Will Cain, S.E. Cupp talk brokered convention and the GOP race

March 14, 2012

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What would a brokered convention look like? And why does it favor Santorum and even Gingrich, but not Mitt Romney? Will Cain and S.E. Cupp joined Glenn on radio today to discuss the increasingly likely outcome to the GOP nomination race.

Full Transcript of the interview is below:

GLENN: You know, let me bring on Will and S. E. I mean, you see the people that have our point of view over at CNN. They are all dead inside, aren't they?

CAIN: No comment.

GLENN: Well, S. E. ‑‑

CAIN: At the promised land this morning.

GLENN: You were at the promised land this morning?

CAIN: No, you're in the promised land ‑‑

GLENN: Oh, we are.

CAIN: This morning. You're down there in God's country every day. I'm still up here.

GLENN: I'm telling you, come on down here. We have studios here. Just a lot more people that make sense down here. Is S. E. On the phone?

CUPP: I'm here, boss.

GLENN: Hi, how are you doing, S. E.?

CUPP: I'm great. How are you?

GLENN: Good. Now everybody at MSNBC, there's not even a ‑‑ there's not even a moderate conservative over there, is there?

CUPP: I mean, it's not an easy ‑‑ it's not an easy gig.

GLENN: Yeah.

CUPP: But someone has to do it, right?

GLENN: I know. I know.

CUPP: I feel like a brave soldier going in there every day.

GLENN: I want to talk to both of you about what happened last night. First, Will, what is ‑‑ what are the ramifications of a brokered convention and do you think this is what we're headed towards?

CAIN: I think it's a possibility. The ramifications of a brokered convention, though, I don't think really turn out that differently than the kind of course we're seeing paved here for this election which is I think the most likely outcome of a brokered convention is, also, that Mitt Romney becomes the Republican nominee for president.

GLENN: Why?

CAIN: Well, let me ‑‑ look, let's do this, Glenn, and I hope I'm not, you know, speaking to something that everybody already knows here but what is a brokered convention and how does it, how does it work? You know, as we have all these primary elections in these states, we see the popular vote come out and, for example, last night, you know, Rick Santorum wins the vote in Mississippi and Alabama but that translates into delegates that each of these states send to the convention and raise their hands and vote for one of these guys according to how the vote in their state and their district went. And most of these guys are bound for at least one vote at that convention to vote in reflection of how their state voted. But in succession of votes, should no one have the majority of the delegates at which the number is 1,144, these delegates become progressively unbound and then they can be persuaded, they can be horse‑traded, they can be arm‑bent to switching their votes to other guys. But if we go to a brokered convention and Mitt Romney has let's say 1,000 or 900 or 1100 and Rick Santorum has, I don't know, five or 600, I don't see the scenario where you can talk 500 or 600 delegates into switching to Rick Santorum. It's possible, it's just improbable.

PAT: But there's no path really here. Do you see any path, Will, for Newt Gingrich to win this thing because he seems to be counting on a brokered convention.

CAIN: He's 100% counting on it. I was on with one of his surrogates this morning, and he admits it, this is what we're doing. Our sole strategy left is to deny Mitt Romney his path to nomination. By the way, Santorum camp is being candid now. They realize they have a very probable path to getting 1,144 delegates. They have to have something like 70% of delegates from hereon out.

PAT: Santorum does? That's almost impossible.

CAIN: Deny Romney getting the 1,144 and push this thing to a convention and see what happens on the floor.

PAT: So you're saying that's pretty much everybody's goal?

GLENN: So then wait. So why would you ‑‑

CAIN: Except for Romney.

GLENN: Except for Romney? Well, you got that one.

PAT: Who's your guy, right? You're a Romney guy?

CAIN: Me?

PAT: Yeah.

CAIN: I'm ‑‑ I don't know. I don't have guys. I don't do this guys thing. What I do is I look at each one of these guys and say ‑‑

GLENN: Oh, stop it, stop it. Stop it.

CAIN: I'm a conservative ‑‑

GLENN: Tell me who you'd vote for ‑‑ don't. Don't. I have the power to terminate you right now. Don't. Don't do it. Just tell me who you're voting for if you have a gun to your head and you had to vote today.

CAIN: Romney.

GLENN: Romney is your guy? Okay, good.

STU: Don't you love how we get treated here? Will's trying to answer this question honestly.

GLENN: We all are like that. Look, I don't think anybody ‑‑ I don't know anybody.

