Why does Penn Jillette hate this word?

Last night, Glenn Beck sat down with Penn Jillete for a full hour to discuss tolerance and religious views. See why Penn Jillette hates the word "tolerance" and disagrees with trying to persuade someone to your own form of belief.

Rough Transcript Below:

Glenn Hello, America, and welcome to The Glenn Beck Program and to TheBlaze. This is the network that you are building. It’s odd to be a Christian, a Mormon, an atheist, in a Greek Orthodox church.

Penn We’ve got it all covered. This is what a church looks like on the inside?

Glenn This is what it looks like on the inside.

Penn High ceilings, good for juggling.

Glenn I know.

Penn They do a lot of juggling in here?

Glenn No juggling in here.

Penn What a waste of some nice ceilings.

Glenn We actually wanted to talk a little bit about everything, but I want to kind of start on tolerance, because I think we’re having a hard time understanding tolerance in America on all sides.

Penn I sure have a hard time with it. It’s a word that I really don’t like because it’s a word that often brings to mind condescension. There’s a way you do tolerance. And because we use that word in other context too, you know, I was tolerating him. We were out to dinner. There’s your wife’s friend, and I tolerate him. It’s got such a negative connotation. So often when you’re a group of people and someone starts saying nut stuff that everybody knows is nut stuff, you know, whenever that happens to be in that social group, I don’t even care what it is, but just for the social group it’s nut stuff, everybody smiles and nods and let’s that move on.

That kind of tolerance seems to me to be not good. It seems the tolerance that smiles and nods is really not good. I think you want a kind of tolerance that says I like you as a person, and you’re wrong. And that’s the hardest kind of tolerance to do. When you want to live together in a society, trying to find those rules—we pretty much have the rules for physical violence down. We know where that is. As Steve Allen said, my right to swing my arms stops with your face.

Glenn Right.

Penn I can do this, and no one has any trouble. I move three feet that way, all of a sudden we have trouble. With words and ideas, because ideas matter, and the only way you find out you’re wrong is to state your case very clearly.

Glenn I agree with you; however, we have to be able to allow people to say you’re wrong, where we’re not allowing people to say you’re wrong or I disagree with you. Once you have that conversation, then you have to go back to like you and I are. I think you’re wrong on things. You think I’m wrong on things. That’s cool.

Penn You also keep picking at that scab. That’s important to do.

Glenn What do you mean?

Penn You keep reiterating where your differences are because that’s where you learn. The best conversations are the ones you come away with having been beat up and realizing you’re wrong, and you always want to keep—conversations you have, you know, online and with people who just say you can’t change that person’s mind, give up, that breaks my heart. I don’t think you ever give up. It’s just finding that exact tightrope that you have to walk down of being able to live and exist with somebody and at the same time not give up your own principles. It’s a really difficult tight wire that I think we fall off all the time.

Glenn Isn’t that kind of an arrogant stance though to take there?

Penn What’s that? Don’t ever give up on changing their mind.

Penn No, you never try to change their mind. Don’t ever give up on stating what you believe. Whenever anyone comes in, there’s all these, and you’ve seen them, they’re on both sides, and they’re identical. I can show you Christian sites and I can show you atheist sites that say how to talk to your friend, how to talk to your atheist friend, how to talk to your Christian friend. And they have this whole way of well, first of all, don’t tell them they’re wrong, but tell them is there another explanation for what could be going on other than their faith, and try to be nice and don’t be this way. Telling people how to manipulate other people seems to be folly and morally wrong.

The way I should talk to you is as another human being. So, sometimes they’re just going to say, “No, you’re just wrong. Are you crazy?” And sometimes I’m going to go—but you have to do it from your heart. My goal sitting down with you must not be to say how can I get my friend, Glenn, to become an atheist and not a Mormon? That cannot be my goal. My goal has to be can I speak to this person from my heart on whatever happens to come up? And that subtle difference to me is the tightrope. I can’t be trying to manipulate you.

I can’t be saying in the car on the way over, “I’ve got the argument that will convince him.” I have to be saying, “I wonder what he’s going to say.” I’ve got to listen to him.

Glenn This is a problem that I have with many just Christians that are always trying to baptize people. They’re always trying to get you into the water and baptize you. It drives me out of my mind because it’s like why don’t you just love somebody? Just be their friend. Just love them.

