Ezra Levant critiques Christia Freeland’s U.S. travel warning for LGBTQI+ Canadians, calling it a distraction from Canada’s inflation, taxes, and crime while ignoring persecution in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. He highlights Rebel News’s crowdfunding success—$30K for Maui wildfire coverage—and contrasts Trudeau’s selective outrage, like shaming Italy’s Meloni, with his silence on China’s pollution despite appointing convicted criminal Stephen Gilbo as Environment Minister. Levant also defends Pride’s evolution from protest to celebration, dismissing censorship of dissenters like Amber Robert while noting Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s rejection of Gilbo’s emissions targets. The episode ties Trudeau’s focus shifts to broader political strategy, exposing perceived hypocrisy in progressive messaging. [Automatically generated summary]
I'm back in Toronto now at our world headquarters.
And I've got a show today about Christia Freeland warning gay people not to go to America.
I don't remember her warning gay people not to go to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, or places like that.
But America, or at least the Republicans, she just hates too much.
I'll do my show on that today.
And I'll invite you to get the video version of this show by going to RebelNewsPlus.com.
It's just $8 a month.
I do it every weeknight.
Sheila Gonrid does a show every week.
And we call that Rebel News Plus.
If you go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe.
It's $8 a month.
You'll get the video version and the satisfaction of knowing that you keep Rebel News strong and healthy.
All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, the Trudeau liberals issue a warning against traveling to the United States.
I'm serious.
It's August 30th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Crazy news, the Trudeau liberals have actually issued an official government warning against Canadians traveling to the United States because they claim that it is dangerous to be gay there.
I'm serious.
Here's the official travel advisory for the U.S. Canada has a page like this for most countries in the world.
Here's what they added.
Two SLGBTQI plus travelers.
Some states have enacted laws and policies that may affect two SLGBTQI plus persons.
Check relevant state and local laws.
Back to the Studio00:07:17
Now, I've got a ton to say about that, and I will in a moment, but can I say a word first about being back in the studio?
And actually, maybe you can give me some feedback on this because I feel like I'm constantly torn between different things that I love to do, different duties I have here at Rebel News.
And I only have 24 hours in a day.
What should I do with my time?
Produce commentaries about the news like I'm doing now?
I love doing that.
I always have.
Or should I go out into the field and do on-the-scene reporting?
That's usually a great adventure, and you never know what you're going to learn.
I'm really glad that I went to Lahaina, Maui, to cover the wildfires with my colleagues Alexa Lavois and Lincoln Jane.
Or should I work on what we call campaigns, like the crowdfunding campaign we created for Maui to help a citizen-run non-FEMA relief camp we saw over there?
By the way, it's raised over $30,000 U.S.
I feel great about that.
That's one thing that Rebel News viewers love doing, is not just to watch the world, but every now and then to stop to fix the world just a little bit.
Or how about going to do Rebel News events like our recent tour across Canada with Tamara Leach in support of her best-selling book?
Then there's just managing the company, working with my colleagues, trying to plan, trying to make sure the company can make payroll, working on the new website, organizing conferences, planning new books, things like that.
I'm not complaining.
In fact, it's exactly the opposite.
I wish I had three days every day because I love to do all of those things.
But alas, that's not how life works.
I have to pick a lane.
I say all this because it's on my mind.
As I just got back from Australia and New Zealand, the reason I went was because our Australian star, Avi Yamini, released his new book and autobiography called A Rebel from the Start, which is a perfect title for him, isn't it?
I wanted to be there for his book launch, but I also sort of knew in my bones that the far left down there would try and stop them.
And indeed, they did, threatening an Anglican church that had agreed to rent a room to Avi, and that church caved in in a cowardly way.
As you know, a church run by Maori people.
Those are the indigenous people in New Zealand.
They stepped up and offered us their facility on very short notice and six big bodyguards too.
At the end of it all, they even did a Maori haka, as it's called for Avi, which is very exciting.
