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Ajit Pai, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), joined Glenn on radio to discuss the future of the internet and net neutrality. If a government regulator exists that Glenn likes, it's Ajit Pai, who stood alone in a hostile world at the FCC during the Obama administration. Pai favors light regulation to ensure consumers have a competitive choice and companies have a greater incentive to invest in the internet.
Enjoy the complimentary clip or read the transcript for details.
GLENN: The head of the FCC. The FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, now joins us.
Ajit, I don't know if you are aware of this at all, but we've been watching you for a while. I have -- I have no idea how you got by Obama. But we're glad you did.
AJIT: Thanks so much, Glenn. I really appreciate the kind words. And grateful to you for making time for me today.
GLENN: Oh, you bet. We have a lot of questions for you. And I want to talk to you about net neutrality. I want to talk to you about the cable industry and this cry of fake news and where you think we're going.
Let's start with probably net neutrality.
Net neutrality is -- is in some ways, a -- a nightmare and will limit people. In other ways, people will look at this and say, "Wait. I don't want my cable operator being able to pick and choose winners and slow down, you know, the speeds of YouTube, if they're trying to promote their own YouTube." Can you make the argument?
AJIT: Absolutely. I think the key point here is nothing about the internet was broken. From the dawn of the internet age in the 1990s until 2015, the internet economy in the United States was the envy of the world precisely because President Clinton and a Republican Congress agreed that instead of regulating the heck out of this new technology, we would let it develop and take targeted action as necessary.
And that's, I think, part of the reason why we saw the tremendous explosion and activity online. But in 2015, on the party-line vote, the FCC imposed these heavy-handed rules that were developed for Mondale, the telephone monopoly back in the 1930s.
And as a result, we've seen less investment in networks. We're seeing less competition than ever. And I think that's one of the things we want to address going further, is, you know, light-touch regulation I think is the best calibrated to make sure the consumers have more competitive choice, and the companies have a greater incentive to invest. And that's where we're heading.
GLENN: So how would you address -- I said this to Ray Kurzweil who is part of the Singularity University. Works for Google. And I said, "So, Ray, why wouldn't Google develop an algorithm that would find people who are using the search engine to create a bigger and better Google? Why wouldn't they just -- I mean, that's human nature to protect yourself. If somebody is coming -- you can piece together in advance, "Wait a minute. These people are looking to build a better Google." Why wouldn't you just shut them down? He said, "Oh, that would never happen because we're all good people." I don't necessarily subscribe to that theory.
But, you know, we are now in the internet age, playing devil's advocate, of these gigantic corporations that you're just not going to -- the little guy is not going to compete against Google. They're not going to compete against Apple. They're not -- you can't compete around Comcast.
AJIT: And the point I consistently made is we don't put our faith in people or in companies. What's that saying? If men were angels, no laws would be necessary.
GLENN: Right.
AJIT: Well, we have a system of laws, and interest in competition laws on one hand and consumer protection laws on the other. And those are administered by a -- say the Federal Trade Commission or Justice Department here in Washington, by state agencies across the country. So there's a whole framework of laws to protect against that kind of conduct.
What we don't need is the FCC preemptively micromanaging every single business in the United States, not just the big ones that you mentioned, but even the smaller companies that have told us we're holding back on investment now because of these heavy-handed investments.
GLENN: So we're talking to Ajit Pai, he's the chairman of the FCC. You know, as I look at the most hated services in America -- or service providers, it's your electric company, it's your insurance companies, it's your cable companies. Those are all the ones that are the most heavily regulated.
However, as somebody who has tried, without $200 million behind me, to break in and have a -- a groundswell -- a verified groundswell of -- of support behind me, these -- to break into cable is absolutely impossible if you are a voice that the companies want to block. You just can't do it. How do we balance that and make sure that, you know, the app system -- because that's why we -- that's why we're online. Okay. Well, good. We'll do it online. But how do we make sure that the app system isn't blocked now by a Comcast or an Apple, where you're just not going to get in and break through?
AJIT: That's a terrific question. And two different answers: Number one, the way you do it is by promoting more competition. You make sure that the barriers to entry, so to speak, are low. That people like you can express yourselves over a variety of different platforms. And number two, to the extent that that's a concern, remember that the people who are promoting this Title II regulation through the US government are not the friends of free speech and free expression. These groups are consistently saying that they want government control of the internet, not just for its own sake, but in order to regulate how speech and expression happens online.
GLENN: Right.
AJIT: And they've been very open about this throughout the years.
GLENN: But you can't -- as a person, I can't start my own cable company. It's all regulated. I can't start one.
AJIT: And that's why we've had a very aggressive agenda in the three months that I've been in the chairman's office to make sure that we enable more companies to make that decision, to enter the marketplace, removing some of the barriers that they found, in terms of the rules, and making it easier for them to raise capital and to enter these marketplaces. And we want the smaller companies that are getting squeezed by these regulations to finally enter the market and provide a competitive option.
GLENN: Good for you.
So help me out on this. Ted Koppel, who I have a lot of respect for, has done a lot of great journalism over his lifetime -- I was talking to him, and he was concerned about all this fake news. And I said, at the end of the day, go back to the revolutionary war, there was tons of fake news back then. We're just in a new situation. And we haven't found our way to balance it yet. But you got to trust the people.
And he immediately said, "I think that we need to start, you know, having a license for people to be on the internet and to present news. We have to verify those people who are online."
That's insane.
AJIT: I couldn't agree more. And I have a lot of respect for Ted Koppel's career. But, frankly, his comments are repugnant to the spirit and the letter of the First Amendment. In fact, that's the very reason why John Milton in 1644 wrote his great treaties on free expression, Areopagitica, where he said that, you know, look, the king has no business licensing people to allow them to speak. We -- the entire premise of western civilization is that you don't have a gatekeeper allowing you to speak only at the whim of the king. And that's the same here in the United States. The last thing I think we want is government -- sort of regulators like me deciding who speaks and who doesn't. That's the fantastic thing about the internet age, I think.
STU: Don't you think though, Glenn -- and Ajit Pai -- we're talking to the FCC chairman. You have this situation where it's not about what happened in 1644 or anything. It's about what's coming up on May 30th, which is season five of House of Cards.
