GLENNMarch 21, 2017

Can a Rebooted Glenn Beck Find Common Ground?

Marc Giller with The Resurgent recently published an article titled, "Glenn Beck Rebooted," in which he laments the Glenn Beck of early radio days and worries about Glenn's new efforts to heal the divide in America. Marc talked with Glenn on radio Tuesday, having a frank conversation about the nobility of Glenn's goal and how he'll need to find honest brokers on the left --- or be doomed to failure.

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

GLENN: Let's go to Marc Giller, who is joining us now. He's from theresurgent.com. And he wrote a -- he wrote an article called Glenn Beck: Rebooted. And, Marc, good to have you on.

MARC: Hey, Glenn, thanks. I appreciate being on. Thanks.

GLENN: You bet. I appreciate the spirit of the article, and it's nice to actually talk to a fan who has been a fan literally from the beginning.

MARC: Yeah. Actually it's kind of interesting. Because when I read the Washington Post profile that inspired the article in the first place, I hadn't really intended to go down that direction. But when I sat down to actually start writing it, a lot of memories of the show back in the old days on WFLA just came rushing back to me, and it just sort of started pouring out to me, and it kind of turned into this very, very long introduction. And, you know, once I started rolling with it, I was having so much fun with it, you know, just talking about the Frisbeetarian Church.

GLENN: I loved those.

Those were -- yeah -- for anybody who doesn't know what the Schlub Club was. I used to pit the 4 o'clock audience against the 5 o'clock audience. And I would tell the 4 o'clock audience that they were the real audience. The 5 o'clock audience, they were the schlubs. They were the people that just stroll in. Oh, I'm working. I can't listen. And so let's screw with them.

And so we would plan something all hour, and then I would set up the calls. So when the next people -- when the people got off of work, they would just turn on the radio, and they would start hearing these crazy people calling in.

And by the end of the hour, they would be like, I live in an asylum, and all these people that didn't -- that weren't in on it would call in and go, are all of these people crazy?

MARC: That was the funny part too. Because I was actually one of those schlubs at first. I didn't get off work until 5 o'clock. So I'm driving across the Howard Franklin Bridge going home, listening. What the heck are these people?

(laughter)

You know, it just got so off the chart -- all right. And so I eventually figured it out. So I was in on the joke at that point. And I couldn't wait to hear those every single day. They were absolutely hilarious.

GLENN: Yeah, no, they were great. We've never been able to do them because we didn't know how to divide the show up. Because some stations because of time zones shuffle the hours.

JEFFY: Yeah.

GLENN: And I remember -- Stu, do you remember -- were you with me when I did, I'm in love with my sister? Yeah, you were with me.

Do you remember that, Marc?

STU: Yeah.

MARC: I don't remember that one.

PAT: I remember advising you not to do that.

GLENN: Okay. Yeah. I did this whole hour where I built it up, and I said, "Listen, I want you to know, I'm going to talk about something that I've never shared before." And I did this really heartfelt monologue of the first time I fell in love. And I'm not going to be ashamed of it anymore. And it was up on the Ferris wheel when I was a kid and I kissed my sister.

STU: So disturbing.

GLENN: Yeah. And it was a whole -- it was a whole thing to see if I could sway the audience to be -- to defend brother/sister love. And got them there, until the end, I was supposed to then come in and say --

STU: And reveal it.

GLENN: -- okay. So here's the thing. I'm just making a point here that I can get you to believe anything if I put enough --

STU: If you don't have principle. I mean, it's the same points that we're making today.

GLENN: Correct. If I give you enough love stuff and heart stuff, you're going to fall for anything.

Well, unfortunately, it was when I was first starting syndication. And President Bush had to give a speech about 9/11. And the affiliates all dropped off, literally at the explanation. So for 24 hours, I had affiliates calling saying, we are not running this show ever again.

(laughter)

So, anyway, so your point here -- the reason I wanted to get you on is, your point saying, you can admire Glenn to be the first to say, enough, and take a stand against him. But until he finds honest partners on the left who are willing to share the risk and stand by him, I'm afraid his efforts are doomed to fail.

Tell me about that.

MARC: Yeah. Well, it was kind of -- mostly inspired by what had happened with Sam Bee. Because I -- I heard the -- segment that you had her on your radio show when I was driving out to Orlando. And I thought, well, you know -- I had never been a fan of Samantha Bee. Obviously, I'm a preacher on the right myself. And, you know, kind of think a lot of her opinions are kind of full of it. But listening to that, I thought to myself, well, you know, this is worth a try. Because it's kind of akin to some of the things that I'm going to do in mostly my online dealings with people, especially since I've gotten more into political blogging and whatnot. You can get into arguments with people.

But my philosophy was always going to be, all right. I'm not going to be able to persuade people by putting them down, making them feel stupid, calling them names. And I always tried to deal with them in a respectful kind of way.

