BLOGMay 02, 2017

FCC Chairman: We Don't Need to Preemptively Micromanage Every Business

Ajit Pai, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), joined Glenn on radio to discuss the future of the internet and net neutrality. If a government regulator exists that Glenn likes, it's Ajit Pai, who stood alone in a hostile world at the FCC during the Obama administration. Pai favors light regulation to ensure consumers have a competitive choice and companies have a greater incentive to invest in the internet.

Enjoy the complimentary clip or read the transcript for details.

GLENN: The head of the FCC. The FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, now joins us.

Ajit, I don't know if you are aware of this at all, but we've been watching you for a while. I have -- I have no idea how you got by Obama. But we're glad you did.

AJIT: Thanks so much, Glenn. I really appreciate the kind words. And grateful to you for making time for me today.

GLENN: Oh, you bet. We have a lot of questions for you. And I want to talk to you about net neutrality. I want to talk to you about the cable industry and this cry of fake news and where you think we're going.

Let's start with probably net neutrality.

Net neutrality is -- is in some ways, a -- a nightmare and will limit people. In other ways, people will look at this and say, "Wait. I don't want my cable operator being able to pick and choose winners and slow down, you know, the speeds of YouTube, if they're trying to promote their own YouTube." Can you make the argument?

AJIT: Absolutely. I think the key point here is nothing about the internet was broken. From the dawn of the internet age in the 1990s until 2015, the internet economy in the United States was the envy of the world precisely because President Clinton and a Republican Congress agreed that instead of regulating the heck out of this new technology, we would let it develop and take targeted action as necessary.

And that's, I think, part of the reason why we saw the tremendous explosion and activity online. But in 2015, on the party-line vote, the FCC imposed these heavy-handed rules that were developed for Mondale, the telephone monopoly back in the 1930s.

And as a result, we've seen less investment in networks. We're seeing less competition than ever. And I think that's one of the things we want to address going further, is, you know, light-touch regulation I think is the best calibrated to make sure the consumers have more competitive choice, and the companies have a greater incentive to invest. And that's where we're heading.

GLENN: So how would you address -- I said this to Ray Kurzweil who is part of the Singularity University. Works for Google. And I said, "So, Ray, why wouldn't Google develop an algorithm that would find people who are using the search engine to create a bigger and better Google? Why wouldn't they just -- I mean, that's human nature to protect yourself. If somebody is coming -- you can piece together in advance, "Wait a minute. These people are looking to build a better Google." Why wouldn't you just shut them down? He said, "Oh, that would never happen because we're all good people." I don't necessarily subscribe to that theory.

But, you know, we are now in the internet age, playing devil's advocate, of these gigantic corporations that you're just not going to -- the little guy is not going to compete against Google. They're not going to compete against Apple. They're not -- you can't compete around Comcast.

AJIT: And the point I consistently made is we don't put our faith in people or in companies. What's that saying? If men were angels, no laws would be necessary.

GLENN: Right.

AJIT: Well, we have a system of laws, and interest in competition laws on one hand and consumer protection laws on the other. And those are administered by a -- say the Federal Trade Commission or Justice Department here in Washington, by state agencies across the country. So there's a whole framework of laws to protect against that kind of conduct.

What we don't need is the FCC preemptively micromanaging every single business in the United States, not just the big ones that you mentioned, but even the smaller companies that have told us we're holding back on investment now because of these heavy-handed investments.

GLENN: So we're talking to Ajit Pai, he's the chairman of the FCC. You know, as I look at the most hated services in America -- or service providers, it's your electric company, it's your insurance companies, it's your cable companies. Those are all the ones that are the most heavily regulated.

However, as somebody who has tried, without $200 million behind me, to break in and have a -- a groundswell -- a verified groundswell of -- of support behind me, these -- to break into cable is absolutely impossible if you are a voice that the companies want to block. You just can't do it. How do we balance that and make sure that, you know, the app system -- because that's why we -- that's why we're online. Okay. Well, good. We'll do it online. But how do we make sure that the app system isn't blocked now by a Comcast or an Apple, where you're just not going to get in and break through?

