Matt Kibbe on Meteors, Millennials and How the Election Is Really Rigged

Staunch libertarian and freedom-lover Matt Kibbe joined The Glenn Beck Program on Friday for a rousing discussion about the 2016 presidential election and the future of American politics. Formerly President of FreedomWorks, Kibbe is currently President and Chief Community Organizer for Free the People, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting libertarian ideals. According to Kibbe, disenchanted young people don't believe in our corrupt political system, so reaching them with a non-political, pop culture-oriented approach is critical. The ultimate goal of Free the People is to permanently shift power away from political insiders and Washington cronies and back to local communities.

RELATED: Death by Meteor Polls High With Millennial Voters

Kibbe, along with Glenn, is also featured in the new documentary Rigged, which takes a deep look into how the political system is intentionally set up to give citizens two false choices.

"The rigging of the system goes to the presidential commission alone, which is touched on in the film. This is a nonprofit controlled by the two-party cartel that shockingly decides that they don't want other parties involved in their debates," Kibbe said.

View the trailer for Rigged below. The full documentary can be seen for free until October 30 at Rigged2016.com or on TheBlaze TV November 2, 5 and 6.

Read below or listen to the full segment for answers to these thought-provoking questions:

• Is Gary Johnson running the campaign Kibbe expected?

• Would Gary have won the millennial vote against a meteor strike?

• Do Hillary's pantsuits come from the Chairman Mao collection?

• What was Kibbe's Donald Trump moment?

• How did we miss the boat in 2016?

• Does Donald Trump own the word "rigged?"

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: Welcome to our dope smoking hippie friend, Matt Kibbe, who is -- who is a Libertarian. And are you working for the campaign?

MATT: I run a Gary Johnson super PAC.

GLENN: Okay.

MATT: So we're not allowed to coordinate. As you know these rules, and it's very complicated.

GLENN: Yeah. I know.

so is he running the campaign you expected him to run?

MATT: Honestly, I didn't have any deeply held expectations about how he'd run a campaign. Libertarians are famously disorganized.

GLENN: That's a problem, when you're trying to win a presidency.

MATT: I think there's something going on there. But I think he's -- I love the fact that I'm supporting Gary Johnson right now because he's a sane alternative. I don't want to actually die by meteor, so I'm going with Gary Johnson's side.

GLENN: Really?

MATT: Yeah, those two choices --

GLENN: Yeah, I guess, I mean, if it was meteor or Gary Johnson, I probably would go for Gary Johnson.

STU: Yeah, to be fair to Gary Johnson, he was not included in that particular poll.

GLENN: Yeah, he wasn't.

STU: It was either just the two main parties and the meteor, which I think we'd all choose meteor.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: If it was those two and just a meteor, and those are your only choices --

GLENN: Well, is the meteor, is it going to drag out? Are we going to know about it? Are we going to see it coming? Are we going to have to panic? And then like, oh, which child do I have to, you know, say goodbye to, because I don't have time to say goodbye to all of them? Or it's a strike and it's over? Because if it's just a strike and it's over, I think I'm for the meteor.

MATT: I think Gary could have beat the meteor.

STU: I think so too.

MATT: This is just another example of media bias. They didn't include Gary against the meteor. The corruption --

(laughter)

GLENN: It actually is. This was for millennials. This was taken for millennials. Why they wouldn't include the Libertarian candidate is --

MATT: And, by the way, the most vicious attacks against Gary are coming from Hillary Clinton apparatchiks because Gary is drawing a significant portion of the millennial vote, and Hillary is just not -- the kids aren't cool with Hillary. They don't like here that much.

GLENN: No! I really liked that pantsuit that she was wearing the other day. That was nice.

STU: Shocking!

PAT: It's from the Chairman Mao collection.

GLENN: It really is.

PAT: It was adorable.

JEFFY: That was the excuse that they used bringing in Al Gore, right? To bring in some of the millennials.

JEFFY: Yeah. Which was like, he's --

GLENN: No, he's -- no, the kids love Al Gore. Kids love him.

JEFFY: Right.

MATT: But like Bernie can't get the kids to switch because he missed the point of his own revolution.

GLENN: Yes.

MATT: It wasn't about Bernie. It was about an authentic system of values outside of the political machine. And I think one of the things that Gary is doing is he's talking to young progressives. And it upsets you guys sometimes with some of his language, but I think --

GLENN: Yeah.

MATT: I think the new liberty coalition is going to be young progressives and young conservatives who don't want to shop in the two-party --

GLENN: So here's the thing -- here's the thing because I think that's great in theory, but a progressive by nature -- like, I have no problem with a liberal.

MATT: Right.

GLENN: I could live next to the grateful dead. I don't care. I don't care. I mean, as long as they're not doing it on the lawn when the kids are out.

MATT: Yeah.

GLENN: But a progressive by nature believes in big government.

MATT: Right.

GLENN: So how does a Libertarian and a progressive get along?

MATT: Well, I think, you look at young Democratic socialists, and they don't -- they don't know what the word "progressive" means the way you and I think about it. It's a very authoritarian philosophy. It's very racist. We know that history, but they think it means progress. And they think socialism means people working together to solve problems.

