GLENN

Glenn Talks With Megan Phelps-Roper, Former Westboro Baptist Church Member

Megan Phelps-Roper joined Glenn on radio this week for an enlightening discussion about her conversion from Westboro Baptist Church member to someone focused on understanding and inclusion. Like Glenn, Phelps-Roper is a hopeful advocate for bringing people together through honest, civil conversations --- and she's laid out a four-step plan to do just that.

RELATED: 4 Steps to Break Down Walls From a Former Westboro Baptist Church Member

Enjoy the complimentary clip or read the transcript for details.

Welcome to the program, Megan, how are you?

 

MEGAN: I'm wonderful. How are you?

 

GLENN: I'm good. It's really an honor to talk to you. We're big fans of what you said in your TED talk, especially from where you started, you know, in a church that is more than a little tough.

 

MEGAN: Yes. Absolutely.

 

I grew up at the Westboro Baptist Church. And my family -- the church is almost entirely my family. So around 80 percent -- there's only 80 or so people in the church. And about 80 percent are people -- my grandfather is the one who founded the church. And my mother was the de facto spokesperson for a long time. So, yeah, I grew up on the picket line.

 

PAT: Yeah, you actually held those hate-filled signs at funerals and other places, right?

 

GLENN: When you were a kid.

 

MEGAN: Yes. Absolutely.

 

PAT: Yeah.

 

MEGAN: It started out as a protest at a local park, and it sort of really expanded from there. As soon as, you know -- my grandfather was very aggressive, kind of hostile personality. So when people started to come out to counterprotest, everybody who was against us became a target. And eventually -- what started out as it being a protest against gay people, became, you know, we were protesting against other Christians and Jews. It expanded rapidly, until literally everyone outside of our church became a target. And so it was basically a -- you know, I was marinating in this idealogy of everybody is against us. We are against everybody because they're all against the Scriptures. You know, memorizing chapter and verse why they're wrong and why they're headed for hell. And it's our duty to go out and warn them.

 

STU: I'm fascinated, Megan, because I think to my childhood, and I remember fun picnics and fun trips to amusement parks and things like that. Do you have those types of memories, or is it just -- is there a competition between that and you carrying some awful sign around during a protest?

 

MEGAN: No. I absolutely have those memories. My -- a lot of people have a hard time understanding that they -- other than these protests and that worldview, they're -- we were a very normal -- obviously there's a lot of kids in our family. There's 11 kids in my family. And -- but we played video games and read books. And we went to public school. And, yeah, we went to amusement parks. We did all of those things, but we also -- that was all sort of organized around this nationwide picketing campaign.

 

So I have -- I absolutely have both, but that -- that loving family -- the nature of that is part of what makes it so, so, so hard to leave or to even consider leaving. The idea of giving it all up.

 

GLENN: So I just had a guy in who we're going to interview on a program that I'm working on. He was a member of the Hitler Youth. Now, he's in his 80s now. But he came of age in the Hitler Youth, until I think World War II ended, when he was 20. And he still had -- he sees the world very differently. He thinks that Churchill is a war -- should be held for war crimes. A war criminal.

 

STU: Hmm.

 

GLENN: And he doesn't agree with Hitler. But he said, I never saw -- we never saw any of that. At least he said, I didn't. I was in the front row of the 36 Olympics. You know, I -- I saw all the good stuff. And the bad stuff that was thrown up, you just dismissed it because you thought it was somebody that was trying to tear us down. Is that kind of the way your childhood was in a way?

 

MEGAN: Well, I mean, I know -- I knew at the time -- so, for instance, the funeral picketing, I knew at the time that it was hurtful. But the way that it was framed in our church was, you know, these people don't understand that they're headed for hell, for eternal destruction. And it's a loving thing to go and warn them.

 

And so I saw it as a necessary evil, like we had to go do this because this was the truth and the only thing that mattered, more than anything else was the truth. And it didn't matter how we said it, where we said, or in what context, it was always a good thing. And -- and it was a point of pride for us not to consider people's feelings.

 

GLENN: And the people -- and the people that were coming against you, because they were screaming back in your face, it only reinforced that these are bad people.

 

MEGAN: Absolutely. Especially because -- I mean, there's all these passages. So, for instance, Jesus talks about blessed are ye when men shall hate you and revile you and persecute you, for my name sake. So for us, like we wanted that. It was -- we expected it. It was confirmation that we were doing the Lord's work.

 

STU: Wow.

 

GLENN: Now, take us to how someone finally broke through.

 

MEGAN: So Twitter -- Twitter was -- and I didn't realize it at first. I didn't realize that it was happening exactly. But Twitter was an empathy machine for me.

 

I really hate how it's gotten such a bad rap because that platform has done more to teach me good communication and how to engage with people than almost anything else in my life.

 

So on Twitter, people would -- would come at me with the same kind of, you know, hateful rhetoric and loud, you know, accusations and just very bitter. And, again, I expected it.

 

And I would respond, you know, in kind. And -- but then some people -- and I don't know exactly why or what motivated them. I think they -- they saw -- they say that they saw something in me that maybe I would listen or something. But in any case, they stopped yelling and stopped, you know, insulting me and started to ask questions. And they were like -- they seemed like they were actually listening to me.

 

GLENN: They were honest questions. They were honest questions.

 

PAT: Yes.

 

GLENN: They weren't questions of setup.

 

MEGAN: Right. Exactly.

 

And it made me feel -- and because, again, I thought I was doing a good thing. I thought that those words that we were preaching, I thought that was the absolute, unquestionable truth. So I wanted to share it with them. That's why I was on social media.

 

And so I would, you know, answer their questions and sort of -- we had these back-and-forths. But then because of Twitter, I'm also seeing the photos they post of their children and their friends. And it just became this -- this way for me to see people as human beings. And it was because of the way -- because of the fact that they stopped -- the way they engaged me.

 

STU: That's incredible, that that came from Twitter too. Someone tweeted the other day, Instagram, my life is a party. Snapchat, my life is a quirky TV show. Facebook, my life turned out great. Twitter, we're all going to die. When I go on Twitter, man, I just get so depressed. But it's amazing you were able to take that out of this.

 

MEGAN: Yeah. I know. But there's a couple of things about Twitter that were really helpful to me. So like, for instance, the character limit, it first made me give up insults. Because at Westboro, we would include these elaborate insults when we responded to questions that people sent us by email. But on Twitter, there just wasn't space for it.

 

And also, Twitter was just this immediate feedback loop. If I did insult somebody, I could watch the conversation just derail in realtime. I could see that I wasn't getting my point across because I was too busy indulging that vengeful little voice in my head that wanted to call people names. I mean, we all have this feedback loop.

 

GLENN: Megan, I will tell you, I've been doing these kinds of experiments myself over the last couple of years, where I've gotten in -- because I just stopped engaging for a while. About years ago, I decided, you know what, I'm just going to answer everybody and assume the best. And just answer the -- the worst with something kind and try to be humble and kind and nice to everybody. Really hard to do.

 

And it's amazing the results. It's truly remarkable. It doesn't cure everybody by any stretch. But it's remarkable.

 

And I've talked about it on the air. And so many people say, it's not going to make a difference. You can't engage with them. They're all crazy. They're all whatever. What would you say to that?

 

MEGAN: Man, I just disagree so -- so much with the idea of hopelessness when it comes to talking to people.

 

I had -- I had grown up, you know, being -- basically cultivating this mindset of us versus them, being wary -- like specifically being wary of people's kindness. And even though I consciously was aware and trying not to be persuaded by kindness, it was still a powerful thing.

 

It's really interesting because over the past few years, I've been thinking about this a lot obviously. Because it's only been four years since I left. So it's kind of been just this huge -- you know, huge event in my life. And what you're describing there, about, you know, assuming the best and, you know, changing the way you respond. So if somebody comes at you angry and you respond in kindness and angry, that's called like, non-complimentary behavior. And we as human beings are wired to respond in kind.

 

But like you said, it's incredibly difficult to do. But we can cultivate a more useful mindset. Like one thing you said -- well, my mom used to tell me, to make sure my behavior was appropriate, I should add the word "judge" on to the end of my sentence, as in, "Here's why I did it, Judge." And I still use that trick, except now I add the word "friend." If someone attacks me and I start to get riled up, I try to pause for a beat and add friend, as if I'm disagreeing with someone I love. And I don't do it to be a goody two-shoes. I do it because it works. It's just so much more effective than anger or insults or hostility.

 

GLENN: All right. I want to get to -- you say there are four steps. And I want to get to those here in a second. Let me just ask you one more question, and then I have to take a quick break.

 

Do you -- are you well aware of how appropriately timed your discovery and your story is for the rest of the world?

 

MEGAN: I -- I just -- I hope that -- I hope that I can be a voice or that the story can be something that will help other people see the value in engaging. Because honestly, my experience has -- has given me so much hope. I never thought I would leave. And at first, when I first left, I thought that my family, there was no hope for most of my family. I don't believe that anymore. And I'm still reaching out to them. I'm still trying to convince them to see things other ways. And if there's hope for me, if I changed, I think that there's a lot of hope.

 

You know, I know that the political climate is so polarized right now, but I can't help but feel so hopeful.

