Ezra Levant and Rebel News’ Efron Monsanto report from the Netherlands after Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom won 47 seats in November’s election—nearly double its rivals but short of a majority. Despite mainstream media demonizing him as a racist, street interviews reveal mixed support: Moroccan-born Dutch residents agree with limiting non-working immigrants, while others doubt Wilders’ coalition plans due to EU constraints. His victory signals global validation for sovereignty and anti-immigration stances, yet Dutch security forces block his meetings amid threats. Levant’s $3,500 crowdfunded trip underscores media avoidance of Wilders’ rise, exposing a gap between elite narratives and public sentiment. [Automatically generated summary]
I'm coming to you from the Netherlands where I've flown with our head of video, Efron Monsanto.
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All right, here's today's show.
I'm in Amsterdam for the first foreign interview given by Geert Wilders, the winner of the Dutch parliamentary elections.
It's November 29th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Ezra Levant here for Rebel News.
I just flew in overnight from Toronto, landed in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and then drove for an hour south to the capital of the Netherlands called The Hague.
I am now on the beach, I guess it is.
It's an amazing place.
It looks gorgeous, if only it weren't two degrees Celsius out.
The Hague is just, it's really a suburb of Rotterdam.
And looking out over the beach, you can see hundreds of wind turbines offshore, not a single one of them spinning.
And you're reminded of the greatness of the Dutch Empire.
It's hard to believe that such a tiny country once had an empire around the world, the Dutch East India Company, Indonesia.
It was an amazing country.
It's still an amazing country today.
But it has a real existential crisis.
Does it melt away into the European Union?
And does it demographically yield to enormous numbers of migrants directed here by the European Union?
And in many cases, Muslim migrants who do not assimilate.
And I mentioned that because a week ago in the Dutch elections, there was a shock victory by Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom.
And for 15 or 20 years, Wilders has been in the wilderness, as his name might imply.
People mocked him as a fringe candidate, as an extremist.
They denounced him.
And of course, they said he didn't have a chance.
Well, last week, he shocked the establishment, winning by far the most seats in the Dutch parliament, almost double the next place party.
It's not enough to form a majority in this country where coalitions are the norm.
And interestingly, over the last week, other parties have been resistant to forming a coalition.
The losers are ganging up on the winner and are going to try and frustrate the will of the electorate, even though polls show that the voters behind other parties want them to form a coalition with Wilders.
I don't know if you remember, but a few years ago, I flew to the Netherlands to interview Wilders.
I want to give you a little bit of a sample of what I asked him and what he said, especially about the prickly issues of Islam, because Kurt Wilders is one of the few politicians anywhere, let alone in progressive Europe, that was willing to describe Islam as a political threat, not just a religious movement.
Take a look at this excerpt from my one-on-one with Kurt Wilders a few years ago.
I think that the greatest challenge to both Brexit and Donald Trump were not politicians, was not Hillary Clinton, but rather the media establishment, the political establishment, even the legal establishment.
What is it like in the Netherlands?
Critical Voices Against Immigration00:02:43
Are there any establishment forces, any media that are supportive of you, or are they all critical or overwhelmingly critical?
Well, of course, there are few exceptions, but 98% is very strong against.
And the elite, as I call them, is not indeed only the politicians.
It's the media.
It's also the top representatives of the Catholic churches or other churches.
It's the intellectuals.
It's all the people who really lost any touch with the common people and fear for their own position are based and driven only by multiculturalism and don't see that if we continue by, for instance, the Islamization of our society, that they will pay the first price, you know?
I mean, this is what is at stake today.
It's our mere existence that is at stake.
It's not like we are facing an economical crisis that you can beat if you have a good policy like small government or lower taxes.
No, it's the existential problem.
When I go to America or Canada, I always tell my friends there, listen, you are bordering, at least the United States is bordering Mexico.
We are bordering our continent that is bordering Europe is Africa.
It's the Middle East.
And the African inhabitants, the African people, will explode in this century.
You know, they have one billion people living in Africa today.
According to the United Nations, at the end of the century, it will be crud-ruppled to 4 billion people.
Where at the same time, the European amount of people will diminish.
So 4 billion people, one-third of them, even today, is planning to emigrate to Europe, which means that what we saw happening with the asylum crisis, with people from Syria and Libya, coming to Europe, that we haven't seen anything yet.
