The Ben Mulroney Show - Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump battle over California Riots

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump battle over California Riots -Ryerson's toppled statue should be restored at Queen's Park with Guest: Patrice Dutil, author of the book, Sir John A. Macdonald and The Apocalyptic Year 1885 If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and thank you so much for spending a little bit of your Tuesday with us. I want to turn our attention to South of the Border. You'll remember a few months ago we witnessed in horror as certain parts of Los Angeles were on fire. And now the city is on fire for completely different reasons. There was, you know, Donald Trump is has proceeded with his mass deportations. They've been going through the city of Los Angeles, rounding up illegal immigrants. For what I understand, most of them have violent criminal records. But that is not stopping people from protesting

actually, let me rephrase and let's back up. If you know me, you know I am no fan of the protests that have taken over this city. I want them to stop. I want the police to crack down. I think their time had the sun has set on the time of those protests. But those are protests. They are protests. And I know they are protests because by and large, even though they are shouting vile things, they don't get violent. They don't get violent. They don't, they don't, they don't loot. They don't set things on fire.

They are protests. So I know that what I'm witnessing south of the border are riots. They may have started with protest in mind. They have now morphed into full on riots and looting and anarchy. And anybody who calls them something else has an agenda. Like I can see with my eyes and I can hear with my ears. I know what's going on because I can compare it to what's actually happening in a city I live in protest. that's anarchy. And now the looters have taken over, they've now extended far beyond where any Mexican immigrants live, they've gone into the jewelry district because why not, that's where the money is. It's not where the protest is, it's where the money is.

Anyway, Donald Trump has now sent in a federal, he's federalized the National Guard, which has set him on a collision course with the governor. If you know anything about American law, only the governor is supposed to ask for, ask the federal government to bring in the National Guard. Donald Trump has federalized the National Guard, essentially taking that power away from Gavin Newsom.

And here's Donald Trump asking about this collision course he's on with Governor Gavin Newsom. I think his primary crime is running for governor because he's done such a bad job. What he's done to that state is like what Biden did to this country. And he's done to that state is like what Biden did to this country. And that's pretty bad. Let's just continue with this press conference that he gave because Peter Doocy of Fox News asked Donald Trump if he thought that this oppositional

fight that's going on between the governor and the president could help Gavin Newsom's political career. They're talking about him getting arrested could be helpful to his political prospects because a lot of people think he wants to be sitting right where you are. Well in my case it was a witch hunt and everybody knew it and I was able to explain that during the process otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here right now. And it was a total witch hunt. It's proven to be a witch hunt, and you see what's happened. In his case, it really is very obvious. You look at what's happened between the fires, between it.

I could name 10 things right now. We talk about the trains. We talk about all of the costs in California. You talk about all of the people that are flowing and destroying life for everyone else. So no, I don't think it's going to help him. I think it's I think it's actually very bad for him. Look, say say what you will about Donald Trump. And there's a lot of bad stuff we can say. The guy's not running for anything anymore. Like he's he's a lame duck president. He got elected on certain policy promises.

One of them was to secure the border. We were told for years by the Democrats, there's no crisis at the southern border. Anybody who says otherwise is a racist. Turns out crisis at the southern border. And he got elected on a promise of finding all the people who are not supposed to be in the states and getting rid of them and bringing taking them out. And just for context, by the way, the deporter in chief, the most deportations that ever occurred by a president were by Barack Obama.

But this is a bridge too far going and finding people with rape and murder and drugs and car theft and carjacking and home invasions on their jacket and finding them and sending them back to the countries that they came from. Apparently that is a bridge too far. But he got elected on this. He had a mandate to do this. So when I see a guy like Governor Gavin Newsom talking tough against Donald Trump and calling these

riots, which I think I've just made a pretty good case for that they are acts. They are pure riots at this point, calling them protests. Who's playing politics? Who's playing politics? Here's Governor Newsom talking tough. The fear, the horror, the hell is this guy? Come after me, arrest me, let's just get it over with. Tough guy.

You know, I don't give a damn. But I care about my community, I care about this community. The hell are they doing? These guys need to grow up, they need to stop, and we need to push back. And I'm sorry to be so clear. But that kind of bloviating is exhausting. So Tom, arrest me. Let's go. I mean, that's projection. He's Donald Trump isn't running for anything. Donald Trump has nobody he's got it. He's got to.

