Santorum calls in ... to yell at Glenn?

March 23, 2012

Writer

Ok perhaps it wasn’t yelling, but Santorum did call in after hearing Glenn comment on the latest in the Santorm campaign saga which Drudge referred to as ‘Santorum snaps’. Was it an angry rant? Was it a controversial remark? Or one he’s made many times over? Check out the impromptu call in in the clip above.

Rush Transcript of interview below:

GLENN: The headline on Drudge is Santorum Snaps. I thought he sounded sleepy

PAT: Yeah. He didn't sound ‑‑ yeah

GLENN: Santorum snaps. Obama preferable to Romney. Rick Santorum is with us now. Hello, Rick.

SANTORUM: Good morning.

GLENN: How are you, sir?

SANTORUM: I'm doing great. I'm ready for Louisiana.

GLENN: Have you come down off of your tantrum apparently that ‑‑

SANTORUM: There was no tantrum there. All I was saying was what I've been saying a hundred times. If we have a choice between Twiddle Dumb and Twiddle Dee that the American public is not going to support out nominee. We need a stark contrast. That's all I was saying. I've said repeatedly, as you've heard me said on this program, I would vote for Rick for Republican, I would vote for Ron Paul, I would whoever the Republican nominee is. The point is whether voters will vote for someone who doesn't have a clear contrasting vision for this country.

PAT: Yes.

SANTORUM: And that's the point I was making in that speech. I've made it in every speech I've been given and I'll continue to make that point and governor ‑‑ you know, it's funny. I didn't get one question on that afterward.

GLENN: But hang on. It's not just ‑‑ it's not just the Republican thing. It is ‑‑ there is a difference between ‑‑ I mean, Mitt Romney has ‑‑ is not now and never has been a member of the communist party. (Laughter.)

SANTORUM: Okay. You're right.

PAT: Okay.

SANTORUM: All right. Sorry. Look. What I'm talking about are the big issues of the day which is, you now, Obamacare, cap and trade, the bailouts, government control of people's lives and this is a guy who, you know, who, in my opinion, and if you saw this ‑‑ it was his Etch‑A‑Sketch comment. He'll say whatever he needs to say in front of whatever group he needs to say it in front of to win the election and that's not going to win this election. I mean, you know, pandering to voters and saying what people want to hear is not going to win. What people want is someone they can trust, someone who knows that, you know, that they want to, as I said the other night, tear Washington bureaucracy out by its roots and do some big changes in Washington and that's the kind of contrasting vision we need and that's not what we're getting in the Romney campaign. We get this parsing position that we see on all these positions.

GLENN: Now, let me take this a piece at a time. First of all, on the Etch‑A‑Sketch thing, we're split here in the studio. I think that Romney strikes me as an Etch‑A‑Sketch guy. I mean, I have ‑‑ let me just give you the quote here from Romney. You know, he came out Monday and said, you know, this gas hike trio, the three that are on a mission to drive up the price of gas, lean on energy so they can finally get their solar and their wind and more price competitive, that's what they want to do and then he claimed that people are trying to drive up the price of energy which is absolutely accurate. However ‑‑

SANTORUM: Yeah

GLENN: He said in 2006, I don't think now is the time and I'm not sure there's going to be a right time for us to encourage the use of more gasoline. I'm very much in favor of people recognizing that high gas prices just probably here to stay. So, if that's not Etch‑A‑Sketch, how do I know what he really believes?

SANTORUM: That's the point I was trying to make and I probably didn't say it as articulately as I needed to say it, but I've been saying it repeated ed, that we need someone who you can trust, someone who provides a contrast, not someone who is just ‑‑ I would make the argument he is better on some issues about Barack Obama. There's no question about it but on the big issues of the day, you know, of government, you know, control and crushing our economy and our energy, he has just been wrong so much that it makes ‑‑ it makes it ‑‑ it makes it a hard ‑‑ much harder election than it needs to be.

