Ezra Levant reveals Rebel News’ undercover mission in Cuba, where journalists interviewed 20 locals amid food/fuel shortages, comparing Havana’s decay to Ukraine’s war zones. Israel’s 2024 recognition of Somaliland—a stable, self-governing democracy—contrasts with Somalia’s chaos, hinting at a broader shift rewarding anti-extremist states. Levant ties Trump’s alleged regime-change strategy to Cuba’s collapse, citing Petro’s Colombia pivot and Panama’s rejection of Chinese canal control, framing it as a humanitarian legacy despite domestic skepticism. [Automatically generated summary]
So there's so much going on, but I want to talk about the domino effect that Donald Trump is creating in Latin America.
First, it was Venezuela.
Next, it's Cuba.
Wouldn't you know it?
Colombia's president came to visit the White House and basically to apologize.
Costa Rica just elected a new freedom-oriented leader.
Panama just kicked out China.
Donald Trump is doing more for freedom in this hemisphere than anyone since the Monroe Doctrine.
I'll take you through it and show you some video, including from our undercover reporters.
I'm so excited about today's show.
So if you don't have the video version of this podcast, please do yourself a favor.
Go to RebelNewsPlus.com.
Click subscribe.
It's the video version.
It's eight bucks a month, so it's pretty affordable.
And frankly, even if you think that's not a lot of dough, it's a lot to us because it adds up.
That's how we pay the bills.
We don't get any money from the government, which is precisely why we're independent enough to criticize Cuba.
So that's rebelnewsplus.com.
Tonight, Rebel News goes to Cuba.
it's february 5th and this is the azure levant show shame on you you sensorism bug oh hi everybody Just a huge journalistic project that we completed.
We gave a teaser trailer a few days ago.
As you may know, Rebel News sent two journalists to Cuba posing as tourists, but in fact, they had cameras and recording devices, and they interviewed more than 20 ordinary Cubans about communism, regime change, Donald Trump, and even Venezuela and how that country has been de-radicalized and decommunistified, if that's a word I can make up.
Here's the trailer that we aired the other day, just to remind you.
military operation to capture the illegitimate president of Venezuela and has put Cuba in the crosshairs for regime change.
Cuba is really a nation that's very close to failing.
Will you make a public commitment today to rule out U.S. regime change in Cuba?
Regime change?
Yes.
Oh no, I think we would like to see the regime there change.
Do they want freedom from the West or stay with the Castros?
There is no freedom of expression there.
and speaking out against the regime can result in five to ten years in prison.
We want to provide a megaphone for the world to hear.
I have a lot of people who don't know a person, because if you don't know a person, because you don't know a person.
We will reveal how the real Havana looks like under their current dictatorship.
Alexandro and Santo here for Rebel News.
Today we are announcing that we went on a special mission with serious risks.
We traveled to an authoritarian state in order to break through the propaganda media machine and the fear tactics used to suppress the locals and bring you the truth from those on the ground.
If you want to support this important mission, we have launched a website, thetruthaboutcuba.com.
Share this to people who want to see the truth.
Also, while you're at it, please consider making a donation to help offset the cost of this assignment.
Thank you for following us and thank you for your support.
You know, it was dangerous sending journalists down there, dangerous for our journalists.
Based on my research, the worst that would happen to them, though, would be they would be jailed for a couple days, their stuff would be rifled through, probably seized, including any cameras, and then they would be deported.
I wouldn't want to be in a Cuban prison, that's for sure, but I don't think the penalty would have been much worse for that.
The trouble is, the people we were interviewing, for them, talking to journalists in a manner critical of the regime could land you five to ten years in prison, which is why we were blurring the faces of people we spoke to.
Anyways, we released the trailer last week.
Today we released the full thing.
Almost an hour.
Here's a taste of it.
A wave of hope is sweeping through exile communities across the Americas.
Now, the spotlight turns to the next domino in the region.
I think we're going to make a deal with Cuba.
Cuba is in Bench.
Cuba has a humanitarian problem.
Welcome to Cuba, an island frozen in time where the 1959 revolution promised paradise but delivered decades of communism, oppression, and unimaginable hardship.
I'm Alex Alevois alongside Ephraim Flores Masanto.
Reporting for rebel news.