He's got to prove himself to there's nobody he's got to charm his way into the voter box with, the voter booth rather. And this is, this is, I think this is peacocking by the governor. While Los Angeles burns, he's taking issue with Donald Trump. And like I said, lot of reasons to take issue with Donald Trump. I don't see how he caused this. I don't see how he caused this. He's going after the people that he got elected to go after and he's sending them back to where they came from, right?

You either have laws or you don't. You either have borders or you don't. The country either begins in one place or it doesn't. And he is, he convinced enough people that this is what he was gonna do. And this is one of those, what they call 80-20 debates, where the Republicans almost inevitably find themselves on the side of 80% of the population of America.

And the Democrats invariably pick the 20 side. This is one of those 80-20 debates. And nevermind the sort of the numbers, John Fetterman, Democratic Senator John Fetterman says, it's nothing about the numbers, it's about moral high ground. And he said, I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and

immigration. But this is not that. This is anarchy and true chaos. My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement. Here's, here's Jesse Waters from Fox News, who's normally the guy who wants to say that inflammatory thing that would make you want to punch him punch you in the face. But this is a scenario and a situation that doesn't require inflammation.

If you are waving a flag of your country and you are burning the flag of the country you've come into, you're not an immigrant. You're an invader. And in a way, I'm glad this is happening. I'm glad the whole country gets to see this. This is mass migration laid bare. I'm glad we're seeing them throw rocks at cops. Not that they're doing it. I'm glad the country knows this is not a nuanced position. There's no middle ground here. You either have a law, either have a border or you have a country and that's it. Now you cannot have immigration without assimilation.

Does this look like a melting pot to you? It doesn't look like a melting pot to me. It reminds me of the broken consensus on immigration in this country. It is forced people who used to say wonderful glowing things about our immigration system to turn their backs on it and say you guys have created such a mess that you're forcing me into a position that I never thought I'd be in a position to say we have too many people here we have to we have to stop I could I cannot believe that that so many of us who were generous of spirit saying Canada needs as many immigrants as possible.

Not anymore. Shut the borders and let's solve things. It reminds me of that. And so look, we're going to see how this plays out. But it ain't over by a long shot in Los Angeles. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and you know my opinion over the toppling of statues and the canceling of our history and the misrepresentation of our history and how certain people took advantage of a very seminal moment in history to to take society down a path of cultural insanity if you will with the sacking of statues and the desecration of our history

and this unwillingness to recognize that cultural mores of today were not the cultural mores of 200 years ago. And holding somebody to a standard that they did not live by, that no one lived by, is insanity. And yet we lived through that for years with the desecration and the toppling of a statue

of Edgerton Ryerson and the renaming of that university to something meaningless. Here to talk about this and more is a great guest, been on our show before, Patrice Dutille. He's the author of the book, Sir John A. MacDonald and the Apocalyptic Year 1885. Welcome Patrice, thank you so much for being here. Thank you very much for having me then.

Okay, so you wrote in the National Post that Ryerson's toppled statue should be restored at Queens Park. I mean, we're barely at the point where Sir John A's statue has been unboxed and you wanna add fuel to the fire by bringing Edgerton Ryerson back into the mix. Edgerton Ryerson, whose reputation was besmirched

despite evidence that he is worthy of praise. Well, exactly. Maybe I sinned here here and try to be opportunistic. We had some pretty good news coming out of Queen's Park over the last few weeks. Number one, yes, taking John

A. MacDonald out of his box. That's a great initiative. But more importantly for me, number two, the decision of the Minister of Education to deny the Toronto District School Board the right to rename schools, schools that were thinking of changing schools, and that's what the uh... minister of education denied uh... the charlister school board

uh... the right to rename schools not school that they were thinking of changing mcdonald reyerson and done that talk i thought the timing was right at the fourth anniversary of the top wing of the rarson statue and really you know the uh... rarson was a provincial figure he was he was not a toronto figure only

yet that i'd influence with even national i think he deserves his place at queens park where he can be of course under police protection yeah and uh... i think we also need to recognize the importance of this man and what he stood for you know if there's not a lot of accident that a monument was erected in his honor a few years after his death, but paid for by individual contributors. This was not tax dollars. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and this was a really important work of art. People forget the work of

Hamilton McCarthy. This was a great sculpture in his day. And he did many of our monuments. Yeah. There's all sorts of things. Yeah, you point out that it was four years ago. It was pulled down from its position at Queens Park. Its head was hacked off, thrown into Lake Ontario. It had later showed up on a pike in the community of six nations of the Grand River near Caledonia.

