BLOGMay 11, 2017

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 Great Inflation SCAM - Why Your Money Buys Almost NOTHING Now

Black Friday broke records as Americans spent over a quarter-trillion dollars, but here's the truth behind the illusion: we’re not buying more, our dollar is simply worth less than ever. From $1 buying 30 Hershey bars in 1913 to barely covering a pack of gummy worms today, the purchasing power collapse is undeniable, and compounding inflation keeps silently stripping wealth from every household. Glenn Beck breaks it all down as he explains why this should be a massive wake-up call...

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Did you see that this Black Friday, first quarter of a trillion dollar season. Black Friday. First time ever, quart of a trillion dollars. New highs.

Wow! Okay.

Okay.

Black Friday made up 10 percent total sales for the month of November.

111 billion dollars.

Represents 9.1 percent increase on online sales compared to last year.

They track over a trillion dollars in US retail site visits.

Adobe does.

If this continues, it looks like Christmas will be the first quarter of a trillion dollar season.

That would be a record in the United States. We're still spending!

Of course, you know, it looks like we're buying more. But are we, really? I've got to send this. I've got to send this out. Would you tweet this for me?

The purchasing power of the dollar in 1913. In 1913, you could buy 30 Hershey chocolate bars with 1 dollar. 1929, you could buy ten rolls of toilet paper.

1933, ten bottles of beer. 1944, 20 bottles of Coca-Cola. 1953, ten bags of pretzels.

1964, one movie ticket to a drive-in theater. 1971, you could buy 17 oranges. 1987, with a dollar, you could buy two box of Crayola crayons. 1997, you could buy four grapefruits.

2008, with the same dollar, you could buy two lemons. By 2020, you could buy one McDonald's coffee. And in 2025, you can buy one pack of Great Value gummy worms. I don't know!

I think our dollar has gone down a little bit in worth. This -- this -- this is why gold is so important.

A 20-dollar gold piece in 1913, you could go to the bank, and you could get $20 for it.

Or you can go with $20. Go to the bank, get a 20-dollar gold piece.

Then you can walk in to a good men's clothing store and say, sir, I want your finest suit. And for $20 you could buy the finest suit in the store.

Today, you could walk in with that same gold piece. They wouldn't take it. You would to have cash it in.

You would cash it in, and it would be $4,200.

And you could go into that same men's store, and you could say, I want your finest suit, and for $4,200, you would probably get their finest suit. Gold hasn't changed price! Dollars have dropped in value! What cost you $20, one gold piece, 1 ounce of gold, what cost you $20 in 1913, now cost you $4,200! That's why gold is so important when it comes to inflation. Because the dollar will just keep -- we can buy gummy worms today.

Stu, I don't know how many gummy worms you -- you know, think about how many gummy worms have to be sold for a quarter of a trillion dollars for the quarter. That's a lot of gummy worms.

STU: You say gummy worms.

You keep leaving out that detail that they're Great Value gummy worms.

GLENN: Sorry. Not just any gummy worms.

STU: Right.

GLENN: They're the cheapest.

STU: Would you rather have one pack of Great Value gummy worms, or 33 Hershey bars?

You're on the borderline there. I'm not sure which one you would rather have.

GLENN: I mean. Isn't that incredible?

Thirty Hershey bars. Ten rolls of toilet paper for a dollar! For a dollar!

Ten bottles of beer. You couldn't go in. You could go in with your friends and say, beer for everybody.

I've got two bucks. Think of that.

That's crazy!

STU: And now that we need to get more drunk, we can't even afford the alcohol. It's really sad. What a terrible. Terrible turn of events.

It is amazing. And I think too, we've lost track of that. Because, you know, when inflation rates come down, that is -- you know, a positive, compared to what we were facing a few years ago.

But it is still building on top of those price increases that were locked in. It's not that prices were going down. It's the rate of increases on those prices were going down.

JASON: Right. Why do we accept 2 percent inflation every year? I've heard that my whole life. Oh, the Fed projects 2 percent inflation. That's their target.

STU: Target. Yeah.

GLENN: Why. Why? Would we target our money being worth 2 percent less every year?

That doesn't seem like a good deal.

STU: Yeah. You've always talked about that.

Inertia of money.

And trying to get the dollars flowing.

Which seems to be their motivation on that.

