Glenn Beck: FEMA camps debunked

April 06, 2009

The Glenn Beck Program

GLENN: Oh, yeah. Here's our here's, you know, the usual update for you. Third most listened to show in all of America. I'm, you know, basically a rodeo clown and I'm glad you're here. Welcome to it. It's the Glenn Beck program. That would make me Glenn. Jim Meigs is the editor in chief of Popular Mechanics. Popular Mechanics is obviously a very well respected magazine, and I first stumped across Popular Mechanics' debunking ability on the 9/11 conspiracy, and they did such an amazing job with that, I mean, they nailed that closed. Any of these 9/11 Truthers who I've been telling you for years are dangerous wait a minute, there's evidence now about the guy in Pittsburgh possibly being associated with just rumors being associated with 9/11 Truthers? Huh, that's weird.

Anyway, so Jim Meigs and Popular Mechanics did that. I think I snapped about, when was it, Stu, three months ago? About two months ago I snapped on the air and I said, can we stop with the FEMA camp thing. Well, my crew went to work on it and they said, Glenn, we can disprove this, this and this because those things exist, you know, here, here and here. And I said, wait, wait, wait, wait, what? You are telling me we can't prove it but we can't disprove it?

When I got to work the following day and we were supposed to have it on the TV show, I realized that we didn't have any film, we didn't have any pictures. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, it can't be just one man's opinion. I want pictures. I want proof. If they exist, I want pictures. If they don't exist, I want to know what those pictures that you see on the Internet actually are. That's when we called Jim Meigs, Popular Mechanics. He is with us now. Hi, Jim.

MEIGS: Hi, Jim, how are you today?

GLENN: I am really looking forward my staff has seen all of the pictures and the video that you have taken. You guys actually went out to one of these FEMA camps, right?

MEIGS: That's right, one of the most popular videos online showed the facility. And when you see the footage, I think you'll find it really eye opening how big the gap is in reality between what the claims are that are made online and what the much more mundane reality is in the real world.

GLENN: Okay. Let's I don't even know where to I don't even know where to start here. I know there's a lot you have stuff that we can't, obviously because we're radio we can't show you now, but all of these are going to be we're going to cover all of these pictures and the video tonight, right?

MEIGS: Yes.

GLENN: Okay.

MEIGS: And what we try to do is the same thing we did with the 9/11 conspiracy theories. We can't tell you every we're not trying to tell you everything that FEMA's doing. Instead what we're doing is we're taking the claims that the conspiracy theories themselves make and we're just saying you claim that this barbed wire fence hides a big FEMA prison camp? Well, let's look and see what this picture really is. Let's send a crew. Let's just really establish what the facts are. And so we take the examples that are most popular on the Internet and just look and see if they're true or false.

GLENN: Okay.

MEIGS: And we go into it with an open mind, but we often find that the reality that's being presented by these groups is so far from the truth.

GLENN: Jim, what I found just on my own initial, I finally said, you know what, it's worth looking into was that there are things that, you know, in executive orders and FEMA laws, et cetera, et cetera that if you push it to the crazy extent, if you push it to, well, yes, the whole world is breaking down and we've gone into martial law that they do have the ability to do some of these things. True or false?

MEIGS: Well, it depends what the things are that you're talking about. The

GLENN: Well, not gassing Americans.

MEIGS: Well, one thing you see picked up a lot on these sites is a lot of old executive orders going back to the Kennedy administration and those have been revised and tightened up over the years but specifically none of these executive orders can overturn the Constitution, and in fact under the Reagan in the Reagan years a lot of the executive orders were unified and specifically with a specific statement that nothing therein is intended to violate the Constitution.

GLENN: Okay.

MEIGS: So, you know, it's important to remember that even a president can't do that. I do think people worry sometimes about the abuse of federal power and power accumulating in various situations. I think that it's important for people to be vigilant about that, which is precisely why things that are dishonor are terrible exaggerations don't really help that cause. They make people who are worried about abuses of executive power just look silly and, in fact, these are important issues that we should always be vigilant about.

