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Navy SEAL Who Killed Bin Laden Talks With Glenn: 'We Knew It Was a One-Way Mission'

Robert O'Neill --- American hero, former Navy SEAL and author of the new book The Operator: Firing The Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden And My Years As A SEAL Team Warrior --- joined Glenn in studio to talk about the incredible mission that ended the life of Osama bin Laden. The honor and heroism displayed by the SEAL team that took out bin Laden becomes even more amazing knowing each team member believed --- and accepted --- it would end their lives.

Here's what O'Neill had to say about their reasons for going:

I knew it was a one-way mission, and most of the guys there did too. But we accepted it because we had the conversation, we're doing this for the single mom who dropped her kids off at school on a Tuesday morning and then 45 minutes later jumped to her death out of the Windows On The World because that was a better alternative than 2,500 degrees fahrenheit inside, holding her skirt down as her last gesture of human decency so no one could see her underwear as she killed herself. You know, she wasn't supposed to do that. The people on Flight 93 that took over the cockpit to crash it in Pennsylvania to save people in Washington. You know, they didn't need to fight. The people in the Pentagon. We went for them because that wasn't their fight. The Port Authority, the police department, NYPD, FDNY. You know, that day, we were asked to take out the guy that funded that, that laughed about it, that thought it was part of his time on earth. We went for that, so we accepted the one-way mission.

The sentiments expressed by O'Neill did not go unnoticed.

"The reason why we cry when our military goes by --- at least, you know, some of the country does -- is because of the honor behind it," Glenn said. "At least me, I get teary-eyed because of the honor behind it. The idea that we can be better than we are today."

In addition to serving his country with honor and distinction, Robert O'Neill launched Your Grateful Nation, a nonprofit dedicated to matching the unique skills of Special Operations veterans with corporate careers, transitioning them from military service to civilian life.

The Operator: Firing The Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden And My Years As A SEAL Team Warrior is available in bookstores everywhere.

GLENN: Hello, America. And welcome to the program. Glad you're here. We've got a lot to talk about. We've spent the last hour talking about James Comey and Donald Trump. This is turning into a very big nightmare. Apparently, this decision was not made because of the emails from the Justice Department. Those emails, Donald Trump asked them to write. This has been a decision that had been a long time coming, and it looks like for personal reasons, the president has a severe problem with leakage in the -- in the West Wing. The Washington Post has 30 sources on the story that are not saying good things. This is -- this is really not good.

The reason why I bring up the long-time coming -- and it wasn't a snap decision. I think the easiest decision to make in -- in my lifetime, that I've seen a president struggle over, was President Obama struggling over the decision to kill Osama bin Laden. What did it take him, six months or something like that? And finally they were like, "Mr. President, yes or no?" The guy who was there and fired the shot, the operator, Robert O'Neill, is here. Firing the shots that killed Osama bin Laden. And his years as a SEAL team warrior. He has been involved in some of the -- the biggest stories of the last ten or 15 years. And a lot of people don't know all the things that he has done. The guy who has helped the shape the world we live in today. O'Neill joins us right now.

(music)

GLENN: Robert O'Neill. How are you, sir?

ROBERT: I'm well. Thanks for having me here, Glenn.

GLENN: The Operator is the book. Firing the Shots That Killed Osama bin Laden.

I want to -- first, let's just talk a little bit about the country as you see it today. And we don't need to get into politics. We just need to -- I just want to get your sense of, as a guy who has seen countries -- and I know -- you know, I know Special Forces think about and train for -- for countries coming apart at the seams. Are we a country getting more healthy, or less healthy?

ROBERT: I think we're getting healthier now, as far as foreign policy. I worked under President Obama -- I'm sorry, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. And what I've seen -- what I did see over the past few years is the weakening of American leadership overseas. And that's not just -- that affects the entire country, because if our allies see we're not strong, they're going to back down too. And you have instances with China building the islands, you have the Crimea thing with Russia. You've got North Koreans. Everyone is kind of moving ahead because there wasn't a threat of deterrence. I'm not saying we need to go to war, but we definitely need the deterrent, to be able to say, we will do this, if you keep doing this. We lost it for a while.

GLENN: Yeah, I think the most impressive thing this president has done foreign policy-wise is Syria. I think that woke the president up, "Oh, wait. Wait. Wait. This guy means it. He's not just going to sit around." And we've restored a little bit of -- I mean, I think the president of the United States always needs to be a best friend to everybody, unless you are on the wrong side.

ROBERT: Well, yeah. And I think he's doing it the right way too. I mean, he's going to do something up front, and then possibly negotiate in the back. Like the strikes in Syria weren't because we're going to invade you now. It's like, look, we got your attention. Now maybe we're going to do something about it.

GLENN: What should we do in North Korea?

ROBERT: North Korea is -- I think needs to be something done from within, more of an agency thing. As a special operator, I had trouble in Afghanistan blending in, in Afghanistan.

GLENN: No. Long hair, blue eyes?

ROBERT: If we had been in Scotland, I might have been okay. But in North Korea and just with the logistics needed to get in, you're going to have a difficult time. So we're going to need something with an infiltration, hopefully a military coup. Because as the world gets smaller with social media and the internet, the North Korean people are starting to realize, wait a minute. We've been lied to for generations with Kim Il-sung. Kim Jong-il. And then this guy, Kim Jong-un, believing they're gods and having the people believe they're gods. That's what they're doing right now.

GLENN: How bizarre is it going to be to those people?

ROBERT: Well, they don't know any better. You only know what you're taught. I mean, I've been in places in Afghanistan where I might as well have been in the tenth century in some of these valleys. Not only do they not know how old they are, they don't know what time is. And that's -- that's in valleys. North Korea, I don't even imagine. The starvation, the slave labor, all the stuff that's normal to them, because they're taught propaganda.

GLENN: What's the most concerning -- geopolitically concerning thing to you right now?

ROBERT: It's got to be North Korea with the nukes, if they get intercontinental ballistic missiles. That's a problem.

GLENN: If we go to war with them -- if it comes down to, we have to go in and try to take them out, what does Seoul look like, day two?

ROBERT: I think Seoul is going to be a hit, but hopefully with some of the new air defenses we have might work. But it's the whole thing. What if they shoot a missile at you? We'll shoot it down. Okay. What if they shoot 10,000 missiles at you? Something is going to get through. That's a tough one too. And, again, hopefully it doesn't come to a war in Korea. We've seen what happens before. I mean, thankfully, our military is designed to fight big armies, and they'll do it really, really well. But with, now something needs to be with the sanctions imposed by China because they're their biggest trade partner. But it needs to go further because China won't enforce them. If we put sanctions on North Korea and someone is trading with them, then you need to put sanctions on those people that are not enforcing the sanctions. So hopefully it won't come to a war, but Kim Jong-un is a nut.

GLENN: You know, Russia said summer before last that we're already in World War III. He said this to a group of European reporters. And he said, you guys have to convince your leadership -- I've been begging to stay out of war. We're already in World War III. And it's happening digitally.

