Off The Record with John Stossel

Over the last several months, Glenn has emphasized the importance of bringing together individuals who share the same goals and unifying principles so that we can learn from one another. GlennBeck.com is working to fulfill that goal by sitting down with some of the most interesting minds to give you an inside look at who they are and what they are working on.

Libertarian author and television personality John Stossel spoke with GlennBeck.com assistant editor Meg Storm about his personal transformation from liberal to libertarian, why he believes human beings naturally lean towards socialism, and why the federal flood insurance program is a “moral hazard.”

Below is a transcript of the interview:

Hi, John. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.

Hello. Nice to talk to you.

So I wanted to start with your background. You graduated Princeton University with a degree in psychology, and yet you have had a very long career in journalism. How did you make that jump?

I hated college. I didn’t much like school. I was on the track to go to grad school, which I thought was necessary. I picked psychology because chemistry was too hard. I thought psychology would be easier, but I didn’t much like it because it had two answers for everything. I found it very soft.

So I took every job interview that came to Princeton just for the experience and some offered free plane trips. I took the longest trip and took that job, which was working as a researcher in a TV newsroom in Portland, Oregon. I had never planned on doing that. I barely watched TV news. But that is where I ended up.

So how did your career grow from there?

They said, ‘We would like you to write scripts for the anchor and do research for stories.’ I did that for a couple of years. And then a fire happened and no one else was around, so they said, ‘Go cover that,’ and I went out and covered it. Then they said, ‘Why don’t you read it on the air?’ And I said, ‘I can’t do that because I have a stutter.’ And they said, ‘We barely notice your stuttering.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s because we closet stutterers cover it up. We substitute synonyms or say ‘uhhh’ until we can get the word out. But that would be lousy for TV.’ But they said, ‘Do it anyway.’

So I started covering things and, in the edit room, snipping out my stutters. But then they said, ‘Go on the air.’ And I said, same story, ‘I can’t. I am a stutterer.’ In this case, they did have to cut me off the air once because I was stuttering so much we ran out of time. I was humiliated. But it seemed to horrify me more than it did others, and I gradually kept being on the air and got help for my stuttering.

How have you been able to overcome the stutter? Is it something that is still a work-in-progress every day?

Less so everyday.

Until I was 30, I had speech therapy. The University of Michigan had a stuttering camp called Shady Trails. When I was a kid, I went to a speech therapist at Northwestern [University].

Once I got into TV, all kinds of charlatans – ah, that’s not fair – people who were sure they could help came out of the closet with transcendental mediation and hypnotism and all kinds of stuff. I finally found a program called the Communications Reconstruction Center in Roanoke, Virginia, and they re-teach you how to speak – slow us way down per syllable. I came out of that much improved. I still have to practice a little, but it is pretty much under control.

I have also learned to just go ahead and stutter on the air. People won’t hate me for it.

(Laughs)

The happiest stutterers are the ones who can stutter in front of other people. I once asked [former GE CEO] Jack Welch, ‘How can you run this enormous company and still have such a severe stutter?’ His is worse than mine. And he said, ‘I don’t give s**t. I just stutter.’

You mentioned you didn’t really like school; you weren’t the best student. Glenn talks a lot about how college wasn’t a good fit for him either. Do you believe in higher education? Do you think it is important? Or are there other ways to forge a career?

Unfortunately, I think it is important as a signaling device – it sends a message to an employer that you have a degree. I think maybe 10 or 20% of the students like that kind of learning. The idea of learning by sitting in class while a professor talks I would think would be laughed at today in that you absorb information three times as fast when you read.

I was bored stiff. I would start every semester saying, ‘I am going to read all the material. I am going to go to every class and take great notes.’ 15 minutes into the first lecture, I was daydreaming because my brain just doesn’t absorb information that way.

I think that helped me in TV though because I was motivated to find ways to appeal to brains like mine – using pictures, simpler sentences, speeding up and slowing down, using sound to break things up. Giving people both the visual and the audio information, I think, has helped me succeed.