JEFFY: Thank you. Thank you.
STU: People want their Netflix. They want it streamed. They don't want their evil cable company slowing it down. Is that something that needs to be regulated, or does the market actually work that stuff out?
AJIT: To me, the market works it out. The best evidence of that is the digital economy that we had, prior to 2015 when we imposed these rules.
Companies were not engaging in the blocking of lawful content. And to the extent that we have concerns about competition, the best way to get there is not by imposing these heavy-handed regulations that slow down infrastructure investment, especially by some of the smaller companies that would give you a competitive option. It's by making sure we have clear-cut rules of the road, that are market-friendly, that incentivize more companies to enter this space.
And so, you know, look, I'm all in favor of the government looking at any competitive problems as they pop up. Preemptively regulating, from the Fortune 500 companies, down to the tiny companies in Little Rock, Arkansas, is not the way to get there.
GLENN: I will tell you, Ajit, I look at this time period -- and I'd love to hear your point of view of this. I look at this time period of American history as a combination of the industrial revolution and heavy emphasis on Tesla and Edison, all in about a 20-year period. I mean, what's coming in -- in technology and communication has already been profound. But it's going to become even more profound.
And, you know, as a student of history -- and you obviously are one as well. When you look back at those days of Tesla and Edison, in many ways, Tesla was right. Edison was just good at playing the game with the government.
And he was a -- excuse my language, but a son of a bitch. And that's not French. That's English.
STU: Can we say that on the air, Mr. FCC Chairman?
GLENN: Oh, yes, I shouldn't have said that with the FCC chairman.
AJIT: I'll give you a pass, don't worry.
GLENN: Okay. Thank you.
PAT: You didn't think that one through. Did you?
GLENN: Yeah, I didn't think that one through. I forgot who we were talking to. Anyway, we never say things like that, by the way. Golly, gee, darn it. I'm sorry.
But we were pushed back because of the collusion with very powerful people like Edison and very powerful politicians. Do you see us -- how do you see what's coming our way?
AJIT: Boy, that's a great question.
I think the first thing is the empowerment of the citizen that the internet allows. It used to be that to do virtually anything, you had to work through some sort of gatekeeper. If you were buying a car, you had to go through a dealer. If you were wanting to stay in a place, you have to go book a room with a hotel.
And now, because of technology, you can do anything, basically by yourself. And that's an incredible amount of empowerment. But, on the other hand, we always have to guard against this instinct of essentially crony capitalism, the phenomenon that you talked about. And to that extent, I think what people need to understand is that heavy-handed regulation is actually the friend of bigger businesses and for those who believe in big government. Because -- the big companies are always going to have the armies of lawyers and accountants to comply with these regulations, to persuade government to do favors on this or that issue. It's the smaller companies that are disproportionately affected. And the second thing is that it's very seductive for a lot of people to think, "Well, the market just leaves consumers at the mercy of these wild and unpredictable forces." When in reality, the market has delivered more value for consumers than preemptive government regulation ever could.
I mean, the fact that we have billions of people who are emerging from poverty now is the result of free market policies. It's not because the governments of these various countries have suddenly decided to bestow largesse upon them. And so it's a case that we consistently have to make that crony capitalism and big government regulation, those are not the friends of the average consumer.
GLENN: So we have -- we have a situation now of fake news. And it's been around forever. But it's at epidemic proportions because the average person has access to everybody. And the average person, you know, unfortunately doesn't think things through and really read everything. They see a headline, they click on it, and they share it.
We have some really nefarious people, some of them in Russia, that are using our own technology against us, using our own freedoms against us. We have the press -- I told you about Ted Koppel. But we also have the president coming out and saying, you know, you're fake news. And maybe we should be able to sue you more.
Does the FCC have a role in the First Amendment in saying to all sides, "Knock it off. The freedom of the press is the freedom of the press, no matter if it's a printing press or the internet. Knock it off?"
AJIT: Well, I've consistently said -- and this goes back to my time as a commissioner up to five years ago, that one of the distinctive features of America is the fact that we have a First Amendment. It's unique in human history for the government to establish in its very founding papers the notion that anybody in this country has the ability to speak, anybody has the ability to write, anybody has the ability to worship as he or she sees fit.
And that's something that requires not just the cold parchment of the Constitution, but it requires a culture that admires that -- those freedoms. And so I've consistently spoken about -- about the need to preserve that culture of freedom for speech and free press. Because it's a slippery slope. Once you lose it, it's very hard to reclaim it.
GLENN: You have a 50 -- what is it? A 50 or 60 percent of so-called conservatives saying that there's a limit to freedom of the press. Is there?
AJIT: Well, the Constitution speaks for itself. And so long as I have the privilege of occupying this office, I'll keep defending that core constitutional freedom. It's one of the things that I think makes America a very unique place across time and across the world.
GLENN: So I think with that answer, I just have to end where I started: How the hell did you get past Barack Obama?
AJIT: That's a good question. I'm not sure how I slipped through the cracks.
GLENN: I don't know either.
AJIT: But maybe it's the -- sort of like the Forrest Gump of the Washington scene. Just kept gamboling on, and here I am.
(laughter)
GLENN: Yeah. Okay. Ajit Pai, thank you so much for talking to us.
PAT: Great.
GLENN: And keep up the good work.
AJIT: Thank you, sir. Thanks for having me on.
GLENN: You bet. Buh-bye.
PAT: And thanks for the shout-out to Areopagitica. That's -- I think that's a first.
JEFFY: Right.
GLENN: Oh, how many times have we talked about -- off the air --
PAT: All the time. All the time.
STU: Talked about all the time.
GLENN: Okay. You know what I love --
PAT: Talked about all the time. Milton's Areopagitica.
JEFFY: Right!
A new wave of sweeping “pardons” has triggered one of the most urgent constitutional alarms Glenn Beck has ever raised — not because the individuals involved are controversial, but because the actions themselves may not even qualify as pardons at all. Glenn Beck breaks down how these broad, immunity-style declarations can bypass investigations, rewrite laws by fiat, and push executive power into territory the Founders explicitly warned against. With mass clemency increasingly used as a political shield and executive actions replacing the legislative process, America is drifting toward a model of governance that no longer resembles a constitutional republic. This episode exposes how the pardon power is being stretched beyond recognition, why Congress has surrendered its role as a check, and what must happen before the nation crosses a point of no return. The question now is unavoidable: Who will stop this before the Constitution becomes optional?
