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Obama’s stumping in... Texas? Glenn chats with Gov. Rick Perry

May 09, 2013
Wilson

Writer

On radio this morning, Glenn interviewed Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) about President Obama’s impending trip to Texas to kick off his job creation tour. You might be asking yourself, why in the world would the President go to a state that basically proves his economic theories don’t work?

Well, according to CEOs polled by Chief Executive magazine, Texas is the most business-friendly state in the U.S. based on a criteria of taxes and regulations, workforce quality, and living environment. Considering President Obama can use all the job creation advice he can get, Texas is probably a good place to start his tour.

Glenn and Gov. Perry talked about the policies that have allowed Texas to become a hub for new business and entrepreneurship, in what is still a very difficult economy. You can read the full transcript of the interview below:

GLENN: The president is going to meet with our own governor here in Texas, the governor of the great State of Texas, Governor Perry. I believe the last time that he was in town, the president got a letter from Governor Perry, and didn't he reject it or he just kind of brushed it off, I believe? We have Rick Perry on the phone now. Hello, Governor, how are you, sir?

GOVERNOR PERRY: Glenn Beck, good morning. It's a beautiful day in Texas. Thank you, sir. Of course, you already know that.

GLENN: Tell me, wasn't it the last time that you saw the president, didn't you give him the letter on the tarmac?

GOVERNOR PERRY: Actually the last time I saw the president, he was in Waco for the West Memorial for the EMTs and the firefighters that we lost there with the tragic explosion.

GLENN: Who was

GOVERNOR PERRY: The president was very civil and very appropriately gracious, but the time that we met on the tarmac in Austin, yes, I handed him the letter asking him to take a look at the issue of our border and how to secure the border, and we never heard back from the president directly. Now, one of his staff persons wrote a letter but, you know, you the key is the president's coming to Texas hopefully in good faith to learn how to create jobs and have a better place in America for a training ground for the president to learn how to do it right.

GLENN: Well, if he wants to learn how to create jobs or if America wants to learn how to create jobs, it's really quite simple: We just stop electing or hiring to put in the cabinet Marxists.

GOVERNOR PERRY: Well, in Texas we've got that figured out.

GLENN: We do? Okay, good. I didn't know. It seems to be a disease that is spreading all over the country. I didn't know.

GOVERNOR PERRY: You know, if you really want to be honest, and don't, you know, try to make some political statement, if results are, I mean just a really scientific look at the states and allow the states to be the laboratories of innovation and say that there are these 50 laboratories out there, Glenn, then who is it that's actually doing this right? So if the result is the creation of jobs which allow people freedom to live their lives as they see fit.

Now, certainly freedom to fail at an effort, but freedom to be unlimited in what you can what you can achieve and that's, to me, what America's really all about. And so if you look at it, from a just cold, scientific standpoint, where is the place that's created the most jobs both, you know, percentage wise and numbers in jobs in the last five years? Texas added almost 500,000 private sector jobs while this country, this entire country lost over 2 million private sector jobs. That's from March of '08 through March of 2013. 6.4%.

GLENN: Here's the problem. And Rick, you know I love you and I moved here because of the freedom, but we're having these companies move in and I'm glad to see them move in we have these companies move in and they are bringing all their voters from California and everywhere else and I'm afraid Texas is going to turn into Colorado. We need to have a big sign here someplace that says it's the freedom that creates jobs.

GOVERNOR PERRY: Yeah, that's an interesting observation, but I will suggest to you an erroneous observation for a couple of reasons. Number one, Colorado was never this hard red state to begin with. Colorado always had some liberal tendencies, and frankly had there not been an error made in Colorado with the gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis back two, three years ago, he would have been elected and you would not have seen Colorado doing some of the things that they're doing today that tend to be substantially blue. But the key is the people that we're bringing to the State of Texas, they're givers. I mean, these the takers are staying in Colorado, Colorado or, you know, California or Illinois. They know not to come here and expect government handouts to be the answer. There are people that are coming here, want to be free from overtaxation, overregulation, overlitigation and expect to find a skilled workforce so that they can fill the jobs.

GLENN: Right, right. I'm not wait. You're misunderstanding me. I'm not saying that the companies are. I'm saying that the people who are moving here for those jobs, they're coming from California saying, "Something's wrong with California. It's all screwed up." And then they are coming into our communities and they are like, "I love, Texas. Of course, I'd like it to be a little more like home in California." And I'm afraid they will start voting for the same things that they were voting for in California. I mean, we need some sort of campaign that, you know, is going through the State of Texas that people understand when they move here, what makes it great is the freedom that we have. Because I know the companies understand because the companies, I moved my company down here and everybody knows we're moving here for the freedom, and my company gets it and my employees get it. But I'm afraid that there's, you know, people that come in with a lot of employees and they'll just move them all from California and the employees are just like, "I like California. Of course, it was all screwed up, but my company moved." We don't want we want to change their hearts and their minds on how to vote, and I'm not talking about Republican/Democrat. I'm talking about small government.

