Glenn Beck Never Thought He'd Say THIS About Film Director Oliver Stone

Legendary movie director Oliver Stone, director of the new movie Snowden, joined The Glenn Beck Program for a fascinating discussion about national security and cyber warfare.

"Hello, America. And welcome to Friday," Glenn greeted his radio listeners. "Well, I never thought I would be saying these words (and I have no idea how the next 20 minutes will end up), but here we go: Oliver Stone joins us on the program, beginning right now."

Read below or listen to the full segment for answers to these mind-boggling questions:

• Does Oliver Stone think Glenn's name is Jeff?

• Was Glenn rude to Oliver Stone?

• Does Snowden deserve prison or a parade?

• On what topic does Stone accuse Glenn of jumping to conclusions?

• Why did Snowden go to Russia and stay there?

• What's the one thing Glenn respects about Oliver Stone?

• How closely does the movie follow the actual story?

• Is the central CIA figure portrayed as a father figure or creepy, spooky guy?

• Do we need a cyber treaty with the rest of the world?

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

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

GLENN: Welcome to the program, Mr. Oliver Stone. How are you, sir?

OLIVER: I'm fine. Is this Jeff?

GLENN: This is Glenn.

OLIVER: Oh, Glenn. I'm sorry. I talk to too many people at once.

GLENN: That's okay. That's all right. You can call me Jeff. I'll call you Bill. How are you?

OLIVER: No, Oliver is fine. I'm fine. I'm good. And I'm in New York.

GLENN: Okay. All right. Okay.

So, Oliver, do you -- because this is a really dicey thing because I think there's a billion things we really strongly disagree with you on.

OLIVER: Uh-huh, sure.

GLENN: And, you know, I watched -- I saw Snowden.

OLIVER: Yes.

GLENN: And I will tell you that I -- I wanted to believe his side, but you made the movie. And so -- you know, I don't know -- you do -- and one thing I do respect you on is you at least say what your agenda is. So how is somebody like me or somebody in my audience supposed to take Snowden knowing you have a very strong opinion on America and --

OLIVER: Well, Jeff, I -- I'm sorry. Glenn, I'm sorry.

GLENN: Right. Right. Okay. I got it.

OLIVER: Beyond embarrassing.

But, listen, I have a strong agenda as a citizen, but when I do my work, I take it very seriously, as you do. And I'm a dramatist. I am a dramatist above all. I tell the story.

This is a story that speaks for itself. I spoke to him many times, but I also spoke to other people. And we got as realistic a story as we could out of it. And maybe new things had come out. But this is -- is as authentic as you can get it. Because not many people have written about the NSA or the CIA from the inside.

GLENN: Right. Well, as you know, I mean, we have gone up with whistle-blowers and gone up against this government with whistle-blowers.

OLIVER: Yeah, I admire that.

GLENN: Well, thank you.

And it is not an easy thing. And we have been very torn on Snowden. I think personally if he hadn't have gone to Russia, he would be viewed as a hero. But because he went to Russia, it puts it into question. And his relationship with Julian Assange, who is also getting, you know, Russian Secret Police, you know, protection.

OLIVER: Well, yeah, you're jumping to conclusions there.

Keep in mind that Snowden went to Russia on his way for asylum in Ecuador via Cuba. He had to get there, and the airspace allowed him to do that. He did not stay in Russia out of his own volition. His passport was cancelled by the State Department in mid-air, which is rare. And happens that they wanted him perhaps to be stuck in Russia. I don't know.

But, anyway, he's there. And they have given him asylum, and they're one of the few countries in the world that could actually protect him.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Edward Snowden in the new movie 'Snowden,' directed by Oliver Stone. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Edward Snowden in the new movie 'Snowden,' directed by Oliver Stone.

GLENN: That is true. How do you feel about Russia and Putin?

OLIVER: That's another. You're -- that's next year's movie. Let's -- let's not go there.

GLENN: No, because honestly, Oliver, we are probably one of the shows -- I don't know how many people have done this -- I know one show lately -- one show was for him to be in prison, and now that he's against -- or now that he's for taking out Hillary Clinton, "Oh, let's give him a parade." We still don't know.

We tend to feel that he is a patriot. However, there is that -- that Russia connection that makes it --

OLIVER: Yeah, I could understand your concern. But, look, there are two central truths here. One is that our government deployed and developed the most massive surveillance system global that we've seen in history.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Yes.

OLIVER: The second truth is that there was a person that revealed it. A person who has tremendous patriotism and conviction that we were breaking the Constitution by doing this.