Penn Tricking people into a philosophical position seems really wrong. First of all, if you’re secular, if you are looking for truth, then tricking someone into looking for truth is insane. On the other side, if you are Christian and if you believe, like many, many, many Christians—I guess I won’t say all—that God can see into your heart, then trying to get someone to kind of believe by a rhetorical trick is completely useless because God already knows you’re going to try that trick, at least in many faiths.

I can’t speak to this at all, but I’m just saying that it’s the problem with the why not bet that there’s a God because if there isn’t, you don’t lose anything, but if there is—it’s that argument that falls to pieces because oh, wait a minute, God can see in your heart, so running a scam on him is just not going to work.

By the way, if you’re ever in a confrontation with an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God, and you’re in a competition, there’s one game you can play and you can win, chicken, because he can see into your heart and knows you’re not going to turn the car. It’s the only theoretical game you can play, not that I think you’re going to be in a confrontation one-on-one with God.

Glenn Right. I don’t think I’m going to be heading my car towards His car.

Penn I don’t think so. I’m just saying if it does, wouldn’t that be great? My buddy, Penn, helped me out here.

How did Trump's would-be assassin get past Secret Service?

PATRICK T. FALLON / Contributor | Getty Images

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

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday was targeted in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. It occurred just after 6:10 p.m. while Trump was delivering his speech.

Here are the details of the “official” story. The shooter was Thomas Matthew Crooks. He was 20 years old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. He used an AR-15 rifle and managed to reach the rooftop of a nearby building unnoticed. The Secret Service's counter-response team responded swiftly, according to "the facts," killing Crooks and preventing further harm.

Did it though? That’s what the official story says, so far, but calling this a mere lapse in security by Secret Service doesn't add up. There are some glaring questions that need to be answered.

If Trump had been killed on Saturday, we would be in a civil war today. We would have seen for the first time the president's brains splattered on live television, and because of the details of this, I have a hard time thinking it wouldn't have been viewed as JFK 2.0.

How does someone sneak a rifle onto the rally grounds? How does someone even know that that building is there? How is it that Thomas Matthew Crooks was acting so weird and pacing in front of the metal detectors, and no one seemed to notice? People tried to follow him, but, oops, he got away.

How could the kid possibly even think that the highest ground at the venue wouldn't be watched? If I were Crooks, my first guess would be, "That’s the one place I shouldn't crawl up to with a rifle because there's most definitely going to be Secret Service there." Why wasn't anyone there? Why wasn't anyone watching it? Nobody except the shooter decided that the highest ground with the best view of the rally would be the greatest vulnerability to Trump’s safety.

Moreover, a handy ladder just happened to be there. Are we supposed to believe that nobody in the Secret Service, none of the drones, none of the things we pay millions of dollars for caught him? How did he get a ladder there? If the ladder was there, was it always there? Why was the ladder there? Secret Service welds manhole covers closed when a president drives down a road. How was there a ladder sitting around, ready to climb up to the highest ground at the venue, and the Secret Service failed to take it away?

There is plenty of video of eyewitnesses yelling that there was a guy with a rifle climbing up on a ladder to the roof for at least 120 seconds before the first shot was fired. Why were the police looking for him while Secret Service wasn't? Why did the sniper have him in his sights for over a minute before he took a shot? Why did a cop climb up the ladder to look around? When Thomas Matthew Cooks pointed a gun at him, he then ducked and came down off the ladder. Did he call anyone to warn that this young man had a rifle within range of the president?

How is it the Secret Service has a female bodyguard who doesn't even reach Trump's nipples? How was she going to guard the president's body with hers? How is it another female Secret Service agent pulled her gun out a good four minutes too late, then looked around, apparently not knowing what to do? She then couldn't even get the pistol back into the holster because she's a Melissa McCarthy body double. I don't think it's a good idea to have Melissa McCarthy guarding the president.

Here’s the critical question now: Who trusts the FBI with the shooter’s computer? Will his hard drive get filed with the Nashville manifesto? How is it that the Secret Service almost didn't have snipers at all but decided to supply them only one day before the rally because all the local resources were going to be put on Jill Biden? I want Jill Biden safe, of course. I want Jill Biden to have what the first lady should have for security, but you can’t hire a few extra guys to make sure our candidates are safe?

How is it that we have a Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, whose experience is literally guarding two liters of Squirt and spicy Doritos? Did you know that's her background? She's in charge of the United States Secret Service, and her last job was as the head of security for Pepsi.

