Front Burner - A neo-Nazi connection, the U.S.-Mexico border, and beauty YouTubers

Episode Date: December 31, 2019

In over a year, Front Burner has covered a lot of stories. But we haven’t had time to follow up on all of them. Today, we revisit a handful, from the Canadian link to a militant neo-Nazi group called The Base, to the treatment of migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border and the fallout from a feud between two incredibly famous beauty YouTubers.

This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. In over a year of making this show, we've covered all kinds of stories. Some of them we talk about a lot. Just think of all the election coverage that we did. But there are a few stories that we haven't had a chance to follow up on. So today, we're going to update some of them. What's happened to a Canadian army reservist believed to have ties to a militant neo-Nazi group?

The radical fringes of the extreme right. This is kind of as hardcore as it gets. The treatment of migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border. The place is a jail. By the Border Patrol's own admission, it's not a good place for children to be. And the latest in a feud between two beauty influencers. Losing millions of subscribers and having people trash your makeup palette so much that it becomes this huge meme is not good for your business.

That's all coming up on today's episode of FrontBurner. Back in August, we learned about the disappearance of Patrick Matthews. He's an army reservist and combat engineer from Winnipeg who was being investigated for his connections to a militant neo-Nazi group called The Base. It's alleged that Matthews recruited for The Base while he was in the army. I should mention he hasn't been charged and hasn't responded to requests for comment. In the episode of FrontBurner that we did on this, we talked to Vice National Security Reporter Ben McCoo and his colleague Mac Lamoureux. They told us about how the base is trying to bring together online neo-Nazi groups and move them out into the real world.

They create paramilitary camps for people to not learn just survivalism. I mean, the stuff that they're advertising span from how to evade a drone following you. Right. To we found weapons training, biological weapons manuals, explosive manuals. So really what this group's been trying to do is professionalize and also structure the militant neo-Nazi movement within the United States. Ben and Max spent a lot of time in chat rooms, where members from the base would talk, and they found a lot of hateful stuff.

Just hideous things said about people of color, Jewish people, immigrants. I mean, stuff about cannibalism based on those types of people. What? A lot of it's shock and awe, but also you have to be a very hateful person. But beyond that, there was also real discussions about future actions and something called accelerationism and trying to accelerate a race war. The Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defense say they are taking this allegation against Patrick Matthews very seriously. But extremism experts say the military needs to be more proactive. Earlier this month, Vice News reported some new developments in the case. Ben is here again to tell us more about it.

Hi, Ben. Hi, thanks for having me. Thank you so much for coming on. So you reported that Patrick Matthews is actually being hidden by some members of the base. What did you find out? Basically, we discovered that through our own confidential sources that when Patrick Matthews disappeared, he actually disappeared and joined up with the base and some of his co-members of this group who are American. And he crossed the border legally into the United States.

And we found out that he's not only crossed the border legally through their help, but also he's being hidden by them. Okay. And I know there's been tons of speculation about his whereabouts. What made you confident that what you found out was true? So we have various sources and methods and some confidential sources that have helped us navigate this story and to find out and confirm that Matthews was indeed in the United States. We also found out, for example, that he had attended a paramilitary camp that the group had put on in Georgia with something like close to a dozen other members. And he had also trained some members who were there. Okay. So I know that the RCMP and the Canadian military

are investigating the Patrick Matthews case. Have we gotten any updates from them since we talked last time? The RCMP was really cagey about it. And basically we're sticking to this narrative that he was a missing person and it's a missing persons investigation. We do know that, you know, his house was raided in, I believe, late August.

So you don't raid somebody's house unless you are, in fact, investigating them for something. Now, the Canadian military, we were able to confirm through a source in D&D that the military intelligence wing has an open and active investigation into Matthews and his affiliation with the base. Okay. And so for all we know, Patrick Matthews is still in the United States having crossed the border illegally. Do we know anything about where in the United States he might be? Yeah, we have our sources and methods and we have things we know about the group and we kind of have to keep it at that. And of course, as we talked about last time, this is an organization that has talked a lot about violence. And so, of course, these are very real concerns you have trying to protect

whatever sources that you may or may not have. I mean, I could tell you that I think it's quite clear that the FBI is interested in this group. They recently indicted one of its members or somebody who claimed to be a member last month for using the base to recruit for this sort of national campaign to target Jewish synagogues and to vandalize them that they called Operation Crystal Noct. Okay. What are some of the key questions you're still trying to get answers to? Well, I think for me, we've been reporting on this group now for about a year and it's been in existence

since somewhere around summer 2018. And to me, watching this group evolve to what it said it was going to be to what it is now, originally it was setting out to be this online organization that pooled this vast group of online neo-Nazis into a real militant organization that would, you know, specialize in training with paramilitary tactics. And we'd gotten to the point in our reporting then, we knew that there were members meeting in real life and doing these types of things. They were also exchanging things like terrorist bomb making manuals and gun manuals and, you know, paramilitary information among each other. And then, you know, fast forward to

