GOP 2016: How remarkable would a Rubio - Fiorina ticket be?

September 21, 2015

WRITER

Glenn went over the most recent poll numbers following the second GOP debate on radio Monday. The results showed Carly Fiorina rocketing to the top along with Marco Rubio, while both Donald Trump and Ben Carson went down following their previous surges.

"I can very easily see a Rubio-Fiorina ticket. Or Fiorina-Rubio ticket," Glenn said.

Listen to how the rest of the candidates performed and get Glenn's reaction below.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

Want to give you the latest poll results in New Hampshire. Looks like Carly Fiorina is starting to rocket to the top.

PAT: Cool.

GLENN: Also, Marco Rubio is rocketing to the top and made some big gains.

STU: Trump and Carson both fell in this most recent poll. This one was from CNN. The first one post-debate.

PAT: Carly Fiorina went up 12 points. She went from three to 15.

STU: That's impressive.

GLENN: She's coming to the studio soon. I'm really anxious to sit down. I want to really sit down and really get to know her.

PAT: Because we keep hearing the same thing. We keep hearing what a big government progressive she is. We've been looking into it.

GLENN: Yeah, I'm going to talk to her about it. I'm going to ask her all the hard questions and everything else. But I --

PAT: She took --

GLENN: She denies it hard. She denies it hard.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: So I'm really anxious to go over this with her. I like her. I like Marco Rubio. I like Ben Carson. My guy is still Ted Cruz.

STU: Rand Paul. Bobby Jindal.

GLENN: Bobby Jindal.

PAT: Jindal has been --

GLENN: Probably Bobby Jindal is the biggest tragedy after all of this. Because he's at, what, 1 percent? Bobby Jindal is remarkable. Really, truly remarkable.

PAT: He's a clear-cut conservative.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

PAT: I haven't heard anybody allege that any of his policies are less than conservative. And he always has been.

GLENN: Got a great American success story.

PAT: He can articulate points extremely well, with the one exception of the speech, what, seven years ago.

GLENN: Stop it.

PAT: I know. But somebody will say, "What about the speech?" Well, okay, we've covered that a million times.

GLENN: No, that's you.

PAT: And Jeffy. And Jeffy is about to say it, "What about the speech?"

GLENN: Come on.

PAT: He's brilliant.

STU: We should come back to Bobby Jindal because he just had a great comment on this whole controversy. But one other thing we should point out, five candidates in the CNN poll received less than one half of one percentage point. Jim Gilmore. You know him as Jim Gilcrestmorelandson. Lindsey Graham.

PAT: Yep.

STU: Bobby Jindal, which is ridiculous.

GLENN: Doesn't make sense.

PAT: It's absolutely tragic.

STU: George Pataki and Scott Walker.

PAT: Oh, my gosh!

GLENN: That's unbelievable. Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker -- I don't know what happened to Scott Walker.

PAT: Scott Walker was leading the field a short time ago.

STU: Yeah. And now he's at less --

GLENN: That's why you just don't get upset -- let me take a dose of my own medicine. Why you just don't get upset at the frontrunner because it ain't going to last.

STU: Who was the frontrunner one year ago today? One year --

GLENN: Scott Walker?

PAT: Do you know?

STU: I do know.

GLENN: Give me the candidates again. I'll remember if you give me the candidates. Give me all the candidates.

PAT: One year ago today. I'm going to say Rand Paul.

GLENN: No.

JEFFY: Rick Perry.

GLENN: No.

STU: No on all those counts.

PAT: Stu Bergstein.

GLENN: Gilcrestmoreson.

STU: It was Jim Gilcrest.

GLENN: Who was it?

STU: It was Chris Christie.

GLENN: Oh, I would not have guessed it.

STU: Chris Christie led the field a year ago today.

PAT: Wow.

STU: That's not that long ago.

PAT: Wow.

STU: He's completely disappeared since.

GLENN: And, you know what, I think he could actually come back.

STU: I think so too.

GLENN: This is a horse race that is just -- just in the first turn.

STU: And you have one debate. Again, now Carly Fiorina did well in two debates. But most people didn't see the first one. So essentially one debate performance from Carly Fiorina has her all the way to second place or third place, while Scott Walker who has had two, I would say, middling performances. He hasn't been horrible. He hasn't made awful mistakes. He's been okay. He hasn't been electric. But he's been fine. And he's gone from one of the leaders to nothing.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: And Trump has fallen off eight points from his last CNN poll. And now with -- if you do first and second choices, which is an interesting way to look at this. So you have your main candidate. And who would be my second choice?

GLENN: To win, you must be everybody's second choice.

STU: Yeah. That's kind of a good way of looking at it, I think. And right now, Trump is -- no longer leads that for the first time in quite a while.

GLENN: First and second?

STU: First and second choice combined, Carson is first. Trump is second. But only just a hair ahead of both Fiorina and Rubio in that poll. So he's fallen -- you know, Fiorina leads in another new poll in New Hampshire. First time that's happened.

GLENN: I can very easily see a Rubio/Fiorina ticket. Or Fiorina/Rubio ticket.