ROBERT: Putin is saying that?

GLENN: Putin is saying that.

ROBERT: Yeah, he's still mad about the Cold War. Because he's KGB. He been out of it the whole time. He wants that back. So he kind of wants to be at war because there hasn't been a reason for him not to be.

GLENN: But we are -- we are in a cyber war.

ROBERT: Cyber war, no doubt. We're having everything stolen from us.

GLENN: How concerned are you that -- that that's -- I mean, that's -- that is a weapon of mass destruction in the wrong hands.

ROBERT: Sure it is. Uh-huh.

GLENN: How concerned are you that we're not really -- the world is not really paying attention to any of the rules on cyber warfare?

ROBERT: They're not paying any attention. But I'm just hopeful eventually that when we need to take the gloves off, we have people smart enough to do it. We've proven it before with technology. But now we kind of back off because we want this big global society and make sure everyone is equal.

I mean, once -- I mean, when we get into electronic, eventually magnetic warfare, whatever is out there. Hypersonic aircraft. I don't know what's going to happen. You know, I just -- I've been to war a bunch of times. I hope it doesn't come to it. It's not pretty. It's very fast and permanent.

GLENN: Yesterday, I had a guy on who he wrote the book Homo Deus. And it is about how man is becoming god and is going to merge with machines and everything else. And he said, we are -- we're seeing this already. The military is leading the way to where it doesn't take necessarily a massive army. You can do it --

ROBERT: Oh, yeah.

GLENN: You can do it through the air. You can do it through drones. You can do it through robots and everything else. And he said, "You know, 20 years from now, Army will not be the same. You don't need all those bodies."

ROBERT: No. You probably won't. I was reading an article on the way here today that side the biggest problem with unmanned cars -- driverless cars is human drivers.

GLENN: Right.

ROBERT: If there were no human drivers, it would be fine. It wouldn't be a problem.

GLENN: Correct. Seriously, the problem with humanity is humans.

ROBERT: Yeah, it is. That's a good point.

GLENN: Right.

ROBERT: Well, I've been to four-way stop signs here in Dallas too. I can see what they're saying.

GLENN: Yeah.

ROBERT: That can be an evolution --

GLENN: Yeah, I know. So what does -- what does that do to the mentality, when there is no life to a country like ours? We can just pay for everything and just keep going. There's no life being expended. Does that bother you at all?

ROBERT: That's a lot to grasp. I think it does bother me once you lose the human element. And we're seeing it now with everyone's -- their faces in their phones. Humanity is kind of going -- I don't know. I haven't thought about it that deeply. But if we got wars with machines, eventually they're going to turn on us, we'll have a Terminator type thing going on. Spooky.

JEFFY: You've seen it in action with your military training, has gotten far superior with help from drones --

ROBERT: Oh, yeah. Drones. Lasers. Night vision. Part of the reason we were so successful in combat wasn't necessarily that we wanted it more. Because we're fighting people that know that if they die at our hands, they go to heaven. There's no doubt about it. We just happened to have the lights off, night vision, and lasers. And we're quieter --

JEFFY: Right.

GLENN: And the lasers -- that technology is -- you can paint people, and nobody sees it.

ROBERT: Nobody sees it. Not only that, you can line up an entire room with a floodlight that has a dot in the middle. I've come around corners lit up and have bad guys trying to ambush. And you're like, "Are you kidding me right now?" It's like playing paint ball with my sister. She's not great at paint ball. I was a SEAL for a while.

GLENN: Right.

STU: That's not a game you want to enter into.

ROBERT: No, that's not.

GLENN: I don't think I'm playing paint ball as a guy with SEALs.

ROBERT: We've had them before. Speaking with kids, some of this technology, especially the games they play. I've had kids come up to me and start talking about guns. And because of the games they play, they know more about the guns that I used in combat, to the point they're asking me about, how was the trigger shaved? And I'm like, I don't know, kid. It makes this sound when you shoot someone. Would you leave me alone?

(laughter)

That's pretty funny.

GLENN: Do you think the next generation will be better at killing? I mean, you've read -- I'm sure you've read On Killing?

ROBERT: Yeah. I have. I think probably because a lot of the internet stuff, they're not as sensitive to it. I mean, even with the horrible videos ISIS puts out -- I remember the first beheading video, even before Zarqawi did it. There was -- and I remember seeing it, thinking, that's the most horrific thing I've ever seen.

Now there's so much of it. It's like, oh, another beheading video. Oh, I mean, oh, another suicide bomber. Think about that. Suicide bomber. They're getting desensitized.

And I think a lot of it is the internet. And they might not be as good at it when it's up close, but it seems like it doesn't mean as much.

GLENN: My charity, Mercury One, moved 6,000 people out of Syria and Iraq. Christians and Yazidis. We moved them. 6,000. And we've started a program over there, to where we are going back in and using operators on the ground, not Americans, but people like you, to go in and rescue these moms and children that have been taken. And I just got a report last week that said, the things they were doing to these moms and children, it's a new generation now.

It's just like you said. It was one of the most horrific things they had ever seen. Now, it's the next generation. And I was told, it's beyond your imagination, on how evil.

ROBERT: It's evil. And it's so bad that people won't want to hear it. They won't want to know about it. They pretend it's not there. Even now, it's worth going in, just getting back on ISIS, it's worth going in and wiping them out because of when our kids -- our grandkids will have to fight. I always bring up, if you haven't seen the videos of they call it the cubs of the caliphate. They're these 5-year-old kids that are executing people in horrific ways.

If we don't stop that, what do you think those kids are going to be like in 13 years? Will they be normal?

They're executioners at five. And we'll just kick the can down the road. I hate that analogy. But okay, grandkids, have fun fighting the jihad. You know, it's a real thing.

GLENN: You were part of the rescue attempt to get Marcus Luttrell.

ROBERT: Yes. I was part of the coalition. A lot of us in different places. But we run the airfield when the rescue helicopters went to get him and were shot down. And I actually saw them come back. They were survivors of the second. A turbine 34, I believe, that survived. And then they had us walk in. So we spent about two and a half days awake walking -- we knew -- we knew the trail was missing. We thought Axelson (phonetic) was missing, and we didn't know if there were survivors. So we were walking -- it's like 120 degrees, walking through the mountains of Kunar Province. And that was my first deployment with the lead SEAL team.

GLENN: So when you go in there -- tell me the difference between trying to save that SEAL team and what you think it might have been like to save -- what his name that deserted --

ROBERT: Bowe Bergdahl. I attempted to rescue him too. I was on the base when he walked off too.

GLENN: So tell me the difference between those two.

