GLENN

Mike Lee on Repealing Obamacare and His Wild Curiosity About Wiretapping

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) joined The Glenn Beck Program on Monday to talk about why the GOP won't resurrect the Obamacare repeal bill passed in 2015, his wild curiosity about evidence the administration might have about wiretapping, and why Republicans are suddenly in love with infrastructure spending.

Enjoy the complimentary clip above or read the transcript below for details.

GLENN: Senator Mike Lee who is at an airport getting ready to board a plane. We're glad you would take the time to hop on the phone with us. How are you, sir?

MIKE: Doing great. Thanks so much, Glenn.

GLENN: Good. Let's get to Obamacare repeal and replace. This thing is nothing like what the Republicans were promising us they would do. Nowhere even close.

Do we have a chance of getting something good out of this?

MIKE: Sure. Something good can come out of it. What happens, whether something good comes out of it, the extent to which it might be good depends entirely on how members of Congress handle this in the next few days, on how they choose to cast their votes.

Now, look, you're right. What we promised was to repeal Obamacare, as much of Obamacare as we possibly could, and then to start trying to find new ways to put the American people back in charge of their own health care.

Well, what this bill does is it doesn't repeal nearly as much of Obamacare as we could. It leaves all kinds of things intact. It leaves most of the Obamacare regulations in place. Most of -- many of the Obamacare taxes remain in place, at least for a time. It leaves expanded Medicaid intact for a period of time. And then doesn't make as many adjustments to it long-term.

Meanwhile, it comes up with a new refundable tax credit, which we don't know the cost of yet. We don't know how many people are going to take it.

There are a lot of unanswered questions, which begs the question: Why are we not just repealing? Why are we not just passing the same repeal bill that Republicans in the House and in the Senate voted for in December of 2015? That's what I'd like to see.

STU: Mike, is it true that you can't just repeal it unless you have 60 votes? You can't do it through reconciliation with just a full repeal?

MIKE: There is some ambiguity as to how many of the insurance regulations of Obamacare could be repealed through reconciliation. So there's an open question on that. But we do that know we could repeal all the taxes and all of the subsidies and possibly some of the regs through reconciliation. We know that because the reconciliation bill we passed in 2015 repealed all of the taxes and all the subsidies.

GLENN: So why aren't we doing it?

MIKE: That's a very good question. That's what I believed we were going to do. That's what many of us were told -- otherwise led to believe.

GLENN: Why aren't we doing it?

STU: He said it was a good question.

MIKE: There are those in Congress who chose to take a different path. Now, I can't speak for them. I can't speak to what their intentions are. I think the easiest, simplest way of explaining it is, they had other priorities that they wanted to attach to this. Priorities that were perhaps higher than simply achieving repeal, at least to the degree that --

GLENN: Can you give me an example of what might be more important than what you promised the American people?

MIKE: Okay. So here's how I think they would explain it, and I want to be clear, I'm always careful not to try to speak for somebody else. But I think if they were here with us, they would probably say, look, we don't want people to be in a state of too much uncertainty and doubt. We don't want them to be afraid. We want them to have a degree of confidence about what comes next after Obamacare repeal. And so we want to provide a soft landing spot for them. And that is so important. It's important enough to them, apparently, that they're willing to go a little softer on some of the repeal and provide more programs through this bill right now.

The problem with that is, it's -- it's not going to pass. And it probably shouldn't pass until they can answer more of these questions, more of these questions about why we can't repeal more of Obamacare than this bill does.

PAT: And the other problem with that, Mike, is that that's not what they promised us. That's not what they said they were going to do. They didn't say, well, we're going to think about this and provide a safe landing spot for people. It's going to take a really long time. We're going to not repeal -- it was repeal and replace. That's what they ran on. That's what they were elected to do. And now, again, as so often happens with the Republican Party, they're not doing it. Frustrating.

MIKE: Yeah, that's right. By the way, I love the Kermit the Frog imitation that both you and Glenn do.

GLENN: Thank you so much. Thank you. That's what happens when your best friend since 1980 --

PAT: Yeah.

MIKE: Well, he has, in fact, been the spokesman for the AHCA, so it's appropriate that we use his voice when doing this. But, no, you're exactly right, this is what we ran on, this is what we promised. Now, to my great dismay, to my great surprise, on many instances over the last week or so, we've had legislators from the House and the Senate somehow saying that this bill, the AHCA is somehow what we campaigned on, what we ran on. Well, that's news to me. That's news to me because we've had this bill for only a few days.

PAT: Me too.

MIKE: That's news to me if we somehow ran on this specific bill, a bill the score of which we still don't know. We still don't know how much this thing is going to cost. We still don't have any idea how many people will take this refundable tax credit. And, therefore, how much it's going to cost. So that's news to me, that that's somehow what we ran on.

What I remember that we ran on was that we would repeal every scrap of Obamacare that we possibly could, the whole thing, if we could get away with it under our procedural rules in the Senate. And that's what we should be doing.

STU: We're talking to Senator Mike Lee. And every time you're on, Mike, I like to ask you the nerdiest, most boring, uninteresting question to see --

GLENN: So please keep this answer short. Please, for the love of Pete.

STU: So I apologize in advance for this.

But when the Bush tax cuts were passed, they were passed under reconciliation. And because of that, they expired after ten years. Would the same thing happen here? If we repeal all these Obamacare taxes, in ten years, are we going to be talking about the expiration of the Obamacare repeal, and then it's going to be back into effect again?

MIKE: No, not necessarily. In fact, almost certainly not.

GLENN: Good end to that.

MIKE: Because of the fact that we were dealing with taxes in that circumstance, rather than something else. So that wouldn't be it.

STU: I thought it was a tax, which is the only reason it was constitutional. Wasn't that -- tax versus fee. Wasn't that a big conversation with Roberts?

MIKE: I'm sorry. I didn't hear that question. Can you say that again?

GLENN: Good. No, no, let's move on.

STU: Let's move on.