 

GLENN: Megan Phelps-Roper. She'll continue with us here in just a second. You need to hear what her solution is. It's really a four-step process. And it's really pretty easy. Left the Westboro Baptist Church because of kindness. You want to hear her whole story. Watch the TED video because it's quite amazing.

[break]

Megan Phelps-Roper is a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church, where people were kind to her and started to talk to her. And she says, this really works. And, you know, you could be in the cult of a political part. And I think this works. I think we need this across all lines in the world right now.

Megan, you did a TED talk. You said there are four tips on how to talk to people who you disagree with.

MEGAN: Yes. Exactly.

You want me to tell them to you?

GLENN: Yeah. Sure.

MEGAN: So the first one is -- I think it's really important -- don't assume bad intent. It's so easy to look at -- I mean, Westboro is such an easy example. They've got these neon signs. It was so clearly obvious to everyone that we were hateful and evil and awful people.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

MEGAN: But underneath it was well-intentioned people trying to do what they believed was right. So it's really easy to look at the surface and assume the worst of people, assume you understand where they're coming from. But that almost immediately cuts you off from really understanding what they're about.

GLENN: It's one of the reasons why -- I've tried to cut the word evil out of my lexicon because we use that to -- too often. And we use it about people. And I really think most people have great intent. You know, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, you can disagree with either one of them, but neither one of them think they're doing evil. They think they're doing the right thing. You just don't see it that way.

MEGAN: Exactly. I think very few -- maybe sociopaths or psychopaths. And even then --

GLENN: Right.

MEGAN: People who are deliberately doing wrong, I think they're very, very, very few and far between.

GLENN: Yes. Right. And that doesn't mean you have to go along with it, but if you say to them or their followers, you know, your guy is evil, they stop listening to you.

MEGAN: Right. Exactly. And you stop asking questions to get to the bottom of it, which is the second point. Asking questions helps you bridge the gap between your point of view and theirs. It helps you understand where they're coming from actually. And it also signals to the people that you're talking to, that you're actually listening to them.

And that is a huge benefit to the dialogue because they -- they no longer -- they don't want to yell at you. They see that you want to understand. So they're much more willing to engage. So the second point is ask questions.

GLENN: And it matters that they're honest questions, not setup questions. Not a question where I know you're going to say one thing so I can give you the Scripture quote or whatever to beat you.

MEGAN: Exactly.

GLENN: It has to be a question that's not designed for me to win. We're going to take a quick break. Come back with the last two with Megan Phelps-Roper, when we come back.

(OUT AT 10:32AM)

GLENN: Megan Phelps-Roper, somebody that we saw on TED talk, giving a great TED talk on how to bring people together. She was in the -- she's a Phelps. So she's part of the founding family of the Westboro Baptist Church. And she got online and started making friends with people who were friendly to her, not just yelling at her all the time. And she said there are four things that if you really want to change people's minds, four ways of engaging people so that real conversations can take place. The first one is don't assume bad intent. Instead, assume good or neutral intent. The second, ask questions, as opposed to accusing. Ask honest questions. It will help people let them know they've been heard. And quite often, this is all that people want.

The third is stay calm. Welcome back to the program, Megan. Explain stay calm.

MEGAN: So this one is really difficult because the natural inclination is always to respond the way that somebody is -- is speaking to you. So when somebody comes at you with hostility, the instinct is to be defensive and to respond with hostility. But that just brings the conversation to an end quickly. But if you can learn to step back, calm down and -- and try to diffuse the anger -- and you can do it in a few ways.

So, for instance, I actually ended up marrying -- my husband was one of these Twitter friends who started out as this angry, sort of insulting --

GLENN: Wow.

MEGAN: We just got married seven months ago.

GLENN: Congratulations.

MEGAN: Thank you. So what he would do, for instance, he would tell a joke or recommend a book or start talking about music. He would sort of turn away from the hostility for a minute and then come back to it -- come back to it later.

You don't necessarily -- I mean, that's -- that can be a last resort. A lot of times just staying calm and speaking as if you were addressing a friend and not somebody that you hate and that you despise that you can't -- you can't stand to hear their words. It helps so much to keep the conversation going.

GLENN: Step four.

MEGAN: Step four is make the argument.

And this one -- this one seems obvious. But there's this argument that seems to have taken hold on both the left and the right. And I think it stems from the hopelessness you mentioned earlier. Oh, they're just too far gone. They can't be reasoned with. But where does that lead us?

It leaves us at loggerheads. Deadlocked. And no one wants to be there. So you make the argument because they don't understand -- your opponent doesn't necessarily understand your thinking and the way that you're approaching the problem. And by making the argument -- if you fail to do that, you're definitely not going to change someone's mind. You actually have to articulate the reasoning and the thought process behind your position.

And there's actually a fifth point that I would have included if I had enough time -- should I tell you now?

GLENN: Yeah, go ahead.

STU: We're breaking news here. The fifth point in Megan Phelps' TED talk.

GLENN: Go ahead.

(chuckling)

MEGAN: It's take heart. Changing hearts and minds is incremental work, and it takes patience and persistence. And you're not going to see results necessarily immediately, not right away, but we can't give up. You know, and you might not be the person to persuade somebody else to turn away from a bad position, but every interaction is an opportunity to help turn the tide. So stay the course, trust the process, and take heart.

GLENN: How many people -- how many people were like this to you?

MEGAN: Well, the ones who had the biggest impact -- I mean, a handful who were engaging me continually over the course of a couple of years, considering I had been in the church. I had been raised in this. And I was 24 when I got on Twitter. So I was, again, marinating in this ideology and this way of thinking. So the fact that it only took a couple of years to really affect me and how I saw things, I think that's pretty remarkable.

GLENN: So did your husband -- was there a time when your husband -- is now your husband --

MEGAN: Yeah.

GLENN: Was he falling in love with you at the time? Did that happen later? Did he say, I can't believe I'm saying this to you -- I mean, how did that happen?

MEGAN: Well, it's a -- it's a really strange -- it was a really strange dynamic because obviously I was at the church. And at Westboro, you could only marry somebody who was in the church. So we were having these discussions, and there was nothing -- it was like a Jane Austen novel, like nothing overt. Like we couldn't say how we were feeling to each other because it just wasn't acceptable. And he sensed that.

And -- but he also, again, saw that I was a human being. And he came to believe that I had a good heart.

GLENN: So would this have worked -- would this have worked without love?

MEGAN: Well, I think -- well, so here's the thing. I -- yes, I believe so. And the reason is that the very first interaction was with a friend. I mentioned him in the talk too. Jewlicious. His name is David Abitbol.

And so it was -- I think I was talking with him for a little over a year. And, again, he's asking these questions. And in the course of asking these questions, he was the one who found the first -- the first bit of internal inconsistency in Westboro's doctrines. And when I look back at how I responded to that -- so my husband -- I didn't actually start speaking to him until months after that. But when I think about how I responded to that first bit of internal inconsistency, that was when I first started to challenge, in my own mind, Westboro's doctrines.

GLENN: And you didn't let him know that.

MEGAN: No. For sure. As soon as he had made that point, I was actually terrified to speak to him again. I didn't even let on that I recognized that he was right. I just stopped speaking to him.

GLENN: Wow. What was the point, if you don't mind me asking?

MEGAN: Oh, yeah, no, not at all.

It was a sign that said "death penalty for fags."

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

MEGAN: Yeah. So, of course -- we used, you know, the verses in Leviticus and also in Romans 1 that talk about how, you know, gays are worthy of death. And he brought up -- so he's Jewish. I was really surprised that he brought up Jesus, saying, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

And I didn't -- I just had never connected that that was talking about the death penalty. And we thought, we're not -- we're not casting stones. We're just preaching words.

And David said, "Yeah, but you're advocating that the government cast stones."

And so that -- when I brought that point to other members of the church, the response was just to double down. They never addressed the passage that -- you know, that contradicted us. They just reiterated the passages that supported us. And so that was the first time that -- and the way that I reconciled it in my own mind was I just stopped holding the sign because I didn't know how to defend it anymore. And I didn't believe in it.

GLENN: Did they tell you to stop talking to these people?

MEGAN: I don't think -- I don't think people quite realized how much -- I mean, they knew I was very active on Twitter, but I don't think they realized how much it was affecting the way that I was thinking. I honestly didn't -- didn't understand it either.

Because in my mind -- I think I was in denial about it because -- you are not supposed to be impacted by other people. You are not supposed to be anything, but preaching to them. You're not supposed to really, you know, care -- I was going to say care about them. It was a very strange dynamic. But I was in denial about it. And I think that definitely helped it seem to others as if it wasn't really having an impact on me also.

PAT: Is anybody in your family speaking with you? Do you have a relationship with anybody anymore in the family?

MEGAN: Not anybody in the church, no. But there has been over the last decade or so, about 20 or so people who have either left or have been kicked out of Westboro. And my brother actually, the morning of my high school graduation -- he's a year and a half older than me. We woke up and went downstairs, and all of his stuff was gone. And so I have -- I didn't get to speak with him for the eight and half years between when he left and when I left. But now we're really good friends. And he's wonderful.