Here, I've just got to show that to you one more time.
So I'm back in the office and I'm here this week, and I'm glad, but I know that I'm leaving again next week for our rebel news fact-finding trip to Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
We did a similar tour before the pandemic, where we took about 40 of our most enthusiastic viewers.
I guess it was for a holiday, but it was more for a journalistic mission.
Every day, we met different experts about different things.
We did news reports on them, but our rebel news viewers were right there with us.
So, for example, here's a video I did with a guy named Danny Tirza.
He's the retired Israeli military officer who designed the security barrier between Israel and Arab towns to stop suicide attackers from coming through.
And I thought this was a good template for Donald Trump and how to build the wall.
Take a look.
I'm standing in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo.
Down there is Bethlehem and Bejala in the West Bank.
And with me is retired Colonel Danny Tirza.
Nice to see you.
You were the colonel in charge of the security barrier between the West Bank and Israel.
How is it working?
How many years old is it, first of all?
It was start constructed here in 2002.
And now we're in 2017, so 15 years that it works.
How many people try and cross the barrier on any given day?
Today, maybe 20 to 30 times a week, someone tried to cross the fence.
So three to five times a day?
Are they people who were lost?
Are they regular criminals?
What's the breakdown of those 20 or 30 people a week?
Most of them are criminals.
Some of them are illegal workers.
And even Palestinian women that are running away from the families.
You know what happened to a Palestinian wife if her husband suspects her.
She better run away.
How has it affected regular life, commerce?
Can people on the Bethlehem side still come to Israel and vice versa?
Yes, they have, but they can, but they can do it only through checkpoints and after a security check.
If you came with a ladder, you could probably get over that fence in what, five or ten minutes.
That's the whole point.
It's not to stop people.
It's just to detect them and delay them.
Is that right?
That's right.
How long would it take someone if there was no rapid response team?
You told us earlier that the army comes within five minutes.
That's their quota.
That's their goal.
How long would it take to cross over the various layers there if no army response was coming?
About between eight to twelve minutes, that's all.
So you really only have three minutes of wiggle room there.
That's right.
And therefore, we are working on both sides of this area.
When we have the alert, first we are using our technology things to detect it.
And then the patrols are coming, one from the valley and the two other from the mountain here to close the area.
Last question.
Has anyone crossed the barrier successfully?
Have terrorists crossed the barrier successfully or would you even know?
Only when it was under construction.
From the end of 2006 till today, we had in Israel only 33 terror attacks from the West Bank.
I'm not talking about launching missiles.
I'm talking about terrorists that crossed from the West Bank to Israel and succeeded to make terror attacks here.
So I was doing an official interview, but the whole team of rebels were right behind me.
They had just had the same exact briefing I had.
They toured the fence just like I did.
The only difference was at the end of it, I jumped in and interviewed Danny Tierza for the record for five minutes.
So we're doing that same trip again next week, but we're adding on a three-day visit to the UAE.
That's an Arab country that made peace with Israel under Donald Trump's Abraham Accord.
So we're going to Israel and we're flying to the United Arab Emirates to see if the peace deal is real, to see if decades, even centuries of animosity can be overcome in that region.
So that's a rebel news event and it's a fundraiser for us and it's real news reporting.
But alas, I'll be away for over a week, even though we'll do lots of news updates from there.
Acquitted of Charges00:02:30
And of course, not all of our team will be there, but a few.
We'll cover many other things in Canada.
Tamara Leach's trial begins in Ottawa next week.
And as you know, we've crowdfunded her legal defense fund.
That's hard on the heels of the great victory this week by Chris Scott, the proprietor of the Whistle Stop Diner, who has been hounded for two years by the government, which suddenly dropped the charges against him.
Here's his reaction to that.
Well, I was just acquitted of all of my charges relating to the Public Health Act of Alberta in relation to me doing what normal business people do, which is engage in business.