ROBERT: Well, the difference was Marcus and his crew were in there on a noble mission, trying to kill -- trying to capture/kill Ahmad Shah, a Taliban leader in the neighborhood. They got into a fight, they could handle themselves. They were in there because they wanted to be there. It was noble. And then the rescue attempt was to get in the fight. Really good guys getting in the fight. It got shot down with whatever they say shot them down. And it's something that we want to do with Bergdahl. We know he walked off the day he walked off. The way that we used to work, we'd wake up when the sun was going down. Grab your coffee. Go listen to the brief. And then you start -- you work overnight and then go to bed, you know, during the day.

When we got up that one day, they said, hey, we had this private walk off base, and he got rolled up by the Taliban. And we had to stop the entire war effort and stopped trying to hit high-value individuals and go after this guy, trying to just get intelligence on the fly, always moving.

We were so close to the point to where I actually had the ransom in my hands, that the Taliban paid, to fail me to get rid of Bergdahl, to buy him. But the difference there was that we knew that we're going after this loon -- just misguided deserter. And Luttrell was a hero.

GLENN: So, yeah, you knew he was a deserter.

ROBERT: The second it happened.

GLENN: The second it happened?

ROBERT: Oh, yeah. I mention it in my book. There's stuff that was said, that we were intercepting traffic about how the Taliban really wanted him because they just wanted to abuse him. And that we found this guy on the side of the road. He walked off. We knew he walked off. We spent days -- I think 19 attempts, my team had. We lost one of our dogs on it. He got shot and killed in a gunfight, but I know some soldiers were killed in other attempts to rescue Bergdahl.

GLENN: So how did you -- how do you deal with that?

ROBERT: With?

GLENN: How do you deal with, you know -- how do you deal not -- be frank with you. Not beating the snot out of Bergdahl?

ROBERT: Well, we didn't get him. If we did, we would have wanted to. But it would be important to --

GLENN: To not.

ROBERT: To get him back. Well, you can't. I mean, he's an American. He's an idiot. That's -- being an idiot is not a crime. But deserting is.

GLENN: Yeah.

ROBERT: So we'd want to bring him back and have him properly punished.

GLENN: Because he wasn't treated like he was a criminal.

ROBERT: No. He -- well, he got his punishment with the Taliban. He had -- you know, he got his punishment in their custody. Yeah, but when they came back, they made it political. They wanted to -- you know, he's a hero. He's a distinguished --

GLENN: How did that make you feel?

ROBERT: It was terrible. I mean, the name Bergdahl, when we -- we knew who he was, we know what he was, a misguided deserter. But when they -- they even tried to change it over the course of the years to, well, he didn't desert. He fell back on a patrol, and they grabbed him. Which was not the case at all. He walked -- he mailed the stuff home. He walked off. No question. But they spun it politically like you can imagine politicians will do.

GLENN: Back in just a second. The name of the book is The Operator. O'Neill: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior. Back with him in just a second.

First, our sponsor this half-hour is Goldline. South Korea's policy on North Korea, about to get a major overhaul. First day in office, the new South Korean president is talking about going to North Korea to meet with Kim Jong-un. I guess that's a little harder than he expected. New satellite images have discovered artificial islands northwest of the North Korean capital now. We believe that they may be missile launch sites. God only knows what's going to happen in North Korea. Hopefully nothing. But if we do go to war, it is not going to be a war like -- let me ask you, Robert, is this another Afghanistan or Iraq?

ROBERT: No. I don't think Korea would be.

STU: Say it again.

ROBERT: I don't think it would be like Iraq. It's going to be something way different. A bigger army, initially. And hopefully, the -- when -- if it was liberated -- if and when it's liberated, the population would realize, okay. This is a good thing, and you're going to get democracy. But you never know with the way they were raised. I mean, we thought it with the Shia. We kind of ditched in the first Gulf War. And the second one, they didn't rise up. And it's a tough one to read the future. I wonder where they're getting that island technology though. It's almost like they have Chinese neighbors.

GLENN: Yeah, that's what I'm concerned about is Russia, China, Iraq. A global meltdown on this one.

[break]

GLENN: Tomorrow, on this program, at this time, this hour, the top of the hour, at five minutes after the hour, tomorrow, we will be joined by Bill O'Reilly in his first interview since leaving Fox. We have a lot to talk to him about. That is tomorrow. Bill O'Reilly in his first interview, leaving Fox.

The operator is with us today. He is O'Neill. Firing the shots that killed Osama bin Laden. We were just talking about Bowe Bergdahl. And you said that you had the ransom in your hands. Was that --

ROBERT: We were near the base. He was on a base that we were on. And he walked off to one of the nearby satellite bases. The small operating post. And when they told us he was gone, we just started launching from there. Our strike team from our SEAL team. And we just started going after -- gathering Intel. And based on what we found on certain targets, we'd go after the next and the next, for a matter of days.

And we got to a point where we got into a house. Big pile of cash. Obviously, some shady characters in there. And the whole, well, my son works construction in Dubai, so he sent these millions and millions of rupees or whatever they were up there. So we had that. We were convinced that was it. We knew we were close, and then they eventually got him across the border to Pakistan.

GLENN: So that ransom was paid by --

ROBERT: The Taliban. To the locals. To take --

GLENN: Isn't that --

ROBERT: I think a lot of it is illegal.

STU: You just saw -- so you saw the payment actually? That's incredible.

ROBERT: We secured an area. Separated the people like we do. And then we went through the stuff. And there's a pile of cash. And part of the trail where Bergdahl was going and had been. It's pretty obvious what the money is doing there. They don't need that money there.

JEFFY: Right.

STU: It could have been bitcoin investment.

GLENN: Which is paying off right now.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: Paying off really well.

Okay. Back to talk a little bit -- more on his book on killing Osama bin Laden. What that was like. How it was -- what it felt like to be told, hey, by the way, you guys are on your own. Something happens.

And a little bit about what he's doing now to -- to continue to pay in to America. The Operator is the name of the book. O'Neill. Back in a minute.

[break]

GLENN: O'Neill was raised in Montana. Joined the Navy at 19 in 1996. Deployed as a Navy SEAL more than a dozen times. Four hundred combat missions. Four different theaters of war. He was decorated more than 52 times. He's received two silver stars. Four bronze stars with valor. Holy cow. Joint service accomodation medal with valor. Three presidential unit citations. And a Navy Marine Corps accommodation metal with valor. Kind of a big deal.

Lone survivor. He was part of that mission to save Marcus Luttrell. "Captain Phillips" and the Somali pirates, which we're not going to get into today, but it's in his new book called The Operator. I'd love to hear about that. That is one of the most remarkable shooting I've ever seen.

ROBERT: Just getting there from a kiss on my daughter's forehead in her preschool for an Easter Tea Party, to the Indian Ocean in less than 16 hours. Because they let us know then. Then they called us out. And then we're out. Then we're over there. Then we rescued them on Easter.

GLENN: And then -- probably the -- if somebody would have actually gone in and killed Adolf Hitler, those guys would have been known as, you know -- known forever, that story would have been told.