PAT: Uh-huh.

MATT: And I'm thinking, "That's really what a Libertarian's about. We believe in voluntary cooperation and people coming together to do things that they can't do alone, and we believe in a robust community. We don't want the government involved in that stuff because it really corrupts really important institutions." And so I think -- I think if you get past the labels of progressive, liberal Democrat --

GLENN: Okay. So I'm totally -- Matt, I am totally willing to go down that road. Do you have any research that backs that up?

MATT: Yes.

GLENN: Okay. Good. Don't even have to tell me about it, I'm on board.

(chuckling)

Here's the problem though, with Gary is --

STU: That was a good fact-check there.

GLENN: No. I'm -- meteor. Okay?

STU: Yeah, okay.

MATT: It was my Donald Trump moment. Yes!

GLENN: Right.

STU: Believe me.

GLENN: Believe me.

(laughter)

It's the most beautiful research you've seen.

The problem we have with Gary is not that he's reaching out to people at all, it's the fact that he -- he doesn't seem to have any time to try to reach out to people like us.

PAT: Us. Yeah.

GLENN: And when Weld was in this week, I mean, we all walked away -- now, he said afterward, "That's not what I said." But we all heard him say, "I want to repeal and replace Obamacare and, you know, we're going to -- we're going to make it better." Well, no.

PAT: Yeah, he said -- they wanted to fix it. They wanted to fix Obamacare. His problem wasn't the big government program of Obamacare. His problem was that it's not working the way a big government program should.

Since when is that a Libertarian position? That's what we can't figure out.

GLENN: Now, is this a wink, wink kind of thing, that we're all supposed to know? Because it's not working for the conservative.

MATT: You're not going to make me defend Bill Weld, are you?

GLENN: Okay. Good. I'm in. I'm in again.

(laughter)

MATT: No, I think it's -- I have no idea what he said, and I don't want to defend that. The Libertarian position doesn't think that government-run health care is good for people and that it shouldn't be in the health care business. That's it. That's it.

GLENN: Right. Right.

MATT: Now, I do think that there's always interesting questions about -- and the reason we fought Obamacare so much is that we knew, once it was in place, it would be virtually impossible to dismantle a new entitlement --

GLENN: Look at it now. It's collapsing. They knew it would collapse.

MATT: Yeah.

GLENN: Remember, we said, "This is designed to collapse. It is going to collapse. There's no way this math works for the next ten years."

MATT: Yeah.

GLENN: And now it's collapsing. And everybody's talking about, "Oh, well, but we're going to fix it." Now that they got it in, now they're going to just soup it up.

MATT: Now, all the pollsters tell Republicans that you have to talk about fixing it. You can't talk about repealing it.

So maybe it's just political rhetoric. But I do think it's an interesting question for Libertarians and constitutional conservatives: How do you get out of this horrible entitlement state that is making poor people poorer, that's screwing young people? How do you do that in a way that's politically conceivable?

GLENN: Yes.

MATT: And I think somebody in politics needs to explain how to do that. But it's probably not what you would get from a typical Libertarian at a Libertarian convention, where they say, "If I had a button, I would abolish the entitlement state today." It doesn't mean anything. Right? Yeah.

GLENN: No, it's got to be reverse progressivism. Yeah, it's got to be reverse progressivism. You have to go slowly. Penn and I have talked about this at length. He said, "Glenn, 30 years down the road, when we're in a nursing home, that's when we'll be talking about, you know, the really big stuff that you and I aren't going to agree on."

MATT: Yeah.

GLENN: But it's going to take you 30 years to get there, to slowly reverse this, and to do the common sense -- you know, the things that we agree on. That's the kind of stuff to me that we can make real progress on.

MATT: Yeah. And the answer to all this stuff is more choice, more freedom, particularly for young people. Not -- not creating a new big redesign of health care, but actually giving them the choice as to whether or not they want to be part of that system. And I think you will see new free market solutions that we can't even conceive of emerge in health care and retirement and everything else, if people are just given a choice.

GLENN: Well, I know -- we've been talking this week a lot about millennials. And how that -- that's the hero generation. That's the greatest American generation, the next one. The one to come now.

MATT: Yeah.

GLENN: And it's people our age. I don't even know how old you are. How old are you?

MATT: Fifty-three.

GLENN: Ooh, old man. So it's people our age --

MATT: I just hope I never get as old as you.

GLENN: Fifty-one, buddy.

MATT: I know.

GLENN: Our job is to reach out to the -- the generation that went before us, this -- the older generation, the Trump generation, and say, "Okay. Stop. Stop. That doesn't work, and you need to let it go." And we have to now reach to the young generation and say, "You need to step up, and you need to know what did work, and don't throw the entire system out. Find out what did work, and pick it up and now design and move forward."

We're supposed to -- I think, we're supposed to be the ones -- we're the latchkey generation. We're always the one that didn't -- we were left at home, we were the ones that were forgotten. We were the middle kid. And we'll be the middle kid again. We're just -- the hippies are doing their thing now. And the millennials are coming up. We're the middle kid that is just going, "Can we make -- we got to make peace here. You got to take less up at the top. You got to stop doing all these things."