I was brought before the court after I was arrested and I was made to answer for the alleged crime of serving hamburgers and porn coffee.
Well, I was acquitted on all charges today.
The hearing took approximately five minutes.
Neither side contested the application for an acquittal and it was all over and done with right away.
How do I feel about that?
Well, I don't feel any different today than I did yesterday.
As a matter of fact, throughout this entire thing, I haven't had much feeling about the court process at all.
I never felt, you know, despair or anything like that because I was dragged before the court.
I just, that was part of the process and I knew it was going to happen.
And I knew that was going to happen when I took a stand against the public health restrictions.
Anyway, so no, there is no, I don't really have any feeling about it.
I'm not jumping for joy, although I am happy with the outcome in that I'm not going to be annihilated with fines.
Thank you to Williamson Law and to the Democracy Fund for crowdfunding and providing me with the legal support that I needed to do this fight.
If it wasn't for the Democracy Fund, Rebel News, and everybody that supported and contributed to the crowdfunding, I would have never been able to do this.
I would have never been able to stand up even more than a week against the government.
You know, that little video on Twitter had more than 300,000 views in just one day.
People really care.
And that makes me take heart that they haven't forgotten.
All right.
So that's all a very long way of saying that I'm trying to find the balance in my day between doing commentaries in the studio and doing reporting out in the world and doing events with rebels in real life versus doing things online.
And then there's just running the company.
I'd like your feedback on how I should balance all of those things.
Kamala Harris Comparison00:10:52
Most other pundits usually just do one thing.
They do punditing.
I think of Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire, that's his main job.
I see that Tucker Carlson just went to Hungary again.
I was there a month ago.
Unlike me, he managed to get another sit-down interview with the prime minister over there, Victor Orban.
And that interview, according to Twitter, has had more than 40 million views in one day.
So Tucker does journalism and he does long-form journalism and he travels and does some events.
There's a reason he's the world's best.
His interview with Donald Trump was literally watched a quarter of a billion times.
I can't even process that number.
So that's the world's best journalist.
So let me do some Canadian journalism now.
Let me show you the news story I mentioned a few minutes ago before I told you why I haven't been in the office lately and why I'll be away next week too.
Let me show you a nutty thing the Trudeau Liberals just did.
And it's no surprise, whenever they get into trouble, they go for their old standbys.
They talk about abortion or gay rights or transgenderism.
It's their way of changing the channel, so to speak, from bad news for them.
They know how they can get the media party regulars to change the subject and flip things around for them.
They need that a lot these days.
Things are going pear-shaped, as the Brits would say.
Inflation, taxes, crime, housing costs.
It's really spiraling out of control.
Did you see the latest poll from Abacus Data?
I mentioned them, as you know, because they're run by a liberal.
So when they say there's bad news for Trudeau, it's like when the New York Times says there's bad news for the Democrats.
It's an admission against their own interests that they don't like to make.
So you know you can believe it.
I mean, look at this.
Conservatives lead by 12%, as only 27% think the prime minister should run again?
I mean, come on, look at this.
The Liberals are literally in third place every place west of Ontario.
They're even behind in the Atlantic.
When did you see that last?
When was the last time the Conservatives had a nine-point lead amongst women voters?
Look at young voters.
They can spot a phony a mile away.
They hate Trudeau.
Yeah, so time to change the channel.
Trudeau's favorite, Melanie Jolie, got the ball rolling with this weird statement the other day.
Remember this?
Canada mulling game plan if U.S. takes far-right authoritarian shift.
Jolie, we are certainly working on scenarios, Jolie said in French during an interview.
How weird is that?
Authoritarianism?
You know what I mean?
Like declaring martial law, stomping on peaceful protesters with riot horses, seizing bank accounts of political opponents and censoring the internet, that kind of thing?
An authoritarian shift like that.
But nothing that weird could be a mistake.
Melanie Jolene only reads what's written for her.
So this was part of a planned new narrative.
