Evan McMullin: We Must Seek Honest, Wise Leaders, Not Merely Those the Party Gave Us

October 13, 2016

Writer

A recent state-wide poll from Utah's Deseret News showed Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin in a statistical tie with Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, putting the Utahn within striking distance of winning his home state. If that were to happen, McMullin would be the first Independent candidate to win electoral votes in nearly a half century.

Glenn spoke with McMullin Thursday on radio about the 13 principles outlined in his document Principles for New American Leadership and why both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are unfit for the presidency.

Read below, watch the clip or listen to this segment for answers to these questions:

• What principles do the two major party candidates fail to honor?

• Why does McMullin believe both Clinton and Trump are big government liberals?

• Why do we keep electing corrupt leaders?

• What is McMullin calling on all Americans to do?

Listen to Part 1 of Glenn's most recent interview with Evan McMullin on The Glenn Beck Program:

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

GLENN: Evan McMullin, welcome to the program, sir.

EVAN: Great to be with you, Glenn. Great to be with you.

GLENN: So, Evan, tell us why we should vote for you. What are your principles that you think are not being represented?

EVAN: Well, Glenn, that's the most important question of this election. It is about principles. You know, we've just put out a document called Principles for New American Leadership. And I would add another part to that title: New American Leadership and Civic Engagement. I think that's what we need in this country. We do need a new generation of leadership, a new conservative movement, but we need also a new era of civic engagement.

And so, as far as principles are concerned, in this document, there are 13 principles. But they start off with some -- there are very basic things that we're losing sight of, things that the two major party candidates don't honor. I'm talking about the first, for example. We say our basic rights are God-given. That is so incredible. Our rights don't come from the government. They are inalienable, and they come from our maker.

Number two, we honor our Constitution. Not what we think it should be. There are different opinions. But how it's written.

Number three, government power must be separated and balanced. We must have checks and balances, and they must be honored in our system to protect against the government's abuse of that power.

Number four, our leaders must be honest and wise. Because the reality is, even though we are blessed with an inspired Constitution, Glenn, if we don't have honest and wise leaders who respect that Constitution, our nation will suffer. And it has.

And then the last one, I'll just mention to start off with, number five, we share responsibility for service and civic duty.

We need to serve our fellow man and woman. We need to be involved in civic engagement. We need to be aware of the issues and well informed. And we need not to be passive in the selection of our leaders.

I believe we must seek out leaders who are honest and wise and promote them into office, not merely wait for the party to give us whoever they want to give us. We must find them. We must recruit them, and we must promote them forward to our leadership, to our service.

GLENN: What do you say to people who say, "Hillary Clinton is -- I mean, I've heard people say she's the devil himself. And some people actually mean it. But some -- others, like me, believe she is so wildly corrupt in all aspects of her life, that she has to be stopped. Some people say, "I don't like Donald Trump, but I will vote for him. And, Evan, no matter how much I like you, you don't have a chance. Why should I vote for you?"

EVAN: Well, I'll tell you this, Glenn, my perspective on both of these two candidates, and, you know, everybody has heard it all before. But they're both deeply corrupt. And I've got news for everyone -- this is my view -- Donald Trump is a big government liberal, just like Hillary Clinton, maybe even worse.

He does not respect our system of checks and balances. He doesn't respect the courts or their power. He doesn't respect, I believe, Article I of the Constitution. He doesn't even understand the Constitution. He doesn't -- you know, he proposes policies that are in violation of our Constitution. It seems like, every week or couple of weeks, it's something new. They're both big government liberals. That is the reality.

This is the situation in which we find ourselves. How did we get here? Because we've accepted the argument that we need to vote for the lesser or decide the lesser of two evils between the two major party candidates for a long time.

That decision, the lesser-of-two-evils decision, that framework posits to lower our standards for our leaders, and as a result of that, we get weaker leaders. We get corrupt leaders like both of them.

We get leaders like many of ours, who have disappointed us this year, who won't stand up for principle, who put their own reelections first. And that is happening right now. And that's why we get -- that's why I think, Glenn, we have a leadership crisis in this country.

So what I'm saying and what my running mate, Mindy Finn, what she's saying as well, is vote for the people who you actually want to see in office. If you do not do that, if we do not do that, Glenn, we will never get the leaders we need in this country.