GLENN: Who's for Romney that's really, it was like, "Oh, my gosh, Romney's my guy." I get it. I get it.

STU: Romney mania hasn't taken over you're saying.

GLENN: It hasn't. It hasn't. So I get it. But, you know, you think ‑‑ and I've watched you enough. You think that he's the best guy for the economy, et cetera, et cetera.

CAIN: Exactly.

GLENN: S. E., let me go to you for a second. Is Santorum your guy?

CUPP: Yeah, if I had to vote today, I would vote for Santorum.

GLENN: Thank you for answering that question.

STU: (Laughing.)

GLENN: Okay.

STU: Wow.

GLENN: Now let me ‑‑ now let me ask you this. I think ‑‑

CUPP: My only goal, boss, my only goal at this job is to make you like me more than you like Will Cain.

GLENN: Oh, that's done.

CAIN: You got that covered, S.E.

GLENN: That was done before we hired Will. That was done before we hired Will. But I want you to know I could turn on you like that and be on Will's side at any moment.

CUPP: Don't worry. I am on my toes. I am on my toes.

GLENN: So the ‑‑ the Santorum strategy, I mean, he said yesterday ‑‑ and he really talked me right back into the ‑‑ onto the bandwagon and that is every time we've gone with a mushy moderate, we lose. Bob Dole ‑‑

CUPP: John McCain.

PAT: John McCain.

GLENN: Gerald Ford. We lose. You need somebody who is really standing up. So what is his strategy if ‑‑ the way Will explained the, you know, the convention, he's not going to be able to pull that off.

CUPP: Well, like Will said, it's improbable but not impossible. And I think, I think you're right that every year we buy into a largely media‑driven narrative that, you know, the far right is dead, social issues don't matter, we're all going to come to the center and we need moderates. It's just not the way we vote. We don't vote ‑‑ we don't elect moderates in this party. We want someone who is a visceral. We want someone who when we leave the voting booth we feel good about ourselves. We feel like we stood up for something, you know, bigger than a guy, stood up for a cause, and Mitt Romney's problem right now is that he has yet to define for us what that cause it. Santorum's cause is clear. He is a social conservative, he is a staunch social conservative, he is a Christian and so we get his message. And he is hoping certainly that that message over the next, you know, few months before the convention really resonates with the rest of the country.

GLENN: So ‑‑

CUPP: And this idea of inevitability and moderation sort of falls by the wayside.

GLENN: So Will, what is it that the pound of flesh that they are expecting to get from Romney, tell me what you think Gingrich and Santorum, if they don't think that they can win it, what is it that they would be trying to trade Romney for?

CAIN: That's a great question. I think for Gingrich, answering on his behalf, I don't think there's any answer beyond he has a personal animus to Mitt Romney at this point. For Santorum I think he does, I think he ‑‑

GLENN: So wait. Wait, wait. So couldn't Santorum, if that really is his motivation, couldn't Gingrich say I'm giving all my delegates to Santorum and close that gap for Santorum?

CAIN: You can't give your delegates. What he could do is he could drop out of the race.

STU: Yeah, yeah.

CAIN: Thus unbinding his delegates and then persuade them to go Santorum's way, which I'm not convinced, you know, he would be, he would be sending 100% of his delegates over to Santorum. But there is just no logical outcome for Newt Gingrich.

GLENN: Well, you're just saying that because you're in the bag for Newt Gingrich.

CAIN: Exactly. Exactly. I'm almost like a paid speaker for him at this point, all right? No, for Santorum, though, I think he thinks he can win.

GLENN: I think he does, too.

CAIN: I think he still, however improbable the chance is, a possibility he comes out of that convention with the win. What does he hope to get out of it? You know, I don't know. Does he think there's a vice presidential ticket there for him? I think that's doubtful. You know, I don't know what he sees in it. I think he thinks he can win.

GLENN: Okay. One last question, S. E. or Will, whoever knows this. Have you heard the tale now that Romney is looking at, you know, his people are looking at a possible vice presidential running mate of the governor of Puerto Rico.

CUPP: You know, I did hear that. We actually did deep stakes last night on the Real News and, you know, Governor Fortuno I've met a bunch of times, he's a fantastic guy, by the way, he did endorse Romney. And I have heard that that is a consideration but I've heard, you know, six months ago, boss, you and I shared an elevator and we talked about how Rubio was locked up and then three months ago Chris Christie was locked up. I mean, these kinds of rumors trickle out and ‑‑

GLENN: But I will tell you this, I will tell you this: The governor of Puerto Rico, does anybody even know if that's constitutional, but the governor of Puerto Rico would be a game‑changer. I think.