PAT: What was he thrown out for?

MEGAN: No, he left actually.

PAT: Oh, he left on his own.

MEGAN: He left at 19. Yeah, he also had Scriptural objections to some things. And also the extreme -- he objected to the extreme level of control because everybody in the church -- we all lived within two blocks or so of one another and did everything together and were obviously not developing relationships with people outside. But the level of control is -- is really -- really, really extreme.

GLENN: Do they -- do you think this will just die out as the family dies out, or?

MEGAN: Actually, I thought about this. My sister and I would talk about this about how could the church end in a way that just wouldn't destroy everybody on the inside?

There's still about the same level of membership as there has been. Because a few people -- a few new converts have joined. And then, of course, my generation has now -- they're having kids. But there's not many.

GLENN: What kind of people would join -- what kind of people join this? They really believe -- the newcomers that come in --

STU: It's one thing to be raised in it, but to be converted as an adult.

GLENN: Decent people. Yeah.

MEGAN: So honestly, I've speculated about this too. So, for instance, my dad -- my dad joined the church long before the picketing started. He was only 16 at the time. And, you know, his family wasn't -- I mean, his mom had been divorced. I don't think he -- he was attracted to the love and unity and connection I think in my family. In the Phelps family, I think. And I think that's a draw for some people. And it really lends credence to the idea that they're doing what they're doing out of love, out of good intentions.

And, again, some people just, I think are drawn to that defense of the idea of having all the answers and knowing for sure what you believe and how you're supposed to live. Like, it's -- that was such a powerful thing. When I left and realized like, I don't -- I don't have that anymore. I don't have that sense of -- it's a very comforting sense of certainty. And, you know, nuance and questions and uncertainty are a lot more difficult to deal with. I think some people are attracted to that part of the church.

GLENN: Next time they're out protesting, what should people do?

MEGAN: I think engaging at protests is actually not a very effective thing because they're -- on picket lines, they're already in these attack/defend mindsets. I think the internet is a much -- you know, Twitter. There's a lot of them on Twitter now. I think that's a more effective way of engaging. But if you -- if you do see them and if you are moved to go and speak to them, just remember that -- that responding with, you know, yelling and name-calling, all those things, it just reinforces what they already believe. It's adding to, you know, their certainty that they're doing the right thing.

GLENN: It is really -- it's really great to talk to you. Megan Phelps-Roper. You can find her @MeganPhelps. That's her Twitter handle. @MeganPhelps.

Really great to talk to you. And thank you for sharing this. And I think you have an important voice that needs to be heard.

STU: And I will say, Megan, will you confirm this, because we got the fifth point out of you, we are 25 percent better than your TED talk.

MEGAN: Yeah, for sure.

GLENN: Megan, can we pay you an off-handed compliment. Stu wanted to say this, we said it during the break. And it's weird because it's exactly what we're talking about. We don't know each other. We don't talk to each other.

We look at people in the Westboro Baptist Church and think that their kids just must be dumb as a box of rocks. And just, oatmeal! Every answer is, oatmeal! (chuckling) And you're so articulate. I mean, it's amazing just to have that view shattered.

MEGAN: Thank you.

I will say -- I mean, another thing that's not so well-known about the church, education was really important in my family. Most of the people there -- many lawyers, people who work in health care, and IT. And they're very well educated.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: Wow.

MEGAN: Which is partly I think what makes it so much more difficult for them to see outside of it. This is like a psychological thing where, by -- by having these very strong mostly internally consistent arguments, they -- they think they're so certain that they don't even question the -- they don't even question it.

GLENN: Amazing.

MEGAN: But, yeah, anyway...

GLENN: Thank you so much. @MeganPhelps. Thank you so much, Megan. Appreciate it.

MEGAN: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

GLENN: You bet.

RADIO

The INCREDIBLE TRUE Story of Benjamin Franklin

Was Benjamin Franklin the greatest and most modern Founding Father? This July 4th week, “The Greatest American” author Mark Skousen joins Glenn Beck to tell the incredible and true story of Benjamin Franklin.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Dr. Mark Skousen, friend of the program, friend of mine. America's economist.

He is -- he has written a new book on the greatest American and the greatest American, he says is Ben Franklin. And I tend to agree with him. He's at least in the top five greatest Americans. Welcome to the program, Mark. How are you?

MARK: I'm doing well. We're out here in the Mediterranean Sea right now on a cruise, but isn't it great technology that even Ben Franklin would love?

GLENN: You know, I don't think people really understand the genius of Ben Franklin. I mean, there's this great article in the times of London.

I don't remember when. But he was going back to London. He was going to challenge the king.

And he was going back. And they said, don't let his boat come in to dock.

Because he's been working with electricity, and he has a ray gun, and he will vaporize, you know, all of London.

I mean, he was -- he was the Elon Musk of his day, but he was almost more magical, because people didn't understand it.

Back then. What did you find in writing this book about Ben Franklin, that you think most people just don't know?

MARK: Well, this is the thing. So when I wrote the greatest American, I thought to myself, everybody -- lots of books have been written on his biography.

So what I did was I came up with 80 chapters on how he is the most modern of all the Founders. And how he could talk about the modern issues of today, whether it's trade or taxes or inflation or war. Discrimination. Inequality.

I have a chapter on each one of these, in the greatest American.

And, you know, he was a Jack-of-all-trades.
And the master of all, on top of it!

So one of the things I thought would be really cool, if you put my book, on every coffee table in America, and people came in to visit, they would look at this book. And there might be an argument, as you say, as to who is the greatest American. Whether it's George Washington or Elon Musk, or what have you.

GLENN: Whatever.

MARK: When they see the picture of Ben Franklin, they sit there and nod their head. And say, wow. This is the guy I want to sit down with and talk to.

And have a beer with.

Because if you sat with some of the other Founders, they would get in an argument with you. Or they would refuse to answer the question. Or what have you.

But Franklin was willing to talk to a janitor, as well as the king of France. And that's pretty unique.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. He could.

He was an amazing guy. So tell me, in your research of him, you know, you always hear that, oh, Ben Franklin was a notorious womanizer, and everything else.

And he abandoned his wife. Deborah? Was that her name?

MARK: Yes. Deborah. That's correct.

GLENN: Did that -- what's true, or what's not true about that?

MARK: So he certainly was the most liberal-minded when it came to the sexual revolution.

That's why I say, he's the most modern of the Founders. Because he was not prudish like John and Abigail Adams, who thought he was a reprobate. And sinner. And not a churchgoer. And stuff like that.

GLENN: Right.

MARK: So, yes. He was -- the ladies loved him. And he loved the ladies.

There's no question about that, that he was a bit of a playboy. And, in fact, he even admits in his autobiography, of having an illegitimate child, William. But then he settled down. He married Deborah. And, yes, Deborah and him, they did separate because -- and it was really more her fault than his, because when he went to London as a London agent, she had extreme aversion to going out on this -- the seas. It was a dangerous time period.

So it's kind of like people don't like to fly on airplanes today. So they did grow apart. There's no question about that.

But they maintained their -- their love for each other.

And, as a matter of fact, when Franklin died, he's buried right next to Deborah. So I think that's an indication of their -- their love and so forth. But they were very different personalities. She was very focused on -- on more of the home issues. She was not a public intellectual.

She would not feel comfortable in the same conversations that Franklin would have with scientists.

And with public thinkers, and stuff like that. So they definitely differed in their personality.

GLENN: The -- the story about his son William is one of the saddest chapters.

I mean, you know, Thomas Paine kind of looked at him as a father figure. And he -- you know, Ben Franklin did have a son, William, as you said. And they -- they had a really bad falling out.

Can you quickly tell that story?

MARK: Yeah. So I have a chapter on that very issue. Because who were his enemies, and he did have a number of enemies, including John Adams, at one point. But in the case of William, he, Franklin, arranged for William to be the governor of New Jersey. And he maintained his loyalty. He was a loyalist. Billy was throughout the American Revolution!

And at the end of the American Revolution, or during the American Revolution, Franklin writes his son and he said, it's one thing to -- we can differ on various issues.

But when you actually raise money, raise armaments to attack me, this was beyond the pale.

This is not something that you should have done. And then at the end of his letter, he says, this is a disagreeable subject!

I drop it. So you can feel that emotion, that anger.

And, yes. He removed him from -- from his will.

So there -- there -- Franklin got along with almost everyone.

And I have a whole chapter on how to deal in the greatest American. How to deal with enemies and be how to make your enemies, your friends.

But this was one example where he just couldn't cross over and forgive him. For what the -- for what we had done.

GLENN: I don't think --

CHIP: Just like you are saying.

GLENN: I think I would have a hard time doing that too if my son was raising funds and military against me. It would be kind of hard to forgive.

Mark, thank you so much for your work. It's always good to talk to you.

The name of the book is by Mark Skousen. And it is called The Greatest American. It's all about Ben Franklin. If you don't know anything about Ben Franklin, you will fall in love with him. You will absolutely fall in love with him. Mark Skousen is the author. The name of the book again, The Greatest American.