After Maduro's fall, we traveled to Miami to speak with locals of the vibrant Venezuelan and Cuban exile communities.
Where families who fled Tirani now dare to dream?
Could Cuba be next?
What do you think will happen with Cuba?
Well, I will hope it happened the same to Cuba.
I think it's a domino effect.
And if Venezuela is free, Cuba will be free next.
For over 65 years, the Castro regime has held Cuba in an iron grip.
What began as a socialist experiment quickly descended into full-blown communism.
After Fidel Castro's death in 2016, his brother Rajul plunged the island deeper into despair, a place where people rummaged through overflowing garbage piles just to survive.
A nostalgic charm masking a tragic reality.
Once poised to become one of the hemisphere's most prosperous nations, it now stands as a stark symbol of failed ideology.
President Donald Trump, fresh from the Maduro victory, has declared that Cuba is ready to fall and that the regime poses a grave threat to freedom in the region.
Cuba is a failing nation and you have to feel badly for Cuba.
Will you make a public commitment today to rule out U.S. regime change in Cuba?
Regime change?
Yes.
Oh no, I think we would love to see the regime no change.
Venezuela was the island's most critical trading partner through its oil.
And now, with its supply cut off, there are constant blackouts, food shortages, and lack of medical supplies.
Recent reports indicate that the Trump administration is actively pursuing regime change in Cuba by the end of this year.
Cuba is really a nation that's very close to failing.
Citizens are indoctrinated in schools to view the revolution as their salvation from U.S. imperialism.
Freedom of expression is non-existent.
Social media is heavily censored, monitored, and restricted, with severe punishments for anyone who dares criticize the regime.
That's why we went undercover.
We spoke directly to everyday Cubans, capturing their unfiltered voices.
Faces blurred for their safety, because speaking out can mean five to ten years or more in prison.
The last times Cuban protested for their rights, access to food and medicine supplied during the pandemic in 2021, saw heavy crackdown and many sent to prison.
They went to the street, to the street, in prison, it's like to keep the terror, the people This was a great risk to ourselves and the people we spoke to.
Our cameras and equipment could have been taken by the Castro thugs and at worst, jailed and deported.
U.S. Ambassador's Gambit00:15:42
But we did it anyway.
Because in a place where speaking the truth can cost you years in prison, someone has to give ordinary Cubans a voice.
That's exactly why ribbon news exists.
To go where the mainstream media want and to shine a light on the realities dictators try to hide.
This mission gave Cubans the chance to speak freely for the first time in decades.
And if you believe in giving a voice to the voiceless, if you believe in real fearless journalism, please help us cover the cost of this assignment and keep these stories coming.
You can support us right now at thetruthaboutcuba.com.
Join us as we walked the real streets of Havana, beyond the tourist facade, to reveal the truth of a life under communism.
And a growing hope that freedom may finally be on the horizon.
I'm very excited by it.
I think the timing is perfect.
I really do think that Cuba will be the next domino to fall.
What's interesting to me is, you know, how the algorithm works.
If you start searching for certain things, you get more of that kind of stuff.
And so pretty soon I discovered the U.S. ambassador to Cuba.
I have to be honest, I didn't know that they had any diplomats active in Havana, but they do.
And the U.S. ambassador is actually doing the same kind of thing that we were doing.
Not just in Havana, he was driving around Cuba, meeting ordinary people, talking to them about the economic crisis, the power blackouts, the shortages of food and fuel.
But he's doing something very interesting.
He is not blurring their faces.
Take a look at the ambassador from the United States to Cuba.
He speaks very good Spanish.
He's just going around meeting people every single day, filming it, publishing it.
Very interesting.
I have to say, I joined myself with the Secretary of Marco Rubio on January 9.
And the first thing he told me was how things go in Cuba, obviously.
And he doesn't want to see the cuban people suffering, he doesn't want to get hungry.
That's why he asked me to live.
And that's why I remember all the island, talking to different communities.
And, well, especially here, for the hurricane Melissa, he immediately offered 3 million dollars in assistance.
And we're talking about the Obispo, obviously, with Cuba.
What are their needs?
To increase, to announce, I think, from here to a few days.
So let's step back.
Yeah.
Well, we're going to be right to take a moment.
We have a very additional and plucked vampire.
