Ezra Levant exposes Nathan Stahl, a liberal politician, who falsely accused Rebel News of harassment at a January 17 farmer’s market—no reporter was present—yet his claim went viral, amplified by Trudeau’s media allies like The Narwhal and CBC. The CBC also hired Franklin Lopez, an anarchist linked to extremist sites promoting Molotov cocktails, while ignoring pro-oil narratives, revealing institutional bias. Meanwhile, Novak Djokovic’s visa revocation in Australia for "inciting dissent" over vaccine skepticism—legally valid at the time—sparked outrage, exposing how governments weaponize pandemic policies to silence critics. These cases underscore a global pattern of suppressing debate under thinly veiled authoritarianism. [Automatically generated summary]
I don't know if you saw over the weekend, but a liberal candidate said something online that was so shocking about rebel news, but for about one second, I thought, well, maybe it's true.
He said a rebel news reporter harassed him, and he gave really specific details at this farmer's market after doing this and this.
I thought, boy, that's a very specific allegation.
It wasn't until I called and emailed our entire Ontario staff that I realized it was a lie.
I'll take you through that story and what we're doing about it, but more importantly, what it means and why would the liberal lie that way?
I'll give you my explanation or my best guess.
That's today's show.
Before I go to it, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
It's useful, for example, today I show you all the tweets he made.
And if you get the video version of the podcast, it's called Rebel News Plus.
Go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe.
It's eight bucks a month.
You get the video version of this show every day, Sheila Gunnery, David Menzies, and Andrew Chapato's every week.
And the satisfaction of knowing that you're helping to keep Rebel News independent.
We don't take a dime from Trudeau.
All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, a liberal politician falsely cries wolf, claiming a rebel news reporter harassed him at a farmer's market.
Trouble is, it's a lie.
It's January 17th, 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 is government will buy a publisher is because it's my bloody right to do so.
I saw a tweet from Justin Trudeau proudly announcing that it is no longer legal to intimidate doctors and nurses.
Criminal Harassment Controversy00:03:24
Except, of course, it's never been legal to intimidate anyone, any profession, really, any person of any background.
Now, of course, there is a threshold.
What is intimidation?
That's the question.
Here's a handbook for prosecutors published by Trudeau's Justice Department just last month, actually, describing the law as it has been for a very long time, for decades, actually.
Criminal harassment, which includes stalking, is a crime.
While many crimes are defined by conduct that results in a very clear physical outcome, for example, murder, the offense of criminal harassment prohibits deliberate conduct that is psychologically harmful to others.
Criminal harassment often consists of repeated conduct that is carried out over a period of time and that causes its targets to reasonably fear for their safety, but does not necessarily result in physical injury.
It may be a precursor to subsequent violent and or lethal acts.
That's a pretty good one paragraph summary.
Obviously, there are things that are uncomfortable or offensive that are completely legal, even important to society, beneficial.
There is no right not to be offended in Canada.
That's a counterfeit human right.
It's a woke feeling.
It's really another way of saying you want the power to shut up someone you don't like.
But according to that Justice Department handbook, most harassment is actually really obsessed stalkers who quite often know their victims.
Think of an obsessed ex-boyfriend or something, ex-girlfriend, perhaps.
So if someone is being stalked, that's been against the law for decades.
And then there's the law against intimidation, which has its own section in the criminal code.
I'm going to read straight from the criminal code to show you how vigorous the law is right now, but also what intimidation means in the criminal context.
It's anyone who, and I quote, uses violence or threats of violence to a person or their intimate partner or children or injures the person's property.
B, intimidates or attempts to intimidate that person or a relative of that person by threats that in Canada or elsewhere, violence or other injury will be done to or punishment inflicted on him or her or a relative of his or hers, or that the property of any of them will be damaged.
C, persistently follows that person.
D, hides any tools, clothes, or other property owned or used by that person, or deprives him or her of them or hinders him or her in the use of them.
E, with one or more other persons, follows that person in a disorderly manner on a highway.
F, besets or watches the place where that person resides, works, carries on business, or happens to be, or G, blocks or obstructs a highway.
I like that last one.
