BLOGMay 18, 2017

End of Medical Dark Ages: Entrepreneur Predicts When We'll Have Cancer Under Control

Serial entrepreneur, historian and dreamer Jay Walker joined Glenn on radio Wednesday for an epic conversation about the future of America.

"If you are a dreamer and a doer, this is going to be a fantastic hour. I have wanted to sit down with this guy for quite some time," Glenn said Wednesday on radio.

Walker --- labeled the Edison of his age by Forbes in 1999 --- is a modern-day Renaissance man. While his day job involves creating cutting-edge companies like Priceline.com and Upside.com that provide a patented, buyer-driven experience, his obsession is finding the connectedness . . . in everything. The breakthroughs he sees coming in the fields of health and medicine are of particular interest.

"For 3 billion years, life on the planet has followed a very simple system," Walker said. "We all share the same DNA --- a tree, a dog, a human. We have so much in common. For the first time in human history, in the history of the world, humans have control of the operating code. We are now manipulating the DNA, which means, for the first time, it's as if we had the software of life."

Walker explained how scientists are at the cusp of operating down to the instructional layer, which creates the proteins that create the tissues, systems and organs of the body.

"It's almost as if we're inventing printing, reading, writing and thinking all at the same time in forms of medicine," Walker said.

In effect, we're living in an extraordinary time in the history of the world.

"We're at the end of the medical Dark Ages," Glenn offered.

So passionate is Walker about the field of medicine he helped launch TEDMED, an independent health and medicine edition of the world-famous TED conference.

"How far do you think we are away from curing the majority of cancer?" Glenn asked.

According to Walker, it's not so much curing cancer that's around the corner, but being able to manage it as a livable disease like AIDS.

"How far do you think we are away from that?" Glenn asked.

"If you're saying leukemias and blood cancers, we're probably five years, maybe 10," Walker said.

"Holy cow," Glenn responded.

Walker's belief in the systematic, connectedness of everything even applies to his remarkable library which holds 25,000 books.

"People come to my library and they say, 'How are the books organized, Jay? How do you organize the books? You have 25,000 books. Is there a card catalog?' I say, 'Absolutely not. They're organized randomly by height,'" Walker laughed.

The library, Walker says, is one of imagination.

"They were all written by humans. They're all connected. You figure out why this is connected to that. The act of imagining is the essential act of creation. Nothing happens if you don't imagine it, whether it's who you're going to marry, the children you want to have, the kind of country you want to live in, the kind of job you want to have. It's all about your imagination. Everything happens here first. It happens in your head."

Enjoy the complimentary clip or listen to this segment for details.

GLENN: I first talked to Jay Walker -- I've known about him for a long, long time. But I first met Jay Walker on the phone -- this is the first time we've actually sat in the same room together.

And immediately, I felt connected to him and the way he thinks. He's an optimist. He sees a massive change on the horizon. But he knows it doesn't have to be bad. It probably is going to be a little rough getting there. But it doesn't have to be bad. And he sees the future unlike most people do. And he sees it through the eyes of history, which is so wickedly important. Just full disclosure, he is the guy who started upside.com which is an advertiser on this program. But I do want to ask him one question on something he told me about Upside when we first spoke. But this is not an advertisement. We're not even going to talk about that. You need to meet this man.

He's just started something called Ted MD, which is TED talks -- no, I'm sorry. Med Ted. Sorry. Med Ted. Yeah, TEDMED.

Jeez, how many times am I going to get this wrong?

STU: You only asked him three times before you came on the air.

GLENN: I know. I know. What am I thinking?

So he started this, and I want to start here. I hate to bring it to a cheesy TV show, but I've been watching a show -- and now I can't even remember the name of it. It is --

JEFFY: Pure Genius, which was just cancelled.

GLENN: Pure Genius. Was it cancelled?

JEFFY: Yes.

GLENN: Oh, crap. That was such an optimistic show.

JEFFY: I know. I know.

GLENN: Have you seen that?

JAY: I have not.

GLENN: Okay. So the premise is a guy who is a billionaire, you know, a guy like you . . . just a serial entrepreneur, tech guy. He's in Silicon Valley. He's like, I'm going to start a hospital. And it shows --

JAY: Oh, boy. You'd be better starting a government.

GLENN: But it shows all the -- it takes all the red tape out and shows all the tech that is coming and how optimistic life really looks when you look at what's on the horizon and the breakthroughs we're about to go through.

