Ezra Levant’s arrest in Toronto for silently documenting a pro-Palestinian protest—where police claimed his presence disrupted public safety—mirrors UK’s two-tier policing against pro-life activists like Isabel Vaughan Spruce (£13,000 settlement after unlawful arrest) and Adam Smith Connor. While platforms like X and Facebook ease censorship, governments enforce selective restrictions, with proposed UK laws expanding speech limits despite global free-expression trends. Levant’s case exposes contradictions in free speech protections, raising questions about whether Canada’s premiers’ lobbying against U.S. tariffs or Ukraine’s NATO push will overshadow deeper concerns over democratic freedoms under pressure. [Automatically generated summary]
13 Canadian premiers flew down to Washington, D.C. to meet with Donald Trump.
Trouble is, Trump was busy, and really no one at the White House was able to meet with them, some junior staffers.
It was actually sort of embarrassing, not for the premiers, but for the Canadian government, which couldn't, even though it has hundreds of people at the embassy, couldn't arrange a meeting with Trump.
But can you blame Trump?
Justin Trudeau couldn't bother to be there, so why should he?
I'll tell you what Trump was doing instead.
From Russia to Ukraine to Jordan.
I'll give you a rundown of Trump's busy days, so don't be too mad at him for not meeting with the premiers.
That's today's show.
But before I get to that, let me invite you to get the video version of this podcast.
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Hey, you know, we can't always choose who we work with.
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A Day in the Life of Trump00:13:30
Tonight, a day in the life of Donald Trump as seen through Canadian eyes.
it's february 13th and this is the azure levant show shame on you you censorious bug yesterday all 13 provincial and territorial premiers went to washington dc together That's quite something.
I mean, that is really remarkable.
They went to lobby the American political class to stop the planned tariffs on Canadian imports.
It was actually quite nice to see them all together, even though they're in very different political parties.
Now, I'm going to guess this is the first time that the entire group of premiers has met together outside of Canada.
I really think it's quite a feat.
It shows how worried they are about the tariffs.
It's also three months too late.
But I suppose better late than never.
I mean, it was back in November when Donald Trump first announced that he wanted the borders sealed by Canada and Mexico by the day of his inauguration, January 20th, or there'll be hell to pay, as his phrase says.
Trudeau jetted down to Mar-a-Lago for a quick dinner and came back up to Canada and really did nothing.
He re-announced some spending.
He fake announced some border staff.
There's no way he could muster 10,000 border guards.
So he's renaming any bureaucrats at desks part of the border force.
He agreed to list the cartels as terrorist entities in Canada.
But here, take a look.
I actually looked it up today and no, he didn't do it.
Here's the list of all the banned terrorist groups in Canada.
You can see it.
He hasn't put the cartels on it.
It's obvious why.
He genuinely doesn't want to do anything Trump asks him to do.
He certainly doesn't want to crack down on illegal migration.
Trudeau is the guy who wrote the tweet that launched the Wroxham Road.
Remember, he definitely doesn't want to crack down on illegal drugs.
He's the guy who legalized hard drugs, who's pushing so-called safe injection sites.
So he doesn't want to do anything for Trump.
He certainly doesn't want to do these things for Trump because he likes fighting Trump.
And it's the first time he's had fun as prime minister in years.
You can see it on his face.
And he's even getting a bump in the polls as he plays Captain Canada.
Some of the dumber premiers went along with Trudeau's strategy at first.
Only Alberta's Danielle Smith took the president seriously, actually rolled out a serious border force of her own, knowing Trudeau wouldn't do it federally.
And she had already taken steps to shut down hard drug abuse in Alberta.
Premier Smith has been down in Washington, I don't know, probably 10 times in the past three months.
You might recall, I actually managed to interview her on the eve of Trump's inauguration.
I visited her on January 19th.
And as I told you at the time, it was jammed.
I was jammed into her schedule between so many other U.S. officials that she was lobbying.
By contrast, the rest of the premiers either did nothing or copied Trudeau's tough talk towards Trump.
Yeah, not sure if you're going to be able to out-bully Donald Trump, but good luck with that.
Oh, and add to that, the official liberal leadership candidates.
Here's Christia Freeland's campaign ad boasting how much Trump hates her.
I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
Donald Trump doesn't like me very much.
Canada, we don't like their representative very much.
I'm a tough negotiator.
During the first Trump administration, I fought hard to protect Canadian jobs, the Canadian economy, and our way of life.
And we won.
I love Trudeau's cabinet because I know what we need to do to win that fight again.
Donald Trump and his billionaire buddies think they can push us around.
Trump thinks we're for sale, but he can take what isn't his.
I'm not going to let him.
And here's Mark Carney calling Trump a bully.
Canada won't bow down to a bully.
President Trump.
President Trump thinks Canada will cave in.
We will never, ever bow down to a bully.
In the first 12 days of February, Carney has tweeted about 12 times regarding Donald Trump, but he's just tweeted once about Pierre Polyev.
You can see Trudeau, Freeland, and Carney have the same strategy.
Entertain Canadians by pretending to be national heroes, marching against Trump, matching him insult for insult.
And when that doesn't work, we'll ask people to rally around the flag.
We'll all be poorer.
We'll lose many jobs and pay more for everything.
Our dollar will fall even lower.
But at least the Liberals will get to play the Patriots, which is quite something for them after spending a decade denigrating any Canadian patriots or censor Canadian history or culture or even the flying of the Canadian flag.
They said that was alt-right, remember?
So the premiers.
They were finally in Washington, D.C., three months late, but still they're there.
Except for provincial premiers typically don't get FaceTime with the president of the United States.
I mean, politicians try to have some sort of parity.
A foreign minister will meet with another country's foreign minister.
A president or head of government will meet with another president or prime minister.
It really would be rare for a president to meet with premiers at all, although 13 of them at once is more impressive.
