When a brutal dictator asks for an interview, what do you do? For Glenn, it wasn't a completely clear-cut decision.
On his radio program Friday, Glenn announced an unnamed leader from the Middle East had expressed interest in meeting with him because he had "a few messages to send to America." At first, Glenn contemplated whether this could turn into an opportunity to save more Christians in the Middle East. He made his decision on Friday, but allowed his audience to guess who the mysterious person might be with a poll over the weekend.
Glenn shared the results on Monday. Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria, supposedly wanted to meet with Glenn to win some goodwill from America.
"That's different than going over and talking to them and having a meeting about, 'Can you help us with the Christians?'" Glenn said.
He concluded there was no way to win under those circumstances.
"I don't want to be the messenger of his message back to America when his partners are Iran and Russia," Glenn said.
Watch the clip or read the transcript below.
Below is a rush transcript of this segment. It might contain errors.
GLENN: All right. So we did a poll because Friday I mentioned that I had to -- I had to -- a decision to make over the weekend on if I was going to go to the Middle East and meet with a -- a leader of a country in the Middle East.
And I was really torn because when this first started to happen, somebody -- an American group reached out to this leader and said, "Hey, they're trying to help the Christians, and would you help?" And then, almost a year has past, eight months has past. And I didn't think that this -- any of those world leaders would meet with me. But then the situation got worse and worse and worse. And now this world leader has said, yes, I'll meet with you. And, in fact, I'd like to meet with you because I have some things to say to America.
And that's different than going over and talking to them and having a meeting about, "Can you help us with the Christians?" Instead, having an interview and I have a few messages to send to America. And so it was a little unsettling to me. And I didn't know what to do. And we talked about it on the air.
We did a poll on -- GlennBeck.com did a poll over the weekend: Which Middle Eastern leader wants to meet with Glenn? Benjamin Netanyahu, 38 percent. Bashar al-Assad, 22. 9 percent, al-Baghdadi. 19 percent, el-Sisi from Egypt. And Rouhani, 12 percent, from Iran.
Do you even know, Stu? Do you know?
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: Yes, it was Assad. And the more research I did on Assad, the more I'm like, "Yeah, I -- I -- and I went back and forth and thought, man, to be able to interview Hitler -- while he's not to the level of Hitler, he's pretty bad. And to be able to interview somebody like that -- my wife immediately said no. She's like, "You're not going."
STU: I mean, she's doing that as a -- she cares about your safety, right?
GLENN: Yeah, yeah.
STU: Obviously, we're all released from that care.
GLENN: Yeah, I know.
STU: But, no, from a perspective of having the interview with him, that's not why you cancelled it though. You cancelled it -- or didn't do it because --
GLENN: I didn't want to do it because I don't want -- his partners are Russia and Iran.
STU: Uh-huh.
GLENN: And I don't want to be the messenger of his message back to America, when his partners are Iran and Russia.
STU: Right. But, I mean, you obviously could challenge him on these things. You would not give him a softball interview by any means. It's not like you would say, "Well, what kind of treaty would you like?"
GLENN: Well, you're kind of in the -- you know, you're going to be seeing the things they want you to see. You're going to be talking about the things they want to talk about.
STU: Of course.
GLENN: You know what I mean?
STU: They're going to control --
GLENN: They're going to control your cameras, your media, and everything else, and they're going to control the trip.
STU: But, still, he doesn't control the interview when you're talking to this guy. Right? You'd be able to ask him --
GLENN: To some extent, I would imagine, yes.
STU: So you think they might try to restrict -- and there's no way you're going to do an interview if they're going to try to restrict your questions.
GLENN: No.
PAT: So do you think you would have wound up asking him, what has enchanted you the most?
GLENN: No, I don't think --
(chuckling)
GLENN: See, here -- and this is why -- I didn't want to --
JEFFY: How's your soul?
GLENN: You know, even if they wouldn't restrict, I wouldn't want to push too hard because we're trying to get Christians out of his country. So I'm going to ask for help. And then do an interview on top of it is not -- I mean, that's what they wanted. They happened an interview. I wanted to ask about the Christians. "Can you help us get the Christians out?"
PAT: Yeah.
STU: And you think that potentially -- the thought is, potentially he might do that to try to win some goodwill from America.
GLENN: Yes.
STU: And you don't care why he's doing. You just want the Christians out of there.
GLENN: I just want the Christians out of there. But if -- if we would have said, "And Assad helped us get the Christians out of there," that's one thing. But to go over with my cameras and sit down and do a half-hour with him because he's helping me get the Christians out of there and not push back -- I mean, you know, I would be stuck with this feeling of, if I push back too hard, do our Christians get out? You know what I mean?
STU: Right.
GLENN: If I'm like, "Hey, so you're a murder." Am I going to get -- is he going to be soft-hearted towards the Christians? I just didn't think there was any way to win.