Glenn interviewed pastor and former NFL player Ken Hutcherson on radio today, a man Glenn feels will be (and already is) one of the great American leaders. He understands the time in which we live and speaks with authority, profound logic and reason.
Full transcript of interview below:
Ken, welcome to the program. How are you, sir?
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Good morning, guys. You-guys work awful early.
GLENN: I know. I'm sorry. Well, you're in Seattle. You get up at, like, what? Noon? Ken, I wrote you last night and I said, I've been saying this stuff for a long time and they've never attacked me before. I think they're starting to be afraid. I think this is starting to connect and make sense to people, that civil rights are the rights that are outlined in the Bill of Rights and they are violating the First Amendment, the Second Amendment. They're violating the Fifth Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Tenth Amendment. They're violating those civil rights.
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: You've got to understand pressure always determines the true character of any person. Good pressure, bad pressure, opposite pressure, but on this earth, Glenn, everyone better understand one thing: You won't feel pressure like you're going to feel　-- can you imagine any nonbeliever, any atheist, standing in front of Christ, trying to explain why they rejected him? Now, that's pressure, my brother. And as a Christian, I don't have that. I　-- Hey, I walk into a Ku Klux Klan meeting with gasoline unwound. That's just me, because I've got the greatest and the baddest one in the valley on my side. That's Jesus Christ. And Sharpton? Come on, guys. What a joke. He's turned into a joke.
GLENN: You have　-- you were there　-- you hated Martin Luther King while　-- while Al Sharpton says he started the, you know, youth movement for Martin Luther King. When you were 12, you were trying to break the bone of every body of every white concern you could. You were more of a panther person. You changed, but I really, truly believe that you have　-- Pat and I were talking about this the other day. We are not in the civil rights movement that you went through. I mean, I hope to God no man of any color or any religion or nonreligion ever in this country has to go through what African-Americans went through and, really, in some places, are still going　-- going through.
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Yep, uh-huh.
GLENN: But this is　-- this is the same path and the time so to stop it is before it gets to the dogs. Am I not right on that?
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: The main problem that we have is there's a lot of people, Glenn, in our society that is being discriminated against. Now, they don't mind throwing other groups in called the civil rights movement and the lawyers and the land group that they are fighting for is homosexuals and I don't like to call them gay because they have taken that word. Gay means you're happy, you're frolicking around, enjoying life, and they have stole that word and we need to take it back because when you allow those that are in opposition of you to take and determine what definitions are, then you will lose. We can't let Al Sharpton and others take the definition of what civil rights is. Civil rights is　--
GLENN: So what is the civil rights movement?
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: 　-- you should the Constitution.
GLENN: Say it again. What is the civil rights movement? What is it really?
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: The civil rights movement is understanding your freedom under the Constitution of these United States and if anyone tries to take those freedoms from you, you better rise up and fight and that's what we're doing together.
GLENN: You said to me on the plane, I've struggled too long as a black man to be an equal member of this society. Do you remember?
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Oh, exactly. I said, Glenn, I fought for years and years and years as a black man to become equal. We're still fighting, but we won that fight, even in the courts, years ago, and I have felt that freedom and I'm going to use that freedom. I did not become a Christian, Glenn, to fight that same fight again as they look at me as a second class citizen.
GLENN: So help Al Sharpton out here, Glenn, on　-- I mean, he doesn't　-- because his religion, whatever his religion is, I believe it's a religion of collectivism in the state. I don't know how he　-- I don't know how he says he believes in the salvation of Jesus Christ but then talks about collective salvation. I don't understand that, but explain to him, just on the religious front, how this is a civil rights movement.
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: I think he has to understand that he has to open his eyes and open his heart because, for example, let me give you a good example. The President of the United States, if you remove his blackness, then just ask the question, is he a good President or is he a bad President for the United States? Just remove the blackness and make that decision. When it comes to Al Sharpton, Glenn, you've got to understand something. If you remove Al Sharpton's blackness, he disappears. He's transparent. There's nothing there because he bases his whole life on his blackness. Me, I'm a black man; but my blackness has submission to my Christianity. I am an American, proud to be an American, proud to be a black American. I'm not African-American. I've never been to Africa. I'm an American that is black and my　-- and I'm proud to be a black that submits to my Christianity. I am proud to be just a man. I mean a man's man, not a metro sexual, not one that gets his nails done. I mean a man that used to get out there and knock heads and get his fingernails dirty. I'm proud of being a man, but my manhood submits to my Christianity, but I don't see that in Al Sharpton. Any time anything happens that attacks his blackness, he fears it and　-- because he has nothing else to stand on. Thus, when the real civil rights movement of everyone steps up, when we're saying the Tea Party, don't take being discriminated against. If a black person was kicked out of a hotel for being black down in Florida, it would be an uproar, but since the Tea Party was kicked out because of their political views, that's going against America. That's why we're here going against the Constitution, with certain unalienable rights. That is the true fight we must start and we must fight today like never before.