Yeah, you might recall a couple years ago how railway lines and highways were constantly being blocked by environmental extremist groups, and the police literally did nothing.
Same with the eco-sabotage of logging or oil patch places.
But my point is, it's been against the law for a very long time to harass people or stalk people or intimidate someone.
I mean, that criminal code provision has a lot of examples, right?
Websites Over Opinion00:15:01
But there is a move about to expand this dramatically to capture things that heretofore have been simply called healthy debate.
But healthy debate is an old-fashioned concept now.
Now, the default response by the left is no debate.
Silence the dissenter.
It's been that way for a while on certain issues in certain places.
For example, the CBC and Britain's BBC positively boast that their editorial policy is to ban anyone from coming on air to provide a skeptical point of view on the theory of man-made global warming.
That's been their practice for years, and they're doing the same and much more actually on the pandemic and lockdowns and forced vaccines.
Thing is, people just went elsewhere to get that other side of the story, mainly the internet.
So that's why woke censorship moved to YouTube and Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and places like that.
That's why Joe Rogan is so successful.
He has smart, long conversations with people, usually experts, usually dissidents, and he listens and asks questions and he doesn't denigrate or deride them, which is why he has about 11 million listeners on his podcast on any given episode, more than any cable news host in America.
In fact, double the highest Fox News host, which is why they want to censor him so badly.
Same thing with the most successful comedian in America right now, Dave Chappelle.
He tells jokes about trans people, for example, and so he must be burned at the stake.
Just like J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, the most successful author of our time.
My point is, debating critics is out.
Silencing critics is the new way.
And Trudeau has decided that it's not happening enough yet.
So he wants more laws, new laws.
Look at this.
Update.
It's now illegal to intimidate doctors, nurses, and patients or to obstruct them from providing care or seeking treatment.
As our government's legislation to criminalize a behavior comes into force today, we'll continue to have the backs of healthcare workers.
No, you weird liar.
It's always been illegal to intimidate people.
I just read to you the criminal code provisions there too.
But frankly, I think doctors could use some protection from intimidation these days.
Doctors and nurses and other healthcare professionals could use some protection from Trudeau and his Simon Says premiers who copy him, who have not only fired thousands of doctors and nurses for not being vaccinated, even though many of them have natural immunity, which seems to be working better than the vaccine, but mainly the absolute intimidation of doctors by their colleges of physicians and surgeons.
If those doctors dare to have a medical opinion for one of their patients that deviates from the political line, that you must have a vaccine in an endless series of booster shots.
Any doctor who gives exemptions is investigated and threatened and in many cases suspended even before their case is heard.
So yeah, this is projection on Trudeau's part.
Doctors like the rest of us have strong protections under criminal law, always have.
The laws of stalking, harassment, and intimidation, all sorts of threats.
That has never been legal to do.
Trudeau is the threatener today.
And even as he threatens doctors, he's projecting onto you what he's actually doing to his critics.
He does that a lot.
He sexually assaulted Rose Knight in Creston, B.C., but he calls his enemies sexist and misogynist.
He wore blackface more times than he can remember, but he calls his enemies racist.
He threatened doctors, but he says his enemies do.
And of course, he's definitely against violence, unless it's his own personal bodyguards doing it to a rebel news reporter.
But as Trudeau does, so they all do.
And so it was that this weekend, a little Trudeau wannabe, a liberal candidate provincially in Ontario who has been a lockdown extremist, a TV doctor, hyping lockdowns, he told a lie, a whopper of a lie, an extreme lie, a cry wolf lie, a crybaby lie.
Here's what he said.
Nathan Stahl is his name.
He said, today a rebel news reporter harassed me at a local farmer's market for promoting vaccines.
That same reporter made use of the market's shopping service where volunteers personally shop inside for those without a vaccine certificate.
Reasonable accommodation demands civility.
More than a thousand people retweeted or liked that.
Probably 100,000 people saw it or more.
You heard him.
He was very specific.
A rebel news reporter at a farmer's market.
A rebel news reporter who was personally shopping without a vaccine.
Harassed him.
You couldn't be more factually precise than that in a small tweet.
Now, he didn't say anyone's name.