Do you have any advice for young journalists?

Just try it. It used to be you had to go to college. I never went to journalism school or took a journalism course. Many of my colleagues did not. Now it’s even easier to just try something. If it’s video, you’ve got YouTube. If it’s radio, you’ve got podcasts. And you can decide if you are good at it – or your friends can tell you.

(Laughs)

You will then have something you can show people and say, ‘Here are my YouTube videos. Watch one. It will only take you three minutes.’ You will have something much more concrete to offer an employer than a college degree.

Your career has spanned several decades, and you have worked all over the place. How has your career evolved?

You say I worked all over the place, but compared to many of my peers, who would go from this station to that one, I have only worked for three – well, four now. Portland, Oregon, a local station in New York, ABC, and now Fox [News]. With the exception of the first job for four years, I have been around for quite awhile on each job.

I was just surprised to be in this job where I could do interesting work and was well paid, so why give it up? I just kept doing it. Once I discovered the benefits of free markets and realized that almost no one of the air was explaining this to people, I felt I had a moral duty to cover it. That has been my motivator since then.

Can you talk about your personal philosophical transformation from liberalism to libertarianism - how that came about?

I was raised slightly liberal, but not that political. At Princeton, they explained the ideas behind liberalism – though they didn’t say it that way – were the only reasonable ones: The state planned people’s lives. We had experts now that could teach poor people not to be poor, and food stamps would help lift them out of poverty. I just believed all that. I believed it for a long time.

In Portland, I quickly saw how the War on Poverty had unintended consequences. But I was a consumer reporter, so that was mostly what I was covering. I was getting rewarded for bashing business. I won 19 Emmy Awards criticizing business, and there was plenty to criticize, lots of cheaters. But I noticed when I got to ABC that there were fewer national scams to expose. While there were lots of local cheaters in New York and Portland, they didn’t get very big nationally. The businesses that went national were the ones that served their customers pretty well.

I kept reading the conservative and liberal press, and it didn’t really resonate with me. Then I discovered Reason – a libertarian magazine – and it was an epiphany: Oh my God. This made so much sense.

These people were thinking about it a lot longer than I, and they really understand these concepts. I realized I was a libertarian, and, as I read more about it, realized markets have an amazing, underrated power to make our lives better, and yet they are vilified almost everywhere.

What do you think are some of the most common misconceptions when it comes to the free market and competition?

That business wins at the expense of the customer, and that the rich win at the expense of the poor. It is intuitive to think that way. I wrote No, They Can’t: Why Governments Fail – But Individuals Succeed to address our natural intuition, which is socialist.

How so?

We are raised by parents who take care of us. Our instinct is: We want the government – the experts – to take care of things because we have lives. We can’t pay attention to everything. It is also instinctive to think of life as a zero sum game – if I win, you lose. Politicians think that way because that’s how their world works. And lawyers who sue people think that way – you either win or you lose.

But in business, you only win if you give your customers something they want. If you make a big profit, it doesn’t mean you took it from the customer. They customer voluntarily gave you his money. He felt he gained something too. It is why you get the weird double thank you moment when you buy anything.

If you bought a cup of coffee this morning, you gave the cashier a buck, and she said, ‘Thank you.’

She gave you the coffee, and you said, ‘Thank you.’

‘Thank you.’ ‘Thank you.’

Why both? Because you both felt you won.

But that’s just not intuitive. It’s intuitive to think Bill Gates made $50 million because he took $50 million from other people. If that’s the case, how come there is so much more wealth in the world now with all these billionaires? They didn’t take a big piece of the pie. They baked lots of new pies and then took a big piece.

Do you think our education system does economics a disservice in terms of how it is taught?

Yes, but it is hard not to because most people don’t get this.

You have a program – Stossel in the Classroom – that seeks to educate high school students on economics.

I do. We reach about 10 million high school kids every year.

