On Friday, Glenn attended a dinner at The Lambs Club in New York City that was hosted by a friend of his, Tribeca Film Festival co-founder, Craig Hatkoff. Craig brought together a fascinating mix of people from all different industries and backgrounds to prove that common ground can be found. On radio this morning, Glenn talked about the experience and shared the uniting themes that emerged from the evening.
On Friday, I was walking to a dinner that a friend of mine put together. He said, ‘Glenn, you just have to meet some of my friends of mine.’ And I think the invite kind of got out of control because by the time the dinner happened, it had one of the head guys of the Clinton Global Initiative there at the table, which was interesting.
Norma Kamali was there. She’s a very famous fashion designer, and I love this woman. I think she is one of the most fascinating women I have ever met… She’s a wild trendsetter… She is such an out-of-the-box thinker, and I don’t even know where she stands politically. I’m afraid to ask… But I think she’s a libertarian. She sounds like one. I have no idea… But she is fascinating.
The head of the Tribeca Film Festival [Craig Hatkoff] was there. Kathie Lee Gifford was there. The Clinton Global Initiative guy was there. Betsy [Morgan] from TheBlaze was there. It was an amazing dinner. We had this room at a place called The Lambs Club here in New York… And they have these private rooms. And it’s like this old 1930s feel to it. We had a big table in the center and we all sat around. And I had talked to Craig [Hatkoff] who threw this dinner… and I said to him,’I don’t want to sit and talk to the person sitting next to me. I want to hear from everybody. So let’s make sure that we’re all talking to each other and one person has the floor.’
And so he started talking about what was coming and how to solve it. And it was interesting because there were a couple of people from political backgrounds. And I don’t want to speak out of turn or throw anybody under the bus because they were all very, very kind and gracious and everything else. But it was quite obvious Einstein was right – those who helped create the problem will never solve the problem. And we were talking about the most uniting things. And it was interesting because the political world people, I don’t think really grasped this because… well, they started it.
And at one point, Norma Kamali says, ‘It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what are you talking about. It doesn’t matter what are we going to do from here.’ And she gave this eloquent speech on: I am really concerned that people who have a different opinion than yours or mine are going to be shut up… If we don’t start saying that this person who I vehemently disagree with has a right to stand up and say it, we’re all in trouble. And it was fascinating.
I mean, one of the guys who was sitting at the table said, at one point… ‘It’s you religious people and you Christians that have caused all of these problems. Look at the Middle East. Why is the Middle East on fire? Because of religion.’ And so it had this fascinating viewpoint. I just kind of glanced in the corner of my eye to Kathie Lee, and then Kathie Lee took it from there.
It was really interesting to see that the majority of the room understood the peril that we are in. And the majority of the room looked for ways to avoid the peril that we’re in. And none of the answers came from Washington. Every single person… was like: Washington is not going to provide the answer. The United Nations is not going to provide the answer. That doesn’t work. We all know that. Whether you’re left or right now, we all know that doesn’t work. How do we empower the individual? I come to you to report: This is great news. This is great news.
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The more we root ourselves in politics, the more trouble we’re in. One of the guys said, ‘We can’t get anything done in Congress… The President won’t talk to Congress and the Congress won’t talk to the President.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s a good thing.’ ‘Well, how are we going to ever get anything done? We’ve never had this kind of rancor before.’ I said, ‘You know what’s really amazing is how people eventually find themselves coming together. How all of a sudden these things kind of just work themselves out.’ And then I told the story of Charles Sumner, who was beaten within an inch of his life in the well of the Senate… So don’t tell me we haven’t had this kind of rancor before. We’ve had it.
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The question is: This time, do we survive? The other times we have survived because we have had common decency, a common belief in God and good and evil. So we have had that to fall back on. We’ve had self-regulation that came from having a belief in something more than ourselves or more than in the arm of the flesh. And so that’s what we have to strengthen.
I just think that there is something amazing going on… I don’t know exactly what it is yet. But it’s something very, very good… Look, this is a fledgling television network. It took Fox 10 years before they even popped… It took September 11th to put them on the map… So we’re still this fledgling network. Why are the Google guys coming to us? Why are they having this interview with us? I think it’s because they know they can have an intelligent conversation. They can have a different conversation. And they also I think are smart enough to see the writing on the wall – what’s moving forward, what’s happening.
And I think that is part of the good news… You have made such an impact by gathering together and being fans of this show and other shows and other things like this. You’re not dismissed anymore. We used to be a bunch of crazies. We’re not a bunch of crazies. We are a very powerful force and only getting stronger. And the writing is on the wall for these politicians. I don’t think that the Republicans or the Democrats really understand what’s coming. They really don’t have any clue as to who you are and how you feel. They just don’t. And, quite honestly, I like that. I like that.