Now, some of the people who the ambassador has spoken with have been arrested.
And the ambassador himself was assaulted by a gang, obviously sent by the government regime.
But he keeps at it.
He seems like an awfully nice guy, I have to say, and he's got a little bit of courage.
Although, I suppose it's easy to have courage when you're backed not only by your diplomatic immunity, but by the might of the U.S. State Department and, in fact, the Pentagon, as you know, the aircraft carrier and the rest of the flotilla that were used to take out Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela a few weeks ago, it's still in the Caribbean.
It is very close to Cuba.
In fact, new kinds of aircraft have been deployed over Cuba, including some electronic sensors and jamming aircrafts.
Very interesting.
I think that things are imminent there.
The pressure is on.
One of the things that you can see in the video that our journalists, Alex Lavois and Efron Monsanto, put together is actually, I think it's the dominant feature of at least Havana.
I don't know about the smaller centers.
It's the garbage piles.
I mean, one thing is the buildings look like they were in a war zone.
It really does look like some scenes out of Ukraine with destroyed buildings.
That's just the communism.
There's something else that you see throughout is piles of garbage in the streets.
And apparently, that's because of a shortage of gasoline or diesel.
They've simply decided that there are higher priority things that need gas than garbage trucks.
So the garbage is piling high in Havana.
Super gross.
Imagine the quality of life there.
It's so low.
There's no gas or diesel, and neither for power.
There are blackouts several times a day.
Now, I've been searching for things on social media for Cuba.
I discovered that U.S. ambassador, very interesting.
I think he's trying to stress the regime.
I think he's trying to taunt them in a good way and he's trying to build courage amongst other Cubans.
One of the things I've also stumbled upon, besides that U.S. ambassador, are Cuban hotels.
As you know, that there are embargoes on certain states, like the United States, do not allow tourists to go to Cuba.
I think that those rules might have been varied slightly during the Obama years, but it's basically Canadians who vacation in Cuba.
I myself have never gone to Cuba.
I would just feel too uncomfortable, like I'm going to party in a prison or something.
And people say, well, you're at least enriching the waiters and the hotel staff.
Yeah, and those are very elite people.
Those are considered the lucky ones because they get the tips and U.S. cash and they get better food and better housing.
And that's true.
I just, even that would make me deeply uncomfortable.
But I want to show you just a little bit because there are still Canadians going down there, even though the weather lately has been terrible.
The hotels are nearly empty.
And one of the things you see, because a lot of these are hotel packages, both Air Canada, WestJet, and I think Air Transat and other charter airlines have super cheap deals to Cuba.
I think that's why people go to Cuba.
I think most people don't think about the fact that it's like a prison island.
It would be like partying in North Korea.
I think they don't think about politics.
They just want a cheap vacation.
And it is a super cheap vacation.
Most of the vacations are all inclusive.
So you're staying at a hotel resort that gives you food in buffet form.
And looking at these buffets in these sort of citizen TikTok videos, it's really depressing.
I'm not depressed for the tourists.
I mean, they got a really cheap hotel deal.
What did they expect?
But if this is the finest and best food served to the foreign currency tourists, imagine what it is to be an actual Cuban person trying to survive.
They really are like Venezuela, where the average citizen lost more than 20 pounds.
There was such malnutrition from basically a famine.
You know, one of the old communist mottos was bread and land.
And there's no bread.
Or actually there's bread, but there's no meat and there's no other foodstuffs.
It's actually very sad.
And if these tourist videos show what the elites are eating, you can imagine how bad it is for ordinary Cubans.
And you don't have to imagine because, of course, Alexa and Efron spent their time talking to real Cubans.
And it's a humanitarian disaster.
You know, I just want to say that these resorts, they actually remind me of prisons.
And the entertainment staff, the dancers, the singers, they look like prisoners to me.
And of course they are.
Anyways, I'm not the only one interested in Cuba.
In fact, my interest is because of Donald Trump's interest.
Taking out Nicolas Maduro was the first domino in a domino effect around the region.
And Trump has been talking a lot about Cuba lately.
You might know that especially in the Miami area where there are so many Cuban exiles, they are very strong Republicans, very strong anti-communists.
Some other Latinos vote Democrat, although these days a majority of all Latino background voters are for Trump because of what he's doing.
