GLENN

Eric Liu: You're More Powerful Than You Think

What happens when a reasonable constitutionalist meets a reasonable progressive? A useful conversation ensues.

Eric Liu, CEO of Citizenship University and author of You're More Powerful Than You Think: A Citizen's Guide to Making Change Happen, joined Glenn in studio to discuss the destructive nature of politics and how to push back against a rigged system.

Enjoy the complimentary clip or read the transcript for details.

GLENN: Eric Liu is a new friend. We started to get to know each other maybe two months ago. He came down from his hometown of Seattle, which is also my hometown.

He is a CEO of Citizenship University. He teaches civics at the University of Washington. Just that is enough to say, I don't think we're going to have a lot in common.

(laughter)

GLENN: He is -- he was described by a mutual friend of ours, Matt Kibbe, as a progressive who wants to talk to the other side. And I -- I sat down in my office with Eric, and I said, "This is going to be an interesting conversation." And you -- you pretty much, if I remember correctly, started the conversation with, I'm not an early 20th century American progressive.

Is that -- am I remembering that right? Or did I hear that in my --

ERIC: Well, you asked if I was.

GLENN: Yes. And so your answer was?

ERIC: Yeah.

Well, my answer was, I'm a progressive in the sense simply that I believe you can't just let things be. I think that society, a community, a political system, an economy is like a garden. You know, when you leave things be, for a while, things grow awesome. They're great. Right? They grow like gangbusters.

But after a certain point, noxious weeds take over, and they start to kill the whole thing. After a little while of letting things go, the garden tips over and it dies.

GLENN: Well, there's a difference between that and to use your garden -- let me take it to a farm. Theodore Roosevelt. So I'll take it out of the Republicans. Talked about breeding of humans, in compared to breeding like cattle, because noxious weeds -- people will marry, and they're too stupid to know who to marry and who not to marry. I mean, there is -- there is a place to where the farmer or the rancher takes it too far.

ERIC: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I think, you know, there's a good wide open space between that vision of, hey, we're citizen gardeners. We own responsibility for making sure that we tend, that we weed, that we see the plot between that. And eugenics. You know, that whole world view --

GLENN: Yes. Yeah.

STU: Just a personal thing for us. But would you mind using an analogy that isn't related to vegetables? We're not familiar.

ERIC: You don't get what I'm talking about?

STU: Yeah, we just don't understand.

GLENN: He's a vegetarian and still doesn't understand them. He hates the fact that he's a vegetarian.

You write, why do most people think "power" is a dirty word? Because they think it means coercion and violence. They associate it with the worst in human nature. And if I can summarize, a couple things that you say: There are three laws of power. The first, power concentrates, that it feeds itself and it compounds, as does powerlessness. Second, power justifies itself. People invent stories to legitimatize the power that they have. And third, power is infinite. There is no inherit limit to the amount of power people can create.

Take me through those three points.

ERIC: Yeah. These are pretty fundamental to any understanding, I think, of whether you're on the right or the left, how we live in this incredible age right now of bottom-up citizen power. People all across-the-board are knocking over entrenched monopolies, knocking over entrenched systems of status quo. And so when you look at those three laws, number one, power concentrates. You know, when you have it, you tend to get more.

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: When you don't have it, you tend to get less. Right? And that plays out in economic terms, in terms of the rich get richer and so forth. But it's also political.

GLENN: You see it honestly with the conservatives. Progressives have control of much of the media, and the conservatives struggle to have a toehold in that media. And we seem to get less and less.

ERIC: Well, I think that's right. I mean, I think there is a way in which -- okay. So that's number one: Power concentrates.

GLENN: Yes.

ERIC: But what you're touching on is also law number two: Power justifies itself, right? So people who tend to be in power, and from your perspective, that's progressives in the media. In other times in American history --

GLENN: Well, let's take it in your field, I mean, in the university, you can't tell me that you think that progressives don't control the universities and manipulate and justify itself?

ERIC: Well, I think progressives dominate the academy. Progressives dominate the media.

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: But domination is one thing. It's justifying itself as telling these just so stories about why that ought to be so. Right?

GLENN: Correct.

ERIC: And so an example I'll use more from the left is the classic case is trickle-down economics. To me, the idea that people who are already wealthy and already privileged telling you, you've got to take good care of us, man. You've got to coddle us and make sure you give us nice tax breaks because that's the only way any of my wealth is going to leak down to the rest of you, right?

