GLENNMarch 20, 2017

Kelly Shackelford on Why Gorsuch Is a Rock Solid Pick

Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty Institute, the largest legal firm in the nation dedicated exclusively to protecting religious freedom for all Americans, joined Glenn on set today to discuss the qualifications of Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court. Shackelford gave Gorsuch glowing marks.

"A lot of people look at his education and see how incredible it was. He goes to Columbia undergrad, Harvard law school and then he went to Oxford. A lot of people don't know why he went to Oxford. He went Oxford to study under the top brain in the world on natural law, a guy by the name of John Finnis, the guy who trained Robby George," Shackelford said.

Additionally, Gorsuch has written or joined about 3,000 opinions which give a long history of his philosophy and beliefs.

"We're ahead of the curve, I'm just telling you," Shackelford said.

To watch the Gorsuch confirmation hearings and get analysis, go to TrumpNominee.com, a website created by Shackelford's organization.

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

GLENN: Kelly Shackelford is the president and CEO of FirstLiberty.org. He is probably the guest that everybody wants to have on this week talking about the new Supreme Court nominee and the hearings that are going on this week because this is what he does for a living is look at the courts in regards to religious freedom, especially, but freedom and the constitutionalist view of the Supreme Court nominee. This is what he does. He looks for the case to be made. Do the Democrats have a case to be made that this guy is out of control? Do we have -- can we take real solace in the fact that this guy won't turn out to be John Roberts. We go to Kelly beginning right now.

Welcome to the program, Kelly Shackelford, how are you?

KELLY: Great.

GLENN: It's good to have you here.

KELLY: Good to be here.

GLENN: You were looking at the list of all of the Supreme Court nominees when they had a list of 20, and I believe he was on your short list, Gorsuch, of somebody that you felt pretty comfortable with. Going into this, how comfortable are you that he's not John Roberts or any of the other conservatives that we always nominate, and then they always turn out to be a huge progressive?

KELLY: Well, there's a few things about him and what Republicans were doing in the past. In the past, there's this Republican thing of picking people without a record. And John Roberts, for instance, I mean --

GLENN: That was Ted Cruz's argument against him.

KELLY: And that's what people did. Now, John Roberts has been solid on most cases. ObamaCare twice, inexplicably.

GLENN: He wrote the law.

KELLY: Exactly. I will point out it was those two cases that -- not on the same-sex marriage case or the --

GLENN: Pretty big, though.

KELLY: I agree with you. But John Roberts was the guy who had no record. Now, that usually says one of two things. If you're 50 years old, and you have no conservative record, you're either --

GLENN: You're not a conservative.

KELLY: You're either not a conservative, or you're hiding. And if you're hiding, then how much courage are you going to have when the heat's on? That's the approach that the Republicans had. That's not their approach anymore. Really it, it changed. You have Harry being appointed by President Bush. That didn't work. So they went back and said I'm going to pick a full fledged conservative with a long record and guess what? Alito got through. They tried to filibuster, they got 25 votes. So since then now, it has changed. When you look at Gorsuch, he had 3,000 opinions that his name's connected to. Either he wrote or joined those opinions. So you see a long sloth of where his philosophy has been, what he believes, where he stands, so that's a little different.

GLENN: Chuck Schumer said there are many reasons to fear him. But the one that they're going after is that he's a corporatist, that he's always for the corporation and he's just going to sink us all because smokestacks will be everywhere.

KELLY: Really silly. What you find with Gorsuch is he doesn't really care who the plaintiff and told are. He's just going to go what does the law say? And that's the result. And the funny thing when you ask him if he's this person that you're saying he is, then what are the opinions? And if you pull out two or three opinions, he'll go wait. Those are unanimous, and you have a liberal Democrat joining on the opinions. So I've never seen such a weak set of attacks on anybody. They really don't have anything on him, so I think their only hope is to create something in the hearing to hope that he says something or does something. Because I think right now, they're in serious trouble at trying to stop.

GLENN: It seems like -- I mean, it was a really big deal. A lot of people voted for Trump because of this. In fact, I would say perhaps a majority of people voted for Trump because of this. And yet, here we are on the hearings, and it doesn't seem like it's going to be a big deal. It doesn't seem like when we were building up, we knew that was going to be a big deal and a big fight. Is it because we're replacing Scalia that it's not that big of a deal? Or what's happening?