As you're doing this, what are you seeing for --

JAY: Well, Glenn, the way to think about it for health and medicine, is that for 3 billion years, life on the planet has followed a very simple system. It's very simple. There's one -- you know, there's DNA. We have a common ancestor. And it's been evolving for 3 billion years, give or take depending on your beliefs. And I'm not picking on anybody's beliefs.

But the fact is, we all share the same DNA --- a tree, a dog, a human. We have so much in common. For the first time in human history, in the history of the world, humans have control of the operating code. We are now manipulating the DNA. Which means, for the first time, it's as if we had the software of life. That's never happened in history before.

It means for the first time, we're going to be able to operate down at the instruction layer, which creates the proteins, which then creates the tissues and the systems and the organs of the body. So we're right at the cusp.

It's almost as if we're inventing printing, reading, writing, and thinking all at the same time in forms of medicine. And so we are living at the beginning of an extraordinary time in the history of the world.

GLENN: We're at the end of the medical Dark Ages.

JAY: Exactly. It's as if we had just gotten the microscope for the first time, and we saw there was a tiny world that nobody knew existed. In 1665, Hook looks through his microscope, and he sees that the fly is composed of thousands of little eyes. And he says, "What is this micro world? What are these little things swimming around?"

And he can't even see bacteria. He can't even see the smallest things. And yet, an entirely new world opens up. Galileo looks into the heavens and sees that there are planets, but also sees that there are moons around Saturn and Jupiter. And suddenly, the notion that the earth is in the center of the universe drops away. The telescope and the microscope were the great changes of the 17th century. And now we're in the 21st century, and we're now seeing for the first time the actual code that brings things to life.

GLENN: We're seeing things -- Ray Kurzweil, I've talked to several times. I am --

JAY: The singularity, right? Ray talks about, we're about to hit this point at which everything breaks free and goes on an extraordinary compounding effect, and whether or not you agree or disagree with Ray, there is no question if you back up and you look at where we are in history, in medicine and health, we are about to exit the Dark Ages.

GLENN: So he said it's as if -- he said, the human body should last a lot longer than it does. It shouldn't wear out. He said, it's as if there's a switch somewhere that's just been turned off. And he said, we just have to find that switch. Are you -- when you look at the DNA --

JAY: Yeah, I wouldn't agree with Ray on that, but I understand where he's coming from.

The human body isn't a thing. The human body is a system. Think of the Amazon rain forest. It's composed of enormous different things. It's got trees and insects. It's got birds. It's got animals. It's got leaves. It's got photosynthesis. It's got fungi.

It's got all these things, and we call it the Amazon. It's constantly changing. You are an Amazon rain forest. You have trillions of --

GLENN: I think that's a fat joke --

JEFFY: It certainly was a fat joke to me.

JAY: So we don't switch on or off the Amazon rain forest. No, the Amazon rain forest isn't going away, despite, you know, our efforts to cut it down for lumber or to grow grass. But that being said, it's about a system.

What we're learning is how all the different systems of the body, including many that are not even human, we're learning about the microbiome. These are bacteria that we need to survive in our guts and all throughout us, for which without them, we can't make it.

GLENN: How far do you think we are away from curing the majority of cancer?

JAY: I think we're far from curing the majority. But we're not far from turning a significant number of cancers into a manageable, livable disease, like we did with AIDS.

We figured out not how to cure AIDs, but how to slow it down so you could live with the rest of your life with it, much like all men have prostate cancer. We just don't die of it.

But literally, 100 percent of men, if you do an autopsy at age 75, are going to have prostate cancer. They simply are not going to die from it.

Cancer is essentially a natural byproduct of having multicellular organisms. Because in the process of duplicating at the cellular level, you're going to have some mistakes randomly, and some of those mistakes are going to be so damned good at not being killed, that they're going to reproduce in a way that's bad for the organism as a whole, but good for the cell. So we don't eliminate cancer. We eventually figure out how to manage with it.

GLENN: How far do you think we are away from that?

JAY: If you say 50 percent of -- if you're saying leukemias and blood cancers, we're probably five years, maybe ten.

GLENN: Holy cow.

JAY: If you're saying soft tissue cancers, more like ten to 20. But a lot of it depends on whether or not we get better at finding them sooner. Today, we cannot detect cancer until it's about seven years old. So when somebody comes from a doctor and they say, "I've been diagnosed with cancer," you've had it for seven years. We can't see less than 100 million cells, which is less than the tiny point of a pin, 100 million cancer cells.

So cancer is a system disease of which we have many in our bodies, most of which will never come to the point where they hurt us. Cancer isn't like an infection where it's binary, you have it or you don't. Cancer is a symptom of the system. And the system learns to cope with it for most of your life.