It's a plan, a media plan to run against Donald Trump and against Ron DeSantis.
Think about it.
If you're Justin Trudeau and you're running against Pierre Polyev, you're sparring with a guy who talks about inflation and housing prices and crime in an effective way, a guy Canadians seem to be warming up to.
What liberal candidate wouldn't prefer to spar against a U.S. Republican, all of whom have been demonized in the Canadian media, none of whom have any Canadian sensibility, and none of whom will bother to fight back against Trudeau.
And even if they did, he'd love it.
So it's an unserious way to govern.
It's an unserious way to deal with issues.
But the Liberals obviously believe they can distract from their real problems in Canada by shadowboxing with Americans.
They'll do it all day long.
And look at how eager the media is to go along with them, which is why the Liberals did that weird thing I mentioned at the beginning of this long monologue.
They declared that America is a dangerous place for gay people.
Of course they didn't say gay.
They said to SLGBTQI plus.
I know gay people, I know some trans people, and never in my life have I ever heard anyone real use the phrase to SLGBTQI plus.
It's like when Democrats invented the word Latinx to say Latino.
Or it's like cisgender.
No one real talks that way.
So naturally, Trudeau loves it.
2SLGBTQI plus workers within the federal government.
So they brought in this warning, hey, 2SLGBTQI plus people, better not go to San Francisco or New York.
It's too dangerous for you there.
I'm sure they actually meant Florida and Texas and other Republican places.
They don't single those states out, though, because, of course, it's complete BS.
I can't think of a single gay right in Canada that they don't have in Texas and Florida.
It's just a weird attempt, like I say, to shift the focus away from Trudeau's mess in Canada to the U.S. instead.
The CBC is absolutely down with this agenda, of course.
I listen to CBC radio once every month or two, so you don't have to.
And they're obsessed with American news.
They're obsessed with Trump, of course.
It's really weird for a Canadian national broadcaster using Canadian tax dollars to give us hot takes on what's going on in other countries if we're not bombarded with American news all the time.
And it's for the same reason, too.
They'd rather talk about alleged corruption in America than alleged corruption in Canada.
All this talk about Russian collusion, Russian influence in America, that, by the way, the Mueller inquiry said did not exist.
That's a lot easier for the CBC to talk about than, say, Communist China's actual influence in actual Canada.
That's hard for the CBC to talk about.
So they made the announcement, and here's Christy Freeland talking about the announcement in her signature rambling style, condescending in tone and substance, totally evasive, and the reporters never press her on it.
She really is like Kamala Harris.
Here's Christy Freeland.
Why has your government issued the travel advisory for LGBTQ plus people to the United States?
And was this something you discussed with President Biden or your government discussed with President Biden first?
So, you know, as someone who has had the real privilege of serving as Canada's foreign minister, I know that our travel advisories are done very professionally.
We have professional professionals in the government whose job is to look carefully around the world and to monitor whether there are particular dangers to particular groups of Canadians.
That's their job, and it's the right thing to do.
When it comes to the United States specifically, I have personal experience of dealing with a diversity of U.S. administrations and of dealing with American leaders at all levels of government,
in all branches of government, and with Americans from who represent diverse groups across the country, whether it is business or labor or civic organizations.
And that's because our government understands, as every Canadian government needs to understand, that one of the principal responsibilities of the federal government is to understand how to work with our U.S. neighbor.
I think our government has shown that that's a priority for us and that we work hard at it and that we're able to manage that relationship regardless of the choices that the people of the United States make.
Even as we work hard to even as we work hard on that government to government relationship, every Canadian government, very much including our government, needs to put at the center of everything we do the interests and the safety of every single Canadian and of every single group of Canadians.
That's what we're doing now.
That's what we're always going to do.
So it was a clear question.
Why did you do it?
And did you talk to Joe Biden about it?
And then she rambled on for more than two minutes saying literally nothing.