KELLY: I think that's part of it. I think part of it most people for whatever reason don't even know it's occurring. We put a website up TrumpNominee.com where people can, like, watch the hearing, get the information, you know, where does he stand, what are his past opinions, what does the NRA say about him, what do the right to life say about him, what do the different groups out there have to say, I think most people have no idea that the hearings are starting this week.

GLENN: Starting today. We won't hear from him until later this afternoon.

KELLY: Right. It's something they don't know. And the media I think is probably not playing this up because I think they realize that as far as the left wing, this is not going to work out well for them, most likely. So they're not highlighting this. I do think, you're right, though, I do think if we had the next nominee.

GLENN: The next one's going to be big.

KELLY: The rumors are it's going to happen soon, like, within the next year. And let's say if Kennedy did step down, now you're talking about the control of the court because you essentially -- when you had Scalia, you had four conservatives, four liberals, and one that moves back and forth.

GLENN: Kennedy was a conservative appointed; right?

KELLY: He was, but he has been voting on both sides of the issue.

GLENN: Never trust a Kennedy.

[Laughter]

KELLY: Theoretically if you replace Kennedy, you're talking about a lot of huge issues now that if you had issues. You're talking about big issues. You can see the other side would really come out for that next seat. Where this, really, the conservatives the best they can do is stay even with replacing Scalia.

GLENN: Correct.

KELLY: Now, I think they're going to do that. In fact, some people may think that Gorsuch was more conservative than Scalia. But not as conservative as Thomas. But more conservative than Scalia.

GLENN: How close are these guys? I know that Scalia and Ginsberg were really close and good friends. I really wish that Ginsberg would have spoken at his funeral, because I would have liked to show America that you can be on complete opposite ends of the spectrum and still be good friends. But how close is Thomas with Roberts? Do they influence each other at this point?

KELLY: I don't know how much they influence, but they are friends. The uniqueness of the Scalia/Ginsberg relationship, they grew up in New York. There was a real connection there. And they're friends with one another. They're in a very small, special group, obviously. But guys like Thomas aren't really influenced by what other people say or do.

GLENN: So do you think -- I mean, Calvin Coolidge, nominated a good friend of his who is a staunch, he thought, conservative. He gets onto the court, and he's so bad, he becomes proving that even FDR makes him the chief justice. Really crazy. Do they get in to the court, do you think some of them get into the court and think "Well, now I have such an important position, and I want to legacy."

Does that happen?

KELLY: Yeah, I think the old cocktail circles in DC wanting to fit in, wanting to be accepted. I mean, that's always what people really worry about. I think that's one of the unique things that Gorsuch has going for him that a lot of others didn't, and that is his mom was the head of the EPA under Reagan and was savagely attacked by the Democrats. And he felt that sting. It's well-known. I think he knows who his friends are and aren't, so I don't think he would fall into that trap.

GLENN: That's the best case I've heard yet.

KELLY: When you have somebody, though, who doesn't have a lot of record, and then they go in there, and then they get the social pressure, you can see that kind of thing happening. Again, Gorsuch has 3,000 opinions connected with him. He has a pretty strong, deep philosophy that's been expressed for many years. Anybody can surprise us; right? I mean, people are people but, you know, this is about as good of record -- we're a group that focuses on religious liberty. We've never seen anybody with this many solid religious liberty opinions. I mean, he wrote the lower court. He was involved on the right side on hobby lobby, on little sisters of the poor, on just a number of these cases where you've heard about them later and maybe he was in the dissent, depending upon which one it was. But he always did the right thing, wrote an excellent opinion, stood for religious freedom, so I think he's going to be good on a lot of the constitutional issues that your listeners really care about. Really solid because he's an originalist, and he doesn't think it evolves what he wants it to mean, which is the common approach.

STU: I've heard the argument Gorsuch has made a lot of decisions that would indicate he would be on the pro-life side. However, there's never been a specific ruling by him on abortion. What is your level of concern on that?

KELLY: I don't really have any. Again, he's really solid about what does the constitution say? He's not going to create things that aren't there. He criticized -- there's an article where he actually criticized the LGBT community for trying to use the courts instead of the legislative process and opinion. So even if he would agree with something, you would never think to use the courts.

GLENN: You think there is a constitutional case for pro-life?

KELLY: I think he is more likely to say this is something left to the legislative process.