GLENN: Yes.

OLIVER: So that was what -- those are the facts of that movie, as it stands. The Russia element is a distraction used by Democrats, Republicans. You know, you can be a Libertarian and still support Snowden in this matter.

GLENN: I am a Libertarian.

OLIVER: Oh, good.

PAT: How closely did you stick to the actual story? Did you take a lot of liberties for dramatization?

OLIVER: Oh, we had to. I mean, it is a nine-year -- it's about nine years in his life. And we see you can't do that as perhaps a documentary, but we're asking for a large audience. And we made a dramatic thriller. That was always my fear, that this thing was going to get too technically heavy. Because it is complicated.

GLENN: Yeah.

OLIVER: We threw out about 50 percent of our research but kept this film as simple as possible, but put the tension in. Don't alter the truth. And stick to it. Stick to what -- the propulsion of the story carries itself. You don't have to invent anything.

GLENN: But here is where the Oliver Stone moviemaking comes in: Did you have to make the guys from the CIA like the spookiest guys ever?

OLIVER: Well, they weren't. I disagree. I think the fellow who plays the senior NSA and CIA official -- he's played by Rhys Ifans -- is actually a father figure because he nurtured his career. And, you know, he does say things --

GLENN: Well, you know, a really creepy father, yes.

OLIVER: Well, that's what you think, but, you know, he has his views. And he talks about the mission that they have to protect the world.

GLENN: Yeah.

OLIVER: He talks about, you know, global intelligence. He talks about the need for it. He talks about America's position in the world. At one point, he even criticizes the Iraq War as a waste of energy and time. And he says, "You don't have to be a patriot to disagree with your politicians."

GLENN: So how can you -- I'm trying to -- I mean, this is just such a complex thing because your involvement.

OLIVER: Well, you keep putting it back on me.

GLENN: Well, because you made the movie. And so you are a very good filmmaker. And so, you know, films are very, very effective. And what interests me here is that here we are supposedly on the same side of saying, "Hey, the government cannot do these things, the Constitution."

OLIVER: Yeah.

GLENN: And yet, you are a guy that will hang on with some of the worst dictators around.

OLIVER: Well, here we're talked about the American system. And that system was deeply violated by the NSA. I think you'll admit that.

GLENN: Yes, I do.

PAT: Definitely.

OLIVER: And we're trying to come to terms with it, but we don't a lot. So we have to start somewhere by talking about these issues, by bringing some awareness to the American people who are left in the dark. They haven't trusted us with that information.

GLENN: Are you surprised -- and in talking to him, how surprised is he that America didn't go crazy when they found out the truth?

OLIVER: On the contrary -- before he said my greatest fear was that it would drift into indifference. And that's how tyranny -- tyranny will happen. Because the steps will be taken away from us. The freedoms will be taken away from us. The civil liberties. And one day we'll simply be a passive Orwellian population. And there will be a new guy coming along, or woman, who may be completely different and play a harder ball game, if he or she faces pressure.

GLENN: Are you concerned about the man or the woman that are currently --

OLIVER: Absolutely. Everyone should be.

You know, we're living in a world of great privilege in this country. We have tremendous -- consumerism is a religion. But this can all be -- how do you say it? Destroyed, by this overreaching that we're doing in the NSA, as well as we're listening on everybody.

And we're -- the whole other element you haven't discussed yet what Snowden revealed was about cyber warfare. Cyber warfare is extremely dangerous. It was us that presented the program, that used it first on an offensive capability in 2007 in Iran.

And since then, it's gotten out of control. Snowden described it as a surveillance free-for-all. Nobody knows who is doing what because it takes months and months to unwind these things and find out. So crazy accusations go out there.

GLENN: Well, I will tell you, we're very concerned. And it doesn't seem like very many people are, that we are in a cyber war right now.

OLIVER: Yes.

GLENN: That's what's happening. World War III, I believe, is already happening. It's just happening with digits at this point.

OLIVER: There's some truth to what you say. But it's not necessarily a war with Russia. It's a war with all hackers in every country. If you remember, cyber warfare -- remember when the atomic bomb got dropped in '45, Truman told Oppenheimer back then, you know, "This is -- we're going to keep this a secret." And Oppenheimer scoffed at him. He said, "You can't keep this a secret."

Same with cyber warfare. We started a new form of warfare. We're very good at it. We've spent a huge fortune on it. And we need is a treaty, to cut to the quick here, a cyber treaty with the rest of the world. Very important.