If they were able to hit those numbers. It would probably not be all that damaging.

You would sure have a little bit of money wasting away every year.

Which is not good.

But it wouldn't that be dramatic.

GLENN: Well, we got close. Under Biden it was 9 percent.

STU: Yeah. That was good.

GLENN: Nine.

STU: Then we were like, nine. Six. Four.

Three. We've succeeded! Well, no. Wait. The 9 percent increase, that stayed. And then we built another 3 percent on top of that, and a 6 percent on top of that.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: It keeps going up and up and up. Did you see, by any chance, hopefully you didn't on Thanksgiving weekend. There was a chart tweeted by Amy Klobuchar. Did you see this by any chance?

GLENN: No. I missed the Thanksgiving I should have prayed for Thanksgiving on that. But go ahead.

STU: It was such a -- it was so moronic, that it actually was kind of a holiday gift to all of us.

She tweeted this chart of energy prices skyrocketing.

And she's like, these prices are skyrocketing under President Trump.

I can't believe this happen.

And it is -- it is pretty much a straight-up line.

The issue is, it went back to like 2020. And shows that all of the increases happened under Joe Biden.

GLENN: Jeez.

STU: They just kind of continued to increase.

And it wasn't even a pricing chart. It was how many people are behind on their energy bill.

Which is still skyrocketing. But almost all of this happened during the president that she passionately supported, up until he seemingly keeled over in the middle of a debate.

So, you know, not -- not necessarily the way to go if you're Amy Klobuchar. We kind of accept all of this. We accept the prices going up.

RADIO

Inside Venezuela: The terrifying truth revealed

Venezuela is NOT just a narco state. It’s a TERROR HUB working with Iran, Russia, and China. Glenn Beck's head researcher, Jason Buttrill, joins to explain how he believes this has influenced President Trump's actions in the region.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Jason Buttrill. Welcome. Chief researcher of the program. Also, watches foreign affairs for us. And military tough.

What the hell is happening in Venezuela?

JASON: I think a lot of gamesmanship is happening in Venezuela right now, closing the -- you know, the air traffic control. Even saying -- or even hinting that they will closing that, it's pretty much just saying, that they don't want any of Maduro's people that are going to try to escape out of the country. People that are involved with the cartel. The sons. None of them are going to try to escape. And then eventually come back. So they can start the regime back up again. I don't think there's any way possible. That we're just about to start any kind of land operations inside of Venezuela.

I could be wrong.

I don't think -- it would be very unpopular.

And I think constitutionally, they could pull it off.

I think there's ways they could do that.

But I don't think he's -- he doesn't like to do that kind of thing.

I don't think he's about to start now.

But I think these negotiations are getting a lot more heated. I think they're actually starting to bear fruit, which is why some of the threats are getting a lot more vocal.

And I'm telling you, Glenn, we actually could see Maduro step down, be out of the country, and a new regime there without us having to do much at all, except striking some of these narco boats coming out of the country. It could happen! And it would be amazing.

STU: Okay. So let's start with the narco boats. Because I think that's what the Democrats are now trying to allude to.

These narco boats. They're not narcos. They're not running -- those are just average fishing people. They have nothing to do with it, and this is unconstitutional. And we're shooting them, even when they try to surrender. Do we know if any of those allegations are true?

JASON: Well, I think they're pretty danger sure on the intelligence, on what, who some of these people are, on some of these vessels. You remember back --

GLENN: Why won't they tell us?

JASON: On day one -- I think, that that would actually behoove them to give the full story. The America public is a lot more smart, a lot more educated on what's going on in a lot of these things. They're a lot more prone to research on their own and find out for themselves what's actually happening in Venezuela. We've talked about it a lot with the terrorism sponsorship, that happens there between Hezbollah. A multitude of very scary terrorist individuals have made that kind of their base. Through Iran. Through the entire network.

GLENN: Right.

JASON: I think it makes a whole lot of sense for them, to say, look, this is what is going on. But they decided to go another route.

And I really don't know. I know they are very, very justified in what they're doing with a lot of these votes. And they -- they talked about since day one, when they started designating multiple groups, not only in Venezuela but in Mexico. I think on day one of President Trump's administration.

It designated multiple cartels as terror organizations. And then a couple of more from Venezuela have followed on to that. So what you've basically done is declared any combatants.