Economic theory tells you, there's not actually a whole lot of truth to that. But it's a story. It's a way of justifying people having what they have. Right?

White supremacy has always been that kind of story line. You know, that, hey, look, whites are better and more suited for governing and governing themselves and running the show than non-whites, so this just ought to be the way it is. Right? You non-whites ought not to be kind of crowding into the public square.

So if all you had were these two laws here, that power compounds and it justifies itself, you get into a pretty grim doom loop. Right? You get into a situation -- well, you get into a dictatorial authoritarian situation. The only thing that busts you out of that doom loop is law number three, which is that power is infinite. And that people, wherever they are, even if they're outside of those circles of concentrated power, can generate new countervailing power out of thin air, simply by organizing.

And, you know, I actually on the road have been completely consistent in saying exhibit A is the Tea Party. The Tea Party, 2010, arrived without clout, without connections, without permission, without anybody saying, "Hey, go on and kind of lead a movement here to challenge the entrenched status quo in both parties." But these people remembered that they had infinite power, and that if they simply began to organize with another, which is simply asking one other human to join you in a common endeavor and say, you know what, let's make some plans here. Let's get on a common message. Let's do some things together. They began fundamentally to change the game, right?

And I think this age that we're in right now is one that connects the Tea Party, with Occupy Wall Street. With $15 an hour. With Black Lives Matter.

You may think, wow, all these people. I don't agree with all these people. But the reality is, all of them are remembering that in this bottom-up way, citizens can exercise far more clout and muscle than most of the time we remember we have.

GLENN: So this is -- and I know this audience is -- is feeling it. And I say this in the spirit of just defining where we are. Okay?

As I'm listening to you and I heard about, you know, trickle-down economics, I wanted immediately to stop and battle you on that.

ERIC: Yeah.

GLENN: There's several things that you said that I immediately wanted to say, no.

(chuckling)

STU: That's okay though.

GLENN: It's okay. It's okay. But that's where we get lost. Because we don't listen -- we don't let the other person finish. And so we're not listening to each other.

But let me -- instead of battling on those things, let me take you here on that. I agree with your three points. And I agree with you on the last point. And I -- you know, I -- I'm sorry, I have to say it, but not only power is infinite, with power comes money too. Money is infinite. So we spend so much time telling people, sit down, shut up, to protect your own power. Okay?

And I can't -- you can't do it because that guy is in your way. You can't make money because that guy has it all. Money and power. They're usually put together. And they are infinite. As we see in Silicon Valley. You can dream, you can do. It's the idea of America.

Here's the thing that I want to get to on this -- on this power: There are progressives on both sides of the aisle. There are progressives that are Republicans, progressives that are Democrats. And the -- the original idea was either fascism in the early 20th century. They thought fascism and communism was neat. So the early guys were, who is going to control the cows? Who is going to be the rancher on the cows? Who is going to tell these dummies that don't get it how to live their life? We'll protect them, and we'll have the power.

And so there's fascists, and there's communists, if you will. Both of them end the same way in authoritarianism.

How do we get to a point to where the people who are truly constitutionalists -- this is what makes us different. What the progressives started in the early 20th century is just to bring us back to the European model. Look what's happening in France: Communism or fascism. Forty percent is voting for fascism or communism. That's craziness.

How do we get to the point to where we can say, "I want you to -- I want you to have the power that you want. I want you to have all the success that you want." But I -- I don't want you telling me what success I can have or what I have to believe or what line I have to tow. I don't want control of your life. I want -- I want 330 million experiments happening that will pop up, and I'll go, "My gosh, look at that life. I'd like to pattern my life after that." Instead of somebody trying to cookie-cutter us all. And I think that's what a lot of people on the left are feeling, especially youth. They're seeing that -- that -- that current running through the right, that says, I want a strongman. And they miss the strongman on the left.

So how do reasonable people come together in the middle that are saying, "Eric, I love you and I respect you and I don't have a problem. Don't control my life. I won't control your life."

ERIC: So I want to start with appreciating what you said at the outset, which was, there were three or four moments when I was speaking earlier where you just wanted to hop up and say no. Right?

I think that's huge. I don't want to just kind of skip past that. I think it's really worth naming that. And I'm sure many of your listeners are like, no.

JEFFY: A couple of people in the room.

(laughter)

ERIC: Yeah, I'm sure. So I think that ability to hear that inside yourself, to kind of sit with that and say, "Hold on. Let's let this play out."