But they all do this because they know the compliant colonized regime media will either ignore her windy answer or quote it, but never say, you just gave us a word salad.
Can you please answer the question?
It's a simple yes or no.
Did you talk to Joe Biden about this?
Her answer really reminds me of Kamala Harris.
Both Harris and Freeland are the number two in each of their country's governments.
Both are obviously affirmative action hires.
I mean, just ask Trudeau.
Your cabinet, you said, looks a lot like Canada.
And I understand one of the priorities for you was to have a cabinet that was gender balanced.
Why was that so important to you?
Because it's 2015.
Both Kamala Harris and Christopher are extremely unlikable people.
Both are extremely awkward and unaccomplished, which may be why each are where they are.
Anyone who thinks of getting rid of Joe Biden or thinks of getting rid of Justin Trudeau immediately thinks, yikes, Kamala Harris would be worse.
The governor and I, and we were all doing a tour of the library here and talking about the significance of the passage of time, right?
The significance of the passage of time.
So when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time in terms of what we need to do to lay these wires, what we need to do to create these jobs.
And there is such great significance to the passage of time when we think about a day in the life of our children.
Thank you for the warm welcome.
So here's the thing.
Who doesn't love a yellow school bus?
Right?
Can you raise your hand if you love a yellow school bus, right?
Just there's something about the, and most of us, many of us went to school on the yellow school bus, right?
And it's part of our experience growing up.
It's part of a nostalgia and a memory of- You know, we used to have a great Kamala Harris impersonator who made little parody videos for us.
Some people actually thought it was Kamala Harris.
She was so spot on.
Hello, hello, America.
You don't have to clap.
No, but he's clapping.
Phasing Out Emissions Targets00:04:53
Okay.
With the exploration of space having been defined in the 21st century, we know then what we know now.
And what we know now is absolutely nothing.
She's really good at being really bad.
Anyways, that's our deputy prime minister, really.
No wonder we're in a mess.
But here's the weird thing.
And it's like when it's Pride Month or Pride Season, as Trudeau now calls it, and woke corporations turn their logos into rainbow colors.
But they only do so in their North American European outlets.
Look at this.
Mercedes, BMW, Cisco, All the big companies, they don't quite have the political courage to fly that pride flag in Riyadh or Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, or Islamophan, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Now, do they?
And that's how it is with Trudeau and Freeland.
Where is their public denunciation of regimes that actually kill gay people?
When was the last time you saw Trudeau or Freeland actually speak truth to power?
You'll recall that Trudeau, who doesn't seem to do well with powerful women, just asked Jody Wilson-Raybold.
You'll recall that he thought it was important enough to publicly shame the new prime minister of Italy, Georgia Maloney, for being anti-gay, which, of course, she isn't anti-gay, but Trudeau likes mansplaining things to women.
We know that it's a time of tremendous anxiety for our citizens, whether it's the war in Ukraine, whether it's hangovers from the pandemic, whether it's the global economic challenges people are facing.
People need reassurance, people need to be included.
Obviously, Canada is concerned about some of the some positionings that Italy is taking in terms of LGBT rights, but I look forward to talking with you about that.
I'd like to see him do that to a country that actually kills gays instead of to Italy or America.
But then again, Trudeau is the prime minister who just sent Stephen Gilbo, the convicted criminal who's now our environment minister.
He sent Gilbo to communist China, the dictatorship, by far the world's largest emitter of pollution.
And Gilbo in China, instead of speaking truth to power, thought he would condemn a Canadian oil sands company from China.
Not condemn China, which is opening two new coal-fired power plants every week, but to attack a Canadian ethical oil company.
I got a kick out of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith denouncing Gilbo on the radio the other day, though.
I disagree with her belief in net zero by any date.
But take a listen to this.
Well, we're in favor of reaching an aggressive emissions reduction target of 2050.
And that is what we signed on to.
It's what the international community has signed on to.
