Ezra Levant examines how the 2024 U.S. election could topple Justin Trudeau’s leadership, given his 23% approval vs. Trump’s 33%. Ben Weingarten speculates on Biden’s potential removal due to cognitive decline, citing a 2017 report, and suggests Michelle Obama as a symbolic but weak replacement. Despite Trump’s legal battles—including criminal charges and civil lawsuits—his support remains steady, raising fears of extreme measures like assassination. RFK Jr.’s rise as a third-party candidate, excluded from Secret Service protection, could further disrupt the race. Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson’s Putin interview, throttled by Facebook to under 150K views at the State Department’s request, exposes propaganda tactics and the need for unfiltered dialogue with adversaries to defend national interests. [Automatically generated summary]
A heart-to-heart conversation with one of our favorite American observers, Ben Weingarten.
We're going to talk about who will be president.
Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and maybe even RFK Jr.
We're going to go through the state of each of their campaigns and the big question, what will they not do to stop Donald Trump?
That's today's show.
But first, let me invite you to become a member of what we call Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe, eight bucks a month.
We need that to pay the bills around here because you know we don't get any money from Trudeau or from YouTube.
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That's RebelNewsPlus.com.
All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, we go deep in the state of American presidential politics.
Our guest, Ben Weingarten, he's one of the best.
It's February 15th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Michelle Obama's Influence?00:15:30
2024 is a momentous year for Canada already.
Justin Trudeau is in free fall.
You know, I compared the latest polling on Trudeau in Canada, obviously, with the latest polling for Donald Trump in Canada.
Let me say that again.
Trump's approval rating in Canada is 33%, whereas Justin Trudeau in the latest polls, and you choose it, whether it's Nanos or David Coletto's abacus, he's at about 23%.
Donald Trump is more popular or has more approval in Canada, left-wingistan, than Justin Trudeau himself.
So many things going on.
The rebuke by the courts of Trudeau's invocation of martial law is just tremendous.
I think Canada is rising up, talking about things we've never talked before.
For example, the successful motion in the House of Commons to revise immigration numbers.
I wouldn't have imagined that.
That said, Canada is a smallish country in a big, big world.
And of course, while it's deeply important to us that we rid ourselves of Justin Trudeau at the earliest convenience, and by the way, he legally could stretch out his term as late as 2026, God forbid.
I think it's fair to say, and I don't think it's disrespecting of our country to say that what happens in November 2024 in the United States of America, and I refer specifically to the presidential election, what happens in the presidential election in the United States of America this November will have a greater impact on Canada than perhaps anything that will be decided within our own borders.
And if that goes for Canada, it goes doubly for other places in the world like Russia, Ukraine, Iran, China, Taiwan, you name it.
People always say this is the most important election in a generation.
They always say it, but is it actually ever as true as it is now?
Well, that's one of the many things we're going to talk about with our next guest, our favorite America Ophile, which makes sense given that he is an American.
Is our friend Ben Weingarten who joins us now, by Skype?
Ben, great to see you again.
Always a pleasure, Ezra.
You know, there's so many things that I'd like to talk to you about.
Joe Biden, who is falling apart in front of our eyes in terms of his cognitive abilities.
We're starting to see pro-Democrat newspapers like the New York Times openly muse about if the guys lost his marbles.
Do you think the Democratic Party will run Joe Biden as their candidate this year, or do you think they will, at the last moment, switch him out for another candidate?
I know the primary season is pretty much over, but there are ways you can replace a candidate on the ballot.
Is that kind of Hail Mary pass on the table for the Democrats, or am I overstating the problems they have with Joe Biden?
Is he actually a winner?
Well, first, I think it's remarkable, this special counsel report investigation into Joe Biden's mishandling of classified documents, both as a senator and as vice president.
And that has spurred this question of Joe Biden's obvious declining faculties, which you didn't need a federal prosecutor to tell the American people what they can see with their own eyes, starting from the baseman campaign he ran in 2020 to today.
But what's amazing in that report is that it notes that Joe Biden lacked quote-unquote recall and essentially had faulty faculties dating back to 2017.
So this is someone who's been in decline for a very long time.
I think, to your point, the suggestion in sort of establishment outlets, including Politico, which detailed here the various ways in which Democrats could jettison Joe Biden, when you add on the impeachment inquiry and what it reveals about the Biden family's international influence peddling scheme, add on how much age in the minds of American voters, and this is across the board,
that Democrats and Republicans alike view his age and the mental decline, of course, as a proxy for that age as being a massive problem for him.