And look, to give people context, because you put it in there, this was in context of the emotional flare up under the sort of the belief that there was a mass grave of young children that had been murdered or died under the care of the government in Kamloops, BC at a residential school. And thus far since that day, no bodies have been found there.

But there was definitely an emotional flare up. And so as a society, we sort of put our hands up and sort of let people get it out of their system. But now that we are in a more, I think, more rational place, there will still be those who think they can get their way by screaming and that the volume of their of their screams uh is supposed to let us know that they're right but that but we don't live in that time

anymore and so i i agree with you maybe it's time to bring edgerton ryerson back well i know the timing is right queen's park has been under go massive renovations uh it's an opportunity to think about the monuments. You know, there's been a demand for monuments. People want to be remembered. They want to be recognized. Various segments of society, women, workers, the various immigrants, the various waves of immigrants that contributed to building this country, they all need to be recognized. Of course, the Indigenous people need to be recognized. You know, why not make Queen's

Park an even better version of itself by erecting more monuments? I'm all in favor of that. You know, I stopped for monuments, I went for monuments, I like monuments. I think they are an important part of our culture. We in Canada just don't know our history and maybe we do need some reminders now and then of some of the people who've made this country great. And I say it's also nice to see some art. I don't know about your thoughts on it. Well, no, no, listen, they are, they are. Public art, public art, public art in the city is, leaves a lot to be desired.

I completely agree. I think, but look, you know, they're unveiling Sir John A. I think they've taken him out of the box. He's gonna be under police protection. And you know, like some, I don't understand this knee jerk emotional visceral reaction to wanting, to not wanting to come into contact with anything that we might disagree with or that might anger us. And look, I think I'm willing to accept the fact that Sir John A was a flawed man and

did not have a perfect record and did some things that by today's standards he should be judged harshly for. Why can't that be on the plaque at the foot of the statue? Why is that not enough for some people? I don't know. I think that we could do a lot with plaque. This is 2025, we have websites, we have cue codes, we have all sorts of things that can illuminate people

on the history, the complex history of leaders who took on big challenges in their day. But Edgerton-Ryerson has to be remembered, not just for, you know, being a superintendent of education, but, you know, for arguing in favor of radical, radical policies, like making sure that, that every kid went to school, making school mandatory of creating, of creating the schools, of creating pub, of creating school boards, of creating, of creating the public library system, of creating the first teachers college in Ontario,

of creating one of the first universities, Victoria University, Victoria College. And I've got to tell you, Patrice, to me, that is the great irony, that this man who was a luminary and a leader in education that allowed the masses of Ontario to gain a foothold in education that allowed that allowed the masses of Ontario to to gain a foothold in education which then launched us into modernity was was canceled by the boat is canceled by school boards and freaking universities. It's unbelievable. He also let me finish. I mean,

he also he also created the foundations for the Royal Ontario Museum, for the Ontario Institute for Studies and Education, OISE, and for OCAD University, the Ontario College of Barton Design. That's all him. He's the one who threw down those foundations. I mean, we owe Eggerton Ryerson's memory, some do. And, you know, we had a wonderful statue, a wonderful monument. It's going to cost a little, you know, we had a wonderful statue, a wonderful monument. It's going to cost a little, you know, it's going to cost a bucks to repair the damage. That was perpetrated by the 20 odd people who brought chains and a

backhoe to destroy the man, the, the, the statue, but it's worth it. The man in his day stood for the best. He had the best values. He had the greatest ambition for our problems. And we need to remember people who had great ambition. Too often. People in our leadership, we don't have a lot of ambition. And it wasn't just ambition. I mean, it was ambition realized in a lot of ways. You know, it wasn't it wasn't these weren't

just plans. These were foundational ideas and concepts that took hold that gave root like yes, yes, he had the, he had the, he helped with the foundation of OCAD, but OCAD happened, the ROM happened. Yeah, exactly. Right? He had the courage to act. Yeah, and I, I'm so glad that you wrote this.

It's been four years since I think some bad actors took advantage of an emotional time to perpetrate whatever, whatever. I don't know what their end game was by tearing down these statues. Didn't make anybody's life better. Didn't improve the life on First Nations reserves or for First Nations living in the city of Toronto.

None of that happened. And it collectively made us all lesser because it put forth a lie about, and a misrepresentation about who Edgerton Ryerson was and for that we are all dumber and we are all lesser and I thank you for sort of writing the ship in your own way and for coming on the show to talk about it. My pleasure, thank you so much. Get back here! This is for your own good! Breaking Morty, new season, Sundays on Adult Swim. Stream on StackTV.

Get your mouth rounded.