So when I heard you and Samantha going back and forth, talking to each other about how we need to change the tone and how we converse with one another, I did respond to that. But a couple weeks later, she's on her show, and she's comparing this poor cancer survivor at CPAC to a Nazi because of his haircut. And it just kind of really struck me because I thought, well, you know, if she really took it to heart, the conversations that you've had, if she really wanted to go ahead and change the tone, she wouldn't be doing that kind of thing. And it just kind of concerned me because, you know, I'm very -- a big leader in the effort that you're trying to do here. And I think you're taking obviously a tremendous career risk, potentially alienating people in your audience. A lot of names being called particularly on the right about being a sellout. You know, I do believe that we have to start someplace. But I'm just really concerned about partnering up with the wrong people who aren't really taking it to heart and who are maybe just using this as an opportunity to promote themselves, instead of actually really starting a dialogue and trying to make a conversation more civil between the left and the right.

GLENN: So I'm thinking -- and, Marc, I can't tell you how I appreciate your attitude and your approach on this.

We've talked about this for a long time. And we believe we're going to have to kiss 1,000 frogs before we find one prince. Because it is difficult to -- I was just on with Tavis Smiley. It airs on PBS I think today or tonight or something. And he said, so why aren't you having more success with people -- and I said, that's my question for you, Tavis. Now, he was very, very open. And, you know, but he has kind of a softer attitude anyway.

But he said, so why do you think it is? And I said, because I don't -- I'm not sure that -- he said actually -- he phrased it this way: Is it because people aren't self-reflecting because perhaps there was nobody -- this is a quote, quite as bad as you. And I said, well, okay. That's one way to look at it.

MARC: I take it he never listened to Michael Savage.

GLENN: Right. Or is it that people don't want to look at themselves? It's easier to look elsewhere? And I could tell you that there are people that, you know -- let's look at Bill Maher. Even Samantha Bee, that have said some really difficult things about people on the right.

Are they looking --

MARC: Oh, sure.

GLENN: Are they looking inside of themselves? I don't think so. It's easier to look outside. So it requires somebody to be humble enough to say, what part did I play in this?

MARC: Yeah. Well, and that was another aspect of the WaPo article that kind of set me back a little bit as well too. Because the tone of it was all, you know, here's Glenn Beck, he's trying to hug his way back into bringing America back together.

GLENN: Yeah, I thought that was an unfair article, by the way. I thought it took some things -- some liberty with some things that that was not the right tone. But, anyway, go ahead.

MARC: Yeah. Well, the thing about that was that it made -- it proceeded from this assumption that it was all you're doing. You know, you can extrapolate that to, it's all on the right side of the political spectrum, where all the hatred is coming from, and where all the acrimony is coming from. And that is not the case at all.

GLENN: I agree. I agree.

MARC: Yeah. If the author, Mark Fisher, had balanced it out a little bit in maybe seeking out some people on the left in talking about how they contributed to the overall corruption of how we talk to each other and how we think of each other in this country, I think it would have been a heck of a lot better.

GLENN: I will tell you, Marc, you're right on the money. And I'm waiting for somebody to do that. And so far, nobody is willing to do that. Everybody is willing to dog pile. And I keep waiting for somebody to say, well, hey, wait a minute, it's us too.

MARC: Well, again, look at what's happening to you. Look at what's happening in your attempts to do this. I can't even imagine the amount of hate mail you get over just this particular subject.

STU: That's just from the staff.

MARC: I posted this article. I'm getting hate tweets myself. I'm just a nobody who writes an article on the internet. So I can't even imagine what that would be like a million fold, like what you're dealing with here. And I think that people on the left, particularly those that make their living in the media and they have this image that they have to uphold are thinking the same thing and saying, holy crap. I don't want that happening to me. I want to give my audience what they want.

And that's kind of what I think Samantha Bee was doing when she was doing her Nazi shtick with CPAC attendees. Is that, oh, well, maybe she got a few hate tweets of her own off of appearing with Glenn Beck or having you on her show. And thinking, well, I got to go throw a bone out here to my listeners or my viewers and, you know, let them know I'm not going all soft on them, right? And that's problematic.

STU: We're talking to Marc Giller from The Resurgent. And, Marc, I was fascinated by that point. Because you're right. It was a cheap joke at the expense of some guy on CPAC. Now, it turns out that the guy has cancer, and there was a lot more to the story. But she didn't know that at the time.

GLENN: And it wasn't her joke.

STU: It was some correspondent.

GLENN: It was the correspondent.

STU: But I was interested at seeing your article. Because you talk about the days of 970 WFLA, the mother ship of this particular show.

GLENN: Yep.

STU: And, you know, those were great times, and they were really funny. But also really harsh.

GLENN: They were mean.

STU: And we a lot of times made fun of the appearance of somebody on the left. And we joked and made all sorts of things like that -- it was a harsh show for laughs. And I remember at the time Glenn saying, in comedy, there's always a victim. There's always a victim. We should just always make the first victim ourself. And so that's the way we ran the show.

