Bill White

Great conversation with longtime friend of the show that is now U.S.

Ambassador to Belgium, Bill White.

who joined us live on The Marc Aram Show.

Really good origin story, too, if you're listening to the podcast on how he secured that ambassadorship.

Starred the show to English Nick for help facilitating that interview.

I don't know if it's the first sitting ambassador.

No, but Bill White, ambassador to Belgium.

Hell yeah.

The issue is nobody wants to express that publicly for fear of attracting Donald Trump's wrath.

And of course, when this was reported, uh, what happened? The, uh, US ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, uh, went to basically tell off the, um, Belgian foreign minister, saying it was, it was outrageous that he would say such things and, uh, you know, basically kind of trying to intimidate him into stopping this type of talk.

Um, and that's why people don't want to say it publicly, because our European leaders are still terrified of Trump.

Now, I do think that the Greenland threats, you know, which was let's, let's call a spade a spade.

We've seen some very positive statements, for example, from European leaders.

Uh, you've been speaking to people.

I remember a conversation just very recently with speaking to an ambassador from an EU country who I would have expected to be much more negative towards the idea of Britain rejoining, who was actually very positive about the idea.

Um, are you finding that that debate has changed?

In France, Charles Kushner, who's, of course, Trump's son-in-law's father, has been summoned twice, as they call it, over perceived interference in French affairs and was temporarily barred from talking to government ministers.

In Belgium, the ambassador, Bill White, has been summoned a number of times over accusing Belgian officials of anti-Semitism and mocking a minister with an AI-generated image.

Poland, the ambassador, Tom Rose, announced he was cutting off contact with the Speaker of the Polish Parliament because the Speaker said Trump didn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

Chile, Canada, I could go on.

So, there was a lot of hate directed at me, and in res- response to that, Ghent University, which had, had always had it out for me for months, suspended me.

And, uh, then after mediation by the US Ambassador, Bill White, the suspension was lifted, but then they banned me from campus and from teaching for 90 days.

And in the whole confusion, uh, the, uh, Belgian go- an, a government-funded anti-racist organization in Belgium has filed a criminal complaint against me for racism.

So now they're trying to put me in jail.

You're not gonna do this to our American citizen." Have you heard? Is there any update on that front?

Um, you know, the, I, I just, uh, I got in trouble.

Their, the university was persecuting me for my free speech, which is obviously, uh, against American values, and, uh, Ambassador Bill White comes in like a superhero and set things straight.

But, you know, I, I can't rely on the, the idea that, uh, somebody's gonna come rescue me.