GOVERNOR PERRY: Freedom. We're talking about freedom.

GLENN: Right.

GOVERNOR PERRY: And I totally agree with you from the standpoint of it is our responsibility to teach people. We start teaching Texas history at a minimum in the seventh grade. Generally when you hit the ground here, you start learning about this state, the history of this state, the freedom, believing and fighting people that helped develop this state. But I think people come here and they are open to that message of freedom and they are fleeing places that are oppression from a tax and a regulatory and a legal standpoint. So I think they are open and I think you make a good point, but it's our responsibility as citizens and our responsibility as Texans to educate people every opportunity. I hope here in the next couple of hours, I have the opportunity to educate the president of the United States about freedom and about how powerful it is in the State of Texas and if people reflect that in this great state.

GLENN: (Laughing.) I'm sorry. I just can't get past that.

GOVERNOR PERRY: There's a little

GLENN: I just can't get past, I'd love to teach the president a little bit about freedom. Oh, I wish you the best today. I don't know how you do it, but I wish you the best, Governor. Thank you so much.

GOVERNOR PERRY: Hey, listen. You take care of yourself. By the way, great job down in Houston this last weekend. It was an incredibly successful convention for the National Rifle Association and a good weekend for the Second Amendment.

GLENN: It was. It was. Thank you very much, Governor. I appreciate it.

GOVERNOR PERRY: God bless you.

GLENN: Governor Rick Perry of Texas.

Glenn: What I saw on the ground in Asheville gave me hope

Melissa Sue Gerrits / Stringer | Getty Images

The government can’t save us. Washington is too slow and too bureaucratic, and quite frankly, the government doesn’t care.

I’ve seen a lot of destruction in my life. I’ve walked through war zones and cities torn apart by riots, and I've stood at the sites of natural disasters that leave communities devastated. But what I saw in Asheville, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene was unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed.

Houses were washed down rivers, upside down and crushed. Train tracks, strong enough to support locomotives, were left suspended in midair after the earth beneath them was eroded away. Semi-trucks, rolled by the force of the floodwaters, now lie like children’s toys, tossed and overturned hundreds of feet from the road. Whole towns have been uprooted and scattered — debris from homes miles away, stacking up like dominoes, bridges that stood for decades washed out by water so high that it flowed six feet over their tops.

'You tell everybody you know — even if they don’t care — we’ll take care of our own damn selves if nobody shows up.'

I stood there, looking at this idyllic small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I thought, “This will take years to rebuild. Maybe even decades.” But I didn’t just see destruction. I saw something far more powerful than nature’s wrath: the resilience of the American spirit.

My expectations for the government’s assistance were low before I arrived in Asheville, given its failing track record in previous natural disasters, but its response to Hurricane Helene victims — or lack thereof — was a new category of negligence. But the people in Asheville weren’t waiting on FEMA or the federal government to swoop in. They knew no one was coming.

The bridges were out, roads were destroyed, and the mountains had isolated them from outside help. But instead of despair, I saw hope. Instead of panic, I saw action. People were taking care of each other, and that is the America I remember, like in the days after 9/11 when we came together regardless of political party, race, or background. We didn’t care about who voted for whom. We just saw our neighbors hurting, and we asked, “Are you OK? What can I do to help?”

I saw that again in North Carolina. I saw it in the man who turned his Harley-Davidson dealership into a helicopter landing zone, shoveling mud out of his showroom just so rescue teams could land. I saw it in the volunteers flying missions across treacherous terrain, getting the elderly and the injured out of danger. They weren’t asking for government permission. They were doing what needed to be done.

Adam Smith, a retired Special Forces veteran who is coordinating the landing of helicopters in Asheville, told me that the FAA is trying to shut down the operation because it isn’t federally regulated. He told the feds that they’re going to leave because he has a helicopter landing in a few minutes that will actually help people while they are barking orders from Washington.

One story stood out to me. We landed to help evacuate an elderly woman with a broken hip and a severe infection. She just had surgery, but because her family didn’t have insurance, the hospital pushed her out as fast as it could. Her wound became infected, and her leg was on fire. We helped airlift her to get her desperately needed antibiotics and treatment. There were no government resources to help her to an emergency room.