GLENN: Okay. I want to get to the terror organizations here in a second. First, let's stick with the drug cartels.

Because that's what he's hanging his hat on.

And I don't think this is about the drug cartels. I really don't.

I think that that might have been the entry point.

Explain who the -- the league of the sons. Or the cartel of the sons.

Explain that. Because -- Cartel of the Suns. You think, you know, S-U-N, sun. It's not. It's S-O-N-S. Correct?

Sons. Sons of, whom?

JASON: No, it's actually the opposite. It's S-U-N. It's Cartel of the Sun.

GLENN: Oh, that's right. That's right. Because of the medallion or the general stars. That's right. That's right.

JASON: It's like a nickname. So they never actually declared themselves, we're the cartel of the suns. That was a nickname because so many people, high level within the military inside of Venezuela were part of this narco terror group, and they were getting kickbacks. It was alleged some of them were giving orders, specifically. All the way down the food chain.

But their generals. I think it's maybe colonel and up. Or maybe general and up.

I think it's general and up. Instead of stars, they have a little sun insignia.

So like three sons. Like a three-star general, so on and so forth. That's why they're given this nickname. Because they were part of this group, and they were part of the military.

Now, the head of that snake was Maduro.

So he gives that orders down to the generals. The generals give their orders down. So that's how they're able to classify the entire government in a sense as part of this cartel.

Part of this entire terror group. And that is where, Glenn, it gets kind of interesting. Where it looks like, constitutionally, what can they pull off.

What can they do as far as military action?

When the head of the snake, who is the head of this cartel allegedly is the one giving these orders, then that really kind of frees them up to do whatever they want.

STU: Right. Because this is -- this cartel is a terror cartel. Explain the island and everything else.

JASON: Yeah, so the cartel is more involved with drugs. But I say that. But, you know, these groups are absolutely in the true sense of the definition, terror organizations, the way they operate.

STU: Right. This is -- this is -- this is where they make their money.

GLENN: Right. And then, but it goes way beyond that, as you're talking about. There's margarita island. An island right off the coast of Venezuela.

Where Iran sends people to be trained there, to be stationed there.

Venezuelans come down from groups like Tren de Aragua and others to train there. Sometimes going from Margarita Island all the way back to Iran, to get more specialized training. Then they come back. Who knows where they go from there? Possibly the United States. Who knows!

They've held meetings. Secret meetings, inside Venezuela, with the top scariest of the scaries. Scariest terrorists to meet with Chavez. And then who knows later, potentially even Maduro.

This is a terror hub. This is also a terror hub, that is -- which I just described is working with Iran.

But also, Russia. Russia sends submarines to -- to guard -- they did this back in 2018. To show support. Military support for Maduro.

China is getting -- is funding a lot of their stuff through oil.

Russia is sending tankers to transport Chinese Venezuelan oil to China.

Glenn, it's all part of the network. And as you're talking about, this goes way beyond. Way beyond anything where you talk about nacro groups coming from Venezuela to the United States.

It is so much more integrated into that. And I agree with you. I think the Trump administration lays it out on the table. Saying, this is what is going on. Congress wouldn't even be able to talk to the Democrats.

They wouldn't even be able to counter any of it. It would be so obvious, they should just do it.

GLENN: I agree. Help me out on the -- on the story that came out this weekend, that said that Russia and China are kind of laying low here.

What does that tell you?

JASON: It tells you a lot for one. Russia has a multitude of problems that they're dealing with. They can't release Glenn's support. They don't have it. They don't even have the military power to complete what they want to complete with Ukraine.

Plus, they're trying to make moves towards this peace agreement.

Putin wants a way out of this war, just as much as Zelinsky does.

Both sides want it. Now the question is, how do they do it? And both make it look to their own people, that they're the ones that won the war. And won the negotiation.

I mean, everything that's been coming out with the Ukrainian peace deal. I see this as just regular negotiations. This is getting leaked.

And you'll see a lot more of this, as it goes on.

The important thing, they're actually working toward it. And China. China as well. They have their own problems.

Most of it trade. They won't screw with trump.

That was very obvious. When they tried to pull out their last minute. We're barring rare earth minerals from everyone else.

Then Trump said, oh, I don't think so. And made them pull back. They don't want to screw with the Trump administration right now.

So they're going very hands off.

