BLOGJune 20, 2017

How Innovators, Athletes and Warriors Hijack Their Senses for Off-The-Chart Productivity

It’s the biggest revolution you’ve never heard of, and it’s hiding in plain sight. Over the past decade, Silicon Valley executives like Eric Schmidt and Elon Musk, Special Operators like the Navy SEALs and the Green Berets, and maverick scientists like Sasha Shulgin and Amy Cuddy have turned everything we thought we knew about high performance upside down. Instead of grit, better habits, or 10,000 hours, these trailblazers have found a surprising short cut. They're harnessing rare and controversial states of consciousness to solve critical challenges and outperform the competition.

In his new book Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work, co-author Steven Kotler details this place called "the flow" where creativity and performance are heightened. Getting in the flow isn't all sunshine and lollipops, however. Kotler joined Glenn on radio to discuss the phenomenon.

"If I understand you right, what you're saying is, whether it's drugs, whether it's a spiritual experience, no matter how you get there, there's this place called the flow, and it makes you so much more focused and productive," Glenn said.

Kotler explained.

"What we know about flow is that . . . in these states, all of the brain's kind of information processing machinery gets amplified, right? We take in more information per second. We process it more quickly. We're able to, like, link ideas together. So creativity goes through the roof, motivation goes through the roof, cooperation, collaboration --- all the so-called twenty-first century skills, the skills that we need so badly right now," Kotler said.

This state of consciousness floods the brain with dopamine, the chemical that underlies all addictive behavior --- like gambling, sex, shopping or cocaine addictions.

Glenn experienced his own version of it for several years from a "deep spiritual connection of profound gratitude and service" called "helper's flow."

According to Kotler, there are ten individual triggers that could drive someone into the flow, as well as group or shared triggers.

"There's a shared collective version of a flow state, known as group flow. It's what happens if you've ever been in a great brainstorming session or if you watched a band come together and the music just starts to soar, or for that matter, if you saw the Super Bowl last year . . . what the Patriots did in the fourth quarter. Everybody comes together, and football looks more like ballet. That's group flow. It's what the SEALs rely on so heavily too," Kotler said.

Based on brain research and four years of investigation, Stealing Fire explains how the driving forces of psychology, neurobiology, technology and pharmacology are fueling a trillion dollar underground economy.

Enjoy the complimentary clip or read the transcript for details.

GLENN: Steve, welcome to the program. Glad you're here.

I have to be honest with you, I've only read, you know, 50 pages of the book. And I'm not sure I -- I understand. Let me just ask you one question before we get into it, to make sure I do understand what the point is here. Is James Valentine -- he was not taking any drugs. He was just -- he had a different kind of experience. But the same effect.

STEVEN: Yeah.

GLENN: Okay. So I just wanted to know that. Now you can start at the beginning because now I think I got it.

STEVEN: Absolutely. Let me just put it in historical context for you because it's the -- thank you for having me, by the way.

GLENN: You bet.

STEVEN: But it's the easiest way to frame this up.

Back at the turn of the century, 1902, William James, who is a Harvard philosopher and psychologist and has used sort -- he's sort of the godfather of western philosophy -- he makes the observation that a whole slew of experiences, what all the experiences that are sort of found north of happy -- so these are states of awe. Certain kinds of mystical experiences, like trance states or states produced by prayer or yoga or meditation, or even in some cases, psychedelic states or flow states, which is what we study at the Flow Juneau Project, myself and Jamie Weil, who I wrote the book with. Which are those states of -- kind of optimal states of consciousness where we feel are best, where we perform our best.

You notice that all these states were really, really similar. They produce very similar psychological changes in us. They seem to heal anxiety, heal trauma, and they seem to lift us up to incredible heights. And they produce a very similar kind of physical experiences in us.

And we sort of turned our back on it. Like we weren't really interested in all states of consciousness at that point. Freud came along. He said, hey, pathological problems are much more interesting. Let's try to fix people.

And that's what psychology did, for about a hundred years, until the late '90s, when somebody -- hey, you know, there's this whole upper realm of experiences we haven't looked at. And now we have.

And as it turns out, using, you know, high-powered brain imaging technology, James was right. There's very, very little difference in the brain of a skier in the zone, moving down a mountain base, or say, as you pointed out, in the beginning, a billionaire microdosing with psychedelics or somebody meditating. Very similar things happen in the brain. They produce very similar feelings. And, thus, they have similar benefits.