GLENN: So, Senator, let me ask you about the intelligence committee has given the president until this afternoon, they say they can't find any evidence that Barack Obama was spying on Donald Trump. And to present some evidence -- and we'll go pursue that. Any indication that he's going to present that evidence? And is there any reason to believe that he couldn't present the evidence if he had it?

MIKE: Okay. That's a good question. I'll answer the first question, I have no idea. I would love to see what the evidence is. I'm wildly curious about it. As to whether he could present it, that depends on what the "it" is.

I will tell you, my first reaction to this, when I very first learned about the tweet, my first reaction was, he's probably not talking about a traditional wiretap, where somebody actually goes to a judge and the judge orders a phone line to be tapped. Perhaps he's talking about a foreign intelligence surveillance court order issued pursuant to Section 702 of the FISA amendments, which would say, you know, here is an identified agent of a foreign government. Let's monitor this person's communications. And that there might have been some incidental communications with some US citizens, perhaps including people who were involved in one way or another with the campaign. That incidentally got pulled into that. That was my first reaction is that seemed the most plausible possibility. If, in fact, it's that, there might be some reasons why we might be reluctant to share that. Or --

GLENN: No, but he could share it with the intelligence committee, could he not -- or committee?

MIKE: Yes, yes, they've got the clearance to do that. So there's no reason why he couldn't share something like that with them. They've got clearance to see pretty much all of that. But as far as his ability to share that publicly, that would seem less likely if my theory is correct.

GLENN: And there's nothing that the president can't get, right? If he said, I want to show it, but, you know, this agency won't let me, you know, have access to this. There's -- everybody in in the Senate, would be like, okay. We need to see this. Behind closed doors. But you will open these books or whatever it is that he's saying the evidence is -- there's nothing the president couldn't get to, is there?

MIKE: I assume so. Because -- and, look, he's the commander-in-chief. There's nothing that he doesn't have access to. And so if he can -- if he can back this up, if he knows what it is that he's referring to, there's no reason that I'm aware of why he couldn't come up with something that he could produce to these Intel Committees. Now, whether he will choose to do so or not is a different question. Perhaps there are those close to him advising him, hey, you don't have to do this if you don't want to. But that --

GLENN: Why wouldn't you?

MIKE: -- that requires rank speculation.

GLENN: Why wouldn't you?

MIKE: I don't know. If perhaps he didn't want to set a precedent that he could just be required to answer questions every time the Intel Committee wanted to hear something. But I would think in this instance, he would want to, particularly because these questions are going to be raised from time to time.

GLENN: Right. And we're talking about national security. I mean, we're talking about something that he's accused another president of doing. And if that president was doing that, that needs to be stopped.

MIKE: Yes. Yes. Exactly. And that's -- that's -- all the more reason why I suspect he'll provide them with what they want to know because you're right. Look, this is one of the things I've been worried about for years. And I've expressed this concern on your show previously. But if you remember the Church Committee, the Frank Church Committee back in the '70s --

GLENN: Yep.

MIKE: -- conducted a series of hearings to look into abuses by our intelligence-gathering agencies, and what they concluded was startling, which was that in every administration from Ford -- from FDR through Ford and Nixon, who was in power at about the time they concluded their research, that the US government's intelligence gathering apparatus had been used to engage in political espionage. Now, look at what's happened since then. Our technology has improved dramatically. Our technological means of gathering intelligence have grown by leaps and bounds. And our laws haven't always kept up with that.

And so to me, it would be almost surprising if some of this were not occurring. That's why we need to be watchful of this. That's why I was concerned, immediately, when I saw the president's tweet was because I considered it plausible, if not likely that this kind of thing would be going on.

GLENN: One last question, let's go to infrastructure. The G.O.P. went out of their gourd -- and I believe rightly so -- for a stimulus package for roads and bridges and tunnels and everything else for $787 billion. I remember that number. It's burned -- seared into my memory of $787 billion. Now the president is proposing a trillion dollar stimulus package, and the Republicans are very excited about it. Can you tell me what made the 787 billion-dollar stimulus package an affront on the Constitution and this one a dream come true?

MIKE: Well, I can't point to any distinguishing characteristic between the two, as to why this one would be good and that one bad.

In fact, look, when I look at the Constitution, I see the powers of Congress being limited. They're enumerated powers, most of them in Article I, Section 8. And they talk about things like the power to provide for our national defense, to declare war, to regulate trade between the states with foreign nations and with Indian tribes. I don't see anything in there that says that it's the prerogative of Congress to create all infrastructure.

Now, look, it's one thing if we're talking about an interstate corridor here or there. But it's another thing entirely if we're talking about wholesale, top to bottom, soup to nuts transportation infrastructure, even intrastate projects.

I think whether we're talking about under the Obama administration or any subsequent administration, headed by a Republican or a Democrat, I think we've got to look carefully at what we're doing there. Not every transportation infrastructure is necessarily outside of Congress' authority. Because some of them do involve a distinctly interstate function. But where they don't, we have constitutional problems.

GLENN: Mike Lee, always good to talk to you. Thank you so much, sir. Appreciate it.

MIKE: Thank you very much, sir. It's good to be with you.

STU: So positive.

GLENN: Yeah. He is. Boring as snot.

STU: Thank you very much.

Oh, I love him. He is saving my hope in the entire country right about now.

GLENN: He is so good and so smart. And, you know, he's just tickled pink by, you know -- I love -- I love because you know he's accurate. But when you're talking to him -- because he's like this all the time, well, I mean, in section 508, subsection B, paragraph four --

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: -- you'll see -- and he did that like four times during this. You just have to get used to, that's the way he is.

STU: He's that guy.

GLENN: And that's why he is so good and so needed in the Senate. Want to give you this from the New York Post today. Bank fees rise to an all-time high. The average customer now pays $666 a year in banking fees.

STU: Satan.

GLENN: Right. Right.

STU: This is how it happens.

GLENN: The overdraft revenue from the top three banks has surged from 5.1 billion to $5.4 billion. That's what they make if you overdraft.