GLENN: And not -- and hang on. And not stew on that like, okay. I got to wait until he stops. I got to remember this.

JEFFY: That's hard. That's hard.

GLENN: Because I couldn't remember -- I couldn't remember -- I know there were three or four things that I thought of that I wanted to say no. But it's stop yourself and let it go. And listen to the other side. That's really hard.

ERIC: That verb right there, man. I think politics, especially in DC, is filled with what I call debaters listening. Right?

GLENN: Yes.

ERIC: You're just listening inasmuch as you need to get the quick gist of what the guy is saying. And then your wheels are spinning, how am I going to pound him back? How am I going to destroy what he just said, right?

GLENN: Yes.

STU: Yep.

ERIC: And what I'm talking about is basically citizens listening.

GLENN: Yes.

ERIC: Like humans actually full-body listening. Right? And checking yourself and saying, okay. Before I react -- I know my talking points I'm going to kind of wheel out here. Right? And the same thing just happened for me.

GLENN: I could see it.

ERIC: You were describing this vision of what you're articulating. You know, you're describing progressivism as top-down, cookie-cutter, controlling either fascist or communist, you know, the state solves everything or tries to solve everything for people.

GLENN: And the reason why you're here is because I don't believe you believe that.

ERIC: I don't believe that, right?

GLENN: Right.

ERIC: And I don't accept that definition in the first place.

GLENN: But do you believe there are those that do that?

ERIC: I do. And I think we're here because precisely as you say, because there is a space between that caricature and the caricature that I could throw out, you know, that all Libertarians are just complete individualistic kind of, you know, sociopathic selfish people that just want to go their own -- that would be equally wrong and stupid, right?

GLENN: Correct. Correct. We've made the media and sound bites. And we are reflecting it in our own conversation. If we can't judge each other in one sound bite, then we don't engage.

ERIC: Yeah.

GLENN: We get lost. And those sound bites make us into cartoon characters.

ERIC: Yeah.

GLENN: And we're not those cartoon characters.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

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What was Jeffrey Epstein's operation all about. If he was at the center of a massive blackmail operation to compromise those in positions of power, who is in possession of that information now? Glenn Beck and ATF Whistleblower John Dodson analyze the details of this situation and give their thoughts on what is the most likely reality surrounding Epstein.

Watch Glenn Beck's FULL Interview with ATF Whistleblower John Dodson HERE

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WARNING: How America Elects a Socialist President in 2028 | Glenn TV | Ep 444

The rise of Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old socialist who just won the Democratic primary for mayor, is not just a political earthquake shaking New York City — it’s a warning for the rest of America. Backed by Bernie Sanders, AOC, and the Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani promises free everything, to tax the rich, and to dismantle capitalism. There’s nothing new about this tired strategy, but the media is propping him up as a new political genius. And with Democrat leaders lining up behind him, it’s clear: This radicalism isn’t fringe anymore. It’s the Democratic Party’s future. Mamdani’s rise is part of a larger movement that’s rewriting America’s values. Glenn Beck explains how New York is the prototype for the Left’s socialist makeover of America. Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Standford, gives a terrifying prediction on Mamdani’s mayoral race chances and warns the revolution is coming for mainstream Democrats. He also dives into MAGA’s frustration with the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files.

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INSIDE Trump’s soul: How a bullet changed his heart forever

“I have a new purpose,” then-candidate Donald Trump told reporter Salena Zito after surviving the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Salena joins Glenn Beck to reveal what Trump told her about God, his purpose in life, and why he really said, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”, as she details in her new book, “Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland”.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Salena, congratulations on your book. It is so good.

Just started reading it. Or listening to it, last night.

And I wish you would have -- I wish you would have read it. But, you know, the lady you have reading it is really good.

I just enjoy the way you tell stories.

The writing of this is the best explanation on who Trump supporters are. That I think I've ever read, from anybody.

It's really good.

And the description of your experience there at the edge of the stage with Donald Trump is pretty remarkable as well. Welcome to the program.

SALENA: Thank you, Glenn. Thank you so much for having me.

You know, I was thinking about this, as I was ready to come on. You and I have been along for this ride forever. For what?

Since 2006? 2005?

Like 20 years, right?

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

SALENA: And I've been chronicling the American people for probably ten more years, before that. And it's really remarkable to me, as watching how this coalition has grown. Right?