GLENN: Okay. So let's get into this. Because I -- I've read 55 pages this morning, just trying to get ready for this. And I wish I would have picked the book up earlier. Because I think --

STEVEN: I got to tell you, by the way, 55 pages, you're doing well compared to a lot of people I talk to.

GLENN: Well, I'm embarrassed --

STEVEN: I appreciate that.

GLENN: I'm embarrassed that I've only read 55.

But the idea here -- I'm fascinated by it because I believe -- as long as we're not talking about a drug-only state, in the flow, I really truly believe that from 2007 to about 2012, I experienced that. And it -- just being in the flow. And it was a very different feeling and real high, high clarity.

Mine was a -- mine was a -- not drug induced. But I could explain it to you. And I think it's the way John Valentine --

STEVEN: James Valentine.

GLENN: Or, James Valentine would explain it as well. So I think there is something here to people --

STEVEN: Do I mind if I ask you a question?

GLENN: Yeah, go ahead.

STEVEN: What triggered that experience in you? At the front end of it, what was going on in your life that brought that on?

GLENN: It was a -- a -- a deep spiritual connection of profound gratitude and service.

STEVEN: So, interestingly, you had an experience, and it's very long-lasting. It's known as helper's high. It was discovered by Allan Luks, founder of Big Brothers Big Sisters back in the '90s. It's essentially a flow state. Right? And let's just define "flow" for your listeners who don't know what exactly it is. Flow is a fancy term for being in the zone, being unconscious, if you play a lot of basketball. Those moments of wrapped attention and total absorption, where you get so focused on what you're doing, everything else vanishes. So your sense of self goes away. Time passes strangely. It slows down, or it will speed up.

GLENN: It's what, like, SEALs and people describe when they're at their height of, you know, going in to kill Osama bin Laden. Time slows down. Everything else disappears.

STEVEN: Yes. Now, that's a very acute -- when time slows down, it has to be very acute. There's a lot of additional brain processes being involved a little bit

GLENN: Right.

STEVEN: But essentially, helper's high is a flow state produced by altruism. You can even get a little taste for it -- if you've ever donated to Kiva or an online charity or anything like that, you'll get a little flush of that kind of feel-good feeling on the back end.

GLENN: Yes.

STEVEN: You just got it for a very long time. My wife and I were on a dog sanctuary and -- so we do hospice care and special needs care, and we live in a very poor community. And we work here intentionally and live here intentionally to do this work. And she runs on helper's high.

GLENN: So the difference between that and just the dopamine that you get from -- you know, the (sound effect) from your Facebook or your email.

STEVEN: Yeah, exactly.

GLENN: What is what is the difference?

STEVEN: So the differences are, as we move into flow, a couple of things happen: First of all, you get -- so most of what -- what they call 21st century normal, you and I, where our brains are right now, there's a lot of activity kind of behind our forehead, in what's known as the prefrontal cortex, which is your executive function, your attention, your sense of morality, your sense of will, language, function, all that stuff. That's going crazy.

And we -- most of us live with like the steady drip, drip of stress hormones like cortisol and norepinephrine. That's what psychologists talk about as 21st century normal, essentially.

As you move into all of these states -- this happens in meditation. It happens in conflative states like yoga. It happens in flow states, whether they're triggered by action/adventure sports or by music. James Valentine's experience was he got into these deep trances playing music.

You can -- chess is -- Josh Waitzkin talks a lot about chess and flow. Very common in a lot of things that require intense focus in the present moment or altruism, in your case.

And so what happens is you move into those states -- and in the prefrontal cortex, it gets really quiet. It dies down.

That's why your sense of self disappears. Right? The inner critic -- that nagging, always on, defeatist voice in your head goes quiet in those states because the inner critic is basically calculated in your prefrontal cortex. And if that part of the brain starts to shut down, we can't perform the calculations. So your inner critic goes away. Time passes, strangely. Because time is calculated all over the prefrontal cortex. And what goes away, we can't separate past, present, from future. It all blends together into what researchers call the "deep now."

And to your question, the stress hormones, norepinephrine and cortisol, they get flushed out of our system. And they get replaced by not just dopamine. Dopamine itself is a very powerful, you know, feel-good neural chemical with a lot of performance-enhancing benefit. But you also get endorphins and serotonin and monoamine and oxytocin. It's the cocktail that is so popular.