$5.4 billion. Does anybody remember that we're providing them? It's a service that we're providing them as well. We're giving them our money.

JEFFY: No. No.

GLENN: So they can loan it out to other people. No, they don't care anymore.

JEFFY: No, they do not.

RADIO

Eric Trump EXPOSES the Left’s double standard on “weaponized justice”

Democrats are crying about “weaponization of justice” when it comes to the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. But they cheered on the lawfare attacks against the Trump family. President Trump’s son Eric Trump joins Glenn Beck to call out the hypocrisy. Plus, he details the true extent of the persecution his family faced, which he wrote down in his new book, “Under Siege: My Family’s Fight to Save Our Nation.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Hello, Eric, how are you?

ERIC: Glenn, it's great to be on.

GLENN: It great to have you. Great to have you.

Your book. What your family has gone through is just the radically souped up version of what I think a lot of people feel they have gone through in their life.

But, man, they have -- they have tried to kill you guys. They have tried to put you in jail. They tried to destroy you every single step of the way.

Tell me about the motivation for putting that all down on paper.


ERIC: Yeah. Glenn, I think that's right. It went on number one, almost instantly, Under Siege. And it's been incredible. But I came up with -- you're right.

I was a guy who didn't have any constitutional protections. I was in the government. So guess who they came after?

They came after me. I was the most subpoenaed person in American history, all because I ran the Trump organization, which was effectively what my father spent his entire life doing. And they wanted to see us taken town. They wanted to see us destroyed.

I mean, look what they did. Right? Between two impeachments. They raided our home. They silenced us. They gag ordered us. There's more gag orders than I possibly could count. They took us off of Twitter. They took us off of Facebook. They took us off of Instagram.

You know, they made up the phony dossier that was paid for by Hillary Clinton. They made up Russia gate. Glenn, I was the guy getting the calls from the FBI saying, you know, Eric, I hear you have secret servers communicating with the Kremlin in the basement of Trump Tower. I mean, give me. Give me a break. They tried to take out our Supreme Court justices. I mean, they did everything.

They weaponized the media. They weaponized the DOJ. They weaponized the FBI. They charged my father 91 times. Ninety-one criminal counts. They fined the Trump organization almost $600 million can for not doing a damn thing wrong.

And all of this stuff has been overturned. They wanted to see us nonexistent.

They wanted to see our family broken. They wanted to see my father in jail. They probably wanted to see me in jail. Then I said on Sean Hannity one night. You know, they've done all of this to us. They put us under siege. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to kill my father.

And then you saw what happened in Butler. And then you saw what happened eight weeks later, you know, in West Palm. You saw what just happened to Charlie. I mean, I published his book. Literally, three days before Charlie Kirk's assassination.

I mean, you want to talk about another time they tried to put our movement under siege. They've done it to you. They've done it to every one of your listeners. They've debanked us and deplatformed us.

And the story had to be told from a first-person perspective, who effectively dealt with all of it. And the greatest part of the whole story is we won. We won, and we're saving the country right now.

GLENN: So, Eric, how do you deal -- I just had a conversation with somebody I think is really, really smart.

Doesn't agree with me politically, but very well-educated, very smart, and a reasonable person.

And he immediately brought up the weaponization of our government with the DOJ and James Comey. And I said, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Blood is shooting out of my eyes right now. Hang on, the weaponization of our government with the DOJ and James Comey?

And I had to explain to him, that your Dad didn't say, you're fired if you don't go get him. Your father said, make a decision. Make a decision.

You don't let the statute of limitations go out. And it went through a grand jury process, two out of the three charges were valid. And so you prosecute.

That's different than what you guys. Can you compare James Comey and what's happening there, to what was done with you guys?

ERIC: Well, I'll give you a little inside baseball. So I was the guy that got called when they were raiding Mar-a-Lago. Right? Obviously, I run all of our commercial properties, and our entire portfolio. Everything in the Trump organization. So I get a call from one of my team members. The FBI is here with the search warrant. And I go, excuse me?

We have the greatest relationship with all law enforcement, where we love law enforcement. No, they're coming in. They have a search warrant to raid Mar-a-Lago right now. And I said, you must be kidding me. Why?

Well, they're saying the national archives asked the FBI to raid Mar-a-Lago. You mean -- buy a public library. You know, you have 30 FBI agents there with machine guys because of Norah, you know, asked for a raid?

I went on Fox News that night. I think it was Jesse Waters, I went on Fox News that night. And, give me a break. Like, I wasn't born yesterday. You don't raid Mar-a-Lago, the former president's home and very likely the future president.

Again, because my father was so great. You don't raid that home, based on the national archives. Like you better believe Biden was behind it. And sure enough, 18 months later, it comes out, that Biden was behind it.

And Merrick Garland was 100 percent behind it. And they were the ones that authorized it. The weaponization is unlike anything I had ever seen. Glenn, we were a family that never got as much as a speeding ticket ever in our lives, and we lived a pretty fast life in terms of business and life.

Until my father decided that he was looking to run again in 2024. In which case, they indicted him 34 times for $130,000 that he didn't even make.
I mean, people -- people who are sitting in the courtrooms, couldn't even possibly believe it.

Again, we had every single one of them overturned. When I hear them talking about James Comey. Clearly. It very much looked like it -- to Ted Cruz. And that congressional hearing. That testimony that day.

I mean, give me a break. These guys. I probably spent $400 million, defending ourselves from hoaxes. I mean, the Russia hoax, we had disproved to the FBI.

We didn't have secret servers. There are no servers in the basement of Trump Tower. Because the basement was flooded. You don't put -- like, Computer's 101, you don't put servers in basements. Right?

You know, we didn't know anybody in Russia. They knew this. And they let this sham get perpetrated for three years so that one greedy woman could possibly get, you know, two more bills.

And then when she lost to him in embarrassing fashion, to people who didn't know where the damn delegate was. I.e. our family. Because we had never been in politics before. You know, they needed some way to justify her embarrassing performance.