And then you factor in, as you know, Eden alluded to, not only these articles talking about the various machinations Democrats could engage in to in smoke-filled rooms, sideline him and pick someone else to be the figurehead for the party, but add on for months now, the rumblings that there are issues with Joe Biden's campaign.
He's not a compelling candidate.
And this is from putative allies on the Democrat side, questions about how strong candidate he can be.
Plus the polls showing Donald Trump ahead of him nationally and in most of the swing states as well by substantial margins.
That is beyond the margins of error, certainly.
And all of that points to a very compelling case for jettisoning him.
Now, whether or not Democrats will go through with that, we shall see.
It certainly seems to me that if I was in the Democrat Party and the Democrat Party is very disciplined and all about following the party line ultimately, I would want Joe Biden to be the nominee through the convention.
And then if you look to the Democrat rules, they can essentially, if for health reasons or otherwise he steps aside, essentially the party bosses can pick who the nominee is.
That would allow them to control the process.
It would allow them to potentially sidestep or work around issues around Kamala Harris being the next in line.
So I've long been on record of saying I believe they will jettison Joe.
And I think everything that we've seen in recent days suggests that is the case.
But there are very smart analysts who argue that the complete opposite of this and that Joe Biden is the man they're going to drag to the finish line.
I think if nothing else, this special counsel report that has dropped and the questions about the president's mental acuity, which you get a bit obvious for Odyssey for years now.
If nothing else, it provides Democrats optionality if they really believe that he's going to be a loser in 2024.
Yeah.
You know, we alluded to some of the matters in that special prosecutor's report.
He couldn't remember when he was vice president.
Something very personal he couldn't remember when his son passed away.
Now, when that was revealed, Joe Biden leaned into and said, I'm outraged that they would talk about my dear son like that.
Miss him and I love him.
And that was his attempt to take the energy and the emotion of, holy cow, you forgot that into they're attacking me personally.
And I, I don't know if it worked.
I think it, if anything, brought more attention to it.
Like this guy couldn't remember the most basic things when he was a senator, things like that.
But I don't think we needed an official person to say that.
I think we've all, like every single human, even if you're a Democrat, has seen enough clips of him just saying inexplicable, unintelligible things.
And it's going to get, you know, I think it's going to accelerate.
He's going to have these Biden moments all the time.
Here's a question I have for you.
Who do you, and I think it's going to happen.
I think they're going to get him to the nomination, celebrate him, and then in sorrow, more than anything, he will probably announce, or maybe Dr. Jill Biden will probably announce that he's stepping aside for family reasons or health reasons.
It'll be very loving, and they'll have lots of kudos and tributes to the man.
And it'll be almost like a living funeral for him.
Everyone will send in accolades.
And then they, and it's so important.
I mean, you know the rules better than me, but it is not a primary process after that.
It is not a, let's go and talk to the people.
It's what the bosses say.
So they don't have to go through, well, who came in second?
They don't have to go to the vice president.
I think the only person more unlikable, I mean, Joe Biden actually has a likability.
You can disagree with him.
You can see he's falling apart, but he's got a likability.
Who do you think they would pick as his hand-picked successor if we're going down that road?
And I know this is speculative, but I think as we're speculating, who do you think would be the savior of the party?
I've got a name, but I want to hear who you think first.
Well, and also let's note, by the way, there could be a real fight here between the Biden family and the party itself, because let's not forget that Hunter Biden is facing prosecution.
So what happens with if you take Joe Biden out of the equation, then what happens to potentially pardoning Hunter Biden?
And there are a lot of different monkey wrenches like that that could be thrown into this mix.
Set all that aside, to your main question, who would be the replacement?
Obviously, you've had Gavin Newsom positioning himself.
Of course, he hosted Xi Jinping.
I had also visited China as well.
So I guess that's sort of an attempt to burnish credentials as I'm a kind of global leader as governor of California, and he's curried favor with Joe Biden.
Joe Biden spoken favorably of him.
Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, has also tried to position herself accordingly.
In particular, it seems that she's trying to elevate herself as trying to maintain the Democrat vote when Joe Biden is potentially struggling, particularly with Palestinian Arab voters in Dearborn.