The killing of Osama bin Laden is probably that big. And our president had a hard time deciding whether to do it or not. When you guys went in, it's my understanding, he said, don't call the State Department. You're on your own. If things go wrong, you're on your own. Is that true?

ROBERT: I'm not sure how it went down with that. I know that -- we had talks among the group, what would happen if we ran out of fuel and had to negotiate our ways out. Who were they going to send over to Islamabad to talk with Zardari (phonetic)? Who's going to do what? There's a lot of stuff that we compartmentalized, as far as, we know this, and we know that. We don't need to get involved with the politics.

GLENN: So -- but you went over there, fully expecting to die.

ROBERT: We knew -- I knew it was a one-way mission, and most of the guys there did too. But we accepted it because of -- we had the conversation. You know, we're doing this for the single mom who dropped her kids off at school on a Tuesday morning, and then 45 minutes later jumped to her death out of the windows on the World because that was a better alternative than 2500 degrees Fahrenheit inside, you know, holding her skirt down as her last gesture of human decency, so no one could see her underwear as she killed herself. You know, she wasn't supposed to do that.

The -- the people on Flight 93 that took over the cockpit, to crash it in Pennsylvania to save people in Washington. You know, they didn't need to fight people the people in the Pentagon. We went for them because that wasn't their fight. The Port Authority Police Department. The NYPD. FDNY. You know, that day, we were asked to take out the guy that funded that, that laughed at it. That thought it was part of his time on earth. We went for that. So we accepted the one-way mission.

STU: Because this is your life at stake here?

ROBERT: Yes.

STU: Is it offensive when you hear, say, Joe Biden say this is the most difficult decision in 500 years? I mean, this is -- this is -- if you had only a 1 percent chance of success and you knew there was a 99 percent chance that you were going to do to die, would you have still wanted to go on --

ROBERT: Dying didn't mean we didn't succeed. We knew that if -- I even moved myself from the perimeter to that rooftop team that was going to land there. And we called ourselves the martyr's brigade. Tongue in cheek, because once we get on the rooftop, the whole building is going up. But we're going to --

GLENN: You thought they would blow it up?

ROBERT: He would blow it up. If anyone is going to kill himself in a house-borne improvise explosive device, it's Osama bin Laden. But we accepted that because we got him. I mean, it's better -- it's -- we're going to die eventually. And we might as well get this guy for everybody else.

STU: Jeez.

GLENN: Okay. So you climbed up a stairwell. And you come to the third floor. And you say you come around the corner. And there standing in front of you is a guy who is skinnier.

ROBERT: Skinnier than I thought and taller. But how I got there was incredible. Because we didn't land where we were supposed to -- I was sort of in the back, and I watched my team work. And watching other guys knowing this is their last day on earth, watching them still do their jobs, methodically, slow and smooth. Smooth as (sic) fast. Get through this door. Get through that door. Went up the stairs. Cleared some more rooms. And then when we finally got to the top, I was right in the front with one guy in front of me. And he went up the stairs, knowing there were suicide bombers. He opened up a curtain and jumped on what he thought was suicide bombers. So I watched a guy jump on the grenade. It didn't go off. And that's historically heroic. He did that. And I turned the corner, just based on -- it's not like I came through the skylight and saved the day. I just did what every other special operator would have done. And there was Bin Laden. And he's taller, 6-3, skinnier, short beard, gray nose. That's his nose. He's a threat. He's not surrendering.

GLENN: And he's standing behind his wife.

ROBERT: Behind his wife. And he's sort of pushing her towards me. And he's a matter of feet away.

GLENN: How far?

ROBERT: Three or 4 feet. Just standing right there, and basically in the doorway. And just based on his movement -- he's not surrendering. He is a suicide bomber. And I need to treat him like a suicide bomber. That's why I shot him in the head. And I've dealt with suicide bombers before. There's stories in the book. It's so big and loud, and it's over fast. That if you don't shoot them in the head, you're going to die with them. And it was over before it started. I shot him.

GLENN: Did he have a vest?

ROBERT: No, he didn't. But I thought he did. He wasn't surrendering.

GLENN: All right. So you shoot him in the head. It's not like in the movies. They don't go flying back on the bed.

ROBERT: He fell straight down. His head went -- as I was looking at the bed, right to the bottom left-hand part of the bed -- his wife was there. And we just -- I grabbed her to move her aside. Gave her a brief search. Sat her on the bed. And I remember looking over, and his son was standing there. Like a 3-year-old. And I remember as a father just thinking, this poor guy has got nothing to do with this. And I picked him up and then moved him. And at that point, other SEALs are coming in the room. And that's when it kind of hit me. And a buddy came up to me and laughed. And he goes, are you all right? And I was like, yeah. What do we do now? And he smiled. And said, well, now we find the computers. You've done this hundreds of times. I'm like, yeah, you're right. I'm back. And he goes, yeah, bro. You just killed Bin Laden, so your life just changed. And we did the rest of our clearance. Found what we could electronically.

GLENN: What happened to his body?

ROBERT: We put it in a body bag. We carried him out on a helicopter. Brought him back and showed him to the admiral. Some of the analysts. Brought him to another spot. The FBI did a lot of DNA tests on him and photos. We handed him off to some rangers. They flew him out to the Persian Gulf and then disposed of him. That was it. It was a good call too. People ask about that too. And I get all the wild conspiracy theories about he was this and he was that. And you didn't kill him.

GLENN: I'm telling you, he's in the freezer next to Walt Disney, and the Jungle Book crew is right there. That's what's happening.

You've started a -- you've started a 501(c)(3).

ROBERT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: You've started a mission. It's -- your charity is YourGratefulNation.org. What is it?

ROBERT: Yes. I got out of the Navy at about 17 years, which is three years shy of a pension. And I realized how difficult you think it is to find a job. Because all you know is what you're doing. But you have skills especially as a veteran but especially as a special operator that employers want, which is stress management, team building, show up on time, loyalty, things like that. And they'll hire. And I talk to a lot of guys that want to get out, but they -- they'd rather go to combat than fill out a resume. Because at least combat makes sense. So what we do with Your Grateful Nation is we find out what line of work they want. It's individualized. Find out what they want. Where they want to live. We'll find that company. Get them a mentor. Put them through a nine-month program. And then they get placed in their second career. And it's -- the best email I get every other day -- you know, we placed Staff Sergeant Jones with this job with Fox Sports. Or we did this, and this guy is working at Merrill Lynch. And having the families -- the wives at some of the events we have, they'll just say, we couldn't have done this -- our family could not have done this without Your Grateful Nation. It's the best feeling. It's my passion --

GLENN: I'll tell you, the servicemen that I know -- and everybody has -- well, not a Bowe Bergdahl. But every -- you know, every profession has dirtbags in it. But there is a higher percentage of honor and integrity, I think, in the armed forces than any other --

ROBERT: Oh, no doubt about it. And the one thing you can't teach in college, that they said the military guys have is loyalty. They're so loyal. And, honestly, Your Grateful Nation started as, let's help the vets get jobs. Now it's, do you want to make your company better? We'll give you someone to --

GLENN: Are we still -- is the Navy that you went into, in '96, is it still the Navy that it -- I mean, a lot of parents that listen to this program are very concerned, especially over the last eight years. But they wonder what the rot has been. We've -- you know, we've taken out just war theory. I mean, we've changed fundamentally.

