‘I thought about rolling out of the car at a high speed’ Gretchen Carlson opens up to Glenn

June 24, 2015

WRITER

Fox News host Gretchen Carlson joined Glenn today to talk about her book Getting Real

, which details some horrific past sexual abuses she suffered while in the workplace. In one instance she was so afraid she actually thought about jumping out of the car, and she was also stalked by a deranged individual for four years. How did she overcome it all? Check out the interview from radio today.

I want to welcome to the program Gretchen Carlson, she is part of Fox News, and she has a new book out called Getting Real. And Gretchen has been -- you know, she was Miss America. She seems like this happy-go-lucky person that nothing bad ever happened -- a lot of bad crap has happened to her in her life, and nobody ever talks about it. And in a country where we're battling, you know, a War on Women, you would think that she wouldn't have anything to talk about because she was Miss America, et cetera,, et cetera, but she's been in one of the slimiest industries, I believe, in the world. And that is the news media.

And in this book that she has, she talks about being sexually assaulted in the news media by people she worked for. Welcome to the program, Gretchen. How are you?

GRETCHEN: It's so great to be back with you. Thank you so much for having me.

GLENN: You're welcome. So can you just -- can you take us there? Because I find this remarkable, that these things went on. And I think they still go on.

GRETCHEN: Well, I'm hoping that some things have changed because some of my incidents happened more than 20 years ago. But I decided, Glenn, in Getting Real, that if I was actually going to write an inspirational memoir about my accomplishments and achievements, I was also going to tell everything else along the way as well and be extremely candid. And some of these stories are extremely painful, and I've never told them ever before.

You're alluding to the sexual harassment that I faced when I was Miss America at my first job in Virginia. And they are harrowing stories.

You know my mom used to put me to bed every night. And after saying prayers, say, you can be anything you want to be in this world. You have to work hard. Persevere and get through the pitfalls. She never told me that I was going to have these experiences with men, and not that she would have ever wanted me to have to go through something like that or warn me about it. But it was eye-opening to me when I was Miss America and it happened twice with two high-level executives, and both happened to be in cars.

You know, the details are pretty grisly. People can read about it in the book. And then on my first job in Virginia, it happened with a photographer who I worked with. And, you know, have you ever seen in movies where people roll out of cars because they're trying to get away from somebody who might hurt them in the car? That's actually what I went through. I thought about rolling out of the car at a high speed because I was so scared. This was before cell phones. You know, this is before --

GLENN: What was he doing?

GRETCHEN: You know, he had put a microphone on my blouse, which, you know, is close to certain body parts. And then when we got back in the car, he just started fantasizing about all of that and asking me how much I enjoyed it. And it went from there. You know, again, it's grisly. And I was -- I was fearing for my life, literally. We were in the middle of nowhere in Virginia, and I didn't know where this was going to go.

You add to that, Glenn, that for the first time ever in Getting Real, I talk about the fact that I endured a life-threatening stalker for four years. And the only reason I felt comfortable in telling this story in the book is because, in researching the book, I found out he's no longer with us. And I really wanted to help other women who have either gone through a similar situation like that or domestic violence even. Something very similar where they feel helpless.

GLENN: What did you do? What do you do during those fours years? How did you handle that?

GRETCHEN: Yeah. You know, he also stalked my parents, which was horrendous, because they got involved in the whole mix.

So he stalked me in Virginia. Then I moved to Cincinnati to my next job in TV, and he moved there. And the problem is that the laws don't really help the victims, you know. It was like nobody cared until the stalking victim was dead. And then they might pay attention to it. And I was basically terrorized on a 24/7 basis because when somebody is trying to find you, you are constantly looking over your shoulder. I mean I almost never really got started on a television career because the worst place to be was on TV when somebody was trying to find you.

So I finally got help from a detective in Cincinnati. I got this guy to trial. And guess what happened? He was convicted, and he got probation. After four years of absolute terror. And then he violated the probation. So he got one year in jail. That's it. He left me alone after that.

And as I just mentioned, in writing the book, I found out that he's passed away, so I felt safe enough to be able to tell this story for the first time. But, you know, these are just a series of stories that I share in Getting Real. That, sometimes as you alluded to, people look at radio or TV personalities and they think, wow, they've never had any issues, and everything just came easily. And I talk about a lot of other failures along the way.

I was a fat kid. I struggled with my self-identity. The message of the book is to build self-esteem especially for our young people today.

GLENN: How did you deal with -- how did you deal with that in television? I mean, I know what it's like for a guy in television.

PAT: You know what it's like to be a fat kid and a fat man.