And what that cocktail does -- you talked about the clarity, besides -- you know, it makes us feel selfless. It makes us feel timeless. It also gives -- it massively -- it massively boosts motivation.

So McKinsey, for example, did a ten-year study of top executives in flow. And they found that top executives were 500 percent more productive in flow. That's a huge boost. And it's because all of these same neural chemicals, they're feel-good drugs. Some of the most addictive pleasure chemicals the brain can produce -- flow is the only time we get all at once. And so it produced this huge spike in motivation. A positive spike, right? Like a positive addiction.

GLENN: And so your -- your job now is to try to figure out how to trip us into this flow?

STEVEN: Yeah. We -- so over the past -- you know, flow science has -- stretches back 150 years. But recently, the past ten years, we've been able to look under the hood for the first time. Where are these experiences coming from? And we've been able to work backwards. And we now know that flow states have triggers, preconditions that lead to more flow.

There are ten individual triggers, what you or I could have used on our own to drive ourselves into flow. And then there's a shared collective version of a flow state, known as group flow. It's what happens if you've ever been in a great brainstorming session or if you watched a band come together and the music just starts to soar, or for that matter, if you saw the Super Bowl last year. Saw fourth quarter comeback, right? The spectacular -- what the Patriots did in the fourth quarter. Everybody comes together, and football looks more like ballet. That's group flow.

It's what the SEALs rely on so heavily too. It's a team coming together, being able to kind of behave like a collective organism.

GLENN: Okay. When we come back, I want to have you go through some of those ten things that can trip us into it. The name of the book is Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Work and the Way We Live.

[break]

GLENN: I'm fascinated by this. Steven Kotler. The name of the book is called Stealing Fire.

And, Steven, if I understand you right, what you're saying is, whether it's drugs, whether it's a spiritual experience, no matter how you get there, there's this place called the flow, and it makes you so much more focused and productive. And however you get there, you're trying to figure out how to trip yourself into it. Correct?

STEVEN: Yeah.

GLENN: Okay.

STEVEN: What we know about flow is that -- you know, in these states, all of the brain's kind of information processing machinery gets amplified. Right? We take in more information per second. We process it more quickly. We're able to like link ideas together. Find -- so creativity goes through the roof. Motivation goes through the roof. Cooperation, collaboration, all the so-called 21st Century skills, the skills that we need so badly right now.

GLENN: Okay. So give me -- we have about five minutes. Give me the high points on how to trip yourself into it.

STEVEN: So, you know, some really kind of basic stuff is pretty simple. First thing you need to know is that flow shows up when all of our attention is focused on the right here, right now.

So at a very practical level, we go into companies, one of the first things we tell them is if -- you can't hang a sign that says, bleep off, I'm flowing. You are in trouble. Because flow requires 90- to 120-minute periods of concentration to really bring it out. Which is, by the way, one of the reasons Montessori education is so effective. It's built around to 90 to 120 minutes of uninterrupted concentration periods, right? They use this. And it's why Montessori kids, you know, see so much flow and end up testing better than so many other kids on any test you throw at them. Very simple thing.

Want to get it -- take it one notch up. We'll go into a trigger that's often called the golden rule of flow, known as the challenge skills balance. The idea here is really simple: All of flow's triggers are things that help drive attention to the present moment. Right?

So we pay the most attention to the task at hand, when the challenge of the task slightly exceeds our skill set. So you want to stretch, but not snap. And this is tricky. Because if you're sort of shy or timid, maybe a bit of an underachiever, whatever, the sweet spot is outside of your comfort zone. You have to be pushing yourself outside your standard comfort zone.

For a really super high productive, top performers, type A types, the problem here is they blow past the sweet spot. They will take on challenges that are so much bigger than they need to be.

And so one of the things we always tell people is in this stuff -- especially if you're type A, you got to go slow to go fast. There's a kind of neuro biologically sweet spot as to how we pay attention. And when you hit it, it really drives focus.

GLENN: Okay. Go ahead.

STEVEN: I mean, just a couple places to start.

GLENN: All right. So do you do this with -- are you guys doing this work with companies coming in and saying --

STEVEN: Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, last week, we spent a day with all the top senior management, top executives at Ameritrade. And the bigger point is this, we've learned this over the years in our digitally delivered classes -- and, for example, we did a six-week training at Google a couple years ago. It was a joint learning exercise, where we were trying some of this stuff out. And we train them up in kind of four high performance basics like sleep hygiene. Get enough sleep at night kind of stuff. Real basic. And then four flow triggers. How do you deploy these in your life?