GLENN: Okay. Let me ask you this: Jim DeMint came out yesterday and said he's excited, excited about the idea of Romney being the candidate

PAT: He's the first person ‑‑ he's the first American known who have said excited and Mitt Romney in the same sentence. That's the first time that's happened in a country of over 300 million people and now we're putting him in the Guinness Book of World Records and ‑‑

GLENN: And that's a pretty big piece. He's ‑‑ I mean, here's a guy who the Tea Party ‑‑ I mean, what happened there?

SANTORUM: Yeah. Was he excited when Mitt Romney went down to Puerto Rico after I said that Puerto Ricans have to learn English in order to be a member of the ‑‑ be admitted to statehood, since only 15% of Puerto Ricans speak English and Mitt Romney who believes that English should be the official language of our country and is against bilingual education went to Puerto Rico and in order to get 20 delegates said he would admit Puerto Rico into the union even if nobody spoke English?

PAT: Wow.

SANTORUM: This is the problem. That's what he said. He said, no, there's no English language for the people of Puerto Rico in order for him to support statehood. Now, how can you ‑‑

PAT: That got very little coverage. That got very little coverage.

GLENN: It will get coverage.

SANTORUM: It got huge coverage in Puerto Rico and the reason he got 80% of the vote is I stood up and said what was the truth which is there's no way that any state is going to be admitted to the union if people don't speak the language of the country and that's not that they don't ‑‑ they can't speak another language but they've got to be able to speak English.

GLENN: Yeah, but you had your shirt off by a pool.

SANTORUM: Wait a minute. (Laughter.)

GLENN: Okay.

SANTORUM: 15 minutes I laid on that. 15 minutes.

PAT: You can't do that.

GLENN: Can I tell you something? I saw that photo ‑‑ I saw that photo because, honestly, I went to ‑‑ for Christmas I went to Hawaii with my family. I did not go ‑‑ we stayed right at a hotel right there at the beach and I did not go to the beach without my shirt on ever because I knew ‑‑

STU: The people there thank you for that, by the way.

GLENN: No, no, no. I know what I look like without a shirt on and I saw that picture of you ‑‑ I saw that picture of you and I thought, oh, that's unfortunate. That's just ‑‑

SANTORUM: Yeah, it was.

PAT: It wasn't that bad.

SANTORUM: I'm worried about the gastric distress I might have caused people with that photo.

GLENN: All right. So, let me share something with you that I haven't even shared with the guys here. In the last three weeks, a very, very prominent person approached me, mainly because he certainly doesn't know me if he approached me with this and he said, Glenn, you could be the guy that could be the turning point in this election and you could really help, you know, pick the next President if you could just convince Rick Santorum to drop out because you and I know it's time for him to drop out and just convince him to drop out and I said, A, I think you're ‑‑ I think you're overestimating my Jedi mind trick and, also, I believe in divine providence. Right. I believe in divine providence. I believe that if it's supposed to happen and we're living our lives the way we're supposed to, it will happen, but convince the average person that, you know ‑‑ and don't bring in Newt Gingrich because I love the way nobody's saying this about Newt Gingrich. Just you. Convince the people that this is the right thing to do, for you to stay in and not start to unify the country behind one candidate.

SANTORUM: The best thing we can do right now is to nominate a conservative against Barack Obama. That's what we need to do. That's the best chance for us to win the election, No. 1. No. 2, the ‑‑

GLENN: Wait, wait. Explain that for anybody ‑‑ hang on just a second. Explain that again why you say that for anybody who just doesn't understand that.