GLENN: They took your father off the ballot in Maine. They tried to take him off in Colorado. That to me is the weaponization of the political system. By going after you guys for the servers, by changing documents, literally, the FBI changing documents to go after people in your organization, on the -- the Russiagate stuff. Changing the documents for a FISA court.

That's true weaponization. Is there a chance that the Comey thing is going to go to bleed in a larger prosecution, because I've been watching this. Eric, I've been watching this from the beginning.

I was watching this when I was not for your father being president in 2016. Saying, wait a minute.

This isn't right.

What is this?

This isn't right.

It is so clear that this now was -- I mean, the evidence is all there!

That this was a plan from the beginning, that is, quite honestly, I believe, still going on.

Is there is there a chance.

I mean, do you know if the grand conspiracy thing is going to happen?

ERIC: Listen, I hope it does, right?

I'm not in government. But it's the entire thesis of the book. I've dealt with this more than anyone in the country for a ten-year period of time.
They wanted us gone. I mean, Glenn, they were planting documents in Mar-a-Lago in my father's office. They were planting top secret folders, on -- on the carpet of my father's office.

They admitted that to Judge Cannon that they literally brought in top secret folders and they staged photo shoots on my father's office floor. Right?

The whole thing was contrived.

The whole thing was a setup. The Russia thing was a scam.

The dirty dossier that said my father was doing horrible things, the most unthinkable things. You know, it was -- it was a sham, the impeachment number one was a sham. The impeachment number two was a sham. To have seven judges in Colorado just delete my father's name from a ballot was a sham. The fact that, again, a guy who works very hard, and never crossed any line in his life became the most subpoenaed person in American history. It was a sham. I mean, you know, I must have a laptop from hell. I wasn't Hunter Biden. I wasn't doing illicit drugs. I wasn't partaking in prostitution. I didn't have racy photos all over my -- and I sure as hell wasn't doing illegal business deals all over the world of every shady country, as he very much seemed to be doing. And yet, they came after us relentlessly. So do I think that that criminality has to be paid for in some way? I do. And I find it so ironic, when you see Chuck Schumer up there. And Jake Tapper. I'm not sure if you saw him the other day. "This is the weaponization of the government at its finest."

Give me a break. I've taken more arrows than anybody could possibly take and still be standing. And my father, he has taken unlimited arrows, all in the sense of this nation that we love. And it's -- it's true irony. And it's true projection.

GLENN: So let me take ten seconds for a station ID. And then I want to talk to you about, has there ever been a time when you guys said, enough!

Back in ten seconds. (music)

GLENN: So I don't know. I mean, I am amazed at your family. I'm amazed at your father. The things that you guys have put up with. The things that you have come through.

And at some point, did anyone in the family say, dad, please, I mean, we want grandpa to be around? Stop! Please. Did that ever happen?

ERIC: You know what, it's kind of funny. I think that's exactly what they thought was going to happen. I thought that they could take this kind of New York billionaire and make his life so uncomfortable, that he would want to go back to Palm Beach, Florida, play golf, hang out with his grandkids. Fly around on Trump Force One. You know, live in Mar-a-Lago. Live a great life. Right?

And there's no question that was their calculus. You know, how do we make fun of him? How do we silence him? How do we bankrupt him? How do we go after his family? How do we raid his home? How do we indict him, right? How do we break up his business. How do we break up his business. How do we strip the Trump name off of every building in New York City. Those are all the things that I dealt with. I think they only misunderstood him.

And maybe it's like a masochist-type quality, but the harder they hit him, and the harder they hit us, the more resilient we were.

I was in the courtrooms, Glenn, with my father every single day. When they turned around in New York and ran off 34 felony -- bogus felony counts with the corrupt judge. And you know a lot about that trial.

My father turned around. Shook my hand.

We left the courthouse. We did a press conference. I was on the front stairs of that courthouse every single day to the press. You remember, my father was gagged. And then we went down, we did a big fundraiser. I mean, we literally left the courthouse after having 34 felony indictments and went to a political fundraiser.

I mean, the man never stopped. He was the Energizer Bunny in a red tie wearing a suit on steroids.

And the harder they hit him, the harder he worked, the harder he fought back.

But beyond that, I think more the American people realized, the whole thing was a sham.

I mean, there's only so many times you can cry wolf, before everybody realizes it's nonsense.

And they cried wolf in Russia, and everybody saw that.

And they cried wolf with the impeachments and everybody saw that. And people fundamentally started to distrust the mainstream media in the country. And independent voices like yours, all of a sudden, became the most powerful we've ever seen in the nation's history. And, you know, and all of a sudden, this whole thing turned around. Where people started realizing, hey. The harder they hit this guy, the more I like him. Because this is the system. This is the corruption at work. And listen, it obviously worked. Because my father won the popular vote. He won every single swing state.

You know, he won 11 counties in California that had never been wronged by a Republican. In 37 years, no Republicans won Miami Dade County. We won it by 11 points.

And every single state in the country, all 50 states cast way right. You know, and so clearly, their games didn't work.

But that's what they wanted. They wanted to make his life so damn uncomfortable. That he would bow out of the race. And say, you know what, let's just go live my glory years at Mar-a-Lago, living out the American Dream as the next president. And they wholly underestimated the man.

GLENN: But you -- the whole family was like?

I mean, everybody in the family?

I mean, I don't say this. You guys are amazing. Even if you would have said, Dad, stop it.

Please, not for us.

For you, stop it.

It's not a sign of weakness.

I mean, I'm amazed that number in the family ever just sat down and said that.

ERIC: Glenn, at that point, I think we were up to our eyeballs, admitting, you know, they had us in every -- you know, I had a hundred depositions. I had a hundred subpoenas in my desk.
They were raiding our homes. They were trying everything they possibly could to take us out, to bankrupt us. You had Leticia James in New York.