To me, it looks like a master class with the Trump administration. They're doing everything it's supposed to do.

And it's all going in the direction, the grand design for where they want this to go.

Which is kind of like a rebirth of the Monroe Doctrine if you really think about it. they've rejected all foreign influence.

The most worst of our adversaries that are out there, that are just embedded in South America.

They are dealing with that.

We haven't been able to say that for how long, Glenn? A long time!

STU: I know. I know.

Okay. So let me go to the -- the next piece. Which is, he's just banned air travel. And said, the skies are off-limits for everybody. You say that's for, to stop anybody from escaping. Maduro was just presented with a, hey. You can get out now while you can.

And Maduro said, I want amnesty for me and my family. For any crimes.

And I want to retain control of the military.

I would imagine that Trump might have said. Might have said, yes to the amnesty thing. But you're not controlling the military after -- no. That doesn't go to you.

Do you think Maduro is close to caving here?

And if so, where does he go?

JASON: Yeah. I think he's very close to caving. He probably will go to Russia or China. One of those two.

He has quite the nest egg.

You can look up all the family members from either Maduro or Chavez. Going on. I mean, they're multi-millionaires, a lot of these kids and spouses and girlfriends.

GLENN: How is that possible? He was a bus driver!
JASON: I know, right!
GLENN: Socialism is neat, kids. Socialism is neat!

JASON: But, yeah. I think -- I think amnesty is probably the top of his list, and I'm sure that that would probably be offered up and given, in some form. Retaining power of the military is not on the table at all. Because what he'll end up doing is, he'll go away for five years.

He'll come back, or he'll pick a successor that will then take control of the Venezuelan military, and they will just rinse and repeat and take back control of the entire country. So that is not going to happen.

But his feet are definitely to the fire right now.

If they're even to the point of negotiating this part of the deal. So that's why I think it's very, very possible that we see something amazing on this front, very, very soon.

GLENN: Oh, that would be great.

Let me -- let me switch topics kind of. To Mark Kelly. I want to play something. Then I want to take a one-minute break.

And come back. As a military guy, what your thoughts are. This is what Mark Kelly. Again, this weekend, encouraging military to defy the orders of the president. Listen to this, cut one.

VOICE: People can tell the difference. Should be able to tell the difference between something that is unlawful. And something that is lawful.

If I was ever given an unlawful order, I would refuse. You know, if you have time, you can certainly go to the judge, advocates, generals, the lawyers, and have a discussion about it. If you don't have time, you just say simply, I'm not going to do that. That's against the law.

VOICE: It puts a lot of burden on the truth.

VOICE: It puts a tremendous amount of burden on officers in the military.

But that is their responsibility.

And they can figure out, you know, a reasonable person can tell something that is legal, and something that is illegal.

GLENN: This is such dangerous territory, and I would love to get your opinion on that in sixty seconds.

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Ten seconds.
(music)
All righty.

So, Jason, if they thought that something was going on, they should just say it. And they have come out and said, they've had reporters ask, well, is this because we've heard rumors. That he ordered people to be killed. Even as they were surrendering. And if that is true, that is against the law. That is not something we do.

We don't do that. But there's no evidence of that. There's just -- it's their word. And I think, you know, again, if that's true, they should say that. And they should present evidence.

But I think what they're doing is saying these things, and putting their soldiers in an impossible situation.

What they're really saying is, you know, we're going to get in, and when we have control of Congress, we're going after all of you. You followed what Donald Trump wants to do? We'll tell you what's legal and what's not legal.

You should define it now.

But this way, they don't have to. They can just use scare tactics. Is that too cynical?

VOICE: No. The United States' soldier does not need your opinion on this, Mr. Kelly. They do not need your opinion on this. They know exactly what a lawful order is.

And there are procedures that they are trained on, on how to go through saying, you know, go through the proper channels to address something like that.

What I see this as being is a political party. In whole, that are experiencing something they're not used to.

They're not used to having extreme partisans and political yes men at the top of the military food chain, people like Lloyd Austin.

They want someone like him back.

They want someone like Mark Milley back.

It's great you're suddenly worried about some of these guys.

Suddenly worried about the military.

Where were you when Mark Milley was calling his counterpart from China. Without orders from the president. Behind his back. Where were you on that?

So what that says to me here, is that you are more concerned about orders, not lawful. But what you can claim are going to be lawful.