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
CALLER: I wanted to talk about the pardons. Hunter's pardon was legitimate. He was actually accused of a crime. I know you're plugged in with the president. I haven't heard anybody say this anywhere. I have been watching everything.
These pardons. Forget the auto-pen. The auto-pen doesn't even matter. Because these were immunity deals. These were not pardons. None of these people were under investigation. None of these people had any crimes they were accused of.
So you can't pardon somebody for something they may have or may not have done. That's an immunity deal.
Again, I've watched everything. I don't hear anybody bring that stuff -- I don't think the auto-pen matters. I just think those things are null and void from the jump.
GLENN: Who --
CALLER: Like I said.
GLENN: Who do we have besides Mike Lee? Because Mike is always hard to get a hold of at this time. He's like, I'm working on Senate stuff, Glenn.
Who do we have that is a Constitutional scholar that we can call real quick, and see if we can get an answer on that before the end of the show? At least put a call out to Mike Lee, will you?
But I would like to know that happen at that. Because the president has. And Stu and I have talked about this for a while. This has gotten out of control. These pardons are out of control. Out of control.
It's something Constitutional. It's been there since George Washington. The President has always had this right, and it's a privilege of his. But you're right.
These things where, wait. I can't investigate this? What that does is if you're as a president doing something that you shouldn't be doing, all you have to do then is say, I pardon everyone in my administration for anything that they might have done wrong.
That can't stand. You're absolutely right on that.
STU: Yeah. You have the immunity deal. Which again, I think is -- I don't see -- I don't see how a pre-pardon is even possibly covered.
Like, it's just such an insane concept.
The way that Biden. He's right that Hunter Biden actually committed a crime and pardoning him from that in theory, obviously, outside the family interest was the way that that was supposed to work.
But they also pardoned him for multiple years of question marks, whether he committed crimes or not. Right? That was all included on that.
To go a step farther on this, I am on a bit of a personal jihad against the pardon. I'm done with it. I'm done with it personally. There's reasons the Founders were very, very smart. But the Founders were smart enough to also have a process for Constitutional amendments. And I would support one, getting rid of the part in power completely. I'm done with it.
GLENN: Wait, may I just interrupt for a second. I just want to point out. We now have verification, not only is Stu a Canadian spy, but he's also a hidden Nazi. Noticed the word he used, jihad, which translates to my struggle. Hitler's book, My Struggle, Mein Kampf. I just want to point it out.
JASON: Exposed.
STU: Just to be clear, I'm not planning a genocide on the power of pardons.
But I'm against it, strongly. But the other part I would say that I think is every worse and is never discussed, are these types of pardons where they say, you know, all marijuana crimes. They're -- everyone -- there are 17,000 people.
That is just you legislating. If I wanted to New Jersey and say, hey.
I think marijuana should be legal. I could theoretically be president.
Saying, everyone convicted of a marijuana-related crime is now pardoned.
And that's just you making laws. It's you going completely around Congress. And the entire process we have there.
At the very least. It should be massively restricted from the way it's being utilized. Not only -- several presidents in a row, I would argue.
But it's -- it should just -- I think it should just go away completely. It's the most king-like power the president has. And it doesn't make any sense to me.
GLENN: Yes. Yes.
So I'm looking this up here.
Barack Obama did this.
He gave clemency for anybody who was convicted of a non-violent federal drug crime.
With no significant criminal history, while serving extraordinarily long sentences. And anybody who was a violent offender was not eligible.
And it was -- it wasn't a -- a true mass pardon. But it was pretty close to it. You know, it was -- it was mass in scale, but not blanketed.
STU: Right.
GLENN: And I think there were like 2,000 people that he parted on that.
STU: It was a law. Creating a new law.
GLENN: Yeah. You're saying, oh, by the way. That law that I personally disagree with.
We're not going to -- it's gone.
STU: The whole law doesn't count at him. We have a whole process to make laws. When someone -- when they pass a law, you can't say, eh. And shrug your shoulders. And say, I don't particularly like it.
And for some reason, that's the way the pardon power has been translated.
GLENN: The problem is the President can. The President has just always had the restraint not to do that.
STU: Right.
GLENN: Because it was bad for the country. And bad for laws.
You know, you don't just -- you don't do this. We're becoming more and more of a king. In our administration.
And it's not Donald Trump.
This has been about to go for a long time.
Barack Obama I think got really, really bad.
But this was going on before him. Obviously.
But Barack Obama kind of set something off.
And then because we couldn't get any legislation passed. We had Donald Trump try to do executive orders, to combat Barack Obama's executive orders.
Then Biden did it. And Trump. It's got to stop.
Because here's the problem. One of the things I said in our special on Wednesday.
Which was, biggest stories of the year.
And predictions for next year. I said, you will start to see rolling brownouts in places like Texas in 2026. Texans, wake up. Wake up.
But you're going to start to see rolling brownouts. But I also made another prediction. And I've just lost what I was going to say was the prediction.
Oh!
This massive swing. We're getting whiplash.
You can't -- you can't run a country like this.
You can't run a country where it's all being done by executive order.
Because look, we were all the way over to one side. When Trump was here. Then we swung way farther than that. With Biden.
Now Trump is bringing us back this way. If you don't pass laws, it's just going to swing.
And you can't -- you can't run a country like that.
This has got to stop!
We have to pass laws. Congress must do its job.
Two shooters opened fire on Bondi beach at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration. Glenn Beck reacts to this horiffic act of evil and also to the heroic act of a man who tackled one of the shooters.
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: So let me just cover the headlines really quickly: Brown University, yesterday, there was a shooter. Two are dead. The only one that has been named so far is the Republican Club Vice President Alec Cook. There have been nine that have been injured. They thought they had the shooter. But turns out, it's not him. He has been released. And there's just some questions on this one that are weird.