One billion people, mostly from Islamic background, will come to Europe in this century, which means that, and Islam, once again, is not there to assimilate or to integrate.
That is the biggest mistake we made, open borders and no demands on new immigrants to assimilate and to integrate.
We will cease to exist.
And the whole elite is not willing or capable because they invented the concept of multiculturalism and open border policy.
So they are fighting it, but they are fighting against our mere existence.
And the people are finally waking up because they saw in the last few years, both with the European Union and with the asylum crisis, that we only import more terrorism, more intolerance, more violence, and that it should stop.
Ideas That Threaten Integration00:14:55
I should tell you that my meeting with Wilders was almost canceled because there was a security threat.
He has bodyguards all the time because he is under constant threat of assassination and fat was.
Years ago, I actually went on a short speaking tour with Wilders in Canada, and he had a larger entourage of security with him than anyone I had ever seen before, other than a prime minister of Canada.
And he really has lived a lonely, threatened life, dominated by protecting Holland from what they call asylum seekers out here.
Anyways, we're here because I understand that tonight at this restaurant called Pavarati, Geurt Wilders is going to have a meeting with local Dutch who are against a plan to bring thousands of migrants to this neighborhood.
And so we want to report on the event, even though it will be conducted in Dutch.
We'll do our best to understand it.
We'll probably interview some people in the meeting.
But really, I want to catch up with Geert Wilders, having not seen him since before his stunning victory.
So that's my plan.
And I'm only here for a day.
I landed this morning with our head of video, Efron Monsanto.
We drove down to The Hague.
We freshened up after a night flight.
We're going to do some streeters in another neighborhood.
That is just man on the street interviews, what they think about Geert Wilders and what they think of his trouble forming a government.
And then we're going to come back to this Pavarotti restaurant it's called where Wilders is expected to be at 7 p.m.
And what's interesting is I haven't seen any mainstream media interview Wilders since his huge victory.
I've seen nasty, sniping pundits about him.
I've seen little clips where people denounce him.
But I haven't seen any Western media, that is Canadian-American British, talking to him about his ideas and his plans.
And I think there's a reason for that.
I think, first of all, the mainstream media in the West has largely ignored Wilders, or if they've discussed him, they've called him a racist and an extremist and a fringe party.
So how do you go from ignoring a man for years or denouncing a man as fringed to then introducing him to your viewers as, well, this guy just won the Dutch elections with an overwhelming majority and he may well be the next prime minister?
Your viewers are going to say, hang on, I missed the first few chapters of this book.
Why didn't you tell me about him?
And I think there's sort of a wishing in the mainstream media that this will all go away.
This was all an anomaly and it won't happen.
And you're not going to see the Dutch version of Brexit.
And if we just close our eyes and hope we can hope our way through this.
And by the way, so far that seems to be working if none of the other political parties enter into coalition with Wilders.
But I think that Geert Wilders needs to be listened to, if not necessarily agreed to on everything, because he represents an enormous swath of voters, not just in the Netherlands, but in other European countries, who feel that mass migration is not in the national interests of Holland.
And by the way, I was just in the United Kingdom a few days ago, where hundreds of thousands of pro-Hamas supporters take to the streets chanting various versions of death to the Jews.
Sometimes it's phrased as from the river to the sea, which means the extermination of all Jews in Israel.
Sometimes they say intifada revolution.
Intifada is basically an Arabic word for anti-Semitic pogrom.
So I think that what's happening in the Netherlands was probably exacerbated by this worldwide movement of Muslim migrants chanting their support for Hamas.
I think that this was the first place where elections captured the new mood.
But if Geert Wilders becomes prime minister of the Netherlands, you may see other countries go the same path.
You might see Maureen Le Pen in France who placed, who had a strong showing last time.
You might see the alternative for Deutschland, the alternative for Germany, punch through in Germany.
You might see other countries.
You've already seen Georgia Malone in Italy.
My point is, if Geert Wilders is allowed to take root in the Netherlands, it will prove to other Europeans that they don't have to embrace open borders migration, that they too can separate from the European Union, and that they can ignore the mainstream media, which has told them otherwise.
Anyways, I'm going to go put some gloves and a hat on because it's pretty chilly, even though we're in a very lovely place.
And we're going to go do some streeters now, and then we'll come back to this Pavarotti restaurant where we hope to connect with Wilders himself.
For all of my reports in this very interesting place, go to thetruthaboutvilders.com, and that's spelt with a W.