As we loaded the woman into the helicopter, her grandson turned to me and said, “You tell everybody you know — even if they don’t care — we’ll take care of our own damn selves if nobody shows up.” That hit me hard because it’s the truth. It’s the way America used to be, and it’s the way we need to be again.

As I flew through those mountains in the helicopter, I couldn’t help but think of Billy Graham. I’d visited Asheville about 10 years ago to see him, and I remember thinking how beautiful and peaceful the town was. Today, it’s unrecognizable. The destruction is overwhelming. But the people are stronger than ever.

The government can’t save us. Washington is too slow and too bureaucratic, and quite frankly, the government doesn’t care. I saw it firsthand. We found a FEMA truck parked under a tree, its workers sitting at a card table in the shade. They weren’t doing anything to help.

But we’re Americans. We can take care of ourselves. We don’t need Washington to save us. We need each other. This is the America that Billy Graham spoke to me about — the America that will rise again in times of trouble. And while the government might fail us, we will not fail each other. And that’s exactly what I saw in North Carolina — Americans stepping up, taking care of their neighbors, and rebuilding their communities.

This is what I told the people of Asheville: You are not forgotten. There are millions of Americans who love you, who are praying for you, and who are ready to help. Because that’s what we do. We don’t wait for permission. We roll up our sleeves and take care of our own.

And to the rest of America, I say this: It’s time to remember who we are. It’s time to stop looking to Washington for solutions and start looking at each other. Because when the chips are down, it’s not the government that’s going to save us. It’s you and me, and if we stand together, nothing — no hurricane, no flood, no disaster — can break us.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

UPDATE: Will Florida survive Hurricane Milton?

Handout / Handout / Getty Images

For the second time in two weeks, Florida is in the path of a major hurricane.

Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall sometime tonight, Wednesday, October 9th, somewhere near Tampa Bay. This will mark the first time in a hundred years the city has been hit directly by a hurricane, raising concerns about the preparedness of the city's infrastructure. Milton, which was rated a category five hurricane earlier this week, has been reduced to a category four as it approaches land and is expected to make landfall as a powerful category three.

The Sunshine State has already begun to feel the effects of the historic storm, with strong winds and heavy rains battering Tampa Bay this morning. Many are still trying to evacuate or prepare for the storm as conditions worsen. Highways have slowed down, and gas has run short. Residents are preparing for the worst.

The federally recognized "Waffle House Index" is in red, meaning that several Waffle House locations in the Tampa Bay area will be shut down. Waffle House prides itself on being open 24/7, no matter the conditions, so for them to shut down, if only for a brief time, indicates that severe damage to the area is anticipated.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

In short, Milton is anticipated to be a disaster, and as we have learned, FEMA is unlikely to be much help. Fortunately, Floridians have Ron DeSantis, who has continued to prove himself a capable governor, and the aid of good-hearted Americans from across the country. If you want to lend a hand to your fellow Americans you can donate at Mercury One and rest assured that your money will be used to step in to help hurricane victims where the government is failing.

'Call her Daddy'? Kamala Harris keeps dodging important questions

TING SHEN / Contributor | Getty Images

Kamala Harris has been making her rounds on talk shows and podcasts in order to increase her poor recognition amongst voters, but all we're hearing is more of the same.

Just in the past few days, Harris has appeared on "60 Minutes" and the popular podcast "Call Her Daddy" to help Americans get to know her. But instead of bold answers to hard-hitting questions, Harris delivered rambling responses to soft-ball questions and squirmed her way out of the few tough questions thrown at her. Overall, it is unlikely that any voter who tuned in to get a solid grasp on Harris's policies was left with a better understanding after either one of her interviews.

Below is a summary of Harris's most recent interviews:

"Call Her Daddy" podcast

Antony Jones / Stringer | Getty Images

Despite this podcast's unsavory name, it consistently ranks among the most popular podcasts in the world, right up there with Joe Rogan's show, and is especially popular among women. Shortly after releasing the interview with Harris, Alex Cooper, the host of the podcast, received backlash for her extremely soft treatment of the presidential nominee. After watching the interview, it's not hard to see how that impression might have come across.

The interview consisted of several surface-level, gimme-type, questions on common Democrat talking points. Harris said she was—surprise—pro-choice. Who would have thought? She also expressed her desire to dump taxpayer money into student loan forgiveness along with other government "aid" programs, which is pretty standard amongst the Left. Overall, nothing new was revealed.

The rest of the interview was little more than gossip. Cooper and Harris chatted about a comment made by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the "at ladies" comment made by J.D. Vance. This was not the deep dive on Harris that voters wanted.