STU: But her joke, is that just a funny line that we should all just be able to get over? Or is it really some attack that shows that she's not being an honest partner in whatever was trying to be done here?

MARC: Well, you know, I love to employ humor in the stuff that I write as well. And God knows, that Twitter being the medium that it is, it just lends itself to snark, and I've definitely been guilty of doing that myself from time to time, although I've never called anyone a commie or a pinko or anything like that. But I do -- I really -- one of the things about the mean culture that we have right now, that, yeah, it does make it increasingly difficult to make even good jokes and to laugh at each other because everybody is taking themselves so damn seriously. It's very, very difficult to do.

And I think that, you know, if -- maybe the way we react to things like the Nazi joke on Samantha Bee's show, is because we on the right have taken it to the shin so much from the popular culture, where we're always cast as the fuddy-duddies. We're always cast as the ones who want to get into everyone's bedroom, and we don't want you to have fun. When, really, a lot of that is what's going on in the left these days. I guess it just makes us really mad because we've been the butt of jokes so many times. And that, you know, leftists really typically have an extremely difficult time laughing at themselves. So, you know, maybe that's where we are.

GLENN: I tell you, Marc, when somebody actually hears -- really hears what you just said on the left, when they really hear you, things will change. But they don't so far. I've been trying. And they don't hear that message yet. But once they do, I think we can come together.

MARC: I do hope that that is the case. Because my fondest wish in our politics is that we stop yelling at each other and actually start talking to one another instead.

But, you know, the way things are right now, it's all emotion. It's all ID. It's very little debating the actual facts. How we came to that -- obviously we have the mainstream media that's out there stirring the pot as well too because get some clicks, get some views. People are screaming at one another. Washington is happy with that because they can get away with whatever they want to get away with, because people are distracted with minutiae, rather than taking a look at the big issues and the things that are affecting them on a day-to-day basis. So you do have this entrenched power structure that's in place that has a vested interest in keeping us at each other's throats. So it's going to be really tough.

GLENN: So I only have about ten seconds. What I really wanted to ask you was you said, I think it's doomed for failure. So do I continue or do I not continue?

MARC: No. It's only if you get the wrong partners that it's doomed for failure. The interesting thing about what you were mentioning about Riaz, your friend as well too, is that maybe he's going to be more of an honest partner, but he's less of a celebrity. So he's got less of a reputation to uphold I guess with his audience since he's a more behind the scenes type of guy. So I think maybe you might be more productive with that -- going back to the last segment, maybe you ought to watch How to Look Good Naked.

GLENN: All right. Thank you so much. God bless. Marc Giller from theresurgent.com.

RADIO

“He was one of ours, and he was taken”: Megyn Kelly remembers Charlie Kirk

Glenn Beck and Megyn Kelly remember their friend, TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk, a day after he was assassinated at Utah Valley University. They also discuss the manhunt for the killer.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Yesterday was such a surreal day. I was getting to record my special last night. It was in the afternoon. And I'm sitting here in my studio, and I look at the stairs through this glass door that I have here. And my wife is on the phone, and she's standing in the stairway.

And she has her, her hand gripping the stair rail. And I could see it in her eyes, she was on the phone. And I could see confusion, and I could see trouble.

And in my ear, I'm hearing, five, four, three -- and I said, "Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. I need 30 seconds. I need to talk to my wife."

And I motioned for her to come in. And in a confused and dazed sort of way, she kind of stumbles into the room.

And I said, "What's happening, honey?"

And she said, "It's Cheyenne."

I didn't know what that meant. As a dad, you can imagine. I said, "Is she okay? What -- what's happening?"

She meant, it's Cheyenne on the phone.

Cheyenne had just gotten past the crush of the crowd. She called her mom. She said, "Charlie Kirk's just been shot."

"What?"

She sent me some video, and I knew it was true, but hoped for the best until a few minutes later somebody else sent me video that I hope you did not see, of the bullet striking him.

It must have been like what it was when you first saw the Zapruder film, or if you were standing in the Grassy Knoll. You just knew.

I was on with Megyn Kelly, and we were holding on to the hope that he was somehow or another going to survive that. And Megyn said at one point, I don't know why I'm not announcing what everybody else is announcing. But I just can't.

Megyn joins us now. Hi, Megyn.

MEGYN: Hi, Glenn.

GLENN: What a weird 24 hours it has been. Where are you this morning, in unraveling this knot in your head?

MEGYN: I still don't have my arms around it. I -- I don't feel like I've totally digested the fact that he's gone and the way in which he was taken. You know, Charlie truly was such a larger than life figure. We say that term. But it -- it was true about him. At six-five, he truly seemed larger than most of us. And he was, in his gifts, in his tirelessness. And just knowing exactly where the scene. Every story was.

