.
Wow.
Well, I appreciate you sharing that story.
And thank you for correcting me about you went there as a contractor, but that's probably how a lot of people are there now.
Because if I'm not mistaken, the official Canadian Armed Forces mission there ended in 2014, if I'm not mistaken.
Obviously, there's a lot of security work going on.
That would be people like yourself, NGOs, private companies, private aid agencies.
So even though the official military mission ended seven years ago, there's probably a lot of Canadians still on the ground.
Is that right?
Yeah, there was working in the private security sector, working for NGOs, working in mentorship programs.
There was a Canadian that had been hired to institute and run the Afghan tax system, which was literally based on our GST system.
There was a lot, a large Canadian expatriate community in Afghanistan over the years.
Mostly idealistic Canadians that truly believed in women's rights, human rights, and the effort that was being put forward by the international community to bring Afghanistan into the 21st century in every way possible.
Now, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul is very large and very fortified.
Because, of course, the U.S. was the dominant Western force there.
How big would the Canadian Embassy and its affiliated buildings and offices be?
Would it be large or would it be, like, was it an independent structure?
Was it near the U.S. Embassy?
How many Canadians would have been there as recently as a week ago, let's say?
So it's a fairly large compound with several structures inside the compound, and then the compound walls were about 12 feet high and topped with razor wire, like most compounds in Kabul occupied by Westerners.
The mission itself had anywhere between 100 and 125 people.
It may have drawn down over the last month as things were getting a little bit dicey in the southern provinces.
It had a 100-man Gurkha guard force.
These are ex-British Army Gurkhas that come from Nepal.
I also had, when I was in charge of the U.S. Embassy, I had about 350 of them.
I was happy to see them getting off planes today in Nepal safely.
Unfortunately, the Canadian Embassy left their guard force behind.
Why, I don't know, but they're now struggling to get out.
So, you know, the Canadian Embassy could have drawn down from its peak of about 125 people, but my guess is there's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to 60 Canadian citizens still left in Kabul, unable to get to the airport at this point.
Wow.
Now, the Gurkhas, of course, they have a very long tradition of this kind of loyal service to, I mean, the United Kingdom, of course.
I didn't know that they were guarding the Canadian Embassy.
Those are very special people who, throughout the decades, even centuries, I think, have been amongst the toughest and the best fighters for the West.
I'm startled to hear that we've left them behind.
I mean, what do you think is happening to them?
They would surely have been, they would be identifiable ethnically if they're Nepalese.
They probably look and they're probably scoped out and ID'd by local informants.
Like, where would they physically be?
I didn't know that they would be left behind.
What do you think is happening to them right now, even?
Well, they had a compound of their own where they lived when they weren't on shift at the embassy that was run by the private security company that they work for.
And so, you know, I can only surmise that once the embassy was abandoned, that they simply moved back to their own compound and left to their own devices.
Their private security company would have been trying to get an evacuation plane into Hamad Karazai International Airport soon to be renamed, I would imagine.
But those planes were shut down on Saturday, and then the few commercial flights that were still already in Kabul were let go.
And the U.S. military on Sunday took over control of the airspace.
So they would, I would assume, the Nepalese government will be reaching out to the Americans or more importantly, probably to the British because of their distinct connection, their historical connection to the British government, and asking for support to get them out.
They're well armed, but they would have to negotiate with the Taliban.
And so far, it's my understanding that the Taliban is allowing expatriates and third country nationals who were working for expatriates through their checkpoints into the airport.
So there's a chance, and I think a fairly good chance, that they can get out if they can get the British or the Americans to fly them to Frankfurt.
Yeah.
Now you mentioned expats or third country nationals.
So that would be like Brits, Canadians, Americans, and the Nepalese other folks.
But that would, your choice of language suggests that would obviously not cover Afghan nationals, Afghan citizens who, like your driver-fixer interpreter, spent years helping you and helping the West.
So such a person would not likely be allowed to get from their house to the airport to get out.
Am I right in that assumption?
That's correct.
Right now, the Taliban are, anybody that's at the airport already, likely evacuated.
Those that are stuck in Kabul, whether they're in safe houses, whatever, the chance of them getting through the checkpoints that have been set up by the Taliban at the airport are pretty slim and getting slimmer by the day.