But Cuba is Cuban Americans are extremely pro-freedom and pro-Republican.
And they voted for Trump, obviously.
And Trump has been talking a lot about Cuba.
Here he is saying what we can see with our own eyes, that it is a failing country falling apart.
And it's not long before it'll tumble.
Here's Trump saying that.
Well, Cuba is a failing nation.
It has been for a long time.
But now it doesn't have Venezuela to prop it up.
So we're talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba.
We'll see what happens.
I want the people that came here that were horribly treated by Cuba to be taken care of, to be able to go back and do what they have to do.
You know, they have their family there.
They haven't been able to see them in years, many, many years.
So I think we're going to make a deal with Cuba.
Speaking of falling, Marco Rubio was, I think he was in the Senate the other day where he was asked questions.
As you know, their cabinet ministers go before committees and answer questions for a while.
And one Democrat was saying, will you rule out regime change?
And Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, who is a descendant of Cuban émigrés himself, said, are you kidding?
We want regime change.
Take a look at this.
Will you make a public commitment today to rule out U.S. regime change in Cuba?
Regime change?
Yes.
Oh, no.
I think we would love to see the regime there change.
We would like to, that doesn't mean that we're going to make a change, but we would love to see a change.
There's no doubt about the fact that it would be of great benefit to the United States if Cuba was no longer governed by an auto regime.
But you know what we mean by regime change?
We don't mean I wish someone else were in charge.
When we talk about regime change, we're talking about using the power of the United States, usually kinetic power, but often other kinds of coercion.
And I'm not even saying that that's always not in our interest.
I'm just saying I'm not asking you whether we would prefer a different kind of government.
I'm asking whether you're trying to precipitate the fall of the current regime.
Yeah, but that's statutory.
The Helms Burton Act, the U.S. embargo on Cuba, is codified.
It was codified in law, and it requires regime change in order for us to lift the embargo.
I think the most interesting development of the past week is that Trump says he is talking to the bosses of Cuba, which is not that surprising because Trump will talk to anyone, a good guy or a bad guy.
With Trump, there's always an angle that he thinks there can be a deal to be made.
I'll get back to Venezuela in a moment, but I think that Trump, he didn't say names, but one of Castro's successors first was his brother Raul.
And for the past five years or six years, it's been Miguel Diaz-Canel, not as famous, of course, doesn't have the famous last name.
He's the new dictator of Cuba.
And today, this morning, actually at 10 a.m., he gave a very rare speech saying that Cuba is for peace, but they're going on a war footing and also acknowledging they are talking to America and noting that they're pretty much out of energy.
They're pretty much out of fossil fuels and electricity, and that Cuba has to go through a kind of austerity revolution.
So it was a bit of a mishmash.
I mean, obviously, I don't speak Spanish, but I read a lot of the translations of the speech.
And I think that he's in the stage of what they would say in a 12-step program: he's in denial.
He doesn't yet realize that he will be tumbled.
I think he, one of the problems about dictators is that they're surrounded by yes, men.
There is no critical opposition, including in the media.
And so you start to believe your own propaganda.
And I think that this Diaz-Canel might be that kind of guy.
I mean, I think that he would be surrounded by flatterers.
And he surely and should be rocked by how Donald Trump extracted Nicolas Maduro, the dictator of Venezuela, without losing a single man, dispatching more than 100 bodyguards two hours on the ground, came in, grabbed him and his wife, and left.
Like that was one of the most stunning raids in military history.
Frankly, it reminded me of the kind of style of some Mossad or Israeli military operations.
But this, I think, was over such a large geographical distance from America.
It was an amazing thing.
Surely Diaz-Canel ought to know that he could be plucked out of there just as easily as Maduro was.
By the way, the United States has dispatched a diplomat to Venezuela, too, and she has been welcomed.
Here's a video of her arriving on the scene.
Representantes de una variedad de sectores y perspectivas.
Vamos a ejecutar el plan de tres fases.
First, the establishation of countries and restoration of the security.
Segundo, the recuperation of the economía para beneficio de todos los Venezolanos.
Y tercero, la transición hacía una Venezuela ami cable, estable, prospera, y democrática.
She's there to manage Nicolas Maduro's deputy, who Trump is dealing with and Marco Rubio are dealing with, and basically said to her, I mean, I wasn't on any phone call, but it's sort of evident.