And after a six-week period -- and they did about an hour of homework a day, spread out throughout the day, but it took some work. But not a ton. They saw a 35 to 80 percent increase in flow.

Now, within context, same McKinsey article I talked about earlier, the same study, found that a 15 percent increase in workplace flow will double overall workplace productivity. So what we've learned is, not only does flow have triggers, the stuff is really easy to teach. It's not -- and it's funny because everybody -- everybody is basically -- we're hard-wired the same. We're wired for high performance. So once you start understanding how this stuff works, you can really step on the gas.

PAT: So you don't have to do this through drugs, through chemical means, right?

STEVEN: No. No.

PAT: In fact --

STEVEN: There are a lot -- you have to understand that what you're talking about is pharmacology today, which has a long history of strong reactions. Lots of politics. Lots of mess. Goes back a long time.

Tomorrow, you're going to be talking about a EEG headset that zaps your brain in a particular way. We're already getting there. Right? We have EEG headsets that can dial up a lot of kind of the underlying neural biology of flow. And they're getting better. Virtual reality is better. Is really good at this as well. So like you have feelings of, hey, I don't want to take a pharmacological route. Totally fine. Right? Absolutely valid. You know what I mean? Not for everybody.

But, you know, it's an interesting bias because, you know, our idea that we -- it's internal and comes from us. It's pure and whole and sacred. And, you know, drugs are -- drugs are a cheater's way there, or they're bad or whatever. Fine. Okay. That's where we are now.

But tomorrow, it's going to be an app on your phone. That's where it starts to get really interesting.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: Well, I want to talk to you about that a little bit. Because you say this can be really, really good or highly destructive.

STEVEN: Well, so earlier I mentioned that you get all five of these really potent neural chemicals. They're very addictive. All -- I mean, there's no external drugs, cocaine, for example, most addictive drug on earth. All it does is flood the brain with dopamine, right? Dopamine is the drug that makes -- that underlies all addictive behavior.

GLENN: Yes, yes, yes.

STEVEN: Gambling addiction, sex addiction, shopping addiction. You know, cocaine addiction. It doesn't matter. So you're getting the into the same neuro chemistry. So these states can be very, very addictive.

RADIO

This AI could change EVERYTHING by next year

With Elon Musk’s announcement of Grok 4, humanity is closer than ever before to creating AGI – artificial general intelligence – which would change everything. Glenn Beck breaks down what’s coming in the next year with AI, which even Elon Musk called “terrifying.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Let me tell you the biggest story of the day.

And I think it is the biggest story possibly of all mankind, as of today.

It's going to change rapidly.

I don't know if anybody -- did either of you guys watch the Elon Musk thing last night?

STU: No, I did watch a few minutes of it.

GLENN: Okay. Did you, Jason?

JASON: No. I sure didn't.

GLENN: Okay. So the xAI team was there to unveil Grok 4. This is the latest intelligence, and let me be very, very clear.

Last night was not your typical tech launch. This is a moment that demands everyone's full attention.

We are now at the crossroads, where promise and peril are going to collide. Okay?

I have explained to you, for years, AGI.
AI. AGI. And ASI. Narrow intelligence is what we've always had.

General intelligence is the next step. And that is, it's better that man, one -- one, you know, like Grok. Can do everything. That you can do.

Better that you can do.

Okay?

And then there's super intelligence. ASI.

Artificial super intelligence.

That's when things get really, really creepy.

When you hit AGI, the road to ASI could be overnight.

Okay?

We need to understand what's at stake here. Because Grok four brought us closer to that second stage, than ever before.

Grok four is a powerhouse. They demonstrated it last night.

It surpasses the expertise of Ph.D.-level sailors in all fields.

It can get 100 percent on any -- any test for any field, mathematics, physics. Engineering.

You name it.

This is not a search engine.

This is a system that tackles problems, so intricate, they -- they go beyond our existing knowledge base.

Okay?

Let's say there is -- let's say, we have a fusion reactor. And the magnetic containment system goes down. I don't even know what I'm talking about at this point.

But it goes down.

And the top minds all on earth are like, I don't know what to do. Grok 4 can step in, model the physics, design new material, stabilize the system, and avert catastrophe. And it can do it about that fast. Now, this is the capability, that Musk says is just around the corner.