GLENN: The one scene where he first sees the Arabic woman coming in and undressing and he's very uncomfortable. One of the guys from the CIA or NSA comes in --

OLIVER: Yeah, yeah, NSA.

GLENN: And hacks into her phone or her iPad.

OLIVER: Right.

GLENN: And he's just watching her undress and he's very uncomfortable.

OLIVER: Right.

GLENN: I don't think people really understand as they put their iPhone next to their bed as they charge it at night and they're doing what they do at night in bed. Nobody understands that.

OLIVER: No. The program was described as Optic Nerve, which it was. That was a British program. You know, the NSA has more than 150 programs. The depth of this stuff is even beyond that. We showed that as even an obvious example. Snowden is a bit of a prude, and certainly he didn't want to go there. But they have pornographic abilities to use to discredit their enemies.

Now, they used it on the Muslim population in the United States. They passed the raw intelligence -- this is outrageous, and it pissed off Snowden. They passed the raw intelligence that they were getting while he was in Hawaii to the Israeli Mossad. So imagine, you know, what they can do with that, with all the Arab relatives of the people who live in the Middle East close to Israel. It's this huge. It's an overreach and an arrogance about people's lives. It's disgusting.

STU: Oliver, if you make a movie about a historic event that, you know, was decades and decades ago, you have a long time to essentially marinate in perspective and look back and see the full picture of that. What's the difference between doing something like that and something like Snowden, which is really you're making a movie about an event that is still going on today?

OLIVER: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Mr. Obama has presided over the worst excesses of the surveillance age. I mean, he's taken the Bush program which was illegal in the first place, and he's doubled down. And that was part of the story we're telling. And you see very clearly the Obama path. You see Snowden believing -- believing that Obama is going to reform that system in 2008 when he's elected. And by 2013, when he released those secrets, he's given up hope that Obama will do anything.

GLENN: When you see all of this going on and America not paying attention, what do you think is going to happen when we watch this movie? We're just going to take it as a movie and move on with our lives?

PAT: Move on?

OLIVER: As I said earlier, I don't have an agenda. I'm not an activist that way, although you may think I am. I really think it's presented to you. It's a movie. Enjoy it. It's an intense movie. It's a thriller. You walk out, you make your own conclusions, or you might just think about it some more and start to do a little more research because there's a lot to be done.

GLENN: Yeah, there is. Oliver Stone, thank you so much.

OLIVER: Thank you very much, Glenn.

GLENN: God bless. You bet. Buh-bye. Buh-bye.

STU: It's out this weekend, right?

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: You saw it already?

GLENN: I saw it last night.

PAT: So it opens today?

GLENN: Yeah, opens today. I saw it last night.

PAT: Nice. You liked it, or not?

GLENN: It is -- I'm not sure. Yes, it's worth seeing. It's worth seeing. I, again -- and I didn't mean to be rude to him, and I hope I wasn't --

STU: No. It was an interesting --

GLENN: No, but I was just being honest, and he was being honest back to me.

I don't trust him. He's Oliver Stone, so I don't trust him. And when you see the movie, you will see -- you know, I should bring it in on the break. I'll show you a couple of places in the movie where you'll watch it and you'll say, "Oh, my gosh." I mean, he's -- you tell me, you watch that scene with the CIA guy when he's asking Edward Snowden, "So tell me about yourself. How come you want to be in the CIA?" He's the creepiest dude ever. And then the guy who he says is his father figure is always in the shadows and always like, "So what do we've got to do? What do we've got to do?"

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: So, I mean, you've got just that layer of Oliver Stone moviemaking that does taint it, which I wish it didn't have that because I think it would be a much more powerful film. You wouldn't walk out dismissing because it was Oliver Stone.

STU: Did you see the documentary about Snowden?

GLENN: Oh, no.

PAT: The actual documentary.

STU: My joke all the time. The actual documentary.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: I'm curious if it's consistent largely with that.

GLENN: I didn't see the documentary. I wish I did. I didn't see the documentary.

Featured Image: Director Oliver Stone attends the 'Snowden' premiere during the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thomson Hall on September 9, 2016 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

POLL: Should Universities allow pro-Hamas protests?

Joseph Prezioso / Contributor | Getty Images

Just one day after Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel, which left over 1,400 people Israelis dead, 34 different student groups from Harvard University wrote a joint statement pinning the blame of Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel. In the following days after publishing this callous statement, these students staged a walkout and rallied in support of the Palestinians. As Glenn has discussed, this is not an isolated event, and campuses across the country have hosted similar rallies where antisemitic jargon like "we don't want no Jew state" and "globalize the intifada" is freely spewed.