RADIO

RADICAL ISLAM survivor reveals the HORRORS she lived through

Yasmine Mohammed lived through a nightmare after her mother married an Islamist man. She joins Glenn Beck to tell her story about how she survived physical and mental abuse (including being hung upside down and whipped) in the name of "religion," and how a judge whitewashed it as a cultural issue.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: There's a human rights activist from Canada that I really, really want you to meet.

Her name is Yasmine Mohammed. She is the author of Unveiled.

And I want to talk to her about the real battle, that the West is facing now that we're in it.

I think we're -- I think we're in for a real -- well, no. No.

Only those who have closed their eyes are going to be advised by this. We're not in for a shock. We're in for a great awakening, honestly.

Because if you haven't seen what's happening in Europe. If you haven't seen what's coming on our own streets.

If you're not reading the tea leaves. And seeing how this is going.

Hello. New York City.

You're a fool! You're a fool.

You're blind or you're just, I don't know. Incompetent. But Yasmine is here.

She has written a book that is unbelievable. It's called Unveiled: How Western Liberals in Power, Radical Islam. Yasmine, are you on with me tonight, or is it just this radio bit here? Hello, Yasmine.

YASMINE: I think just this radio bit. But I'd love to be on with you tonight, if possible.

GLENN: Well, may I suggest something different?

Are you -- can you -- do you have an open -- do you have about an hour, that you can spend with me right now? I would like to extend this.

YASMINE: Sure, let's do this. Absolutely.

GLENN: Okay. Because it's important. I want to talk to you about what's happening with Iran and everything else. But I really think that we should start with your childhood. I mean, it is -- it's remarkable the life you have lived and have lived through. And with no help from Canada, you know. Had to endure as a childhood. Can you start. You were born in Vancouver to an Egyptian mom. And a Palestinian father. And then your parents got divorced at six. You stayed with mom.

And then mom married an Egyptian. Who she was one of two wives?

Right? Did he have more than two wives?

YASMINE: Well, he could have up to four. But he only filled two slots. My mom was the second.

GLENN: Okay. So tell me about your childhood. What your childhood like?

YASMINE: So, first of all, Glenn, thank you so much for having me on. Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you so much for reading my book, and for helping to bring light to this darkness.

My childhood was unfortunately something that is quite common around all over North America, Europe, obviously the Middle East.

But we don't hear the stories because people are afraid to speak. So as you mentioned. My parents were -- you know, they grew up secular Muslims. My mom in Egypt. My dad in Gaza. And we moved to San Francisco. Got married. You know, had my sister. And then eventually moved to Canada, where their marriage fell apart. And like you mentioned, my mom married an Egyptian man. Who at this point was what people are calling an Islamist. Or a political Muslim. Basically he was just religious.

GLENN: Yes. Okay. Can we stop on this for a second. Because this is something I'm going to talk about tonight. That it's so important to understand the difference between a Muslim and an Islamist.

Islamists are wickedly dangerous, because it is political in Islam, and does not necessarily have anything to do with regular Muslims. Correct?

YASMINE: That's right. So a regular Muslim could be somebody who is open to, you know, democracy and freedom. Somebody like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser.

GLENN: Who I love.

YASMINE: Yeah, he's amazing. Yeah, he's an example. But then, of course, there's Islamists who can go anywhere from political a Islamist like Mamdani in New York, all the way to jihadis like ISIS and Hamas, et cetera.

GLENN: You would put this new -- you would put this new mayor of New York, or the new mayoral candidate that won his primary last night in the category of an Islamist?

YASMINE: I absolutely would, yes. I absolutely would.

GLENN: Why?

YASMINE: He is somebody who is extremely dangerous. He has built his entire platform on Islamist talking points.

I mean, let's just start with the fact that CAIR put $100,000 behind him. CAIR is a group whose leader said that they were happy about October 7th. So it's very clear that these people follow the same ideology and the same goals as groups like Hamas.

They're doing it in different ways.

Hamas are more like they're jihadists. They're bigger on violence.

The Islamists won't necessarily use violence. But they will use duplicitous, insidious means, like what they are doing, which is using secular laws against itself.

Which is, you know, these thinly veiled, you know, calls to -- to -- to globalize intifada.

That is a thinly veiled incitement to violence. You know, I've spoken to people who have survived intifadas in Israel. And what we're talking about here are people riding on a bus, and the bus is blowing up. People sitting, having a pizza, and then the pizza parlor gets blown up. This is what they're asking for. This is what they're saying they want to globalize.

So I don't know how thinly veiled that is. When somebody is your mayoral candidate. And calling to globalize an intifada. For that person to win, it's really disheartening. It makes me feel so sad and angry, and terrified about the future of our world.

GLENN: Okay. So let's get back to your childhood.

Sour -- you know, with this new father, riding a bike, listening to music, celebrating birthdays, swimming lessons, playing with non-Muslim friends, not happening.

YASMINE: Yeah. Absolutely. Everything became halal. Everything became forbidden.

So all of those things that you mentioned. And then, of course, the hijab was put on me, which was the head covering. I have to cover everything, except for my face and hands, up until I was 19, where my face and hands aren't covered black as well.

GLENN: Jeez.

YASMINE: So, yeah. It was a complete shock. I hated every minute of it. But, of course, I was terrified. There was nothing I could do. I was scared.

And at one point, there was just a brief moment of time, where I was able to go to a public school, because the Islam school did not yet have a high school in place.

And in that year, I was able to connect with one of my teachers, Mr. --

GLENN: Wait. Wait.

YASMINE: Okay.

GLENN: Wait. Before I get there. Tell people, when you failed at home, tell people what happened to you. With your feet and your ankles and everything else. So they have an understanding what you were going through, when you met this teacher.

YASMINE: Yeah. So you talked about not being allowed to have non-Muslim friends. That was -- you know, I cannot overstate how important that was for us to understand the difference between us and them. Muslims and non-Muslims. Good and bad. Good and evil, actually.

And so in one of my books, I had written my name as Jasmine instead of Yasmine, which I changed one letter. And when my mom and her husband saw that, they interpreted, oh, this girl wants to be Western. She wants to be Canadian. She doesn't want to be Muslim. She's preferring their way of writing her name, instead of our way of writing it. So we need to teach her a very strong lesson, so that she learns and understands that they are evil and we are good.

And so their way of doing that, was to hang me upside down in the garage and, you know, Muslims have the celebration of Eid, where they slaughter an animal every year and they hang it up in the garage. And that's what -- that was the hook they used to hang me up on.

And whipped me. And they whipped places where it would be hidden. When I was younger, it was the bottom of my feet. And later when I started wearing a hijab, and my body was covered, anyway, then they could whip more comfortably wherever they wanted.

And her husband hung me upstairs, and whipped me to the point of me passing out, because I was crying so much. And I couldn't breathe. My whole -- you know, my face, my nose. My throat. My eyes. Everything was filled with mucus.

And I woke up from my being -- from passing out, and I could hear them talking.

And my mom was -- was upset. She was freaking out. She was like, what are we going to do if you killed her?

We're going to have to explain this. Like -- she was concerned that they would be this trouble with the authorities, if they had killed me. You know what I mean?

Like, it wasn't even that they were concerned about the fact that they had killed me.

GLENN: What was that like, to hear that from your mother?

YASMINE: I mean, I can't forget it. I can't forget a lot of things that she had said and done.

It -- it's really important for me to highlight here, that she wasn't like this. She was -- nobody in her family was like this.

Nobody, where she grew up was like this. But once she became indoctrinated into this ideology, and once she married this Islamist man, she turned into this monster. Who her -- she was so zealous. And her ideology and her, you know, anti-west, pro-Islam. You know, it just possessed her mind. And that's all that mattered to her. And even her own kids were nowhere near. Like we didn't even register in her -- you know, in the things that she cared about.

All she wanted was to -- for Islam to win, and for the West to be dismantled. And if it meant that she had to, you know, beat her daughter up, to get her daughter to understand, that that's what needed to be done, then she was fine to do that. In fact, she was fine to kill me, when I took off my hijab.

I had to -- I had to escape from her and run for my life. Because she was so angry at the fact that I was taking off my hijab, and act like the infidels and act like the non-Muslims, and to be with them. You know, it's so hard to explain how somebody's mind can be so brainwashed, so indoctrinated. So possessed with an ideology. But hers was.

GLENN: So, Yasmine, my heart just breaks for you. And all of the people in this situation. Because, you know, we hear these stories. There are bad parents. Really bad parents. Really, really, really, really dark people, that have children.

But this is not the same. That's -- that's

YASMINE: No, that's right.

GLENN: Explain the difference.

YASMINE: Well, I don't -- I guess the best way for me to describe it, this was an analogy that Sam Harris made. And I thought, this was a really good way to describe it. So I'm going to borrow it from him.

But he was saying, when you have a Jehovah's Witness family, for example, and they have a little daughter, and she is going to die if she doesn't have a blood transfusion, if they refuse for their daughter to get a blood transfusion, you don't look at those parents and say, those are evil people. Those are bad people. You say, oh, my God. They have been -- they have been indoctrinated to believe that killing their daughter is the right thing to do.

That allowing their daughter to die is the correct thing to do. So you recognize that they have been possessed by this ideology. And it is making their humanity. It is suppressing their humanity.