And his raw courage. So many times. We like to think we're courageous in our commentary. You look at Charlie, and you think, now that's try courage. He -- he would just say it like it was.

The things you might be thinking in your head, but you might not want to say explicitly, he said. And he took a lot of slings and arrows for it and was demonized for being all the terrible things, as opposed to people taking him on and saying, "Does he have a point?"

GLENN: You know, I said earlier today, you don't kill the weak. People don't want to try to heal. They just want to speak in anger at times. And anger is part of the grieving process. And I know I'm angry.

But Charlie would face that anger. And what people think is weakness, by showing love and compassion and listening and just having a decent conversation, that's one of the reasons why he was killed. He wasn't -- he wasn't killed because he was weak. Just like Gandhi wasn't weak. He -- he -- he was killed because he was effective.

Megyn, where do we go from here?

She dropped. Can we get her back on the phone. I got an email from somebody today. This morning.

And I want to share the email. I won't share the name. It's short. But I -- I also think I should share the -- my response. Because I think it's how most of us feel.

It -- it comes from a very well-known conservative leader. Glenn, I am devastated this morning.

I am in deep mourning for Charlie. I am in mourning for his family and our country.

And I don't know how to surface from this. I don't know if I do either.

But I would like to share my thoughts with you, a little later on. Megyn is with me.

Megyn, how do we process this? How do we surface from this?

MEGYN: You know, I think as many lost -- we -- we all have to go through the denial and the bargaining. You know, I'm still refreshing my X account, like hoping somehow there's a reversal. You know, like somehow it was all wrong. Somehow we got it all wrong. You know, sometimes the media gets it wrong. It -- it's absurd. We know what the answer is.

But that's a natural reaction when you had a sudden loss in particular. And anger is completely appropriate now too. It's completely appropriate.

You know, we are going to catch this guy. You know, that FBI presser they just held which is very encouraging.

They -- and two things that happened this morning that are of note, Glenn. First, Steven Crowder who is very solid on his law enforcement leak reporting. He has -- he has a proven track history. He's the one that got the manifesto from the trans shooter in Nashville before anyone else. And that's not all.

He's had other leaks, posting a document saying he received from an ATF source on the investigation.

And that says that they retrieved the gun in the would see, behind the campus. Wrapped in a towel. And that there were three unspent cartridges in the gun. That had transgender and antifascist ideology. Something written on them.

Now, that piece of -- that last piece of it was not confirmed by the FBI at the presser they just held, but every other thing was.

The Crowder report was confirmed in every detail, including naming the kind of gun. He had that right. He had the location right. He had the trail and the tracking of the suspect right.

They did not volunteer the business about what was written on the cartridges, nor did anyone there ask. Because those reporters almost certainly don't follow Steven Crowder because those reporters will probably tell you, he's not to be trusted.

Now, this is an early report. And it could turn out to be wrong. But that's the update as far as we know it.

And the FBI revealing that they have a picture of him, that they did, of course, track him on his way to the shooting spot with surveillance cameras, of course, on these college campuses. We would expect that in dorms or class buildings.

And they appear confident. At least to me. That they've got the guy. And if they've got the weapon, Glenn. Well, they may or may not have fingerprints.

But they almost certainly have DNA. They almost certainly DNA, which I'm sure they're uploading right now, into every database, they can.

You know, within we saw -- they're not supposed to use the public databases. Sorry, private like 23andme or Ancestry.com. Though, in Culverter (phonetic), they did. And that is how they found Culverter. Sometimes they do.

And even just a public database of DNA. Can lead you at least to a family member somewhere near a shooter or suspect. And then it's just a matter of charts and a few hours in getting to that person's relative. So I believe they will find the shooter.

And then we'll know the ideology. And then we'll have a place to put some of the anger. Like, an explanation or something that will help us understand what deranged person. And I don't mean that in a clinical sense. Did this yesterday.

I just feel like, I don't know where to go, until I figure out who did this and why.

GLENN: It was about midnight last night, when I talked to the president.

And he was very clear, that we will find whoever is responsible for this. And justice will be served.

He was extraordinarily confident in that. Which gave me an awful lot of hope.

I don't know if you saw his speech last night, that he gave from the oval.

But I thought -- very powerful. Hit exactly the right tone.

Hit exactly the right tone.

But I think the days of us fooling around and nibbling at the edges. I think those days are over.

MEGYN: I agree. And one of the things that Trump said last night that was so good was, he used the word "terrorism." That's exactly right. You know, that's -- that is how a lot of us are feeling.

And I know you've had the same experience I've had in the last 24 hours, Glenn, where virtually everybody I know in the media business has reached out. I think there are a lot of folks who are in Arlene, in particular, in conservative media, who are very rattled by this because he was one of ours.

And he was taken. You know, he -- obviously, we all have concerns about personal security now with the shooter at loose. You know, at large as well. But I just mean that -- like the betrayal and the need to rise up and protect ours. And the people we value and love.