Should Universities allow pro-Hamas protests?

While the Universities have not officially backed any of these rallies or student groups that organized them, they haven't stopped them either, which raises the question: should they? On one hand, these are American students in American Universities, who are protected by the First Amendment. On the other hand, history tells us how dangerous antisemitism is if left unchecked; and what of the rights of Jewish students to be safe on the campuses they pay to attend? Let us know what you think in the poll below:

Should Universities allow pro-Hamas protests? 

Would you feel safe if your child attended a University that allowed pro-Hamas protests?

 Should Universities allow pro-Israel protests?

Is pro-Hamas rhetoric protected by the First Amendment?

POLL: What do YOU think Israel should do about Gaza?

SAID KHATIB / Contributor | Getty Images

Should Israel take over Gaza after defeating Hamas? This contentious historical question has resurfaced amid Israel's retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza following Hamas' terror attacks, which resulted in the greatest death of Jews since the Holocaust. Biden and the global elites have warned Israel against occupation of the Palestinian territory. When asked on 60 Minutes if he would support the Israeli occupation of Gaza, Biden said, “I think it would be a big mistake.” Today Glenn responded to Biden’s answer: “I don't think it's a mistake to occupy."

This has been a long-standing, polarizing issue that is now more relevant than ever, and we want to hear YOUR thoughts. Let us know in the poll below:

Would you support an Israeli occupation of Gaza?

Do you think the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza are justified?

Do you think a two-state solution is still possible?

Funding IRAN?! Here are the TOP 5 reasons Joe Biden should be IMPEACHED

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

On September 12th, the House announced an official impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden with allegations of abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption. Naturally, the media quickly jumped to the President’s aid claiming that “there is no evidence to support these claims” and that the whole affair is a witch hunt.

If you’ve been listening to Glenn, you know that this is simply not the case. Biden has been committing impeachment-worthy deeds before he even stepped foot into the Oval Office—there’s no shortage of evidence to justify this inquiry. Here are 5 scathing reasons why Biden should be impeached:

He was responsible for the Afghanistan withdrawal disaster.

Click here for full video

The Biden administration began with the US's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Under his watch, Biden left thousands of US citizens and allies stranded in the Taliban's hostile regime. Countless Afghan allies have been murdered by the Taliban due to the Biden administration's negligence.

He was involved with Hunter Biden's illicit foreign business dealings.

Click here for full video

There is clear evidence that Joe Biden was more than aware of his son Hunter's foreign business dealings. From suspicious money laundering through the Biden family's accounts to Joe's involvement with important business meetings within Hunter's company, there is mounting evidence to warrant an impeachment inquiry.

He lied about his involvement with Hunter's business dealings.

Click here for full video

Not only did Biden involve himself with his son's less-than-legal foreign business ventures, but he lied to the American people about it too, claiming he had NO KNOWLEDGE of what was going on.

He failed to protect the Southern border, and actively made it worse.

Click here for full video

Biden singlehandedly turned the Southern border into the worst illegal immigration crisis in US history. He reversed many policies set in place by the Trump administration, resulting in 2.3 million illegal immigrants flooding into the US under his watch, a historic high.

He sent IRAN AND HAMAS BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

Click here for full video

Biden reversed the Trump-era policy that halted all funds going into Iran. The Wall Street Journal revealed the smoking-gun evidence proving that Iran trained AND funded Hamas before its gruesome terror attacks against Israel. Moreover, shortly before the attacks, the Biden administration unfroze $6 BILLION dollars of Iran's assets as a part of a prisoner swap. On top of this, Biden resumed $200 million worth of "humanitarian aid" to Gaza that Trump had ended—because the money was being used to buy weapons for Hamas.

Top 5 economic milestones that show HOW BAD Bidenomics has made the economy

SAUL LOEB / Contributor | Getty Images

From groceries to house prices, everything seems to get more expensive, and you can thank Biden for that. Glenn recently exposed the truth about 'Bidenomics' and the havoc it has wrought on the American economy. Here are five economic milestones during the Biden administration that expose the glaring track record of "Bidenomics:"

In July 2022, the inflation rate hit 9.1 percent, a 40-year record high.

In June 2022, gas hit an all time record high of $5 a gallon for the national average.

61 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck as of this September.

Interest rates reached a 15-year high at 5.25 percent and are still increasing.

Americans have $1 trillion in collective credit card debt, in part due to food/staple pieces being very high.