And the millennials, it's time for you to stand up and be who you are. Be the hero generation that you are.

MATT: Do you remember when George W. Bush was trying to reform Social Security, the Democrats critique -- he had this tiny little retirement account that would give people more choices.

GLENN: Yes.

MATT: I think there were three choices in that system. And the Democrats' response was, "You can't give people that many choices. They can't handle it."

GLENN: Three.

MATT: Three. And a young person --

GLENN: Because I know when it was television, ABC, NBC, CBS, it was too many choices.

MATT: Right. Yeah.

GLENN: It was like, I don't know what to watch. There's too many things to watch on those three networks.

MATT: And as it turns out, they're all the same anyway.

GLENN: Yes, exactly right.

MATT: It didn't matter. But, you know, young people, they carry everything, and they live in this wild Libertarian world where they choose their friends, they choose their music, and they're never overwhelmed by too many choices. They're only turned off when somebody dictates their choices for them. And I think that -- that has to be like the biggest opportunity we've ever had.

GLENN: I have to tell you, Matt, I watched the debate. I don't know if you felt the same way. But I watched the debate the other night, and it -- I was overwhelmed with, "This is the biggest lost opportunity in possibly our nation's history, political speaking, where someone that could actually explain to two boobs on television common sense and constitutional principles and simple economics would have rode into a brand-new dawn of America."

MATT: Yeah. Well, we saw the linked DNC memo where they talked about Pied Piper candidates like Donald Trump, people that would lead the party right over the cliff. And I was reminded -- they listed Rand Paul and Scott Walker and Marco Rubio as candidates that they were scared to death of.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

MATT: Because they knew that those candidates could beat Hillary Clinton. And so, yes, we missed it.

GLENN: I know.

So when we come back, I want to ask you about one missed opportunity that the Libertarians had and just get your thoughts on that. We'll do it here in a second. By the way, Rigged is a new movie about the third party candidate. Rigged2016.com. We're airing it on Wednesday, November 2nd, at 8:00 p.m. Then again, an encore presentation on Saturday and Sunday at 8:00 p.m.

It's Rigged 2016. I'm in it. A lot of other big Libertarians are in it. And it's worth seeing. Behind the scenes on the campaign trail as well. Rigged 2016. You can find out more information at Rigged2016.com.

[break]

GLENN: Matt Kibbe is with us. He runs a super PAC for Gary Johnson. He's also involved with the movie Rigged 2016. You can find that at Rigged2016.com.

Do you think that if Rand Paul would have let go of his Republican suit and said, "I want to run as a Libertarian," do you believe he would have won?

MATT: Yes, I do. And I wish he or someone like Justin Amash --

STU: Yes!

MATT: -- would have taken that leap.

PAT: Yes. Yes.

GLENN: Why didn't, why didn't either one of them?

MATT: I don't know. And as someone who was also involved in a Rand Paul super PAC, I wasn't allowed to encourage him to do that. There was a window there. And I think the potential was huge.

GLENN: Hmm. I think this was biggest missed opportunity.

MATT: Yeah.

GLENN: You look at it and you think, "Nobody -- nobody likes -- I've never seen any election like this in my lifetime."

MATT: Yeah.

PAT: Well, that's for sure. And I know he's your guy, Matt. But he is terrible with conservatives. I mean, absolutely terrible. He's -- he has, it almost feels like contempt for conservatives.

GLENN: Well, for Christians.

When he was on with us -- it was interesting. It was almost as if he had more trust in the government than he did for Christians.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: And it was bizarre. It was really bizarre.

PAT: Well, it was that whole thing, would you make a Nazi cake? And I think his answer was yes, right?

GLENN: Yes. And he said, "You have to do it."

PAT: Yeah. So the government --

GLENN: And Bill Weld came in --

PAT: -- is going to force a private business owner to do something against their faith. How is that Libertarian? I've never understood it. His policy on the border is really difficult to get your head around too. But I know Libertarians are not as border sensitive as --

GLENN: You know what, it's weird because Libertarians are all over the map.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: The point is -- that's what I was saying about the -- but not on the cake thing. And really, the border, as long as -- if he gives it to the states, then it's up to the states. But the Libertarian -- and this is the one thing that I like about it, is that you don't have to be in a cookie-cutter. You don't have to believe same thing as the party does, except on control.

PAT: Yeah.

MATT: Yep. You know, I think the question of the border and explaining a lot of Libertarian things is -- is something that we need to figure out how to do better. And Gary obviously is not the ultimate explainer of things.

PAT: No, he's not.

(laughter)

MATT: On anything.

PAT: Not the ultimate explainer on Aleppo and the Syrian situation either.

GLENN: No, he's had a bad run.

MATT: No. But he has a way of talking about things that sometimes you think you heard the opposite of what he was trying to say.

GLENN: He is the --

(laughter)

PAT: Which is problematic.

GLENN: That's a problem. That's a problem.

We were talking about we think he's one of the most painfully honest guys we've seen in politics, when it comes to critiquing himself.