We must use our voices, which are our votes, to support leaders who we actually want to see in office. And if they don't win this time, well, then they can win next time. But we must start building a movement, a new conservative movement, that will put leaders into the Oval Office and into Congress and elsewhere, who actually embrace the principles of our country.

GLENN: Evan, there are people that say that there may not be a next time. The country is at the breaking point, and you don't know what's going to happen. And the way things are going and how fast -- and how fast we have decayed over the last eight years with rights, that our churches will be under siege. Our rights will be taken. Possibly our guns would be taken. Our banking system could collapse. Just in the next four to eight years, this next president may be the last chance. We can't take that risk.

EVAN: Well, Glenn, I would -- again, I say that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are cut from the same cloth. These are both big -- they're both tax-and-spend liberals. These are people who are going to grow the size of the federal government. Donald Trump has made a promise about the Supreme Court, but he's violated that promise even in the campaign, saying that his sister would make a good justice, saying that, you know, Peter Thiel would make a good Supreme Court justice. And this is not a man we can trust. This just simply isn't a man that we can trust.

We are in a terrible spot right now. Yes, we don't have time to waste. But we have allowed ourselves -- I'll say this -- we have allowed ourselves to be offered two horrendous candidates from the two major parties.

And so this is what I'm saying, Glenn: I'm calling on all Americans now to have a conversation -- a conversation with each other, a conversation around the dinner table, in the backyard, over the fence in the backyard with the neighbor, with your colleagues, about the fundamental principles that have made this country the most prosperous and most powerful on earth.

We've got to go back as American citizens to the essentials. We've got to ourselves recommit ourselves to these principles and pursue better leaders. We're not -- you know, from the two major parties, we're not going to get them this year. But I believe we can get more of them in the future. But we've got to start with basics.

We're in a tough spot this year. There are no great solutions. That's just the reality. That's the difficult place we've been in. We have to start rebuilding something new, and it starts with the conversation with America, one that I and Mindy Finn are trying to have with America and one that I'm asking Americans to have with themselves, using this document, using these principles.

STU: Evan, Stu.

I have -- one of the things that we've seen in this debate is the world of foreign policy has been, you know, really in shambles. Everything from trade to, you know, we have -- I mean, we watched the debate the other night.

Hillary Clinton, we know what a disaster she was with Russia. I mean, you know, the reset button. I mean, that was a total disaster. And then her opponent, in his own defense, says that he doesn't know anything about the inner workings of Russia. So these are our two options. Not to mention, Gary Johnson, you know, who has his issues with where is Aleppo and what is Aleppo. All of this. How does your experience differ from these three?

EVAN: Well, I spent 11 years serving in the Central Intelligence Agency. I was an undercover operative. Most of that time came after 9/11. I managed some of our country's most sensitive counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda leadership and other sensitive traditional intelligence operations against countries that are adversaries to liberty.

GLENN: If you would have -- if you would have handled the documents that you had, which I assume are less sensitive than what the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had, would you be in prison if you handled them the way she did?

EVAN: Yes. Well, I handled some very, very sensitive stuff that she may not have had. But even if I handled lesser classified documents, yes, I would have been fired, first of all. My security clearance would have been revoked. And I likely would have gone to jail.

And that's the reality. But that's what we see. And, Glenn, you pointed that out. Just the corruption. We live in a country where most Americans feel -- a strong majority of Americans feel we're on the wrong track. People don't feel like they're being heard by the government anymore, largely because so much power is centralized in Washington, DC. But this is exactly the wrong moment to elect a deeply corrupt leader. And that's what we're poised to do.

And it is truly unfortunate. And we cannot allow ourselves to be in this situation again.

GLENN: So how would you deal with Russia? Yesterday, the number two guy in the Duma came out and said that, "If America votes for Hillary Clinton and does not elect Donald Trump, that there will -- that nuclear war is imminent." He said, "There will be Hiroshimas and Nagasakis everywhere."