Also, al-Qaeda struck and killed US soldiers over the weekend in Syria. There will be a military response to that, I am sure. And yesterday -- yesterday, on the beach, Sydney's eastern suburbs. Sydney, Australia, it's summer there. There's locals. There are people that are coming from all over the country, all over the world, for the warmth of summer and the community celebration of the first night of Hanukkah. The rest of the world is the darkest days of winter. On the other side of the globe, it is still sunlight because it is in the middle of sunlight. But it was a dark, dark day yesterday despite the sun being up.
There were families with children. They were chasing the waves. The smell of grilled food that was drifting across the sand. Music, conversation, laughter in the air. And then around 7 o'clock, laughter was replaced with screams of terror. Two men dressed in black and armed with high-powered firearms positioned themselves atop a small concrete pedestrian bridge. It arched over the Campbell parade near the Bondi pavilion. They stood on top in the center of this bridge and rained bullets as they fired into the crowd. Shots rang out. Astonished the crowd.
VOICE: Get down. Get down. Boys, get down. Oh, my God.
GLENN: It just went on and on and on. Thousands had been gathered for Hanukkah by the Sea. They're now ducking for cover. Some trying to push children to safety, others frozen in disbelief as friends and strangers alike fell all around them.
The carnage was unbelievable. For ten minutes, these guys fired off this bridge. The beach, usually alive with surfers and sun seekers, just transformed instantly. Bodies were trampled. Frantic dash for some sort of shelter and protection, as the waves just continued to lap innocently at the shore while people were screaming for help.
Now, in the chaos, there were acts of individual courage. A fruit vendor, later named by the media as Ahmed al-Ahmed. He saw one of the gunmen firing his weapon. And in a moment of pure resolve, he vaulted from behind a nearby car, tackled the shooter from behind, and wrestled the rifle away. It was an unbelievable scene. Witnesses say -- and it was all captured on tape. There he is. Witnesses say, his bravery likely saved countless lives.
Police arrived, they started shooting at him. They shot at the two that were up on the bridge. They wounded both of them.
15 people had been killed by the time it was over. Dozens wounded. Young children to the elderly. Cherished members of the Jewish community, including Rabbi Eli Schlanger, a British-born assistant rabbi. He helped organize Hanukkah by the Sea.
The beach won't be looked at the same ever again. As the suspects went down, people from Australia just ran up on to the bridge.
And what I thought was an amazing, amazing moment that spoke volumes of our culture! The police were on top of these men, trying to administer care to keep them alive. While citizens, understandably, came up on the bridge and just started kicking them.
Police jumped on those people and pushed them away. And said, stop, stop, stop. And they did.
Because we're not a culture of death. First suspect, 50 year old, Sajid Akram, 50 years old. He's a dad. The second suspect is his 24-year-old son. Both in critical condition. Now in the hospital under police guard.
Let me ask you to imagine just for a minute, what it must feel like to be Jewish today. Not in theory. Because we -- we had an incident stopped in Amsterdam over the weekend, in Germany over the weekend, in LA, somebody, a drive-by just shot at a Jewish home with the Hanukkah candles in the window, screaming, "F the Jews." You want to know what -- you want to chant, "Bring the Intifada here," this is what it looks like.
It is here now. So what does it feel like to be Jewish today?
I don't know. I can't relate. But I want you to imagine, not as a talking point. But in quiet moments, when the phone would light up with another alert, another headline, another synagogue guarded by concrete barriers, armed police.
There's a particular fear that comes with memory. Jewish people carry history. Not as abstraction, but as inheritance. And it lives in names that are whispered at dinner tables, and photographs rescued from ash. And stories that begin with, "And we thought it would never happen here."
Europe told itself, that very thing once. So did Germany. So did France. So did polite society, everywhere, right before it happened.
And the world has been saying that for decades now. It would never happen here. And here we are again. And here we are, the worst we've seen in America.
Shadows that all of us hoped were buried forever. Hatred with organization, ideology. Hatred with teeth. Violence. Justification.
They're no longer whispers. They're shouting it now in our streets. They're shouting it in the streets of Australia. They're shouting it in the streets of Germany. And England and France. And Norway. They're burning flags. They're firing guns. They're chanting not only death to the Jew, but death to the West, death to Canada, death to the US. Death to Europe. This is no longer confined to the margins anymore. And the West is tolerating it. The west has explained it away. We have minimalized it. We have said it was a lone wolf. Sometimes we even excuse it.
Just for the day, let's just stop and look at Australia for a minute. For years, Jewish communities are warned the officials.
Anti-Semitism isn't theoretical. It's here. We're living it. We're seeing it. It's not just graffiti or angry words.
It's metastasizing into something ideological and organized and deadly. And in Australia, the officials told them, calm down.
Trust the institutions. We've got it.
Somehow or another, multi-cultural harmony would manage itself, but it didn't. Because it doesn't.
Ideology doesn't dissolve when it's ignored. It consolidates. It grows he has and it has across the Western world entirely. Europe, Britain, Australia. Canada. The United States. It's the same pattern!
Violent anti-Semitism rising Jewish schools like fortresses. Your families wondering whether visibility itself is now a liability.
And yet, all across the West, officials hesitate, to name the problem. Clearly!
So let me do it. Precisely. Precisely.
Truthfully.
Islamism.
Islamists. Not Islam. Not Muslim. If you're a Muslim, you want to live peacefully, worship freely. Raise children. Continue to, you know, live and contribute to a society. You know, and you're not an enemy of the West. I'm totally good with that. Look at the fruit cart guy. He apparently didn't hate Jews. He wasn't part of the culture of death.
He stopped it.
And millions do that every single day. But Islamism, Islamists, that's something entirely different.
Islamism is a political ideology.
It's not about faith. It is about power.
It's the belief that society has to be governed by religious law. Sharia law.
That freedom of conscience is illegitimate. That women are subordinate, that dissent is heresy, and that the world and everything in it has to submit. And it's very clear about all of this. It writes it down. It teaches it. It shouts it from the public square. For the love of Pete, it's everywhere. It chants it. It doesn't hide its ambitions. It doesn't hide behind anything. But here's what it doesn't do: It doesn't co-exist with open societies.
It replaces them and has been replacing open societies for centuries.