And it's suppressing it to the point that they're willing to watch their daughter die.

And that's really the best way to describe this Islamist ideology, as the exact same thing. It's stemming from a religion. That is so toxic.

And it forces people to completely diminish their humanity and put this ideology first, regardless of who is going to be a victim.

GLENN: Okay. Let me take a break. And then I want to take you back to high school, where you meet the teacher, and what happens with the teacher? You're hearing Yasmine Mohammed.

She's a human rights activist. She's from Canada. She wrote a book. It came out right around COVID. Or I think, right around '20 -- in '19 -- 2020. And it's called Unveiled. And it is a must-read. And we are going to finish our conversation here.

I will hold her as long as we possibly can. Hold her up from her day to have this conversation because I find it absolutely fascinating, horrifying, and prescient.

It is what our next 50 years is going to be all about, if we don't wake up and stand up, right now!

Back with Yasmine in just a second.

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(music)
(OUT AT 9:51 AM)

GLENN: Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. I do not want to -- I don't want to -- I don't want to interrupt Yasmine's story here. But she's going to continue with me all of hour three of the podcast, coming up in just a second.

But what she is talking about, what she's about to tell you is just exactly what our problem is.

Here's a little girl that was beaten on her feet, because she wasn't wearing the hijab yet.

And so she still could be seen.

So they had to hide any kind of marks on her feet.

She found it painful to walk. I mean, that's when she was playing with, you know, non-Muslim friends. She would get beaten like that. She just told us about being hung up in the garbage and being beaten until she passed out. Then she goes to a Canadian school, and she meets a teacher, and she confesses to this teacher, what is happening in her home.

I -- you need to hear this story.

And then we're going to tie it all together, on what we're actually facing now. You know, this -- between what's happening with Israel and Iran. The killing of the Israelis. On our streets.

And then the election last night, in New York.

We must pay attention and speak the truth.
(OUT AT 9:57 AM)

GLENN: There's only been a handful of times where I've been doing an interview with a guest, and decided to chop the rest of the show and turn the rest of the show over to the guest, maybe three times I've done that in my career, in the last 25 years. And when that happens, they turn out to be some of the most compelling moments of the show in our history. You're in the midst of one of those days.

I just have scheduled for about ten minutes, Yasmine Mohammed. But as I was getting ready to go on the air, and I was really thinking about what she has to talk about, her book is so compelling. Because she lived it!

She lived a life of horror in an Islamist family. Not a Muslim family, an Islamist family. Important that you understand the difference.

You group all Muslims in this, maybe then you have Islamophobia. If you understand the difference between a Muslim and an Islamist. Which is political Islam, then you're on the right track.

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GLENN: I want to -- I want to do one more commercial. So I just have 20 solid minutes with Jasmine, and we don't have to break again. If you'll excuse me, give me 60 more seconds. Tunnel2Towers is the sponsor for the rest of this half-hour.

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And there is one group that stood up right at the beginning. Tunnel2Towers. And said, we will not forget our heroes. They will not forget the firefighters or the police officers. And then it went into the war heroes. Now it's anyone who is truly serving our nation in uniform.

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Yasmine, welcome back to the program. Thank you so much for changing your day for me. And making this switch.

YASMINE: Actually, it's a pleasure and honor to be here, Glenn. Thank you so much for having me.

GLENN: We were talking about how you were beaten as a child. Hung upside down by your feet. By your ankles. And beaten until you passed out. You were 13 years old? How old were you in that?

YASMINE: By that time, I was ten or 11 years old.

GLENN: Ten or 11. And at 13, you go to a public school for the first time. You leave the Islamic school, and you go to a public school. And you're in Vancouver Canada. And you find a sympathetic teacher. That you feel you can confide in.

How did this happen?

What did you say? And then what happened?

YASMINE: Well, it actually happened in a really interesting way.

I was writing -- I was so excited over the fact that I have so many friends for the first time in my life because I was going to a public school. There's so many people there.

And it was normally going to a -- so I was writing out a list of all of the names of my friends.

And my mom came by. And saw the list. Grabbed it from my hand. And, you know, I'm not stupid. There were no boy's names on that list.
It was all girls. And so I thought, well, this will be fine. It's only girl's names.

But, no. She was so angry that I had made friends. And she was so angry, in fact, that I was excited and happy about it. She thought, sending me to a public school with a hijab on, that I would be ostracized and bullied. And I would learn that these non-Muslims were nothing, but trouble. And I would want nothing to do with them. Instead, I made friends with them, and I was happy to be there. And that just killed her.

So she decided then, that I was no longer going to continue school. She says, that's it. You will be homeschooled from now on. She said, you're staying home, cooking and cleaning. You're not going to go to school anymore.

GLENN: Yeah.

YASMINE: And so she -- I finished the year. She couldn't just pull me out, and it was the end of the school year.

And I was just depressed. I was sad. I didn't know what to do.

And my drama teacher came up to me, and he's like, Yasmine, you're so different. Like, what's going on with you? Your light has totally dimmed.

GLENN: Where did you see him?

YASMINE: Just outside my drama class. You know, and I said, I told him what had happened. I told him, my mom is going to pull me out of school. And this is my first breath. My first, you know, moment of -- a bit of freedom. Was to come to this school. And to, you know, live a little bit of freedom from -- for a bit of my life. And now she will take it back to me, and I will be forced to be living with my -- forced to not be able to go to the school anymore.

And so we talked some more about it. And then I eventually confided about him, about all of the abuse that was going on in the home. And I shared with him everything.

Not knowing that as a teacher in a public school, it was his, you know --

GLENN: Legal responsibility.

YASMINE: You got it. So it was his legal responsibility to contact the authorities. And that's what he did.

So he contacted the police. And they contacted child services.

And then there was this whole investigation that was the three of us. And then his two children as well. So it was five kids, all of us were questioned.

And everything about him. Mind you, his daughter had gone to school, the year prior with four fingers on her face, like bruises on her face. And one of the teachers called the authorities at that point, and said, I think this child is being abused in the home.

And when they asked her, she said, no, no, no. It was an accident. These aren't fingers. Nobody -- whatever. And she denied it. But they still had a record of it.

So when I came forth with my complaints. This was the second time that child services was getting complaints from this man. And still, after we went through the whole investigative system and the whole court case and everything in the end, the judge said, this is a cultural issue. This is a -- a religious issue.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

YASMINE: He has the right to discipline his kids how he sees fit. And it's not our place to intervene. It's not the government's place to intervene.

They knew about everything, Glenn. I had told them about all of the beatings with the belts. And I told him about the hanging me upside down and everything.

And they still said, well, you know, that's just your culture. That's just your -- you know, your ethnicity. Your religion. Your race. Whatever.

You will just have to endure.

GLENN: What did this cost you?

YASMINE: Yeah. It cost me, really, my sense of ever feeling like there would ever be a way for me to escape. Because as much as they were trying to teach me and train me that non-Muslims are evil and non-Muslims are bad, I never believed it. Because my teachers.

Like Mr. Fabro.

Just people in the store, average folks. My friends. My non-Muslim friends. They were all, you know, proving that she was a liar. And that she was wrong. And that they were all good people.

And they didn't want me dead. And they didn't hate me. But when this happened with this judge, it kind of made it all come tumbling down. And I was like, you know what, maybe she's right. Maybe they do hate me. Maybe they don't want me to be safe.

Maybe they do want me to live in this misery for the rest of my life. I mean, for a 13-year-old girl to stand up against her parents in a court of law, and for you to tell that 13-year-old girl, no. You have to go back to the house where you just told us about all of the torture and punishment that you're enduring. You know, what that judge did, was he sentenced me to a life that was worse than the one I was complaining about.

Because now they were able to not only treat me so badly, but it came as humiliation. It came with a psychological torture of, now what are you going to do about it? Now who do you think you're going to complain to? You think you're going to go to the police? You think you're going to go to the child services? Nobody cares about you. This is it. And so I felt like there was nowhere to go, and I felt like they were right, that nobody cared about me.

And Allah's plan was what was going to happen, which was that I was going to remain in this house, until I married the man that they made me marry. And have a baby, to just get the job of a dutiful Muslim girl. And I saw, absolutely no escape, and that was the first time I tried to commit suicide.

GLENN: Yasmine, you are describing a Handmaid's Tale in so many ways.

YASMINE: Yes.

GLENN: And yet, the left does not seem to care.

Why?

YASMINE: Uh-huh. You know, it just -- they -- I feel such a betrayal in -- in -- I'm so disappointed. I can't really even answer that question logically. I don't think they could either, honestly.

They are just so hell-bent on this destruction, this dismantling of Western civilization.

That they're willing to lay hands, with people who chop off a girl's clitoris. Who make little girls get married, when they're just children.

Who throw gay people off of rooftops.

You know what I mean?

It's like, how can you be so hell-bent on your -- your Derrick focus, on the destruction of the west.

That you're willing to lay hands with people who are supposedly, according to what you are preaching, supposedly believes in the antithesis, you know, the complete opposing values that you believe in.

But, you know, we've seen this before. We've seen this in the Islamic Regime of Iran. That's exactly how they came into power, is they laid hands with the socialists and the communists and the progressives on the left.