GLENN: Here's the thing, Ken: Most of　-- most Americans have not been discriminated against. We have been　--
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Oh, woe, woe.
GLENN: No, no. I'm saying growing up　--
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: 　-- that's why we don't fight.
GLENN: Well, I know growing up, I grew up in Mount Vernon. You live in Seattle now. You know Mount Vernon. And Mount Vernon back in the Sixties and Seventies, I don't think I was discriminated against at all
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Not compared to what I went through.
GLENN: Exactly right.
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: But are we going to go with the greed or are we going to go with right and wrong?
GLENN: Where was I discriminated against as a　-- I mean, I don't want to be a victim. Let me just say -- let me just start there. I don't want to be a victim. I don't want　-- what did you say?
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: I said, please don't go there with me.
GLENN: Right. So when you're talking about, you know, the Sixties and Seventies, I guess if you go back and look at it -- and I just asked you to show me where I was a victim.
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: There you go.
GLENN: I don't care what happened in my past. I care what's happening right now.
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Absolutely. And you better stand like we're going to and get ready for the shots. Get ready to be disliked. You know, the greatest　-- do you know what the greatest blessing in the world is, Glenn?
GLENN: The greatest blessing in the world, let me see if I can answer this, at least for me. The greatest blessing　--
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Outside of Jesus Christ being your savior, do you know what the greatest blessing in the world is?
GLENN: Yeah. The greatest blessing in the world is for me to have him as my constant companion.
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: The greatest blessing outside of Jesus Christ, my brother, is to have　--
GLENN: Oh. Outside of　--
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: -- is to have people dislike you.
GLENN: Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm glad to say I think we have all of the right people hate us. I mean, I　-- you know, when George Soros threatened us and when the administration doesn't like us, when the GOP doesn't like us, I wear that as a badge of honor. I really do.
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Please, Hey, can you get two badges? Let's wear them together.
GLENN: Ken, thank you. I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much and --
PASTOR HUTCHERSON: My pleasure, my brother. Let's go get them.
GLENN: You got it. Thank you. Pastor Ken Hutcherson, he is, I warn you, a lightning rod, a lightning rod, but he has Stage 4 cancer and is not afraid, is not afraid, and I　-- and I　-- you have to experience him. He's actually coming down to Salt Lake City next week and he's going to be speaking at a couple of places and one of those we added a couple of days ago and I don't even know if there is any tickets left. What is the name of that event for Hutcherson and David Barton in the speaker series? Do you know what the name of that particular one is? Go to mercuryone.org -- somebody do that for me. Would you do that for me real quick, Alex? Go to mercuryone.org and look in the speaker series and most of these are sold out, but you can still get tickets. They are　-- by the way, I think they're, like, $15 a seat but all of the money goes to Mercury One and that pays for the infrastructure of Mercury One. We do this event every year so we can pay for the administration of it and we give you something in exchange. So I'm not asking you for on a donation. We pay for the administration, so then all of the rest of the years　-- the year when there's a tragedy or there's something, I can say to you 100% of that goes to pay for　-- goes to this particular cause and we don't take any money. So that's why we're charging for the speaker series, but I want to give you something in return. But there's one in the speaker series that we just added a couple of days ago. I don't know if there's tickets left, but it is with David Barton, Rabbi Lapin, myself, and Ken Hutcherson and I said I think there's only about 2000 tickets to that and I said to somebody the other day, I said, I think this is the one　-- there are 2000 people, 20000 people coming to the Man in the Moon. I think this is the one that those　-- the people are going to　-- this and Pat's education seminar that people are going to say holy cow, holy cow, they're coming, they're coming and I want to be a part of that because we are　-- we're going to take the bull by the horns and I beg you, be prepared. Prepare any way that you　-- you would do that in your faith, but get the bad things out of your life, clean up your life, make amends for those things, ask forgiveness for those things. If you're an alcoholic, do the 12 steps. Do it all over again. Do it in the next couple of months. Get it all out of your life. If you're a Christian, renew your baptismal covenants. Understand the atonement. Get it out of your life, clean it up so you have nothing to fear, because if you are hiding from yourself, you're never going to be able to stand what's coming and we'll give you more on that. And you can get the tickets at mercuryone.org.