They said, you saw what we did with Maduro.
You can run the country in the manner we tell you to, or we'll arrest you.
Or I don't know if they would have said that they'll kill you, but that deputy is doing what Trump tells her to do.
And one of the things that they told her to do, which I think is astonishing, is they arrested one of Maduro's senior henchmen.
So understand this.
Maduro's deputy, who is now sort of the de facto dictator of Venezuela, but she's really a puppet of the United States now doing exactly what she's told.
She had authorized a joint operation, American and Venezuelan, to arrest basically the point man for Hezbollah and Iran in Venezuela.
Just absolutely stunning what's going on there.
I really think Cuba is going to fall in a matter of days or maybe weeks.
It is so weak.
It is so demoralized.
And you can see that.
I mean, it's the people there are physically hungry.
Like they must be distracted and in pain from, I would almost call it a famine.
The country is literally crumbling.
That's not just a metaphor.
It is falling apart.
And you can see others in the region looking around and realizing things are a little bit different now.
I mean, Colombia's president, his name is Gustavo Petro.
You might recall a few months ago, he was just on Twitter insulting Trump, calling him a white slaver, just disparaging him.
This Gustavo Petro threatening Trump in his own way.
Well, I think he realized that he could be next.
So he actually visited the White House.
Colombia's New President00:05:39
He flew to meet Donald Trump.
Trump let him in a side entrance, not the main entrance.
And you know what?
He got along famously with Trump.
That's the thing about Trump.
You have to understand that he may look ideological.
He may look hardline, but really he's a deal maker.
He's very transactional.
And I'm not saying that as a criticism.
That's how you get deals.
That's how you get the Abraham Accords peace deal in the Middle East.
That's how you get a trade deal.
So when he meets someone who hates him, I think Trump sees that as an advantage because he said, oh, this guy has badmouthed me.
Like when, like, there's a lot of people, politicians, even ambassadors, who in previous times before Trump was re-elected, said what they felt about Trump.
They hated him.
They thought he was a fool, whatever.
And then Trump was re-elected in 2024.
Now they have to deal with them.
And that goes for a lot of people in the UK Labour Party.
And that certainly goes to Gustavo Petro.
So all these people who have said vicious things about Trump, you and I would feel uncomfortable with that.
But I actually think that Trump loves that because he knows someone is coming to meet him who has an obligation to him, an apology for him.
There's a debt to pay, a moral debt to pay.
I think there's no better thing for Trump than to meet someone who has badmouthed them because Trump will take that as a leave as leverage on the other side.
It's why Trump got along so well with the new communist mayor of New York, Zorhan Mamdani.
Anyway, my point is that Colombia is coming around.
They've agreed to, you know, actually rein in some of the drug cartels.
We'll see if they mean it.
Costa Rica just elected a new freedom-oriented leader.
Panama, I don't know if you saw this news, their courts recently ruled that China does not have the right to run the Panama Canal, which it had been doing.
So look at the domino effect here.
You had El Salvador, which is a key friend and ally to Trump now.
You've got Javier Mile in Argentina.
You've got this wave of freedom-loving pro-American leaders sweeping Latin America and ousting Iran and Russia and China from all these places.
It's actually beautiful to see.
It's a domino effect in a good way.
I remember during the Cold War, the domino effect was, oh my God, if we allow Vietnam to fall, well, then the rest of Southeast Asia will fall.
That's the domino effect in a bad way.
But the domino effect in a good way is happening in Latin America.
I think Cuba will be free, probably Nicaragua after that, and hopefully Brazil soon.
Imagine an entire hemisphere free of communism, free of Russian and Chinese and Iranian meddling.
I think it's amazing.
And who cares that Donald Trump didn't get the actual Nobel Peace Prize?
He is creating more peace and ending more dictatorships than anyone else other than, I suppose, you could say that FDR in the Second World War helped crush fascism on a larger scale.
That was, I suppose, a joint effort with other allies.
What I'm excited about is that Cuba, unlike Venezuela, unlike Nicaragua, Panama, has such a mass of exiles in Florida, some of whom have been there their entire lives.
I mean, remember, it was 60 years ago, 60 plus years ago that Castro took over.