GLENN: What's the most amazing thing you seen on the horizon in medical tech?

JAY: The most amazing thing is probably the mapping of the human protyle. So we call all the -- the proteins are the workhouses of the body --

PAT: That's what I was going to say.

JAY: They're the things that do all the work in your body. Your DNA codes for proteins. Proteins are the worker bees of the body at the simplest level. We really have never mapped them all. And it turns out most of the diseases, if not nearly all of them are dysfunctions of protein operations. Proteins are very complicated organisms. They're very, very small, but they're very complicated. We are now at the cusp of mapping them all.

And forget about mapping the human genome, which is great. It's the protium where all the action is at, and we're right about to map it.

GLENN: What will that change?

JAY: Well, it will allow us, for the first time, to understand what's really going on with disease. Up to now, we've actually not understood what's really going on.

GLENN: What does that mean?

JAY: Well, it means that the proteins are malfunctioning. When you have a disease --

GLENN: Hang on just a second. I just want to -- you know you're in the room with someone who is smart when you're -- I'm now in three levels deep of asking what the hell does that mean, and really --

JAY: I'm trying -- I'm trying to keep it broad for the audience. I'm not an MD or a PhD. I'm really not a doctor. I just talk to them all day.

GLENN: No, it's amazing. Right.

JAY: And, by the way, that's my spare time job because my main job is building a great company in Upside. So ironically, we're off on the side here.

But the -- basically, what it means is when we learn how proteins behave badly, we will recognize that your arthritis may be very similar to the fact that you have a sleep apnea, that they are the same proteins, just misbehaving.

There is a map of all the proteins.

GLENN: Wow.

JAY: And once we start to look at where the proteins are behaving badly, we now have the tools to finally figure out what the hell is going on with these diseases. We don't know anything about Alzheimer's. So much of that is a protein --

GLENN: So that's why sometimes you'll go in and things are absolutely not connected. Doctors will tell you, that's not connected. Well, but they're all happening at the same time.

JAY: Right.

GLENN: And, yeah, I know they're not connected. But I've never had these before, and now they're all happening.

JAY: Everything is connected. Okay? So anybody who tells you something isn't connected -- you don't go into the Amazon rain forest and say, well, the fact that the toads are dying is unconnected to the blight on the trees. No, everything is connected. The question is, at what level?

GLENN: Right.

JAY: Does it have a common cause? Or is it the result of common external factors? We're learning all that.

GLENN: You know what I'm amazed, talking to people like you, A, I feel really average. That's being very kind.

JAY: This isn't your area of expertise, in all fairness.

GLENN: I know. But, still, this is -- this is not your job.

JAY: It's not my day job.

GLENN: And the people I meet like you, have they always been around? Because I look through history -- and you'll see the people like Tesla and Edison. You'll see these people who are really quite bright in a million different things. We used to call them renaissance men.

JAY: Yeah.

GLENN: But there is something about this new group of entrepreneurs that they are -- Jon Huntsman Sr. is a friend of mine and started the Huntsman Cancer Center.

JAY: Yeah.

GLENN: And he said to me -- I asked him, teach me how to be charitable. I've been poor my whole life. I don't know how to be charitable.

JAY: It's an art. You have to learn how to do it.

GLENN: Yes. And he said, first lesson, you have to care about everything. Not just -- you have to care about everything.

And that kind of goes to --

JAY: It's very American. So this is a nation of insatiable curiosity. It's always been that way. It's because we've had the West. We were founded by a group of people who were fleeing somewhere else, with the handful of exceptions of the people who were here, right?

We've all come from somewhere else. We've all left a world behind, in order to come and build a new world in America. Nobody even knew it existed until 1500.

So the beauty of the American spirit is it's a spirit of insatiable curiosity. That's why we're a nation of tinkerers, a nation of inventors, a nation that's always trying to change. We don't look back as a nation. It's a weakness and a strength both at the same time.

But the fact is, this is -- the country -- America looks forward. People like that are insatiably curious about everything. And you find whether it's John Muir or Thomas Edison, these people recognized that at the deepest level, it's all connected.

So I have a great library in the history of human imagination. About 25,000 books.

GLENN: Love this.

JAY: Right? Now, it's a library about imagination. People come to my library. And they say, "How are the books organized, Jay? How do you organize the books? You have 25,000 books. Is there a card catalog?"

I say absolutely not. They're organized randomly by height. And he goes, "You have a library of 25,000 books organized randomly?" I said, "Yes. It's about imagination. You connect them. They were all written by humans. They're all connected. You figure out why this is connected to that."