60 Minutes

CBS Photo Archive / Contributor | Getty Images

On Monday, October 8th, Harris sat down with CBS's Bill Whitaker for an interview on 60 Minutes. While Whitaker defiantly upped the ante in comparison to "Call Her Daddy," Harris still managed to dodge several questions. When asked about foreign policy, Harris parroted the same tired schtick we've heard for the past four years, which clearly hasn't worked. Like Biden before her, she called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, primarily out of concern for the Palestinians, while simultaneously maintaining Israel's right to self-defense.

Harris also deflected Biden's failure at the Southern Border onto the House Republicans, citing a single instance where a border security bill failed to pass. Even Whitaker pointed out the obvious: The Biden-Harris administration has had four years to solve the problem, and the blame does not fall on this single instance. Harris didn't waver, and doubled down on her excuse, again blaming Congress.

Harris went on to repeatedly dodge questions about her three trillion-dollar economic plan and offered little explanation of what might be included in such a plan, or how it will be paid for. These interviews have repeatedly failed to define Harris or her platform in any meaningful way, though they were successful in concealing just how radical of a candidate she actually is. She is still just a vaguely left-wing, Joe Biden replacement in the eyes of many voters, which might be the best she can do.

The Howard Stern Show

Kevin Mazur / Contributor | Getty Images

In her recent interview on The Howard Stern Show, Harris once again demonstrated her signature combination of evasiveness and unreliable platitudes. Rather than offering substantive answers to Stern’s pointed questions, Harris deflected with awkward humor and vague talking points, sidestepping any real discussion on critical issues like the border crisis or inflation. Her attempt to portray herself as relatable felt painfully out of touch, especially when she pivoted the conversation to her fondness for music and cooking.

Harris’s inability to confront pressing national concerns only highlights her growing reputation for evading accountability during her term in the Biden administration. Stern, typically known for drawing candid responses from guests, seemed unable to penetrate the wall of superficiality that Harris maintained throughout the conversation.

"The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert

CBS Photo Archive / Contributor | Getty Images

We saw a similar performance from Harris on Stephen Colbert's "The Late Show." Colbert teed her up for questions about inflation, the southern border crisis, and the administration’s plunging approval ratings, but Harris stuck to her well-worn script of platitudes and vague promises. Instead of addressing the economic pain felt by millions, she laughed nervously through softball questions, leaving viewers with nothing but empty rhetoric about “working together” and “finding solutions,” while the country watches the consequences of ineffective leadership.

Moreover, when Colbert pressed her on issues like the administration's immigration policies or lack of legislative victories, Harris deflected with hollow talking points, refusing to engage in any serious reflection or accountability. Her awkward attempts at humor felt like a shield against real criticism, confirming the impression that she remains detached from the gravity of the crises unfolding under her watch.

PHOTOS: What Glenn saw in North Carolina was INSANE

Sean Rayford / Stringer | Getty Images

Last Thursday, October 3rd, Glenn traveled to North Carolina to join Mercury One as they provided critical aid to those devastated by Hurricane Helene.

What Glenn saw during his brief visit looked like scenes straight out of an apocalypse movie: houses torn from their foundations and tossed to the side, sometimes entire towns away from where they were built, semi-trucks rolled, railroad tracks swept away, bridges washed out. It was a level of destruction Glenn had never before seen.

But perhaps the most shocking encounter of his whole trip was when Glenn discovered a lone FEMA crew. It was a miracle that Glenn even spotted the FEMA truck, as it was parked away from the main road without any signs or markers to indicate to any passerby in need of its existence. Glenn and Congressman Cory Mills decided to talk to this FEMA crew, the only one they had encountered on their trek, and see what they were up to. As it turns out, not much. The FEMA workers admitted that they had only arrived the day before (nearly a week after the hurricane) and still did not have any sort of supplies. They claimed that people would know where they were located via the local news, despite the fact that most people did not have access to power, cell service, their home, or even their cars. Moreover, there seemed to be confusion about whether they were to go door-to-door in order to render aid to those in need.

FEMA dropped the ball on this entire affair, and it is only going to get worse. FEMA is claiming they blew their yearly allowance on aiding illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, another hurricane is approaching Florida and is expected to make landfall on Wednesday. It seems unlikely that FEMA will be of any use to Floridians in need, and they will have to rely on the aid of their fellow Americans.

Want to help out your fellow countrymen where our government has failed? You can donate at Mercury One and rest assured that your money will be used to step in to help hurricane victims where the government is failing.