ROBERT: They -- a lot of the social experimentations affected it quite a bit. A lot of the verbiage -- like they said -- my favorite word, and I even use it in the book is shipmate. I love the word shipmate. They took it out of boot camp because it's derogatory. You can't call people shipmate. I love that term.

GLENN: Why is it derogatory?

ROBERT: They changed it to sea warrior.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. Sea warrior.

ROBERT: I mean, that's just -- that's again hiding from the big elephant dungarees in the room. Come on.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

ROBERT: I mean, as far as the other stuff, there are places you don't need the military to test social experiments. I mean, should there be women in combat? Well, we've had women in combat. Should there be gays in the military? We have had gays in the military. Nobody cared. But the media wanted to make a big thing out of it. A big political thing. Said, yeah, they're here. They're doing fine. Why do we need to -- morale is so big in the military. In units in combat, you need to have morale high to succeed. And when you start putting nonsensical baggage on, it wears on the morale. There's no reason for it.

GLENN: Who is it we had in the last couple of weeks that was talking about the -- you know, all of the restrictions put on our military that, you know, it's --

ROBERT: Rules of engagement.

GLENN: Rules of engagement are just insane.

ROBERT: Yeah, that's a tough one. People shouldn't be wondering if they're going to go to jail for taking a shot when it's -- I had a -- a thought though, since we're experimenting. The person who is in an office typing up the rules of engagement, you should have someone shooting at them while they're typing.

(laughter)

How are you going to defend yourself? You sit there and type --

GLENN: The operator is the name of the book. Firing the shots that killed Osama bin Laden and my years as a SEAL team warrior.

Robert O'Neill writes it in a way that you are standing there behind and seeing everything and feeling everything that he felt. The Operator is the name of the book. And his charity, if you want to get involved, is YourGratefulNation.org. YourGratefulNation.org.

Thank you so much.

ROBERT: Thank you for having me.

GLENN: Appreciate it. You bet.

RADIO

"The Most Dangerous Place on Earth Right Now!" - SHOCKING Details of Nigeria's Christian Genocide

Across Nigeria, Christians are being hunted, churches burned, and entire communities wiped out — yet the world remains silent. In this powerful discussion, Glenn Beck and Rep. Riley Moore uncover the horrific truth behind Nigeria’s Christian genocide and the shocking indifference from global leaders. This silent war on faith is one of the greatest humanitarian and moral crises of our time. Will America stand up for its brothers and sisters in Christ before it’s too late?

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: All right. Riley, let me talk to you about Nigeria, and what's happening in Nigeria. It's the scariest, most deadly country in the world, if you happen to be a Christian. And nobody seems to -- to be talking about it. And, you know, you have been involved in, you know, urging Secretary Rubio to say Nigeria is a country of particular concern, which I don't what an that means exactly. What doors does that unlock?

RILEY: Yeah. So that is -- that designation actually fits in the U.S. Code. So it does unlock 15 different Levers for the President when a country is designated a country of particular concern. That could be holding development money, that could be going to international institutions to free assistance through there. That could also halt security assistance, which would be arms sales and training and things like that, that have been going on in Nigeria. We could sanction individuals. It gives the President the authority to do a number of different things that can really, I think, leverage the Nigerians to actually start caring about our brothers and sisters in Christ, who are getting murdered for the professions they're facing in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

So I think this is a good first step, and we're going to see how the Nigerians react to this now. I've been having meetings with Departments of State.

We are going to meet with the Nigerians here at some point as well, here in DC.

So we're going to see what they're going to bring to the table. But also the President, who always puts all options on the table, has said, if they don't start fixing this, they're there couldn't potentially be kinetic military actions on -- in Nigeria.

GLENN: What does that mean?

Boots on the ground?

RILEY: No. To me, it does not mean that. To me, you have -- you have complex issues that are going on, over there. Where you have in the middle band of the country. This is where the Fulanis are. And these are herdsmen. And this is where you get this radical strain, obviously. Islamic terrorists, these Fulanis. These are herdsmen, tribes, and they have been attacking Christians in that middle band. In the northern part of the country is mostly Muslim. Southern part of the country is mostly Christian.

So that middle part, where they graze their cattle and all that, is where you see a lot of these flash points and murdering going on. But then in the northern part of the country is where you have ISIS, Boko Haram. They are operating there. And where they're taking over towns and communities, as we saw in Syria, right? Previously. Same type of thing.

GLENN: Yeah.

RILEY: CAIR is enfranchising, going on over there, all through the Lake Chad region, actually. So that's where I think, if it made sense to have some type of military action in forms of an airstrike or something like that, to -- to be able to tamp down some of the leadership and break up some of that structure in there.

That's something that would make sense. But to me, just speaking for myself, I want to try to work with the Nigerians, for them to do the right thing here.

President Trump obviously I mentioned, on Truth Social. Needs to specifically look into this. Which we are doing here in Congress. I want them to do the right thing.

I think the Nigerians actually have the chance right now to actually strengthen their relationship with the United States, if they're going to do the right thing.

But we can't allow to continue the slaughter of Christians where we have over 7,000 just this year, have been killed, for being Christian.
We can't allow that to continue, as a Christian country ourselves, which we are.

I know we're -- you know, some may debate that. I promise you, and nobody knows more about the founding of the country than Glenn Beck. Is that this is a Christian nation, founded on Christian values.

And we have to stand up for these people. Because nobody else is paying attention to this. Other than you, and some folks at Fox news. And that's really about it.

GLENN: Oh, I tell you, you know, I was planning on bringing my cameras with me. And I was going to go to Nigeria in the first quarter. And I have had briefings and warnings from the highest levels. Do not go.

You are not going. And I said, yes, I am. I want to bring this story.

You can't go. I've been to war zones. And this one, they're like, this is the most dangerous place on earth right now!

That's pretty remarkable, that nobody is really talking about it.

RILEY: It really is, and it's this silent genocide, that has just continued on since 2009, where we've had in between 50 to 100,000 Christians murdered for their faith. Our brothers and sisters over there, suffering, and no one has done anything about it. You might remember the bring back our girls movement around 2012ish, '14.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

RILEY: Seventeen of those girls have still never been brought back. People forgot about it. It's fine. Boko Haram just has them. It's not fine.

It's not okay. And there are a lot of Levers that the administration is able to pull here, I think to get the Nigerians on the right course.

It's not that they don't have resources. This is an oil rich country. With a lot of critical minerals.

They have the means to be able to do this, at the end of the day, it's a question of prioritization. And what their goals actually are. And we need them to focus on this. Or the President will start to focus on it.