GLENN: I'm asking you. Is there a --

KELLY: There's an argument. People can argue under the 14th amendment. There's a right to life.

GLENN: What about the preamble?

KELLY: Yeah, I mean, there are people that look at that and say he would look at the original intent of what the founders were doing with those things, whether they were trying to create a substantive right. Again, I think you're going to find a lot of the more conservative judges are more -- if it's not clearly there, then let's leave it to the legislative process.

GLENN: Why is that when, you know, I quoted several of the signers of the constitution and decoration today that took a stand. I mean, this was not unheard of in the day. Abortion was a thing, and they all came out as that's murder. Why is that not in the constitution or do they just think it was so plain that murder is murder?

KELLY: I think that's it. There are a lot of things that they couldn't conceive that we would have to deal with. I mean, same-sex marriage; right? A lot of these things we're seeing now, they didn't even think of, so they didn't address them, necessarily, in the constitution in a direct way. I do think Gorsuch, you got a little bit more on where he stands, at least, personally. He wrote a book on euthanasia. His editor of the book was professor Robert George. Probably one of the most well respected --

GLENN: Oh, yeah. Robby George is fantastic.

KELLY: A lot of people look at his education and see how incredible it was. He goes to Columbia undergrad, Harvard law school, and then he went to Oxford. A lot of people don't know why he went to Oxford. He went Oxford to study under the top brain in the world on natural law. A guy by the name of John Finnis, the guy who trained Robby George.

GLENN: Long-standing philosophy. Let me ask you this final question. Nobody is really thinking about this. But he's young enough to be dealing with in the next 10 to 20 years. Is he going to be able to handle or is anybody looking into the definition of life when it comes to AI? I mean, we're moving into the realm of trans-humanism, and that is going to be an issue. Have you seen anything from him on that?

KELLY: Well, I don't know how he would do -- you would have to look what legal case. But I think he's probably got the most extensive background to prepare him for that than any justice because, again, he studied his Ph.D. in understanding of natural law of life. What did he write his book on? Euthanasia. That he steeped on that philosophy.

GLENN: I wonder which way he would go on that.

STU: Two questions. One is this the first question you have had about trans-humanism with Neil Gorsuch.

GLENN: We're ahead of the curve, I'm just telling you.

STU: And he's a good Trump skeptic for Supreme Court because we were ought about it, and I didn't think it would be this good. I feel like Gorsuch is towards the top of that list and looking at it from my perspective, I think he did a great job with this pick. If you wanted your favorite guy for president, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, whatever, any of those guys, and they pick Neil Gorsuch, is that a good pick for them as well?

KELLY: Yeah. I think he's a good pick.

STU: It's that good.

KELLY: There are people out there that are, like, why aren't they on the list? But I'm not saying they're better than Gorsuch. I think we're going to have to wait and see, of course, after he gets on the court. But everything we see, we've got so many opinions. We have this steeped training background. We have this situation that happened in his own family where his mother was really unfairly treated by Democrats. So I don't think he's going to go to DC and cozy up. So there's a lot of things in his favor that, again, his manner is mild and humble and, again, I think that's why they can't attack him. They can't make him -- he's just -- that's not his personality. So I think they're really desperate during these hearings to get him to make a mistake, somehow, which I don't see him doing.

GLENN: If you really want to know where everybody stands from NRA on down the line, go to TrumpNominee.com. That's TrumpNominee.com. You'll be able to watch the hearings, get the analysis there, and, Kelly, I would love to have you back to get a highlight of what we saw, starting tomorrow because the hearings kind of start today with opening statements. Thank you so much, Kelly, appreciate it.

KELLY: Thanks for having me.

GLENN: TrumpNominee.com.

[break]

GLENN: I just asked Kelly to stay for a extra couple of minutes. How is he on privacy and the commerce clause?

KELLY: He's great on the commerce clause. On privacy, I would have to know what the issue -- what you're going to find with him is he's one of those boring guys that's going to say what does the statute say? What does the constitution say? What did it mean?

GLENN: For instance, the gathering information on everyone. I mean, to me, the constitution is very, very clear. No, unless you have a warrant.