And watching how people have the -- have become more aspirational.

And that's -- and that is what the conservative populist coalition is, right?

It is the aspirations of many, but the celebration of the individual.

And chronicling them, yeah. Has been -- has been, a great honor.

GLENN: You know, I was thinking about this yesterday, when -- when Elon Musk said he was starting another party.

And somebody asked me, well, isn't he doing what the Tea Party tried to do?

No. The Tea Party was not going to start a new party.

It was to -- you know, it was to coerce and convince the Republican Party to do the right thing. And it worked in many ways. It didn't accomplish what we hoped.

But it did accomplish a lot of things.

Donald Trump is a result of the Tea Party.

I truly believe that. And a lot of the people that were -- right?

Were with Donald Trump, are the people that were with the Tea Party.


SALENA: That's absolutely right.

So that was the inception.

So American politics has always had movements, that have been just outside of a party. Or within a party.

That galvanize and broaden the coalition. Right? They don't take away. Or walk away, and become another party.

If anything, if there is a third party out there, it's almost a Republican Party.

Because it has changed in so many viable and meaningful ways. And the Tea Party didn't go away. It strengthened and broadened the Republican Party. Because these weren't just Republicans that became part of this party.

It was independents. It was Democrats.

And just unhappy with the establishment Republicans. And unhappy with Democrats.

And that -- that movement is what we -- what I see today.

What I see every day. What I saw that day, in butler, when I showed I happen at that rally.

As I do, so many rallies, you know, throughout my career. And that one was riveting and changed everything.

GLENN: You made a great case in the opening chapter. You talk about how things were going for Donald Trump.

And how this moment really did change everything for Donald Trump.

Changed the trajectory, changed the mood.

I mean, Elon Musk was not on the Trump train, until this.

SALENA: Yeah.

GLENN: Moment. What do I -- what changed? How -- how did that work?

And -- and I contend, that we would have much more profound change, had the media actually done their job and reported this the way it really was. Pragmatism

SALENA: You know, and people will find this in the book. I'm laying on the ground with an agent on top of me.

I'm 4 feet away from the president.

And there's -- there's notices coming up on my phone. Saying, he was hit by broken glass.

And to this take, that remains part of this sibling culture, in American politics.

Because reporters were -- were so anxious to -- to right what they believed happened.

As opposed to what happened.

And it's been a continual frustration of mine, as a reporter, who is on the ground, all the time.

And I'll tell you, what changed in that moment.

And I say a nuance, and I believe nuance is dead in American journalism.

But it was a nuance and it was a powerful conversation, that I had with President Trump, the next day. He called me the next morning.

But it's a powerful conversation I had with him, just two weeks ago.

When he made this decision to say, fight, fight, fight.

People have put in their heads, why they think he said it. But he told me why he said that. And he said, Salena, in that moment, I was not Donald Trump the man. I was a former president. I was quite possibly going to be president again.

And I had an obligation to the country, and to the office that I have served in, to project strength. To project resolve.

To project that we will not be defeated.

And it's sort of like a symbolic eagle, that is always -- you know, that symbol that we look at, when we think about our country.

He said, that's why I said that. I didn't want the people behind me panicking. I didn't want the people watching, panicking.

I had to show strength. And it's that nuance -- that I think people really picked up on.

And galvanized people.

GLENN: So he told me, when he was laying down on the stage.

And you can hear him. Let me get up. Let me get up.

I've got to get up.

He told me, as I was laying on the stage. I asked him, what were you thinking? What was going through your head? Now, Salena, I don't know about you.

But with me. It would be like, how do I get off the stage? My first was survival.

He said, what was going on through his mind was, you're not pathetic. This is pathetic.

You're not afraid. Get up.

Get up.

And so is that what informed his fight, fight, fight, of that by the time that he's standing up, he's thinking, I'm a symbol? Or do you think he was thinking, I'm a symbol, this looks pathetic. It makes you look weak.

Stand up. How do you think that actually happened?

SALENA: He thinks, and we just talked about this weeks ago. He -- you know, and this is something that he's really thought about.

Right? You know, he's gone over and over and over. And also, purpose and God. Right? These are things that have lingered with him.

You know, he -- he thought, yes.

He did think, it was pathetic that he was on the ground. But he wasn't thinking about, I'm Donald Trump. It's pathetic.

He's thinking, my country is symbolically on the ground. I need to get up, and I need to show that my country is strong.