GLENN: Well, I will tell you, 19,000 churches have been burned.

And yet, from what I'm hearing, there are some in the Nigerian government that are like, no. This is not what's happening. This is not about genocide. It's not about Christians. It's just squabbles.

Really? Fifty to 100,000 people. And 19 thousands of individuals people have been burned in little squabbles, that don't have anything to do with radicalized Islam?

RILEY: Exactly. And this is the excuse I've gotten from people on the ground, look, do terrorists kill other people other than Christians? Yes, of course they do. But we're talking about five to one is the ratio, Christians versus non-Christians are being killed over there right now.

Secondly, I want to point out for everybody, President Trump has a designation in Nigeria. It means his first term.

It was taken off by the Biden administration. Because they claimed the killings had more to do with arable land and herders, and actually the root cause was climate change.

GLENN: Climate change.

RILEY: Yeah. That's why these killings were happening. Because of climate change. Where that's why we saw the murder rate just skyrocket during the Biden administration.

And President Trump, who cares very deeply about these issues, he's not going to allow that to persist anymore.

GLENN: He said, if there is an attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet. Just like the terrorist thugs that attack our cherished Christians.

I will tell you, I've -- you know, been reading up on it. And doing our homework.

And, you know, it reminded me of how the Germans went into Poland. Where they would just take whole communities. They would put them in the church. And lock the doors. And burn it to the ground.

That's what's happening in Nigeria. They're doing the same thing. They're burning churches. Not just burning churches. They're gathering Christians up. Putting them in, locking the doors, and then burning it down so that all of these women and children and men die in a fire in their church. And it's horrific. It's horrific.
What does the average person need to do?

RILEY: Yes. The average person needs to call their number of Congress and elevate this. And make this an issue that is on their radar, that they care about.

I'm introducing resolution which would be a sense of Congress, that we support the President. And we support the people and the Christians of Nigeria, and their plight.

And we condemn what the Nigerian government is doing, in action around this. That resolution should be getting introduced here soon.

So that would be something that would be hugely helpful.

GLENN: Wow.

It will be interesting to see who votes for that, and who doesn't.

That would have been -- that would have been a no-brainer 15 years ago. Just a no-brainer.

And now, I wonder if you can even get that passed. That's sad. Sad.

RILEY: It's sad. And I think we need to put it to the test. Put it to the test.

Certainly, if I'm whipping the votes, I don't have Ilhan Omar in my "yes" column.

But, you know, let's -- let's put it to the test here.

RADIO

The TRUTH about Zohran Mamdani and communism

Is New York City’s new mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani a socialist or a communist? Glenn Beck takes a look at history to explain why it doesn’t really matter: BOTH lead down the same road …

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, we've been talking about socialism, and Donald Trump is getting pilloried in the press for calling Mamdani a communist. And I find this ritual here, that we're going through is just, you say the word socialist, and, you know, 25 years ago when I said that these people were socialist, everybody said, "Oh, my gosh. You can't call them socialists. That's an outrage." I said, "The mask is going to come off, that they can't wait to tell you they're socialists."

Now Donald Trump said, you know, Mamdani is a Communist. And everybody is like, oh, my gosh. Look at this hysteric from the Cold War. He's just -- he's out of the Cold War radio drama.

So let me just clear this here. Because the difference between the two terms, you know, is really not some great firewall of virtue here. As if one leads to like Scandinavian candles and the other leads to gulags. That's not what's happening.

What we've forgotten here is what always is forgotten. And that is how Karl Marx actually talked and saw the two. He didn't draw, you know, polite little distinctions. He described socialism as the transition. The necessary scaffolding that leads to communism. That's Karl Marx. So socialism for Karl Marx was the road, not the destination.

Communism is the end of that road. He wrote -- he wrote an essay, the Critique of Gotha Program. And Marx said, under socialism, from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution. Under communism, to each according to his needs. The only difference here is timing. It's not philosophy.

It's not goals. It's just how far along the revolution you are, okay?

Socialism is the bridge to communism. According to Karl Marx, don't take it from me. Communism is the completion of socialism. It's -- it's the antithesis of a free market system. Even Lenin called socialism the first and necessary phase of communism. So it's not partisan rhetoric. Okay?

This is the literal architecture of Marxist thought. But can we get out of the theories of all of this?

I mean, history gives us warning. Much more vivid than any theory. You know, we would like to imagine that the worst horrors of the 21st century came from one beast alone.

And we think that's Hitler. But actually, a bigger beast was Stalin. But if you want to look at Germany from 1930 to 1945. You see something really uncomfortable.

A socialist movement that curdled into something monstrous, while it never called itself communist. In fact, the Nazi government. The national socialists. The Nazis were not communists. They were against the communists.

They killed communists!

But they shared the same foundational belief. That the rid is disposable, and that the state defines the truth.

They both believe that rights are not given by God, but administered by political power. And that dissent on any of this, has to be crushed for the good of the collective.

That is the -- that's the definition we should care about!

Socialism doesn't to give full marks communism to become catastrophic. It just has to replace the individual conscience with the will of the state. And don't you see, that's what's happening here? They'll crush you! They'll destroy you. You disagree with them, they'll destroy you. Even if you've been on their side. I am going to share eye story with you, from 1979 that happened. That I don't think most people understand. And in New York, you better understand it.

When a society accepts the premise, that premise, history shows the -- the slide can accelerate from a utopian promise to industrialized cruelty. Horror show.

Like that!

Germany saw it. Russia saw it. China saw it. Cambodia. North Korea.

Cuba. I mean, it's all right there, just different flags. Different slogans. But it's the same structural error.

So can we stop with this mocking of the language?

You know, people laughing. Oh, you said Mamdani is a communist, but he's just merely a socialist. You're missing the point entirely.

The issue is not whether the label is technically perfect. The issue is the philosophical DNA is exactly the same. Collectivism over the individual.

State control over personal agency. Central planning over free will.

And that the belief that human nature can be engineered by a political force. That's where it always goes wrong. It doesn't understand human nature. So you can argue all you want, about where socialism ends and where communism begins, but honestly, that's like, hey, kids, memorize the date of this war.

Why? Why? I'm never going to use that fact again. What difference does it make? The thing we should care about is, why was that war fought? What happened at the end of that war? When communism and socialism, we should be saying, where does that road lead?

I can tell you that the road always begins with the state controlling your choices. Okay?

It will control your choice of energy, money, your children's education. Your speech.

Your job. What you drive. And it always ends with never greater liberty. It always ends the same place. In a society that has forgotten that freedom is fragile.

That power concentrates. That people are the same over and over and over and over again!

Human beings. They go bad! Especially when you give them power, and they're told they're part of a grand collective. Humans are willing to commit horrors they would never do as an individual.

That's the biggest thing. You get these horror shows of 100 million dead, because it's a collective!

We're all doing it. I'm not doing it. Everybody is doing it. That's the warning.