The corruption that overturned five to zero, you know, by the appellate courts. And New York was an absolute sham with a sham judge. You had the Alvin Bragg nonsense. You had the Fani Willis nonsense with her boyfriend in Georgia. You had the Jack Smith, and he plants documents in Mar-a-Lago and ransacked Melania's closet and Barron's room, you know, in our home.

You know, at this point, we were -- we were neck deep in it. I mean, we had no other choice. I mean, if we would have given up then, we would have been dead. They would have taken us out.

And there was one point, I talked about it in the book. Where my father looks at me, coming out of that courtroom. And he says, honey, I don't know how, but we're going to win.

And I said, listen, we either win, or we're all going to be in jail. Because that's exactly what these corrupt people will do to us.

And, again, it's a great irony that I find in the way the Democrats are treating the Comey indictment this week. It's -- they would have put us all in jail and had us rot there for eternity, you know, had we not pulled it off.

That was their exact intent.

And they weaponized the -- the entire system, in order to let that happen.

GLENN: Oh, yeah.

So my wife and I just -- gentlemen just moved to Florida. And we lived near the Trump National Golf Course. We were driving by.
And I thought, everything this family has done. Everything this brand has gone through, I think it's a more powerful brand now, that happen -- than ever before.

And part of it is the way you guys have dealt with the -- just weathered every storm.

But also, I think your dad. I've had a lot of respect for your dad as a builder. And, you know, I watched him build buildings in New York. And honestly, Eric, I really thought.

Because he could build things twice as fast as anybody else in New York.

And I'm like, how does this guy not have mob connections? How do you do business without the mob?

And nothing. Clean. Clean. Clean.

So I don't know how he does what he does.

He's just a machine.

But I feel like, everything he has done, in a strange -- in a strange change of topic here, I think he found the golf course and the golf resorts, are like -- that's -- I think he's -- I think he's the best at that in the world now.

ERIC: Yeah. Well, thank you, by the way. And that's a great compliment to me, because I've done every single one of them with him. And I bought, you know, most of those properties and does we're really good at it. And it's really funny. When I -- when he's talking about Gaza the other day, and he goes, you know, the potential for this place. What I could make this place into, would be so incredible. And the Democrats come out. Oh, ha, ha. What do you know about building?

Like when AOC came after Elon Musk. Oh, ha, ha, ha. Elon Musk. Like, the least qualified person to run the FAA. I'm sitting there thinking, this guy is catching rockets with chopsticks. Like, you might not want to belittle him. He's got about 4,000 times the IQ of you, AOC. And they're trying to do the same with my father. I mean, there's no one that's a better builder, and I had his genetics. I mean, he'll tell you, the two of us are like two peas in a pod with that. That's what I do.

By the way, Glenn, I got the library approved yesterday. It's going to be in Miami, Florida, and it's spectacular.

So we just got the greatest site in Florida, and I will be building that. And I promise you, it's not going to look like the Barack Hussein Obama Presidential Library in Chicago, that looks like a jailhouse.

They're literally going around neighborhoods in Chicago. They're like, what does that building look like? Everybody is like, man, it looks like a jail. It will be a spectacular building. But no. I think my father will -- now, ten years ago, I would have said, what he would have wanted on his tombstone was the greatest developer, the greatest builder. You know, I think today, it's a man who literally not only inspired a nation, but opened the eyes of the entire nation to how we were getting ripped off. The flaws of government.

And how much better we could be running this country, which he's doing right now.

GLENN: Well, I've never seen anything like it. You know, when he said, I will be the greatest president. I thought, wow. That's. I'm a historian. I know history. That's a pretty high standard. I told him myself, I think you're -- I think you're in the Abraham Lincoln.

You keep going. You're in the Abraham Lincoln, George Washington kind of territory.

And it might take a hundred years for people to realize that, but I've never seen anything like it.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

USA vs UK: The Parallels in Cultural Takeover | Katie Hopkins & Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck speaks with British commentator Katie Hopkins about the dramatic Islamic demographic and political takeover in the United Kingdom, and the alarming parallels emerging in the United States. Hopkins explains how Muslim birth rates, political power in cities, and cultural changes are reshaping the UK, and what Americans can learn from Britain’s current trajectory. From arrests over flag-waving to the erosion of free speech, she details how Western freedoms are under threat if we fail to recognize the patterns.

Watch Glenn Beck's FULL Interview with Katie Hopkins HERE

RADIO

NFL picks Bad Bunny for Super Bowl—Is this a slap at Christians?

The NFL has chosen Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny to perform at this year’s Super Bowl. But BlazeTV host ‪@realjasonwhitlock‬ joins Glenn Beck to explain why he believes this isn’t just about expanding the NFL to the Latin American market. “This is the poster boy for demonic activity,” Whitlock argues, and it’s yet another slap in the face of conservative Americans and Christians. Plus, Glenn and Jason discuss why Jay Z may be the true mastermind behind the past few years of “inclusive” halftime shows.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: This is Bad Bunny. And I have to tell you, I don't understand Bad Bunny. I don't claim to understand Bad Bunny. I've never heard of Bad Bunny before. And, you know, I'm cool. I'm cool. I'm all Bad Bunnied out. Now, Jason. Who is a little cooler. Jason Whitlock from the Blaze. He's joining us now. Because he is -- you're apoplectic on Bad Bunny.

JASON: Yes, I am, Glenn. Look, obviously they're trolling Donald Trump. Obviously, they're trolling ICE raids and the whole illegal immigration policy, enacted by Trump. Obviously, they're going out to Northern California, where the Super Bowl is in Santa Clara this year. And they -- Gavin Newsom. Kamala Harris. This is their headquarters. And they want to make a statement about illegal immigration. They want to make a statement about diversity and Spanish-speaking people. They want to make a statement about transgenderism and sexual fluidity.

And bad bunny checks all those boxes.

And so that's what they're doing. This has nothing to do with football fans.

This is about the left's control of popular culture. And control of the National Football League, which is the strongest thing in popular culture. And they're using it to make a big, bold at the same time about how they feel about Donald Trump. But more importantly, how they feel about Jesus Christ.