MATT: Right.

PAT: Almost to a fault.

GLENN: You know, that Aleppo thing -- we were on the air going, "Stop apologizing, man. Stop it. Stop."

MATT: Yeah.

GLENN: He was just so -- look, I should have known it. No, you should have. But, no, no, no. Shh.

MATT: No, he feels that way. And I think one of the most compelling things about him -- I mean, first of all, he is a successful business guy. He's a successful governor from a blue state. That alone makes him really attractive in this cycle to me.

GLENN: Yes.

MATT: But his honesty and his -- he's got this goofy honest persona.

PAT: He does.

MATT: And I don't think this guy would lie to you. And this election again is a really refreshing thing, given the binary choice that we have. If I could go back and re-create it, I would love for Rand Paul or Justin Amash to be up there. But that didn't happen. And they didn't take that leap.

GLENN: So why should somebody who doesn't necessarily think they agree with Gary Johnson but they don't want to vote for the other two, why should they vote for Gary Johnson? Because somebody said -- now, the music is starting, so we're going to have to come back for the answer. But Stu, I think, said yesterday that he wants to send a message to the Libertarians and make sure that they have a space. But I think it was Pat who said, "I don't want to send the message to the Libertarians that that's the kind of guy that we want."

PAT: That we're looking for.

GLENN: So will you answer that when we come back? Rigged2016.com. Movie. You should check it out. It's happening next Wednesday, 8:00 p.m.

[break]

GLENN: We're with Matt Kibbe. And he's with a super PAC that's with Johnson and Weld. Johnson and Weld.

Why should somebody who doesn't agree with Gary Johnson vote for him? Can you make a compelling case for that?

MATT: Yeah, so one of the challenges for the Libertarian Party, any third party, is that all the rules are stacked against -- there are barriers to entry that keep third parties out. If the Libertarian candidate breaks 5 percent in the polls, the Libertarian Party will be on a more equal footing, going into the next presidential cycle. The two-party duopoly keeps changing the rules for ballot access. It's harder to raise money, as an outsider. And it shouldn't be shocking to anybody that the two parties in charge make it impossible for anybody else to get in. But I think the only way to fix where we're at is competition.

GLENN: Yeah, it is.

MATT: Maybe it's the Libertarian Party, but there's so many barriers to entry to a fourth party. And, you know, let's call it the constitutional conservative party. I would rather they were both in there to be honest with you. I want people to see who they really are.

GLENN: Choices, yeah.

STU: Isn't this a -- a good sell for this too is that if you're in a state that's not competitive -- I mean, if you're in New York or you're in Connecticut voting, where the state is going to be a 30, 40-point margin for Hillary Clinton, you can vote for Donald Trump if you want. But, I mean, probably -- because this -- if I understand the rules correctly, it's a popular vote measure.

MATT: Yeah.

STU: So your vote, where you can't possibly win an electoral vote, necessarily, in that state, it goes towards that 5 percent. And that's a nationwide popular vote measure. Correct?

MATT: Yeah, yeah, very much so. But, again, I'm choosing Gary Johnson. I'm just fully in for Gary Johnson based on the other two choices I have, not on choices that I would like to have. And that's really what presidential politics is. You're stuck with these three choices. And Gary is the only person I believe running that actually represents a Constitution, who also happens to be on at 50 state ballots. There may be other candidates that are attractive on issues to you guys, but the reality is, there's only one candidate that's on all the ballots, who is actually polling quite well in some Western states, who actually believes the president is not a king.

And to me, that's pretty compelling.

GLENN: Tell me -- tell me why you made Rigged 2016.

MATT: So I didn't make Rigged 2016.

GLENN: It's part of your --

MATT: I got involved pretty late. And Patrick Byrne from overstock.com actually financed it. And the producer and the director really wanted to tap into that anxiety and frustration that people have with the two-party cartel.

GLENN: You've obviously seen it. You've seen the finished product.

MATT: Yes. Yes.

GLENN: It's really compelling. There's a story of a guy -- they tell many different stories of people that were in the system. They tell a story of a guy -- I don't even know what his job was. But he was -- he was like a campaign manager or something.

MATT: He was a political consultant. Yeah.

GLENN: Political consultant. And he -- a guy came to him and said, "Hey, I want to run for Congress or Senate or something." And he said, "Okay. Well, tell me about your family." And he's like, "I don't have any family." And he's like, "What do you mean? You have to have a family story and everything else." The guy came back to him and put down on the table a bunch of people. And he said, "Okay. Here's my family." And a bunch of pictures and stuff. And he said, "Oh, okay. I thought you said you didn't have any family." Well, these are from friends. Like this grandfather, this is not my grandfather. This is my friend's grandfather. This is my neighbor's, you know, cousin. Right?

MATT: Yeah.

GLENN: It was crazy. And he said, "For some reason, I said, okay. I'll represent you." And he went and represented -- and the guy won. And he said, "I just realized, what am I doing?" And he was just in the system. And he's like, "It's so corrupt, and it's so full of lies." And he said, "His child was born, and that's what changed him. He had his first child, and his child was born. And looked at his child and was like, 'Oh, my gosh, your father is a very bad man, and I'm building really bad stuff in Washington.'" And got out.