That's historical. And we ignore it at our own peril. Now, the problem here is, is that socialism is on the rise. And communism will be next.

Remember, when I first started talking about Obama, they -- I was -- I was raked across the rolls -- the coals, every day for even suggesting he might kind of like socialism. Now, socialism is fine!

So that road is still going to -- we're going to continue rolling down that road. And any country that goes into socialism -- we're not talking about a capitalist. We're not talking about Sweden anymore.

In fact, we are actually talking about Sweden. Look at the road they're going down now.
I mean, they're going into their own kind of authoritarian rule with Sharia law.

That is coming to Sweden. We are not talking about this friendly socialism. We're talking about the complete abandonment of the free market entirely. We've been this stupid little hybrid, that doesn't work. It only causes misery. We've been this hybrid.

And it doesn't work in a country this large and a country this diverse.

But look if you're -- you know, if you grew up after 9/11, where have you seen capitalism work for you?

Okay? You've seen, I know I've seen it. I've seen the rich get richer. And I don't mean the rich.

I mean the really, really, really rich. The ones that the Democrats never really talk about. They say they hate the rich. The rich have to pay their fair share.

But they're hanging out with George Soros. They're hanging out with the Ford Foundation. They're hanging out with Bezos and all of these other people. Because that's -- that's -- that's real control! Okay?

They don't hate those guys. They never do anything to affect their taxes. They don't pay taxes. Because they have the money to put it into trusts and everything else.

You don't have that!

So when I say, I've seen it happen. I've seen the rich get richer.

You know who the rich are?

Citibank. These banks that have been taking our money through bailouts, when do we get that money back?

When do you get that money back?

You don't!

You don't. That's why this is working. That's why you can say, socialism is neat. Because nobody knows the killing machine that socialism actually is. Nobody has any idea. Look at the killing machine. Look at the killing machine that's being built in socialist Canada right now.

What is it? MAID is the third or fourth biggest killer. It kills one in every 20 Canadians. Why is that happening? That's not out of compassion. That's because they're running out of money for health care. That's what that's about. Get them off the dole! Stop it. Now, if they're earning a lot of money, get them in, because we can still get their money, but let's make sure they're making money. If they're getting old, if they are cripple, if they fought in a war and just can't has come it themselves, if they're super, super young, if they have an expensive cancer, let them die. Help them die!

That's because they're looking at the collective, not the individual. And that's -- that's the beginning of the dark killing machine in a socialist country. And Canada is -- is -- I mean, it has socialized medicine. The problem is, it's all failing. Socialism always fails.

Capitalism has -- has taken people out of poverty. Solved problems. Healed people. Given people heat and houses and cars and airplanes. All of that is because of the free market. All of that is the free market.

You get rid of the free market. You put it in the hands of governments. And you have monsters. Monsters. And we know it, because we've seen it over and over and over again.

But our -- if you're -- if you -- if -- if you don't remember, or barely remember 911, you've never been taught any of this.

You've never been taught what it actually means. So you're seeing this play out, over and over again. Look at that guy, look at, he's not going to have to pay a price. He's just going to get away with it. And he's taking all of our tax dollars. Okay. I hate all of that.

This capitalist system, it's corrupt!

You're seeing that play out in real time. You're not seeing anybody actually go to jail for these things.

Of course, you think that it doesn't. I don't think it works the way it is right now!

But then you're -- you're given this false utopian promise. Without any information.

Read the warning label on socialism!

Where has it ever worked?

Show me where it has worked!

And don't say Sweden. Sweden.

Sweden is falling apart right now. Do you know why?

Because Sweden, everybody was blond hair, blue eyed, they were all related to each other. It was a small, little country.

You can do it when everybody is the same, and it's small. It will work in -- to some degree!

But the minute you start going diverse, the whole thing falls apart. So you want to be Sweden?

Go ahead. Look at Sweden today.

I don't want to be Sweden.

Read the warning label. That's our job, to show that warning label.

It's our job to teach what's not being taught. This is a death cult.

Stay away from it. Warning. Warning.

RADIO

Could Comey FINALLY go to JAIL thanks to this smoking gun?

Is this the 'smoking gun' evidence that could put former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey behind bars? Just the News CEO John Solomon joined Glenn Beck to reveal some shocking new revelations, including Comey’s own emails allegedly authorizing anonymous leaks to the NYT on the Clinton case, potential handwritten notes proving he KNEW Hillary’s team approved the Russia collusion hoax, and a possible email from Comey referring to Hillary Clinton as “President-elect Clinton." Will a Northern Virginia jury hold the Deep State accountable? Or will politics bury the truth again?

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: John Solomon is with us. He is the CEO and editor-in-chief. In chief of Just the News. If you don't check that every day, you're really missing out on a really great news site. Justthenews.com. John, I have made a promise with my audience a long time ago, I do my best not to waste their time.

And as I'm looking through the things I want to talk to you about, I have to start with this question: Is any of this going to mean anything in the end, or is this -- are we just spinning our wheels and wasting our time, talking about how the deep this scandal with James Comey is becoming?

JOHN: That's a great question. And I don't think history has an answer yet. It will really depend on the tenacity and the focus of the Justice Department, the prosecutors, and the jurors that are going to catch these cases. Right? Are they willing to rise above politics and say, "We don't want an FBI that goes after people based on their political color, not the quality of the evidence against them."

And that is what began on 2015 on James Comey's watch, a different type of FBI that seemed to go after Donald Trump and his associates, regardless of evidence, and protect Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden, even though the evidence against them was pretty strong, as we ultimately found out from the IRS whistleblowers. So we don't know yet. Listen, these are going to go to trial if the judge lets them go to trial.

The judge in the Comey case seems to be giving the prosecutors a hard time there already. But that's going to be litigated. I'm going to go up to the Supreme Court. It will be a long battle.

But the question is, is the fight worth it?

I think if you don't punish the people that created this mentality, you have deficits in America for a long time.

Banana republic, prosecution arc. And I think that's not what Americans want. They want to say, the FBI is above politics. It hasn't been in the last texted, until the last few months, under Kash Patel.

GLENN: Okay. So let's talk about what the new evidence is the -- the burn bags.

The hidden rooms. And the evidence that now has been found that -- that shows Comey looks like he was lying. To Congress. When he said, no.

I didn't know anything about it.

JOHN: Yeah. Yeah. So let's remind people what the alleged lie is, what he's been accused of and indicted of. He told Congress in '17, and then reaffirmed, unequivocally in 2020, that he never asked any of his staff to provide information to the news media. The government, Kash Patel found significant documents that go to the contrary. They chose not to go after James Comey. So in the Bill Maher administration, they knew the same evidence, but they didn't go after him. What is the lie?

He told Congress, I didn't -- one, I never authorized anyone to leak to the media anonymously about the Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump cases. And, two, I don't think I knew anything about an intelligence intercept that Hillary Clinton was setting up a fake Russian collusion hoax, that we ended up investigating.