EVAN: Well, look, first of all, the first thing we need to do is reassert our strength in the world. What we've done under President Obama is withdrawn our strength and communicated weakness to the whole world. And so all of the destructive actors, whether it's Vladimir Putin or Bashar Assad or the Chinese -- Chinese government annexing parts of the South China Sea or North Korea, Kim Jong -- the Kim regime. You know, what we've got is a reaction by all these bad actors to a leadership, a power void, a power vacuum that's been left by President Obama.

The first thing we need to do, we need a president who will stand up and be strong. And that is -- that solves a lot of problems, candidly. It used to be that countries knew that they couldn't mess with us. And as a result, they couldn't most of the time.

That is not the case anymore because of our presidency because of this administration. But I'll tell you something, we would get more of the same with Hillary Clinton in that regard.

But with Donald Trump, we would get somebody who has actually aligned himself with these bad actors. I mean, it is unconscionable to me, incredible, that we find ourselves in this situation.

And I struggle and am so disappointed with Republicans. You know, Republicans -- the Republican Party was the national security party. How can they not stand up to Donald Trump's allegiance and infatuation with Vladimir Putin? How is that possible?

But this is where we find ourselves. And this, guys, is why I'm saying we find ourselves in a leadership crisis in this country. And we must return to these principles. Our principles are our strength, and we must have this conversation with each other. It's not the -- it's not the mainstream media. We can't wait for our leaders. They've let us down. We must turn to each other and rededicate ourselves to these principles and find our own leaders and promote them into office.

GLENN: Evan McMullin, running as a third party candidate, doing well in the polls in Utah. May actually win in Utah, which is something that Gary Johnson hasn't even been able to pull off in his own state. He's within four points in Utah and doing well in the Mountain West and is a write-in candidate -- is on the ballot in some states, write-in candidate on others. How many states can people vote for you and actually have it count?

EVAN: Well, it's 34 states. But by the time we get to Election Day, it will be 43, potentially up to 45. Most Americans will have the opportunity to vote for me and to have their vote counted. That's the reality. We're very excited about that.

We already have access to more than 300 electoral college votes, and we've done that in just a matter of weeks. I mean, for us, it's a three-month presidential campaign. I've got a phenomenal team. We've moved very, very swiftly. And we are doing it on the backs of our tremendous supporters. They're very strong, very motivated, and they have helped us get ballot access across the country. It's just been truly incredible to watch.

GLENN: All right.

[break]

GLENN: Evan McMullin is running as a candidate for president. And is beginning to pick up some steam in Utah. He's about to pass both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. And only 52 percent of the people know who he is in Utah. And that is starting to happen in the mountain west now, where he just started, I don't know, about six weeks ago because he was fed up.

Evan, I want to talk to you a little bit about the economy. Because HSBC has just come out with a red alert warning for the stock market, and a stock market crash they say is now pretty much imminent. We'll get into that in a second.

Let me talk to you about two things. People believe that the Supreme Court is the number one issue now because they feel religion is going to come under attack and the Second Amendment is going to come under attack. Where do you stand on those two things?

EVAN: Well, first of all, I do believe that religious liberty in this country is under attack. And we need to do everything we can to protect it. The Second Amendment is obviously as well. I agree with that. Unfortunately, I just don't believe Donald Trump would -- would -- would pursue originalist justices on the court. I just don't not believe it. We know Hillary Clinton won't either. But I just think -- look, America, we are in a tough position. We are in a tough position because the two major candidates are not people who respect religious liberty. They're not people who respect the Second Amendment, and it's going to be tough. That's the reality. That's the reality. And that's why I keep saying that, you know, we've got to go back to our principles, and we've got to really develop something new, a new movement in this country.

You know, it's interesting, I think back about John Adams and the way he described the revolution of his time by saying the real revolution began around the kitchen table, in what mothers were teaching their children in their readers. I mean, that's the kind of -- that's what we need to do. If we want to protect religious liberty, if we want to protect the Second Amendment, we have got to strengthen the conservative movement so that it can do that. And we need a political vehicle, in the form of a party who will fight for those things. And we do not have that now, Glenn. We don't have that.

We have a Republican Party and a nominee who don't support these value and who will not protect them. And so we've got to start from scratch in many ways, I believe. So I'm thinking about it in the long game because I've written Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump off. They're both cut from the same cloth.

So let's rebuild our conservative movement, through discussing these core principles, recommitting ourselves to these core principles. We're angry. We're all angry. I get that. But we need to channel that into something constructive and positive for our country. And this is what I believe it is.