GLENN: So now, as an expert on Bad Bunny for the last, hmm. Thirty-five seconds. Let me push back on this. I think I agree with you.

JASON: Yeah.

GLENN: Jason. But let me push back on you.

I see the NFL. You know, I see the NBA, placating China. Because that's their new place. The NFL, all over the world. NFL really trying to get football to be American football, in -- in other markets. Why is this not just a continuation of that play to get the Super Bowl to be watched in Latin America?

JASON: Because there's plenty of other Latin-American artists they could have chosen if that was the play. They didn't have to pick someone who is so closely associated with demonic activity, so closely associated with promoting gender fluidity and the cross-dressing deal. They didn't to have pick someone who is so outspoken against Donald Trump and his illegal immigration policy. This is the poster boy for Trump hate. And this is the poster boy for sexual fluidity and redefining masculinity.

These are things straight out of his own mouth. And look, all money isn't good money.

And that's what globalism is teaching us. That we can throw away all of our Christian values. All of our American values, in pursuit of global money.

GLENN: Correct.

JASON: And then what are we left with? A drag show, at halftime of the biggest platform we have to offer in American culture. And so parents will be having discussions with their kids on Super Bowl Sunday. Mommy, daddy, wives, this man out here, dressed as a woman, during some part of this act.

Why are his fingernails painted? Why is he taking subtle shots at Trump? This is -- to me, part of it is a reaction to the Charlie Kirk memorial service. It was such a powerful pro-Jesus Christ deal. They have their answer now.

And it will be Super Bowl Sunday.

GLENN: So let me ask you, because he has -- he won't tour in the United States because of ICE. Right?

JASON: Yeah. Yeah.

GLENN: So he's already sworn off the United States of America as a tour top. Because he's so strongly anti-ICE.

You just said, that he was also none I can. Or he pushes demonic things.

I want to play a piece of audio that we have from somebody who went to his tour. And then I would like you to explain for somebody who is now a full 90 seconds into, you know, what's his name? The Bunny guy. What this means. Here's the audio. Listen.

VOICE: Fans are reporting that they felt a demonic presence when attending Bad Bunny's recent concert. Fans even started making it into a meme by taking videos saying that the concert just feels demonic.

But it became extremely dark when this song by Tommy (inaudible) came on, where there were masked demons dancing all over him and the concert turned all red.

Even the music video to this song is extremely dark. It's this monster looking thing that creeps up into this woman's room, and it actually ends up becoming Bad Bunny himself. Those who attended this concert are even advising people, if you're going to go see Bad Bunny's concert, then --

GLENN: Okay. Stop. I can't take any more of this. You know, obviously AI. The image that they put is Nosferatu, you know, the -- the vampire Nosferatu. Tell me what -- I mean, I've seen a lot of stuff, that I feel is pushing demonic forces. Especially in the music industry. Tell me what your thoughts are on this.

Why it's clear to you.

JASON: The music industry clearly has a close association with the occult movement. This goes all the way back to the Beatles. You're probably familiar with that. But in rap music, these rappers, American and this guy Bad Bunny and everybody else, they so are out of the closet with the occult symbolism in their music, in their videos, what they rap and talk about.

It's undeniable that there's an occult association. And, Glenn, this is funny. Yesterday, as I'm processing this and on Sunday, I start thinking about, well, what kind of song could we use as a protest song for what they're doing here at the Super Bowl. And I was like, we're not going to take it. We're not going to take it anymore. And I go look it up. Because I just remember it from my childhood. And it's Twisted Sister. They had the song We're Not Going To Take It.

And then I went and watched the video. And the video is a kid, in his bedroom, his dad comes in, yelling at him. And the kid spins around and like turns into an adult longhaired cross-dressing man, and starts singing the song, We're Not Going To Take It. And I was just like, holy cow, they've been putting this message into this forever.

GLENN: And you didn't know.

JASON: This came out in 1984.

GLENN: Yeah. I know. I -- I -- i unfortunately was on the radio playing the hits when that was out.

Is it true that Jay-Z is responsible for selecting the last six years of the inclusive halftime shows?

JASON: Absolutely. All of it. And it actually -- Jay-Z's first Super Bowl that he ran I believe was in 2020. He picked Shakira. But the special guest was Bad Bunny. His special guest was -- so this started in 2020. This is always where it was going. You can find plenty of videos of Jay-Z doing spirit dancing and occult-like activity.

This is what Jay-Z is all about. And much of it is justify and/or defended -- diversity. We have to have diversity. And Jay-Z is black. And they're just upset because Jay-Z is black.

And no -- no one has to deal -- no. We're upset. Because he promotes the occult, that he promotes a form of music that is grooming our kids for violence.

Grooming our kids for sexual fluidity and promiscuity and degeneracy and disrespect for authority. And that's what we don't like about Jay-Z.

They use this racial deal, and accusations of you're a racist, if you criticize Jay-Z or criticize anything defined as black culture. And if you're someone like me, you say you're an Uncle Tom and a sellout. And -- and this is why.

Four years, I've been running around saying, men, particularly white men, you're going to have to buckle up. Get over the fact that they're going to call you racist. And defend your values and beliefs. If your values align with Jesus Christ, you defend them, and you deal with the consequences. That's what I do. That's what you do. That's what Charlie Kirk did. That's what we all have to do, if we're going to stand up to this madness and insanity.

GLENN: So how do you stand up against this? Because nobody is going to abandon the NFL. You know, Jesse Kelly said, what? Yesterday. "Oh, they're very upset. They're very upset about that. They'll have another six-day boycott of the NFL." And that's true.

JASON: Glenn, I do think there's an opportunity here, as it relates to the Super Bowl, as it relates to some sort of counterprogramming. Super Bowl halftime at least, or just on the Super Bowl. I've listened to Jack and others, that say, "Hey. We should have a counterdeal through TP USA, through TheBlaze, through whatever."

GLENN: Whatever it is.