SANTORUM: Well, one time in the last 100 years a Republican has defeated a Democratic incumbent, once, and most of the time when we've run against Democratic incumbents, we tried to run moderates because we had to win and, of course, we've only one won once, Ronald Reagan, when we provided that clear contrast and that's what we need in this election. You can't win this election unless you get your base and the people of our party, like in 2010, excited about who the nominee is and that the people who are in the middle, if you will, are ‑‑ can share that excitement and like the person they're voting for and relative to the person they're voting for. That's what happened with Reagan. He had a clear vision. He had someone who was out there who was ‑‑ they had trust in, that they could relate to and that's, you know ‑‑ unfortunately, you know, you look at Governor Romney and he's having troubles on all those fronts and Governor Romney ‑‑

GLENN: Excuse me. I have a lot of ‑‑

SANTORUM: Because he's overwhelmingly spending whoever he's running against. That's not going to happen in the general election

GLENN: You know, you can't say you can't relate to him. I'll have you know I have many friends who have $50 million houses who enjoy him he very much. (Laughter.) I have friends who own cars and car dealership and car companies and race teams that relate to him a great deal.

STU: It's one of those things where I feel like these cries of unify feel to me ‑‑ and let me know if you agree with this, Rick. Does it feel to you the same way as right now we're saying unify but it's unify around one. In 2008 the country said change but change to what? You can't just rally around the verb. You've got to ‑‑

PAT: And forget that the election in 2008 between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama went down to, what, June?

GLENN: June.

PAT: It was June and nasty and they were tearing each other up and they won

GLENN: And they were saying the same thing.

PAT: And they won and they were saying the exact same thing. So, tell people to shut up.

GLENN: The Drudge will report that as him snapping.

SANTORUM: We have to realize the shorter the race is, the better it is for the Republican party. Why? Because Obama's going to have the media and a huge money advantage and he will not be able to unleash that money advantage or the media on the nominee unless ‑‑ until we have a nominee and once we ‑‑ once a nominee is, quote, decided and if it's decided early, then Barack Obama has literally hundreds of millions of dollars he can start just pounding away at the Republican candidate and that Republican candidate is going to be shooting back with a pea shooter. We wait until the fall to have a nominee and we'll have all of our forces and all of their forces. Yeah, they'll be able to outspend us, but will be diminishing returns after awhile. There will be so much money concentrated in such a short period of time, in a sense, their money advantage is negated, their media advantage is negated. We want this election. We want this election to be short. We want it to be two months. We want it to be focused instead of a drawn out process where they can just destroy the Republican nominee over the course of the next five months.

STU: But, really, do you think you can do better than Joe Biden as a VP if you were to win?

SANTORUM: You know, I seem to do worse.

GLENN: (Laughter.)

PAT: No. I don't think he can.

GLENN: I wanted to really put some thought into that, but, no, I don't think you can. Thank you very much, Rick. Best of luck to you this weekend.

SANTORUM: Yes.

PAT: Going to win Louisiana tomorrow.

STU: Yeah.

PAT: Yeah. You could help him do that by going to RickSantorum.com.

STU: Do you have to end every interview by giving his website?

GLENN: This is the worst. This is the worst.

PAT: Somebody has to. He didn't do it. So ‑‑

STU: It's true. He's not shilling for himself enough apparently

GLENN: It really bothered me when this individual came to me and said, you know, you do that. Isn't that the kind of stuff that we hate? Isn't that the kind of stuff that is bad, the back room deals?

STU: It does happen. Everybody knows that, but I feel like, A, it's someone who doesn't know you well enough to know that you would never do that and it also is someone who doesn't know Rick Santorum well enough because he's not going to listen to you or anybody else

GLENN: No.

STU: He's going to stay in the race as long as he feels like it's the right thing to do

GLENN: That's one reason I like him, because he did go down to court Puerto Rico and he did say that because it's consistent, that's what he believes, and so he said it. Even though it cost him the race, that's what he did.

STU: Yeah. You know, this is what sucks about primaries, because I like Mitt Romney. He seems like a nice guy. I think he's really smart. I think he does a lot of good thing. I like Rick Santorum. It's like everyone just gets in these fights where it's just constant everyone going back and forth.

GLENN: We're really not enemies.

STU: Not at all

GLENN: Although I think we've created some which is not necessarily ‑‑ but you know what? Rick can't be the President because we like him and there's just no way that we could have a President that actually likes us.