That our country is resolute.

And I need people to see that.

We can't go on looking like pathetic.

Right?

And I think that then goes to that image of Biden.

GLENN: You have been with so many presidents.

How many presidents do you think that you've personally been with, would have thought that and reacted that way?

SALENA: Probably only Reagan. Reagan would have. Reagan probably would have thought that.

And if you remember how he was out like standing outside.

You know, waving out the window. Right?

After he was shot.

GLENN: At the hospital, right.

SALENA: Had he not been knocked out, unconscious, you know, he probably would have done the same thing.

Because he was someone who deeply believed in American exceptionalism.

And American exceptionalism does not go lay on the ground.

GLENN: And the symbol.

Right. The symbol of the presidency.

SALENA: Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that affects him today.

GLENN: So let me go back to God.

Because you talked to him the next day. And your book Butler.

He calls you up.

I love the fact that your parents would be ashamed of you. On what you said to him.

The language you used. That you just have to read the book.

It's just a great part.

But he calls you the next morning. And wants to know if you're okay.

And you -- you then start talking to him, about God.

And I was -- I was thinking about this, as I was listening to it. You know, Lincoln said, I wasn't -- I wasn't a Christian.

Even though, he was.

I wasn't a Christian, when I was elected. I wasn't a Christian when my son died.

I became a Christian at Gettysburg.

Is -- is -- I mean, I believe Donald Trump always believes in God, et cetera, et cetera.

Do you think there was a real profound change at Butler with him?


SALENA: Absolutely. You know, he called me seven times that day. Seven times, the take after seven.

GLENN: Crazy.

SALENA: Talked about. And I think he was looking for someone that he knew, that was there. And to try to sort it out.

Right? And I let him do most of the talking. I didn't pressure him.

At all. I believed that he was having -- you know, he was struggling. And he needed to just talk. And I believed my purpose was to listen.

Right? I know other reporters would have handled it differently. And that's okay. That's not the kind of reporter that I am.

And I myself was having my own like, why didn't I die?

Right?

Because it went right over my head.

And -- and so I -- he had the conversation about God.

He's funny. I thought it was the biggest mosquito in the world that hit me.

But he had talked profoundly about purpose. You know, and God.

And how God was in that moment.

It --

GLENN: I love the way you -- in the book, I love the way you said that as he's kind of working it out in his own he head.

He was like, you know, I -- I -- I always knew that there was some sort of, you know -- that God was present.

He said, but now that this has happened.

I look back at all of the trials.

All of the tribulations. Literally, the trials.

All of the things that have happened. And he's like, I realized God was there the whole time.

SALENA: Yes. He does. And it's fascinating to have been that witness to history, to have those conversations with him. Because I'm telling you. And y'all know, I can talk. I didn't say much of anything.

I just -- I just listened. I felt that was my purpose, in that moment.

To give him that space, to work it out.

I'm someone that is, you know, believes in God.

I'm Catholic. I followed my faith.

And -- and so, I thought, well, this is why God put me here. Right?

And to -- to have that -- to hear him talk about purpose, to hear him say, Salena. Why did I put a chart down?

I'm like, sir. I don't know. I thought you were Ross Perot for a second.

He never has a chart. And he laughed. And then he said, why did I put that chart down?

By that term, I never turned my head away from people at the rally. That's true.

That relationship is very transactional. It's very -- they feed off of each other.

It's a very emotive moment when you attend a rally. Because he has a way of talking at a rally. That you believe that you are seeing.

And he said, and I never turn my head away.

I never turn my head away.

Why did I turn my head away?

I don't remember consciously thinking about turning my head away. And then he says to me, that was God, wasn't it?

Yes, sir. It was. It was God.

And he said, that's -- that's why I have a new purpose.

And so, Glenn. I think it's important, when you look at the breadth of what has happened, since he was sworn in.

You see that purpose, every day.

He doesn't let up.

He continues going.

And it brings back to the beginning of the book.

Where you find out, that there was another president that was shot at in Butler.

And that was George Washington. And how different the country would have been, had he died in that moment.

And now think about how different the country would be, had President Trump died in that moment. There would be --

GLENN: We're talking to -- we're talking to Salena Zito. About her new book called Butler. The assassination attempt on President Trump. And it is riveting.

And, you know, it is so good. I wish the press would read it. Because it really explains who we are, who Trump supporters are. Who are, you know, red staters. It is so good at that. She's the best at that.