I mean, it's -- it's compelling. The movie is really compelling.

STU: Are you concerned that -- my understanding is that Donald Trump owns the word "rigged." So he could sue you at any moment.

MATT: Well, he's corrupted the word "rigged" --

STU: He has.

MATT: Because he's actually a product of the rigged political system and was propped up by the media cartel. But the rigging of the system is far more fundamental than the fact that Donald Trump thinks he's losing at the moment.

The rigging of the system goes to the presidential commission alone, which is touched on in the film. This is a nonprofit controlled by the two-party cartel that shockingly decides that they don't want other parties involved in their debates.

STU: That's a really --

MATT: It's a perfect way to strangle third parties, but it's the clash between people are all these choices and all this power, when it comes to every aspect of their life, except when it comes to politics. And when you get to the political marketplace and particularly presidential, you feel like you're shopping in a mall in Caracas, right? There's nothing there. And that's the clash. It's a class between people that are more free and more educated and more able to decide things for themselves, versus this old backfilled room, two-party cartel that's propped up the most -- the two most unpopular candidates in the history of the universe.

GLENN: What do you think 2020 looks like? Because Hillary Clinton -- another four years of these -- this kind of corruption and lies, the millennials -- you know, that's a 30-year-old today.

MATT: Yeah.

GLENN: So somebody 35 years old going in to vote next time and everybody underneath, they're not buying into this. Another four years of just the death rate of the Baby Boomers --

MATT: Yeah.

GLENN: -- the demographics are shifting. And the Republicans don't have anything. The -- but they're in better shape -- well, they were until Donald Trump. The Democrats, you look at Hillary Clinton, and there's just -- there's no millennial I know that would relate to either one of the parties right now.

So what happens in four years?

MATT: Well, the upside of this train wreck is that it breaks something in a way that you're not going to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. And I think young people are the solution to this. Because they see it for the fraud that it is. The rest of us grew up in this system where we only had two choices. We might not recognize it that way. But that to me is the liberty opportunity. You know, can you find common language? Can you find a candidate that sort of represents those broader values? Someone like a Justin Amash be the entrepreneur and bet everything on that. Maybe there's somebody that we don't yet. But I think it needs to be somebody that can credibly say, "I've run a campaign." Somebody that can credibly say, "I've done something with my life."

And, you know, the problem with some of our young candidates is that they haven't sort of past that qualification threshold yet. And I don't know if that's going to be a Libertarian Party candidate. Is it going to be a fourth candidate? Remember that the Tea Party kept breaking all of the rules, right? There's no way that Mike Lee was going to win. It couldn't happen. And then it did. There's no way that Rand Paul could win. And then it did. And they were using the social media and technology to raise money outside the system to organize outside the system to break the rules of politics. Eventually, a presidential candidate can do that.

GLENN: Yeah.

MATT: And I think we could have done it this time, but it didn't come together. So...

GLENN: Me too. Who do you think wins?

MATT: I mean, I think Hillary is going to win. But I say that with great humility from being wrong so many times in this cycle.

GLENN: Donald Trump, yeah.

MATT: And also understanding that, you know, all of these races that we won for liberty Republicans, the experts told us we couldn't win. And then we did. So something was going on. So I think it's going to be closer than people think. And I think Trump could win. But my bet today is Hillary.

GLENN: What happens to Donald Trump's constituents?

MATT: We should talk to them. Because I think it's a mistake to lump some of the -- I can't stand Donald Trump. I disliked him even before you did, I think.

GLENN: I've not liked him for a long, long time.

(chuckling)

STU: Don't challenge us on this one.

JEFFY: We disliked him first, Matt.

MATT: Oh, yeah.

GLENN: We were mocking him as he came down the escalator. Because we had not liked him for years before that.

MATT: Okay. You might have beat me then. Because I wasn't even paying attention at that point.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

MATT: But I would -- I view Donald Trump supporters the same way that I view Bernie Sanders supporters, and there's a lot of similarities there. There's economic anxiety.

GLENN: Yes.

MATT: There's belief that the system is screwing them. And I agree with them on those things. And I think we need -- I think we need to talk to people --

GLENN: I agree with you. There's maybe 10 percent -- and a lot of them are the -- and probably -- yeah, probably just 10 percent that were there at the beginning. And out of those who were there at the beginning, maybe 10 percent of those were there from the beginning because they were hearing what they perceived to be dog whistles of neo-Nazi kind of scary stuff.

MATT: Yeah.

GLENN: You know what I mean? But that's 10 percent that have that authoritarian lean. I saw a poll of Donald Trump supporters. 48 percent, it said, believed that Putin is a friend of the United States. Does that number surprise you?

MATT: No. No. And there was a new poll by the Heritage Foundation, saying that -- that showed that a lot of young people didn't know who Mao Zedong was.

GLENN: Yeah. They thought Bush killed more people than Mao.

MATT: So I think people don't know a lot of history, and they don't spend a lot of time focusing on politics. And I wouldn't call that ignorance. I would call that normal life where your families and your jobs matter more than -- like, do you even know who Putin is?