GLENN: And this is why I've been saying on the air that we cannot we've got to be very careful. Somebody sent me some stuff from Nancy Pelosi that Nancy Pelosi apparently said, you know, all these really we've got to seize property and everything else. And I said and I called this person back and I said, where did you get this? And they said, well, you know, it comes from a good source, it's from a friend of mine; he said he checks it out. And I said, I don't believe any of these. If they are, I'm leading television with these on Monday, but I can't believe. Send them to the brain room. None of them are true. None of them are true. So we have to be able to be reasonable and actually talk about facts. So I'm going to play a little bit, and you'll see all of this on television, but this is from one of the most watched YouTube things on the FEMA camps. It is a gated building. It runs about 30 seconds and I want to I'll play a little bit. You'll see this on television, but here's a little bit of what you see on YouTube.

VOICE: This small building is the only way into a particular fenced area. Inside this building we see more of the motion activated detectors, electronic turnstiles and prison bars. All of the renovations to this property have involved putting in new fencing, electronic turnstiles, concrete flooring in unused warehouse buildings and putting in large gas furnaces on buildings that were never heated anytime in the past 20 years.

GLENN: Putting in large gas furnaces. Holy cow, Jim. So this place exists.

MEIGS: Yes.

GLENN: You found it.

MEIGS: Yes, we did.

GLENN: You saw the footage, you went back and went into those same buildings that they went into and what did you find?

MEIGS: Well, we didn't find Auschwitz which is the implication of that video. And I think it is what we found is that it's a train repair facility just as the sign on the gate says. But, you know, if you look at the world from a certain perspective, any chain link expense is going to look suspicious to you and

GLENN: Well, my neighbors didn't like one.

MEIGS: But sometimes if you just knock on the door and ask to be let inside, they are happy to let you in and show you around. That's exactly what we did. It's an ordinary Amtrak facility. What's particularly interesting, that video is almost 15 years old and

GLENN: This has actually come out during the Clinton administration, right?

MEIGS: That's exactly right. And what we see often is that nothing really goes away on the Internet and something can be debunked, disproven or just be totally out of date and yet someone will pull it up, they will reedit it, they will put it into new context and someone will come along and see it. And these things often look very credible. They look like they are produced by news organizations or, you know, if you go to these websites, they have lots of facts and figures and maps and things that look very legitimate and so it takes a little bit of effort sometimes to dig down and say, okay, what is the source of that and in some cases you need to go pick up the phone and go visit a facility and see for yourself and see that the reality's really not as scary as it it's being portrayed.

GLENN: They had scary gates, we'll show you the deal. They had prison bars and these turnstiles that were leading right into what they claimed were gas chambers.

MEIGS: Yes, actually those turnstiles aren't there anymore but that was a, it was a work facility and that was there. They had some kind of magnetic pass cars or something like that to let people around.

GLENN: When you say work facility, that was for the Americans that were taken when they were to work?

MEIGS: That was for the people who were repairing the trains and if you think about it

GLENN: Why would they need prison bars and turnstiles like that?

MEIGS: Well, the turnstiles to me look a lot like the turnstiles they have to get into the New York subway.

GLENN: Trains. Interesting that that happens to be a common theme here, also used by Hitler, trains.

MEIGS: If you want to look at the world that way, you know, everything leads back to Hitler. But if you also think about it

GLENN: My vegetable garden doesn't.

MEIGS: But if you also think about it, a train facility actually is a fairly highly ought to be a fairly highly secure environment. There's a lot of expensive equipment in there and, you know, we know today that terrorists have targeted public transportation around the world. So the notion that they were controlling access to the workers coming in and out isn't really so strange.

GLENN: Tell me. There's two other camps that you've covered. One is a camp that we have photographic evidence of.

MEIGS: Yes.

GLENN: In Wyoming.

MEIGS: Yes.

GLENN: Tell me about that.