And you can have a yes-man there, that will say that they are lawful.

But you do not have that anymore, and it terrifies you. That's what they're concerned about right here.

But the soldier does not need your soldier, marine, airman. They don't need your counsel here on what is lawful or not.

GLENN: So how is this being interpreted by the military?

What's happening? If you were -- you were part of this task force on Venezuela or anywhere in the world. And you heard this.

What would you think?

JASON: Probably a lot of eye rolls. That's how I would interpret this, if I was still in the military.

I don't think this is really bothering too many of them at all.

I think that the fact that some of these rumors as the senators said, if this were true.

They don't even know. They're talking about a hypothetical.

They're throwing out something they can fish around for another impeachment.

It's ridiculous.

It's embarrassing. It's come to this point.

GLENN: Let's say we -- if we had footage. Because we would have footage.

The plane dropped a bomb. And then you had survivors.

And they were going, hey, we're alive. And somebody shot them or killed them. We would have footage of that.

That footage came out. What would you say?

JASON: Well, yeah. If that's what the footage showed. They would definitely look for a lot more investigation. I've been in -- you know, in multiple different military operations.

Where it's never as it appeared, or it looked like on a report, higher up on the food -- you know, up the chain of command.

I would want to know all the details. This would be a huge investigation.

GLENN: Right. It should be.

Because if it was someone saying, shoot them anyway, that's wrong. And that person should go to jail.

JASON: Yeah. Yeah, we've seen no evidence to that at all.

GLENN: None. None. None.

That's the problem. We would be with you, if you would show us the evidence.

And we could do an investigation. We would show that did happen or that didn't happen. We would be with you. But, you know, you're being so irresponsible by saying this. This isn't just to the military and to the military people.

Those statements are going to our enemies in China and Russia and Ukraine and Iran, in Venezuela. They're hearing this too, and using it. And also viewing us as very weak! Not good.

Because the only time that ever happens is right before a revolution, quite honestly.

RADIO

Uncovering the truth: National Guard ambush in DC

National Guard members Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe were recently ambushed in Washington, DC, by an Afghan national brought to the US as part of President Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome. What’s the truth about this horrific event? Glenn Beck, who worked with his charity, Mercury One, to properly vet and evacuate many Afghans during the botched withdrawal, explains what almost no one in the government or media will tell you…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So we clearly have a problem with some of the people that have been airlifted into the United States.

And I want to clarify a couple of things.

Because we airlifted people. You did. With your support.

We did it, at Mercury One.

And I want to make sure that you understand what happened there, and where our people, that we airlifted, where they are.

But first, let me say this. What we're seeing experience here is a story that almost no one in Washington wants to say out loud. And it begins with the people. But it -- it begins with the people that are responsible for failure, and that's -- that's our leadership here in America. A failure of honesty, a failure of courage the whole time.

When Kabul fell back in 2021, we rushed in to do what Americans always do, and that's help people out. We run to save. We ran to keep our word, and God bless every soldier and airman and Marine and volunteer who risk everything to rescue the men and women who stood for us, for 20 long years.

But here's the part that nobody prints. We didn't just evacuate our allies. We did. But the United States government evacuated anyone they could grab. In the chaos. Because chaos is the oldest enemy of truth. We opened up floodgates.

Tens of thousands of people, we didn't know. Nobody really vetted. Nobody could verify.

Nobody could fully account for. Even today, we don't know where they are.

That's not xenophobia. That's not fear-mongering. That's the Department of Homeland Security's own inspector saying that. Quote, we don't know who many of these people are. End quote.

This is something that while we're doing it, our vetting is much better than the United States of America.

They're bringing in people they don't know who they are.

Now, think of the weight of the sentence. Came from the inspector general. We don't know who many of these individuals are.

Think about the histories of nations, who forgot the simple duty of understanding who they bring inside the gates.

When that happens, the country is over. Rome did it. The Byzantine empire did it. Europe did it, before the migrant crisis, and now in 2021, we did it as well. And we knew this. We've been talking about it on this program, forever!

Now, inside of our temporary bases, Fort McCoy, Fort Bliss, Quantico, even our own FBI and military police documented things that the media just dusted off.

Eh, don't worry about it. We showed you at the time, sexual assaults that were happening in these temporary bases. Sexual assaults. Domestic abuse. Attempted strangulation. US service women harassed and followed into showers. Did we do anything about it?