GLENN: Yeah.

MATT: And I suspect that most Americans, until Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton started talking about him, didn't even know who he was.

GLENN: Well, I always thought war was just God's way of teaching us geography.

MATT: Right.

GLENN: Who knew where Vietnam was until we went to Vietnam? Who knew where Iraq really was until we invaded Iraq?

PAT: Grenada. Come on. We thought it was a car from Ford.

GLENN: That's right. Exactly.

MATT: And if we had a more humble Libertarian foreign policy, we wouldn't need to know where Aleppo is.

STU: That's a great answer.

GLENN: Very good. How can people get involved with you? Do you have anything to push or not?

MATT: My new organization is Free the People. And I want to talk to young people. And I'm trying to get out of politics and into popular culture. Check out freethepeople.org. And check out some of the videos we're doing on socialism. We're trying to --

GLENN: Your series on socialism is fantastic. It really is.

MATT: And it does well. Like the heavy stuff, the stuff that is really asking people to get into history and philosophy and economics.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

MATT: It does better than the click-bait of the day stuff.

GLENN: People are -- I think people are hungry. We saw it when we were at Fox. We see it now. When you have something to teach that they don't know, they're hungry for it. They really are. People treat people like morons. There are morons, Jeffy. But, you know, not everybody is a moron.

STU: Jeffy.

GLENN: And, by the way, you can check out Rigged 2016. Go to Rigged2016.com. You can watch the film there. All you have to do is just -- you know, just sign in. Or you can watch it on TheBlaze, Wednesday, November 2nd, at 8:00 p.m. Saturday the 5th, and Sunday the 6th at 8:00 p.m. only on TheBlaze TV.

Matt, thank you so much.

MATT: Good to be here.

GLENN: Good to see you.

Featured Image: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton shakes hands with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as Moderator Lester Holt looks on during the Presidential Debate at Hofstra University on September 26, 2016 in Hempstead, New York. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

EXPOSED: Why Eisenhower warned us about endless wars

PAUL J. RICHARDS / Staff | Getty Images

Donald Trump emphasizes peace through strength, reminding the world that the United States is willing to fight to win. That’s beyond ‘defense.’

President Donald Trump made headlines this week by signaling a rebrand of the Defense Department — restoring its original name, the Department of War.

At first, I was skeptical. “Defense” suggests restraint, a principle I consider vital to U.S. foreign policy. “War” suggests aggression. But for the first 158 years of the republic, that was the honest name: the Department of War.

A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

The founders never intended a permanent standing army. When conflict came — the Revolution, the War of 1812, the trenches of France, the beaches of Normandy — the nation called men to arms, fought, and then sent them home. Each campaign was temporary, targeted, and necessary.

From ‘war’ to ‘military-industrial complex’

Everything changed in 1947. President Harry Truman — facing the new reality of nuclear weapons, global tension, and two world wars within 20 years — established a full-time military and rebranded the Department of War as the Department of Defense. Americans resisted; we had never wanted a permanent army. But Truman convinced the country it was necessary.

Was the name change an early form of political correctness? A way to soften America’s image as a global aggressor? Or was it simply practical? Regardless, the move created a permanent, professional military. But it also set the stage for something Truman’s successor, President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, famously warned about: the military-industrial complex.

Ike, the five-star general who commanded Allied forces in World War II and stormed Normandy, delivered a harrowing warning during his farewell address: The military-industrial complex would grow powerful. Left unchecked, it could influence policy and push the nation toward unnecessary wars.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Department of Defense, with its full-time and permanent army, began spending like there was no tomorrow. Weapons were developed, deployed, and sometimes used simply to justify their existence.

Peace through strength

When Donald Trump said this week, “I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too,” some people freaked out. They called him a warmonger. He isn’t. Trump is channeling a principle older than him: peace through strength. Ronald Reagan preached it; Trump is taking it a step further.

Just this week, Trump also suggested limiting nuclear missiles — hardly the considerations of a warmonger — echoing Reagan, who wanted to remove missiles from silos while keeping them deployable on planes.

The seemingly contradictory move of Trump calling for a Department of War sends a clear message: He wants Americans to recognize that our military exists not just for defense, but to project power when necessary.

Trump has pointed to something critically important: The best way to prevent war is to have a leader who knows exactly who he is and what he will do. Trump signals strength, deterrence, and resolve. You want to negotiate? Great. You don’t? Then we’ll finish the fight decisively.

That’s why the world listens to us. That’s why nations come to the table — not because Trump is reckless, but because he means what he says and says what he means. Peace under weakness invites aggression. Peace under strength commands respect.

Trump is the most anti-war president we’ve had since Jimmy Carter. But unlike Carter, Trump isn’t weak. Carter’s indecision emboldened enemies and made the world less safe. Trump’s strength makes the country stronger. He believes in peace as much as any president. But he knows peace requires readiness for war.