You know, this is like -- I don't want to say a call to arms. Because I'm not encouraging violence. But, I mean, a unifying call for us to stand shoulder to shoulder and stand up.

GLENN: Yeah. It is absolutely a wake-up call. To anybody who thought, you know, "Oh, it's just going to pass us by," it's not. This is -- this is the call of our age. And how we respond, is going to determine the future of freedom in this country. But I have great confidence that we will respond just as we did after 9/11.

We responded with conviction. We responded with an intelligence sort of way. We overreacted in some ways, that I would like to avoid this time.

But we came together as a nation, and did what had to be done.

For the preservation of our nation.

Now, if we can have the moderation lesson learned this time. Perhaps we will be good. But I think the days of Antifa not feeling any ramifications for their work and others, those days are over! As of yesterday.

Megyn -- I just -- go ahead.

MEGYN: Go ahead, Glenn. I was just going to say. One of the things we did after 9/11 was when the stock market opened two days later. We -- we all bought stocks. We just -- it could have been a 5-dollar to being. But everyone did it to send a message that the financial center would stand. And I think we are going to see a reaction on college campuses when it comes to free speech by conservatives unlike we've ever seen before. In a similar vein.

GLENN: I agree. I'm proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with you, Megyn. And be in the trenches with you all the time. You are a light in a lot of darkness. And I appreciate our years of friendship. And everything that you've done for the country. Thank you!

MEGYN: Likewise, my friend. Thanks for having me.

RADIO

“Our country has changed forever”: Charlie Kirk's BlazeTV friends reflect on his death

BlazeTV hosts Liz Wheeler, Steve Deace, and Allie Beth Stuckey join Glenn Beck to reflect on the assassination of their friend, Charlie Kirk. They also discuss where the conservative movement goes from here and what they believe the impact of his death will be.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: I spoke to you yesterday. And we were both pretty raw at the time. How are you doing this morning?

LIZ: I -- I am in a fog of grief, Glenn. I think that a lot of us are -- it still feels very unbelievable what happened to our very dear friend, Charlie Kirk. I feel like I'm floating up outside of my body in a sense, watching all of this unfold.

It's quite something to see the reaction, from the American people over this assassination. I think you're correct when you say that our country has changed forever. I think this is one of the most significant -- not just political assassinations, but political events that we've experienced since the inception of our country.

And I think I've been praying about this, since you and I spoke for so long yesterday.

I've been thinking about this endlessly.

Obviously, on my knees, praying for sweet Erica and Charlie and Erica's two babies. But I think one of the things that's happened in the last 24 hours is people in our country, and I don't even want to say conservatives.

I don't want to say right-wingers because it's not just that, have realized that Charlie is so normal. He's not radical. He's not extreme.

He's not bombastic. He's not edgy. He's just a regular guy. And he's kind. And they killed him because of those beliefs and opinions, those principles and values, Glenn, that we share with him.

And you and I work in this industry, and you've written a lot of books about this political enemy that we face, and we talk about it a lot.

But for the majority of the American people, this is the first time, Glenn, that they're realizing, exactly who this political enemy that we face is.

And it's jarring, and it's gut-wrenching. Because they realize, that just as easily as they assassinated Charlie Kirk and are now dancing on his grave, they want to do that to us, too. (crying)

GLENN: Liz, I -- and I know you do. I have such faith in the Lord. And I know -- I don't know how our lives end.

I don't know how things work out. But I know everything that happens is used for his good. There is no way to thwart God's plan. You can make it -- you can make getting there harder. You can make getting there more painful.

But if we trust in him, great and glorious things are going to happen. Because of this.

LIZ: Charlie once said --

GLENN: Go ahead.

LIZ: Charlie once said, when someone asked him what he wanted to be known for the most -- and he wore a lot of hats, so he could have picked a lot of different accomplishments and identities. And he said he wanted to be known for his faith.

And that's -- it's so powerful. You and I are clinging to God right now. Everyone sitting here with us is clinging to God. I'm literally sitting here, gripping a rosary as we talk. Evil happens in our world, and we all ask that question, "Why? Why does God allow bad things to happen to good and innocent people?"

And, you know, as Father Mike Schmitz reminded us yesterday, "When evil happens, that is not God's perfect will. It is God's permissive will, which is very different."

God allowed Charlie's death to happen, but he did not want it to happen. God values human freedom and can bring about a greater good through these allowed events. But God does not allow evil. He uses it to achieve his higher purpose. When sometimes we don't know what that is, and I -- I'm human. I find it very difficult not to have an immediate answer to, "Okay. What is that higher good?"

But it could be testing faith or demonstrating compassion, teaching people how to uphold his perfect will of good.

And if God were to remove evil from the human existence, he would also be removing our free will to love him and to love others. And he knows that despite the evil that he allows to exist in the world, this greater good can be achieved for eternity, which is where Charlie is now.