This is a game, and that's what makes this sick. This is a joke. There are people in our country who thought it was OK to post themselves screaming about the shooter’s incompetence: “How do you miss that shot?” Do you realize how close we came to another JFK? If the president hadn't turned his head at the exact moment he did, it would have gone into the center of his head, and we would be a different country today.

Now, Joe Biden is also saying that we shouldn't make assumptions about the motive of the shooter. Well, I think we can assume one thing: He wanted to kill the Republican presidential candidate. Can we agree on that at least? Can we assume that much?

How can the media even think of blaming Trump for the rhetoric when the Democrats and the media constantly call him literally worse than Hitler who must be stopped at all costs?

These questions need to be answered if we want to know the truth behind what could have been one of the most consequential days in U.S. history. Yet, the FBI has its hands clasped on all the sources that could point to the truth. There must be an independent investigation to get to the bottom of these glaring “mistakes.”

POLL: Do you think Trump is going to win the election?

Kevin Dietsch / Staff, Chip Somodevilla / Staff, Kevin Dietsch / Staff | Getty Image

It feels like all of the tension that has been building over the last four years has finally burst to the surface over the past month. Many predicted 2024 was going to be one of the most important and tumultuous elections in our lifetimes, but the last two weeks will go down in the history books. And it's not over yet.

The Democratic National Convention is in August, and while Kamala seems to be the likely candidate to replace Biden, anything could happen in Chicago. And if Biden is too old to campaign, isn't he too old to be president? Glenn doesn't think he'll make it as President through January, but who knows?

There is a lot of uncertainty that surrounds the current political landscape. Trump came out of the attempted assassination, and the RNC is looking stronger than ever, but who knows what tricks the Democrats have up their sleeves? Let us know your predictions in the poll below:

Is Trump going to win the election?

Did the assassination attempt increase Trump's chances at winning in November?

Did Trump's pick of J.D. Vance help his odds?

Did the Trump-Biden debate in June help Trump's chances?

Did Biden's resignation from the election hand Trump a victory in November? 

Do the Democrats have any chance of winning this election?

What is the Secret Service trying to hide about Trump's assassination attempt?

KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / Contributor, Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

This past weekend we were mere inches away from a radically different America than the one we have today. This was the first time a president had been wounded by a would-be assassin since 1981, and the horrific event has many people questioning the competency and motives of the supposedly elite agents trusted with the president's life.

The director of the Secret Service apparently knew about the assassin's rooftop before the shooting—and did nothing.

Kimberly Cheatle has come under intense scrutiny these last couple of weeks, as Secret Service director she is responsible for the president's well-being, along with all security operations onsite. In a recent interview with ABC, Cheatle admitted that she was aware of the building where the assassin made his mark on American history. She even said that she was mindful of the potential risk but decided against securing the site due to "safety concerns" with the slope of the roof. This statement has called her competence into question. Clearly, the rooftop wasn't that unsafe if the 20-year-old shooter managed to access it.

Glenn pointed out recently that Cheatle seems to be unqualified for the job. Her previous position was senior director in global security at America's second-favorite soda tycoon, PepsiCo. While guarding soda pop and potato chips sounds like an important job to some, it doesn't seem like a position that would qualify you to protect the life of America's most important and controversial people. Even considering her lack of appropriate experience, this seems like a major oversight that even a layperson would have seen. Can we really chalk this up to incompetence?

Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

The Secret Service and DHS said they'd be transparent with the investigation...

Shortly after the attempted assassination, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the Secret Service, launched an investigation into the shooting and the security protocols in place at the rally. The DHS promised full transparency during the investigation, but House Republicans don't feel that they've been living up to that promise. Republican members of the House Oversight Committee are frustrated with Director Cheatle after she seemingly dodged a meeting scheduled for Tuesday. This has resulted in calls for Cheatle to step down from her position.

Two FBI agents investigate the assassin's rooftop Jeff Swensen / Stringer | Getty Images

Why is the Secret Service being so elusive? Are they just trying to cover their blunder? We seem to be left with two unsettling options: either the government is even more incompetent than we'd ever believed, or there is more going on here than they want us to know.