How did that program come to be? Did you see a need?

Yes, I noticed when I was at 20/20 I would meet a teacher and he would say, ‘Oh, I wish I taped that program so I could play it for my students,’ or ‘I did tape that show and played it for my students, and we had a great debate in class that really got them thinking about these things. It was much more interesting than the textbook or my lecture.’

I thought: Gosh, this stuff costs a quarter of a million dollars for ABC to produce. It airs once, and then it is gone into the ether. It would be nice if we could sell this to high school teachers.

So I found a libertarian who was interested in starting that business, and we, with great difficulty, got ABC’s permission to buy it and offer it to teachers. Almost nobody bought it. And then I started a charity and offered it free to teachers. I thought it would just take off. But things happen more slowly in markets than I understood. Very gradually word spread, and now I am seen by more kids in high school than I am on Fox or would have been if I stayed at ABC.

That’s incredible.

Fox, kindly, once they air, let’s us have the episodes of Stossel for free.

Editor’s Note: You can learn more about Stossel in the Classroom HERE.

What a great resource. Speaking of your Fox show, you have a weekly program on Fox Business. How do you prepare? How do you decide what topics to cover?

I didn’t intend to do my own show. I have always done edited documentaries. I am really the opposite of Glenn Beck in that I am not that verbal. I don’t like to just talk about things. I am not that good at it. I want to write a script and re-write it and re-write it.

But at Fox they said, ‘We want you to come here and do something for all three of our platforms’ – meaning Bill O’Reilly, the regular news outlets, and Fox Business. I had enjoyed, and I still enjoy, speaking to student audiences. When people invite me to speak, it’s nice to hear the laughter or the pushback. So I thought I would do that with a studio audience on Fox. We would discuss libertarian ideas with an audience. And then I discovered it really wasn’t enough to just talk and get pushback --

(Laughs)

So we prepared segments. I just look for what’s libertarian of interest, what’s not being covered by other people from an economic perspective. You have a million people covering crime, politics, and war, and not a lot of people covering markets.

I have a staff of about six people, and we all offer ideas. On Wednesday, we sit down and write the show that we will then do on Thursday. I am one of the rare shows on Fox that over shoots by about 20 minutes, and I edit. I just think it is such a sensible idea because a lot of people say things twice or say things that are in the weeds and unclear.

I don’t know how Glenn and Bill O’Reilly do stuff live and hold a much bigger audience than I have. They are amazing. I can’t do that.

Editor’s Note: Stossel airs Thursdays at 9pm ET on Fox Business.

Switching topics a little bit: What do you see as the main differences between conservatism and libertarianism?

That many conservatives want to police the world. I think we should be involved in the world, but I don’t think we should run it. Many conservatives want to police individual behavior, police the bedroom, ban gambling, ban intoxicants. Libertarians say government can’t police morality, and individuals should be allowed to do anything that is peaceful.

You came under fire last year for not taking a strong stance against the NSA surveillance techniques, and you made a list of 100 things government does that you find more frustrating. One that stood out to me was ‘federal flood insurance for rich people.’ Why does that make you more frustrated than the NSA?

Because I am clear there is no good reason and only destructive reasons to have the flood insurance program.

I am well aware that the NSA is a much bigger deal than any of my 100 things on the list. But with the NSA, I can at least understand the government’s argument that people are trying to kill us. This is a very broad, anonymous form of spying, in which they don’t listen to the content of the calls – as far as we know. They do see patterns, which they say have prevented terrorism 54 times. It is possible they are lying. Government does lie to us. But it does make sense to me that you can find patterns in big data that could keep us safer. There is enormous potential for abuse. I don’t trust my government. But I can see both sides.

With flood insurance, they are subsidizing people to live in dangerous places and then taking money from taxpayers when there is a flood or a hurricane to pay them. Then we build again on the edge of an ocean, and the program goes deeper into debt.