AJIT: That's a terrific question. And two different answers: Number one, the way you do it is by promoting more competition. You make sure that the barriers to entry, so to speak, are low. That people like you can express yourselves over a variety of different platforms. And number two, to the extent that that's a concern, remember that the people who are promoting this Title II regulation through the US government are not the friends of free speech and free expression. These groups are consistently saying that they want government control of the internet, not just for its own sake, but in order to regulate how speech and expression happens online.

GLENN: Right.

AJIT: And they've been very open about this throughout the years.

GLENN: But you can't -- as a person, I can't start my own cable company. It's all regulated. I can't start one.

AJIT: And that's why we've had a very aggressive agenda in the three months that I've been in the chairman's office to make sure that we enable more companies to make that decision, to enter the marketplace, removing some of the barriers that they found, in terms of the rules, and making it easier for them to raise capital and to enter these marketplaces. And we want the smaller companies that are getting squeezed by these regulations to finally enter the market and provide a competitive option.

GLENN: Good for you.

So help me out on this. Ted Koppel, who I have a lot of respect for, has done a lot of great journalism over his lifetime -- I was talking to him, and he was concerned about all this fake news. And I said, at the end of the day, go back to the revolutionary war, there was tons of fake news back then. We're just in a new situation. And we haven't found our way to balance it yet. But you got to trust the people.

And he immediately said, "I think that we need to start, you know, having a license for people to be on the internet and to present news. We have to verify those people who are online."

That's insane.

AJIT: I couldn't agree more. And I have a lot of respect for Ted Koppel's career. But, frankly, his comments are repugnant to the spirit and the letter of the First Amendment. In fact, that's the very reason why John Milton in 1644 wrote his great treaties on free expression, Areopagitica, where he said that, you know, look, the king has no business licensing people to allow them to speak. We -- the entire premise of western civilization is that you don't have a gatekeeper allowing you to speak only at the whim of the king. And that's the same here in the United States. The last thing I think we want is government -- sort of regulators like me deciding who speaks and who doesn't. That's the fantastic thing about the internet age, I think.

STU: Don't you think though, Glenn -- and Ajit Pai -- we're talking to the FCC chairman. You have this situation where it's not about what happened in 1644 or anything. It's about what's coming up on May 30th, which is season five of House of Cards.

JEFFY: Thank you. Thank you.

STU: People want their Netflix. They want it streamed. They don't want their evil cable company slowing it down. Is that something that needs to be regulated, or does the market actually work that stuff out?

AJIT: To me, the market works it out. The best evidence of that is the digital economy that we had, prior to 2015 when we imposed these rules.

Companies were not engaging in the blocking of lawful content. And to the extent that we have concerns about competition, the best way to get there is not by imposing these heavy-handed regulations that slow down infrastructure investment, especially by some of the smaller companies that would give you a competitive option. It's by making sure we have clear-cut rules of the road, that are market-friendly, that incentivize more companies to enter this space.

And so, you know, look, I'm all in favor of the government looking at any competitive problems as they pop up. Preemptively regulating, from the Fortune 500 companies, down to the tiny companies in Little Rock, Arkansas, is not the way to get there.

GLENN: I will tell you, Ajit, I look at this time period -- and I'd love to hear your point of view of this. I look at this time period of American history as a combination of the industrial revolution and heavy emphasis on Tesla and Edison, all in about a 20-year period. I mean, what's coming in -- in technology and communication has already been profound. But it's going to become even more profound.

And, you know, as a student of history -- and you obviously are one as well. When you look back at those days of Tesla and Edison, in many ways, Tesla was right. Edison was just good at playing the game with the government.

And he was a -- excuse my language, but a son of a bitch. And that's not French. That's English.

STU: Can we say that on the air, Mr. FCC Chairman?

GLENN: Oh, yes, I shouldn't have said that with the FCC chairman.

AJIT: I'll give you a pass, don't worry.

GLENN: Okay. Thank you.

PAT: You didn't think that one through. Did you?