Mark my words. You know, how many -- how many years did I say, between 2027 and 2030, we would start to see this?

STU: Oh, a million times.

That was always --

GLENN: For years. Right? Yeah, always the window.

And everybody, even Ray Kurzweil said, oh, that's way too optimistic. We may be 2050.

And then people started going, 2040, 2030.

Grok shows us 2026 or 2027 is when we're going to hit it. This is the last year, that we have, before things get really weird.

Okay?

Last night, Elon Musk is touting this -- this AI.

And all of the solutions.

And then he says.

Hmm. Probably three times.

Something like this.

And I'm quoting. This is one of them.

It's somewhat unnerving to have created intelligence that's greater than our own.

He then goes on to call it terrifying, twice.

Now, this is a man who has launched rockets, you know, into orbit.

Going to Mars.

And he says, twice!

You know, after he sees the results of it. He says, you know, it's really -- in a way, quite terrifying to see what it's doing.

But we just have to make sure that it remains good!

Oh, okay.

All right. Sure.

Now, the key point in the announcement was the mention of ARC-AGI.

I had never heard of ARC-AGI. I had no idea what it was. But I noticed AGI. And I went, uh-oh. That sounds important. So this is the gold standard. The bench mark testing for artificial general intelligence.

Okay.

As I've said before, AGI. Artificial General Intelligence is a machine that matches all human cognition, across all domains.

Reasoning, creativity.

Problem solving. Not just specialized tasks like playing Go or analyzing x-rays. Everything. For instance, Musk said by mid-next year to the latest end of next year, it will be able to create a full length movie, just from a text prompt.
And do it all at once!

So, in other words, it will say, create a movie, and you just explain the Godfather.

It will do the casting. It will do the writing. It will do the filming, if you will. It will -- score the music, and it will happen that fast.

Almost in realtime. We are nowhere near the computational power now, to do that separately.

But this will do it all at once. It will make a movie with all of it, simultaneously.

So the arc AGI system is the benchmark on how close we are to AGI. Remember, scary things happen at AGI.

Terrifying things happen at ASI. ASI could be a matter of hours, or days after we hit AGI.

Grok 4 scored 16.2 percent on the ARC-AGI scale.

Why is that important? You're like, well, only 16 percent away.

Because last time, it barely broke 8 percent.

And that -- they took that test, last time with Grok three.

And it took us forever to get to 8 percent.

Now, what is it? A year later.

We're at 16 percent. Remember, these things are not linear. The next time, we could be at 32, we might be at 64.

We are on the verge. This is the last year of -- I can't believe I'm saying this. Of normalcy. Okay?

This year is -- we're going to look back at this year, probably two years ago, gosh, remember the good old days, when everything was normal.

And you could understand everything.

This is how close we are!

Everything you and I talked about last night, Stu, about what we're doing in January, make -- put -- does it make it even more critical that that happens like, oh, I don't know.

Right now.

STU: Yeah. For sure.

GLENN: You are going to need to know your values, your ethics, your rights.

You are going to need to know absolutely everything.

Now, Grok 4 is not true AGI yet.

It lacks the full autonomy and the generalized reasoning of a human mind. But it is the closest that we've come.

It's a system that can adapt, innovate, at a level that outpaces specialized AIs by a wide margin.

This is a milestone. This is not a destination, but it's something that should jolt everybody awake. So here's what's coming over the next six months. By December 2025, that's this Christmas!

December 2025, he believes, Musk, that Grok 4, will drive breakthroughs in material sciences.

So, in other words, imagine a new -- brand-new alloy, that is lighter than aluminum. Stronger than steel.

And it revolutionizes aerospace and everything else, or a drug that halts Alzheimer's progression, tailored to a person's DNA.

Grok will drive breakthroughs through material science. So brand-new materials that nobody has ever thought of.

Pharmaceuticals that we never thought could be made.

And chemical engineering, putting together chemicals that no man has ever thought.

That's going for happen by December.

Imagine a chemical compound that makes carbon capture, economically viable. The climate change stuff, that's over.

It will be over.

Because this will solve that! These are not fantasies.

This is Grok 4.

Musk said something that he never thought. He believes that within the next year, by 2027, Grok 4 will uncover new physical laws.

So that will rewrite the understanding -- our understanding of the entire universe.