The truth about wilders is how it would be spelt.
And I'll have my old interview with him from a few years ago and I'll have all my reporting from this whistle-stop tour.
So come back to see more updates at thetruthaboutwilders.com.
I'm standing in the heart of The Hague, the capital city of the Netherlands.
And a week ago, the election sent a shockwave through the country and indeed through Europe when Geert Wilders, the head of the Party for Freedom, had a massive victory.
almost double the support of the nearest party.
Wilders for years has been a campaigner against mass immigration, especially Islamic immigration.
He's also a supporter of a Dutch Brexit.
They're calling it Nexit after the Netherlands.
We stopped people on their way in and out of the train station asking them what they thought about Wilders and the election.
We'll see what happens.
The public have voted this.
Who do you think is going to be the next prime minister of the Netherlands?
Probably Willis.
Who would be the coalition that might unite around Geert Wilders?
No one.
It's not going to happen.
It's not possible.
I like it.
It's better when Wilders now for president.
I like that.
What do you like about it?
He does something on the immigration, too much people here.
And he does something for the normal people, for the working people.
And that's good.
We forget our people.
And do you think that Geert Wilders will be the next prime minister?
Do you think he'll be able to form a coalition?
I don't know, but something in my gut says no.
We're here from Canada to talk about the election, including the results of Geert Wilders.
Do you have any opinion on politics?
I do, I do, of course.
About Jerome Wilders, especially.
Personally, me, I agree with everything he says.
I would personally vote for him.
However, I cannot really, I don't have a right to vote yet, but I would vote for him if I would have a right.
I'm not happy with the results.
And who would you have preferred to have what would you have preferred?
Tim Amons.
And is he the Green Party?
No, Socialist Party.
Oh, Socialist Party, thank you.
I think it's pretty surprising.
didn't really expect it, to be honest.
Yeah, it was a very, yeah, I think the people kind of wanted something to hold on to.
And I think that's what we were kind of missing.
And yeah, it was a very unexpected shift for me, personally, with people around me.
But I think a lot of people more outside of the city really liked his ideas.
So yeah.
When you say people want something to hold on to, what do you mean by that?
Well, he has some statements that are very, you know, I don't know how to say this, but it's like he says things that people want to hear.
Because there is very much a struggle with housing and with just money problems, the groceries are getting more expensive.
And he just gives some easy solutions so that we can fix the problem, which may be not that achievable, but people believe him.
So I think that's what people like about his ideas.
Are you from Morocco as well?
Yeah, but I'm born in the Netherlands.
And what do youlders has talked about sending people from Morocco back home?
I don't know if he would send you home, but he can't.
He needs to change the law, but that's going to take some time.
And I'm born in technically I am Dutch, so he just can't send me, but him, I don't know.
Are you worried?
Are you seriously worried, or do you think it'll be fine?
I think it will be fine.
I think he won't do anything.
It's a free tick to work on to too, yeah.
And what do you think the number one reason he got so many seats was?
What do you think motivated people to vote for him?
Because people, I think they are unhappy at this time.
Unhappy about what?
Unhappy about what's going on in the Netherlands.
So I think that that is the decision that they made.
Unfortunately it seems to be the mood of the people, it's not the coalition I would favor, but...
So I think that the most two and a half million people are choice builders.
I think when they don't want to make a coalition with the Wilders, then the people are angry.
I think that.
And how do you feel about Wilders wanting to stop immigration?
What do you think about that?
Yeah, it sounds a bit extreme to me.
I think it's also not possible just to isolate the Netherlands like that.
But there's jobs that need to be done as well.
Students coming, I don't think it's possible.
And what is it about him that would make you vote for him?
I think that Europe has been letting too many immigrants recently.
And I'm not talking just about the Netherlands, I'm talking about the entire European Union.
We're not talking about Poland or Eastern Europe, but I think people needed a change and things had to get changed because it cannot go forever.
Europe is not made from rubber.
It cannot stretch.
And I think that immigration should be limited and more secure.
I don't know how to say that.
Now, someone, a critic, someone criticizing you would say, hang on, you're an immigrant.
What would you say about that?
I'm from Europe.
So you're saying, you're talking about Muslim immigration or immigration from Asia or Africa?
I'm not talking about illegal immigration.
I'm not talking about specifically Muslim immigration.
I'm not talking about Turkey or whatever.
I'm talking about not legal immigration.