KELLY: Yeah, I would think you would be solid. You see, privacy has been converted into all kinds of other things. It was the basis for Roe v. Wade, so you can stretch it and turn into something else. What you're going to find with him, though, is he's all about what does it say? And now, I do think one of the things that's really important -- I don't want to glaze people's eyes over, they show deference to bureaucrats. So congress passes a law, and they say we'll let the bureaucrats decide how to pass the law. And then they massively violate people's rights. Including criminal-type things. And then the court says we defer. We have chevron deference. He has been really strong on that saying, no, we protect our constitution.

STU: Better than Scalia on this issue.

GLENN: And that's where people like Mike Lee are going in congress.

KELLY: Absolutely.

JEFFY: Another thing you mentioned, there might be another opening.

GLENN: You said Kennedy.

KELLY: The rumors are there's going to be another.

GLENN: I've heard as soon as, like, ten months.

KELLY: That's very, very possible. I think we very well might have another one of these before a year from now.

PAT: So Kennedy maybe is stepping down then; right?

KELLY: He could be. He probably wants to step down under a Republican. He was appointed under a Republican. If you wait too late towards the end, then it gets stalled up.

STU: As every liberal in the audience is saying right now with Merrick Garland, you get too close to the end, you might not get a vote.

KELLY: So that's people talking about voluntarily stepping down if there's health issues, so that could be even more.

RADIO

The ONE “forever war” Glenn Beck supports

This Fourth of July, Glenn Beck reveals the only “forever war” he supports. It’s the war Americans have been fighting since our nation’s founding, and we must continue the fight…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Two hundred forty-nine years ago, I think it is tomorrow. Right? Is tomorrow the second, or is it the first?

What day is it today?

So it was 200 -- 249 years ago, tomorrow, that somebody sat alone, in a -- in a one-room hotel room.

And scratched out the words, when in the course of human events. Those are the first six words of a document that is so dangerous!

Still today, so revolutionary.

It was whispered in those candle lit rooms by men who knew. Knew. That if I signed this document, that's a death warrant.

I'm dead!

I'm dead.

But in the course of human events, shh.

Jefferson wrote them!

33 years old. Adams would later say, you do well to revere Jefferson. But he didn't write alone. Basically, I was there too.

And so was Ben Franklin. The ideas were forged in the minds of men like Franklin, who is old enough to know better. And Adams, who was stubborn enough, not to care. And they weren't perfect men. But I love this about the left. They try to make you think.

That you think are perfect. I don't think they were perfect! I mean, Ben Franklin used to walk around naked in his house a lot. That shows, I mean, for as smart as that guy was. It shows, maybe he had a lack of mirrors. But they weren't perfect!

They owned slaves. They argued. They compromised.

How does that make them different than us?
I mean, we should be able to relate to them!

What is it that we tolerate right now?
What is it that we compromise on?

What is it -- what are our failures that future generations are going to go, these people just didn't get it? Perhaps what we should notice is that they, unlike most of us. They were willing to gamble their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

For something that had never, ever been done before. Something entirely new!

The idea that rights don't come from a government, or from a king, or from a parliament.

They don't come from the majority voting. Everyone has certain rights.

You know, for all these people who are, you know -- going in Macy's, and burning down towns. And then stealing clothing. And they're like, because I've been oppressed!

And you can't -- I've got rights, you know.
Yeah. Yeah.

You know who the first people were, to articulate those rights?

You know the only country that actually has stood for those rights?

And we're imperfect!

That idea came from the Founders, that you say you hate.

But the actual rights come from God, which you dismiss!

Think of this. Just ponder this for a second.

That all men are created equal! That their rights are given to them, by a creator.

It's not a political assertion. It's a genius. That's eternal truth!

That's theological dynamite, lobbed straight in to the thrones of Europe.

All over the world, it's still dynamite.

They knew what they were doing.

And I don't mean like, they knew what they were doing.

They had it. No. They knew that the British crown had the largest military force in the world. And these guys, they were farmers. They were printers. They were lawyers. They were a ragtag collection of intellectual and idealists, facing down an empire, where they said, the sun never set on the British empire. Meaning, the colonialism was everywhere!

You could not escape England. And yet, they declared it. We're leaving, without apology!

And they said that when a government becomes destructive of the ends of liberty, life, and the pursuit of happiness, it's not only the right of the people, it's their duty to throw it off!

Wow. And you know what is amazing? That's not rebellion.

That's -- that's not revolution. That's -- that's responsibility.

That -- that kind of language today, that would have you flagged, shadow banned. Labeled an extremist. In most countries, disappeared!