GLENN: Thank you, Pat. And I know when I was over at CNN, they had issues with my size. And I know what it's like being at Fox. Just the unstated pressure of, better stay in shape. Better stay young-looking. But how did you deal with that?

GRETCHEN: Yeah, I don't know if it's just at Fox. Let's face it, television is a cosmetic industry.

GLENN: Yeah, I don't mean at just Fox. I mean, Fox is known for beautiful women. So I'm saying it's unstated. But I know I do, Gretchen. Television is horrible. Pat said this to me the other day too. You look in the mirror now and you start to see -- I'm a guy. I never even looked in the mirror ever. And you look in the mirror, and you start to see lines in your face. And you're like, oh, man, this looks horrible. And you just immediately know that that camera will be relentless.

GRETCHEN: Right.

GLENN: How did you deal with all of that?

GRETCHEN: The thing is, since I battled this as a child, I had to learn how to build my self-esteem in a different way. And through my music, you know, as a concert artist on the violin as a child -- so, you know, I think those are really great life lessons for anyone to note. But also for me, it's kind of like after turning 40, I don't really care anymore what people say about me or how they perceive me. You know, all the emails that come in, a lot of them are about my physical appearance still. And I just want to be clear, I still struggle with my weight. The only reason that I keep it somewhat in control is because I know how to deal with it now.

GLENN: You exercise all the time.

GRETCHEN: Well, I try to exercise. It's not like I wake up in the morning and eat a couple of Big Macs and just happen to look halfway decent on television. You know, I really -- I do struggle with my weight still today. And people can be relentless. But the thing is -- look, if you or I read all the emails or the tweets or Facebook posts that people say about us, we wouldn't get up in the morning.

The message and the reason why I talk about this in the book as well is that I do worry about our younger generations with a lot of this hate that goes on and with social media and so much focus on the exterior of people. So one of my great lessons in the book is to go back to building the self-esteem and self-confidence from the inside of our soul. And for me, you know, faith has a tremendous amount to do with that. So another huge theme is how faith has been my foundation in my life.

GLENN: Give me one more update. Tell me about your parents. I know when the Obama administration or Bush actually started it, he took over the General Motors. Then Obama came in and all of a sudden, all these Republicans lost their dealerships. Your family had owned a dealership forever.

GRETCHEN: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And lost the dealership because they were Republicans. Whatever happened to that?

GRETCHEN: Well, we never were able to prove exactly why they lost the dealership.

GLENN: Yes.

GRETCHEN: Thank you for having me on the show to talk about that extensively. Thank you for caring.

You know, my mom she said over my dead body is this thing going to go away. It's been in our family for over 100 years. And she fought back, Glenn. She became friends with every politician. She lobbied on Capitol Hill. And guess what, she got the dealership back.

GLENN: Holy cow.

PAT: Wow.

GRETCHEN: My mom is 74 years old, and she now runs the dealership. So I have an amazing role model, but we just built a whole new building. And they are coming back like wildfire. But it's a testament to another great lesson in my book about perseverance. Right?

I mean, I learned it from my parents and my grandfather who was a minister, who grew the church from 800 to 8,500 members. Hard work and perseverance, with some pitfalls along the way, build character in people. And my parents are shining examples of that.

GLENN: Name of the book is Getting Real. Gretchen Carlson is the author. And it's good to have you.

Trump exposes Left’s habeas corpus hijack in border crisis

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Democrats accused the president of declaring war on civil rights. In reality, he’s defending habeas corpus while they drown it in delays and legal loopholes.

Tuesday’s congressional testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem turned heads for all the wrong reasons. Pressed to define “habeas corpus,” she stumbled. And while I respect Noem, this moment revealed just how dangerously misunderstood one of our most vital legal protections has become — especially as it’s weaponized in the immigration debate.

Habeas corpus is not a loophole. It’s a shield. It’s the constitutional protection that prevents a government from detaining a person — any person — without first justifying the detention before a neutral judge. It doesn’t guarantee freedom. It demands due process. Prove it or release them.

Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

And yet, this doctrine — so essential to our liberty — is now being twisted by the political left into something it was never meant to be: a free pass for illegal immigration.

The left wants to frame this as a matter of compassion and rights. Leftists ask: “What about habeas corpus for migrants?” The implication is clear: They see any attempt to enforce immigration law as an attack on civil liberties.

But that’s a lie. Habeas corpus is not an excuse for indefinite presence. It doesn’t guarantee that every person who crosses the border gets to stay. It simply requires that we follow a process — a just process.

And that’s exactly what President Donald Trump has proposed.

Habeas corpus, rightly understood

Habeas corpus is the front door to the courtroom. It simply requires the government to justify why someone is being held or detained. It’s not about citizenship. It’s about human dignity.