Names matter

When we think of “defense,” we imagine cybersecurity, spy programs, and missile shields. But when we think of “war,” we recall its harsh reality: death, destruction, and national survival. Trump is reminding us what the Department of Defense is really for: war. Not nation-building, not diplomacy disguised as military action, not endless training missions. War — full stop.

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

Names matter. Words matter. They shape identity and character. A Department of Defense implies passivity, a posture of reaction. A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

So yes, I’ve changed my mind. I’m for the rebranding to the Department of War. It shows strength to the world. It reminds Americans, internally and externally, of the reality we face. The Department of Defense can no longer be a euphemism. Our military exists for war — not without deterrence, but not without strength either. And we need to stop deluding ourselves.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Censorship, spying, lies—The Deep State’s web finally unmasked

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

From surveillance abuse to censorship, the deep state used state power and private institutions to suppress dissent and influence two US elections.

The term “deep state” has long been dismissed as the province of cranks and conspiracists. But the recent declassification of two critical documents — the Durham annex, released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and a report publicized by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — has rendered further denial untenable.

These documents lay bare the structure and function of a bureaucratic, semi-autonomous network of agencies, contractors, nonprofits, and media entities that together constitute a parallel government operating alongside — and at times in opposition to — the duly elected one.

The ‘deep state’ is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment.

The disclosures do not merely recount past abuses; they offer a schematic of how modern influence operations are conceived, coordinated, and deployed across domestic and international domains.

What they reveal is not a rogue element operating in secret, but a systematized apparatus capable of shaping elections, suppressing dissent, and laundering narratives through a transnational network of intelligence, academia, media, and philanthropic institutions.

Narrative engineering from the top

According to Gabbard’s report, a pivotal moment occurred on December 9, 2016, when the Obama White House convened its national security leadership in the Situation Room. Attendees included CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Secretary of State John Kerry, and others.

During this meeting, the consensus view up to that point — that Russia had not manipulated the election outcome — was subordinated to new instructions.

The record states plainly: The intelligence community was directed to prepare an assessment “per the President’s request” that would frame Russia as the aggressor and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump as its preferred candidate. Notably absent was any claim that new intelligence had emerged. The motivation was political, not evidentiary.

This maneuver became the foundation for the now-discredited 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference. From that point on, U.S. intelligence agencies became not neutral evaluators of fact but active participants in constructing a public narrative designed to delegitimize the incoming administration.

Institutional and media coordination

The ODNI report and the Durham annex jointly describe a feedback loop in which intelligence is laundered through think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, then cited by media outlets as “independent verification.” At the center of this loop are agencies like the CIA, FBI, and ODNI; law firms such as Perkins Coie; and NGOs such as the Open Society Foundations.

According to the Durham annex, think tanks including the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for a New American Security were allegedly informed of Clinton’s 2016 plan to link Trump to Russia. These institutions, operating under the veneer of academic independence, helped diffuse the narrative into public discourse.

Media coordination was not incidental. On the very day of the aforementioned White House meeting, the Washington Post published a front-page article headlined “Obama Orders Review of Russian Hacking During Presidential Campaign” — a story that mirrored the internal shift in official narrative. The article marked the beginning of a coordinated media campaign that would amplify the Trump-Russia collusion narrative throughout the transition period.

Surveillance and suppression

Surveillance, once limited to foreign intelligence operations, was turned inward through the abuse of FISA warrants. The Steele dossier — funded by the Clinton campaign via Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS — served as the basis for wiretaps on Trump affiliates, despite being unverified and partially discredited. The FBI even altered emails to facilitate the warrants.

ROBYN BECK / Contributor | Getty Images

This capacity for internal subversion reappeared in 2020, when 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter labeling the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation.” According to polling, 79% of Americans believed truthful coverage of the laptop could have altered the election. The suppression of that story — now confirmed as authentic — was election interference, pure and simple.

A machine, not a ‘conspiracy theory’

The deep state is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment and strategic goals.

Each node — law firms, think tanks, newsrooms, federal agencies — operates with plausible deniability. But taken together, they form a matrix of influence capable of undermining electoral legitimacy and redirecting national policy without democratic input.

The ODNI report and the Durham annex mark the first crack in the firewall shielding this machine. They expose more than a political scandal buried in the past. They lay bare a living system of elite coordination — one that demands exposure, confrontation, and ultimately dismantling.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump's proposal explained: Ukraine's path to peace without NATO expansion

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Contributor | Getty Images

Strategic compromise, not absolute victory, often ensures lasting stability.

When has any country been asked to give up land it won in a war? Even if a nation is at fault, the punishment must be measured.

After World War I, Germany, the main aggressor, faced harsh penalties under the Treaty of Versailles. Germans resented the restrictions, and that resentment fueled the rise of Adolf Hitler, ultimately leading to World War II. History teaches that justice for transgressions must avoid creating conditions for future conflict.

Ukraine and Russia must choose to either continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

Russia and Ukraine now stand at a similar crossroads. They can cling to disputed land and prolong a devastating war, or they can make concessions that might secure a lasting peace. The stakes could not be higher: Tens of thousands die each month, and the choice between endless bloodshed and negotiated stability hinges on each side’s willingness to yield.