STU: Right.

GLENN: And what a remarkable ticket that would be. I mean, just based on the way the left plays.

PAT: Identity politics.

GLENN: Identity politics. Oh, my gosh, that just smashes the last one completely.

STU: Yeah, it's two really smart people. A female and a Hispanic. Both very well-spoken. One of which they will attack for her wealth and for her evil CEO-ness. But the other one they've attacked for being too poor. They've already attacked Rubio for owing money on his college loans. They've already gone down the exact opposite road. Whether they can reverse that with Rubio I don't know.

GLENN: The president owed money on his -- that was a big campaign thing. I'm just like you.

STU: I know. Yeah, the idea that he bought a 10,000-dollar boat after getting his first bit of money in his entire life is something that's apparently controversial.

GLENN: You won't believe -- even in this audience -- Raphe and I went to the Mecum Auto Auction this weekend. It was here in Dallas. And we didn't even pay for the seats to actually go sit with people. We stood way in the back. And we just looked at the cars. And we watched them push them into the auction. Then we stood there for a while, and we were like, look at that car is going for $30,000. I had a car like that, I should have saved it. You know, it cost $5,000 at the time. And we just went to it. I posted some stuff. And I posted just dream cars. I'm like, "Oh, man, would this not be a dream car." Blah, blah. You know, $110,000 dream car. I'm not buying it or anything else. Oh, my gosh. You wouldn't believe the people on Facebook that are like, "Oh, you are so sick. You and your wealth and everything." I'm like, "What are you talking about?"

PAT: Oh, man.

GLENN: Since when can you not even go to a car show and go, "Wow, wouldn't you like to drive that for a while?"

JEFFY: You can't dream of being rich. You can dream of being middle class.

STU: Aspire to it, Jeffy.

GLENN: In this society, you cannot even dream about being rich.

STU: Yet the same people praise wealth when it comes from the Kardashians or any other dozen sources.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: From pop icons they like from rappers that they like. Some of these people are the most capitalist people you can imagine.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: But at the same time --

GLENN: And grotesquely capitalist.

STU: Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say that you have a frontrunner who is Donald Trump that you can criticize anybody else for being grotesque when it comes to wealth. But still.

PAT: Some of these guys have gold teeth that are worth $50,000. Come on.

GLENN: Hang on just a second. Even with Donald Trump's grotesque display of wealth.

STU: I have no problem with it.

GLENN: I have no problem with it. When I say grotesque, I just mean because everything is gold and looks like it came out of Rome. I'm not a fan of his style, but I don't care about his wealth. Why should we care about anybody's wealth?

STU: And that's part of Trump's charm, I think. Is that he's one of the only people ever who doesn't apologize for it. Even Mitt Romney was somewhat apologetic about it.

PAT: He brags about it non-stop.

STU: Yeah, he does, which is kind of the other way.

GLENN: But you don't see rappers do that. You don't see anybody asking rappers to do that.

STU: To stop bragging about their wealth.

PAT: No.

GLENN: Beyonce or anybody else talk -- they don't care. They don't care. And it's accepted.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And which would you rather have the wealth -- if you're on the grand scheme of things, which would you rather have the wealth earned by, a guy on TV like me who makes his money because of commercials and everything else because of my opinion or a guy who is building buildings? I don't have a problem with either, quite frankly. Because I'm on the losing end of that stick.

(laughter)

But I don't have a problem with either one of them. But why should we look at somebody's wealth who has actually built something. We just don't aspire to anything to anymore.

Featured Image Republican presidential candidates (L-R) Rick Santorum, George Pataki, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Huckabee, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) , U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ben Carson, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Carly Fiorina, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stand onstage during the presidential debates at the Reagan Library on September 16, 2015 in Simi Valley, California. Fifteen Republican presidential candidates are participating in the second set of Republican presidential debates. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)

Glenn: Pay attention to what the State Department's RADICAL reset is signaling

John McDonnell / Stringer | Getty Images

For years, the U.S. State Department operated on inertia—an institution locked into a cycle of caution, consensus, and risk aversion.

Speeches were careful, strategies were diluted by committees, and action was often defined by what couldn’t be done. The language was always the same: "nuance," "complexity," "stakeholders." Rarely was it about results.

That has changed.

What’s come out of the State Department in the last hundred days is a complete departure—not just in tone, but in structure.

Under Secretary Rubio, the department isn’t just adjusting tactics. It’s undergoing a philosophical reset.

The most telling shift is this: the department is no longer preoccupied with managing decline or defending abstractions. It’s operating from the premise that U.S. foreign policy must serve actual national interests, not vague global norms or ideological missions.

Look at the key decisions. The Global Engagement Center—an office that claimed to combat disinformation but increasingly acted as an internal censorship tool—is gone. Not repurposed. Not renamed. Eliminated. Aid programs that masked themselves as diplomacy while undermining core U.S. positions have been cut. Contracts to NGOs with open hostility toward U.S. policy goals? Revoked.

This isn’t cosmetic. It’s structural.