He didn't show a photo or a video taken from his cell phone, but look, he's a doctor and a politician, so surely he wouldn't just make that all up, right?
That's a pretty specific thing to say.
Well, I saw that and I immediately sent a note to our entire staff.
Did anyone talk to that guy?
Now, a bunch of our team immediately replied, and I phoned the rest.
Obviously, I didn't pester the people I knew were far away in British Columbia or Australia, but everyone in Ontario, where this guy is.
And not only did none of our staff interact with him, only one person actually knew who he was.
And no one on our staff had ever contacted him in any manner.
None of them had been to a farmer's market at all that day anywhere.
It was simply all made up.
Just completely made up.
But that's the thing about defamatory facts as opposed to defamatory opinions.
If this Nathan Stahl character had just called us names or had an opinion about us, people could ignore that.
They could think he was reasonable or unreasonable.
But frankly, an opinion, when you express it, says as much about you as the person you're expressing your opinion about, about the person about whom the opinion is spoken.
Now, you could say, I hate rebel news.
I think they're terrible.
Okay, fine, fair enough.
That's your opinion.
But he says specific facts.
One of our reporters harassed him at a specific place, specific details.
That's very different than an opinion, isn't it?
As you can tell by my own immediate reaction of calling our own team.
I myself thought it was possible, even if it was very unlikely, it was possible that it was true because he said it with such specificity.
I was pretty sure he would be exaggerating no matter what, but I thought it could be true until I spoke with literally our whole team.
I called him out on it on Twitter.
This is what I said after I talked to everyone on our team.
I said, this is a defamatory lie.
It did not happen.
I personally checked with every Rebel News staffer today.
No one interacted with you in any way.
No one was at a farmer's market.
Most of my staff have never heard of you.
Please delete this falsehood, you untrustworthy liar.
I was mad, so I said it again because he wasn't deleting it.
I said, you wicked liar.
I've just checked with every single Rebel News staff member.
No one interacted with you today.
No one went to a farmer's market.
Most of my staff have no clue who you are.
Retract your defamation and apologize, or we'll sue you on Monday morning.
I went at it a bit, and here's what the little liar finally wrote in reply.
He said, please speak with Rosemary Fry.
Here's her Rebel News article covering my work on COVID-19 vaccines.
And then he linked to this story from five months ago.
Huh?
Rosemary Fry?
She doesn't work for us.
Never has.
And that story, it was our reporter, Tamari Ugolini, interviewing Rosemary Fry.
She's just a person we interviewed five months ago.
We've done 30,000 videos in our time.
We've spoken to thousands of people.
They don't work for us.
They're not Rebel News reporters, which he specifically said actually twice.
He's not that dumb to think someone we interviewed five months ago is a Rebel News reporter.
He just thought he could get away with that lie.
And by the way, he's such a liar.
I don't believe he even had an interaction with her in any event.
But so what?
The lie was out there.
And even after I called him on his lie, he let it stand for hours more.
So hundreds and thousands of people could see it and retweet it.
It was a hoax.
Like Jesse Smollett.
He invented a hate crime, but it was a lie.
He was the hater.
So what, though?
Here's a left-wing news site called The Narwhal republishing it, saying it's proof that we're not real journalists.
Andre Picard, the Globe and Males health journalist, retweeted it.
Of course, Catherine McKenna, the disgraced former minister, did too.
Over a thousand people liked retweeting.
And then finally, a real lawyer, I guess, talked to him and he panicked.
And he just deleted it all, but with no correction, no retraction, no apology.
The 100,000 plus people who read it simply read it.
And that was it.
They assume it was accurate because Stahl didn't correct himself.
The defamation is done.
The hate was published.
And it's in the service of Trudeau's narrative.
People are inciting violence against them or even committing violence against them or whatever harassing meant.
They're lying.
They're the violent ones.
They're the threateners.
They're the ones locking us all down.
They're the ones using police to bully us, using colleges of physicians and surgeons to silence doctors.
They're accusing their victims of what they themselves do.
Our lawyer sent Stahl a demand letter telling him that if he doesn't, in fact, retract and apologize and put that on his Twitter account, we're going to see him in court.