This is usually significant because the Michigan margins could be very tight if Michigan falls to Donald Trump.
That could cost Democrats the presidency.
To me, I've long felt that the secret weapon for the Democrats is Michelle Obama.
And I suspect that might be your pick as well.
One of the reasons that I say Michelle Obama would make sense is that this allows you to skirt the Kamala Harris problem, the Kamala Harris problem being how can the party sideline a black woman when she was picked, you know, in part on the identitarian kind of credentials.
And you're going to enrage potentially your base if you then pick a Gavin Newsom over a Kamala Harris or a Gretchen Whitmer over a Kamala Harris.
Michelle Obama allows you to sidestep that.
And despite the fact that I think she is a completely non-compelling figure and that I think she would be a disastrous president of the United States, I could very well see the Democrat Party turning to her.
I also believe, and I think this is being borne out beyond the fact that if you look to virtually every single person in a prominent position in the Biden administration, that it is all holdovers from the Obama-Biden administration, that this is essentially Barack Obama's third term in the way of policy.
And that illustrates, that reflects the fact that this is Barack Obama's Democrat Party.
It used to be that the Clintons controlled the Democrat Party.
It is now an Obama-controlled Democrat Party.
So who better for Barack Obama to pick than Michelle Obama for that position?
Obviously, we're engaging in speculation.
Like you said, there are any of a number of other figures who are going to be vying hard for the seat to the extent it does become open.
But to me, that would be the one that I would look to as potentially, I guess, no pun intended, but a potential Trump card.
Wow.
That was not the name I had in mind.
Whenever I've seen that name floated, I've scoffed.
I thought, come on, it's too much.
I mean, Hillary Clinton, the nominal spouse of Bill Clinton, ran, but in fairness, she was her own political figure for a very long time.
She served as Secretary of State, for example.
So she had a real political track record of her own.
Michelle Obama was vocal as a first lady and ubiquitous in her own way.
But she clearly is nothing but an appendage to the Obama movement and to Barack Obama himself.
But that said, having a black woman as the candidate really pulls hard at the identitarian aspect of things.
And in some ways, I don't think she would be vetted because everyone would assume, oh, yeah, we know her.
We're very familiar with her.
We've known her for 20 years, and we're not afraid of her.
And even if you reveal things about her, we already have an opinion about her.
So in a way, she actually has not been vetted, but she will not be vetted.
And I think people, just like many people look back to Trump's time in office as a better time in America, policy-wise, I think people look back to Barack Obama, even though policy-wise he was a disaster, there was a calmness there.
At least the feeling that Barack Obama always gave was soothing.
Well, I mean, listen, he could be quarrelsome too.
But I think there would be some sentimentality, some nostalgia.
I think Michelle Obama would be a difficult candidate to succeed.
I was going to say Gavin Newsom.
It's so obvious to me that he's setting himself up for that role.
He really is a Justin Trudeau doppelganger in so many ways.
But I think you're right.
I think Michelle Obama would smoke Gavin Newsome.
Anyway, we're talking in the realm of speculation, but I think you have to speculate when your figurehead right now.
I mean, he could literally pass away and no one would be shocked.
Let's talk about the other side of the ticket, about Donald Trump, the other side of the ballot.
I think Trump is one year younger than Joe Biden, but he feels 15 or 20 years younger, I think.
They've done everything to him other than jail him.
I mean, they're prosecuting him criminally.
They're civil lawsuits against him.
But he just, you know, he's like that old child story, Weebl.
Weebles wobble the way they don't fell down.
You push him and he comes right back up.
In fact, every time he's pushed, his fan base is confirmed that the world has allied against him and it's tough to deny it.
I actually think that the only thing that would stop Trump, God forbid may it never happen.
I hate to even say the words, may it not come true, but I've got to say it, it's on my mind.
I think an assassination attempt is really the only thing that would stop him from being on the ballot and being a real contender.
And actually, I'm a little bit worried about that.
There's been four presidential assassinations in America so far.
The stakes have never been higher.
The deep state, including lots of FBI, CIA, and international intrigue types, hate Trump because of what he would, how the changes he would make in the world.
I actually think the only thing that could stop Trump is a bullet.
Well, you have rhetoric from the left, from our political establishment in America, constantly talking about how Donald Trump is Hitler reincarnated and that he will bring about tyranny and authoritarianism.