But that is the foundation of what we call America. The American experiment. And it's that. The American experiment.

And it's just that, an experiment. We didn't know if we could get it right. And we haven't gotten it right. But isn't it worth experimenting?

Isn't it worth trying to get that concept right?

When you fail on that concept, you're like, eh. That's a stupid idea.

That's not a stupid idea. That's the greatest idea of all time.

Why are so many people willing to just quit?

The experiment is self-rule. It's not perfect.

Never has been. Slavery. Jim Crow. Internment camps. Assassinations.

My God! Forgive us, for what we have done.

But at the same time, what nation has done more to correct its own errors?

What people have shed more blood, not for conquest, but for freedom.

Twice in the last century, we crossed oceans. Not to claim territory. But to liberate that territory!

Our sons and daughters fought and bled on foreign soil to push the darkness back, to fight against Naziism and fascism and Communism. And here we are. Here we are today.

After 249 years tomorrow of that experiment, standing at the lip of the very abyss, those men feared.

A godless chaos, rising in the east and a cold atheistic utopia, clawing at the foundations of the Western world. Islamism and Communism, two ideologies that have killed tens of millions of people. Now dressed all in new robes, selling old lies.

And we can't even teach a child where their rights come from. We have replaced Jefferson and Adams with TikTok influencers and bureaucratic groupthink.

We're raising generations to not even know the truth about their own identity.

But to question their identity. And they could be, oh, you're a funny, funny colored unicorn today. What do you want to be tomorrow?

We don't teach them anything about truth, or their inheritance, most importantly. Their inheritance. What good are hot dogs and fireworks, if the soul of the nation is up for auction? What is the meaning in Fourth of July, if we have forgotten the why? If we don't even call it Independence Day anymore. Most people don't even know who we fought against for independence.

They think we fought for its independence! Most people think we fought the South!

And yet, we'll light the sparklers, or blow our fingers off, because we're just that stupid.

This Independence Day weekend, would you do me and yourself and your country a favor, and read the words out loud. Speak the words out loud.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with one another.

And to assume among the powers of earth, the separate, but equal station, to which the laws of nature.

And nature's God entitle them.

A decent respect to the opinions of mankind, requires that they should declare the causes, which impair them to the separation.

What are they saying?

Look, we want to be decent people.

We want to be decent people.

And we have to separate them.

But we believe it's only right that we tell you why we have to separate. And it's not because of all the bad things you've done. We'll get to those later. It's because we're different. And you don't understand. You have been telling us all of these things, we no longer believe in. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal, and they're endowed by their creator with certain inalienable. Unchangeable rights.

And just among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That to secure these rights, government are his instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

My gosh. Read those words. And let your children hear what thinking and courage sounds like.

That to secure these rights, I'm telling you, the king, who thinks that your government was given to you, by God.

And you are the ruler.

And you will tell everybody what to think, what to do. What to buy. What to sell. What to tax. What not to tax. Who gets land. Who doesn't get land.

No, no, no. Government are his instituted among men, deriving their powers, their just powers, from the people. And that government is only there, established by those men to protect the rights that God has given each of those men.

Let them feel the chill, that runs down the spine, when Jefferson writes, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the government, or from the governed. Let them hear the words, of -- of responsibility. What responsibility sounds like, with courage and freedom. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these rights, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

And to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their a lot of and happiness.

In other words, you have the right, you have the responsibility to stop tyrants. And if the government has gone bad, to throw that government off.

But reconstitute a government, that will do a better job at protecting those rights. Not to form a communist government.

Not to do anything else. But you want a new government?

Fine! Let's find the way to make men more free. This is not a metaphor. This is a declaration of war on tyranny in all of its forms.

I mean, I said, yesterday, freedom isn't free.

It was paid for by somebody's blood. But you have to remember, they paid for their freedom, not for our freedom, necessarily.

We -- there comes a time, we have to pay for our freedom. And God forbid, that it comes down to blood.

But at least shake off the apathy. We -- we must renew this promise of this experiment of America.

We need to fight for it as well. An out-of-control government that seeks to rope us into forever wars, over and over again. We're all against forever wars. I'm against it.

I hate them.

But there is one forever war, that is required in a free society. A different kind of forever war.

A war against ourselves, a war against human nature in each of us. Because of human nature, we get fat. We get lazy.