And the American not carried out any incursions into Kabul to pick up their citizens.
They are negotiating with the Taliban in an effort to arrange convoys to pick up American citizens, but not local nationals.
Trudeau's Indifference Revealed00:04:43
Very interesting.
Let me talk to you about Justin Trudeau, because this Afghan mission, obviously I'm nowhere near as familiar with it as you are, but it seems to me that it was the largest Canadian mission really in a generation.
The grand total number of Canadians who went to Afghanistan over the years, I understand it's about 40,000.
At any one time, there was over 2,000 at its height.
Very, very major.
Canada lost over 150 men and women there.
So we paid a large price in proportion to our population.
The money, the effort, the goodwill, the hopes.
And on the day Kabul was falling, instead of huddling with his defense minister and transport minister and others to at least try and extract our friends and allies and our nationals, Trudeau walked down to the governor general and said, hey, I got nothing better to do right now.
Let's call an election.
Like the day it fell, he was not interested in briefings or decisions.
He was going to get his election called.
I find that stunning.
I mean, listen, Joe Biden's the big dog.
America's the big country.
But we punched above our weight and we left 158 people.
We lost 158 people in the mission.
And Trudeau, it's like it never happened.
What do you make of all that?
It's incredible.
I don't know how to describe the indifference that Mr. Trudeau shows towards those still there, those we made promises to, and to the veterans community and those still serving who have to bear the brunt of these choices.
And I mean, British Prime Minister Johnson called a COBRA meeting, which is his emergency crisis committee.
U.S. President Biden was receiving hourly briefings at Camp David that outlined what was happening minute by minute on the ground.
Prime Minister Trudeau sought to call an unnecessary election to fulfill his egotistical requirements for a return to a majority when he thinks that it's an opportunity to do so.
He seriously could have waited a day and held emergency meetings and made announcements about what Canada was doing to support those still there and to evacuate our former colleagues that put their lives on the line so many times,
both for our military and for our embassy and for our private sector, to both protect them, support them for them, and their families as well.
And I don't know.
Sometimes rarely, if you've ever talked to my wife, do words fail me, but I just have nothing to describe what he's done and how indifferent he's acting even during the election to the ongoing, ongoing crisis in Afghanistan, as well as the fires in BC.
And I mean, there's so much in this country that needs the attention of our prime minister and his cabinet and our security officials.
And he's out talking about daycare.
Well, the fact that he's not in these meetings, not having any meetings is stunning to me.
Now, you told me just before we went live that in the 2019 election, and I don't know if I knew this, but you reminded me, you said there was another incredibly, I don't know if malicious is the right word, but inappropriate.
Tell me when Trudeau called the election last time, because I don't think I knew this.
9-11, 2019.
So instead of going to commemorative events, which Andrew Scheer did, Trudeau walked to the Governor General's office with his wife and beautiful family and asked for the election to be called.
Once again, he could have waited a day.
He could have waited towards the end of the day after the ceremonies.
But he did it at 11 o'clock, 10 o'clock, I think, in the morning, which is when the commemorative ceremonies were being held for the Twin Towers fall.
Trudeau's Unexpected Call00:02:46
Yeah, that's incredible.
You know, earlier in the show, I played a clip of Trudeau telling that veteran in Edmonton that veterans were asking more than we can give.
This is from the guy who gave $10.5 million in a public apology to Omar Khatar, the al-Qaeda terrorist.
I want to play for you a strange clip from today.
And Leah, by the way, I appreciate you staying so long with us here.
I won't keep you much longer, but Trudeau did mention that he took a phone call on the Afghan subject.
And I thought that was interesting because it was fairly clear that Joe Biden has not been in touch with Justin Trudeau.
I suppose why would he?
But the person who Trudeau spoke with I thought was very unusual because she is not part of the administration.
I don't know if she has security clearance anymore.
I don't know what her intel is, but Trudeau was pretty excited about it.
Here's a quick clip of Trudeau today boasting, I think, about a phone call with Hillary Clinton.
Take a look at this.
I also spoke last night with former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who shares our concern for Afghan women and girls.
She welcomed our efforts and urged Canada to continue our work.