The act of imagining is the essential act of creation. Nothing happens if you don't imagine it, whether it's who you're going to marry, the children you want to have, the kind of country you want to live in, the kind of job you want to have. It's all about your imagination -- everything happens here first. It happens in your head.

GLENN: We're having a great debate now between the legal and business side and the creative side of this company, of what -- who is the creative? And I keep saying, everyone is.

JAY: We all work for the customer. We all work for the customer.

GLENN: It's not even that, I am, fill in the blank. I am happy or I am sad. What are you going to create at the basic level? And everyone has the same power in a different way. Just, what are you creating?

JAY: Yeah. And we've taught, unfortunately, in so many ways, we live in a society of specialists. We've taught, specialize. Focus on one field. Do the best. Your economic result will be highest if you specialize.

And that's true. But it's generalists who integrate completely, unexpectedly. When you look at Steve Jobs and his life, you see a generalist. Not a specialist. You see a guy who was happy to go to India, happy to learn about type fonts, happy to understand the aesthetics of design. And yet, he was a technologist. Why? Because, really, great leaps forward are made by people who integrate from multiple fields. And that's why we call them polymaths, when they happen to be geniuses. Leonardo was a polymath. He was a genius in five fields. That allowed him to be a bigger genius in any one of them. And we see this throughout history.

GLENN: We're going to run out of time so fast. Jay Walker, a serial entrepreneur. A founder -- cofounder of Priceline. And many other things -- 900 patents. We'll continue our conversation with him in just a second.

[break]

GLENN: Let's talk a little bit about the -- the future and what you're seeing in things like Priceline and Upside.

JAY: So one of the great futures is we're living in this digital world, right? And everybody is saying, look at all this data. Okay. What does that mean to me? What does that mean to a person sitting out in the audience, and just listening and saying, okay. That's nice. The world is filled with data.

Here's one of the things it means. It means your flexibility, which right now you don't get paid for, you're going to start getting paid for.

Look, when you're walking down the supermarket aisle and you see an item on sale, next to one that isn't on sale, you can be flexible and say, I'm going to buy the brand that's on sale today because I normally buy that brand.

But that's just a small case. What happens every time you're shopping online and somebody says, "Hey, are you willing to be a little flexible? I'll give you $50, if you do this instead of that." I'll give you $90 if you do this instead of that."

Imagine a smart piece of software that offers you options that gives you personally more money for being flexible. And, by the way, gives your boss something too.

So the key idea behind one of the things I'm working on is, how do you turn flexibility into an asset? How do you turn it into something where I have my phone -- hey, look, I want to go to New York on a trip. But if I leave 15 minutes earlier, you'll give me $50. If I leave -- if I go into a different airport, you'll give me $100. If I stay at a hotel across the street, that's worth $200 to me.

I can't find all those choices. There's too many choices. But software can.

The beauty of the world we're living in, with this new big data software, is it can evaluate tens of thousands of choices for you. Show you just a few that makes sense.

GLENN: So when we come back -- can you talk a little bit about that? Because you've demonstrated that in Upside. And that's -- I got to that with you because I said, okay. What's the catch? And you explained it to me. And I'm like, holy cow, that's brilliant.

And you said to me, now, imagine that with everything.

So let's talk about that. And also, I want to talk about the -- the world that is going out and examining all these things, but then putting us into little teeny boxes, where we don't see the big picture anymore.

RADIO

Black Friday spending hits record high, but are we really buying more?

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

The DARK TRUTH about Maduro and Venezuelan cartels

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

What you WEREN’T TOLD about the National Guard ambush

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.

RADIO

Black Friday used to be a WARNING...

Before the door-buster deals and stampedes, “Black Friday” meant total financial panic (gold crashing, markets collapsing). Then in the 1950s, Philadelphia cops reused the term because the day-after-Thanksgiving chaos felt like the end of civilization. But the real twist? FDR moved Thanksgiving itself in 1939 just to give retailers an extra week of Christmas shopping — dividing the country until Congress finally caved in 1941. So, what started as a sacred day of survival and gratitude got permanently hijacked by Washington and big business.

Glenn's Show Prep

End of Medical Dark Ages: Entrepreneur Predicts When We'll Have Cancer Under Control

Black Friday spending hits record high, but are we really buying more?

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The DARK TRUTH about Maduro and Venezuelan cartels

Transcript

What you WEREN’T TOLD about the National Guard ambush

Transcript

Black Friday used to be a WARNING...