2019, in summer 2019, we know they're having these camps with various members shooting guns, undertaking different trainings, learn these tactics. And then now we're seeing them actually being able to hide a member who's illegally found himself in the United States. I mean, to me, this sort of represents this continued evolution of this group as a bonafide terror network. And I think with my experiences reporting on Al Qaeda and ISIS, I'm watching this group and I'm thinking to myself, they very much are starting to mimic these types of organizations, except it's happening stateside. And it's not an organization that's tied to any jihadist movement. It's tied to the white nationalist, neo-Nazi militant movement of North America

and Europe. And that's a very, I think it's a very serious thing for law enforcement. To me, it's covering that continued evolution. And that's something that we're monitoring very closely. I'm sure that we will talk to you about it again soon as we go into the new year. Ben McCoo, thank you so much, as always. Thanks so much for having me. to the new year. Ben McCoo, thank you so much, as always. Thanks so much for having me.

So back in June, we put together an episode about the treatment of migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border. This was just a few days after the release of a devastating photograph of the drowned bodies of a father and his young daughter in the Rio Grande River in Texas. It became a stark reminder of the per bodies of a father and his young daughter in the Rio Grande River in Texas. It became a stark reminder of the perils of crossing into the United States. We talked to Bob Moore, who's reported on immigration and the border from El Paso, Texas, for decades.

He described what had been happening to children who arrive at the border without a parent or guardian, and what life was like for them in the facilities they had to stay at while waiting to be placed at a shelter. Bob visited a facility in Clint, 20 miles southeast of El Paso. They get three meals a day, but the meals consist of oatmeal for breakfast, ramen noodles for lunch, and a microwave frozen burrito for dinner. There's no schooling or anything. There's no coloring books for the kids to play with. There's a small exercise area for the

children that also houses seven porta potties and two shower stalls. And it's all rock and concrete. These migrant children, they're classified as unaccompanied alien children. And they're supposed to be transferred to a shelter within 72 hours and later placed with a sponsor. But because of the sheer number of them, between 11,000 and 15,000 over the last year, there'd been a huge backlog in the process. Bob told us that at the time, children ended up staying for months at shelters.

That has grown to 90 days or more. I think it was up to 180 days at one point on average. And basically what the Trump administration did was require the Office of Refugee Resettlement to take any information they got from potential sponsors and hand it over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which then in about 200 cases went out and took into custody and began deportation proceedings against those people who had stepped forward to take in the children. Bob Moore continues to write about the treatment of migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico

border, and he's here with me now. Hi, Bob. Hi, Aitha. Thanks for having me again. Thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. So back in June, you had just recently visited a facility in Clint, Texas, where unaccompanied migrant children were being held. Do you know if the conditions have improved there? It's been a remarkable change in large part because of significant changes in U.S. enforcement efforts. So the facility in Clint, as well as most of the Border Patrol holding facilities all across the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border are essentially empty today. How come? The U.S. essentially outsourced its immigration enforcement to Mexico earlier this year.

President Trump used the threat of tariffs against the Mexican government to force them to take a couple of significant steps. One was to use their new National Guard to try to interdict people as they entered Mexico from Central America. The second part was forcing people who've made asylum claims in the United States to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims make their way through U.S. court systems. So instead of being detained in facilities along the U.S. southern border, you now have tens of thousands of people from Central America who are essentially trapped in northern Mexico border cities.