The government claims, ‘Oh, we’ll price it properly. But we have to do this because the free market isn’t doing it.’ Well, the free market isn’t doing it because the government is doing it dirt-cheap. Sure enough, the program was $16 billion in debt before Sandy – I forget what the number is now. The government proposed reforms, finally, that would not turn it over to the private sector – the private sector, through competition, would figure out what the prices should be – but the government proposed raising the prices at least. Riverfront and beachfront homeowners complained to Republicans and Democrats, and they wimped out and postponed the price rises.

It is just a disgusting program that screws poor people, gives money to rich people, hurts the taxpayer, and encourages people to build in dangerous places. It is a moral hazard.

Editor’s Note: See Stossel’s list of ‘100 Things I Hate About Government’ HERE.

What do you see as the future of the libertarian movement? Rand Paul is getting a lot of attention ahead of 2016. Do you think the American people are ready to embrace libertarianism?

I want to believe it. I hope so. But I have no clue. I am not an expert judger of what Americans believe. I only speak to maybe 1,000 people a year, and there are more than 300 million people in the country. They surprise me all the time. But I am delighted Rand Paul is doing well, and I share many of his beliefs.

What do you see as the biggest problems facing this country right now?

The growth of the state. Thomas Jefferson said it is the natural progress of things for government to grow and liberty to yield, and I fear that is what will happen because we are already $17 trillion in debt and we are promising to pay my generation Social Security and Medicare. There is just no way there is enough money – especially to pay for Medicare. So we are going to have to stiff somebody. My generation votes, so I doubt they’ll stiff us. They can’t raise taxes enough to pay for it. If they do, there will be riots.

So they will probably inflate the currency in a horrible way, and then there will be social unrest and terrible things. People, I fear, will blame on the capitalists and call for more government. It’s a nasty spiral of ignorance.

Well, on that uplifting note…

(Laughs)

It was so great to talk to you. Thanks, John.

Thank you.

This transcript has been edited and condensed.

Britain says “no work without ID”—a chilling preview for America

OLI SCARFF / Contributor | Getty Images

From banking to health care, digital IDs touch every aspect of citizens’ lives, giving the government unprecedented control over everyday actions.

On Friday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer stood at the podium at the Global Progressive Action Conference in London and made an announcement that should send a chill down the spine of anyone who loves liberty. By the end of this Parliament, he promised, every worker in the U.K. will be required to hold a “free-of-charge” digital ID. Without it, Britons will not be able to work.

No digital ID, no job.

The government is introducing a system that punishes law-abiding citizens by tying their right to work to a government-issued pass.

Starmer framed this as a commonsense response to poverty, climate change, and illegal immigration. He claimed Britain cannot solve these problems without “looking upstream” and tackling root causes. But behind the rhetoric lies a policy that shifts power away from individuals and places it squarely in the hands of government.

Solving the problem they created

This is progressivism in action. Leaders open their borders, invite in mass illegal immigration, and refuse to enforce their own laws. Then, when public frustration boils over, they unveil a prepackaged “solution” — in this case, digital identity — that entrenches government control.

Britain isn’t the first to embrace this system. Switzerland recently approved a digital ID system. Australia already has one. The World Economic Forum has openly pitched digital IDs as the key to accessing everything from health care to bank accounts to travel. And once the infrastructure is in place, digital currency will follow soon after, giving governments the power to track every purchase, approve or block transactions, and dictate where and how you spend your money.

All of your data — your medical history, insurance, banking, food purchases, travel, social media engagement, tax information — would be funneled into a centralized database under government oversight.

The fiction of enforcement

Starmer says this is about cracking down on illegal work. The BBC even pressed him on the point, asking why a mandatory digital ID would stop human traffickers and rogue employers who already ignore national insurance cards. He had no answer.

Bad actors will still break the law. Bosses who pay sweatshop wages under the table will not suddenly check digital IDs. Criminals will not line up to comply. This isn’t about stopping illegal immigration. If it were, the U.K. would simply enforce existing laws, close the loopholes, and deport those working illegally.