PAT: Now we're setting a new precedent here. This is a brand new precedent we're sitting

GLENN: We were at the airport yesterday and we were talking about the race and I just looked and Pat said, Romney will hate us by the time he would get into office. So, you know he's got to be the guy. He's just going to hate us with by that time.

What our response to Israel reveals about us

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

America’s moral erosion: How we were conditioned to accept the unthinkable

MATHIEU LEWIS-ROLLAND / Contributor | Getty Images

Every time we look away from lawlessness, we tell the next mob it can go a little further.

Chicago, Portland, and other American cities are showing us what happens when the rule of law breaks down. These cities have become openly lawless — and that’s not hyperbole.

When a governor declares she doesn’t believe federal agents about a credible threat to their lives, when Chicago orders its police not to assist federal officers, and when cartels print wanted posters offering bounties for the deaths of U.S. immigration agents, you’re looking at a country flirting with anarchy.

Two dangers face us now: the intimidation of federal officers and the normalization of soldiers as street police. Accept either, and we lose the republic.

This isn’t a matter of partisan politics. The struggle we’re watching now is not between Democrats and Republicans. It’s between good and evil, right and wrong, self‑government and chaos.

Moral erosion

For generations, Americans have inherited a republic based on law, liberty, and moral responsibility. That legacy is now under assault by extremists who openly seek to collapse the system and replace it with something darker.

Antifa, well‑financed by the left, isn’t an isolated fringe any more than Occupy Wall Street was. As with Occupy, big money and global interests are quietly aligned with “anti‑establishment” radicals. The goal is disruption, not reform.

And they’ve learned how to condition us. Twenty‑five years ago, few Americans would have supported drag shows in elementary schools, biological males in women’s sports, forced vaccinations, or government partnerships with mega‑corporations to decide which businesses live or die. Few would have tolerated cartels threatening federal agents or tolerated mobs doxxing political opponents. Yet today, many shrug — or cheer.

How did we get here? What evidence convinced so many people to reverse themselves on fundamental questions of morality, liberty, and law? Those long laboring to disrupt our republic have sought to condition people to believe that the ends justify the means.

Promoting “tolerance” justifies women losing to biological men in sports. “Compassion” justifies harboring illegal immigrants, even violent criminals. Whatever deluded ideals Antifa espouses is supposed to somehow justify targeting federal agents and overturning the rule of law. Our culture has been conditioned for this moment.

The buck stops with us

That’s why the debate over using troops to restore order in American cities matters so much. I’ve never supported soldiers executing civilian law, and I still don’t. But we need to speak honestly about what the Constitution allows and why. The Posse Comitatus Act sharply limits the use of the military for domestic policing. The Insurrection Act, however, exists for rare emergencies — when federal law truly can’t be enforced by ordinary means and when mobs, cartels, or coordinated violence block the courts.

Even then, the Constitution demands limits: a public proclamation ordering offenders to disperse, transparency about the mission, a narrow scope, temporary duration, and judicial oversight.

Soldiers fight wars. Cops enforce laws. We blur that line at our peril.

But we also cannot allow intimidation of federal officers or tolerate local officials who openly obstruct federal enforcement. Both extremes — lawlessness on one side and militarization on the other — endanger the republic.

The only way out is the Constitution itself. Protect civil liberty. Enforce the rule of law. Demand transparency. Reject the temptation to justify any tactic because “our side” is winning. We’ve already seen how fear after 9/11 led to the Patriot Act and years of surveillance.

KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

Two dangers face us now: the intimidation of federal officers and the normalization of soldiers as street police. Accept either, and we lose the republic. The left cannot be allowed to shut down enforcement, and the right cannot be allowed to abandon constitutional restraint.

The real threat to the republic isn’t just the mobs or the cartels. It’s us — citizens who stop caring about truth and constitutional limits. Anything can be justified when fear takes over. Everything collapses when enough people decide “the ends justify the means.”