JASON: So we can get Creed to perform. Can we get -- in my view, I love Forest Frank, and I would love for churches to host events on Super Bowl Sunday in the evening, so that we have -- because, Glenn, there's no chance of me watching the Super Bowl this year. I've talked about it last year. I was upset with Kendrick Lamar. This is the bridge way too far for me. I will not watch the Super Bowl this year.

I get skipping out -- I don't think it's the appropriate thing to skip out on the NFL and sports altogether. Because the Young Men's Christian Association, the YMCA, in the late 1800s, early 1900s, they organized sports. Sports have been stolen from Christians. And I don't believe in surrendering and just handing it over to them, and to the atheists, to the secular crowd.

It's a tool God intended for us to use to disciple and mentor masculine men in Christianity. It's been stolen from us, by television.

And we need to fight to have it back. Because it's a great tool, to disciple young men. So I don't believe in abandoning, but as it relates to the Super Bowl, no dice, for me.

There's just -- you couldn't pay me to watch this year's Super Bowl, because I feel like I would be spitting in the face of God.

GLENN: Well, I will tell you, that, you know, I don't care about sports. But my family cares deeply about the NFL, and depending on who is playing.

And, you know, but I could see even the diehards. You know, my son. I could absolutely see him saying, turning it off.

And those ratings matter. The ratings matter. Turning not not just the game off, but even if you turned off the halftime show, those ratings matter a great deal. If everybody just said, I'm not watching it had it. And turned to something else, before the halftime show. That is a half step. But an important half step.

Would you agree or disagree with that.

JASON: I totally disagree. And again, I'm using Charlie's memorial service, as our blueprint. That produced incredible numbers, all over the internet. Anywhere that was broadcast.

And I think we could do the same thing with musical performance.

If Brandon Lake, Forest frank, Creed.
Whomever. If offered the alternative and said, hey, just turn your TV off. And whatever.

And open up your i Phone and your i Pad. Whatever. Flip over on your Smart TV, to a counterprogram, Super Bowl halftime rather than invite the devil, Satan into your home, I think a lot of people would take that option.

GLENN: I know I would.

I know I would. Jason, thank you so much.

How are you doing?

JASON: I'm doing great, Glenn. I'm doing great. I appreciate you.

Hey. I know this has been a tough weekend for you. Given the church deal and so I appreciate you making the time for me today.

GLENN: Oh, I love you, Jason. Thank you so much.

JASON: Thank you.

GLENN: Jason Whitlock. You can follow him at TheBlaze.com/Fearless.

If you've ever watched Jason, he is fantastic.

RADIO

Hegseth's speech signals the END of the woke Pentagon

War Secretary Pete Hegseth called a surprise meeting with top generals and President Trump at Quantico. Glenn Beck’s head researcher, former Marine Jason Buttrill, watched the entire event and was blown away. He joins to explain why “this wasn’t just a speech. This was a complete realignment of the way the military has been run for over a decade.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Jason Buttrill joins us.

I asked Jason earlier today, to watch the Pete Hegseth -- I don't know. Meeting or speech. Front of all of the military leaders.

I think he brought them in, to show them how deadly serious the changes at the Pentagon are -- are going to be.

They -- you know, changed them from the Department of Defense, to the Department of War. To show that we are a war machine. That is our job. To break things and kill people. We don't want to. But when we have to, that's when we have to be the best in the world at. And when I was watching this, it was so full of common sense and things that I -- I would think that if I were a soldier, I would have wanted to hear a long time ago. In fact, he said, you know, this is not the Pentagon that you dreamt about serving in. When you were young.

You didn't join the army to do this.

He said, we're getting back to what it really is.

And I thought it was really powerful. It seemed really important. But I only saw bits and pieces. Jason just watched the entire thing.

Jason Buttrill joins me now. What are your thoughts, Jason?

JASON: Wow. Glenn, I did not understand the reason for just doing this on a Zoom call. I didn't see the point of really bringing them all in, until I saw this.

Holy crap. The message is clear.

I mean, it is very clear, that American military power is back. It's lethal.

It's deadly.

It's every single reason why men and women put on the uniform. And go to defend their country.

I haven't seen a military speech like that, outside of a movie. Or --

GLENN: You know, it's so funny. I saw -- because he was standing in front of a giant flag. And the last time I saw this, it was done with somebody in the uniform. He wasn't in the uniform. Was from the movie Patton. And it kind of felt like that. Kind of felt like one of those that you're like, yes!

You know, but the audience was very quiet. I don't know how they related to him, but that's how you felt too?

JASON: Yeah. There was one time when I heard a few people cheering in the crowd.

I guarantee you, these are not guys that are supposed to cheer in situations like that. But all of them.

Okay. I don't want to say all of them.

Probably 99 percent of them were going insane. They wanted a mosh pit.

And they wanted to crowd surf.

That's how excited they are.

I guarantee you, that's how they felt.

GLENN: What was it, that he said, that would cause the military leaders to do that?

JASON: Oh, man. Let's start off with.

This wasn't just a speech. This was a complete realignment of the way the military has been ran over, I would say, over a decade. A complete realignment. Yeah. Longer than that.

We talked about it yesterday, on some of the things we thought they would talk about. They actually combined with his speech. And the president's speech. They actually covered every single thing that we talked about yesterday.

But Hegseth's portion was just the most exciting to me.

Because now they're talking about doing away with all the DEI crap, all the stuff they were focused on. They're switching completely to without lethality and being a deadly, fighting military force. And we just haven't heard that. It's been dressed up in politically correct garbage.

All the politically correct garbage is getting tossed out the window. But not only that, they're focusing on change. And how to, as Bruce Lee said, to be like water. With the direction of how defense tactics. And, you know, how the -- the way a modern defensive capability is going.

That's the direction we're going. He said, he will be making additional speeches that are going to cover infrastructure, supply chain, changes.

I mean, this is music to our ears.

Everything we need to do to harden down in case an actual huge conflict breaks out.