Any culture built on individual liberty, freedom of speech, equality before the law, it can't survive alongside an ideology that views all of those principles as sins or as an affront to Allah! In that scenario, one side must yield, or one side will be destroyed!
And history is very clear on which one does. You know, we're very different people. Even the difference between us and Canada. And us and Europe.
It might be seemingly starved. It might be we're very different. But when you look at us as a civilization, we're very different. Together, we're very different from the rest of the world.
We don't understand these things. Because we project our values, on everybody else.
We assume that everybody ultimately wants to live. And to compromise. Live side by side. We assume violence is accidental. We assume that it's a lone wolf. We assume that words like to do and dialogue mean the same thing to everybody.
But they don't! And so we tolerate politicians and newscasters and everything else that explain things away. They explain the stabbings and the truck attacks and the shootings and the riots. It's isolated incidents. They're not! We talk about finding the root cause. But we won't -- we won't name the root itself!
We call it extremism, as though it sprang out of nowhere, as though it was a weather event, instead of a worldview that's been around for centuries! I ask you to think about what it feels like to be Jewish today because of the Jewish people.
But also because, you're next. Jewish communities always pay the price first.
They always do. And believe me, you're on the list. You!
Your freedom. Your children are on the list!
And history shows this, with brutal consistency.
When a society begins to rot, from ideological cowardice.
The Jews are always the early-warning system.
They're the canary in the coal mine.
When they're targeted openly. And the state responds with hesitation.
That society is already sick and in the hospital.
It's already in trouble.
And make in mistakes.
The science is not far away.
It is already here.
Synagogues attached. Jewish students harassed on campus. Jewish neighborhoods guarded like war zones. Public celebrations requiring armed protection now. This is not normal, and it's not sustainable. And the West likes to believe and understands freedom.
But freedom is not a five! It's not a comfort. It's not the absence of conflict. Freedom is costly! And it requires moral clarity, and it requires the courage to draw a line and say, this doesn't belong here! And if we refuse to do that work now, our children will have to do it later under far worse conditions! They will have to fight, not to preserve freedom, but to recover it. And history always shows, that's much more costly. America, you're closer than you think to losing not only our country, but countries that took centuries to build!
Not through invasion. But through erosion. Through silence. Through the polite refusal to speak uncomfortable truths.
If not you, who?
If not now, when?
You're running out of time.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed a bill legalizing "medical assistance in dying" (MAiD) for certain terminally ill patients. Glenn Beck rages against this "culture of death" that is sweeping America, even after it ravaged Canada.
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: So JB Pritzker in Illinois signed into law a bill on Friday, that will allow doctors in Illinois to prescribe the deaths of their own patients. First, do no harm. I'm having a hard time with that, doctors. Maybe you can tell us how you're getting around this. First, do no harm.
That is a very important concept, that our doctors are to buy into. And that we all believe.
First, do no harm. If you don't have that, all kinds of things can follow. Especially when they're couched with compassion.
And that is exactly what this is always couched in. Compassion.
Okay. So this new law goes into effect in September of next year. Terminally ill patients over the age of 18 are going to be able to get a suicide drug from their doctor. This is the 12th state in the country, that is allowing assisted suicide. And there are about 25 others that are standing in line for it. What a surprise.
Illinois is the -- is the one -- the first of this -- this batch of them coming in to say, I want to kill people!
It is a culture of death. And we are -- that's what we are battling. No matter what anybody tells you, we're not battling the Republicans or the Democrats.
It's not politics.
It's not Marxism.
It is a culture of death, that we're battling. It is evil. It is evil. A culture of death.
When you look at -- when you look at what people are saying about global warming, what is the solution?
Fewer people. How do you do that? Well, culture of death takes care of that. Right?
When you look at -- when you look at, you know, just about anything now, health care, abortion, culture of death.
Islam, culture of death. Marxism, honestly, it is a culture of death. Why would I say that know.
Well, because it eliminates people who disagree with it. And first, it just pushes them off the sidelines.
But eventually it ends in camps. But also, look what's being taught to our kids. They are killing themselves, because they're so depressed. Because it has no meaning. It completely rejects the you human aspect of humanity.
Culture of death. That's really what we're fighting. Make no mistake.
Now, Illinois and Pritzker, they're saying, well, no. No, no, no. This is going to be -- we're going to be very, very careful. You have to have two doctors. Okay. That's good. That's good.
Germany had three doctors, to give you permission. You're not even up the line of Nazi Germany, but congratulations on that. And they have to be diagnosed with having six months or less to live.
Okay. Okay.
I want you to know, Illinois, America, Western world, you're being played. This is not compassion.
I'm going to be real clear with you.
This is preparation for when the system can no longer afford to fulfill its promises, that's what this is.
They are preparing the system to be able to have the way out. And they're preparing you, so you look at this as compassion and so when it gets worse and worse, up until the very end, you don't recognize it. I mean, they're beginning to a little bit in Canada, to see what's coming their way. And why is it happening? Because they can no longer afford socialized medicine. They can't afford to fulfill the promises.
Let me just say, can America afford to fulfill its promise, that it's made for generations on all of this socialized everything?
No. In fact, there are people now, trying to double down. We can't afford anything. They're trying to double down and expand those programs, which will only collapse us faster.
When they collapse, you know, nobody likes. Well, rich people can get surgery. And as I've said to you before, I don't like that either. I really don't like that. But how else do you do it? How else do you do it? Well, we have a committee. And we -- we ration things. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Here's where you're not going to like that. You're not going to like that, because that's not the way humans work. When they ration things, either people with money or the people with power, always find a way to short-circuit so they can get to the top.
So the one that you're saying now is the poor, helpless waif that's not getting anything because of the rich people, when the system changes, that poor lonely waif is still not going to get any help because the powerful, the ones that are connected, they'll get the medical care, and the waif won't get medical care. People will find a way to short-circuit the system because people generally suck.
And when you give all the power to people, it's not good. It's usually not good. So you may not like the, you know, pay for it kind of system, but it is the best one out there. And you really don't want to give a bureaucracy the -- the ability to kill you if you become expensive or inconvenient.