I'm talking about immigrants who are not working and who are basically not providing country economically.
And yeah, I think this should touch everyone, not just Muslim people, because Muslim people are not the only people who are not working and doing criminal whatever.
It's not about Muslim people.
It's about everyone who just who is unemployed, you know.
I mean, one of the things he talks about is he's worried that people who are Muslim are not integrating with the Netherlands.
Do you think that people who are Muslim are becoming Netherlanders in their heart?
What do you think?
Yeah, also my friend is originally from the Netherlands.
So I'm a Muslim.
And yeah, I think we can make great friends.
It's just some people are just different.
It doesn't always have to be.
And do Netherlanders get along with each other if they're Muslim or Christian or Jewish?
Do they get along?
I think it doesn't matter, but some people are just childish.
So yeah.
And would you say that you're a Netherlander first or a Moroccan first?
Or both?
I think both.
I just don't have an opinion on one of them.
What do you dislike about Wilders?
I stand...
I feel about immigration.
Are you yourself from outside the Netherlands?
No, I'm native.
And why do you think Wilders is wrong?
I don't care what belief you have.
They're all people.
Where you live, all people want the same.
Get married, get children, get be happy.
Now, Wilders might say Islam has a different philosophy, different values than the Netherlands in regards to the treatment of men and women, of minorities and democracy.
Do you disagree with them?
No, Islam, they do have other values than us, but that's something we can talk about.
Vico, 500 years back in Holland, we have the same values.
We have the same values 500 years back.
Have we changed, so they can change as well.
His ideas are, I don't think it's very attainable.
He obviously has some very right-wing ideas about immigration and yeah, it's not very easy for him to just stop immigration just like that because of course we have rules considering the EU as well.
Do you think that the other parties will form a coalition with Wilders or do you think they'll sort of gang up to stop him?
Actually, I hope they will do.
I didn't vote for him, but because he has the most people voted for him, then he should be there.
There's lots of protests around Europe and even in America about Palestine and Israel, and a lot of these protests are Muslim.
Do you think that made some Netherlanders vote for Wilders because they were nervous about some of the protests?
I don't think that was the dominant factor.
Do you think the farmers were a factor, the farmers' rebellion?
No, I think the election was more about the fear of too much immigration coming to the Netherlands.
And so in the sense that the upheaval in the Middle East would cause perhaps more and more refugees, that could be a rule.
But I think even without that, with all the people coming from other countries to Europe, I think that's the main reason people voted for this.
One of the things Wilders talks about is Islam.
Do you think that more needs to be done to integrate Muslims into Dutch society?
Hotel Support Show00:07:58
I'm not so sure about that, actually.
I think it's more like a socio-economic problem, that they're more poor.
And it's not blamed on Islam, but I think it's more like the having no money parts, you know, that is the problem.
I mean, if you're ethnically Dutch and you're friends with these guys from Morocco, do you think that it's possible to have harmony?
Yes, I think it's actually possible because in my school there are a lot of people that are not originally from the Netherlands.
So and I think some of us are getting along very well, but then again you see a lot of Moroccans sticking together and then you have people who are originally from the Netherlands also sticking together a lot and not really interacting with each other.
But there are some cases, especially here, where that's not the case.
So it sounds like you're hopeful.
Yeah, I am.
What do you think of going from Mark Rutte to Kirt Wilders?
That's quite a change.
Yeah, not my favorite candidate.
I'm now in the Amsterdam airport, making our way back home to Canada.
We've really only been on the ground for just over 24 hours running around.
This was the first time I have a chance to reconnect since we were actually in The Hague.
So let me tell you what I want to show you next.
We did some streeters, some man-on-the-street interviews in The Hague.
It was very interesting.
And I should tell you one observation I have is that Kirt Wilders, who is called a radical, called a racist, called all these things by the liberal media and the Western media, not a single person we met with on the street.
And these were random people coming in and out of a train station.
This was not cherry-picking people.
This was not in a business area.
This was not in a conservative area.
I mean, it was right outside of university.
It was in the heart of the train station.
And not a single, we talked to visible minorities.
We talked to new immigrants.
We talked to a range of people.
Not one had vinegar or acid towards Geert Wilders.
Some made it clear they don't agree with him, but you saw that one lady who said, well, I didn't vote for him, but he did win fair and square and he should get it.