We will be ready for.

And I guarantee you, with this Department of War.

With this secretary of war. And with this president, we will be ready.

It might take a couple of years to fix the damage.

But now, not only we. But all the military leaders that have been frustrated for over a decade, now they can feel confident in where we're going.

And this is just amazing, Glenn.

It's absolutely amazing.

GLENN: To me, this makes total sense. And is in line with everything Donald Trump says he's doing.

Remember, the world has we know it, was set up at Bretton Woods.

It was our financial.

Everything, after World War II, everything was decided on how we were going to behave economically, and militarily.

In 1962, I think it was, a Carl -- Carl Quimby.

I can't remember his last name. But he was a Harvard professor.

And he wrote tragedy and hope.

And he was an insider. And he had been advising presidents. You know, from -- from Truman, all the way up to Nixon.

But in 1962, he was banned and everybody looked the other way.

Because he wrote this book. And he said, look, I've been part of this.

And I'm so excited. We're going to get rid of war.

Because we have now tied our economic system so tightly together. That we will only have police actions. There will never be an all-out war.

We'll use economic sanctions. And both sides will pay a price, and there won't be any of these big, big changes any more.

And he was right!

That is exactly what happened.

And so the changes that Donald Trump is making, he's going back, to the Bretton Woods stuff.

And he's saying, look, that was for that era.

That doesn't work anymore.

And it hasn't worked for years. You know, when you look at Carl Quimby.

I can't remember his last name, sorry.

But when you look at what he wrote, that was basically putting the State Department, as the boss of the Department of Defense.

They would do work. The Department of Defense and the soldiers would start doing work to democratize the world. And bring peace and everything else.

It was a total flip. And in the little that I heard Hegseth do today.

It sounds to me, that this is the next massive step, in what Donald Trump is going to be remembered for. People don't understand it yet.

He is resetting the entire structure of the world.

Completely redoing it. And he's doing it, not just, you know, with our foreign policy. He's now doing it, inside our own government. And he's making those changes in the Department of War, to say, look, this is what we do. This is the tool that you are.

You kill people, and break things.

If I wanted to have peace. I'm going to go someplace else.

If somebody wants to have war with us, we will kill them quickly. And we'll say, it wasn't going on for 20 years. It will last 18 months. And it's over. And it will be decisive.

That's a whole change to the entire global system.

It's why they hate him so much at the United Nations. I'm convinced of it.

JASON: Yeah. What you're talking about was echoed by geopolitical analysts all over the world.

I think his name was Francis Fukushima. Who wrote, what was it?

The End of History. Talked about that as we're done. All war is over, and now it's just economic.

Just like you said, kind of putting the State Department and other organizations that are in charge of the Department of Defense.

One of the crazy things, one of his students, Samuel Huntington, wrote a -- kind of like a rebuke of that. And said, he wrote a clash of civilizations, which basically said, no, no, no, no.

We need to be very careful. Because future wars will be civilizational.

GLENN: Which is what we're headed for.

GLENN: Exactly what he predicted is what we're headed for. Clash of civilizations. Look for Europe. Look for the United States right now.

Look at how war is being waged on us. And we're not even concentrated on it, and the president pretty much addressed that, as you pointed out.

Where he was like, for far too long, we've been focused on providing trillions of dollars, focusing on places like Somalia, or places like that. He actually called a couple of countries out. Said, we shouldn't be out and doing some of these things.

He said, we need to look at you are on own hemisphere.

He said, this is something that we pointed out yesterday. That we should mention.

He did. The president did.

This is a complete different realignment of what the threats are against the United States and addressing them and being prepared to combat them. And I tell you, I still got goose bumps from the entire thing.

I now see why they decided to call the men and do that.

Not only is the military on notice.

I think the military is relieved. But now our enemies are on notice.

It was kind of funny, the secretary of war. Pete Hegseth.

He actually turned to the camera and addressed our enemies. And he said to our enemies. And he said the acronym. FAFO, and then that's when everyone -- that was the point where a few people started cheering. And he goes, "If you need help with translating that, just ask a few of your enlisted guys." But I was like, "Yeah. It's on. It's on."

GLENN: The President also said yesterday, that they're going to be looking at new technology.

Did they talk at all about new technology?

JASON: So vaguely, they talked about new directions, that they need to be going in.

They did -- he was very vague with it. He also mentioned another follow-on speech. On some of the things they will be focused on.

That's definitely part of it. That was part of it. I think we will be getting more details on it. Not only new technology. But how we'll manufacture them. And how we're going to supply manufacturing entities within the United States. And it's all going to be. It sounds like, homegrown.

So that we're not reliant on other countries. They included everything in this speech, Glenn. It was amazing.

GLENN: I mean, I'm not a military guy. But I have to tell you, when I heard stuff like that, I'm like, finally. Finally somebody is -- because we all know the answers.

We really do. We know the answers to most of these problems.

You want to fix the economy, stop spending so much money!

Get your budget under control. How do we do that?

It's not that hard. You can get ten citizens, pulled randomly. And you can pull them out, as long as they're not college professors.

Just pull them out of their jobs. And say, hey. This or that. This or that.

And you could slash so much.

Nobody is going to say, they want sex changes for frogs studied in Africa.

Nobody is going to say that. And it's all such common sense. And it's so nice to see common sense play a role.

Because it hasn't in a very, very long time. Thanks, Jason. I appreciate it. By the way, tomorrow, I will talk a little bit about digital ID.

And I want to take you to India, on digital ID, and show you what happened there.

I mean, this is a real threat to America.
And to freedom! All over the world. China already has it. And we know what that is.

Now, it's coming to the west. And it already came to -- what are the other countries. China. Not Japan. Australia.

JASON: Switzerland, just voted on it.

Australia, South Korea.

GLENN: Yeah. It's -- it's really bad.

It's really bad.

And, again, it's not about anything other than complete control. And we'll show you all about that, on tomorrow's broadcast.

Jason, thank you so much.

JASON: You bet.