I'll let you know how that goes.
By the way, look at this.
The unvaccinated cherish their freedom to harm others.
How can we ever forgive them?
That was published in Canada's largest newspaper, the Toronto Star.
If I were a woke leftist, I'd say that's intimidation or harassment or something, and the police ought to arrest them.
But I'm not a leftist, so I'll just say it's a disgrace.
And it's absolutely 100% at the feet of Justin Trudeau, who has telegraphed to the entire establishment that it's okay to hate those you disagree with on the pandemic.
This will not end well.
Stay with us for more.
Well, hey, do you remember a few weeks ago when David Suzuki said that there could or would or should be violence against pipelines?
He wasn't very clear.
Initially, he held his ground, refused to retract that.
But I don't know where the pressure came from, whether it was from the David Suzuki Foundation, which for some reason is charitable status in Canada, or whether it's from the CBC.
But he eventually realized that he had simply gone too far, this multi-millionaire, essentially giving his moral blessing to eco-terrorism.
So he finally walked it back, but everyone got the message.
Well, not so at the CBC, Trudeau's state broadcaster.
In this great story on True North by Cosman Gierga, it's revealed by Cosman's digging that the CBC has just commissioned an anarchist who promotes violence, including videos like one titled How to Paralyze a Country.
Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster has hired an anarchist to put together such a movie.
Joining us now is Cosmo Gierga, the reporter at True North who revealed the story.
Cosman, how you doing?
Great to see you.
Good.
How are you, guys?
Well, I'm fine.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.
I thought that maybe when David Suzuki blinked and walked back his eco-terrorist message, which was a little bit ambiguous, it wasn't clear if he was predicting it or giving it his blessing.
He walked it back.
But this guy, Franklin Lopez, he's full-on anarchist promoting violence, isn't he?
Yes, in some sense.
So Franklin Lopez, by the admission of the CBC, has been an active anarchist activist in the Canadian community for about 20 years.
So it's evident that the CBC was well aware of Mr. Lopez's past connections.
Now, his work through the company Submedia, which he founded, has found its way on several of Canada's most radical anarchist extremist websites, like Montreal Counterinformation, North Shore Counterinformation.
These are websites that regularly publish communications and descriptions of illegal and criminal activity, such as shutting down pipelines, throwing stones through bank windows.
So there's an extensive network of these anarchist little communities that use these websites to get their word out and essentially encourage each other to pursue attacks on Canada's critical infrastructure and other such things.
So I want to make it clear, because just earlier today I was saying, look, Trudeau is looking to criminalize merely dissenting speech.
And so we have to allow offensive speech and annoying speech and speech we don't like as part of the political hurly burley.
But I just want to be crystal clear.
These websites that you're talking about, they don't just talk about ideas.
They talk really how to make a pipe bomb, how to derail a train.
Am I accurate in describing them that way?
They're actual manuals, how-to manuals for violence and ecoterrorism.
Is that right?
Yes, absolutely.
You know, as you mentioned, having an extreme or radical opinion is not illegal in this country.
But what these websites endorse cross the line.
Now, they put in tongue-in-cheek comments where they're just saying, you know, this is for informational purposes.
But Montreal Counterinformation, which has published and linked to several of Mr. Lopez's videos, has published guides on how to make Molotov cocktails.
Now, it's illegal to own or produce Molotov cocktails because they're a form of inflammatory explosives.
So, I think this clearly crosses a line.
And the fact that the CBC is comfortable to work with such an individual that has been endorsed by these websites, and he himself has published, you know, positive portrayals of people, radical environmentalist protesters shutting down pipelines.
And as you mentioned, you know, how to paralyze the country.
These are very concerning things.
Yeah.
The article on True North is called Radical Anarchist Producing CBC Documentary on BC Pipeline Protests.
Now, I want to make sure we sharpen the distinction between things that this anarchist Franklin Lopez himself has said or done versus the websites upon which he's published.
Careful Conservative Plans00:07:57
I mean, I think we can infer certain things by him being published by these violence-promoting sites.
But what's the worst thing that he himself has said or done?
I suppose he gives them their blessing, but has he himself counseled violence or violence to property or violence to people that you know of?