Instead, the government is introducing a system that punishes law-abiding citizens by tying their right to work to a government-issued pass.

Control masked as compassion

This is part of an old playbook. Politicians claim their hands are tied and promise that only sweeping new powers will solve the crisis. They selectively enforce laws to maintain the problem, then use the problem to justify expanding control.

If Britain truly wanted to curb illegal immigration, it could. It is an island. The Channel Tunnel has clear entry points. Enforcement is not impossible. But a digital ID allows for something far more valuable to bureaucrats than border security: total oversight of their own citizens.

The American warning

Think digital ID can’t happen here? Think again. The same arguments are already echoing in Washington, D.C. Illegal immigration is out of control. Progressives know voters are angry. When the digital ID pitch arrives, it will be wrapped in patriotic language about fairness, security, and compassion.

But the goal isn’t compassion. It’s control of your movement, your money, your speech, your future.

We don’t need digital IDs to enforce immigration law. We need leaders with the courage to enforce existing law. Until then, digital ID schemes will keep spreading, sold as a cure for the very problems they helped create.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The West is dying—Will we let enemies write our ending?

Harvey Meston / Staff | Getty Images

The blood of martyrs, prophets, poets, and soldiers built our civilization. Their sacrifice demands courage in the present to preserve it.

Lamentations asks, “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?”

That question has been weighing on me heavily. Not just as a broadcaster, but as a citizen, a father, a husband, a believer. It is a question that every person who cares about this nation, this culture, and this civilization must confront: Is all of this worth saving?

We have squandered this inheritance. We forgot who we were — and our enemies are eager to write our ending.

Western civilization — a project born in Judea, refined in Athens, tested in Rome, reawakened in Wittenberg, and baptized again on the shores of Plymouth Rock — is a gift. We didn’t earn it. We didn’t purchase it. We were handed it. And now, we must ask ourselves: Do we even want it?

Across Europe, streets are restless. Not merely with protests, but with ancient, festering hatred — the kind that once marched under swastikas and fueled ovens. Today, it marches under banners of peace while chanting calls for genocide. Violence and division crack societies open. Here in America, it’s left against right, flesh against spirit, neighbor against neighbor.

Truth struggles to find a home. Even the church is slumbering — or worse, collaborating.

Our society tells us that everything must be reset: tradition, marriage, gender, faith, even love. The only sin left is believing in absolute truth. Screens replace Scripture. Entertainment replaces education. Pleasure replaces purpose. Our children are confused, medicated, addicted, fatherless, suicidal. Universities mock virtue. Congress is indifferent. Media programs rather than informs. Schools recondition rather than educate.

Is this worth saving? If not, we should stop fighting and throw up our hands. But if it is, then we must act — and we must act now.

The West: An idea worth saving

What is the West? It’s not a location, race, flag, or a particular constitution. The West is an idea — an idea that man is made in the image of God, that liberty comes from responsibility, not government; that truth exists; that evil exists; and that courage is required every day. The West teaches that education, reason, and revelation walk hand in hand. Beauty matters. Kindness matters. Empathy matters. Sacrifice is holy. Justice is blind. Mercy is near.

We have squandered this inheritance. We forgot who we were — and our enemies are eager to write our ending.

If not now, when? If not us, who? If this is worth saving, we must know why. Western civilization is worth dying for, worth living for, worth defending. It was built on the blood of martyrs, prophets, poets, pilgrims, moms, dads, and soldiers. They did not die for markets, pronouns, surveillance, or currency. They died for something higher, something bigger.

MATTHIEU RONDEL/AFP via Getty Images | Getty Images

Yet hope remains. Resurrection is real — not only in the tomb outside Jerusalem, but in the bones of any individual or group that returns to truth, honor, and God. It is never too late to return to family, community, accountability, and responsibility.