And, Glenn, there are a lot of bad people online right now. You know, celebrating Charlie's death and saying how ironic it was, that Charlie was killed by a gun when he was a champion of gun rights. But you want to know what the real irony is? The real irony is that Charlie, at this moment in eternity, I guarantee you, Glenn, is praying for those who did this to him.

GLENN: You know, yesterday I said, "I think I might have done the hardest things I've done. I walked to the front gate, and I lowered my flag to half-mast for a dear friend."

And I think that is going to be easy compared to the forgiveness and the compassion and the restraint that is going to be required from all of us in the coming days. I think that's going to be very difficult. And I don't know how you do it, if you don't have God.

LIZ: I don't. I can't imagine moving forward without God. The Bible says, "He is my rock. He is my refuge."

And I can tell you, that that's the only thing that's helping me swim through this fog.

Charlie was such a good man, Glenn. Such a good man. You know, he once actually hired me -- this was a decade and a half ago. He hired me to work for Turning Point USA, but I wasn't going to -- my start date for starting that job wasn't going to be for, like, three months down the road because that's a new financial cycle. And in the interim after we had signed that contract, but before I had started, I got offered my first television job on OIN. And so I preemptively quit on Charlie.

And I remembered talking to him. And saying, "I know this is such a sucky move for me to preemptively quit on you after we had agreed. But, Charlie, what would you do?"

And he was so gracious, Glenn. He was so generous. He said, "You are -- you're going to kill it. You're going to -- you will use this platform to glorify God and save this country."

And he was always so encouraging. Yesterday, I was looking back at our text thread, because for as busy as this man was, he never neglected talking to his friends.

And during some of the most challenging moments in my public life, who was texting me encouragement, but Charlie Kirk? This -- it is hard to think about how to move forward, but one of the things -- and I know that it's hard to articulate clearly in this moment. But one of the things that I know with crystal clarity at this moment. Is we are not going to be silenced by an enemy who harms us.

We are not going to back down. We are not going to be quiet. We are going to honor Charlie's legacy. We are going to care for and love Charlie's families.

We are going to understand in a clearer sense exactly what we are up against. And it's going to -- with God on our side, it is going to lead us to victory, in a way that our country has not yet experienced. Because we do have this binary choice.

The left wants violence. The left wants Civil War.

The left wants to hurt us and kill us.

But what's going to happen instead, is these people in our country. People who are politically apathetic. Or lukewarm liberal. Or maybe right-wing, but not that active in politics, the same thing is going to happen as a result of Charlie's assassination. That happened after the Black Lives Matter riots.

Or after the COVID vaccine mandates. Where people realized that the other side does not want the best for us.

That the other side, during the Black Lives Matter riots, was willing to falsely accuse us of being racists when that wasn't true. Or during COVID, to tell us that we couldn't go to church and worship God. And we had to take their medical products because they said so, and they didn't care about the harm. Glenn, this is that, times one thousand!

People are now looking out across our country, realizing, that there are subversive forces. And not just a radical lunatic madman incident.

There are radical forces who want to kill us. And the awakening that is going to happen, the eye-opening, you are going to see churches filled with people turning to God. You are going to see politics, a swell of good people, who want to stand for normalcy, and common sense. Two million, 5 million, 10 million Charlie Kirks are going to be minted because of this!

And that's hard to picture in this moment, and there will be hard choices to make because we're angry right now and the left is taunting us, but I have so much faith. I have so much faith in what Charlie did and in the prayers that he is going to be bathing our country in now from eternity.

GLENN: I want to spend a few minutes with another friend of Charlie Kirk's and a good friend of our program and -- and mine. Steve Deace, who follows me on Blaze TV. Steve, I know it has been a hard 24 hours. How are you holding up?

STEVE: I'm pretty devastated. I think I have sobbed more, Glenn, in the last 18 hours than I probably did since the night of my own conversion.

GLENN: Hmm.

STEVE: I'm angry, as I know a lot of people are. And there will be a time, after we -- we need to mourn, first, Glenn. Because otherwise the anger will come out destructively. And it needs to come out, but constructively. And I think we have to mourn first. I think Charlie's legacy as a father, husband, friend, patriot merits that. And I think TP USA and his family need that.

In the not too distant future, we're going to have to get the message that was sent here. He was the best of us. We saw him behind the scenes or in public, genuinely kind, generous.

I -- I -- too many pastors and ministry leaders thought they were too good for Charlie and TP USA. Didn't want to get their hands dirty, and claimed they were being super friendly. And yet, he was the one that sought out the seekers. He went to the places that those nicer than God pastors didn't go to. And he took the bullet that, frankly, that's part of their calling. That they're supposed to take. And I hope in a good way, it shames some of them this morning. That they wake up and they realize, that they have slept on the job. And that's judge somebody like Charlie had to do their job for them.