We get tolerant of abuses. Let your children hear you speak these words. And when you speak them, ponder them yourself.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes.

And accordingly, all experience has shown, that mankind is more disposed to suffer while the evils are sufferable than to right themselves, by abolishing the forms in which they're accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a sign to reduce them under absolute despotism.

It's their right. It's their duty. To throw off such government. And provide new guards for such future security.

In one paragraph, we make the point twice. And they tell us, look, we've studied people.

We know you're going to get fat and lazy and apathetic. And you won't want to do stuff for transient causes. Because this is really not good.

But when push comes to shove. And everything is moving towards absolute despotism. Absolute tyranny. Then you must stand up.

I ask you to ponder this. This particular part, when a long train of abuses and usurpations. Prudence will indeed dictate that governments long established should not be exchanged for light and transient causes.

And accordingly, all experience has shown, that mankind is more disposed to suffer while the evils suffer, than to right themselves.

Aren't we exactly the same people, that their experience was talking about?

Aren't we the people that are more disposed to suffer, than to right ourselves? Because we're too comfortable. Or we're too afraid, just to stand up and simply say no to lies.

No!

There is a difference between men and women.

No! Communism is to be feared. It's killed over 100 million people, in the last 100 years.

No!

Muslims aren't bad. Islamism is!

It's evil. No!

You can peacefully protest, any time, any place. And I will fight to the death for your right to do that.

But when you start burn cities down to the ground, no!

We're just a few days away. And we have marked our 249th birthday. Maybe. Just maybe, this year, can we stop asking what America was, and start deciding what America will be?

Where it just slips quietly into history. In the dark of apathy and ignorance.

Because the only thing more dangerous than tyranny is the people who have forgotten what it took to break its chains.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

We need REAL jobs in America — Trump should do THIS now!

It is clear we need to create more productive, high-paying jobs for American citizens. But that doesn't mean bringing back the same exact jobs of the past in massive numbers. It means creating and supporting jobs of the present and future that will better the lives of Americans. Glenn Beck and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts break down exactly what this entails and how President Trump can make it a reality.

Watch Glenn Beck's FULL Interview with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts HERE

RADIO

The most INCREDIBLE World War II story you’ve NEVER HEARD

One of the biggest American World War II cemeteries in Europe is in a small town in the Netherlands, where thousands of Dutch people continue the tradition to this day of “adopting” a fallen US soldier and checking in on his family. “The Monuments Man” author Robert Edsel joins Glenn Beck to tell this incredible story, which he documents in his new book, “Remember Us.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Robert, welcome back to the program. How are you, sir?

ROBERT: Great to talk to you!

GLENN: It's great to talk to you.

Can you remind me? You were on with us, after Monuments Men. And you talked about this great service that is still going on, where people that -- they were still looking for paintings and pieces of art, that had been taken by the Nazis.

And if I remember right, didn't somebody in our -- our own audience reach out to you, and say, I think we found one of those paintings?

ROBERT: Yes, sir. Absolutely.

The Glenn Beck audience. And Glenn Beck, you yourself deserve a lot of credit.

Because I hadn't walked out of your studio last time. You know, in Dallas at Las Colinas.

Headed back to our office at Monuments Men and Women Foundation office, before someone in my office contacted me and said, we've already had a lead, as a result of your interview with Glenn. And it turned out someone whose aunt had been given two paintings during World War II.

She had worked for the government overseeing Germany, and these two paintings were missing.

We were able to identify who the rightful owner was, and get them back.

So it's a great thing that you performed. And, you know, it's a magnificent conclusion, though obviously a very difficult part of history.

GLENN: What was it like to give that back to the family?

ROBERT: It was a deeply moving experience. We -- the foundation found and returned more than 30 works of art, from paintings to documents, ancient books. Tapestries, to museums. Individual collectors, and so on.

And, you know, when we see, oftentimes, the people just stand there, and they cry.

They don't even know what to say. Because they may have worked 50 or 60 years, trying to find some work of art that's been missing. And they haven't had leads. And to -- to see us standing there, with something that belongs to them.

Not asking for anything in return. Don't charge anybody for doing it. Because we feel like everybody who went through World War II already paid enough.

Words -- words just fail. It's just pure gratitude.

GLENN: I can't wait for you to tell this new story.

Tell me the story of the care takers. The care takers of --

ROBERT: Well, it's a story that found me, just as Monuments did.