So the response, by the way, is let's impose tyranny and authoritarianism so we can destroy our political foes.
Set that aside, the rhetoric is certainly suggestive of a willingness to take the most extreme measures.
Let's not forget that in 2020, beyond the draconian lockdowns that were imposed, which obviously had a political aim, you also had essentially leftist mobs rioting throughout the country.
Rhetoric of Tyranny00:14:35
And so there was almost an assumption.
If you recall, back around election day, you had businesses in places like Washington, D.C. boarding up their windows with the expectation there would be street violence, you know, fires in the streets, essentially, to the extent the American people chose wrong.
So there was a threat there, essentially, of mob justice trying to impose a political end at the threat of a gun or a billy club.
And look, all you have to, the thing sort of speaks for itself in the way of the rhetoric that exists around Donald Trump and how existential a threat he is to the country if you listen to our betters, our elites, and this is Ecuador, of course, globally, as well.
So you can't, sadly and disturbingly, you can't put anything past a rabid political opposition like this.
I pray nothing comes to pass in the way of bodily harm attempts, et cetera.
Setting that aside, I don't think there's any way he does not win this nomination going away.
The primary process is essentially over at this point.
I'm not sure what the theory of the case was, if the belief was there would be some black swan event, that some superseding indictment would come down or some revelation would come in one of the myriad cases against him that was finally going to be the crushing blow that turned the Republican pace against Donald Trump.
To your point, the more we see these legal persecution attempts for what they are, and this is exposed every single day in many of these cases.
For example, the so-called January 6th case out of D.C., where the prosecutor there, Jack Smith, trying to rush the case to the Supreme Court, rush the case to the Supreme Court on an emergency basis.
Why?
He can't articulate why there's an emergency for skipping the normal pallet process.
And this is a case, by the way, on the weightiest matters of what authorities does the president have, checks and balances, the interplay between what courts can do, where the voters are, what a president can do, et cetera.
You look at where the J-6 case is, and the reason that Jack Smith, the prosecutor there, can't articulate the emergency is because the emergency is purely a political one.
It's the Biden Justice Department really wants Donald Trump convicted of a crime before the presidential election, before the general election.
But he can't say it in court.
And as consequently, I think they're going to get smacked down in terms of their effort to make the Supreme Court rush through dealing with just a part of that case, the immunity aspect of it, argument that's been raised by Trump side.
So what does it show?
It shows that the American people, tens of millions of Americans, see the attempts to lock Donald Trump up to try and take away his assets, his business, and destroy him and bankrupt him financially, to smear him and target him mercilessly with concocted stories, scandal after concocted scandal.
The American people see it for what it is.
It's a witch hunt, but it's not only a witch hunt against Trump, it's a witch hunt against them as a vessel for the beliefs of tens of millions of voters and essentially a middle finger to the regime that wards over us.
So that is why I believe Donald Trump gets stronger with every last attempt to try and take him down.
But it's incredibly disturbing and frightening the rhetoric that you see, because the rhetoric suggests if this is the worst person on earth, what wouldn't you be willing to do to stop that worst person on earth from winning?
And they did an awful lot last time around in 2020.
We can go back to Russia Gate and even pre-Russia gate efforts to go after Donald Trump.
They've shown they'll stop at nothing.
No norm, no law, no principle will serve as a guardrail in stopping Trump.
They are so zealous and rabid and hateful towards Trump, but again, as a proxy towards tens of millions of Americans who disagree with their policies and then to some extent, just disagree culturally with them at the end of the day.
And so consequently, that puts us in a very perilous place going into 2024.
Yeah.
You know, there's that thought experiment.
If you could go back in time, would you kill Hitler if you could?
Would you kill him when he was elected, not elected, would you kill him when he was just a street protester?
And then there's the terrifying ethical thought experiment.
Would you kill baby Hitler to stop the world?
And I'm not going to get into that interesting and quirky question other than a lot of people would say you must do literally anything to save millions of lives.
And if Trump is Hitler, if Trump is going to cause, I mean, people are saying he's going to cause Third World War.
This is that thought experiment in real time.
And even if only one in a million people says, yes, I believe that Trump is the new Hitler.
Yes, I believe he's going to put us in a nuclear war or something.
And yes, I have the means and the opportunity to attack him.
All you need is one in a million people.
Or, I mean, what do you think the stakes are for the People's Republic of China?