CUPP: Absolutely. Absolutely. He's smart, he is Republican, he's young, he's revitalized that territory in many ways. I mean, if you want to talk about how great Puerto Rico is, bring in Governor Pataki. He's got a house there and loves it, loves it there. He will tell you all about the things that Governor Fortuno has done.

GLENN: Yeah. The unfortunate part of that is you have to talk to governor Pataki.

STU: Do you want ‑‑ no one ever is going to like you. You realize that?

GLENN: I realize that. They don't already. Especially Will. Yes, Will.

CAIN: Yeah, I'd give you this one historical parallel of the game‑changing ability of your VP pick. I know nothing but the governor of Puerto Rico. S.E. knows about him. That's good somebody does here. But I will say this, in '76 the last time there was talk of a brokered convention when Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan approached the convention with neither having the number of delegates needed to win the nomination, Ford had a slight lead in both, Reagan picked the senator from Pennsylvania, I think his name was Schweiker or something who was seen as a moderate or liberal. He did that to balance out his ticket because he was seen as a staunch conservative, and it made some of his supporters defect from him, thus giving the nomination to Ford. So last time we had one of these, you know, these airtight conventions, possibly brokered, the VP pick carried a lot of weight.

GLENN: Okay.

STU: Yeah, Gingrich is apparently tossing around the idea of Rick Perry as a VP, just trying to get that out there so hopefully he can lock up that ‑‑

GLENN: Not going to happen. It's just not going to happen.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: Okay. Thanks, guys, appreciate it.

CUPP: Thanks.

CAIN: Thank you.

GLENN: Tonight Real News on GBTV.com.

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Could China OWN our National Parks?

Jonathan Newton / Contributor | Getty Images

The left’s idea of stewardship involves bulldozing bison and barring access. Lee’s vision puts conservation back in the hands of the people.

The media wants you to believe that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is trying to bulldoze Yellowstone and turn national parks into strip malls — that he’s calling for a reckless fire sale of America’s natural beauty to line developers’ pockets. That narrative is dishonest. It’s fearmongering, and, by the way, it’s wrong.

Here’s what’s really happening.

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized.

The federal government currently owns 640 million acres of land — nearly 28% of all land in the United States. To put that into perspective, that’s more territory than France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined.

Most of this land is west of the Mississippi River. That’s not a coincidence. In the American West, federal ownership isn’t just a bureaucratic technicality — it’s a stranglehold. States are suffocated. Locals are treated as tenants. Opportunities are choked off.

Meanwhile, people living east of the Mississippi — in places like Kentucky, Georgia, or Pennsylvania — might not even realize how little land their own states truly control. But the same policies that are plaguing the West could come for them next.

Lee isn’t proposing to auction off Yellowstone or pave over Yosemite. He’s talking about 3 million acres — that’s less than half of 1% of the federal estate. And this land isn’t your family’s favorite hiking trail. It’s remote, hard to access, and often mismanaged.

Failed management

Why was it mismanaged in the first place? Because the federal government is a terrible landlord.

Consider Yellowstone again. It’s home to the last remaining herd of genetically pure American bison — animals that haven’t been crossbred with cattle. Ranchers, myself included, would love the chance to help restore these majestic creatures on private land. But the federal government won’t allow it.

So what do they do when the herd gets too big?

They kill them. Bulldoze them into mass graves. That’s not conservation. That’s bureaucratic malpractice.

And don’t even get me started on bald eagles — majestic symbols of American freedom and a federally protected endangered species, now regularly slaughtered by wind turbines. I have pictures of piles of dead bald eagles. Where’s the outrage?

Biden’s federal land-grab

Some argue that states can’t afford to manage this land themselves. But if the states can’t afford it, how can Washington? We’re $35 trillion in debt. Entitlements are strained, infrastructure is crumbling, and the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service are billions of dollars behind in basic maintenance. Roads, firebreaks, and trails are falling apart.

The Biden administration quietly embraced something called the “30 by 30” initiative, a plan to lock up 30% of all U.S. land and water under federal “conservation” by 2030. The real goal is 50% by 2050.

That entails half of the country being taken away from you, controlled not by the people who live there but by technocrats in D.C.