My obvious point being, though, Trudeau wasn't there.
Trudeau himself wasn't there.
He was swanning around Paris, France.
I mean, why not grab a few more luxury junkets before he no longer gets the private jets on March 9th?
So President Trump did not meet with the Premiers yesterday.
Ontario's Premier Doug Ford tried to obscure that by not naming the officials they met with.
We had a very constructive conversation.
We appreciate the Trump administration facilitating this literally in the last minute.
And we're just grateful.
We listened, we communicated, and we look forward to further conversations.
Who did you speak with exactly?
I'd rather not disclose that.
High-ranking Trump administration.
been reported already it'd be great to get a name out there so we can confirm it for the point I'm not a Liberty to say to be frank with you but it's very high-ranking administration BC's Premier David Eby was more candid.
They met with some staff.
We had frank conversations about the 51st state comment, where we underlined that that was a non-starter.
That was obviously consistent among all the premiers.
And for my part, just underlining how important it was to share information and concerns related to fentanyl on the border with the premiers as well.
There are enforcement actions that we can take to make sure that information is flowing.
If these are the key points of frustration for the president, we want to take action on those things too.
Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and Director of Presidential Personnel, Sergio Gore.
I mean, those aren't nobodies.
Anyone who works at the White House isn't a nobody, but those are just staff.
Now, there's nothing wrong with meeting staff at the White House, but it's like going to an important office somewhere and being told you don't have an appointment.
You'll have to come back later, leave a message with the receptionist, and they'll pass it on.
It's sort of pitiful, actually.
I mean, the government of Canada has hundreds of bureaucrats and diplomats in Washington whose job is nothing but make connections.
Sounds like none of their phone calls are being answered, is my guess.
If 13 premiers go to the White House and really are being pawned off on some staff, I see Trudeau has hired a new lobbying firm for $85,000 a month.
I mean, obviously, I don't know who's who in Washington, but this firm just started a few months ago, I understand, and it looks pretty junior.
I don't see any famous Republican names on there, which is what you'd actually want if you wanted a meeting with Trump.
You'd probably want some very senior Republicans who just left office and now sell access.
Like, if that's what you're trying to do, instead of meet with one of his assistants, what are we paying 85 grand a month for?
What are we doing that anyways, given that we have a whole embassy worth of staff?
But even that meeting with the assistants turned into an extra snub.
A Canadian reporter who was down there, Colin DeMello, he tweeted this.
He said, BC Premier David Eby says Premiers had a frank conversation with Trump administration officials about the 51st state comments and stressed it's a non-starter.
Eby says the two representatives, Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and Director of Presidential Personnel Sergio Gore, agreed to share a few items with Trump.
Willingness to engage, work on key areas of agreement.
Canada would never be the 51st state.
So that's what the Canadian reporter said a Canadian premier told him.
But the White House staff in question saw that tweet and they had a bit of a different spin on things.
So here's James Blair, the deputy chief of staff, clapping back.
He said, pleasant meeting with the premiers.
To be clear, we never agreed that Canada would not be the 51st state.
We only agreed to share Premier Eby's comments.
Further, we said the best way to understand President Trump's position is to take what he says at face value.
So yeah, not a fun day for the premiers.
They didn't get any meaningful meeting, and even the one they did, they were clapped back at.
But look, if Trudeau couldn't be bothered to attend the meeting because he was spawning around Paris again, why would Trump attend?
Those premiers are Trudeau's problem, aren't they?
It's like the premiers have the constitutional authority to speak for the government of Canada.
No, they don't.
I bet Trump would meet with 15 or 13 U.S. governors of U.S. states, but they're Americans.
It would be like if a bunch of mayors, I don't know, from Spain, showed up in Canada.
I mean, nice people, but would you really said the head of the country to meet them?
But in fairness to Trump, I think he's the busiest person in the world right now.
He's still getting his cabinet choices approved by the U.S. Senate.
They have the power to advise and consent and whatnot.
Today it was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yesterday it was Tulsi Gabbard.
Those are close votes in the Senate.
Very important votes for Trump.
There's more to come.
He's obviously paying attention to that.
I bet he's making phone calls for that.
There's the Americans Trump is bringing back almost every day from foreign jails.
I don't know if you follow that about Trump, but he really works at bringing home any Americans around the world.
In fact, two nights ago, one of them popped by the White House just straight off the plane.
Mark Fogel was his name.
I really don't know his background.
I think he had medical marijuana or something.
He had a prescription for it, but he was a rest.
I don't know this story, but Trump visited him in person.
That's Trump's thing.
Bring him home.
So he's working on that.
Oh, did I forget?
The King of Jordan came by.
And normally the King of Jordan isn't a particularly important person in the world, no disrespect.
But Trump is working on him to help with Gaza.
One of the things that we can do right away is take 2,000 children that are either cancer children or in very ill state to Jordan as quickly as possible and then wait for, I think, the Egyptians to present their plan on how we can work with the President to work on the Kaiser challenges.
So your question is...
Excuse me, wait.
Excuse me, please.
I didn't know that what you just said, 2,000 children with cancer or other problems.
And that's really a beautiful gesture.
That's really good.
And we appreciate it.
Trump really wants to solve this Gaza problem.
He wants to fix the whole Middle East.
And here's the King of Jordan, which is actually 70% of the territory historically called Palestine.
Trump needs to talk with him and needs to get him on board with his Gaza plan.
That's an important meeting to take today.
Oh, just meeting Narendra Modi, the prime minister of the, sorry, the president of the, sorry, I can't remember if he's prime minister or president of India, the largest country in the world.
A couple of days ago was Japan's new prime minister.
Trump is working with Elon Musk in rooting out massive bureaucratic waste.
Here's a scene from their joint press conference a couple of days ago where there was Elon Musk, President Trump, and Little X, Elon's son.