History offers a guide. In 1967, Israel faced annihilation. Surrounded by hostile armies, the nation fought back and seized large swaths of territory from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Yet Israel did not seek an empire. It held only the buffer zones needed for survival and returned most of the land. Security and peace, not conquest, drove its decisions.

Peace requires concessions

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says both Russia and Ukraine will need to “get something” from a peace deal. He’s right. Israel proved that survival outweighs pride. By giving up land in exchange for recognition and an end to hostilities, it stopped the cycle of war. Egypt and Israel have not fought in more than 50 years.

Russia and Ukraine now press opposing security demands. Moscow wants a buffer to block NATO. Kyiv, scarred by invasion, seeks NATO membership — a pledge that any attack would trigger collective defense by the United States and Europe.

President Donald Trump and his allies have floated a middle path: an Article 5-style guarantee without full NATO membership. Article 5, the core of NATO’s charter, declares that an attack on one is an attack on all. For Ukraine, such a pledge would act as a powerful deterrent. For Russia, it might be more palatable than NATO expansion to its border

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

Peace requires concessions. The human cost is staggering: U.S. estimates indicate 20,000 Russian soldiers died in a single month — nearly half the total U.S. casualties in Vietnam — and the toll on Ukrainians is also severe. To stop this bloodshed, both sides need to recognize reality on the ground, make difficult choices, and anchor negotiations in security and peace rather than pride.

Peace or bloodshed?

Both Russia and Ukraine claim deep historical grievances. Ukraine arguably has a stronger claim of injustice. But the question is not whose parchment is older or whose deed is more valid. The question is whether either side is willing to trade some land for the lives of thousands of innocent people. True security, not historical vindication, must guide the path forward.

History shows that punitive measures or rigid insistence on territorial claims can perpetuate cycles of war. Germany’s punishment after World War I contributed directly to World War II. By contrast, Israel’s willingness to cede land for security and recognition created enduring peace. Ukraine and Russia now face the same choice: Continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The loneliness epidemic: Are machines replacing human connection?

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Seniors, children, and the isolated increasingly rely on machines for conversation, risking real relationships and the emotional depth that only humans provide.

Jill Smola is 75 years old. She’s a retiree from Orlando, Florida, and she spent her life caring for the elderly. She played games, assembled puzzles, and offered company to those who otherwise would have sat alone.

Now, she sits alone herself. Her husband has died. She has a lung condition. She can’t drive. She can’t leave her home. Weeks can pass without human interaction.

Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

But CBS News reports that she has a new companion. And she likes this companion more than her own daughter.

The companion? Artificial intelligence.

She spends five hours a day talking to her AI friend. They play games, do trivia, and just talk. She says she even prefers it to real people.

My first thought was simple: Stop this. We are losing our humanity.

But as I sat with the story, I realized something uncomfortable. Maybe we’ve already lost some of our humanity — not to AI, but to ourselves.

Outsourcing presence

How often do we know the right thing to do yet fail to act? We know we should visit the lonely. We know we should sit with someone in pain. We know what Jesus would do: Notice the forgotten, touch the untouchable, offer time and attention without outsourcing compassion.

Yet how often do we just … talk about it? On the radio, online, in lectures, in posts. We pontificate, and then we retreat.

I asked myself: What am I actually doing to close the distance between knowing and doing?

Human connection is messy. It’s inconvenient. It takes patience, humility, and endurance. AI doesn’t challenge you. It doesn’t interrupt your day. It doesn’t ask anything of you. Real people do. Real people make us confront our pride, our discomfort, our loneliness.

We’ve built an economy of convenience. We can have groceries delivered, movies streamed, answers instantly. But friendships — real relationships — are slow, inefficient, unpredictable. They happen in the blank spaces of life that we’ve been trained to ignore.

And now we’re replacing that inefficiency with machines.

AI provides comfort without challenge. It eliminates the risk of real intimacy. It’s an elegant coping mechanism for loneliness, but a poor substitute for life. If we’re not careful, the lonely won’t just be alone — they’ll be alone with an anesthetic, a shadow that never asks for anything, never interrupts, never makes them grow.

Reclaiming our humanity

We need to reclaim our humanity. Presence matters. Not theory. Not outrage. Action.

It starts small. Pull up a chair for someone who eats alone. Call a neighbor you haven’t spoken to in months. Visit a nursing home once a month — then once a week. Ask their names, hear their stories. Teach your children how to be present, to sit with someone in grief, without rushing to fix it.

Turn phones off at dinner. Make Sunday afternoons human time. Listen. Ask questions. Don’t post about it afterward. Make the act itself sacred.

Humility is central. We prefer machines because we can control them. Real people are inconvenient. They interrupt our narratives. They demand patience, forgiveness, and endurance. They make us confront ourselves.

A friend will challenge your self-image. A chatbot won’t.

Our homes are quieter. Our streets are emptier. Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

Before we worry about how AI will reshape humanity, we must first practice humanity. It can start with 15 minutes a day of undivided attention, presence, and listening.

Change usually comes when pain finally wins. Let’s not wait for that. Let’s start now. Because real connection restores faster than any machine ever will.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.