So many Cuban Americans have become amazing successes in commerce and industry, in politics.
Like the Cuban American community is so successful, and they love Cuba so much, and they haven't been able to properly visit their families or contact them.
Imagine if Cuba falls, which I really believe it will in, here's my prediction, within two weeks, maybe even sooner.
And you will see this rush of heartwarm Cuban exiles going home, and they will want to revive and resuscitate and rebuild and renew their country.
And I think it's going to happen so quickly and intensively.
I'm so excited.
And I think that the U.S. government might give some aid, money, but actually, why?
Why not allow in all these Cuban-American entrepreneurs?
Like, if you were a banker, if you were an investor and you knew that Cuba, which was once a star vacation getaway, like in the 50s, it was the place to go from Florida, for example.
If that gem, that jewel was back and open for business again, you wouldn't need any government money.
You wouldn't need any foreign money.
In fact, you wouldn't want it.
You wouldn't want to give money to politicians.
You would want to just clear the way for investors on everything from rebuilding the basic infrastructure, electrical power plants and water and sewage, but also housing, cars.
You know, when you see those old-fashioned 1950s cars, it's not a style thing.
It's because they had no cars come in and they had to maintain those cars for 60 years.
Isn't that incredible?
So I think you're going to see so many successful Cuban Americans basically going to hug their country and rebuild it.
And of course, tourism will come back.
Housing will come back.
It's going to be a miracle.
Cuban Americans Rebuild?00:03:29
Trump is moving so fast on foreign affairs.
I really think there's going to be a regime change decapitation in Iran as soon as this weekend.
I mean, the second aircraft carrier is arriving shortly.
There's all sorts of other air assets coming.
I mean, that's going to be the hardest of all.
Iran is a very large country, 90 million people, very large geographically, but the people hate the Ayatollah.
In some other places like Gaza, people have become brainwashed.
It's a cult, a cult of anti-Semitism, a cult of Islamic extremism.
Not so in Iran.
In Iran, it's run by the religious extremist mullahs, but ordinary people, it's actually one of the most secular countries in the world.
Young people despise the Ayatollahs and their rules that women have to cover up and wear a veil and can't show their hair in public and no music and no dancing.
And there's morality police called the Mutawin.
Remember that the Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood was actually based on Iran.
And they've been around for, you know, since the 1970s.
So I think that it's a massive country, but I think it's ready for change.
And that change might come quickly too.
I think that Canada isn't that important to Trump.
I mean, in some ways, obviously, it's very important in terms of two-way trade and, of course, sharing a border.
But I don't think he's obsessed with us because things with Canada are going pretty well.
There's some war of words going on and some terrors going on.
But I really think Donald Trump is focused on doing generational things.
He will be the man to free Cuba, just like he was the man who freed Venezuela.
And he could be the man to free Iran, just like he is the man who he believes can build a new Gaza.
Imagine that legacy.
I really think it would be unparalleled.
I mean, Trump uses a lot of hyperbole, but this really will be the greatest foreign affairs legacy of any president, I think, in history.
Now, the irony, I guess, is that Trump has low domestic approval ratings.
I mean, he's a dozen points below 50%.
And it looks like if things continue on this path, he'll lose the midterms.
The midterm elections, of course, are for Congress.
And right now, Congress is in the hands of the Republicans.
But if it goes in the hands of the Democrats, you bet they're going to have all sorts of shenanigans trying to impeach him all the time, distract him, will block him.
There will be all sorts of battles to frustrate the final two years of his term.
But what he's accomplished in the first year would have been a big to do list for a president in 10 years.
It's interesting to me because the U.S. economy is breaking records.
For example, the other day, they have set a new record for the amount of steel produced in a given month.
They have real bold economic growth again, and it's on a per capita basis, not just as in Canada, where we bring in so many foreign migrants to make it look like our economy is growing.
In the states, actually, the population is shrinking a bit because they're deporting so many illegals.
They have low inflation, they have low gas prices, food is going down in price.
I mean, those are all things that are important to Americans who really don't care about foreign affairs.
I mean, obviously, we're in a foreign country, so when we think of the United States, immediately it is a foreign affair.
I don't know how things are going to go in the U.S. midterms.
Somaliland's Unrecognized Statehood00:05:58
Obviously, nobody does.