Take a look.
So at a high level, if you say what is the goal of Dojour, and I think a significant part of the presidency is to restore democracy.
This may seem like vocal.
Premier of Nunavut Seeks Trump00:04:38
Are we in a democracy?
Well, if you don't have a feedback with FAX, we would have to.
Sorry.
Tell your gravitas can be difficult sometimes.
So if there's not a good feedback loop from the people to the government, and if you have rule of the bureaucrat, if the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?
If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the president and the senate and the house, then we don't live in a democracy.
We live in a bureaucracy.
Oh, yeah, and then there's that little thing.
Yesterday, while the 13 premiers were being given coffee and snacks by some junior staff, yesterday Trump spoke with Vladimir Putin of Russia and then Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine to get the peace process underway.
I don't see any way that a country in Russia's position could allow them, just in their position, could allow them to join NATO.
I don't see that happening.
And long before President Putin, Russia was very strong on the fact that I believe that's the reason the war started, because Biden went out and said that they could join NATO, and he shouldn't have said that.
As soon as he said that, I said, you know what?
You're going to have a war now.
And I was right about that.
This is a war that would have never happened if I were president.
But you don't think it's President Biden's fault, not President Putin?
I think Biden is incompetent.
And I think when he said that they could join NATO, I thought that was a very stupid thing to say.
I thought when he said, well, it depends if it's a minor incursion.
In other words, it's okay if Russia does a minor incursion.
I thought that was a very foolish thing to say.
I'm told that Joe Biden did not have a single phone call with Vladimir Putin since the war began.
I mean, I understand putting on a brave face, but you don't even have a back channel phone conversation.
I understand it's the same thing with the Secretary of State under Biden, Anthony Blinken.
You don't have even diplomatic back channels.
I find that astonishing to hear.
We know that since the Cold War, there's been that hotline between Moscow and Washington.
It's sort of shocking to me that three years has gone by with not a single conversation.
Anyways, that's about a year's worth of work that I've just listed from, yeah, and we haven't even talked about all of it.
I'm just going with what I remember.
Trump is surely doing many other secret or private matters that are not on TV also.
And then there's just the boring, regular stuff of dealing with 435 congressmen, 100 senators, and countless other very important people, all of whom are dying for a moment with the president.
I mean, how about, oh, just that little matter of the fires wiping out LA?
Or how about the migrant crisis in New York?
Got to talk to those mayors.
So, yeah, the 13 Canadian premiers never had a chance.
You think Trump was going to sit down and take 10 minutes to listen to the story told by Premier P.J. Akiagok?
Yeah, I don't know who that is until I looked it up today.
No disrespect, but that's the Premier of Nunavut, population 40,000 people.
I'm sure he's a great guy, by the way.
And actually, I give him credit.
He traveled very far to be there in Washington.
Probably took him three days, frankly, to get there.
But Trump's not going to meet with him.
Although I bet Trump would have visited with him if the subject matter of the meeting was not, we're not joining the 51st state.
Yeah, we know.
You don't have to, you know, you're bantering.
But if the subject were how to defend the Arctic sovereignty of the North, I bet Trump would have cared a lot about that.
Frankly, I think Trump cares a lot more about that than Canada does.
I mean, when Trump talks about Greenland, he's talking about locking in the North so it doesn't all go to China and Russia.
I bet you the premier of Nunavut, who I'm pretty sure Donald Trump hasn't heard of, if he became an activist for strengthening the military in the Arctic, maybe he could get an audience with Trump.
But just not yesterday.
It was a busy day, fixing the world, leading the world, and yes, taunting the world.
I mean, I can't get over Trump's announcement about plastic straws.
I mean, just take a look.
This part of the end where he talks about sharks just made me chuck.
I'll just take a look.
We're going back to plastic straws.
NATO's Role in Ukraine00:15:11
These things don't work.
I've had them many times.
And on occasion, they break, they explode.
If something's hot, they don't last very long, like a matter of minutes, sometimes a matter of seconds.
It's a ridiculous situation.
So we're going back to plastic straws.
I think it's okay.
And I don't think that plastic's going to affect a shark very much as they're eating, as they're munching their way through the ocean.
Sharks munching.
That's just too funny.
He really is funny.
But back to Ukraine.
Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 when Barack Obama was president and Joe Biden was vice president.
Then Putin didn't dare between 2016 and 2020 when Trump was president the first time.
Then Putin invaded again in 2022 when Biden was president and Putin saw weakness.
And as we now know, Biden's family was deeply compromised by Russian and Ukrainian bribes and payoffs.
Biden didn't just pardon his own son, but pretty much pardoned his entire family, including his brother.
I think it's fair to say that the Biden family is a crime family.
Putin invaded Ukraine because Biden showed weakness.
That is a fact.
Other reasons, too, like the fateful decision by Ukraine some 30 years ago, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Ukraine decided to give up its nuclear weapons.
If you remember, at the end of the Cold War, Ukraine, which had been a Soviet socialist republic, part of the USSR, part of the Soviet Union, Ukraine, when the dust settled, was left with, I think, was at the time the world's third largest nuclear arsenal, because so much of the Soviet military was based in Ukraine, including the Russian Navy.
So Ukraine was persuaded to give its nukes up under a treaty guaranteed by the West, including America and the UK.
Yes, so much for that guarantee, eh?
I would say this is a national scale warning about letting yourself be disarmed, don't you think?
I mean, if Ukraine had kept its nukes, the chance that Russia would have invaded, even when Obama or Biden were in power, I think it would have been zero, don't you think?
I mean, that's the ultimate deterrent.
I think there's a lesson there.
But back to yesterday's big day when the premiers were being given a courtesy tour because Trump was busy talking to Putin and Zelensky and making plans to visit Moscow and to have Putin visit America.