Now, I know that's not what they're saying. That's not what we're doing. We're giving people out of compassion, help them end their lives. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That's exactly what happened in Canada. Let me just tell you. It was called C14. Let me just look up the facts here. C14 in Canada. It happened in 2016.
And it -- what it -- what it meant was, you could get compassionate care, if you had doctors. Three doctors approved.
You had a terminal, I don't remember what they called it.
But basically, you could see the end in sight. Okay?
There was -- there was no way for us to repair your body and heal you.
So we could see that.
Basically, you know, you were terminal.
We could see that.
In the future. Near future.
And three doctors agreed.
And then you had a waiting period after you requested it, the doctors would approve.
And then there were ten days, before you would administer. Ten days before you would back out.
That's what it started as, okay?
That's not what it's become. 2016, that's what it was. And you had to be 18 years or older.
And you had to have full capacity. So you couldn't listen to, you know, friends or family.
You had to make the decision. And you needed full capacity.
Okay.
Then things started to fall apart.
Then we had COVID. Then we had all these expenses. Then we had people move into the country.
This is Canada. Same thing happened here. COVID. Hospitals are overwhelmed.
Medical care goes to hell.
And then you start bringing in people from all over the world.
And now you don't have hospital care. Everybody is crowded. The doctors are overwhelmed.
And so in 2021, they decided the Quebec court decided, well, you know, death in the foreseeable future. Is that really necessary?
Excuse me?
I mean -- I mean, the reasonable foreseeable natural death requirement. Do we really need that?
The court said, no, we really don't.
There are two tracks! Those who have natural death in the foreseeable future. We're going to make it a little easier for them. So beyond the request, the three doctors and the ten-day waiting period. We're going to get rid of some of that because it's not necessary.
I mean, if you're in the reasonably foreseeable future, you don't need all those safeguards. And then people whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable. Well, we're going to make them do all of those things. Oh, okay.
And, by the way, we're removing the ten-day waiting period too. Once the doctor says, you're good, you're good.
Okay. All right.
That wasn't far enough. Now, they have a new bill, C7.
Canada bill seven.
When they -- when that removed the foreseeable requirement, they added a temporary exclusion for people whose sole medical condition was a mental disorder.
Oh, wow. So now we're into mental illness.
So your death isn't in the foreseeable future.
But you really want to die.
So does this apply to mental.
People with mental problems?
Oh, no, no, no. No. We're not going to ban it. We're just going to put a temporary ban on that one?
Why would you put a temporary ban on that?
Why would you put a temporary ban on something like that?
Let me give you the answer and you tell you what else it's done and bring it home for you here in just a second.
Okay. So why would you -- why would you remove the restriction on the mentally ill?
Remember, the first thing was -- the first thing was, you've got to be -- you've got to be fully there.
You have to be competent and aware of what you're doing.
Then they said, well, the foreseeable future thing.
Your death is inevitable. We're going to take that away.
But we're going to put a temporary restriction on mental illness.
The only reason why you would make that a temporary restriction, is because you're just trying to get the rest of the society to catch up with what you're going to do.
That's the only reason.
And that's why, it has been extended.
Okay?
It was supposed to end in 2023.
Then it was extended to March 2024.
And now, it has been pushed to 2027.
Okay?
So you're not eligible for MAID until March 2027, if you have a mental illness.
Hmm.
Huh! Now, they may push it forward again, to give it more time to convince everybody that that's what they have to do.
And how do you convince people?
Well, you convince people, because there's shortages and be that person doesn't have the capability to think they're mentally ill. They might want to tie. They're very, very depressed. They're very depressed, and so they want to die anyway.
They want to die. I need the doctor. Okay?
That's what's going to happen. That's what's going to happen.
Unless we remember who we are. Unless all of a sudden, we -- we're like, you know what, that's -- you know, that's not who we are.
That's not the West. The West is not defined by its technology.
Even by its freedom or its wealth.
Everybody thinks, oh, the West. They're wealthy.
No. That's not it.
What makes us unique in the West. The entire West Canada, included. All of Europe. This radical idea that the individual has inherent value.
That nobody is expendable.
And not because they're useful, not because they're productive, not because they're convenient.
They have an inherent right to exist, to live.
If you look at the past, you look at Athens and Rome.
Oh. I mean, they just put you -- you this put babies that were not boys, that were girls. Where they were deforming.
They throw them on a garbage barge. These barges would go down the river. With screaming babies on them. They just let them die, okay?
That's the way it does. But West through Judeo Christian ethics taught us, that's not right!
And we build hospitals before skyscrapers.
We put limits on -- on force. We teach doctors to heal. Not to calculate.
When a society like ours stops choosing life, it does not become more compassion.
It becomes more efficient. Not compassionate! Efficient!
And efficiency has never given birth 20 moral virtue.
Efficiency kills it. If that's your goal. It kills it.
Fighting this culture of death, it is the most important thing we can focus on.
A lot of people will focus on politics and everything else.
And what JB Pritzker is doing here, there, and everywhere else.
I don't even care about politics.
We have to convince one another, we have to start standing up for the principles that made the West, the West.
Because without the choice to protect life at its most fragile, we are no longer a civilization worth saving! We're just another system deciding, eh, I don't know, is that worth the trouble? And history is very clear where that society ends. That's why, last week, to me, it was so personal, and so important.
To help this woman, not just because it's the right thing to do. And because every life matters. And this happened to be a life that came across my path.
And I'm like, we've got to stop that! But because, this goes to something bigger! And it is infecting us right now. And if we buy the lies, that this is for compassion. Look! I understand. I understand pain. I understand end of life. I don't want to be in that situation.
I know, you don't want to be.
I mean, I know what it feels like with my dog, putting my dog down. It kills me. It kills me to put my dog down. So I get it on the dog level, let alone, you know, a parent level or a spouse level. I get it.
But you cannot as a society go down this road. Because once you open this door, all the other doors just start to swing open. When there's trouble!
The first sign of shortage, all those doors open up. And guess what we're headed for. Shortages.
Renowned Christian author Lee Strobel joins Glenn Beck this Christmas season to discuss the new updated version of his book, "The Case for Christmas." Plus, he dives into the REAL history and facts about the nativity story, including some parts we may have gotten wrong...
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Lee, welcome to the program. How are you?