As far as I can tell, Mr. Lopez has been very careful about what he says and does using his own name.
Now, on his Twitter account, which has since been locked, he has published positive messages about Antifa and various actions that they've done throughout the country and in the United States and beyond.
So if you just look at Mr. Lopez's company, Submedia, there's hundreds of videos positively portraying other radicals.
Now, as I said, he's been very careful and he's also been very public about this, you know, and the fact that the CBC has no qualms with that, it just goes to show how much they've sold their soul.
And as we know recently from former CBC producer Tara Henley, the CBC has a far left problem and it's endemic across the Crown corporation.
Yeah.
You know, what was so interesting about your story is you actually talked to Chuck Thompson, the chief spin doctor over there at the CBC.
He's the damage control mop-up guy.
I really got to know his name during the whole Gian Gameshi scandal.
So when he's put on a file, you know they're in trouble.
But you're right.
He basically said, yeah, we've known who he was for 20 years and that's all we're saying.
He didn't get into any particulars.
I think it's unthinkable that the CBC would glamorize violence and eco-terrorism if it were against any other industry, if it were against, I don't know, wind turbines or something green.
I mean, I don't know, anything against one of their left-wing heroes.
But if it's against oil and gas, of course the CBC will do.
Why is that a surprise?
They're Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster.
They do what he says.
And he himself, Trudeau himself, I can't think that he's ever criticized eco-terrorism.
He hired Gerald Butz as his principal advisor for years.
So the CBC is basically saying, yeah, what are you going to do about it?
I mean, the brazenness is quite something.
You're absolutely right, Ezra.
You know, this production is called Yinta.
And as Chuck Thompson described it to me, it's a point of view documentary.
Now, I wonder, would the CBC create a point of view documentary about all of the First Nations along the BC LNG pipelines route, all of the elected councils who endorse and are set to benefit from this project in terms of jobs and income?
Would they create a point of view documentary from the perspective of the besieged BC LNG workers who have constantly faced blockades, lack of access to food, and road closures due to the activities of these radical protesters?
I suspect they probably won't create that point of view.
So it's obviously very one-sided.
And as you said, you know, Gerald Butts is very involved in the environmental movement.
But we just saw from the latest cabinet the promotion of Stephen Gilbea, who was a radical Greenpeace activist, and he's very much proud of that fact in various interviews he's given to the media.
Yeah.
Well, he's a convicted criminal, too.
He broke into the CN Tower as part of a stunt.
And he pretended in court that he was quite contrite, but he did a victory lap for the media outside.
He's untrustworthy, Stephen Gilbo, and he's shown that he'll break the law to get his way if he can't do it lawfully.
So it's no surprising that the CBC is the same.
I just want to point out one thing.
This is about the pipeline where there's an Indian band, the Watsuitin First Nation.
We sent our former reporter Kian Bexti up there, and we discovered that all the agitators against the pipeline, they're not the actual banned council.
They're not the actual people there who represent the First Nations.
They're, you know, I'm not going to call them impersonators, but they have no democratic legitimacy.
They're basically foreign-funded provocateurs.
It's no surprise to me that Franklin Lopez comes in on the side of the basically eco-colonizers to tell the local Aboriginal folks that they're not allowed to have economic development.
It's really gross.
And the fact that the CBC is pouring money into an antifus-style filmmaker says it all, as were to you, Cosmo.
Do you think that the CBC will ever have its massive budget cut?
I see that Aaron O'Toole, who campaigned on defunding it, is now saying, hey, let's fix it.
In fact, he reached out to that Tara Henley you're referring to and said, hey, Tara, let's sit down and see how we can fix the CBC.
I thought Aaron O'Toole told conservatives that he would defund the CBC.
I didn't hear him say he would fix it.
Do you ever think we're going to defund the CBC or get rid of it?
Well, it would take a serious conservative leader to do that.
And I don't think Aaron O'Toole is that person.
I think actually his original plan to essentially privatize the CBC English TV arm of the Crown Corporation was actually a decent one.
But he's obviously reversed that position.
Now he's talking about fixing it.
I think a serious conservative government would clean shop.