I have written about -- in the Monuments Men, I told the story of two Monuments Officers who were killed in combat, one British soldier and one American, Walter Huchthausen. And Huchthausen was killed. He once did a last casualty at war. He was killed in the last month of World War II, and is buried in the American benevolence, American cemetery, in Margraten in the Netherlands. I knew that story, and I had made mention of a young girl who was harbored in September '45, asking for the address of his mother, wanting to write her and tell her, that she walked 5 miles, several times a week, from her house to the American military cemetery. It was called then. To put flowers on his grave. Because her family knew them. And they were grief-stricken to know that they were killed.

And I knew that story too. I mentioned that. And then in 2015, the nephew of Huchthausen wrote me and included a photograph of this elderly lady with this crown of white hair. And he said, here's a photo with Frida, and I couldn't place who this was.

I had no idea who it was. And I realized, my God, this is that 19-year-old girl that is still alive. So I flew to England. She married a British soldier after the war. And I went to meet with her. She started showing me photographs of when the American -- Americans liberated her area of the Netherlands.

And all these American soldiers that they knew.

And she said, you know about the American military cemetery.

She said, have you been there?

And I said yes. And she said, so you know about the great adoption program?

And I said, what? She said, the great adoption program.

I said, I have no idea what you're talking about. So I started doing some research on this. And learned, at the end of World War II, our largest World War II cemetery in Europe, was not Normandy. It was the Netherlands American cemetery, where 17,800 boys and a few women buried at this cemetery by May 1946.

And by that time, every single grave had a Dutch person, a local person, who volunteered to be an adaptor of that brave.

Go out there on the first death date of the soldier, Veterans Day, Memorial Day.

And if they had the contact information for the next of kin, send them a photograph of the grave.
And a letter.

Because they realized, it was okay to adopt the bodies of dead boys.

But where the real need was, was to reach across the ocean, into the American homes and try to assuage the grief of the families.

And they knew some of these boys. And I found it the most heartwarming, uplifting, and certainly unique conclusion to a World War II story that I think has been written.

GLENN: So are they still some of them still doing this?

ROBERT: Not some. In fact, there were about -- in 1940, 748.

American families were given the choice to have their loved ones sent home, or to be left overseas in a military cemetery.

The Army had no idea, how many -- how many families would want their boys sent home, and as a consequence, they couldn't tell how many cemeteries they would need.

We thought almost everybody would want to have the families sent home. But it turned out not to be the case. So about 61 percent came home. About 39 percent stayed in Europe, which was about the numbers from World War I.

Although, the numbers in this area, in the Netherlands were higher.

The -- the graves that are there now.

There are 10,000 boys there. And four women.

8300 graves. 1700 names on the walls of the missing.

Every one of them has an adaptor for 80 years.

All those graves have been adopted, without interruption.

There's a waiting list of almost a thousand people in the Netherlands, to become a doctor. This is a -- not just a --

GLENN: This is --

JASON: A privilege. Because they take their kids out to the cemetery. They turn the cemetery into a classroom. And you go out there. And, yes, there's a somber element. They're instilling in their kids, you're able to think, and say what you want to. Because of the freedom that was given to you, by this American girl or boy. And we don't do that in our country anymore.

GLENN: So this is one of the most incredible stories that I've -- I've ever heard.

And I'm shocked that the world doesn't know this!

Is -- have you -- is there anything like this, anywhere else in the world?

JASON: No. We couldn't even find a comp of any nature.

There are -- that is not to say, the people in Normandy area, don't care about Normandy and other cemeteries. They do, of course. As do the Belgians in other cemeteries.

But there's no place that created an organic great adoption program, during the war, in January 1945!

These people in this area of the Netherlands were so grateful, having been neutral in World War I.

And having not lost their freedom for 100 years!

And they didn't like it!

And when the Americans liberated them in September 44. I'll never forget this woman Freda. This elderly woman I met, looked at me, the first time I interviewed her. I knew her for eight years. The last eight years of her life.

I delivered a eulogy two summers ago. She looked at me, there were the eyes of the 19-year-old. And she said, when I saw that first tank over the hill and I realized, we were saved.

I looked at my dad, and I said, Papi, these American boys come all the way across the ocean to say this. And there were tears in her eyes.

Because they didn't -- they couldn't imagine how we could have moved that equipment across -- across the ocean.

And why we would have cared so much.