GLENN: Okay. Evan McMullin.

Featured Image: Former CIA agent Evan McMullin announces his presidential campaign as an Independent candidate on August 10, 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Supporters gathered in downtown Salt Lake City for the launch of his Utah petition drive to collect the 1000 signatures McMullin needs to qualify for the presidential ballot. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

THE DOCUMENTS for 'The Big Distraction' Glenn TV special

The big news item of the week is Trump's potential indictment from New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg. According to our recent poll, most of you think that Trump's potential indictment is NOT about holding Trump accountable for a crime—most of you think it's a weaponization of our judicial system against the Left's number one enemy.

On Wednesday's episode of Glenn TV, Glenn dove into the details behind Trump's potential indictment and suggested even more nefarious intentions behind the indictment—to distract from the House Oversight Committee's bombshell memorandum revealing Biden's illicit business dealings with China.

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Watch the full special below (or watch on BlazeTV here):

How PREPARED is Glenn's audience? The results are IN!

Last week, Glenn published his updated "Preparedness Quiz" to see how prepared his audience is for a big crisis—and the results are in! Thankfully, not very many of you are "Toast." In fact, most of you could survive a big disaster, and even some of you could survive a nuclear apocalypse—not very many could say that!

If you haven't taken the quiz already, you can take it HERE, and be sure to download Glenn's "Ultimate Preparedness Guide" filled with practical tips on how to keep you and your family safe for a future crisis.

1.7% of Glenn's audience is TOAST! Thankfully, that's very few of you.

There is little chance you'd survive repairing your kitchen table, not to mention enduring a massive economic crisis or natural disaster. With no money, food, or supplies stocked up, you will have to rely on the altruism of your more-prepared friends and family. But then again, if you can't even navigate to their house without your phone, you may still be TOAST.

13.8% of Glenn's audience could survive a little disaster.

Congrats on having some of your finances set aside for emergencies... and some useful tools and skills tucked away in case of an emergency. You could potentially endure a "little disaster" of financial hardship. However, if you want to survive a massive financial crisis or natural disaster, you're going to have to start stockpiling some more money and supplies.

68.9% of Glenn's audience could survive a big disaster.

Congrats on being more prepared than most! You have some investment in precious metals, an emergency fund, some food and supplies stockpiled, and maybe an extra generator. Even though you may not be a "prepper," you have taken steps to prepare for hard times, which will protect you and your loved ones for weeks... even months—which is way better than nothing!

14.7% of Glenn's audience could survive a nuclear apocalypse.

Congratulations on being one of the few people in this world who could actually survive a nuclear apocalypse! Seriously... there are very few of you. Your bunker is stocked with food, water, and supplies to last you MONTHS. Your silver, gold, and emergency fund will help you cruise in times of financial distress. You can secure more goods because you have learned a bunch of "barter" skills. Congrats on being able to keep yourself and your loved ones safe!

THESE 19 states joined Desantis' alliance against ESG. Here are their 2 main goals.

On Monday, Biden exercised his veto powers for the first time to strike down a bill that would ban states from taking ESG into consideration when investing state pension funds. In his veto message, Biden said:

Retirement plan fiduciaries should be able to consider any factor that maximizes financial returns for retirees across the country. That's not controversial — that's common sense.

At the risk of using the loaded word "gaslit," it continues to be the operative word in describing the policies coming out of the Biden White House. It is painfully obvious that ESG itself inhibits investors from "maximizing financial returns." That was never ESG's goal in the first place. Yet Biden said the opposite.

ESG aims to incentivize investors to make "socially conscious" (a.k.a woke) investments, even if they are at odds with the greatest return on investment. It has enabled state governments and investment firms to use their monopoly over the investment space to force companies to choose between adopting their woke ESG standards and losing critical investment. Isn't there a word for that? Extortion? Or modern-day politics?

ESG enables state governments to force companies to choose between adopting their woke ESG standards and losing critical investment.

That is the sole reason why Republicans brought the bill to his desk in the first place: As Glenn said, "ESG poses a clear and present danger to the American way of life, the soul of our nation and every sector of our economy. ESG was never about ROI. It was always about pushing a leftist agenda.