That there will come -- like there's gravity. Hey, you know what, there's another law here that you never thought of. Wait. What?

That, he says, will come by 2027. This is going to accelerate human discovery, at an unprecedented scale.

I told you, at some point. I said, by 2030. It might be a little earlier than that.

Things will be happening at such a fast rate, you won't be able to keep up with them.

And it will accelerate to the point to where you won't even understand what all of this means.

Or what the ramifications are!

Are you there yet?

In six months, Grok 4 could evolve into a system, that dwarfs human expertise in economics, defense, all of it.

Now, again, it's a bit terrifying to quote Elon Musk. Why?

Because we don't know, what else comes with this.

This is like an alien life form.

We have no idea, what to predict. What it will be capable of.

How it will view us, when we are ants, to its intellect.

Okay?

It is a tool, but it is also Pandora's box.

If Grok 4 is the biggest step towards AGI.

And maybe one of the last steps to AGI.

My feeling is: What I've been saying forever.

2027 to 2030, I'm leaning more toward the 2027 now.

Because of this announcement last night.

We are on the verge of AGI.

And everything in human existence changing overnight.

And as Musk said himself, two times, it's terrifying!

We should act like it is terrifying.

Or risk losing the control of the future, that we're all trying to build. That's the biggest story of the day.

I think! In my opinion.

RADIO

Bill O'Reilly reveals how Trump can END Epstein files nightmare overnight!

Bill O'Reilly joins Glenn Beck with his plan for how the Trump administration can fix the Epstein Files fallout "overnight." Plus, he explains why he believes there's only one way that former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan get indicted by a grand jury.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: All right. Bill O'Reilly.

Welcome to the program, sir! How are you?

BILL: Welcome. (inaudible)

And right off the bat, I have to correct you.

GLENN: Yeah. You're not alive. What know.

BILL: I mean, you know -- you don't know that?

GLENN: Yeah, yeah. No. I -- I thought you were dead. Anyway --

BILL: You were dead to me, oh!
(laughter)
I --

GLENN: I get it.

BILL: That's just another brick in your wall, Beck.
(laughter)

GLENN: It's good to talk to you, Bill.

Tell me -- you had a conversation with -- with President Trump, what, a couple of months ago, and I talked about --

BILL: Yeah. St. Patrick's Day, he invited me to sit on a cabinet meeting, which he does sometimes.

And he said, look, we've got files, Kennedy, King, Epstein -- what do you think? And I said, well, first Kennedy you've got to put out pretty much everything, which he did. King, he didn't. I don't know why. Because that's important too.

And then on Epstein I said, you have to be careful here, because this is now being used in political precincts. Both sides want to destroy anybody that was associated with Epstein. And the problem is that a federal investigation. They don't make a determination whether you had a -- what kind of relationship you had with Epstein. They just said, so-and-so had lunch with him.

Or maybe so-and-so had -- saw him at a party. And I said, any name of a human being associated with Epstein, in any way, that person is going to be destroyed. Because you know, the press is not going to put anything into context.

So I said, but it's very important that the Justice Department tell the folks what they know.

And you don't have to get specific with anything.

But you have to say, this is the information that we've compiled. And that's not hard.

And I don't know why the Trump administration is not doing that.

GLENN: Wow!

So, first of all, it's your fault, that we're not getting any names. We learned a lot here.

BILL: Probably my fault, but the president --

GLENN: You know what, I think you're right. I don't want all the names of the people. I want to know --

BILL: And I don't either.

GLENN: Right! I want to know the Justice Department has sorted through the things, and then have gone through. And said, this is criminal. This is not. These people are being indicted, et cetera, et cetera. But to come out and say, there is nothing there, I mean, it's -- it's at least --

BILL: It's ridiculous.

GLENN: It's mass incompetence, at least from Pam Bondi. How could she come out and say, it's all sitting on my desk?

And then when she doesn't release it, she says, well, that's because the FBI in New York is thwarting this process. There are people up there, that are trying to keep this from me.

And then she makes no arrests on that. We never hear about that again.

And then now all of a sudden, there's nothing to see.

BILL: Well, listen, Pam Bondi does not make decisions on her own.

No cabinet member does.

All the decisions come out of the West Wing.

So what I believed happened was, Trump was so obsessed with the big bill, with Iran, with Putin, with China.

That this -- they didn't even think about this. Okay?

GLENN: I believe that.