America’s founders knew this — and that’s why they extended the right to persons, not just citizens. Habeas corpus isn’t a pass to stay in America forever — it’s a demand for legal clarity: “Why are you holding me?” That’s it.

If the government has a lawful reason — such as illegal entry — then deportation is a legitimate outcome. And yet, the left treats any enforcement of immigration law as a betrayal of American ideals.

The danger today isn’t that habeas corpus is being ignored; it’s that it’s being hijacked. The system is being overwhelmed with bad-faith cases, endless appeals, and delays that stretch for years. Right now, the immigration courts are buried under 3.3 million pending cases. The average wait time to have your case heard is four years. In some places, people are being scheduled for court dates as far out in 2032. Where is the justice in that?

This is not compassion. This is national sabotage.

Weaponizing due process

The left uses this legal bottleneck as a weapon, not a shield. Democrats invoke due process as if it requires the government to play a never-ending shell game with public safety. But that’s not what due process means. Due process means the state must play by the rules. It means a judge hears a case. It means the law is applied justly and equally. It does not mean an open border by procedural default.

So no, Trump is not proposing the end of habeas corpus. He’s calling out a broken system and saying, out loud, what millions of Americans already know: If we don’t fix this, we don’t have a country.

This crisis wasn’t an accident — it was engineered. It’s a Cloward-Piven playbook, designed to overwhelm the system. Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

Abandon the Constitution?

Remember, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But how do we balance the Constitution and our national survival without descending into authoritarianism? Abandon the Constitution? No. Burn the house down to get rid of the rats? Absolutely not. The Constitution itself gives us the tools to take on this crisis head on.

The federal government has clear authority over immigration. Illegal presence in the United States is not a protected right. Congress has the power to deny entry, enforce expedited removals, and reject bogus asylum claims. Much of this is already authorized by law — it’s simply not being used.

President Trump’s idea is simple: Use the tools we already have. Declare the southern border a national security emergency. Establish temporary military tribunals for triage. Process asylum claims swiftly outside the clogged court system. Restore “Remain in Mexico” so that the border is no longer a remote court room. Appoint more immigration judges, assign them to high-volume areas, and hold streamlined hearings that still respect due process.

That’s not authoritarian. That’s leadership.

The path forward

Trump is not trying to destroy habeas corpus. He’s trying to save it from being twisted into a self-destructive parody of itself. Leftists have turned due process into delay, justice into gridlock, and they’re dragging the entire country into their chaos.

It’s time to draw the line. Protect habeas corpus. Use it lawfully. Use it wisely. And yes — use it to restore order at the border. Because if we lose that firewall, we lose the republic.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Betrayal of trust: Medicare insurers face lawsuit over kickback scheme

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Editor's note: This article is sponsored by Chapter.

The U.S. government has filed a major lawsuit under the False Claims Act, targeting some of the biggest names in health insurance—Aetna, Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), and Humana—along with top insurance brokers eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote. The allegation? From 2016 to at least 2021, these companies funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to brokers to steer seniors into their Medicare Advantage plans.

If the allegations are true, it means many Americans may have been steered into Medicare Advantage plans that weren’t necessarily the best fit for their needs—not because the plans were better, but because brokers were incentivized by illegal kickbacks.

The Kickback Conspiracy

Navigating Medicare Advantage’s maze of plan options is daunting, so beneficiaries rely on brokers like eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote, who claim to be unbiased guides. But from 2016 to 2021, insurers Aetna, Humana, and Elevance Health allegedly paid brokers millions in kickbacks to favor their plans, regardless of quality. Disguised as “co-op” or “marketing” deals, these payments were tied to enrollment targets. Internal emails revealed executives knew this violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, with one eHealth leader joking that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would miss a $15 million Humana deal for minimal enrollments. Brokers used call routing to prioritize high-paying insurers, betraying beneficiaries’ trust.

Discrimination Against the Vulnerable

The scheme wasn’t just about profits—it targeted vulnerable beneficiaries. Medicare Advantage must accept all eligible enrollees, including disabled people under 65. Yet Aetna and Humana allegedly pressured brokers to limit their enrollment, as these beneficiaries were deemed to be less profitable. Brokers complied, rejecting referrals and filtering calls to favor healthier enrollees, incentivized by bonuses. This violated federal anti-discrimination laws and CMS contracts, undermining the founding principles of Medicare by discriminating against the very people it was created to aid.