MEIGS: The yeah, this comes up on a number of websites and there's some satellite imagery showing of various buildings and identifying them as a prison camp somewhere in Wyoming and

GLENN: May I, may I just ask, Jim, is it true that this is a prison camp, it is a concentration camp where most likely horrors are going on?

MEIGS: That is absolutely true. And as you often see in conspiracy theories, there is a grain of truth to this. But they left out one detail. The prison camp is not in Wyoming. It's in North Korea.

STU: (Laughing).

MEIGS: And the pictures were

GLENN: Okay, all right. Stop Meigs, stop with your spin. Is it true that there are horrors going on in this camp most likely? It is run by "The government" and it is a concentration camp.

MEIGS: It's all true.

GLENN: It's all true. It's all true. Okay, North Korea, Wyoming, they got one thing wrong. But the rest is true!

MEIGS: And Glenn, I guarantee you the segment of dialogue between you and me right there will be clipped and excerpted and the rest of our conversation will be cut out and that will be on a website by tomorrow.

GLENN: Exactly right. That's exactly right.

MEIGS: Because we've seen this happen again and again where people will make a statement, it gets edited down so that it seems to mean the exact opposite of what the people were trying to say. And that's recirculated endlessly on these conspiracy websites.

GLENN: I mean, do you think it's responsible for the editor in chief of Popular Mechanics to be calling for an arms insurrection like you just did?

MEIGS: Right, and when did you stop beating your wife.

GLENN: Okay.

MEIGS: This is a particularly interesting one. Actually there's some evidence that these pictures might have originally appeared online as part of a hoax, but again nothing ever disappears on the Internet and so what happens is they get picked up, they get reprinted, they get passed from hand to hand. So somebody just digging into this you know, a lot of people are interested in this for perfectly valid reasons. There's nothing wrong with being concerned about the direction of the political situation. There's nothing wrong with being suspicious about FEMA or any other branch of the government. That could be healthy.

GLENN: Yes.

MEIGS: But when people dig in and look at this information without subjecting it to any kind of scrutiny and without being

GLENN: But, you know, Jim, nobody has, nobody has the time. I mean, I look at stuff and you have to use common sense and say, okay, well, this doesn't sound right. But most people don't can't call the editor in chief of Popular Mechanics and say, hey, can you find and track down these prison camps.

MEIGS: That's true to some extent. But you know what? There have been cases where ordinary citizens have looked at these lists and they said, hey, that one, that's near my house. And one case up in Maine, a guy drove over to one of these sites that was near his house and sure enough, it was an old Air Force base that had been decommissioned and now it's run by the fish and game department and you can get in there and go hiking, you know, fishing. I mean, it's

GLENN: So hang on just a second. You are saying that you are saying that live, organic life is caught with hooks on these campsites?

MEIGS: It's I know the outrages never cease.

GLENN: It never, it never does. And next I'm going to hear that you say this same life is, you know, hit sometimes in the head and killed with a hammer.

Okay. So Jim, who is the woman that made the tape and we heard her voice a minute ago where she said spooky stuff and it scared me.

MEIGS: Yes.

GLENN: Who is she?

MEIGS: I believe her name is Linda Thompson. I've got to double check that last name. I've got it in my notes here.

GLENN: Okay.

MEIGS: Linda Thompson. She was one of the leaders of the militia movement. You remember the militia movement, you know, the black helicopters and the idea that, you know, our

GLENN: This is right after Timothy McVeigh if I'm not mistaken.

MEIGS: It led up to Timothy McVeigh. He was certainly a part of that and it continued into the Nineties and among other things that she promoted was the idea that her followers needed to go to Washington and start shooting senators. And a lot of people in the militia movement even kind of renounced her as being too extreme. But again no one

GLENN: Hold just a second. Wait, wait. Wait, wait. I just want that to sink in. So the lady making the tapes on the FEMA camps.

MEIGS: Right.

GLENN: Is a woman that was kicked out of the militia movement that said go kill senators because she was too extreme?