Governments, international organizations, and civil society must continue to work together to support women and girls in Afghanistan.
The Afghan people need the world to stand with them.
And that is what Canada will continue to do.
I don't even know what that means, Lee.
I mean, first of all, Hillary Clinton has not been the Secretary of State for five years.
Like, she's not involved in the Biden administration.
She obviously wasn't involved in the Trump administration.
So, I don't know, maybe she's the only one who would answer his call.
But what is he even saying with, we're going to stand with the Afghan women and girls, and we're going to be there, and that's what we're going to do.
Do what?
How?
With the Taliban?
I can't even believe what I was listening to there.
What do you make of that?
The first thing that went through my mind when he mentioned that he called former Secretary Clinton, and I could tell you a story about her visit to the embassy that's a totally separate thing, but something else.
The only thing I could think of, and the first thing that ran through my mind was he was calling to say, you so badly shut Benghazi and got a bunch of people killed and managed to survive politically.
What do I do?
Yeah, you're right.
You know, the Benghazi attack and the warnings in advance and the pleas for help, there's a real analogy that she ignored the intel.
She didn't really care about them.
Benghazi Betrayal00:03:09
And there were brave people on the ground till the very end.
And you're right, she did survive that.
You know what?
That's probably why he called her.
She doesn't know how to protect the U.S. military.
She doesn't know how to protect U.S. interests.
She doesn't know how to nation build, only nation wreck.
But the one thing she does know is how to escape through a scandal that she caused.
Incredible.
Well, listen, I really appreciate.
Go ahead, sorry.
No, I just said, there it is.
That's it exactly.
She knows how to spin her way out of crisis after crisis.
Well, you know what?
I find this deeply troubling.
It's as if the great expenditure of blood and treasure that Canada made to secure goals, whatever those goals were, whether it was to stamp out a terrorist threat, whether it was to get bin Laden, whether it was to improve the life of women and girls, whatever those goals are, it feels extinguished and so brutally and in a way that sets back the moral authority of the West.
I'm not saying we should have had a forever war there, but the way in which the Allies were driven out, it truly is reminiscent of what happened in Saigon almost 50 years ago.
I feel sad that that is how it ends.
I don't know.
Do you have any, what do you think the reverberations of this will be?
I mean, a lot of people are surely watching.
China, Russia, Iran, North Korea.
I think they're trying to get a measure of the West.
I think it's a terrible message they're receiving right now.
You've nailed it.
And in fact, Pakistan has been heavily involved in supporting the Taliban, both with training, equipment, money, intelligence, services, transportation.
And a great deal of that is funded by China, who very, very much and have been trying for a decade to get into Afghanistan to obtain mineral rights and raw material, raw resources from another source.
And so when you talk about geopolitical reverberations right now, North Korea is one.
But I would say the people of Taiwan are probably the most in shock right now and the most in fear about what Biden would actually do to protect their interests and their freedom and democracy should China decide in the next year or two to physically take those islands back or to embargo those islands or somehow close their airspace, naval space, things like that.
Because the U.S. just demonstrated, at least under the Biden administration, they will not stand with our friends.
The people in Ukraine are probably wondering what level of support they can expect in the near future if Russia masses troops on their border as they did earlier this spring.
So we'll have to wait and see, but my expectation is that our enemies have been emboldened.
Our friends are terrified and the Afghans are going to die horribly.
Well, it's bad news all around.
I'm sorry to hear it, but I appreciate you spending so much time with us and sharing your personal experiences.
Bad News All Around00:01:27
Thanks so much, Lee.
Thank you, Ezra.
All right, there you have it.
Tee Lee Humphrey.
Very interesting.
Personal remembrances from his time in Afghanistan and some wise lessons to learn as well.
Stay with us.
Hey, welcome back.
On my show last night, Paul writes, the Taliban hate America almost as much as the Democrats do.
Well, I'm not going to compare Democrats with murderous terrorists.
I know that the liberals do that.
They often compare Trump supporters or pro-life Christians to the Taliban because they're trying to smear them.
I generally don't get into that because there's not an equivalent.
The Taliban are murderers.
They don't just have a religious view.
They're murderous.
They have their view on violence.
So I understand the joke you're going for there, but I'm going to disagree with you.
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