So I think the Girt Wilders is much more in sync with the norm of Dutch people than certainly the Western media who demonize him and hate him.
And it wasn't the divisiveness you sometimes see, say, with Donald Trump.
People love him or hate him.
In the case of Geert Wilders, I actually didn't see any hate and I was bracing for it.
We went back to our hotel near the seaside in The Hague because we had stayed at that hotel because Geert Wilders was coming to a town hall for people objecting to asylum seekers being located in the town.
But what I didn't quite realize is that they were being housed in the very hotel we were staying at.
And when I first, and I'm just telling you this now because I've only learned this now, when we saw all these security in the hotel, I assumed it was because Geert Wilders was coming.
No, it's because they had so many migrants or asylum seekers, as they call them here, in that same hotel.
Now, I should tell you that I had a video effort and myself, we didn't even actually see any of these migrants.
Maybe we saw one fellow.
We didn't know who he was, but the security were there for that.
Isn't that funny?
We were staying literally at the same hotel as the migrants who were causing the ruckus.
Anyways, we went to this town hall meeting where I thought Geert Wilders was going to come and attend the town hall and talk with everybody.
But no, he was just coming for sort of a whistle-stop tour to show his support, take some selfies and tell them to stand firm.
And then he went right back to work.
Because remember, the guy just won the national parliamentary elections.
He doesn't have an hour or two to go over really a local matter.
He just wanted to come and show his support.
Anyways, as you know, we had come to the Netherlands on spec.
We saw that tweet where Geert Wilders said where he would be.
And so we got on a plane with only that.
I had some contact with him in his office, but I wasn't able to pin things down.
We took a fly.
We took a risk.
We said, let's just go and meet him.
And indeed, we did.
And like I say, it was just a quick whistle-stop, but I managed to get a couple of questions in.
There was such a pack of journalists.
It was so extremely cold, but we were all so squished together.
It was actually warm.
Anyway, let me show you what the scrum was like.
By the way, have you ever seen this many police?
There were dozens of police, at least half a dozen police vehicles and trucks, including something that I thought was like an infrared scanner.
I'll just show you what it was like.
It was sort of amazing.
What's your message to supporters in Canada, the United States, and places like that?
Do you have encouraging words for them?
Yes, of course.
We had a fantastic result of the elections.
We were by far the biggest winner and party in the Netherlands today, which proves that it is possible, you know.
We know each other for quite some time and it is a tough fight.
It is a long fight.
You need to have some perseverance and everybody tries to work against you in a way.
But at the end of the day, if you keep on trying and talking about the right issues like asylum, immigration, national sovereignty, and people will respond to it.
And they did it.
So that's actually the positive message I have today.
It's possible.
Everything is possible.
Have you received support from leaders in other countries?
Yes, of course, I did from many countries, leaders from parliament, ministers, even some presidents.
So I got some support.
People were very happy, sometimes surprised.
It was a shock not only in Holland, but certainly in the rest of the European Union as well.
And I think that's good.
You know, it's not the elite who decides everything all the way until the end of time.
We can change reality.
We can fight for freedom and we can win.
This is the message we can win.
And I hope I gave some incentive to others to continue to struggle because everybody can do it as long as you keep on trying.
Thank you for your time.
My pleasure.
As you know, we don't get any money from the government.
We don't get any money from YouTube.
They demonetize us.
So we're crowdfunding this journey.
Efron Monsanto, our videographer, and myself, flew economy class on the way over.
And on the way back, I think our plane tickets altogether are about, I don't know, $2,800 or something.
Plus, we stayed at that same migrant hotel and we had a couple of meals.
So, all in, the costs are, I don't know, about $3,500 if I had to guess.
If you can help chip in at the truthaboutvillers.com, I'd be grateful.
We have some more journeys like this ahead.
I don't want to let the cat out of the bag.
Listen, of course, the most important things to us are happening back home in Canada.
Absolutely.
But the opportunity to sit down with a new world leader, someone who deals with issues that are important to Canada, absolutely, I'm going to take that.
And from time to time, we'll go around the world covering stories of freedom and censorship.
Well, that's it.
That's the end of our long journey.
It was seven hours on the way over here, and we have to hop, skip, and jump our way home.
It's going to be about, I don't know, 12 hours to get back.
And I got to be in the office tomorrow.
There's so much going on.
But thank you for your support.
And on behalf of us here in Amsterdam, back home in Canada and all around the world, to you at home.