He wants peace, and I want peace.
I just want to see people stop getting killed.
We're very far away from that particular war, but that's a vicious war.
Probably a million and a half soldiers killed in a short period of time.
I've never seen anything.
I have pictures that are, you wouldn't believe it.
You wouldn't believe what you have to look at.
Young, beautiful soldiers that are just being decimated.
And it would be nice to end it immediately.
But we had a very good talk with people didn't really know what President Putin's thoughts were, but I think I can say with great confidence he wants to see it ended also.
That's good.
And we're going to work toward getting it ended and as fast as possible.
We'll get something done.
We're going to be meeting actually tomorrow.
They're meeting in Munich, as you know.
And we're going to have some other meetings.
And I'll be dealing with President Putin largely on the phone.
And we ultimately expect to meet.
In fact, we expect that he'll come here and I'll go there.
And we're going to meet also probably in Saudi Arabia the first time we'll meet in Saudi Arabia, see if we can get something done.
But we want to end that war.
That war is a disaster.
It's a really bloody, horrible war.
What do you think of all that?
I see rage in certain parts of the Twitterverse.
Some people are saying that this is granting Putin a victory.
Even though there's no deal yet that we know about, it's just the beginning of a negotiation.
Officially, the war actually continues to rage on on the ground.
But you can see the shape of the deal a little bit.
Here's the new Secretary of Defense just approved by the Senate a few days ago, Pete Hagseff.
We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine.
But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.
The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.
Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.
Now, the NATO membership question is key.
NATO is a treaty organization that basically says all for one-on-one for all.
So if any member is attacked, it's like an attack on any of them.
It's quite a dramatic idea to have such an alliance spring into place in a country that is currently in the middle of a war.
Trump pretty clearly ruled that out.
Here's Chrystia Freeland yesterday, though, ruling that in.
She said, Canada stands steadfast with Ukraine and the brave people of Ukraine who are on the front lines of the fight against tyranny.
It is in the interest of all democracies to support them.
Ukraine must become a full NATO member.
Now, I don't know if that is the position of the Canadian government because Freeland is no longer in cabinet.
Put aside Freeland's Nazi roots, as you remember.
Her grandfather was an actual Nazi who expropriated a newspaper from a Jew and turned it into a pro-Hitler propaganda newspaper.
And I'm not blaming that on Freeland, who wasn't even born yet, but she tried to cover this up as long as she could.
But putting that aside, it's understandable for Freeland to oppose this atrocious war that has driven out millions of Ukrainians as refugees, has seen Russia occupy and annex huge swaths of Ukraine, and has devastated countless lives and destroyed incalculable property.
But what's the solution?
I think that's Trump is interested in deals and solutions.
After three years of a terrible meat grinder, is Ukraine going to suddenly be able to repel Russia, which is three times the population, ten times the artillery, and now has North Koreans fighting as mercenaries against Ukraine, a kind of expeditionary force.
No doubt it is all awful and unfair, but what's the path to victory?
Or more to the point, what is victory?
Trudeau keeps saying that word.
He's gone quiet on the subject over the last few days, but in the past he has talked about victory.
What exactly does victory look like here?
Take a look.
Canadians know this is a question of right or wrong.
Canadians know that yes, it is incredibly hard for Ukraine to continue to stand against a Russian aggression.
And let's be honest, it's hard for the democracies around the world who are there to support their citizens, who are investing for the future, who are challenged with a challenging economy around the world to continue to step up, as Canada has, with close to $9 billion in aid for Ukraine.
But we will, because the cost on Canadians, on our lives, on our world will be so much greater if Putin wins this war that we will and have to stand every single day until Ukraine wins this war.
It's too dangerous for me to visit Ukraine, but when I visited the Ukraine Pavilion at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, I had a heart-to-heart with a Ukrainian hero who wanted to talk about peace.
I think that's because so many of his friends and family have died in the war.
I think it's different having skin in the game, isn't it?
Rather than just being an internet keyboard warrior, as so many are, especially in Canada.
Now, Donald Trump famously said he could end the war in one day.
Obviously, that hasn't happened, but I think both President Zelensky and President Putin have expressed interest in hearing President Trump's plan, and it sounds like they are open-minded in participating in some sort of negotiated solution.
Does that accurately flex Ukraine's position?
Well, I can't speak on behalf of Ukraine's position, but as an American resident and somebody who is passionate about the Ukrainian cause, I can tell you that the ceasefire cannot come soon enough.
What we need is lasting peace and a fair peace, and I'm happy to see Trump and Zelensky talking about how to make that happen.
What is missing is the desire for Putin to come to the table and negotiate.
So what I expect will happen is we'll need further sanctions on Russia to bring them to the negotiating table, and then some kind of agreement can be hammered out.
But I'm not positive that it will happen this year.
Now, you said you want to cease fire soon.
I want it soon because I want to stop the loss of life.
On the other hand, I want to make sure that that's not a capitulation for Ukraine.
Well, and that's the thing.
I've heard some people on the Ukrainian side say that a ceasefire could freeze the borders where they are.
Now, by the way, Ukraine has an incursion into Kursk, which is a Russian province.
So who knows what a ceasefire would mean there?
If there were to be a ceasefire, it might be a de facto border.
What do you think about that?
I have no comment on that.
I don't know.
Well, are you optimistic?
I mean, do you think that Trump will bring peace faster than Biden and Harris, who I guess they didn't bring peace?
Do you think Trump will achieve his goal of some sort of negotiated peace?
I can't say that I'm optimistic about Trump.
I feel like his priority is internal in the United States.
It's immigration and it's drilling oil and other things.
As someone who's passionate about Ukraine, I want to see continued aid to Ukraine, both financial and military.
And this is not something I expect Trump will provide.
So I think that will come more on the shoulders of Europe and Japan and other allies of Ukraine.