What do you think the stakes are for Vladimir Putin?
All these countries around, for Iran, all these countries who have had their agendas advanced under Joe Biden, they have an interest in keeping America weak and distracted and listless.
There were no October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel during Trump's term.
There were no invasions of Ukraine during Trump's term.
There was before and after.
So it's not just the domestic rivals.
I think there are serious bad actors around the world who would rather have a weak and declining America than a renovated and revived America.
I think it's the worst of all worlds.
I'm afraid of it.
I want to ask you about a possible third name on the ballot, RFK Jr., Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who I really find interesting.
And I know there's certain things about which he is, I would say, a progressive.
I don't know if I'd use the word a hard leftist, but I find that on many other things, he's surprisingly open-minded.
I think he cares a little more about civil liberties than your average Democrat.
I think in terms of foreign policy, he's a little bit more sane than your average Democrat.
He even cares about the border crisis.
I don't know if he would be my first pick.
Being a Canadian, I actually don't get a pick.
But I think that he is an impressive third-party candidate who may well do better than any third-party candidate since Ross Perot.
And Ross Perot, for those who remember from a generation ago, in many ways handed the presidency to Bill Clinton because he stripped off just enough votes of sort of cranky free market libertarian anti-politicians.
I think he really paved the way for the Democrats to win.
Do you think RFK Jr. will be on the ballot?
Do you think he'll siphon votes more from one party or the other?
And what do you make of the fact that just the other day it was revealed by Judicial Watch, a great civil liberties charity in America, that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ruled that they would not provide him with Secret Service protection?
I mean, it's almost too on the nose.
What do you make of RFK Jr.?
Is he a threat?
And is he at risk?
Well, your last point, it's just asinine that he wouldn't get the protection that he deserves here.
And it actually plays into kind of a theme of his, which goes back decades in the Kennedy family, which is the skepticism of the deep state and its intentions and its operations.
RFK Jr. stands essentially as an avatar for those Americans, and many of them are Trump voters, who reject the establishment, reject what authorities say is settled science and the truth.
To your point, my measure of him is that he's a leftist in the classical sense, but not one who wants to throw you in a gulag.
He'll actually have an open conversation with you.
Like you said, he is a defender of free speech, a defender essentially of the little guy against established business interests, against the administrative state, again, against the deep state.
And obviously, the contrarian line on the Chinese coronavirus taps into a huge groundswell of feeling among Americans who rejected the lockdowns and the hysteria and the evisceration of our rights, arbitrarily suspended for long periods without any sort of explanation, oftentimes anti-scientifically.
So you put all that together and then you throw on top of it the dissatisfaction with Americans, to some extent with both the Republican and Democrat assumed nominees and sort of RFK Jr.'s sort of demeanor, you know, the symbolic more than the substantive aspects of RFK Jr., the kind of breath of fresh air that he appears to put out there.
And I think all those things make for a compelling third-party candidate.
And to your point, I do think that he may well have a, I'm not sure if it's going to be a decisive role that he has in terms of siphoning off votes, but certainly more than I think a marginal one.
And the question is going to be, in what states does RFK Jr. move the needle?
And would he peel off more Trump voters or Biden voters?
To the extent Donald Trump, and he sort of has to some extent, embraces RFK Jr. to any degree, whereas Joe Biden clearly loathes RFK Jr. and the Democratic Party completely rejects RFK Jr.
By the way, we saw that when he testified before the House Weaponization Committee and the Democrats all savaged him.
To the extent you have more than a détente, but even a warmth between the Trump camp and the RFK Jr. camp, does that impact where the votes are siphoned off from to some extent?
It's hard to say at this point.
It's hard to say which candidate he might hurt more ultimately, but I do think he is going to play a pretty substantial role coming down the stretch in this election.
And whether or not it's bigger than Perot, I think is yet to be seen.
But it's certainly probably a more meaningful and significant third-party candidate than we've had in some time in America.
And I have a warmth towards him because some of his policies, like he was the original skeptic on COVID-19 and the proposed political remedies to it.
But along the way, I just found him a compelling person.
He's got that Kennedy charisma.
He's in his 70s too.
I think he's a little bit younger than Trump and Biden, but he comes across as a man a quarter century younger than he is.
I mean, I saw him on Joe Rogan a few months back talking about his workout regime.
And I don't think it's just a political photo op him.