Cheatle steps down

Following a horrendous testimony to the House Oversight Committee Director Cheatle finally stepped down from her position ten days after the assassination attempt. Cheatle failed to give any meaningful answer to the barrage of questions she faced from the committee. These questions, coming from both Republicans and Democrats, were often regarding basic information that Cheatle should have had hours after the shooting, yet Cheatle struggled with each and every one. Glenn pointed out that Director Cheatle's resignation should not signal the end of the investigation, the American people deserve to know what happened.

What we DO and DON'T know about Thomas Matthew Crooks

Jim Vondruska / Stringer | Getty Images

It has been over a week since 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks narrowly failed to assassinate President Trump while the president gave a speech at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennslyvania. Despite the ongoing investigations, we still know very little about the would-be assassin, which has left many wondering if the agencies involved are limiting the information that Congress and the public are receiving.

As Glenn has pointed out, there are still major questions about the shooter that are unanswered, and the American people are left at the whim of unreliable federal agencies. Here is everything we know—and everything we don't know—about Thomas Matthew Crooks:

Who was he?

What we know:Thomas Crooks lived in Bethel Parks, Pennsylvania, approximately an hour south of Butler. Crooks went to high school in Bethel Parks, where he would graduate in 2022. Teachers and classmates described him as a loner and as nerdy, but generally nice, friendly, and intelligent. Crooks tried out for the school rifle team but was rejected due to his poor aim, and reports indicate that Crooks was often bullied for his nerdy demeanor and for wearing camo hunting gear to school.

After high school, Crooks began work at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center as a dietary aide. In fact, he was scheduled to work on the day of the rally but requested the day off. He passed a background check to work at the facility and was reportedly an unproblematic employee. Crooks was also a member of a local gun club where he practiced shooting the day before the rally.

It was recently revealed that sometime before his attempted assassination, Crooks posted the following message on Steam, a popular computer application used for playing video games: "July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds." Aside from this, Crooks posted no warning or manifesto regarding his attack, and little other relevant information is known about him.

What we don't know:It is unclear what Crook's political affiliations or views were, or if he was aligned with any extremist organizations. Crooks was a registered Republican, and his classmates recall him defending conservative ideas and viewpoints in class. On the other hand, the Federal Election Commission has revealed he donated to a progressive PAC on the day Biden was inaugurated. He also reportedly wore a COVID mask to school much longer than was required.

Clearly, we are missing the full picture. Why would a Republican attempt to assassinate the Republican presidential nominee? What is to gain? And why would he donate to a progressive organization as a conservative? This doesn't add up, and so far the federal agencies investigating the attack have yet to reveal anything more.

What were his goals?

What we know: Obviously we know he was trying to assassinate President Trump—and came very close to succeeding, but beyond that, Crooks' goals are unknown. He left no manifesto or any sort of written motive behind, or if he did, the authorities haven't published it yet. We have frustratingly little to go off of.

What we don't know: As stated before, we don't know anything about the movies behind Crooks' heinous actions. We are left with disjointed pieces that make it difficult to paint a cohesive picture of this man. There is also the matter that he left explosives, ammo, and a bulletproof vest in his car. Why? Did he assume he was going to make it back to his car? Or were those supplies meant for an accomplice that never showed up?

The shocking lack of information on Crooks' motives makes it seem likely that we are not being let on to the whole truth.

Did he work alone?

What we know: Reportedly, Crooks was the only gunman on the site, and as of now, no other suspects have been identified. The rifle used during the assassination attempt was purchased and registered by Crooks' father. However, it is unlikely that the father was involved as he reported both his son and rifle missing the night of the assassination attempt. Crooks' former classmates described him as a "loner," which seems to corroborate the narrative that he worked alone.

What we don't know: We know how Crooks acquired his rifle, but what about the rest of his equipment? He reportedly had nearly a hundred extra rounds of ammunition, a bulletproof vest, and several homemade bombs in his car. Could these have been meant for a co-conspirator who didn't show? Did Crooks acquire all of this equipment himself, or did he have help?

There's also the matter of the message Crooks left on the video game platform Steam that served as his only warning of the attack. Who was the message for? Are there people out there who were aware of the attack before it occurred? Why didn't they alert authorities?

We know authorities have access to Crooks' laptop and cellphone that probably contain the answers to these pertinent questions. Why haven't we heard any clarity from the authorities? It seems we are again at the mercy of the federal bureaucracy, which begs one more question: Will we ever know the whole truth?