So I hope that whatever Trump does will not hurt too much, but I'm not super optimistic.
I don't know what the peace agreement will look like between Russia and Ukraine.
It's clear Trump doesn't want to spend more American money on it, and he definitely doesn't want to send U.S. troops.
Trump has talked about an economic role for the U.S. in Ukraine, including having access to Ukrainian minerals.
That sounds more like a business deal rather than a plan for foreign aid sounds to me.
We'll see.
I mean, Trump specially is negotiating with bluster, as we know, so I don't know the contours of the deal.
But look at this just for a moment.
This is Kaya Kallas.
She was the prime minister of Estonia.
A few years ago, you probably heard of Estonia.
It's a very small former Soviet socialist republic.
It was part of the USSR, like Ukraine was.
It's just 1.3 million people.
That's the size of Calgary.
And again, I sympathize absolutely with Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia.
Those are the three little Baltic countries that were seized by the Soviets.
And really, Russia did everything they could to break them.
They were under the Soviet yoke for the better part of a century.
So I understand the skepticism and aversion of anyone in Estonia.
But this former prime minister of Estonia, population 1.3 million, is now the foreign minister for the entire European Union, which is an astonishingly large claim to make.
It's sort of odd to me, given that there are 27 different countries in the European Union, and clearly they don't all share the same view.
But here she is yesterday.
This is Kaya Kallas talking about Trump's announcement.
Membership in NATO is the strongest security guarantee there is.
And actually, it's also the cheapest security guarantee there is.
If we are saying that, you know, it's not going to be NATO membership, but it's going to be some other security guarantees, then the question needs to be answered by everybody.
What are these security guarantees, really?
Again, I would say that, you know, we shouldn't take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started, because it plays to Russia's court, and it is what they want.
Why are we giving them everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started?
It's appeasement.
It has never worked.
Last question.
How do you put these things back on the table?
How does Europe muscle itself back to the table and put these options on the table again?
Is that even possible?
No, again, I want to say that, you know, if there is agreement made behind our backs, it will simply not work because you need for any kind of deal, any kind of agreement, you need Europeans to implement this deal.
You need the Ukrainians to implement this deal.
So, I mean, that doesn't also look good if somebody agrees something and everybody else says, okay, fine, you have agreed, but we will not follow this.
Ukrainians will resist and we will support them.
That sounds a bit like a complaint over turf.
Trump basically said he's going to do the deal with Putin and Zelensky.
I'm quite certain Trump would listen to the United Kingdom on this.
They were such a military supporter of Ukraine.
And perhaps some others, but I don't know if he's going to hand a veto over to young Kaya Kallos of Estonia because I don't think that Kaya Kallos of Estonia or Kaya Kallis, the unelected foreign minister of the European Union, I don't think that she has an army and that's the currency of war.
How many soldiers do you have?
That's what Hitler said of the Pope.
How many divisions does he have?
Or maybe it was Stalin who said that.
That's what's going to decide who wins any continued fighting.
And if the European Union or NATO itself were able to end the war in some sort of ceasefire or peace treaty, well, they've had three years to try and they didn't do it.
In fact, they sort of scuppered a deal that came close to happening in early 2022.
I don't know what a peace deal will look like.
I really do believe both parties want one, but the devil's in the details, aren't there?
Four Public Roles Analyzed00:03:00
I saw this on the internet.
I find it very interesting.
It's a scholarly treatment of Donald Trump and how he negotiates.
It's based on reviewing his books and his speeches.
And it's pretty interesting.
It's called Art of the Power Deal, The Four Negotiation Roles of Donald J. Trump.
And it's written by an academic named Eugene B. Kogan.
So understand, this is not the art of the deal.
This is a scholar who's read all of Trump's books, watched a ton of Trump videos, and has tried to study it and say, well, is there a Trump way?
And here's a bit of the abstract, which is the official academic summary.
Let me read it to you.
My argument is that Trump's coercive negotiation style is best understood through the prism of his four public roles, observer, performer, controller, and disruptor.
In this article, I analyze how these roles translate into his negotiating behavior.
Spotting and exploiting vulnerability is his trade.
Leverage and bravado are his tools.
After assessing the opposing side, Trump uses leverage to threaten his counterparts' weaknesses while using bravado to play up the advantages of reaching an agreement on his terms.
This way, he presents a drastic, structured choice to his opponents, leaving them the least maneuvering space.
In the final section of the paper, I illustrate how the four-role framework helps explain Trump's decisions in the nuclear negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
I also consider opportunities for further research.
I've read that paper twice now in the last week.
I think it's really interesting to read how Trump operates if you sort of try and analyze it to find an underlying theory.
And the scholar here himself acknowledges this is important, that there's obviously a lot going on under the radar that Trump hasn't written about or talked about.
Obviously, that's the case, but still there's a lot to learn because Trump does do a lot of his negotiating out in public.
All of which is to say, Trump's a bit busy right now.
In his mind, he's saving the world or running the world, or depending on your point of view, he's destroying the world or whatever you think he's doing, but he's pretty busy.
Kings and princes and presidents and prime ministers are hanging on his every word.
They're lined up to meet him either in the White House or Mar-a-Lago.
Trillions of dollars are at stake, millions of lives.
The destiny of the United States, and I would say all of Western civilization.
You can forgive Donald Trump for not jamming in a meeting that sounds like it was hastily organized with 13 Canadian provincial premiers if Justin Trudeau himself doesn't think it was important enough to do.
Stay with us for more.
Protests and Police Power00:15:34
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freedom-loving patriots and support our independent journalism hey it was just a month ago when I was standing on the sidewalk near my own house and there was a pro Hamas protest on the street where these activists were reenacting the last moments of Yahya Sinwar
the terrorist leader himself.
It was so shocking.
It would be like reenacting the final moments of Hitler in the bunker.