They would use their powers through the governor and council to essentially, I think they should fire their board of directors, get some more level-headed people in there, start cutting down CBC's coverage of national and federal politics, sell those assets and put that money and resources into local news, which is so desperately needed across this country.
So there are clearly ways to, if not totally defund the CBC, absolutely reform it.
And you could also change their code of ethics and make freedom of speech central to their essential to their code of ethics.
I think there are plenty of options that a conservative government would have.
Now, the question is, who would be willing to do that?
And I don't think Aaron O'Toole is that person.
Well, that's the one thing I'm going to disagree with you on, Cosmo.
I don't want to, you know, refocus the CBC on local news gathering.
I want to get them out of the news business.
I want to get the government out of the news business.
And just as easily as a conservative leader could stack the CBC with his board of directors, the next year a liberal prime minister could do the same.
I think this is one of the things where if you don't pull it out by the root, it'll be, it's part of the permanent deep state.
And the CBC has a stronger culture of left-wing activism than the Conservative Party does.
It'll just outlast the Conservatives.
We saw that mistake made by Stephen Harper, who did not pull it out by the root when he had a chance.
And of course, they stuck the knife in him in 2015 when they had the chance.
So I think it's unreformable.
I think it's like the CIA.
You will never reform the CIA.
It's just, it's too large.
It's its own creature.
It truly is the deep state.
The CBC, as you can see by your own story, is the deep state of left-wing activism.
It will not be reformed.
That's just my view.
I think it has to be pulled up by the root and a bunch of salt poured into the ground where it once grew.
Aussie Exemption Controversy00:08:59
It's great to see you, Cosman.
Thanks for covering this story.
I appreciate your investigations, and we look forward to talking again soon.
Thanks for having me, Ezra.
Happy to be here.
Right on YouTube.
There you have it.
Cosmo Jerja.
His story is called Radical Anarchist Producing CBC documentary on BC pipeline protests because, of course, stay with us.
more ahead hey welcome back Well, you know what?
Here in Toronto, they get four feet of snow and everyone panics.
Well, I managed to come into work today and so did one other staffer, our friend Dakota.
So he's running the studio today.
Big thanks to him.
And the rest of our team is working hard from home, but I was delighted to make it.
You know, imagine saying that the way to get around the second largest country in the world, one of the coldest countries in the world, is, I don't know, with a bicycle, with a Prius.
Today, at least in this city, pickup trucks and SUVs on the road.
It was quite something out here and proof that all these schemers and global warmests, they really have no clue.
It's really the same as the big brains who tell us that lockdowns will fix the pandemic.
Anyways, forgive me that little aside.
Newbie Bob says, I can't believe things are getting this far.
They really are fighting hard to squeeze the last hope out of freedom out of us.
Keep strong, all.
You could be referring to just about any story we talk about because we talk about freedom.
Josh Bush says, thanks for discussing section one of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I call it the Comic Cavia, which essentially makes a mockery of our entire Canadian Constitution.
Any document that starts with exemptions to what it purportedly avows is not a serious document.
Canadians, in essence, have only the freedoms that the sitting government grants at their pleasure.
You're so right.
And if you remember our conversation with Brian Peckford, the former premier of Newfoundland, that's what he said.
He says that exemption, that section one, which says all these other rights we're about to give you, they're limited.
So just don't even take it seriously.
Brian Peckford says that that was meant to be used in extreme emergencies, not this perpetual public health emergency that's not even really an emergency.
So yeah, but what are you going to do?
I mean, the Soviet Union had a constitution that promised freedom.
Put it in the hands of the Communist Party and their so-called judges, and you get what you get.
For, you know, the UK, you could say, doesn't even have a written constitution, and yet they love freedom and their courts defend it.
So you have to have freedom in your culture.
Simply having a piece of paper will do you no favors.
Black Medicine says, time to pack up, say bye-bye to Alberta, and head south for beautiful and free Florida.
Well, as you know, Texas and Florida are the two states with the most in-migration from the other states, California and New York being the most out-migration.
No surprise there.
But the thing is, not everyone can move.
Many businesses are geographically rooted.
People have to go to a particular office.