These were not rumors. These were not internet stories. They were actual federal charges. Did anybody say anything about them?

Meanwhile, police departments. Virginia, California. Texas. Places with the largest Afghani arrivals began reporting the same exact pattern. Domestic violence, forced marriage concerns. Child protection cases. Cultural classes. And our law enforcement had to deal with them.

And did anybody in the media say anything about it?

No. Why?

You were bigoted if you said anything about it. Here's what happened. Our government took a lot of people from a tribal system.

Patriarchal. War-torn. No skills. No -- imagine going from Afghanistan to Chicago! How do you survive in that? How do you survive in that? Now, that's not the fault of the families. That's the fault of the federal government. A government that through them and us, into a social experiment overnight. Without even thinking about it, talking about it. Accept it.

Some of the people that are paroled into the United States, had ties to the Taliban, ISIS-K, or another, or several other. Terrorist organizations. That's not speculation. That has been confirmed by our own DOD. DHS. And congressional testimony.

We've known this for a very long time.

You know, when the Pentagon warns you, that that person should probably not be in the United States.

I don't know. Maybe we should listen to them. And maybe we should be concerned about a DHS, or a State Department that waves them in anyway. That's not compassion. That's dereliction of duty, period. Period.

Now, add to this, the humanitarian parole system. Meant for rare, urgent cases. It was a revolving door. You -- where are all these refugees from?

I'm not talking about the Afghanis. I'm talking about all the other people that have gone to Europe. That have gone to the United States.

That are swamping countries in the West. Where are they coming from?

Really? There's that big of a -- this is a bigger refugee problem than we've had in World War II. How is that possible. Know

We can't confirm anybody as identity. It doesn't seem that we care. Asylum. Family reunification request. Exploded. Some valid. Some of them unprovable. Some of them just out and out lies, that we knew were lies.

So what happened?

Our cities become strained. Our cities go into disorder. They start stealing from us. Look at Minneapolis.

Here's the biggest strain. The biggest strain on us, is the truth.

Is honesty.

It takes courage to say what actually happened.

But, you know, we're not living in a time of courage. We're living in a time where people saying the truth. You know, you acknowledge reality. And you get labeled.

You notice patterns. Oh, my gosh. You're silenced.

You ask responsible questions, you're accused of bigotry.

Truth doesn't care about the labels. It just sits there.

It just waits for somebody to show up and go, you know. That's the truth. I'm going to have to say it. So let's say it!

Here's the truth: America owes a sacred debt to anybody we promised.

Anybody who was fighting with them, we should protect them. We should honor them. We should welcome them. But that's not what happened. That's not what happened. We didn't perform a moral rescue as a government. We performed a political evacuation.

And I was there, so I know it.

You know, somebody posted kind of a snarky tweet at me, because I spoke at our gala here a couple of weeks ago. And I talked about what the State Department was doing. And I said, you know, it's time to understand how evil the State Department really was during that evacuation. Our people were vetted.

And we didn't bring people into the United States.

We brought people to the UAE. A lot of people went to Australia, a lot of people -- and I said, sat on the tarmac, forever!

Forever!

Because the State Department was shutting town and saying, we can't verify any of these people.

We can verify who these people were.

We knew who these people were.

Most of the people who we brought out, we can show you their baptismal certificate. Because that was part of our vetting. Are you a Christian?

Really? When were you baptized? Who baptized you? What church did you belong to?

Because we knew you were under the gun. Now, if you were like, yeah, I was just baptized three weeks ago. You didn't get on one of our planes, unless the State Department insisted you get on one of our planes. That's what I was saying on this video, that we just reposted. I was saying in the video. Did you know the compromise that they forced to us take.

You want to save these Christians. You have to save these people. You have to put those people on first.

We don't know who those people are. I don't know who those people are.

And those are were the ones that came to America.

We gambled with the future of these Afghani families. Because we just threw them in.

Just throw them in!

They'll be fine!

We threw them into a system not based on reality, of any sort.

We threw them in, without vetting them!

Meanwhile, we would not take the Christians. Hmm. I want you to know, we should not be attacking anybody, except honestly, condemning our government. Because it refuses to tell the truth on what it did and what it failed to do. The mark of a nation that is in decline isn't -- isn't who it lets in.