LEE: I'm doing great, Glenn. Great to be with you again.
GLENN: Yeah. I love talking to you. I'm really excited to hear the case for Christmas. Now, you were an atheist?
LEE: Yes.
GLENN: And we've talked about this before. Your eyes opened up. And how did you get to the place to where you're like, okay. Let me see if I can make the case for the baby Jesus in the manger?
LEE: Well, yeah, being an atheist. My wife became a Christian. So I decided to try to rescue her from this cult that she had gotten involved in. So that launched me on to an investigation into the historical reliability of Christianity.
I did it that for two years, until I became convinced that in light of the evidence, it would take more faith to become a Christian. So I became a Christian, ended up believing journalism and so forth.
GLENN: Amazing.
LEE: And written many books about it. But I wanted to do a book on Christmas. Because in the Christmas season, there seems to be a more spiritual openness, than any other time of the year.
GLENN: Yeah.
LEE: Even when I was an atheist, I felt more spiritually sensitive during the time of Christmas. I don't know why. I guess because it permeates the culture.
GLENN: Yeah. I think it's because we see hope. We see goodness in one another.
LEE: Yeah.
GLENN: It's different.
LEE: Yes. Exactly. But how do we know if it's based on reality?
How do we know? We can all enjoy the parties and the gift-giving and so forth. But how do we know it's really based on historical reality?
That's what really intrigues me as someone who is a history buff.
GLENN: So take me through that. How do we know?
LEE: Yeah. We have two really early, independent, but consistent reports about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.
One comes from the Gospel of Luke. Now, Luke, was -- I love this guy. He was an investigative reporter.
There was a companion of St. Paul, and Luke said -- he didn't say, well, I'm going to tell you about something that happened in the distant past once upon a time. No, he said, I carefully investigated everything so I could write an orderly account about the certainty that took place. He's claiming, I'm writing about what actually took place.
I believe he writes from Mary's perspective. I think he may have interviewed Mary. If he didn't, I think he interviews Hosana and Joanna, who were friends with Mary, who he mentions in his gospel. And then we have Matthew. Matthew was also -- he was a disciple. Matthew was -- was right there in the first century setting. He later became a leader in the church of Jerusalem. And one of the other leaders was a guy named James, who was the half brother of Jesus.
So James, I think communicated to Matthew, kind of the male perspective. For the birth of his brother Jesus.
GLENN: Hmm.
LEE: By the way, I was talking to a woman the other take. And she has a young child. I was talking to her about this.
And she said, yeah. If you ask my husband about the birth of my child and you ask me, you will get two different perspectives.
(laughter)
GLENN: Yeah. Yes.
LEE: It's the same birth. We're talking about the real situation.
So we've got this two really early reports. That are independent, that are consistent with each other. And then we have a very interesting report in the gospel of Mark. Now, Mark is writing based on the recollections of Peter, who is one of the inner circle with Jesus.
And he starts his gospel later in life. So he doesn't have a birth narrative. But interestingly, in Mark 6:3. He refers to Jesus as Mary's son. Now, in first century Jewish culture, you would never do that. You were always your father's son. It would have been Joseph's son.
Even if Joseph were already deceased, he would always refer to him as Joseph. And, no. He referred to him as Mary's, and I think there's a wink, that says, yeah, yeah, I know.
Joseph wasn't his biological father. And then we have John, who writes the last gospel.
He doesn't repeat a lot of the historical stuff in the first three gospels. He writes from a grand theological perspective about the incarnation. And with him was the word, and the word was with God. And the word was God.
And then the word came into our world and dwelled among us. So it was very theological. But interestingly, John had a disciple, who he mentored.
And that guy wrote the letter. And in that letter, he says, Jesus was, quote, really and truly born of a virgin. Where did he get that idea?
I think it was from John, who wrote the gospel of John.
GLENN: So is it concerning at all. Because I've heard this argument before. You know, when -- when the gospels all same say the same thing, it's pretty clear. But they can't even decide. They can't even agree on the last words of Christ when he's on the cross.
And is it -- is it -- does it matter. Should we be concerned that only two of the four gospels talk about the birth?
LEE: No. I don't think so. Because first of all, those are two solid sources historically and very early. Mark gives us a reference to the fact that Joseph was not the biological father. And he also portrays Jesus as being the Son of God. And John, of course, was a theological take on the reincarnation. He's basically saying the same thing. So, no. I don't think are a problem. And the differences in the gospels I don't think are a problem either. Because as someone trained in law, if you're in a trial, and the witnesses get up. And they all say the exact same thing, you object. And say, Your Honor, collusion.
They got together, they worked out the story, and you can't trust it.
But when you have different perspectives, people emphasize different things. There's, for instance, a technique that was used in ancient literature, that was used today.
That was called literary spotlight. What that means, somebody will focus on what one person is saying or doing. And other purpose will focus on other people who are involved in the same scene. But it's not contradictory. They're just focusing on different aspects of the same scene. So when you look at what the -- yeah.
GLENN: No. I'm sorry to interrupt. Finish. And then I have a question.
LEE: Sure. When you look at the literary techniques that were used in the first century by (inaudible) and so forth. These historians. And you use those literary techniques in writing the New Testament. These discrepancies between the gospels virtually disappear.
GLENN: So let me take you here: And I believe in the story. So, but I want to push back as hard as I can on this.
LEE: Sure.
GLENN: You know, the virgin birth is so hard for people to accept. And especially once you look at Greek mythology. This is the same story. They're just plagiarizing. This is half man, half God.
LEE: Right. Right.
GLENN: So how do you respond to that?
LEE: Yeah. I actually deal with this in my book. This is totally bogus. This was invented by German theologians in the 1800s. In the early 1900s, the Christians responded to it.
They refuted it. But now, it's come up again. I think as the internet has dredged up these old arguments. For instance, you have the most famous example is Dan Brown in his book and movie the Da Vinci Code. Where he says, oh, well, you know, crusades just copied all this stuff. He said, there was an ancient myth called Mithras. And Mithras was born of a virgin on December of the 25th.
He had 12 disciples. He tied for world peace. He was resurrected from the dead.