MEIGS: I don't know if anybody can really be kicked out of a loose movement like that but, yes, there was some

GLENN: Right, yes, okay. We want to get our facts right that she wasn't excommunicated. They just kind of went, yeah, don't really talk to her; shun her a little bit because she's crazy.

MEIGS: Right. But what's interesting is here's this video she made ages ago, and a lot of this is actually kind of repurposed. A lot of this fear about prison camps originally started when the UN was going to come and do this. Well now after Katrina we've got a new villain. You know, FEMA is the all purpose villain and certainly FEMA has plenty to answer for, but the but you'll see the same things reemerge with kind of in new bottles. And so here you see this fear that there's going to be some kind of takeover of our government. A lot of it honestly goes back to the movie Red Dawn. Do you remember Red Dawn?

GLENN: Yes, I do.

MEIGS: And it's a very enjoyable movie but it's a movie. And I think sometimes you see it's maybe shaped people's world views a little more than any movie should.

GLENN: Isn't there, isn't there one of these FEMA camp things that actually has footage from that movie?

MEIGS: There may be. I haven't seen that clip yet but, you know, people will take this stuff, they will reedit it. So people might be looking at listening to Linda Thompson's voiceover from this footage that she made and think it's a newscast or they don't exactly know where it comes from. And again it can sound credible if all you do is just look at a video on YouTube.

GLENN: Okay. From Popular Mechanics, Jim Meigs. And he is going to be with me tonight and you are going to see the A/B comparison. You are going to see what they say and then you will see Popular Mechanics cameras going out to verify, either say yes it is or no, it's not. So much more tonight on the Fox News Channel at 5:00 Eastern time. Jim, thanks a lot.

MEIGS: Thanks, Glenn.

EXPOSE: Your tax dollars FUND Marxist riots in LA

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

Protesters wore Che shirts, waved foreign flags, and chanted Marxist slogans — but corporate media still peddles the ‘spontaneous outrage’ narrative.

I sat in front of the television this weekend, watching the glittering spectacle of corporate media do what it does best: tell me not to believe my lying eyes.

According to the polished news anchors, what I was witnessing in Los Angeles was “mostly peaceful protests.” They said it with all the earnest gravitas of someone reading a bedtime story, while behind them the streets looked like a deleted scene from “Mad Max.” Federal agents dodged concrete slabs as if it were an Olympic sport. A man in a Che Guevara crop top tried to set a police car on fire. Dumpster fires lit the night sky like some sort of postapocalyptic luau.

If you suggest that violent criminals should be deported or imprisoned, you’re painted as the extremist.

But sure, it was peaceful. Tear gas clouds and Molotov cocktails are apparently the incense and candles of this new civic religion.

The media expects us to play along — to nod solemnly while cities burn and to call it “activism.”

Let’s call this what it is: delusion.

Another ‘peaceful’ riot

If the Titanic “mostly floated” and the Hindenburg “mostly flew,” then yes, the latest L.A. riots are “mostly peaceful.” But history tends to care about those tiny details at the end — like icebergs and explosions.

The coverage was full of phrases like “spontaneous,” “grassroots,” and “organic,” as if these protests materialized from thin air. But many of the signs and banners looked like they’d been run off at ComradesKinkos.com — crisp print jobs with slogans promoting socialism, communism, and various anti-American regimes. Palestinian flags waved beside banners from Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, and El Salvador. It was like someone looted a United Nations souvenir shop and turned it into a revolution starter pack.

And guess who funded it? You did.

According to at least one report, much of this so-called spontaneous rage fest was paid for with your tax dollars. Tens of millions of dollars from the Biden administration ensured your paycheck funded Trotsky cosplayers chucking firebombs at local coffee shops.

The same aging radicals from the 1970s — now armed with tenure, pensions, and book deals — are cheering from the sidelines, waxing poetic about how burning a squad car is “liberation.” These are the same folks who once wore tie-dye and flew to help guerrilla fighters and now applaud chaos under the banner of “progress.”

This is not progress. It is not protest. It’s certainly not justice or peace.