In fact, some of the biggest emitters in the world, China, has a 2060 target.
India has a 2070 target.
So I think 2050 is one that's achievable.
And talking to the industry associations and the companies that are providing electricity and other types of production, they're all looking towards a carbon neutrality by 2050 target.
For the Minister of Environment, who doesn't know a single thing about our power grid in Alberta, who has no constitutional authority for electricity, to pull out of the air an arbitrary target.
It's unacceptable.
I can tell you he's dead wrong.
We are phasing out emissions.
We're not phasing out fossil fuels.
And I find it appalling, as do most Albertans, that he is co-chairing a committee with China that has a 2060 target, China that is adding two coal-fired plants a week.
So he is working with China on a less aggressive target than he is trying to impose on Alberta.
And that is unacceptable.
That's the reason why we have drawn a hard line saying we have a plan for 2050, which is more aggressive than China.
And we already have coal phased out of our grid, which China does not.
And we're going to continue working on carbon capture utilization and storage in order to phase out emissions.
But let's be clear, we are not phasing out fossil fuels.
And that's exactly the reason why Stephen Gibo is antagonizing our province so much.
Not only is electricity provincial jurisdiction, but management and developing our resources is our jurisdiction too.
We can work on common cause on emissions reduction, but we are not phasing out this industry.
You know, Danielle Smith had better be careful.
Even though she's LGBTQ friendly, she'll surely be denounced by Trudeau.
It wouldn't surprise me if Freeland puts out some sort of travel advisory warning telling people not to visit Alberta.
Stay with us for more.
Hey, I just got back into Canada yesterday.
I'm still a little bit jet-lacked.
I had two Red Bulls and a coffee this morning.
I'm trying to get an even keel.
Why People Protest At Pride00:05:02
Hey, you know, the Tamara Leach trial is starting next weekend.
Unfortunately, I'm going to be out of town for now.
I'll be able to do some journalism from afar.
But we've got a good team who's going to be on the ground, led by one of our new teammates who I haven't even properly introduced to you yet.
And I'm sorry about that.
His name is Robert Kraitzik.
You probably have seen some of his videos.
He's doing a great job.
And he's going to be covering the Tamara Leach trial every single day.
He's based in Ottawa.
We're also sending some other folks as reinforcements.
And I understand that Alan Honor, the director of litigation for the Democracy Project, will be there sort of live tweeting it.
We're taking this trial very seriously.
And of course, Rebel News has published Tamara Leach's autobiography, and the Democracy Fund is paying for the legal bills.
So lots of stuff there.
So I mentioned all that because that's coming up, but I mentioned that because you're going to see a lot more of Robert Kraczyk.
And I thought I would show you this video that he recorded last week just to give you a sense of the man.
Here, take a look.
Robert Krajik here in Ottawa, Ontario, for Rebel News at the Capitol Pride Parade.
We're going to see what's up, what people are doing here.
We're going to try to speak with some of the attendees, participants, perhaps some of the performers, ask them about what I call the LGBTQ Enterprise Campaign Operation, whatever you want to call it, and share some interesting news with you folks over there in the audience.
Stay tuned for a moment and I really just want to know, the audience wants to know, Gary, what is important about Pride?
Why are you here?
What should people know about it?
What's the message, if any?
I think years ago was a protest.
It started as a protest and as a movement to ensure our rights and everything.
Now I think it's a party.
It's a way for everybody to come out and express themselves the way they want to be happy and be comfortable being queer or being whatever you are or whatever you think you are.
So you said a moment ago it was a protest.
Years ago when it started, Pride started 40 years ago.
It was more of a protest and more of a fight for our rights and everything.
But now it's more of a party, I think.
But preparation.
I don't want to put words in your mouth.
You said the word comfort.
So the comfort was lacking decades ago and has now been achieved or secured.
It's much better than it had been, but we will never get, you know, in my lifetime, I don't think we'll ever get to a point where there's no discrimination and there's no bigotry and everything like that.