And maybe those domestic matters and maybe the ICE enforcement is not popular in certain states.
I don't think it would be in a Democrat state.
But I think no matter what happens, Trump's major legacy will be what he does to free the people of the world.
It's so incredible.
And whether you're a lefty or a righty or a Democrat or a Republican, how can you not cheer if Cuba is free?
How can you not cheer when Venezuela became free?
And how can you not cheer if the people of Iran are allowed to take their country back?
But hey, elbows up, am I right?
Stay with us.
I have a video for you after the break.
I forgot to mention one more thing that Donald Trump has done or looks like he's about to do.
He hasn't done it yet.
Somalia is one of the world's failed states.
It ranks at the bottom basically by any measure.
Really, all Somalia does is export terrorism and pirates, actual pirates that raid ships.
And of course, we've recently learned about all sorts of Somali welfare fraud in the state of Minnesota.
And hey, do you really think we're immune to that here in Canada?
But there is part of Somalia that has broken away.
And its name sounds very similar.
It's called Somaliland.
And believe it or not, that was the original name of British Somaliland, which was a colony of the British Empire.
And for reasons of history and culture and language and empire, Somaliland, unlike Somalia, is not a terrorist hotspot.
It's actually much more moderate.
It is Muslim, but it's much more moderate.
It's not viciously jihadist.
In fact, it's friendly towards Israel.
Israel being one of the first states to recognize Somaliland as an independent country.
Well, we recently sent, like in the last few days, we sent Abiyamini to Somaliland.
Here's how that looked.
Right now, I am standing in the capital of an African country that has something almost unheard of in this region.
It's stable, it's peaceful, it holds regular, free, and fair elections.
It has its own currency, its own army, its own courts, and real rule of law.
Yet, for more than three decades, it's been treated by the world as if it doesn't exist.
Welcome to Somaliland, a 100% Muslim, self-governed democracy that has just formally been recognized by only one country, Israel.
I'm Israel Khai.
I'm here to find out why no one else has recognized Somaliland and why the world should.
Over the coming days, we'll travel across the country, speak to everyday people, business owners, and political leaders.
And you can follow the entire journey at thetruthaboutsomaliland.com.
I'll be honest, a month ago, I didn't know the first thing about this place.
Like most people, if you said Somaliland, I would have assumed you meant Somalia, the failed state associated with al-Shabaab, piracy, kidnappings, endless instability, and of course, exports like Ilanoma and learing centres.
But that assumption is completely wrong.
And understanding why starts with history.
What we now call Somaliland was once British Somaliland, a formal protectorate created during the European scramble for Africa.
Just across the border, southern Somalia was ruled by Italy, becoming Italian Somaliland.
Same people, same language, similar cultures, but two completely different colonial rulers.
Two different legal systems, two different political traditions.
That distinction matters.
On June 26, 1960, British Somaliland became independent.
For five brief days, it became a sovereign country, recognized by around 35 countries, including Australia, Canada, the UK, and even America.
Then came a fateful decision.
Driven by the dream of uniting all Somali people under the one flag, Somaliland voluntarily joined Italian Somaliland on the 1st of July 1960 and the Somali Republic was born.
That experiment failed badly.
The former British territory quickly became marginalized, underrepresented politically, economically neglected, and treated as a junior partner in its own country.
That resentment exploded in the late 1980s.
In 1988, Somalia's dictatorship launched a brutal campaign against Somaliland's civilian population.
Haugea and other cities were indiscriminately bombed by their own government as an estimated 50 to 200,000 people were massacred.
Hundreds of thousands more fled.
This city was flattened.
Less than three years later, the Somali regime collapsed entirely, leading to Somaliland reclaiming the sovereignty it had voluntarily given up decades earlier.
Since then, something extraordinary happened.
While Somalia descended into chaos, terrorism and endless foreign interventions, Somaliland went in the opposite direction, rebuilt from the ground up, held elections, transferred power peacefully, disarmed militias and kept radical Islamist groups out.
For more than 34 years, Somaliland has functioned independently as a de facto state.
With no UN recognition, no foreign troops and no international aid lifeline like Mogadishu receives.
And until just over a month ago, not a single country was willing to formally recognize that reality.
Israel has now done so.
And this is actually the second time Israel has been first to recognize Somaliland.