False Claims and the Pursuit of Justice

The schemes led to false claims to CMS, with insurers certifying enrollments as “valid” despite kickbacks and discrimination. The government paid billions, unaware of the fraud. Examples include Humana’s $12,477 for a 2016 enrollment and Aetna’s $79,047 for a 2020 case. On May 1, 2025, the U.S. filed suit, seeking treble damages and penalties under the False Claims Act. Aetna and others deny the allegations, per May 2025 reports, promising a fierce defense. The case, demanding a jury trial, seeks justice for beneficiaries and taxpayers.

POLL: Does Brooklyn crash expose a cyber sabotage plot?

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A Mexican Navy ship crashing into the Brooklyn Bridge has left the nation stunned, and Glenn is demanding answers.

Are recent devastating ship collisions—first Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in 2024, now Brooklyn in 2025—really just accidents, or is something far more sinister at play? Glenn recently warned that these incidents, both involving foreign vessels losing power near critical U.S. infrastructure, could be “shark bumps” by foreign adversaries testing our defenses through cyber sabotage. With the government and media quick to dismiss concerns, Glenn is calling for urgent investigations into possible hacking, independent audits of our ports and bridges, and a serious look at whether our enemies are exploiting vulnerabilities in our digitized systems.

Glenn wants to know what you think: Are these crashes coincidental, or are we under attack? Let us know in the poll below:

Could the recent ship crashes into American bridges be the result of cyber attacks by foreign adversaries?

Should the US government investigate these incidents for possible foreign interference?

Is our critical infrastructure adequately protected from cyber threats?

Are you concerned that foreign adversaries might be targeting US infrastructure through cyber means?

Do you think the media and government are properly addressing the security concerns raised by these incidents?

Glenn: Tapper reveals Dems’ Biden health fraud

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Top Democrats knew Biden’s health was deteriorating but covered it up to keep power. Jake Tapper’s book finally lifts the lid on their deception.

Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s new book confirms what we suspected all along: Joe Biden’s health was rapidly declining, and the Democratic Party establishment knew it. Rather than be honest with the American people, they chose to cover it up, to prop up Biden just long enough to survive the election cycle. And the media helped them do it.

For years, any mention of Biden’s cognitive decline was framed as a “right-wing smear,” a baseless conspiracy theory. But now, Tapper and Thompson reveal that Biden’s top aides privately discussed the need for a wheelchair after the election — because the man can hardly walk.

We had no functioning president for much of the past administration.

And while Biden’s closest aides were planning that, they and their allies in the press were publicly spinning the fantasy that Joe Biden’s halting gait was due to a heroic foot fracture from a dog-related incident four years ago. They said his frailty was due to his “vigor.” That’s not a joke. That’s a quote.

And while they said this, they were having special shoes made for him with custom-made soles to help him stand. They weren’t planning for a second term. They were planning how to prop him up — literally — just long enough to survive the election. That is a cover-up.

It doesn’t bother me that Biden might need a wheelchair. What bothers me — what should bother every American — is that his aides talked about hiding it until after the election.

Biden wasn’t leading

Needing a wheelchair in your 80s is not a moral failing. It’s human. I own President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wheelchair — it sits in my museum. That chair represents the strength and resilience of a man who, despite paralysis, led this nation through World War II against a dictator who was gassing the disabled and infirm. He hid his disability out of fear the public wouldn’t accept a leader who couldn’t walk. But he led.

Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images

But Joe Biden wasn’t leading. He was a puppet played by faceless swamp creatures whose only concern was maintaining their iron grip on power.

Whatever you think of Tapper, the book reveals the chilling reality that we had no functioning president for much of Biden’s administration. Our commander-in-chief wasn’t just aging — he was declining. And the people around him — government employees, funded by your tax dollars — weren’t honest with you. They lied to you repeatedly and willfully because the truth would have guaranteed a second Trump term. That’s what this was all about.

Who signed the pardons?

Consider the implications of this revelation. We had a president signing documents he didn’t read — or even know about. We had an autopen affixing his name to executive actions. Who operated that autopen? Who decided what got signed or who got pardoned? Who was in charge while the president didn’t even know what he was doing?

Those are not minor questions. That is the stuff of a constitutional crisis.

The problem isn’t Biden’s age. The problem is that the people you elected didn’t run the country. You were governed by unelected aides covering up your elected president’s rapid cognitive decline. You were fed a lie — over and over again. And if anyone tried to blow the whistle, they got buried.

Don’t get distracted by the wheelchair. The chair itself is not the scandal. The scandal is that people inside your government didn’t want you to know about it.

They made a bet: Lie until November, and deal with the fallout later. That is an insult to the American people — and a threat to the republic itself. Because if your government can lie about who’s running the country, what else are they lying about?

We need further investigation and to hold these crooks accountable. If we don’t, it will happen over and over again.