And of course, they were doing this in the heart of the Jewish community.
So I just went to take a picture of it.
I didn't go there to protest.
I didn't even really go there to interview it.
I just wanted to capture this grotesque moment.
And the police said to me that my mere presence was so offensive to the Hamas activists that if I didn't leave, I would be arrested.
And I said, well, I'm on a sidewalk and I'm a citizen.
And they said, get out or we'll arrest you.
And I declined to move.
And you know the rest.
Here's a quick clip of that.
And I don't leave because you say Jews are in the interest of keeping peace here and public safety.
You're under arrest for breach of the peace.
Take them in.
Ezra Levant is a journalist and publisher of rebel news.
And yesterday, he was arrested while reporting on a pro-Palestinian protest in a Jewish neighborhood of Toronto.
Over the last hour or so, we've been getting updates about Ezra Levant, the chief of a rebel media who has been arrested by the pro-Islamist, the police force of Justin Trudeau's Toronto.
Well, that seems to be breaking out all over the place where your mere presence is so odious that the police consider it grounds for arrest.
Take a look here.
This is a woman named Isabel Vaughan Spruce.
She lives in Birmingham, and here she is being accosted by a police officer who says her mere presence simply standing there is so upsetting that if she doesn't move, she'll be charged criminally.
Take a look at this video.
Your mere presence here is causing people to harm.
The police have told me before in an email I am allowed to be in this area.
Right, okay.
So you're not allowed to be within 150 meters, like I say, because your mere presence is causing people to be able to see.
So me personally, I'm not allowed to come within 150 meters of an abortion centre.
With you being the lead of an organisation, for an anti-abortion organisation, should I say?
Sorry, I apologize.
We're sorry to hear you.
No, no, no, that's okay.
It is causing people the right harm and stress.
And although I know you're not saying anything, it is causing people these issues.
They know who you are.
Do you understand?
So because somebody knows who I am, then that's causing them harassment.
Because you're the lead of an anti-abortion organisation.
It is causing people issues.
I'm not going to go into the internet of it because you know that.
You know you shouldn't be here.
No, I don't.
I don't.
I think I'm perfectly entitled to be here.
What do you do, African pleasure?
Do you leave 150 meters?
I really don't see that I need to.
I'm literally just standing here silently saying some prayers.
Is there anything I can reasonably say or do to make you leave at this moment?
I don't think that is a reasonable thing to ask me to do.
Simply because of my beliefs that I'm being asked to move.
Well, that's Isabel Vaughan Spruce, who joins us now via Skype from Birmingham, along with Lois McClatchy Miller, who is with the Alliance Defending Freedom, who is helping Isabel fight back.
Isabel, first of all, congratulations on holding your ground.
And I think you've proved yet again the wisdom of recording your interactions with police.
It's a scary thing to do.
I mean, someone, I guess in the UK, cops don't have guns, but nonetheless, they are intimidating.
So good for you for holding your ground.
Tell us a little bit more about that encounter.
When was that?
And how did it end?
Were you, in fact, arrested?
Yeah, so this happened about a week ago in Birmingham.
It becomes even more ludicrous when you realize the backstory to this: that already I was arrested previously for my silent prayers on exactly the same spot.
I went to court.
I was acquitted.
I was rearrested two weeks later by six police officers who took me away in a police van, telling me my prayers were an offence.
And even after that, I had police officers coming out trying to give me tickets, telling me I'd be fined.
And in the end, I had to resort to making a claim against the police for unlawful arrest, for false imprisonment, and for assault.
And I received a settlement for that.
And now, since then, this has happened.
So, you know, before I was being told that my prayers were an offence, now effectively, it's me that's the offence.
It's all very well giving me compensation, but if that doesn't translate into changes, what's it worth?
It was never about me being out of pocket.
It was about officers across the force behaving very unprofessionally or grossly misunderstanding the law, which still seems to be happening.
You know, there are some people who get a black mark against them.
It's almost like the police are instructed, go after this person.
If I'm not mistaken, the U.S. Constitution talks about bills of attainder, which is basically get Isabel, like a law that would be so directly tailored to you.
Based on what you've just said, it seems to me someone in authority has marked you in some way.
Like the fact that you sued, and I understand you won £13,000, which is about $23,000 Canadian dollars.
That's not nothing.
I mean, that's symbolic.
Even if it was $1, the courts found for you and against them, that's what's confusing to me here.
Is normally I say to people, sue, fight back.
Well, you did, and yet the bad guys are still coming.
What's going on?
It seems to me like the police have already decided their own agenda, and they're rewriting the law to fit that.
And that's not how policing works.
That's not how the law works.
The law is what it is.
You know, the public street is a public street, and I am a member of the public.
Being almost as inoffensive as you could possibly be, I'm standing silently on that public street.
So if that's how low the bar is for criminality, then every person walking down that street should have broken the law already just by virtue of being there.
The law does not say that you can't come within 150 meters of an abortion center, as the police officer told me.
It's certain behaviors within that zone, including protesting, which I never do outside an abortion centre, and I certainly was not doing on that occasion.
So we're really seeing two-tier policing because, you know, there's lots of people in that street who some people might find, you know, certain things that they believe to be offensive.
You know, there's abortion workers who walk down that street, and some people might find their work offensive.
But that doesn't mean they're not allowed to walk down the street.
We can't start criminalizing people because we disagree with them, which is essentially what has happened here.
You know, I presume you're Christian and you were having a quiet prayer in your own mind.
And I think that in particular has been deemed offensive by the police.
I was in London for a massive rally of about 100,000 supporters of Hamas.
Like it was truly terrifying.
And they were so overt and explicit with threats, with calls for violence.
And the police were acting as concierges.
It truly is two-tier policing.
Let's ask Lois McClatchy Miller.