A mark of the nation in decline is whether it can confess. It can admit to its own mistakes, talk about the truth and the consequences. And today, Congress is whispering. The media is hiding.
Did you read any of the stories?

Hopefully, you didn't. Hopefully you just had a great time on vacation and the holiday.

But I did. My team did. Did you read the stuff from the New York Times?

They still can't admit the truth. They don't even know what the truth is.

I'm still here waiting for the courage of any adult to stand up. A great nation can welcome the stranger. But a dying nation loses the wisdom to ask who this is stranger?

And that -- that -- that gate we passed long ago.

The question is: Do you want to be a dying nation or not? I don't. I don't.

We can't afford to be a dying nation. The world can't afford us to die. So what do we do about it?

Well, the first step is defending your home. And the first step in defending your home is knowing who is inside your home.

And I will show you how we that do quite easily, in a second.

GLENN: Okay.

Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday, by the way. The largest single day of global generosity in the entire year. We have a goal of Mercury One for hurricanes and all kinds of other things we do. $300,000 to our maximum impact fund.

We would like this to make the biggest giving Tuesday Mercury One has ever had. The Maximum Impact Fund allows to us move before we have the money. I come on, and I say, hey. There's a tornado or whatever.

We need to raise that money. But by the time we can get that money from you into the bank, it's maybe, two, three, four days later. We would like to be there when it actually happens. This gives us the leeway of being able to move quickly.

So if you can -- if you can give, whether it's a dollar, $5. Whatever you can give. Whatever you can give.

It gives us. At a moment's notice. The ability to move during a crisis. 100 percent of it, if you don't count the credit card fees. 100 percent of it goes down range. So it goes right directly to what it is, you're trying to solve and help people. We don't pull anything off of the top. That's tomorrow and today. You can give at MercuryOne.org. MercuryOne.org. Give your tax deductible Tuesday gift, MercuryOne.org.

Okay. So first thing is first.

You've got to draw a line in the sand. And here's the word that every -- shuts every conversation down.

It's a word wielded like a club.

And it's to not illuminate anything. It's to silence.

And here's the word. Islamophobia. You say anything about the rising violence in Europe. The honor killings.

The grooming gangs. The refugees, who are not refugees at all. But sleeper cells.

Examine suddenly, you're a bigot. This isn't about bigotry. This is the first line you have to cross.

This is about civilization.

So let's draw the line between faith and ideology.

Because on Islam is a religion. Practiced by a billion people. It contains families that I've met, I know. Doctors I trust. Soldiers who fight beside Americans. Millions of peaceful, devout people who just want what you and I want, to raise their children in peace. But Islamism, an Islamist is not a Muslim. This is something entirely different.

Islamism is not a religion. It is a totalitarian system that wraps itself inside of the language. The way Mark wraps tyranny with equality. Okay? Hitler wrapped conquest with national destiny.

Islamism is Communism with a crescent moon. Islamism is fascism in a mosque, and it has absolutely zero intent of co-existing with the West. It comes not to blend in, but to rule. And if you doubt me, ask the women in Iran. If you doubt me, ask the socialists that helped the Islamic revolution in the 1970s. Ask me what happened to them! Because all of them lost their heads. Ask the Christians of Nigeria. Ask the families in Paris and Berlin and London, who are now living under police patrols, because their leaders were too afraid to speak plainly.

You know, we love to open our arms. That's fine. America always does that. But you must. When you open your arms, keep your eyes open as well!

A refugee seeking freedom is a blessing. A refugee seeking a

CARLY: Is a Trojan horse. And we have every moral right.

Every moral duty. To know the difference!

It's not about hating anybody.

I don't hate anybody.

I hate those who want to destroy us.

Want to kill my family.

Want to enslave me under some sort of religion.

Yeah. I do hate those people.

But this is about loving civilization that gave the world dignity of the individual, the rights of women.

Yeah, it was. Not -- not a caliphate.
The protection of minorities. Not a caliphate, us. The freedom to speak and worship. Or not worship. If defending those values makes me or you controversial, then, wow. Controversy is a very small price to pay. Don't you think? Because the alternative is, oh, I don't know. What's happening in Europe.

The alternative is silence! And silence in history is always the first sign of collapse. So the first thing we have to do is choose speech!

Choose truth. Choose civilization.

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