And that is exactly what they did, in order to dismantle and to bring down the Shah and for the Islamic Regime of Iran to take its place. Then what did they do? As soon as they got power, all of these useful idiots, all of these lefties, they just either murdered them, they threw them in prison. They disappeared. Some of them were able to flee, until they were finished with them. After they get what they want. After they used them. And we've seen this happen over and over and over again.

History keeps repeating itself. And now it's all over the Middle East.

And now it's happening all over the west, yet again!

They've perfected their strategy. And there's no reason for us to continue to fall for this same ploy, like we've seen it happen before. We know how it ends. But there's just so much arrogance.

Everybody thinks, no, no, no. This time, it's going to be different.

This time, it will be different. We will succeed.

And they don't realize that, you know, for example, this guy, this mayor of New York, when he's making a rap song, supporting Hamas, celebrating the five leaders of Hamas. You know what I mean?

And these people voted for this guy? You know, Hamas with are the ones that are raping women.
That are killing babies. That are -- you know, who are you voting for? Who are you supporting?

And then they say things like queers for Palestine, or gays for -- for -- you know, Palestine.

What are you doing? They would murder you. They have murdered gay people, in Palestine. They still do! And how are you supporting somebody who wants you dead, like the -- it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

So I honestly can't answer that question for you.

All I can say, they must be so indoctrinated, that they're not even using the rational thinking skills at all.

They're just in their little tiny simplistic memes on TikTok. Tell them oppressor. Oppressed.

White/brown.

This is your little equation. Everything can fit into here.

Right? Good guys wear white hats. Bad guys wear black hats. And there's no gray area. There's no nuance.

It's simplistic thinking, like Sesame Street-level thinking for simplistic minds, and it unfortunately works.

And what's really sad, is it's working on our Ivy League university students.

It's not just working on your average, uneducated or young people.

GLENN: You know, I feel sometimes like just a -- I'm a self-educated man. Sometimes I feel like such a boob on how much I've missed.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

STU: I just said to my staff, and I don't know if you ever watched me or, you know, know anything about me, Yasmine.

YASMINE: Of course, I do.

GLENN: But when I was at Fox, I said every night. And it was a prompting from God. I mean, he told me, fall on your sword on this. And so I did it every single day. That the Communists, the leftists, the Marxists, the Communists, the anarchists, and the Islamists would band together, come after Israel, to stabilize the Middle East. Then Europe. They would travel over here. It would be the end of the western world, if we didn't wake up.

And I was just mocked relentlessly for that. And we are seeing it happen in realtime. And tonight, I'm doing a show where I'm -- I'm showing you, what's happening in Europe.

I'm showing you what the -- the stage is here.

And I just said to Nathan, one of our researchers and writers.

I just said to him, a couple days ago.

I said to him, would you do me a favor, and research the end of the Shahs. Because what we know about the Shah is he was corrupt. And he was a puppet of the United States.

And that's what caused everything.

I said, but I don't really know how the collapse happened. All I know, they were listening to rock 'n' roll music.

They were dressed like Westerners.

The next thing you know, it's Sharia law.

And I said, how does it happen, so quickly?

Because that's what I feel like is coming for Europe.

And for you to just say, that's why I feel so foolish. For you to say, that this was the Islamists. And the communists. And the socialists. And all of those people working together.

How did I miss that this has been already done before?

YASMINE: Yeah. Unfortunately, it's already been done before. And it's been successful before. So that's why they keep repeating it.

And it's unfortunately successfully happening today.

Like you said, everything you said was prophetic.

It's happening right now, in real time.

We're watching it happen.

After October 7th, a lot of people were just staring in shock and horror, at how quickly everything could erupt.

At how quickly things could change.

And those of us who were paying attention were just devastated. Because we could see this happening.

Like, we were watching it.

But we -- you know, still I have to say, the -- the -- the speed of it was shocking to me.

And by October 8th, they were already celebrating paragliders and celebrating Hamas.

GLENN: I know.

YASMINE: And screaming gas the Jews. And like, it did not take a heartbeat. They did not for one second -- like, bodies are still warm, and they were already turning on the victims of October 7th. Like it was -- it was absolutely mind-blowing. They didn't even have the -- they dropped their masks completely. They didn't even pretend to care.

GLENN: You know, I said recently, that even the Germans tried to hide it.

YASMINE: Yeah.

GLENN: The Germans tried to hide their atrocities. These guys put it on Facebook and put it on, you know, X. And Instagram.

It's insane! They're proud of all of this.

YASMINE: Yep.

GLENN: I've got -- I've only got two minutes left. And then we're going to break. And then I will talk to you about some other things. Can you just tell me. You were forced to marry at 19. How did this nightmare finally end for you? Two minutes.

YASMINE: Yeah. At 19, my mom -- I'll be very quick. I'll try my best. So my mom chose a man who she said, and I quote, who is strong enough to control you. And so she chose an al-Qaeda terrorist.

GLENN: Literally?

YASMINE: And I was supposed to marry him.

GLENN: Literally.

YASMINE: Literally, he's in prison in Egypt right now for his terrorism.

He got a long story behind him. But we don't have the time for me to get into it. But obviously marrying him, you know, somebody who was -- beat me and swear at me and spit on me and covered me head to toe in black, he used to cover the windows in paper, to make sure that if the curtains moved, nobody would see me inside.

Literal prison with this man. And I had to accept being raped and beaten by him because according to the hadith, a man has that right to do that to his wife. And so who was I going to complain to? If the creator of the universe, if Allah the Almighty had sanctioned this action. Then who am I -- what am I going to do? So, of course, I ended up getting pregnant.

And I have a young daughter. And when him and my mom started talking about taking my daughter to Egypt to get female genital mutilation done on her.

That's when I had to escape.

GLENN: Yasmine, we're going to continue our conversation with you in just a second. I don't know honestly, how you can be a human being and hear this story, and not feel to the center of your being, how evil this is. And how it is only right and righteous to stand up against it. And wake your neighbors, before it's all of us.
(music)

GLENN: Let me tell you about Patriot Mobile. Every month, you pay your phone bill. You don't think about it much. It's just automatic. The service is fine. Coverage is fine. It's simple. Money goes where it's supposed to. But where is that?

Here's a question: Where does your money go? Where does it live after it leaves your account?

Does it go to fund abortion lobbyists? Does it push radical agendas? Support political movements that mock your values and your country?

Because if you're still with one of the major wireless companies, you have no idea how profitable these companies are. And they take a lot of that money, and send it to places, you would never, ever want your money to go.

It's important that we build a parallel economy, and say to the phone companies, do you hear me now?

I'm tired of it. Switch to Patriot Mobile now.

They're America's only Christian wireless require. They're standing up, against all of the things that you are standing up against.

And they have the same cell towers that everybody else does, so you get the same great coverage. You will get a free month of service.

You will get better rates. Just go to PatriotMobile.com/Beck. Right now. Call them. 972PATRIOT. Stand up. 972PATRIOT. PatriotMobile.com/Beck.

STU: So much is changing, including the way we look at our history.

Keep following this big project that's right around the corner at GlennBeck.com.
(OUT AT 10:29 AM)

GLENN: You might have heard earlier today, in the broadcast, if you've missed it, grab the podcast. It's hour number two.

I talked about some of the changes that are coming in my life, in January.

And they're -- it's quite extensive.

But it's hard to lay out all at once.

But I laid out a little bit more.

And one of the things that is changing in my life is, I'm going to be very, very -- very, very focused on a few things, and trying my best to stand up and be very clear, on the things that I think are real dangers.

And Islamism is -- is probably the greatest threat to the western civilization right now.

And it is a fruition of the chalkboard that I told you about in 2009.

You know, that the Islamists and -- and radicals and communists, would all gather together.

And they would try to destabilize the world.

They would go after Israel and Europe. And then it would come to the United States. And it would be the end of the western civilization.

And we're here. If you don't see it yet. Watch tonight's special on Blaze TV.

9 o'clock. Eastern time.

It will be on my YouTube page. YouTube.com/GlennBeck on tomorrow.

But we will lay all of this out for you. Because it's really important. And then beginning next year, I will be doing some things that will empower you to take steps to be a leader in your own life, with your own friends, and your own community.

Because we're going to need citizen leadership. So listen to that at GlennBeck.com.

Also, you might want to go back. If you just joined us. And listen to this whole hour.

I spent a whole hour with Yasmine Mohammed.

She's a human rights activist. She's the author of the book called Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam. She wrote it back in 2019. It was released in 2019.

But it is so powerful, right now.

Right now, it's -- read this book.

Unveiled. How western liberals empower radical Islam.

Because it is exactly what I'm talking about.

What is coming. And exactly what we're seeing on our own streets.

She just spent an hour talking about her background. It's brought me to tears, several times. I don't know about you. But let me bring her back on. And, Yasmine, thank you for holding again. And I want to talk to you about how the war with Israel and Iran and then the United States coming in, you know, there's -- there's people that say Donald Trump is selling out, you know, all of his values. Because he's getting us into another war.

I don't think he is.

I was a little nervous about us dropping, you know, the bunker buster bombs ourselves. Because to me, that is an act of war. And worried about how they were going to retaliate. Because I think -- well, I know their sleeper cells are all over in the United States. And in Europe.