It’s an attempt to dismantle the American system — and if you dare say that out loud, you’re labeled a bigot, a fascist, or, worst of all, someone who notices reality.

And what sparked this taxpayer-funded riot? Enforcement against illegal immigrants — many of whom, according to official arrest records, are repeat violent offenders. These are not the “dreamers” or the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. These are criminals with long, violent rap sheets — allowed to remain free by a broken system that prioritizes ideology over public safety.

Photo by Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg | Getty Images

This is what people are rioting over — not the mistreatment of the innocent, but the arrest of the guilty. And in California, that’s apparently a cause for outrage.

The average American, according to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, is supposed to worry they’ll be next. But unless you’re in the habit of assaulting people, smuggling, or firing guns into people’s homes, you probably don’t have much to fear.

Still, if you suggest that violent criminals should be deported or imprisoned, you’re painted as the extremist.

The left has lost it

This is what happens when a culture loses its grip on reality. We begin to call arson “art,” lawlessness “liberation,” and criminals “community members.” We burn the good and excuse the evil — all while the media insists it’s just “vibes.”

But it’s not just vibes. It’s violence, paid for by you, endorsed by your elected officials, and whitewashed by newsrooms with more concern for hair and lighting than for truth.

This isn’t activism. This is anarchism. And Democratic politicians are fueling the flame.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck's 'No King but Christ' merch: Will faith STOP the chaos?

On Saturday, June 14, 2025 (President Trump's 79th birthday), the "No Kings" protest—a noisy spectacle orchestrated by progressive heavyweights like Randi Weingarten and her union cronies—will take place in Washington, D.C.

Thousands will chant "no thrones, no crowns, no king," claiming to fend off authoritarianism and corruption.

But let’s cut through the noise. The protesters' grievances—rigged courts, deported citizens, slashed services—are a house of cards. Zero Americans have been deported, Federal services are still bloated, and if anyone is rigging the courts, it's the Left. So why rally now, especially with riots already flaring in L.A.?

Chaos isn’t a side effect here—it’s the plan.

This is not about liberty; it's a power grab dressed up as resistance. The "No Kings" crowd wants you to buy their script: government’s the enemy—unless they’re the ones running it. It's the identical script from 2020: same groups, same tactics, same goal, different name.

But Glenn is flipping the script. He's dropping a new "No Kings but Christ" merch line, just in time for the protest. Merch that proclaims one truth: no earthly ruler owns us; only Christ does. It’s a bold, faith-rooted rejection of this secular circus.

Why should you care? Because this won’t just be a rally—it’ll be a symptom. Distrust in institutions is sky-high, and rightly so, but the "No Kings" answer is a hollow shout into the void. Glenn’s merch begs the question: if you’re ditching kings, who’s really in charge? Get yours and wear the answer proudly.

Truth unleashed: 95% say media’s excuses for anti-Semitism are a LIE

ELI IMADALI / Contributor | Getty Images

Glenn asked for YOUR take on the rising tide of anti-Semitism, and you delivered. After the Boulder attack, you made it clear: this isn’t just a news story—it’s a crisis the elites are dodging.

Your verdict is unmistakable: 96% of you see anti-Semitism as a growing threat in the U.S., brushing aside the establishment’s weak excuses. The spin does not fool you—95% say the media is deliberately downplaying the issue, hiding a cultural rot that’s all too real. And the government’s response? A whopping 95% of you call it a disgraceful failure, leaving communities exposed.

Your voices shatter the silence. Why should we trust narratives that dismiss your concerns? With 97% of you warning that anti-Semitism will surge in the years ahead, you’re demanding action and accountability. This is your stand for truth.

You spoke, and Glenn listened. Your bold response sends a message to those who’d rather ignore the problem. Keep raising your voice at Glennbeck.com—your input drives the fight for justice. Take part in the next poll and continue shaping the conversation.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.