You think that won’t affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze cattle, or cut timber? Think again. It won’t be conservatives who stop you from building a cabin, raising cattle, or teaching your grandkids how to shoot a rifle. It’ll be the same radical environmentalists who treat land as sacred — unless it’s your truck, your deer stand, or your back yard.

Land as collateral

Moreover, the U.S. Treasury is considering putting federally owned land on the national balance sheet, listing your parks, forests, and hunting grounds as collateral.

What happens if America defaults on its debt?

David McNew / Stringer | Getty Images

Do you think our creditors won’t come calling? Imagine explaining to your kids that the lake you used to fish in is now under foreign ownership, that the forest you hunted in belongs to China.

This is not hypothetical. This is the logical conclusion of treating land like a piggy bank.

The American way

There’s a better way — and it’s the American way.

Let the people who live near the land steward it. Let ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and local conservationists do what they’ve done for generations.

Did you know that 75% of America’s wetlands are on private land? Or that the most successful wildlife recoveries — whitetail deer, ducks, wild turkeys — didn’t come from Washington but from partnerships between private landowners and groups like Ducks Unlimited?

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized. When you break it, you fix it. When you profit from the land, you protect it.

This is not about selling out. It’s about buying in — to freedom, to responsibility, to the principle of constitutional self-governance.

So when you hear the pundits cry foul over 3 million acres of federal land, remember: We don’t need Washington to protect our land. We need Washington to get out of the way.

Because this isn’t just about land. It’s about liberty. And once liberty is lost, it doesn’t come back easily.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

EXPOSED: Why the left’s trans agenda just CRASHED at SCOTUS

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

You never know what you’re going to get with the U.S. Supreme Court these days.

For all of the Left’s insane panic over having six supposedly conservative justices on the court, the decisions have been much more of a mixed bag. But thank God – sincerely – there was a seismic win for common sense at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. It’s a win for American children, parents, and for truth itself.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s state ban on irreversible transgender procedures for minors.

The mostly conservative justices stood tall in this case, while Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson predictably dissented. This isn’t just Tennessee’s victory – 20 other red states that have similar bans can now breathe easier, knowing they can protect vulnerable children from these sick, experimental, life-altering procedures.

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, saying Tennessee’s law does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. It’s rooted in a very simple truth that common sense Americans get: kids cannot consent to permanent damage. The science backs this up – Norway, Finland, and the UK have all sounded alarms about the lack of evidence for so-called “gender-affirming care.” The Trump administration’s recent HHS report shredded the activist claims that these treatments help kids’ mental health. Nothing about this is “healthcare.” It is absolute harm.

The Left, the ACLU, and the Biden DOJ screamed “discrimination” and tried to twist the Constitution to force this radical ideology on our kids.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court saw through it this time. In her concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett nailed it: gender identity is not some fixed, immutable trait like race or sex. Detransitioners are speaking out, regretting the surgeries and hormones they were rushed into as teens. WPATH – the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the supposed experts on this, knew that kids cannot fully grasp this decision, and their own leaked documents prove that they knew it. But they pushed operations and treatments on kids anyway.

This decision is about protecting the innocent from a dangerous ideology that denies biology and reality. Tennessee’s Attorney General calls this a “landmark victory in defense of America’s children.” He’s right. This time at least, the Supreme Court refused to let judicial activism steal our kids’ futures. Now every state needs to follow Tennessee’s lead on this, and maybe the tide will continue to turn.

Insider alert: Glenn’s audience EXPOSES the riots’ dark truth

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Glenn asked for YOUR take on the Los Angeles anti-ICE riots, and YOU responded with a thunderous verdict. Your answers to our recent Glennbeck.com poll cut through the establishment’s haze, revealing a profound skepticism of their narrative.

The results are undeniable: 98% of you believe taxpayer-funded NGOs are bankrolling these riots, a bold rejection of the claim that these are grassroots protests. Meanwhile, 99% dismiss the mainstream media’s coverage as woefully inadequate—can the official story survive such resounding doubt? And 99% of you view the involvement of socialist and Islamist groups as a growing threat to national security, signaling alarm at what Glenn calls a coordinated “Color Revolution” lurking beneath the surface.

You also stand firmly with decisive action: 99% support President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to quell the chaos. These numbers defy the elite’s tired excuses and reflect a demand for truth and accountability. Are your tax dollars being weaponized to destabilize America? You’ve answered with conviction.

Your voice sends a powerful message to those who dismiss the unrest as mere “protests.” You spoke, and Glenn listened. Keep shaping the conversation at Glennbeck.com.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.

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