He works out every day.
Here's a shot of him working out on Venice Beach.
And here's a clip of him handling a rattlesnake.
Now, this tweet I later discovered was shown in reverse.
He was actually letting a rattlesnake go as opposed to grabbing a rattlesnake.
But still, would you handle a rattlesnake in sort of its cool, I love nature way?
him in the rattlesnake.
Now, look, I know that neither working out nor handling rattlesnakes are important criteria for selecting a president, but what it comes across as vigorous, healthy, outdoorsy, a bit of a Teddy Roosevelt feeling.
And if you're running against the cognitive decline candidate of the Democrats who can't remember where he is, this young-looking, young-spirited, vigorous Kennedy is very appealing.
And I think emotion is obviously part of a choice.
I don't know.
Call me a sucker, but I can't, of the three men, I actually think RFK Jr. is the most likable.
Trump is the toughest, but you are always slightly on guard with Trump.
I think RFK Jr. is probably the nicest man of the three.
I mean, they say Joe Biden is nice.
I think he's just nice because he's not even there anymore.
What do you think of my love affair for RFK Jr. as at least his aesthetics?
Well, I think, to your point, he gives off a vibe of being vigorous and much more youthful than he is.
He sort of represents what the Democrat Party, to some extent, used to be and is not now.
That is not a hard left Democrat Party, but I guess to some extent more of a left libertarian party.
Although you can go back and you could find some of his quotes on sort of climate and environmentalism, and those were disturbing.
And he sort of tried to argue, well, here's what I really meant by that.
And to some extent, I guess recanted on them.
But he certainly gives off and conveys something that I think is sort of inherently compelling in the eyes of a voter.
He comes off as a free thinker who's willing to truly engage on questions.
And he's very sharp and very shrewd.
He has that charisma, to your point.
And it's sort of interesting and amazing that he gives that off when you delve into his background and his drug abuse and womanizing and divorces and other things, which give a much more negative kind of perspective about who he is in his personal life and might call into question his character.
But as he looks as a candidate today and what he's conveyed, the message he puts forth, where he stood, to your point, not just on the Covidianism, but also on social media censorship by proxy, again, on the weaponization and hyper-politicization of the national security apparatus.
Putin's Narrative Game00:06:36
People who might not otherwise be on his side, I think, feel his positions resonate with them.
And as you noted, is sort of what he gives off in terms of his personal traits and what he conveys makes for a compelling package.
And that's why, again, I agree that he will have more of an outsize impact than most third-party candidates who are usually irrelevancy, but maybe might play a spoiler in one or two states in a normal quote-unquote presidential election.
Well, it's going to be very interesting.
I think it's crazy that the secretary of the Homeland Security Department personally signed the memo.
Like literally the boss, Majorkas himself, signed the memo refusing to provide him secret service protection.
If any family in America needs secret service protection, you would think it would be that one.
It just feels so punitive and personal and spiteful.
Hey, I got one last question.
I know we've got to let you go fairly soon.
Thank you for spending so much time with us.
I was riveted for a variety of reasons by Tucker Carlson's recent trip to Moscow, where he interviewed Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.
And I started to watch that interview, which was more than two hours long.
And it was odd at first.
And Tucker himself said he thought that when he asked, why did you invade Ukraine?
He wasn't ready for a half-hour history lecture going back hundreds and hundreds of years.
And Tucker said he wasn't used to that.
He thought it was Putin trying to filibuster.
And in some ways, it was.
It was Putin saying, well, you're going to have 100 million people watch this.
I'm going to tell them what I want them to hear, not what you want to hear.
But I think in another way, that's how Putin is.
He doesn't follow the rhythms of Western-style reporters.
There are no Western-style accountability, you know, attack-oriented, gotcha-oriented reporters in Russia.
They're more stenographical.
They'll ask a question and then they'll get a professorial speech.
I think that's honestly how Putin talks.
If you ask him a question, he'll answer for as long as he wants because he expects you to listen for as long as he wants.
And yeah, that's just a comment on Putin's mindset.
I watched the whole interview.
And without getting into any particular details, my first impression was I don't think that Joe Biden could handle a two-hour, wide-ranging intellectual conversation like that, attentive.
And it was Tucker who said, okay, we're done after two hours.
Putin probably would have gone a third hour.
Secondly, to compare the vigor of Putin with Western leaders, none of this is to say I support Putin.