JPMorgan Chase CEO issues dire warning about America's prosperity

Win McNamee / Staff | Getty Images

Jamie Dimon has a grim forecast for America — and it’s not a recession. He sees a fragile nation drifting into crisis while its leaders fight over TikTok.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase — one of the most powerful financial institutions on earth — issued a warning the other day. But it wasn’t about interest rates, crypto, or monetary policy.

Speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California, Dimon pivoted from economic talking points to something far more urgent: the fragile state of America’s physical preparedness.

We are living in a moment of stunning fragility — culturally, economically, and militarily. It means we can no longer afford to confuse digital distractions with real resilience.

“We shouldn’t be stockpiling Bitcoin,” Dimon said. “We should be stockpiling guns, tanks, planes, drones, and rare earths. We know we need to do it. It’s not a mystery.”

He cited internal Pentagon assessments showing that if war were to break out in the South China Sea, the United States has only enough precision-guided missiles for seven days of sustained conflict.

Seven days — that’s the gap between deterrence and desperation.

This wasn’t a forecast about inflation or a hedge against market volatility. It was a blunt assessment from a man whose words typically move markets.

“America is the global hegemon,” Dimon continued, “and the free world wants us to be strong.” But he warned that Americans have been lulled into “a false sense of security,” made complacent by years of peacetime prosperity, outsourcing, and digital convenience:

We need to build a permanent, long-term, realistic strategy for the future of America — economic growth, fiscal policy, industrial policy, foreign policy. We need to educate our citizens. We need to take control of our economic destiny.

This isn’t a partisan appeal — it’s a sobering wake-up call. Because our economy and military readiness are not separate issues. They are deeply intertwined.

Dimon isn’t alone in raising concerns. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has warned that China has already overtaken the U.S. in key defense technologies — hypersonic missiles, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence to mention a few. Retired military leaders continue to highlight our shrinking shipyards and dwindling defense manufacturing base.

Even the dollar, once assumed untouchable, is under pressure as BRICS nations work to undermine its global dominance. Dimon, notably, has said this effort could succeed if the U.S. continues down its current path.

So what does this all mean?

Christopher Furlong / Staff | Getty Images

It means we are living in a moment of stunning fragility — culturally, economically, and militarily. It means we can no longer afford to confuse digital distractions with real resilience.

It means the future belongs to nations that understand something we’ve forgotten: Strength isn’t built on slogans or algorithms. It’s built on steel, energy, sovereignty, and trust.

And at the core of that trust is you, the citizen. Not the influencer. Not the bureaucrat. Not the lobbyist. At the core is the ordinary man or woman who understands that freedom, safety, and prosperity require more than passive consumption. They require courage, clarity, and conviction.

We need to stop assuming someone else will fix it. The next crisis — whether military, economic, or cyber — will not politely pause for our political dysfunction to sort itself out. It will demand leadership, unity, and grit.

And that begins with looking reality in the eye. We need to stop talking about things that don’t matter and cut to the chase: The U.S. is in a dangerously fragile position, and it’s time to rebuild and refortify — from the inside out.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn's Show Prep

Glenn Beck: FEMA camps debunked

EXPOSE: Your tax dollars FUND Marxist riots in LA

Protesters wore Che shirts, waved foreign flags, and chanted Marxist slogans — but corporate media still peddles the ‘spontaneous outrage’ narrative.

If you suggest that violent criminals should be deported or imprisoned, you’re painted as the extremist.

Another ‘peaceful’ riot

The left has lost it

Glenn Beck's 'No King but Christ' merch: Will faith STOP the chaos?

Thousands will chant "no thrones, no crowns, no king," claiming to fend off authoritarianism and corruption.

Chaos isn’t a side effect here—it’s the plan.

Truth unleashed: 95% say media’s excuses for anti-Semitism are a LIE

JPMorgan Chase CEO issues dire warning about America's prosperity

Jamie Dimon has a grim forecast for America — and it’s not a recession. He sees a fragile nation drifting into crisis while its leaders fight over TikTok.

We are living in a moment of stunning fragility — culturally, economically, and militarily. It means we can no longer afford to confuse digital distractions with real resilience.