But it's much more comfortable now.
I mean, I couldn't do this 50 years ago, and I can now.
After our show?
Sure.
We're done at 4.
4.30.
4.30.
No, we know we're done at it.
We're done very soon.
Totally want to get your thoughts into why we're here, like what Pride means to you, what you're getting out of it, where you might have come from, if we're not from Ottawa.
What's it for?
What's outlawed?
I'm with Rebel News, and I just want to get participants' views or share their thoughts to why they're here, what they're doing, what it means to them.
I'm going to say no.
Thank you.
I'm going to have to pass.
I'm not feeling it.
It's a shoot because you guys look so good on camera, man.
Quick little video note.
I was about to do an interview with a few ladies who were gracious enough to accept an opportunity to share their thoughts with the Rebel News audience as to why they're here, what pride means to them.
And they were informed by some minder, let's call her, not to proceed with the conversation.
Obviously noticed the Rebel branded mic and told people not to speak with me.
So to be continued.
You want to talk to us?
Yeah, I would love to get your thoughts if you want to talk to us.
What's your name?
Amber Robert.
Anyway, if you do change your mind, if you want to talk to us, what's your thoughts?
So I'm here with Ana and Shauna, who were gracious enough to speak with me for a moment.
You mind if I get in the middle of you two ladies?
So why don't you tell our audience, one quick observation I want to share with you folks in the audience is the massive corporate sponsorship of this entire Pride event here in Ottawa.
All the big box stores, all the big corporations, whether it's Staples or Starbucks or Shoppers Drug Mart, TD Canada Trust, you name it.
They're all doing the rainbow flag messaging.
They're all pushing this inclusivity campaigning.
And you can just see that top-down direction, that corporate flavor to the entire event.
Corporate Rainbow Push00:02:50
So across that time, you have a good depth of experience.
You've got these horizons that you've seen over time.
And maybe you can share with us, have there been things there that you really loved, things you didn't like, things that occurred with these pride parades that you found maybe wrong, you weren't down with, you found to be excessive.
What were the things that were the highlights?
What were the most amazing parts?
Maybe you can indulge us with that.
Like just things that really stood out with you in terms of changes you observed and experienced across your years attending these pride parades.
Well, I would certainly say there's nothing been excessive.
I can understand how people will say that things have been excessive, but I mean, you see some of these people wandering around today and you would call that excessive, but we don't think of that way anymore, right?
And I think it's wonderful.
I think it's wonderful to see these younger people just expressing themselves this way and being able to do it freely and without reservation.
And so I think it's, I have no complaints.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me.
This is about my monologue on Monday about the book launch.
Busta Rogers says, Jacinda Ardern can't even go out to a cafe in her own country without being heckled.
Make no mistake, she's the most hated person in New Zealand.
You know, it's tough for me to get a read on it.
I was only in that country for a few days, but I think the only reason she left is because she felt she would be fired if she wasn't.
Zane Hohepa says, Brian Temeke is a good man, tarred by the media who unfortunately even many freedom fighters seem to believe.
Whatever the man believes, his actions reflect that of a good, honest man who has been campaigning against liberalism for years.
Way to go, Brian.
I had the pleasure of meeting him.
That's the leader of the Destiny Church group of churches.
He's a Maori man.
He's a Christian man.
And he's the head of the Freedom's NZ party, which I don't know.
I was really impressed with him and his church.
And they really were contrarians and dissenters during the COVID pandemic.
I really like them.
Joe Broars was 7419 said, Abby's shirt is genius.
Oh, that one that said Kiaora, North Korea.
Kia ora is the friendly Maori way of saying, How do you do?
And welcome.
Well, I'm glad you liked those episodes.
I mean, I was glad to go down there to see what New Zealand is like and to be back in Australia with Abby.
It's a very long distance to go, and I always feel guilty from missing my show, but I did manage to crank out a few from down there.