BILL: And it slowly began to unravel. And then I caught it by surprise.

But this is the easiest fix. Somewhere so easy.

BILL: So if I'm in charge, and that would be a great thing for everyone, except you, Beck -- but every other American, if I were in charge, tremendous. You would be in Botswana. Right.

GLENN: Right. Oh, I know.

Yeah. Yeah. I would be the ambassador of the white farmers in -- in South Africa if it were up to you. I know. I know.

BILL: No. You would be wandering around going, I am Glenn Beck. And they would go, who? That's what you'd be doing.

GLENN: That's every day.

BILL: So this could happen within the hour. Pam Bondi announces a press conference for tomorrow.

At that press conference, sitting next to her, is Merrick Garland, everyone.

You had this stuff for four years! Now, I understand that Mr. Garland has gone native and is living in a -- well, we can find him. We can pull him out of there, and have him and Pam, sit there and answer questions in a general way about what evidence the Justice Department of the United States has compiled.

GLENN: Not going to happen.

BILL: That's it!

Well, if it's not going to happen, then President Trump is going to take a hit.

But he's calculating that this will say that it's that night important.

But I don't know why you would not do it.

I just don't know. And I'm usually pretty good at predicting what the president does or does not do.

GLENN: So here's the thing, Bill.

I think he keeps focusing on Epstein. It's not that big of a deal.

It's not about Epstein. It's about justice.

It's about, can we trust the people -- correct!

It's all about credibility and justice.

And he's not seeing that. And I don't know how he's missing that. Because I agree with you.

He's been so busy on so many other things.

BILL: That's right. That's right.

GLENN: This is not at the top of his priority list.

But he did campaign on it.

BILL: Right.

And I don't know if there's anybody inside the White House.

He looks to be annoyed, when this subject comes up.

GLENN: Oh, I know.

BILL: And here's the -- what works -- you have to understand.

A guy like Donald Trump runs it all.

If he's annoyed, nobody will want to annoy him more. Okay?

GLENN: Oh, I know.

BILL: That's how it works. The older arch is, because Epstein got favorable treatment.

By the feds, in the first go around in Florida, that there's a deep suspicion about this case.

But if you break it down, if the Biden administration had any dirt on any Republican associated with Epstein. It would have been out.

And vice-versa.

If the Republicans had any dirt on any Democrats. Now, we know that former president Clinton, was involved with Epstein to some extent.

I don't know if that was a factor, okay? I don't know.

But your right for once. You're right. It's about credibility. It's about the American people trusting that we do have equal justice for all!

So what do you -- what do you make of now the Russia gate thing, coming out, today. Or yesterday.

The FISA court.

The fact that they're now saying, hey.

You know, we need to hold Brennan accountable.

We're like five or six days away.

Weeks away from him, you know, slipping past the -- the statute of limitations.

I mean, all these things are out today.

There's that. There is also the -- let's see here.

The Secret Service -- I think this happened a year ago.

But it's being reported as if it's news.

Secret Service suspends six agents assigned to protect Trump during a Butler assassination attempt. I mean, all these things are coming out. Like, look, we're busy on all these things. And I do believe they're busy on these things.

But it's like the Keystone Cops are in charge of the PR on this. It's bad.

BILL: Well, there's a lot of politics involved in both of those cases. Number one, in order to get Comey and Brennan to get indicted by a grand jury. Federal grand jury, and that's the only passage, you would have to have a whistle-blower, saying, yeah, these guys abused their power. I worked for them. And they absolutely wanted to get Trump.

And they knew the Russia dossier was phony.

And they did it anyway.

If I have that Justice Department.

Then you can get those guys.

If you don't have it, they will not be even indicted by a grand jury.

GLENN: So how is it that we do not have that Justice Department?

How do we not have that Justice Department?

BILL: Well, look. I don't know whether they have a whistle-blower or not, okay?

And if they have a whistle-blower, I want the case to go forward.

I want those two men indicted.

You can't do that, at that level.

As far as the Secret Service is concerned, monumental screw up. Everybody knows it. They fired the morons in charge of it. That woman -- I was embarrassed listening to her, trying to explain.

They didn't know what the deuce was going on. But this was across-the-board, in the Biden administration.

You know, it was a year ago Sunday, this upcoming Sunday.

GLENN: Right.

BILL: And it's just another example of how the Biden administration was the second worst administration in the history of this country. People have no idea how bad it was.