Do we know what life is like for them in Mexico? They generally live in shelters for the most part, although some are living on the streets. The shelters are very crowded. There are a lot of hygiene concerns. The people who are trapped in Mexico are under constant threat of kidnapping from the Mexican cartels. We had a report from Tijuana, just south of San Diego the other day, that one of the migrants who's been forced to wait there was murdered in what looks like a drug hit a couple weeks ago. So it's fair to say that they've traded, you know, one awful set of conditions for another terrible set of conditions? Yes, and it's important to say that they've traded, you know, one awful set of conditions for another terrible set of conditions? Yes, it's important to remember that northern Mexican cities have been wracked by drug

violence for many, many years. The U.S. government considers some of these cities so dangerous, the U.S. government employees are not allowed to go there, but that same government is sending migrants from Central America to those same cities. Okay. The last time we spoke, we also talked about children being reunited with their families after being separated. Are there any updates on more recent numbers around reunification? Issues become a bit more clarified in some ways, but a bit more mysterious than others. The government has now conceded that it separated far more than the 2,800 or so children that it had acknowledged in 2018. Most of that initial group of 2,800 that have been identified have either been reunited with parents or placed with other

family members in the United States. The situation for these other children is a bit murkier because they weren't tracked as well. They're probably with other family members in the United States. We don't know that for sure. That's an ongoing issue of concern. Okay. Bob Moore, thank you so much for this update and for your work that you've been doing on this very important story. Thank you for your interest. I appreciate it very much. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization.

Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. All right, so our very last update for today. Back in May, we brought you a fantastic story about a feud between two incredibly famous beauty YouTubers. James Charles and Tati Westbrook are known for their makeup reviews and tutorials online, but even more so for their very big personalities. A video of Tati criticizing James for betraying their friendship and abusing his fame garnered more than 45 million views. Fame, power, and a fat bank account will change almost anyone. Oh my god, you tried to trick a straight man into thinking he's gay yet again, and somehow you're the victim. The Washington Post internet culture reporter Abby Ohlheiser explained why this was such a big deal,

and Abby made the case that the future of entertainment is being shaped and changed by what's happening on YouTube and other online platforms. When we first talked about this, Abby said she had a feeling that the fallout from the Tati Westbrook and James Charles feud wasn't quite over. Turns out she was right. Okay, so actually with this story, pretty much everything changed after we spoke. For starters, James Charles released a video

called No More Lies. And now millions and millions of people have weighed in with their opinions and speculations on subjects that they honestly know absolutely nothing about. Which was the top trending video of the year on YouTube. It had 48 million views. And No More Lies was essentially James Charles rebutting a lot of the accusations against him. One of the key things in this video that he addresses was Tachi's accusation that James

Charles was using his fame to coerce straight men into sexual relations with him. He addressed that pretty thoroughly. He provided what he said was evidence that the situation she was talking about weren't quite what they seemed. Everything that happened in the hotel room was 100% consensual, and this is confirmed. I said yes. By the only two parties that were actually there being myself and Sam. And that segment of the video in particular seemed to really resonate with people who were uncomfortable with the accusations against him, who were unsubscribing, and it was incredibly effective. When we spoke, I believe James Charles had lost about 3 million subscribers on YouTube. At this point, he has almost all of them back.

The long-term consequences for him as a business have been pretty much erased. He seems to have regained his status as a major YouTuber. People are collabing with him. He announced recently that he's doing a YouTube original series. Tati has stayed pretty much the same since all of this happened so she saw a huge bump in subscriber numbers when she released her initial video she lost a few hundred thousand after James Charles sort of

he did what's called showing receipts so he showed what he said was evidence to contradict a lot of the claims she made including some of the more serious claims she made and her subscriber count has stayed around 10 million which is what it jumped to at the time. So she hasn't necessarily had a downfall of her own, but she certainly hasn't come out as the sole beneficiary of this entire situation.

And as we reflect on 2019 and the year in news, Abby says this is one story that will really stick with her. It sort of lays bare that YouTube celebdom is about simultaneously giving as much of your personal life as you can as it is giving your professional life and your professional talent and capacity. So this is a personal fight between two people on the internet using their personal text messages, their Instagram stories, all of these things that if you or I were fighting with a friend would be things our friends would be talking about or maybe exchanging or referring to. But when YouTube celebrities and influencers do this, there are businesses and careers at stake. And those businesses have armies of fans that are willing to go to bat for them and defend them extremely passionately on the internet

and try and make the person that they support come out as the winner. passionately on the internet and try and make the person that they support come out as the winner and I think this particular moment of drama involved two creators who were enormously popular and hugely respected among YouTube culture and to see it play out in this way in such a big way I think for me just really demonstrates how much your personal life and your personality becomes the thing that is your business and what happens when kind of there's no daylight between those two things. All right, that is all for today. We have no more feuds to tell you about, at least for today. I'm Jamie Poisson.

Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. A very, very happy New Year's to you all, and talk to you on Thursday.