But I'm torn, because this is something that we have to take care of.

Every president since Bill Clinton says, we cannot allow them to have a nuclear bomb, but I don't know if they do or not.

But destabilization over in the Middle East is -- has not worked out to anybody's advantage. But I would like to point out, I haven't seen any of the major players in -- in the Middle East.

Egypt. Saudi Arabia. UAE. Even Syria, say anything at all about the Israelis.

I think they're all right in line with, okay. Go ahead. Chop the head off the snake here.
Do you think I'm reading that wrong?

YASMINE: Yeah. No, I think you're absolutely correct.

Of course, yes. You were talking about destabilization of the Middle East. Iran is the major funder of terrorism across the Middle East. Everybody knows it.

Syrians are victims of them. Israelis are victims of them. Everybody. Right?

Afghanis, round and round and round. Everybody is victimized by these purveyors of terrorism.

So, yeah, that's why you're not hearing anybody complaining. Because they're fine with it. They're like, yes. Please, go ahead. And cut off the head of the snake.

It is scary. Obviously. War is scary. Nobody wants war. Obviously, I was very concerned for the people of Iran. Very concerned for the people of Israel.

GLENN: Correct. Correct.

YASMINE: And dropping bombs.

GLENN: And us.

YASMINE: And there's military bases. Yeah, of course.

GLENN: All of us.

YASMINE: All of us. But, you know, sometimes it's necessary, because there's -- the Islamic regime of Iran have already shown us how incredibly evil and bloodthirsty they are, in the 50 years of their reign.

They -- they could not be more clear.

They have said it over and over and over again. How they want to see all of our destruction. And they have no problem murdering their own people. Do you think they'll have a problem murdering Americans, or -- or murdering Europeans or Israelis?
Or, you know, anybody else. They don't care. This is all for their belief system.

They have this -- this ideology, that makes them believe that what they are doing is righteous. And that's all they can stay single-mindedly focused on that.

And, you know, people think, I actually had somebody say to me once in the most naive way. He said, if Israel is annihilated, then Iran will just stop. Then it will be okay. Right?

STU: I had somebody -- I had somebody call me on the air, years ago. And say, it -- we don't have a problem with Jews.

If we just didn't have a problem with these Jews. There wouldn't be a problem with Jews. Like, oh, okay.

I know. I know. I know.

Dumb as a box of rocks. Can you take me through?

I wasn't aware of the prison that was hit. Which is not a nuclear target.

I don't think I have heard this from anyone. Can you explain this?

What happened, and why it's so significant?

YASMINE: Well, every president, where they put all of their political prisoners.

So basically anybody who is protesting against the regime, or women who are imprisoned for not wearing a hijab. Right?

So it's a prison that is full of innocent people, who are fighting against this regime.

And so for the -- one of the bombs, from Israel.

Was almost like a gift from the heavens. For it to come down.

And open the doors of that prison, so that people could escape.

It was a message to the Iranians. That we see you. We hear you.

We support you.

We acknowledge you.

We understand what you are fighting.
And we are here to back you up. And so it really filled us all with a sense of hope, that this could finally be it.

Because you have to remember, Glenn. The people of Iran have been fighting this regime since day one!

They -- they -- they have murdered hundreds of thousands of people, almost immediately, after they took power.

GLENN: I know.

YASMINE: Whether it was women refusing to wear hijabs. Or people refusing to bend the knee to their regime. Right?

And they've constantly been doing that, every single day.

Executing people. Throwing them in prison.

Disappearing them. And so the Iranian people have been fighting for so long. And it felt like a moment, where finally, they could finally be free from this regime.

GLENN: Think of the -- think of the meaning behind that. After we went back and forth and back and forth, if that's even true.

About, you know, bombing Auschwitz.

Bombing the train lines. So they couldn't -- can you imagine if we could have set those people free.

And we never did it. And now the Israelis with that experience saying, we will set these people free.

Because they know exactly what the regime is. I think that's amazing. Let me -- let me ask you this: You know, we've had regime change in the Middle East. And it never really works out really well.

YASMINE: Yes. This is true.

GLENN: However, is there a -- you know, it's because we've never found a Nelson Mandela. We've never found somebody who is strong enough that has been standing up against. I don't think the Shah is the guy.

I mean, I've never seen him before. He's not leading press conferences for the last 40 years. Saying, this has got to stop.

Who is it, that could lead that?

YASMINE: Agreed.

I think that they don't need a person, right now. They need a democracy.

And I think that's what they want. Really, I agree with you. What you're saying as well.

Because that's just going back to modern day. A lot of Iranians will disagree with me. And it's up to them to choose what they want for their country.

But the reason why the regime change has never worked in any of the other countries in the Middle East, is because the people were so different.

They were not the Iranian people. They were not the Persian people.

GLENN: Right. Right.

YASMINE: So those are people who have been colonized. They have been colonized by this regime.

This Islamic regime of Iran.

Has, you know, criminalized them, practicing their own traditions. Speaking their own language.

Killing, you know, minority groups like the Bahá'ís, this is what they do.

And so the people of Iran. It's not like they believe in the ideology.

They don't believe in the Islamic regime of Iran.

They are prisoners. They are hostages in their own country. To this regime.

Whereas, that same thing can't be said for, you know, Iraq. For example. Under Saddam Hussein.

The reason why it turned into ISIS after that was because the people believed in the religious ideology.

They were into that sectarian. The divide between Shiites and Muslims. And they didn't see a problem with ISIS taking Yazidi women as sex slaves, and burning them alive, if they refused.

They were okay with all of that because that was part of their ideology too. Right? Whereas the Iranian people do not agree with this ideology.
Most people in Iran are atheist or, you know, Jewish people. Different. All sorts of different religions.

But they are not these religious extremists. That the Islamic regime of Iran are.

Those are completely like a -- like a foreign entity that is a toxic foreign entity. That has taken over their country.

GLENN: I have so many people that I know, that, you know, maybe have stopped watching news. Or they just think it's all bad news.

And nothing ever changes.

And I'm -- I'm doing this special tonight. On what's happening in Europe.

What is happening in Europe, I think is terrifying. I -- I have told my wife and kids. I've taken my granddaughter to Paris, you know, not telling her this. You know, she's young.

But I want to take lots of pictures. Because I think that you, you know, ten years from now, it may not look anything like this.

And we may not be able to go to Europe, and be safe.

And I feel like we're in the 1930s, you know, of Europe.

And how -- how would you get the average person, who is not paying attention, or who says, you know. This is hyperbole.

And, you know, what do you know?

What would you say to people, when you -- when you show them things that are happening, not just in Europe, but in our own country, a/k/a, what happened in our streets with the free Palestine riots and what is happening all across, you know, Michigan and Minnesota. And now, with the new election of the -- the possible mayor, at least the democratic candidate that was elected, who was for the intifada.

YASMINE: Uh-huh. Yeah. So people who don't see a problem with anything are living in this privileged bubble where other people's problems are not their problem. They're not seeing it.

So when I was in France, I was -- there were areas of France, that I would go to. Where I would physically feel unsafe. And to be honest, just triggered.

Like PTSD, flare-ups. Because I'm seeing groups of Arab men, loud Arab speaking going on. There's nothing -- you look at the buildings. And it's like, this looks like a French building, but there's nothing French about this environment that I'm standing in right now.

I'm not even hearing the French language as I'm walking around this French market. All I'm hearing is Arabic.

So it is absolutely -- same thing as I was saying about Iran. And same thing about -- 57 countries around this world are Muslim majority.

How did it become that way. Right? They were colonized by these people. So what ends up happening, is like this slow frog boil.

And most people aren't going to see it, until they see it.

And once they see it, it's too late. And the example of what you're saying about what we fear in the West, is exactly that.

If you're not hearing the -- if you're not hearing it blaring in cities across the US, if you're not living in one of those cities and you're not concerned, you don't -- you have the privilege of not caring. Right?

But the people that are living in it. Let's talk about the UK, for example, like all of the pockets of, like, looting and all those areas that, you know -- it's just -- it's horrendous.

It's literally like, he doesn't know to tell you.

It's like little pockets of -- you know.

Tehran. In the middle of the United Kingdom.

GLENN: Yasmine.

YASMINE: So if you don't live there. Then people just don't have a clue.

GLENN: Thank you. Thank you for being so brave.

Thanks for being on the program and kind of letting me wreck your day, by rearranging all the things you had planned.

The name of the book is Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam. It is a must-read.

And I -- we will have you on again.

Thank you so much, Yasmine. I appreciate it.

YASMINE: Thank you so much, Glenn.
I appreciate it as well. Have a wonderful day, take care.

GLENN: You too.

Yasmine Mohammed, author of Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam. She is so very right on all of this stuff.

RADIO

Kelsey Grammer Opens Up About His Sister’s Murder

You may know Emmy-winning actor, producer & director, Kelsey Grammer, from his role in Fraiser and Cheers, but recently, he joined Glenn to discuss a dark period of his life when his sister, Karen Grammer, was murdered. Kelsey's book, "Karen: A Brother Remembers," dives into how Kelsey's faith in Jesus helped him heal after such a dark tragedy.