Well, we now know, first, his own emails, with his own top lieutenant, Daniel Richmond. A former lawyer who he brought into the special government. The FBI. There's an FBI employee, showed that James Comey, told him, good job, and make them wiser as he was briefing them on how he was anonymously trying to spin the New York Times and provide information to the New York Times about the Hillary Clinton case.

So directly on point to the testimony he gave. I didn't authorize him to leak about Hillary Clinton in their emails. So this guy was leaking it. He was affirming it, and saying, go ahead. And he was encouraging him to make that reporter wiser. In other words, give them more information anonymously.
So that's the first lie. The second lie -- and, by the way, the grand jury bought that evidence, that we believed he lied.

GLENN: Okay.

JOHN: And that is what we call the Clinton planned intelligence. Was Comey, as John Brennan claimed. And as other evidence -- did Comey know, did he pay attention, did he have some awareness that as the FBI was starting to investigate the Russia collusion ruse, the hoax, that Hillary Clinton had been interpreted, or her people had been intercepted, showing that she approved the plan. He said, it doesn't ring true. I don't think I knew about it.

Well, in a locker, in a burn bag, they found some handwritten notes of James Comey, that appeared to include the briefing from John Brennan where he clearly knew, that Hillary Clinton had been intercepted -- or, her team had been intercepted, saying she approved this plan to hang a fake Russian shingle on Donald Trump's campaign house. Now, those are handwritten notes.

GLENN: Yeah. That is in his handwriting, that he clearly understood. And so now you've got him on -- on two really significant lies. That show that this whole thing was -- was -- they were in collusion with one another. And all of this was bogus.

And they knew it from the beginning.

JOHN: Yeah. That's exactly right. That's why, when you look at this. And then take the third bag of this. Those notes were never produced in earlier subpoenas to Congress or other investigations. They were found in a room, where it appears, according to the government, there is an effort to get rid of or hide this evidence.

So it hadn't been hidden from prior subpoenas, according to the government, according to Lindsey Halligan, the prosecutor. And then, two, it looked like they were in burn bags. Meaning, they would never be there.

Now, some other people said, oh, well, there's electronic records of it.

It turns out according to the government, there was no electronic record of the note. Meaning, if they had been burned or destroyed, it would have never happened.

Now, why would James Comey want to lie about this? Because as we see in these same emails, it appears he had a motive.

His motive, as he wrote, his colleague is, I fully expect to be working for president-elect Hillary Clinton. She's talking this way, before the election in 2016.

He thought Hillary was going to be his boss. And as he wrote Dan Richmond, he said, I think Hillary Clinton will be, quote, unquote, pleased by the way I handled her email chase. In other words, he reopened it and cleared her a second time.

And when the smoke cleared, Hillary would like to keep him out as FBI director. That's the insinuation of those notes. So --

GLENN: Yeah. I want to get the exact. I want to give the exact phrase he wrote. A president-elect Clinton will be very greatly.

JOHN: Yeah. Grateful, I'm sorry.

GLENN: Wow.

JOHN: Yeah. Grateful. So he expected it -- that's his mindset in the fall of 2016.

And he opens up an investigation on Hillary Clinton, what we now know to be a ruse. Bad evidence. An agency had to lie to the FISA courts to get the FISA warrants. If his motive was that, or his thinking was that. He probably does not want to admit that I was warned, that maybe this was all a joke before I allowed this investigation to go forward. Before I affixed my name to a FISA warrant that the courts have now said was misleading, false, and violated the law. So that is the context at which the prosecutors are going to try to bring this -- bring this case. Now, it's going to be in northern Virginia, where there are a lot of federal workers and a lot of anti-Trump sentiment.

Can they get a conviction? We don't know. But is it worth trying to do it? Most people I talk to said yes, because the alternative is you have by inaction a sanction, which is what Bill Maher and John Durham did by not bringing this in 2020.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Can I switch topics. There's something that came out today. James Comey's daughter, and the Epstein case. Apparently, James Comey's daughter sent a message to Epstein, that if you don't have to prove it. But if you can show us anything that ties Donald Trump to this, it's going to go a lot easier for you.

Can you give me this story?

JOHN: Yeah. I've seen it. I've not been able to corroborate it. In this world of media today. I've been super careful. It's hard to know if things are true. I haven't found anyone yet who seems to know the proof on it.

It's possible. Who knows? I mean, prosecutors make these sort of deals all the time. And as we know, it seems in the last decade or two, I think when you have to go back to the era of the Ted Stevens prosecution. The IRS pursuit of conservative groups. And maybe the prosecution which turned out to be malicious and wrong of Virginia governor McDonald.

There is a culture that began at the beginning or around the time of the Obama era. Where winning for prosecutors is more important than winning fairly or on the face of the evidence.

And that's why these cases ultimately got overturned. That mentality exists in the Justice Department.

And then when you add the nature of politics, the Trump Derangement Syndrome that seems to come in, in 2015. You have a very dangerous prosecutorial and law enforcement system that's easily weaponized and can easily cheat.

And unless you got multi-million lawyers, you probably will get hosed, because very few people will find the grounds to overturn this.

And that it is crushing power of the state, that Jim Jordan talks about. Chuck Grassley talks about. That Donald Trump wants to reform.

And I don't know, in this case, whether Mr. Comey did this or not.

Because I can't confirm it yet. But if I knew, I'll come back to you.

GLENN: Right.

JOHN: The scenario does go on. And we've seen it. And it's very, very troubling.

There's a case coming up in New York, where the FCC has to admit that there were journalists writing fake stories that were then used to justify investigations of companies.

A system of cheating to get a consequence regardless of whether it's warranted, is something we all have to take a deep breath. We have to fix it. Or we won't be any the different than rectangles and Iran.

GLENN: I will tell you, that I am so glad to say, that you said, I can't confirm this.

I haven't found a source to confirm it.

Because when I read that story, it looks as though one of the people that is telling this story is the guy who was in jail, with Epstein, who would also have motive for making something like this up. So, you know, I don't want to exonerate her.

And I don't want to condemn her. I just want the truth.

And he doesn't seem like a reliable source.

JOHN: Yeah. I think we have to get the evidence, and try to -- listen if the lead is something -- let's check it out and true -- find out if it's true.

We learned that Russia collusion wasn't true. I think we'll learn that most of Ukraine impeachment wasn't true.

And I think today, we just have to dig in first. Get the facts.

But we will -- we will do that. I promise, I'll get back to you, as soon as I know what I can find out for the government.

GLENN: Yeah. Thank you, John. I appreciate all your hard work.

John Solomon from Just the News. Go to JusttheNews.com. Follow him. John Solomon. JSolomonReports on X. But he is an old school journalist. Investigative reporter. Has worked for everybody, until everybody was like, you can't say those things. That's our side!

And then he just left and did his own thing. And I'm very grateful for it.

Editor-in-chief of Just the News. John Solomon