And as Charlie, you know, named his own organization.

This is a turning point. We're never going back to the way things were before. What we do, next, will decide whether or not they are better. And as one of Charlie's biggest -- biggest supporters and donors texted me this morning, we can only pray that out of one, many will rise up.

GLENN: That's a guarantee. That is an absolute guarantee, that that is going to happen.
You know, when the tyrant is killed, his reign is over. When the martyr is killed, his reign has just begun. And make no mistake, for liberty, Charlie Kirk was a martyr. He was assassinated and martyred yesterday.

And -- and, you know, I -- I -- I -- I think -- I hope, that America -- I wish America could know him the way we knew him.

Because he was a -- he was such a generous man.

STEVE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: It didn't matter who you were, or what rank in life you were, if you needed help, he was there. And --

STEVE: Yep.

GLENN: No matter how busy he was, everything stopped.

And he would help you.

And I saw it in him over and over and over again. And I wish people could see that, because it -- you know, this cartoon character, where they're making him into this bomb thrower, he was anything, but.

I mean, he would have the greatest conversations with people. I mean, I could have done it. I couldn't do it. I couldn't sit through that nonsense. But he could!

And he could logically and peacefully have a great conversation, with people who despised him. And that was so important for the healing of our nation. And I really think that that's one of the reasons that he was killed, not just because he was effective at what he did, but because he was healing us. Something that is really vital to happen. He was healing all of those divides.

STEVE: I couldn't have said it better myself. And if you just look on social media and see so many people in our movement, who have such incredible -- people I don't know, people that don't know me, such incredible testimonies of everything you just said in their interactions with Charlie.

You know, we had a very divisive presidential primary. And to be honest, I didn't always handle it well. One of the first people I heard from when it was over was Charlie. And he texted me, and he said, "Don't give up. We need you."

He didn't have to do that, he won. And he's got the bigger platform. He's got the bigger show. He didn't have to do that. But that's the -- those are the kinds of things that leaders do.

And the void that is left here is massive. And at my lowest point I've ever had in my faith, the Lord said something to me, that will stay with me the rest of my life. And he said, "Steven" -- I'm sorry.

"Steven, I need apostles, not assassins."

And I want to share that with your audience because to win the fight that will come after this, that is what will be required. If you know me, this isn't about being a pansy. The apostles rebuke. But they don't seek revenge. The apostles confront. But they don't condemn. The apostles did something that Hannibal couldn't do.

No other civilization in the fertile crescent could do, they conquered the Roman empire. They set the stage for Western civilization. And they did not do it because they were passive, and they sit on the sidelines, and they were nicer than God. And they wear pleated khakis and Hawaiian shirts year around with sweater vests.

They did it because they got their hands dirty. They did it because they did the kinds of things we saw Charlie do: Build infrastructure.
Direct, lead, guide.

I mean, we would have to have a literal conclave, Glenn. And literally, everyone in our business and movement. And come up with divisions to do all the various things Charlie himself was leading and doing in that organization.

I told Charlie at dinner recently, "It's like, you were like, if Rush Limbaugh and the Heritage Foundation had a baby. This is what you and TP USA are."

And that's what it's going to take to fill that void. But I can't -- I'm sure with the size of your audience, my inbox -- my wife is going through it, as we speak, it is full of people. You were right. I have to get off the sidelines. I have to do something. My buddy Sloan over at TP USA texted me yesterday, he goes, "You know, I can't tell you how many pastors we're hearing from. They thought they were too pious for us. Too good for us.
And now the stakes have been raised. They're getting it."

And I'm just so sorry, that it took two little children and their -- and their mom's family away from them for two -- for more people to get the message. And I want to -- I want to specifically challenge my generation, Gen X, no more grunge. No more, we're too cool for school. No more, "Well, everything sucks. Nothing we can do." No more.

That was a 31-year-old man doing the work as a young father and husband, frankly it wasn't his time to do yet. He has other primary duties that he should have been given the benefit of devoting to as a husband father, but our generation has set on the sidelines for too long. We must lead. It is our children now that are grown, that are leaving the nest. We are the ones with the free time.

We are the ones with the discretionary income. It is our time now to leave, to stop bitching and complaining about boomers. And I say that to me more than anybody else.

And to stop looking around like we're still listening to Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots and Sound Garden, and nothing is going to get better. It is time now to lead. This is our moment.

And we are the ones that are in a place to do this with the positions of our families and with our productivity and prosperity. We have to step to the forefront now.

GLENN: Such great good will come out of this, Allie.

I know this is a tough day for you, and thank you for joining me.

ALLIE: Yeah. God is in the business of redemption. He's in the business of thwarting Satan's schemes. He's in the business of bringing beauty out of the ashes. He's in the business of bringing glory to himself, and bringing people to himself.