GLENN: Yeah, I didn't think that one through. I forgot who we were talking to. Anyway, we never say things like that, by the way. Golly, gee, darn it. I'm sorry.

But we were pushed back because of the collusion with very powerful people like Edison and very powerful politicians. Do you see us -- how do you see what's coming our way?

AJIT: Boy, that's a great question.

I think the first thing is the empowerment of the citizen that the internet allows. It used to be that to do virtually anything, you had to work through some sort of gatekeeper. If you were buying a car, you had to go through a dealer. If you were wanting to stay in a place, you have to go book a room with a hotel.

And now, because of technology, you can do anything, basically by yourself. And that's an incredible amount of empowerment. But, on the other hand, we always have to guard against this instinct of essentially crony capitalism, the phenomenon that you talked about. And to that extent, I think what people need to understand is that heavy-handed regulation is actually the friend of bigger businesses and for those who believe in big government. Because -- the big companies are always going to have the armies of lawyers and accountants to comply with these regulations, to persuade government to do favors on this or that issue. It's the smaller companies that are disproportionately affected. And the second thing is that it's very seductive for a lot of people to think, "Well, the market just leaves consumers at the mercy of these wild and unpredictable forces." When in reality, the market has delivered more value for consumers than preemptive government regulation ever could.

I mean, the fact that we have billions of people who are emerging from poverty now is the result of free market policies. It's not because the governments of these various countries have suddenly decided to bestow largesse upon them. And so it's a case that we consistently have to make that crony capitalism and big government regulation, those are not the friends of the average consumer.

GLENN: So we have -- we have a situation now of fake news. And it's been around forever. But it's at epidemic proportions because the average person has access to everybody. And the average person, you know, unfortunately doesn't think things through and really read everything. They see a headline, they click on it, and they share it.

We have some really nefarious people, some of them in Russia, that are using our own technology against us, using our own freedoms against us. We have the press -- I told you about Ted Koppel. But we also have the president coming out and saying, you know, you're fake news. And maybe we should be able to sue you more.

Does the FCC have a role in the First Amendment in saying to all sides, "Knock it off. The freedom of the press is the freedom of the press, no matter if it's a printing press or the internet. Knock it off?"

AJIT: Well, I've consistently said -- and this goes back to my time as a commissioner up to five years ago, that one of the distinctive features of America is the fact that we have a First Amendment. It's unique in human history for the government to establish in its very founding papers the notion that anybody in this country has the ability to speak, anybody has the ability to write, anybody has the ability to worship as he or she sees fit.

And that's something that requires not just the cold parchment of the Constitution, but it requires a culture that admires that -- those freedoms. And so I've consistently spoken about -- about the need to preserve that culture of freedom for speech and free press. Because it's a slippery slope. Once you lose it, it's very hard to reclaim it.

GLENN: You have a 50 -- what is it? A 50 or 60 percent of so-called conservatives saying that there's a limit to freedom of the press. Is there?

AJIT: Well, the Constitution speaks for itself. And so long as I have the privilege of occupying this office, I'll keep defending that core constitutional freedom. It's one of the things that I think makes America a very unique place across time and across the world.

GLENN: So I think with that answer, I just have to end where I started: How the hell did you get past Barack Obama?

AJIT: That's a good question. I'm not sure how I slipped through the cracks.

GLENN: I don't know either.

AJIT: But maybe it's the -- sort of like the Forrest Gump of the Washington scene. Just kept gamboling on, and here I am.

(laughter)

GLENN: Yeah. Okay. Ajit Pai, thank you so much for talking to us.

PAT: Great.

GLENN: And keep up the good work.

AJIT: Thank you, sir. Thanks for having me on.

GLENN: You bet. Buh-bye.

PAT: And thanks for the shout-out to Areopagitica. That's -- I think that's a first.

JEFFY: Right.

GLENN: Oh, how many times have we talked about -- off the air --

PAT: All the time. All the time.

STU: Talked about all the time.

GLENN: Okay. You know what I love --

PAT: Talked about all the time. Milton's Areopagitica.

JEFFY: Right!

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

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