Lois, you're with ADF International, which is a free speech-oriented group that has other battles as well.
What's the state of things now?
In Canada, you can sue the government for violating your rights, and you can sue for a kind of punitive damage against the government called charter damages.
That's just what it's called in Canada.
And you can sue for an enormous amount to sort of teach the government a lesson.
Would be sort of the equivalent of exemplary damages in civil court.
I don't mean to get into too much jargon.
I'm just saying if the government keeps on misbehaving, courts have the power to really punish them.
Is there such a thing in the United Kingdom?
If the police continue to harass Isabel, even though the courts have exonerated her, is there some way to tackle the police in a way to get them to comply with the law themselves?
Well, this actually forms part of a broader story which Isabel has been involved with, where we've constantly seen police step out of bounds of the law when it comes to buffer zones, these zones that the government have implemented around 150 meters from abortion facility.
That's right, not just at the door, but across several streets.
Unfortunately, the confusion that we've seen is, well, Isabel has interactions where she's able to prove that the police have been in the wrong.
In other parts of the country, we have other individuals that we're supporting who have been convicted for nothing more than standing, praying silently in their head.
Adam Smith Connor was a military veteran in Bournemouth, and just in October there, he was found guilty of a crime because of his silent prayers in his head.
And we'll be supporting him to appeal that judgment in July.
So I think what we're seeing is a difference across the country.
Depending on where you are, police might interpret this law differently.
And to us, that says, well, it's a bad law.
It's too vague.
It's too vague if these police officers see it so differently between one person standing silently getting a payout from £13,000 and one person getting a conviction in which they had to pay the authorities £9,000.
And so I think what we're pushing for right now, it's clarity is for the government to come out and say, you know what, silent prayer is never a crime.
Thoughts are not a crime.
Someone's mere presence on the street is obviously not a crime.
And we really need that to be emphasized from the authorities involved.
You know, it really is a country where two-tier justice is, it's not just a slogan.
I really detect it.
I mean, I follow the case of Tommy Robinson, who's currently in prison in solitary confinement, an 18-month sentence.
He'll serve half of it, for posting a video online that a judge told him not to.
That seems like quite an astonishingly punitive fine.
You've talked about various pro-life cases.
The government set up 24-hour a day courts to prosecute social media offenses related to the Southport stabbings, which many of which have later been proved to be true.
It was a terrorist stabbing.
It seems like there's such a double standard when it comes to policing hurty words.
I mean, everything I've just described here is word crimes or thought crimes or feelings crimes or what's in your own mind as you pray crimes.
It just, it doesn't feel like the Britain we used to learn about in school, like the mother of parliament and the source of freedom of expression.
It just, it feels like things are careening off course there.
Do ordinary people in the UK think about this or is it just the activists that I've just listed?
I mean, do ordinary Brits feel like their freedom is slipping away?
I think there's mounting frustrations.
I mean, Isabel has known this for many years that pro-lifers get kind of a second-tier treatment when it comes to the law.
But for a long time, it was only maybe Christians or pro-lifers who really experienced and knew about this kind of two-tier policing.
But I think as the problem deepens, the media, the press are doing a great job.
And we have this new media class coming through of podcasters and Twitter influencers and those who aren't necessarily controlled by the establishment, BBC, that kind of thing.
And so as the public learns more and sees more examples of this kind of two-tier policing, it's becoming impossible to ignore.
And I think that is mounting some frustrations and some pushback against these different standards that the police have for people of different views.
You know, a country that is supposed to celebrate diversity, but somehow those with Christian or pro-life views are somehow treated so much worse.
So I think it is coming to a sharp head now.
Isabel, are there any cases proceeding against you now?
Are you subject to any more charges?
Like, for example, in Birmingham two weeks ago, were you actually charged?
I'm not sure if I caught how that story ended.
No, but just to make it clear, the police weren't just maybe giving me a little bit of advice.
I was being told categorically to move, which they had no right to do.
And the frustrating thing is that all throughout these cases that have been brought against me in the past, I've had to go very public with this, or at least allow it to be shared very publicly in an effort to seek justice.
I've had my photo all over the newspapers of me being arrested, neighbours asking me why I've been arrested, people who have no idea about my job and my work.
Most people aren't prepared to have their livelihoods, their reputation, their relationships affected by something like this.
And so they're resorting to being treated like second-class citizens.
There's a rule for one and there's a rule for another.
And that's not how the law should work.
You know, I was quite despondent about the state of freedom of speech because I felt that big tech was slowly strangling any opinions that were outside the mainstream.
And then a shocking thing happened.
Elon Musk bought Twitter and really broadened the spectrum of opinions.
Really, I think he said it best when he said, we will ban what's illegal, but we really won't be stricter than the law.
And I thought that made a lot of sense.
Since then, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has said he intends to lay off 40,000 censors and lean back into free speech, including on testy issues like transgenderism.
And he specifically said he's going to rely on the State Department, the US government, to help him do that in overseas markets.
I don't know if he was talking about the UK in particular.
So let me ask you this.
Has Elon Musk's free speech approach to Twitter and perhaps what might come from Facebook, is that changing how these issues are discussed in the UK?
Is that, I don't know, maybe there's just a lot more arrests and non-crime hate incidents or whatever being.
What is the effect on the ground in the UK of this pendulum swinging back in America towards free speech?
I think we're realizing how much support there is from others because I think people were feeling quite isolated in this in the past.
Like Lois was saying, pro-lifers for years and years have been facing this two-tier policing situations.
Ground-Level Unity00:03:22
And now we realize we're not alone, that a lot of other people have been facing this as well, particularly Christians, whether it's street preachers and people like that.
But we realize it's just going further and further out, these restrictions that are being, discrimination that is happening against people.
And I think the free speech that is allowed on places like Twitter and maybe more so on Facebook as things might change there as well.