I mean, he talked about justifying the invasion of another country.
That was his main point.
But I thought that was an interesting interview.
I thought the reaction in the interview was just as interesting, how the State Department asked Facebook to throttle it.
And indeed, they did.
Fewer than 150,000 people even saw it on Facebook, which is absurd.
What do you make of that interview?
What do you make of Tucker Carlson?
What do you make of Vladimir Putin and that interview?
I trust that you watched it.
Just tell me what you thought about it because it had my mind swimming for a day.
Well, first of all, note the irony that now you have the entire political establishment that doesn't want a U.S. commentator who they loathe interviewing Vladimir Putin, despite the fact that, of course, Western outlets have interviewed all manner of strongman, strongmen, dictators historically.
And despite the fact that many Democrats, especially, wanted the Russian reset with Vladimir Putin, hailed Vladimir Putin when he first rose to power, et cetera, and then turned on Russia really, or rather Putin during the Obama years and then with the creation of Russia Gate that turned Russia into the enemy par excellence for people who probably in many cases spent the 70s and 80s soft on communism and wanting to appease the Soviet Union.
Set aside that hypocrisy that's always existed there with the characterizations of Russia and Putin.
To me, I agree with your point about Putin sort of sought to lecture Tucker Carlson and by extension, American conservatives and by extension, America, because that's what he does.
Dictators, authoritarians, strongmen, they speak at Wayne Foffton times for hours.
That's what dictate means.
Like dictate is literally, they speak it and it becomes the fact.
So it's not surprising that a dictator would dictate.
Sorry, I interrupted you, but I was thinking of the term.
Go ahead.
Sure.
And this is sort of a tactic.
It's, I'm going to set you Americans straight.
Here's my narrative and vision for the world.
To your point, it obviously draws a contrast of this is someone steeped in his history, however ahistorical it is and propaganda and seemingly on top of his game, well in command of the narrative he wants to put forth.
That said, one of the questions that I have coming out of it, and I'm sure analysts are going to be parsing the interview probably in native Russian over what the translation was like, is who was Putin's intended audience here?
Was he trying to spin a narrative to capture we in the West?
Was he going after American conservatives?
Was he speaking to Ukrainians?
Was he speaking to the Russian people and kind of defending the narrative that he thinks is sort of the nationalist narrative that appeals to Russians to the extent they were able to see it in Russia?
I think that's kind of one interesting question.
In other words, forget about the substance of what he said.
Who is he targeting with the substance of what he said?
Obviously, many have noted also that he kind of bristled at the questions about the Wall Street Journal reporter that has been detained.
And kudos to Tucker for pressing him on that.
I'm sure.
He pressed him so many times.
That was, I think that was the, I think Tucker went back at it four times.
Yeah, I can't imagine, obviously, any Russian reporter being able to ask those questions.
So that was certainly an eye-opening part of the interview.
But I think more broadly, you know, there was sort of the Barbara Streisand effect here of the hysteria around, oh my God, Tucker has the gall to interview Vladimir Putin.
He's a Vladimir Putin stooge for having the gall to actually ask the person basic questions, which by the way, provides intelligence.
It provides insight into either how the person thinks or how they want you to think they're thinking about the world, what their perspective is or what they want to argue that their perspective is.
That's all useful.
Vladimir Zelensky's Unscripted Interview00:01:17
That's all to the good.
The fact that he was able to secure the interview is a good thing, quite frankly.
And the hysteria about it, I think, increased the viewership immensely relative to what it probably otherwise would have been.
So a fascinating interview.
I hope there are more such interview.
Asking pointed questions is a good thing of these people, because the fact of the matter is the world is comprised of mainly liars, thieves, crooks, and murderers when it comes to foreign powers.
And you need to understand how they think, how they operate.
That's how you gain insights.
And that's how you ultimately defend your national interest in a very dangerous and chaotic world.
Yeah, I wish that Vladimir Zelensky would have an unscripted interview with a citizen journalist from the West.
There's a lot of questions I'd like him to answer.
Well, Ben, listen, it's great to see you again.
Thanks for spending so much time with us.
Of course, Rebel News is based in Canada.
We love Canada.
90% of our work is in Canada, but we do care very much about what happens to our friends and allies in the United States.
And as I said at the top of the show, what you will decide as a country this November will have an enormous impact on our country, too.