And Biden knows this.

Why would he want to give up something that enables his political party and corporate elites to control and manipulate the political affiliations of their people? Who would want to give up that power? Biden certainly doesn't.

And he didn't.

Instead, he boldly asserts the exact opposite: that ESG itself "maximizes financial returns," relying on the divided American people to debate the policy into oblivion, while he gets exactly what he wants: the retention of power over the American consumer. Dare I say again that "gaslit" is the operative word here?

If one thing is clear, it is that we cannot rely on the federal government to act in the best interests of the American people. However, in this critical moment, the state governments are stepping up to do what the federal government refuses to: protecting the rights of the American consumer.

In a joint resolution led by Florida Governor Ron Desantis, 19 states have pledged “to protect individuals from the ESG movement" at the state level. This is critical.

We cannot rely on the federal government to act in the best interests of the American people.

Florida leads Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming in signing the historic policy agreement among all 19 states, pledging to ban ESG practices within their jurisdictions.

The anti-ESG alliance calls ESG what it is:

A direct threat to the American economy, individual economic freedom, and our way of life, putting investment decisions in the hands of the woke mob to bypass the ballot box and inject political ideology into investment decisions, corporate governance, and the everyday economy.

This alliance takes aim at two specific practices used by left-leaning states to force companies to adopt ESG-approved practices.

First, the alliance promises to protect "taxpayers from ESG influences across state systems."

While other states are using YOUR taxpayer dollars to fund pro-ESG corporations, these states pledge to BAN this practice to ensure "that only financial factors are considered to maximize the return on investment."

The chief factor behind any investment should be determining whether that investment yields the maximum return on their investment. However, many states are using YOUR taxpayer-funded pension and retirement funds to invest in ESG-approved businesses. This not only forces businesses to consider adopting ESG standards in hopes of obtaining investment. Moreover, states are using YOUR taxpayer dollars to fund them! Would you want your government to invest your hard-earned money for partisan purposes?

The anti-ESG alliance is taking the politics out of investment and putting consumer power back in the hands of the American people. These state governments pledged to make investment decisions based solely on maximizing the return on investment, not in using your taxpayer dollars to fund their political agendas.

Second, the alliance promises to protect "citizens from ESG influences in the financial sector."

ESG standards force businesses to consider the political leanings of their customer base. For example, Discover announced they will begin tracking its customers' gun-related purchases. One of the leaders behind this push is Amalgamated Bank, which boasts on their website that their institution "supports sustainable organizations, progressive causes, and social justice." Amalgamated Bank CEO Priscilla Sims Brown said:

We all have to do our part to stop gun violence and it sometimes starts with illegal purchases of guns and ammunition The new code will allow us to fully comply with our duty to report suspicious activity and illegal gun sales to authorities without blocking or impeding legal gun sales.

This virtue signaling at the cost of your privacy is earning both Discover and Amalgamated ESG brownie points.

There are countless stories of Americans, like YOU, getting locked out of their bank accounts, dropped as clients, tracked and targeted, all because their personal political beliefs don't align with big corporations' ESG goals. Their individual privacy and dignity as a consumer aren't worth the risk of lowering the company's ESG score.

That's why the anti-ESG alliance is pledging to protect the residents in their states from this corrupt ESG exploitation. The alliance promised to ban "so-called social Credit Scores' in banking and lending practices aimed to prevent citizens from obtaining financial services like loans, lines of credit, and bank accounts."

They also promised to stop "financial institutions from discriminating against customers for their religious, political, or social beliefs, such as owning a firearm, securing the border, or increasing our energy independence."

In short, they have targeted the political extortion hidden behind the virtuous ESG veil to protect citizens from being discriminated against based on political affiliation.

It's time to step up.

Biden may have struck down the effort to restore the freedom of the American consumer at the federal level. However, these states are taking it upon themselves to do what they ought: to ban practices that threaten the freedoms and privacy of their citizens.

If your state did not joining the anti-ESG alliance, it's time to demand that they step up and do their job to protect you and the rest of your fellow citizens from corrupt ESG practices. As Glenn said, "The conservative movement is best when it moves in unison." We must act and unison and push our states to protect our economic freedom and our way of life.

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