So now Jesus is just kind of plagiarizing. The story of Jesus was invented by people and plagiarized from Mithras. Well, I investigate that. And what do you find?
You find in the actual myth of Mithras.
Number one. He was not born of a virgin. The myth was he emerged fully grown, naked, wearing a hat out of a rock.
(laughter)
GLENN: But, I mean, it's the same thing!
LEE: Yeah, I guess you could say the rock is a virgin. But, I mean, secondly, born on December the 25th. So what. We don't know the date Jesus was born. It's not in the Bible, where the ancient records are recorded. Ancient Christians did not care about birthdays. Third, he didn't die for world peace.
He was known for killing a bull. Fourth, he didn't have 12 disciples. According to one version, he had one disciple. According to another version he had two disciples. He wasn't resurrected from the dead. There's nothing in the myth -- it's about him dying. And so nothing about a resurrection. So all of these parallels, supposed parallels disappear when you investigate what actually took place. You know, people say, well, Alexander the great. You know, there was a myth that he was conceived by Zeus.
Well, even Alexander the Great's own mother, Olympias said, it's not true. It's crazy. It's a story. It's not true.
So every one of these supposed myths that predated Christianity, none of them are parallels to the story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem.
GLENN: All right. Let me take a break, and then I want to take ask you about one word, one Greek word that shed new light on the traditional Christmas story.
More with Lee Strobel here in just a second.
So tell me about the one, the one Greek world that opens things up.
LEE: It really does say he went about the common perception of Christmas. The common idea of Christmas that people have is it's Mary and Joseph because of a census had to go to Bethlehem to register.
And they get there. And she's about to give birth. And they go to a lodge or an inn, and they meet an old entity who says, sorry, no room, dear. And throws the door in her face. So they go off to a stable. And she gives birth among the animals and puts the baby in a manger.
Well, what that comes from. Just a second in the gospel of Luke, where he says, the baby was placed in a manger because there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the katalima.
That's the Greek word. Katalima. So the question is, what does that word mean?
Does it mean an inn? There's no room at the inn? I don't think so. And most scholars don't think so. That's how it was translated in the King James in 1611. But it's probably not the best translation.
So let me explain something. How a house looked in the first century Bethlehem. There was one large room, broken down into two parts. The larger part was the living area.
That that's where people would live, eat, sleep, and then there was a couple of steps bound to a smaller area where the animals were brought at night.
And they were like pets. They may have a couple goats, a couple sheep, and there was a manger there, but because there was a couple of stairs up.
They would sometimes come you up in the living room area. You know, how cute are they?
They're like little lambs, like pets. And so there was a manger also, in the living area. While some of the more wealthy people had a katalima, a guest room. It had a separate entrance. And it made their house bigger.
What apparently happened, is that Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem. And they went to a home of a relative and knocked on the door. They said, hey. We're here for the census. And they said, oh, that's great. But you know what, we have a lot of people here for the census.
There's no room for you in the guest room, the katalima. But you can give birth in the living room. And, yes, there is a manger there, and, yes, some of the animals may have come up the stairs because of the commotion of what was going on. And, yes. There was -- the baby was probably put there in a manger.
Now, in the year 1395, John Wycliffe, who did a translation into English, in the Greek Bible.
GLENN: Right.
LEE: Translated it as a guest room.
The New International version, which is probably the most popular translation in America today, does not use the word "inn." It uses "guest room."
Now, in writing this account, he knew what word to use. Katalima. He uses it one other time. And in that other instance, it was also a room in a house. There's another word he uses, andohayan (phonetic), which is a Greek word that means an inn. And he does use that word when he talks about the parable of the good Samaritan. So he knew, if he wanted to use the word inn, he would have used andohayan, but he didn't. He used katalima.
And the conviction of most scholars, it gives me a guest room. There probably was no inn.
GLENN: Wow.
LEE: Yeah. It's kind of mind-blowing after everything we've heard. And, yeah.
LEE: The other thing is, in first century Jewish culture, the value of hospitality was so high, that -- it would have been impossible for an innkeeper to turn away a pregnant Jewish woman. I mean, he would have been ostracized. He would have been run out of town on a rail. It would have destroyed his business. You could not do that because the value of hospitality was so high.
And we don't even know there were many inns in Bethlehem. It was a small town. Five hundred people. It wasn't on a main crossroads. There may or may not have been an inn there in the first place.
So I think the majority of scholars, I think would agree, that the word really means guest room, and not an inn.
GLENN: That changes everything!
That changes your whole vision of that. You know what I mean?
That's -- that's mind-blowing. That's just totally mind-blowing.
LEE: It is! And not only that, the image we have is that Mary is on the verge of giving birth, as she's arriving. And makes it urgent.
That's not in the text either! It just says that while they were in Bethlehem, she gave birth. It doesn't say they were in Bethlehem five minutes or five days or five months. Now, where the idea, the urgency comes from is the book of fiction that was written in 200 A.D.. A lot afterwards. No real historical connection. In that fictional account, Mary Joseph are approaching Bethlehem, to get 3 miles away from Bethlehem.
And she had to give birth. And so they went into a cave. And she gave birth to some animals in a cave. That's the idea of where a cave come up. Because people to envision her giving birth in a cave. That's really fiction. That doesn't have historical reality written -- you know, way, way later.
GLENN: I have so many questions, Lee. Can I have you back next week?
LEE: Sure!
GLENN: I have so many questions on this. I would love to have you back next week on this.
Because I want to talk to you about the Old Testament. Because people say, well, they just wrote that in later. Because they knew, he was the fulfillment. So they looked, and they just jammed this story together.
But you have the answers to -- to all of that. I would love to have you back next week.
LEE: Absolutely. Just let me know.
GLENN: You've got it. Lee, thank you so much. God bless you. Merry Christmas, we'll talk to you next week. You bet. It's a fascinating book. You've got to read it. The Case for Christmas. It -- while, I mean, you just did. It will turn everything upside down. And I love those kinds of things that make you think and look at things in a new and different way.
Lee Strobel, I think he's one of the best.
He's an author for the case for Christ.
But his new book is the case for Christmas.
How you can know for sure, what was laying in that manger. And where was that manger?
Was it in the kitchen, apparently?
I don't know.