Pick up your torch

We were chosen for this time. We were made for a moment like this. The events unfolding in Europe and South Korea, the unrest and moral collapse, will all come down to us. Somewhere inside, we know we were called to carry this fire.

We are not called to win. We are called to stand. To hold the torch. To ask ourselves, every day: Is it worth standing? Is it worth saving?

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Pick up your torch. If you choose to carry it, buckle up. The work is only beginning.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Stop coasting: How self-education can save America’s future

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

Coasting through life is no longer an option. Charlie Kirk’s pursuit of knowledge challenges all of us to learn, act, and grow every day.

Last year, my wife and I made a commitment: to stop coasting, to learn something new every day, and to grow — not just spiritually, but intellectually. Charlie Kirk’s tragic death crystallized that resolve. It forced a hard look in the mirror, revealing how much I had coasted in both my spiritual and educational life. Coasting implies going downhill. You can’t coast uphill.

Last night, my wife and I re-engaged. We enrolled in Hillsdale College’s free online courses, inspired by the fact that Charlie had done the same. He had quietly completed around 30 courses before I even knew, mastering the classics, civics, and the foundations of liberty. Watching his relentless pursuit of knowledge reminded me that growth never stops, no matter your age.

The path forward must be reclaiming education, agency, and the power to shape our minds and futures.

This lesson is particularly urgent for two groups: young adults stepping into the world and those who may have settled into complacency. Learning is life. Stop learning, and you start dying. To young adults, especially, the college promise has become a trap. Twelve years of K-12 education now leave graduates unprepared for life. Only 35% of seniors are proficient in reading, and just 22% in math. They are asked to bet $100,000 or more for four years of college that will often leave them underemployed and deeply indebted.

Degrees in many “new” fields now carry negative returns. Parents who have already sacrificed for public education find themselves on the hook again, paying for a system that often fails to deliver.

This is one of the reasons why Charlie often described college as a “scam.” Debt accumulates, wages are not what students were promised, doors remain closed, and many are tempted to throw more time and money after a system that won’t yield results. Graduate school, in many cases, compounds the problem. The education system has become a factory of despair, teaching cynicism rather than knowledge and virtue.

Reclaiming educational agency

Yet the solution is not radical revolt against education — it is empowerment to reclaim agency over one’s education. Independent learning, self-guided study, and disciplined curiosity are the modern “Napster moment.” Just as Napster broke the old record industry by digitizing music, the internet has placed knowledge directly in the hands of the individual. Artists like Taylor Swift now thrive outside traditional gatekeepers. Likewise, students and lifelong learners can reclaim intellectual freedom outside of the ivory towers.

Each individual possesses the ability to think, create, and act. This is the power God grants to every human being. Knowledge, faith, and personal responsibility are inseparable. Learning is not a commodity to buy with tuition; it is a birthright to claim with effort.

David Butow / Contributor | Getty Images

Charlie Kirk’s life reminds us that self-education is an act of defiance and empowerment. In his pursuit of knowledge, in his engagement with civics and philosophy, he exemplified the principle that liberty depends on informed, capable citizens. We honor him best by taking up that mantle — by learning relentlessly, thinking critically, and refusing to surrender our minds to a system that profits from ignorance.

The path forward must be reclaiming education, agency, and the power to shape our minds and futures. Every day, seek to grow, create, and act. Charlie showed the way. It is now our responsibility to follow.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins TPUSA tour to honor Charlie Kirk

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If they thought the murder of Charlie Kirk would scare us into silence, they were wrong!

If anything, Turning Point will hit the road louder than ever. On Monday, September 22, less than two weeks after the assassination, Charlie's friends united under the Turning Point USA banner to carry his torch and honor his legacy by doing what he did best: bringing honest and truthful debate to Universities across the nation.

Naturally, Glenn has rallied to the cause and has accepted an invitation to join the TPUSA tour at the University of North Dakota on October 9th.

Want to join Glenn at the University of North Dakota to honor Charlie Kirk and keep his mission alive? Click HERE to sign up or find more information.