So there isn't anything like it.

But January 45, these people in this little town of Margraten.

A mile from the cemetery, organized a meeting of the town leaders. The town who got 1200 people.

And they were trying to find an answer to the question: How do you thank your liberators, when they're no longer alive to thank? And they came up with this idea of this great adoption program, and it's a story that I tell, following the lives of about 12 different American combat soldiers.

Bomber recipients.

Tankers.

Because we don't know that story.

We don't what knows to an American story, when they're killed on the field of battle.

Because it's depressing.

We move on to the next scene in a movie.

Well, I want people to know, you started your program with freedom is not free.

It's ugly.

Let's talk about that. Let's talk about what the cost is.

Let's talk about the stripping line that the body goes through, and the removal of dog tags, one being put in the mouth, if there's still a head. And the other being nailed to the cross, because they don't have time to stencil the names on yet.

Let's talk about that, and let people know, it's not just a Marvel movie. Or a gang war.

This is real. This is painful. And, of course, at the end of the war, when we Americans declare victory, and move on with our lives, there's millions of family members in the United States, whose lives will never be the same.

So it is -- it's still happening today. It's still happening today.

GLENN: The name -- the name of the book is Remember Us.

And take us -- I mean, because that's really kind of the -- the -- the beauty of it.

Take us through the rest of the book, just briefly.

It starts with what?

ROBERT: Well, I follow -- I began what a nice life was in the Netherlands. Until May 10, 1940.

And the Netherlands does not get much attention from World War II, and yet everybody has heard of Battle of the Bulge. And Battle -- those are all within 50 miles of what we're talking about.

They happened around there. Of course, World War II, in western Europe, begins right here in this area. Because the German tanks roll across the border.

So I cover the life of these 12 different Americans. I interviewed all their family members. Some make it through the war. Some don't.

You read the book, you realize who makes it, who doesn't. But their lives converge around this area of the Netherlands. And when post-world War II stories end, with the war being over, remember us kicks into a transcendent moment when the Dutch come up with this idea of this great adoption program. The Americans refuse to provide the names and addresses of the next of kin.

So they're foiled with trying to achieve their ultimate objective. Which is to try to contact all the American families.

And frustrated, there was -- one of the key figures of the book.

A woman who is the mother of 12 children.

Who takes it upon herself. She's a woman of action.

She writes president Truman. And pleads for him to get involved.

When that doesn't work. She gets on the first airplane, she's ever flown on. She leaves her kids behind.

She flies to New York. Lands in LaGuardia Field.

She goes to Washington, and meets the members of Congress. Including a young guy from Texas, named Lyndon Johnson.

Who says, young lady, you need to go to Texas. Because there are so many military bases there.

She flies to our hometown. And lands in Lovefield.

In June of 1946. And is met by two family members. And for five weeks, she lives with American families, that lost somebody during a war.

And to each of them she says, leave your boys with us. When the election comes.

We will watch over them, like our own forever.

And they have done that. Now, today, these 10,000 Dutch doctors only have contact information for 20 percent of the American families.

They couldn't ever get the others.

GLENN: You're kidding me. Where is the list? Do you have a list?

ROBERT: Yeah. The Monuments Men and Women Foundation entered into a joint venture with the Dutch Foundation for Adopting Graves.

Not charging anybody for this. And we have created a website called foreverpromise.org.

And on that website is a list of all 10,000 men and women, more women that are buried at the cemetery, or whose names are on the walls missing.

And it's a searchable database. We're asking people to go and see. Do you have someone you know, or a relative, who is buried there.

And if so, we have a short questionnaire. What's your relationship? Are you aware of this great adoption program? Are you in contact with your adopter? Would you like to be? Would you allow us to share your contact information?

I connected a lady from Richmond, Texas. Saturday night. To her -- to this young Tammy, that's the adopter of her brother.

She's 93 years old.

She was in tears. At the thought when she leaves this world, there will be someone there to watch over her brother.

And that's what we're all about is this connecting.

GLENN: Rob, I have to tell you.

You've really done something with your life. I mean, I know you don't need me to say it.
But what a great job you have. And what a great service you have done for so many years.

Thank you so much.

Please, look this up.

The forever promise project.

You can find it at foreverpromise.org. Foreverpromise.org. Robert Edsel is the author's name. The book is Remember Us. It's a perfect read for this week.

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