We must choose differently. Uphold the rule of law. Guard civil liberties. And remember that the only way to preserve a government of, by, and for the people is to act like the people still want it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Stand with Voddie Baucham’s family in this time of loss

In the quiet aftermath of a profound loss, the Christian community mourns the unexpected passing of Dr. Voddie Baucham, a towering figure in evangelical circles. Known for his defense of biblical truth, Baucham, a pastor, author, and theologian, left a legacy on family, faith, and opposing "woke" ideologies in the church. His book Fault Lines challenged believers to prioritize Scripture over cultural trends. Glenn had Voddie on the show several times, where they discussed progressive influences in Christianity, debunked myths of “Christian nationalism,” and urged hope amid hostility.

The shock of Baucham's death has deeply affected his family. Grieving, they remain hopeful in Christ, with his wife, Bridget, now facing the task of resettling in the US without him. Their planned move from Lusaka, Zambia, was disrupted when their home sale fell through last December, resulting in temporary Airbnb accommodations, but they have since secured a new home in Cape Coral that requires renovations. To ensure Voddie's family is taken care of, a fundraiser is being held to raise $2 million, which will be invested for ongoing support, allowing Bridget to focus on her family.

We invite readers to contribute prayerfully. If you feel called to support the Bauchams in this time of need, you can click here to donate.

We grieve and pray with hope for the Bauchams.

May Voddie's example inspire us.

Overcoming loneliness: Connecting in a disconnected world

Loneliness isn’t just being alone — it’s feeling unseen, unheard, and unimportant, even amid crowds and constant digital chatter.

Loneliness has become an epidemic in America. Millions of people, even when surrounded by others, feel invisible. In tragic irony, we live in an age of unparalleled connectivity, yet too many sit in silence, unseen and unheard.

I’ve been experiencing this firsthand. My children have grown up and moved out. The house that once overflowed with life now echoes with quiet. Moments that once held laughter now hold silence. And in that silence, the mind can play cruel games. It whispers, “You’re forgotten. Your story doesn’t matter.”

We are unique in our gifts, but not in our humanity. Recognizing this shared struggle is how we overcome loneliness.

It’s a lie.

I’ve seen it in others. I remember sitting at Rockefeller Center one winter, watching a woman lace up her ice skates. Her clothing was worn, her bag battered. Yet on the ice, she transformed — elegant, alive, radiant.

Minutes later, she returned to her shoes, merged into the crowd, unnoticed. I’ve thought of her often. She was not alone in her experience. Millions of Americans live unseen, performing acts of quiet heroism every day.

Shared pain makes us human

Loneliness convinces us to retreat, to stay silent, to stop reaching out to others. But connection is essential. Even small gestures — a word of encouragement, a listening ear, a shared meal — are radical acts against isolation.

I’ve learned this personally. Years ago, a caller called me “Mr. Perfect.” I could have deflected, but I chose honesty. I spoke of my alcoholism, my failed marriage, my brokenness. I expected judgment. Instead, I found resonance. People whispered back, “I’m going through the same thing. Thank you for saying it.”

Our pain is universal. Everyone struggles with self-doubt and fear. Everyone feels, at times, like a fraud. We are unique in our gifts, but not in our humanity. Recognizing this shared struggle is how we overcome loneliness.

We were made for connection. We were built for community — for conversation, for touch, for shared purpose. Every time we reach out, every act of courage and compassion punches a hole in the wall of isolation.

You’re not alone

If you’re feeling alone, know this: You are not invisible. You are seen. You matter. And if you’re not struggling, someone you know is. It’s your responsibility to reach out.

Loneliness is not proof of brokenness. It is proof of humanity. It is a call to engage, to bear witness, to connect. The world is different because of the people who choose to act. It is brighter when we refuse to be isolated.

We cannot let silence win. We cannot allow loneliness to dictate our lives. Speak. Reach out. Connect. Share your gifts. By doing so, we remind one another: We are all alike, and yet each of us matters profoundly.

In this moment, in this country, in this world, what we do matters. Loneliness is real, but so is hope. And hope begins with connection.