The department’s reorganization is consolidating power downward—removing bureaucratic silos, emphasizing merit over ideology, and restoring clarity to diplomatic goals. This isn’t about optics. It’s about removing friction between strategy and implementation. On immigration and border enforcement, there’s now a foreign policy posture that treats visa privileges as exactly that—privileges, not entitlements. Visa holders who break laws or support terrorist groups lose their status. Period. No press conference required. Just enforcement.

Regional partnerships are now framed by expectations, not entanglements.

Countries that allow mass illegal migration into the U.S. are being held accountable. Agreements are being structured around reciprocity. When those agreements are ignored, consequences follow. China’s influence in the Western Hemisphere, long treated as inevitable, has been directly challenged. Beijing’s role in Panama, particularly regarding the canal, has been dismantled through diplomacy backed by leverage, not lectures. That wasn’t done through press statements—it required statecraft, pressure, and the willingness to say no.

In Europe, there’s been a reframing of NATO obligations. Not as symbolic unity, but as measurable responsibility. The benchmark is no longer two percent. The conversation is now five. That changes the nature of the alliance. In Africa, the posture is shifting from dependency to commercial engagement. Trade, not aid. Access, not assistance. Diplomacy with terms, not with guilt.

The contrast is stark.

This isn’t a matter of tone or branding. This is a systemic shift away from a model that rewarded process over outcomes, toward one that is rediscovering the purpose of diplomacy: to secure advantage, resolve conflict, and protect national interests.

This recalibration will not be popular in foreign capitals used to ambiguity, or in institutions comfortable with drift. It’s also not universally admirable. It’s direct. It’s unambiguous. And it signals something rare in modern American foreign policy: conviction.

That alone is worth paying attention to.

Glenn: Why Memorial Day is not just another holiday

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

They wore the uniform so you could live free. This holiday, ask yourself if you're living in a way that honors that sacrifice — or cheapens it.

Your son has been a Marine for what feels like an eternity. Only those who have watched their children deploy into war zones can truly understand why time seems to freeze in worry. What begins as concern turns to panic, then helplessness. You live suspended in a silent winter, where days blur and dread becomes your constant companion.

Then, in an instant, it happens. What you don’t know yet is that your child — your most precious gift — fell in combat 60 seconds ago.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives.

While you go about your day, unaware, military protocol kicks into motion. Notification must happen within eight hours. Officers are dispatched. A chaplain joins them. A medic may accompany them in case the grief is too much to bear.

Three figures arrive at your door. One asks your name. Then, by protocol, they ask to enter your home. You already know what’s coming. You sit down. He looks you in the eye and says:

The commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your son John was killed in action on Friday, March 28. The commandant and the United States Marine Corps extend their deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.

This moment has played out thousands of times across American soil. In 2003 alone — just two years after 9/11 — 312 families endured it. In 2007, 847 American service members died in combat. In 2008, 352. In 2009, 346. The list goes on. And with every name, a family became a Gold Star family.

Honor the fallen

For most Americans, Memorial Day means backyard barbecues, family gatherings, maybe a trip to the lake or a sweet Airbnb. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying these things. But we must never forget why we can.

Ask any veteran who lived when others did not, and you’ll understand: Memorial Day is not just another holiday. It is a solemn day set apart for reverence.

So this weekend, reach out to a Gold Star family. Acknowledge their pain. Ask about their son or daughter. Let them know they’re not alone.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives — not for accolades but for love of country and the preservation of liberty. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

They died for the Constitution, for our shared American ideals, and the worst thing we could do now would be to betray those ideals in a spirit of rage or division.

We cannot dishonor their sacrifice by abandoning the very principles they died to protect — equal justice, the rule of law, the enduring promise of liberty.

This Memorial Day, let us remember the fallen. Let us honor their families. Let us recommit ourselves to the cause they gave everything for: the American way of life.

They are the best of us.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump exposes Left’s habeas corpus hijack in border crisis

Chicago Tribune / Contributor | Getty Images

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

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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.

Glenn's Show Prep

GOP 2016: How remarkable would a Rubio - Fiorina ticket be?

Glenn: Pay attention to what the State Department's RADICAL reset is signaling

For years, the U.S. State Department operated on inertia—an institution locked into a cycle of caution, consensus, and risk aversion.

Under Secretary Rubio, the department isn’t just adjusting tactics. It’s undergoing a philosophical reset.

Regional partnerships are now framed by expectations, not entanglements.

The contrast is stark.

Glenn: Why Memorial Day is not just another holiday

They wore the uniform so you could live free. This holiday, ask yourself if you're living in a way that honors that sacrifice — or cheapens it.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives.

Honor the fallen

Trump exposes Left’s habeas corpus hijack in border crisis

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.

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

Habeas corpus, rightly understood

Weaponizing due process

Abandon the Constitution?

The path forward

Betrayal of trust: Medicare insurers face lawsuit over kickback scheme

The Kickback Conspiracy

Discrimination Against the Vulnerable

False Claims and the Pursuit of Justice

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