Every single agency was chaotic. Nothing worked. And this is just part of that. And we'll have a slew of stuff on Sunday. Nothing really meaningful.

I mean, they suspended the Secret Service agents, as they should have. They fired the director as they should have. The guy was a nut.

I don't know if there was anything more to that. I doubt it.

I'm more interested in the guy in the bushes. Because they don't know anything about him. I would like to know a little bit about him.

But again, the federal government, it doesn't really matter. It's the government. They never want to tell us stuff, Beck, never.

We always have to pull it out of them. It's almost like Russia or something. Come on!

GLENN: Right. Yeah. Let me ask you, let me take you back again to the Epstein thing.

I noticed yesterday, there were these people who were on the left. Who were taking tweets of mine. That say, look. These things don't make sense. On the Epstein thing. And they just have to be answered. And not anti-Trump at all.

And yet, the anti-Trump people were retweeting that, and they're trying to -- they're trying to get the right to fight against itself again and split people away from Donald Trump, where I don't think this Epstein thing is -- is splitting people from Donald Trump, at least at this point.

And I -- you know, I -- my wife stopped me from answering some of those tweets, yesterday.

Because it's never good, when you -- when I tweet in anger. Which I did.

But -- or was going to. What did you think about how this is being used against the right to try to separate us even more?

BILL: Everything is political. Everybody knows that for you.

But the MAGA people, from the mail I get. And I get a voluminous amount of mail. They're not happy.

GLENN: Oh, I agree. I'm not happy.

BILL: Now, are they going to throw President Trump under the cliché-ridden bus? No. Because to them, the greater good is being served by a fair tax bill.

Trying to cut waste.

Dealing with Iran effectively. And hopefully dealing with Putin.

That's another thing, that's on Trump's plate.

He has to deal with Putin now.

Has to. And that will be the next big story.

GLENN: How is he going to deal with it?

BILL: Lavrov and Rubio, are in Indonesia, as we speak.

And I assume that Rubio is delivering a message. That you either stop, or we're going to just absolutely crush you economically. Which the United States can do. By saying. No bank does business with Moscow.

And if you do business, no matter what bank you are, we're going to put you out of business.

Okay?

GLENN: Yeah. I've only got a couple of seconds. But didn't we already do that under Biden?

BILL: No! We didn't do the banks. We did the sanctions. And the sanctions they can always get around, because China is going to buy as much oil from Russia as possible.

You stop the banks, from doing all business with Moscow? Who is going --

GLENN: Isn't that what the SWIFT thing was all about?

When we kicked them off of SWIFT, wasn't that what that was all about?

BILL: No! Because they can still do a huge business with countries buying their oil.

And they got to pay Putin and Russia for the oil, and that has to go through the banking system.

If you stop the banking system, he can't get paid.

GLENN: Hmm, it's amazing. I'm glad I'm not the president right now. I think he's made some very brave decisions, and he is walking a tightrope. I mean, the world is on edge. And I pray for --

BILL: He looks very tired to me. Very tired. I haven't talked to him in a while, which is unusual. But you're right. You're absolutely right. That's the second time you've been right in this conversation. My God!

GLENN: I know. It's crazy.

BILL: What in the world.

GLENN: I was wrong about you being dead.

BILL: What is happening?

GLENN: It's good -- it's good to talk to you, my friend. Is everything okay? Is everything going well?

BILL: Everything is all right, Beck. We are not only successful, but that's old news. We've been that way for 50 years, but I appreciate you having me on your fine program.

GLENN: Okay. I love you.

BILL: Stu is still breathing.

GLENN: Hmm.

BILL: So that's good. Right.

But I've got a big book called Confronting Evil. Of course, we sent it, and of course you denied getting it. That comes out September 9th, so put me on a dance card.

GLENN: Well, we'll have you on. And you can also find Bill and his YouTube page. YouTube.com/BillOReilly. Or is it The Walking Dead?
(laughter)
He's not even laughing. Maybe he hung up. Bill O'Reilly, great to have him on.

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During a 2023 interview with Glenn Beck, now-FBI Director Kash Patel adamantly proclaims that the FBI and specifically the FBI Director is in direct control of Jeffrey Epstein's "Black Book" of clients. So now given the most recent claims by Patel and DOJ Attorney General Pam Bondi, what has changed from his perspective since taking this role? What do YOU think is the explanation for this change in tune by Kash Patel?

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