RADIO

The ONE “forever war” Glenn Beck supports

This Fourth of July, Glenn Beck reveals the only “forever war” he supports. It’s the war Americans have been fighting since our nation’s founding, and we must continue the fight…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Two hundred forty-nine years ago, I think it is tomorrow. Right? Is tomorrow the second, or is it the first?

What day is it today?

So it was 200 -- 249 years ago, tomorrow, that somebody sat alone, in a -- in a one-room hotel room.

And scratched out the words, when in the course of human events. Those are the first six words of a document that is so dangerous!

Still today, so revolutionary.

It was whispered in those candle lit rooms by men who knew. Knew. That if I signed this document, that's a death warrant.

I'm dead!

I'm dead.

But in the course of human events, shh.

Jefferson wrote them!

33 years old. Adams would later say, you do well to revere Jefferson. But he didn't write alone. Basically, I was there too.

And so was Ben Franklin. The ideas were forged in the minds of men like Franklin, who is old enough to know better. And Adams, who was stubborn enough, not to care. And they weren't perfect men. But I love this about the left. They try to make you think.

That you think are perfect. I don't think they were perfect! I mean, Ben Franklin used to walk around naked in his house a lot. That shows, I mean, for as smart as that guy was. It shows, maybe he had a lack of mirrors. But they weren't perfect!

They owned slaves. They argued. They compromised.

How does that make them different than us?
I mean, we should be able to relate to them!

What is it that we tolerate right now?
What is it that we compromise on?

What is it -- what are our failures that future generations are going to go, these people just didn't get it? Perhaps what we should notice is that they, unlike most of us. They were willing to gamble their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

For something that had never, ever been done before. Something entirely new!

The idea that rights don't come from a government, or from a king, or from a parliament.

They don't come from the majority voting. Everyone has certain rights.

You know, for all these people who are, you know -- going in Macy's, and burning down towns. And then stealing clothing. And they're like, because I've been oppressed!

And you can't -- I've got rights, you know.
Yeah. Yeah.

You know who the first people were, to articulate those rights?

You know the only country that actually has stood for those rights?

And we're imperfect!

That idea came from the Founders, that you say you hate.

But the actual rights come from God, which you dismiss!

Think of this. Just ponder this for a second.

That all men are created equal! That their rights are given to them, by a creator.

It's not a political assertion. It's a genius. That's eternal truth!

That's theological dynamite, lobbed straight in to the thrones of Europe.

All over the world, it's still dynamite.

They knew what they were doing.

And I don't mean like, they knew what they were doing.

They had it. No. They knew that the British crown had the largest military force in the world. And these guys, they were farmers. They were printers. They were lawyers. They were a ragtag collection of intellectual and idealists, facing down an empire, where they said, the sun never set on the British empire. Meaning, the colonialism was everywhere!

You could not escape England. And yet, they declared it. We're leaving, without apology!

And they said that when a government becomes destructive of the ends of liberty, life, and the pursuit of happiness, it's not only the right of the people, it's their duty to throw it off!

Wow. And you know what is amazing? That's not rebellion.

That's -- that's not revolution. That's -- that's responsibility.

That -- that kind of language today, that would have you flagged, shadow banned. Labeled an extremist. In most countries, disappeared!

But that is the foundation of what we call America. The American experiment. And it's that. The American experiment.

And it's just that, an experiment. We didn't know if we could get it right. And we haven't gotten it right. But isn't it worth experimenting?

Isn't it worth trying to get that concept right?

When you fail on that concept, you're like, eh. That's a stupid idea.

That's not a stupid idea. That's the greatest idea of all time.

Why are so many people willing to just quit?

The experiment is self-rule. It's not perfect.

Never has been. Slavery. Jim Crow. Internment camps. Assassinations.

My God! Forgive us, for what we have done.

But at the same time, what nation has done more to correct its own errors?

What people have shed more blood, not for conquest, but for freedom.

Twice in the last century, we crossed oceans. Not to claim territory. But to liberate that territory!

Our sons and daughters fought and bled on foreign soil to push the darkness back, to fight against Naziism and fascism and Communism. And here we are. Here we are today.

After 249 years tomorrow of that experiment, standing at the lip of the very abyss, those men feared.

A godless chaos, rising in the east and a cold atheistic utopia, clawing at the foundations of the Western world. Islamism and Communism, two ideologies that have killed tens of millions of people. Now dressed all in new robes, selling old lies.

And we can't even teach a child where their rights come from. We have replaced Jefferson and Adams with TikTok influencers and bureaucratic groupthink.

We're raising generations to not even know the truth about their own identity.

But to question their identity. And they could be, oh, you're a funny, funny colored unicorn today. What do you want to be tomorrow?

We don't teach them anything about truth, or their inheritance, most importantly. Their inheritance. What good are hot dogs and fireworks, if the soul of the nation is up for auction? What is the meaning in Fourth of July, if we have forgotten the why? If we don't even call it Independence Day anymore. Most people don't even know who we fought against for independence.

They think we fought for its independence! Most people think we fought the South!

And yet, we'll light the sparklers, or blow our fingers off, because we're just that stupid.

This Independence Day weekend, would you do me and yourself and your country a favor, and read the words out loud. Speak the words out loud.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with one another.

And to assume among the powers of earth, the separate, but equal station, to which the laws of nature.

And nature's God entitle them.

A decent respect to the opinions of mankind, requires that they should declare the causes, which impair them to the separation.

What are they saying?

Look, we want to be decent people.

We want to be decent people.

And we have to separate them.

But we believe it's only right that we tell you why we have to separate. And it's not because of all the bad things you've done. We'll get to those later. It's because we're different. And you don't understand. You have been telling us all of these things, we no longer believe in. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal, and they're endowed by their creator with certain inalienable. Unchangeable rights.

And just among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That to secure these rights, government are his instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

My gosh. Read those words. And let your children hear what thinking and courage sounds like.

That to secure these rights, I'm telling you, the king, who thinks that your government was given to you, by God.

And you are the ruler.

And you will tell everybody what to think, what to do. What to buy. What to sell. What to tax. What not to tax. Who gets land. Who doesn't get land.

No, no, no. Government are his instituted among men, deriving their powers, their just powers, from the people. And that government is only there, established by those men to protect the rights that God has given each of those men.

Let them feel the chill, that runs down the spine, when Jefferson writes, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the government, or from the governed. Let them hear the words, of -- of responsibility. What responsibility sounds like, with courage and freedom. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these rights, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

And to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their a lot of and happiness.

In other words, you have the right, you have the responsibility to stop tyrants. And if the government has gone bad, to throw that government off.

But reconstitute a government, that will do a better job at protecting those rights. Not to form a communist government.

Not to do anything else. But you want a new government?

Fine! Let's find the way to make men more free. This is not a metaphor. This is a declaration of war on tyranny in all of its forms.

I mean, I said, yesterday, freedom isn't free.

It was paid for by somebody's blood. But you have to remember, they paid for their freedom, not for our freedom, necessarily.

We -- there comes a time, we have to pay for our freedom. And God forbid, that it comes down to blood.

But at least shake off the apathy. We -- we must renew this promise of this experiment of America.

We need to fight for it as well. An out-of-control government that seeks to rope us into forever wars, over and over again. We're all against forever wars. I'm against it.

I hate them.

But there is one forever war, that is required in a free society. A different kind of forever war.

A war against ourselves, a war against human nature in each of us. Because of human nature, we get fat. We get lazy.

We get tolerant of abuses. Let your children hear you speak these words. And when you speak them, ponder them yourself.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes.

And accordingly, all experience has shown, that mankind is more disposed to suffer while the evils are sufferable than to right themselves, by abolishing the forms in which they're accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a sign to reduce them under absolute despotism.

It's their right. It's their duty. To throw off such government. And provide new guards for such future security.

In one paragraph, we make the point twice. And they tell us, look, we've studied people.

We know you're going to get fat and lazy and apathetic. And you won't want to do stuff for transient causes. Because this is really not good.

But when push comes to shove. And everything is moving towards absolute despotism. Absolute tyranny. Then you must stand up.

I ask you to ponder this. This particular part, when a long train of abuses and usurpations. Prudence will indeed dictate that governments long established should not be exchanged for light and transient causes.

And accordingly, all experience has shown, that mankind is more disposed to suffer while the evils suffer, than to right themselves.

Aren't we exactly the same people, that their experience was talking about?

Aren't we the people that are more disposed to suffer, than to right ourselves? Because we're too comfortable. Or we're too afraid, just to stand up and simply say no to lies.

No!

There is a difference between men and women.

No! Communism is to be feared. It's killed over 100 million people, in the last 100 years.

No!

Muslims aren't bad. Islamism is!

It's evil. No!

You can peacefully protest, any time, any place. And I will fight to the death for your right to do that.

But when you start burn cities down to the ground, no!

We're just a few days away. And we have marked our 249th birthday. Maybe. Just maybe, this year, can we stop asking what America was, and start deciding what America will be?

Where it just slips quietly into history. In the dark of apathy and ignorance.

Because the only thing more dangerous than tyranny is the people who have forgotten what it took to break its chains.