The first was way back in 1960.
Why Somaliland Matters00:05:06
The hope here is that, once again, the rest of the world follows.
Over the next few weeks, we're going to show you why this matters, both strategically and morally.
It's about rewarding societies that defeat extremism, not funding those that fail.
About counter-terrorism partnerships that actually work.
About recognizing democracies that already exist.
There are no active terrorist groups operating here.
No al-Shabaab control, no ISIS territory.
This isn't about regime change.
This is about recognition of reality.
You can follow our full series across this country at thetruthaboutsomaliland.com and I'm going to ask you to do three things.
Bookmark the site.
Make sure to share all the content that comes from that page so the world wakes up to what's really going on here.
Then sign the petition to ensure and call for the recognition of Somaliland.
And finally, if you support our mission, consider chipping in to help us cover the cost.
Getting here wasn't easy because officially Somaliland is still treated as part of the failed Somali state.
That meant special charter flights, security arrangements, and significant costs just to travel and operate safely on the ground.
Food, hotels, travel, it is enormous.
But I think it's worth it because the time has come to tell this story.
What do you think?
I don't think I would take a vacation to Somaliland, but I would be very happy for Somaliland to be the new norm for a African country that is anti-terrorist, friendly to democracy, multi-party democracy, some civil liberties, and not a failed state.
So go Somaliland.
Hey, let me read you your letters to me.
Exeter on the Cuba mission says, how ironic that unlike in Free Canada, where half the citizens who hate Trump get to travel for cheap to Cuba, most of the poor struggling citizens loved Trump.
You're exactly right.
And you can see this in the video that we're just releasing, the full almost hour-long video that Efron and Alexa have released.
They see Trump as the only person willing and able and powerful enough, and some of them say crazy enough, to topple the Castro regime, and they couldn't be happier about it.
Estrella Tita says, Thank you, Rebel News, for showing the reality of my country.
I'm a Cuban woman living in Toronto, Canada, and it's long past time to strip away the propaganda from the TV networks here that portray Cuba as a tourist destination, with Canadians traveling there for vacations without realizing that Cuba is a failed state, that Cuba is a country in ruins, and that what we need is freedom, not handouts or suitcases filled with items bought at Dollarama.
Thank you for that.
Cuba will be free.
You're so right.
And I know some vacationers there, the reference to the suitcase, people bring toothpaste and toothbrushes and aspirin and deodorant and all sort of the little things that make life better that would be hard to get in a place like Cuba.
And that's sort of their penance for going for a prison vacation.
But you're still going to the prison.
And most of the people you encounter in the tourism industry are sort of friendly with the regime.
It's sort of a perk they get to be exposed to Westerners.
I don't know.
There's a temptation.
I mean, even our team made some donations to the people they encountered.
But that's just a drop in the bucket.
You need regime change.
You need to liberate the people of Cuba.
And I believe Trump is going to do that.
And I believe he's going to do that very soon.
NashTube says, when communism got to Cuba, it was a rich and prosperous country compared with Latin America.
The Cuban peso and the U.S. dollar was one to one.
I didn't know that.
After a few years with this devil ideology, Cuba started going down the road to the destruction of poverty.
Today it is in the ninth circle of Dante's Inferno.
If Canada continue voting for liberal, it won't take that long to be in the same situation.
Well, God forbid.
But you're right.
I mean, I just couldn't believe the images that Efron and Alexis sent back.
I mean, I thought, well, what happened to that building?
Was it bombed?
And that's what communism does.
That's what government ownership of the means of production does.
There are some beautiful buildings.
They're almost exclusively government buildings or for heads of the regime.
There is such a desperation.
I mean, I didn't know the poverty was that bad.
I didn't know the crisis.
And we didn't cherry-pick.
I mean, we sent them to a hotel in Havana as opposed to a beach resort.
And just Efron said, just a block away from the hotel were these ruins.
I mean, the regime truly is in its last legs.
The thing is, the people are so poor and they're unarmed and the police are spying on them.
They need the help from a Donald Trump.
And I think they're going to get it.
Anyways, I really recommend you watch the whole video.
It's about 48 minutes long.
At least last version I looked at it.
Maybe a couple more or less than that.
Go to thetruthaboutcuba.com or you can find it elsewhere on our website.