BUCK: Freedom convoys up in Canada making a lot of ground, taking more and more people along as it goes. You got big rigs. Pretty incredible footage of this. Big rigs, looks like hundreds of them, perhaps even more, and it’s amazing to see people standing up against what is really, in many ways, a more extreme approach even in Canada than you have here in the U.S.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — who, as you know, is a man firmly of the left — has just recently announced that he has tested positive for covid. Reports are that he is still testing negative for testosterone, but he is up there in Canada. He is kind of the prototypical. He is the ultimate man of the left in so many ways, and he’s saying it’s a fringe minority. Well, you’re also seeing, Clay, some reporting meant to immediately undermine this.

I read some of the BBC coverage and the CBC coverage — these British and Canadian broadcasting companies that are state-sponsored — who are saying, “Okay. So far, the Canadian truckers,” and so everyone understands, they’re protesting initially the cross-border mandate for vaccination. But they’re also now protesting mandates for vaccines nationwide, and they’re driving to Ottawa. They’ve been entirely peaceful. They have not caused any problem.

They’re already, Clay, starting to say, though, “Oh, it could be members of the right! They’re chattering online!” They immediately undermine what has been an entirely peaceful, pro-freedom movement of truckers — and we love our truckers. As Clay and I talk about, if you do radio, truckers are like your wingmen and wingwomen. They’re with you all the time, man.

They listen for hours at a time, and this been the case for me for decades, same with Clay. But, Clay, can I just play for you…? This is the Canadian Broadcasting Company, all right, the CBC — which I believe gets state funds kind of like our own PBS — and they actually are willing to say that the Freedom Convoy, maybe the Russians are behind this one, Clay. Play clip 3.

NIL KOKSAL: Given Canada’s support of Ukraine in this current crisis with Russia, I don’t know if it’s farfetched to ask, but — but there is concern that Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things as this protest grows, but perhaps even instigating it from the outset?

BUCK: This is the ultimate smear. Isn’t it amazing? Anything you don’t like — Canada, U.S. — if you’re a leftist, say, “It’s Russia!”

CLAY: What about the omnipresent belief in a Russian superiority that they could make this happen? They made the election of 2016 happen by spending a hundred thousand dollars or whatever the heck it was on Facebook, and now they have got tens of thousands of Canadian truckers to decide that they want to protest vaccine requirements. Why would Russia even benefit from this?

Why would Russia be focused on what Canadian vaccine mandates are or are not? Look, it’s crazy, Buck. I just found this out. We were talking about this off air. We’ve got an advertiser down in Colombia (not a drug dealer, an advertiser) and I was gonna go down there and visit with them, and I can’t get into Colombia because I’m unvaccinated, and I was looking the other day, because my wife lives in Michigan, and in the summer the hope is you can get on a boat.

Her dad literally lives across the river from Canada. You can stand on his dock and look across the river at Canada. It used to be common that you could get on a boat, you could go over to Canada, and you could call in, touch base. You can’t do that now! For two years, you haven’t been able to cross the river into Canada because of covid — and I’m unvaccinated. I’m not even able to go to Canada!

It used to be you’d be out for a night in Detroit, you might decide, “Hey, you know what? I’d like to go gamble. I’d like to stay up a little bit later before they had all the casinos in Detroit.” You’d drive across the Ambassador Bridge, all you could be was your driver’s license; you were good to go, could be a fun night out. The drinking age I think is 19 in Canada, if I’m not mistaken.

There’s lots of people in Michigan and along the border in New York that have made those trips over. You can’t even get across the border now, Buck. Did you see what happened with the soccer match? One of our players — who has got one vaccine shot and then got covid and is eligible to play in France — was not able to cross the border to go play in the U.S. and Canada World Cup-qualifying match. I didn’t even know what the rules were in Canada ’til I saw that.

BUCK: One of the reasons that the trucker convoy is getting so much support across not just Canada but here in the U.S., too, is because people realize that these mandates — particularly the cross-border mandate with the U.S. and Canada — is hurting us economically. It’s hurting people. Not the Zoom-from-home class, you know, ordering food with Uber and Netflix and everything else.

CLAY: Oh, of course.

BUCK: The people who can’t just sit there on the couch and Zoom in, people who have to keep the economy going literally moving in the case of the truckers. It’s hurting them, it’s hurting the price of goods and services, it’s hurting supply chain issues. And for what? For what? At what stage are they finally going to stop these completely unnecessary, self-inflicted economic wounds and it’s just fascinating. Justin Trudeau moved to a secure location, I think, now they’re saying because of quarantine. But, you know, whatever, right? I mean, I think he’s trying to avoid the reality of this political movement on his doorstep.