If you're in a restaurant business, you can't just lift up your restaurant and move to Florida.
I mean, I suppose you could shut down your entire life here and try again there, but there's one more wrinkle.
It's another country.
You can't just walk into Florida.
I know that there are illegal migrants there, to be sure, but that's a dream.
For some people, it can be reality, but for most Canadians, we've got to stay and fight for freedom.
Well, that's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night.
Keep fighting for freedom.
He is the reigning Australian open champion, and he cannot play because he is unvaccinated.
Now, our next guest has been covering the story from the beginning.
He has great insight into the entire lockdown going on two years and insanity in Australia.
His name is Avi Yamini.
He's the chief Australian correspondent for Rebel News, and he joins us now from Melbourne.
Avi, great to have you on the show this morning.
I'm just going to turn it over to you.
What's your reaction as you see what's happening in Australia this morning?
Well, thanks for having me.
It's been an insane week.
But a couple of corrections.
It's not actually that the government appealed it and won the appeal.
That's not true.
He first, when he came in, they tried to ban him, saying his vaccine exemption was invalid.
When he appealed that, he won in the federal circuit court.
And what then transpired is the government claimed that he'd lied on his papers to get into the country in his documentation.
But that's not even what they came after him at the end.
At the end, the Minister of Immigration exercised his discretionary power to remove Novak Djokovic for the reason that his mere presence in the country would essentially incite dissent.
He said, citing that he was a risk to civil order.
So him being here, him being here, not that he was unvaxed, but that people perceived his way of thinking, his belief to be anti-vax, and that could inspire people not to get vaccinated in a country where we're, I don't know, 90% or in a state 93% vaccinated.
It is crazy what happened here today.
Yeah, I mean, everything in Australia seems crazy to me these days.
I guess my question to you is, you know, I get how the government feels about this.
It's a little surprising in the post-Omicron era where we now know that the vaccinated are spreading it.
But how do the Australian people feel about it?
Where did they stand?
Because this was such an international story that put a spotlight on what they've been going through as well.
I think a lot of Australians were really angry in the beginning when Novak got an exemption because as I said, over 90%, at least in Victoria, are double vaccinated.
And that's not because people chose to.
It's because pretty much to live life here, you need to be fully vaccinated.
So people felt like they were forced to get vaccinated, but then this superstar came here and he was given an exemption.
I think the federal government here rode that wave and felt like they had an opportunity to win some political points.
And they essentially went to take him out on the most bizarre bizarre, for the most bizarre reason.
It's not, again, that he's unvaccinated.
Today, the immigration minister conceded that his vaccination exemption was absolutely kosher.
It was fine.
It was over the fact that they said he was potentially inciting dissent.
And one of the things that they cited as evidence, which I found quite interesting, is that before the vaccines were even available, that he'd question the idea of a vaccine.
He said that he was no expert, but he would see at the time that he wasn't really interested in vaccines.
That was the only real evidence that the state had that he was ever kind of anti-vax.
The interesting thing is that that was at a period of time that Joe Biden and every Democrat in America was having a go at the vaccines.
It was during the period that Trump was talking about the vaccines.
And back at that time, being anti-vax was actually the right kind of position to have.
So it is a really, really bizarre situation that's happened here.
But there is, listen, a lot of people were angry about Novak being here.
I think Australians are going to look back at this period with a lot of shame.
Avi, you raised so many great points.
This idea that he would incite dissent.
You know, dissent is something Americans are quite proud of, although it's been being squelched here as well.
And we've seen it actively by big tech.
But the fact that the government would say dissent not allowed, what does that tell you about the current state of politics, of power in Australia?
A lot of people look over at Australia and don't recognize the thing we used to think it was.
Look, I lived here my whole life and I don't recognize it.
The last two years has absolutely changed Australia and day by day it gets worse.
As we're coming out of this pandemic, as we're learning to live with it, it seems like we're being stripped more and more of basic fundamental human rights.
And it's really, really sad.
And I hope, like probably many Aussies, that we come out of this okay and we're able to get back the Australia we once had.
But it is looking harder and harder as we go forward.
Avi Yamini of Rebel News, great perspective this morning.