And if Charlie had had the choice, if someone had been able to come to him and say, okay. This is what your death will accomplish, it will accomplish more people hearing the gospel, it will accomplish more people waking up, I know if Charlie had had that choice, he would have said yes. He would have said, "Yes, Lord, send me." And not only would he have, but he did.

He went into the lion's den, and now he is with the lion of Judah. Now he is with Jesus. And everyone is going to know who he was and why he lived and the gospel that motivated him. And that is the only thing right now that is giving me any hope or any peace or any comfort.

GLENN: I know that all I could think of yesterday was how glorious the greeting must have been on the other side. You know, good -- "Well, done, good and faithful servant."

ALLIE: Yes, absolutely.

And before any of us heard the news, before his sweet wife Erica got the phone call, he was already hearing those words. And I am so happy for him.

I'm so happy that he is with the saints and the martyrs and the persecuted through which the Church of Christ has been advanced for millennia. I'm so happy for him. I'm so sad for us. I'm so sad for us, having gained an incredible person. But we -- we lost a huge presence.

GLENN: That's how I know when people have faith. They don't weep for the dead.

They weep for the lost to themselves and to the world and to the families that are hurting.

They -- they mourn that loss on themselves. But they -- they -- when they think of the person who has died, they know exactly where they are.

ALLIE: Yeah.

GLENN: And with Charlie, I -- I -- I -- I mean, I knew him when he was 17, and he was a good kid, but what a change happened to him.

He -- he was on fire for Christ, on fire for that.

ALLIE: Yes. Absolutely. He grew into over the past five to ten years, such a theologically deep and apologetically astute man of God, as he became a husband, as he became a father, as he became even more of a warrior for truth, and that is really what -- that's what inspired me.

And when I heard the news yesterday, I thought, my thought was, that's it. I'm done. I'm throwing in the towel.

That is it for me. I'm not -- I'm not willing to do this anymore.

And then later after he died, I went through some of the texts that he had sent me over the years. He was always sending everyone. All of these friends. These very encouraging texts.

And he sent me this article from a liberal outlet, that of course, had taken some jabs at me. That had made me anxious. And he said, "Well done. Keep slugging."

And I just know that if he were here, that's exactly what he would say, not just to me, but to all of us.

He would say, "No. You can't get out now. You got to keep going. You got to keep going." That's exactly how he would feel, and that's exactly what he would tell all of us.

GLENN: I've received so many emails from people who have said, "I don't know how to get back up again."

ALLIE: Yeah.

GLENN: And I don't know what to tell them other than, faith in God. Faith in God.

ALLIE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: I think if our side, if you will -- boy, I hate that in this context, but if -- if we didn't have God, we would be very much like the left right now.

We would be mired in anger and -- and screaming for vengeance and it would be a really ugly place today.

ALLIE: Yes.

GLENN: If -- if we didn't have God.

ALLIE: Yes. And if Jesus wasn't raised from the dead, like if he wasn't resurrected, then we don't have a hope of a resurrection. If he didn't defeat death, then we can't defeat death. If Jesus didn't live forever, then we can't live forever.

And that's exactly what Charlie always preached. What he always posted on X. What he always said, if you were to be able to text him right now. And say, "Look, Charlie. I've got this really tough thing to talk about today. And I don't know how to say it. I don't know what to say. What are your thoughts on it? What should I say?" I know exactly what he would say, the one word he would text back, and that would be, "Jesus. Just tell them that. Just tell them that Jesus is the only way to fulfillment." That is what he would say. People may not realize that. Every time he went on a college campus, he wasn't just talking about capitalism or Donald Trump, and all those things are important. He shared the gospel.

GLENN: No.

ALLIE: He knew that every single person that walked in front of him, was made in the image of God with a soul that was going to live forever, in one of two places. He desperately wanted the people who hated him to go to heaven. And I just pray that I can have that same boldness for the rest of my life.

RADIO

Courage, Faith, and Truth: Glenn Beck's Tribute

Glenn Beck pays tribute to his dear friend Charlie Kirk following his tragic passing. With raw emotion and deep conviction, Glenn reflects on Charlie’s courage, faith, and unwavering commitment to truth in a world that often rewards lies. Drawing parallels to America’s founders, soldiers, and first responders, Glenn reminds us that Charlie’s life and legacy demand an answer to the question: “If not me, then who?” This episode is both a remembrance of Charlie’s extraordinary life and a call to action for all of us to stand firm in faith, defend truth, and carry forward the torch of courage that he so boldly bore.

Watch Glenn Beck's Full 3-Hour Radio Show from September 11, 2025 HERE

Glenn's Show Prep

Can a Rebooted Glenn Beck Find Common Ground?

Here’s what we know about the suspected Charlie Kirk assassin

“He was one of ours, and he was taken”: Megyn Kelly remembers Charlie Kirk

Transcript

“Our country has changed forever”: Charlie Kirk's BlazeTV friends reflect on his death

Transcript

Courage, Faith, and Truth: Glenn Beck's Tribute