I think that really helps people to recognize the unity that there is amongst people on the ground level in being unhappy with how things are in this country.
And I think there's many, many people who all we're asking for is the law to be fairly applied to everybody.
And that's all Christians that I know and pro-lifers that I know are asking for.
We just want some fairness in the law.
And I really hope that in the future we can at some point see that happening, but it's not happening yet.
Lois, how is ADF fighting back?
Do you guys crowdfund your legal defense?
Are there other cases you're fighting for right now?
I mean, I think that the internet isn't just a place for free speech.
It's a place where a lot of little people can come together to make a, if everyone chipped in 10 pounds, you know, you can put together enough dough to hire a quality lawyer.
That's really how Rebel News was built.
How are you approaching this in the UK?
Do you crowdfund?
Do you have other cases?
Give me just a little bit of the state of affairs in the UK.
Thank you.
Well, absolutely.
We are supported entirely by private donors.
Anyone who comes to us for our legal help receives everything for free.
They don't pay a dollar.
They don't pay a pound.
But we do rely on the generosity of givers around the world to support people like Isabel who are going through situations where their speech is being oppressed.
We have several other cases coming up.
As I mentioned, Adam Smith Connor, who was the Army veteran who got criminally convicted for praying in his head.
And next month we'll be back in court in Bournemouth where a lady will be prosecuted for standing with the sign saying here to help, here to talk if you want, an open vote for a conversation.
And she will be in court for that.
But I think what's interesting, Ezra, you were mentioning the effect of Twitter and Elon buying X Now X.
And I think that these things have had an incredible cultural impact.
They've really changed the way that we expect to have our right to free speech respected.
But around the world, we see that if governments are not on board with free speech, then there is only so much that Elon or Mark Zuckerberg can do.
We have cases at Adobe International across the world where people are in court for things they legally were allowed to say on Twitter or on Facebook.
But it's the authorities who are censoring it, either under blasphemy laws in the Middle East and parts of Africa or under censorship laws, hate speech laws in Europe and Mexico.
And I believe Canada yourself as well there, Ezra.
So it really is a global phenomenon.
We're trying to take a global approach to solving this crisis by challenging these laws across the world.
I'm terrified.
I follow in the news that the UK government led by Kirstarmer is looking at bringing in an Islamophobia law, really, to enshrine a kind of blasphemy law, particularly protecting Islam.
And so I think as other parts of the world move towards freedom, the UK's headed the wrong direction.
UK's Slippery Slope00:04:17
Well, it's nice to spend some time with you too.
I wish you good luck.
Isabel, don't give up.
One of our reporters, David Menzies, was arrested five times last year for just doing what you did, for standing on the sidewalk.
In his case, he wasn't praying.
He was doing journalism, but that's a protected activity as well.
And I think hopefully in the end, you will prevail.
You certainly seem to have courage and you have smarts, and it looks like you've got good allies in the ADF.
And thanks to Lois McClatchy Miller, too.
I wish you guys good luck and we'll keep in touch.
Thank you so much.
All right, there you have it.
If you want to learn more, go to the website adfinternational.org.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Hopefully you're having a good time with this podcast, but I guarantee a better time would be coming to Alaska with me, Drea Humphrey, and my other rebel colleagues.
You've got to find out more at our special website, rebelnewscruise.com, but it's taking place June 18th to June 25th, a vacation trip of a lifetime.
Again, that's rebelnewscruise.com.
I'll see you there.
Oh, hi, everybody.
Welcome back.
You know, there's so much cooking in Rebel World.
I just wanted to tell you a few things.
In the United Kingdom, as you know, we have a new reporter.
Her name is Sammy Woodhouse, and she's doing great.
By the way, she's one of the bravest people I've ever met in my life.
She was one of the 1,400 victims in the Rotherham rape gang crisis, and she was the whistleblower there.
She's the one who stood up and said enough and told the media about it, and she continues to be a hero for so many British women to this day.
So she works for us full-time.
The other day, she was down in London covering the farmer rebellion.
They're taking on their farmers in the UK.
Their socialist Prime Minister Kier Starmer wants to put an inheritance tax, which will basically destroy the idea of the family farm because you've got to sell the farm to pay the tax.
You can't hand it down to your next generation.
It's a terrible war on food.
And the Labour government says as much.
So Sammy was down there.
She's doing great work in the UK.
Today and tomorrow, our Sheila Gunrid is covering the important federal court case of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, challenging the constitutionality of Trudeau invoking the prorogation of Trudeau dissolving Parliament.
Now, when I first heard of that, I thought there's no way that'll work.
But John Carpe proved to me that, in fact, it worked precisely that way in the United Kingdom.
Talk about a huge precedent.
Now, I've been following along Sheila's live tweeting today, and it looks like the judge is being skeptical.
I think the judge has made, it seems to me the judge is politically predisposed to not siding with the JCCF.
It would be quite a dramatic thing.
And I think judges prefer not to be dramatic if they can.
Tomorrow, we got one more thing going on around 12.45 p.m. Eastern Time.
And that is Ontario, as you may know, is having an election.
And I'm completely unenthused about it.
Doug Ford is a conservative in name only.
The symbol that I'll always have for him is the statue of Sir John A. MacDonald at Queen's Park.
That's the Ontario legislature.
It has this huge wooden sarcophagus built around it because Doug Ford doesn't quite have the guts to tear it down.
He's not completely woke, but he doesn't have the courage to stand by it.
So it's in a big wooden box.
Yeah, woo!
One cheer for the Conservative Party, only in that the Liberals and the NDP are actually worse.
So we'll be live streaming that debate for any Ontarians and others who care.
That'll be tomorrow at 12.45 p.m. Eastern Time.
But of course, the big challenge in Canada right now these days is how the Liberal Party has decided to put the country's affairs on hold while they hand select our new prime minister.