BLOGAugust 09, 2017

‘Everyone Is Watching Each Other’: Author Explains North Korea’s Isolation From the World

North Korea is famously isolated from the rest of the world, with the government blocking internet access and controlling everything from food to hairstyles to social groups. It’s almost impossible for two North Koreans to conspire together because people are watching and listening all the time for anything that goes against the government.

“This did not happen overnight,” author Michael Malice said of North Korea’s isolation. “This was a 70-year methodical process.”

Malice, author of “Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il,” explained that the Kim family has been working to build up barriers between North Korea and the rest of the world for decades.

North Korean society is divided into government-designated groups, and once a week, North Koreans talk about what they did “wrong” that week in front of their peers. This level of scrutiny makes it nearly impossible for North Koreans to speak against Kim Jong Un and his regime even in casual conversation.

“Everyone is watching each other all the time and reporting on each other all the time,” Malice said.

GLENN: Michael Malice is a guy who went behind the Iron Curtain. It's a very closed country. And he left there and he wrote a book called, Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Biography of Kim Jong-il.

Michael, welcome to the program. How are you, sir?

MICHAEL: Oh, it's a great honor, Glenn.

GLENN: Thank you.

First of all, tell me, what got you to go to North Korea? I mean, you stalking Dennis Rodman, or?

MICHAEL: Well, here's the thing and something you kind of touched upon: It was bothering me a lot how so much of the press about North Korea is complete misinformation. And I said, "I'm going to do something about this once and for all." Now, I was born in the Soviet Union. I'm Jewish. These were two chances for my family to have been sent to a concentration camp. And there's concentration camps in North Korea right now. You know, people ask, how did we let the Holocaust happen? They have the camps right now. You can see the camps on Google Earth. And yet so many of these news reports want to look at North Korea and be like, "Aren't these people all silly?" It's like, yeah, these are 25 million hostages. If the government had a gun to your head and the heads of your children, you would be doing pretty silly things too.

So that's why I wrote my book Dear Readers, so that people could understand exactly what's going on there. Because it's not at all how it's portrayed in the press.

GLENN: So I would like to get into the concentration camps with you. Because people don't understand that it's not your sentence. It's they sentence you and your family for three generations. I mean, it's -- it is -- it's evil and crazy what is happening there. Most people in the west can't even begin to understand it.

But can we go back and try to explain and tell us some stories that you saw firsthand on how the North Koreans are so isolated that they have really no concept of what's really going on in the world. And they think that they can beat the United States.

MICHAEL: Well, they're not completely, completely isolated because the barriers, thankfully, have been breaking down a little. However, to your question, this did not happen overnight.

GLENN: Yeah.

MICHAEL: This was a 70-year methodical process by this gangster family. And step by step, they built up barriers to separate North Korea from the rest of the world, things like anyone who spoke other languages or who studied abroad were sent to the concentration camps. Things like books in other languages being destroyed and no longer being allowed to be taught.

Let me give you an example of the mechanisms that they use to control their population. And, again, it's things we can't even wrap our heads around here.

Everyone in North Korea is slotted into some group. Your school. Your office. Your neighborhood. And once a week, that group gets together, and you have to stand up in front of your peers and say, "This is what I did wrong this week." And then your peers have to stand up and say what they noticed you doing wrong.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

MICHAEL: So everyone is watching each other all the time and reporting on each other all the time. So a lot of times, the people are like, well, why don't they just get together and overthrow the government. If you have two people conspiring, they're done.

And as you said, the founder of North Korea, the great leader Kim Il-sung said, "Class enemies must be exterminated to three generations." So they take three generations of a family -- and even Stalin at least had trials. There's no trials. You get a knock at the door in the middle of the night. The family gets taken. And you don't even know which one of you got you sent to the camps or to the countryside. They don't tell you. It's just, "Come with me."

GLENN: Let's -- let's -- can we go back to the Korean War and how they're viewing America. They've been -- you know, we had the Korean War. And it became a TV show called M*A*S*H. And that's it. For them, they have been preparing for this time since the 1950s.

MICHAEL: Right. So according to one of their books and according to their worldview -- by the way, you can't refer to us as Americans. We are always referred to by a slur like the US Imperialists. And it's just how the language is taught there. So automatically, when they're talking about us, they're using offensive terminology. There's a book in North Korea called The US Imperialists Started the Korean War. They are taught that we started the Korean War, that we've been waiting to conquer Korea since the 1860s when General Sherman went to Pyongyang. That part is true. We did visit them back in the 1860s.

And now we've been biding our time to come back and to finish the job that we started. Now, many of your listeners are veterans. The Korean War was completely devastating to the Korean Peninsula. You had China, Russia, and North Korea at the north. South Korea, US, and the UN at the south. And between the two, the devastation was complete.

So their whole point is, you remember how bad it was in the '50s. Well, any day now, the Americans are going to come back and finish that job. And, but for the leader, you would all be dead.

GLENN: And you say "but for the leader," what's remarkable is the calendar has been reset. It's the year, what?

MICHAEL: So the calendar starts -- again, they're not going to have a Christian calendar. Because having a Bible is the death penalty, right? So you're not going to have BC and AD. So their calendar starts with the birth of the great leader Kim Il-sung in 1912. So that's year one.

GLENN: Okay. So -- and he was -- I remember one of the Kim family was brought down, you know, by angels or birds. And -- I mean, crazy kind of stuff that he remembers the day of his birth. Do they -- do they believe this?

MICHAEL: There is a lot -- it's very funny because they claim to be an atheist country. But there's all sorts of supernaturalism that revolves around the Kim family. So Kim Il-sung, the great leader, the founder of North Korea, he had missionaries in his family. And he adopted a lot of Christian mythology and applied it to his life and the life of his son and his wife. So they have a holy trinity, which is the great leader Kim Il-sung, who is the founder of North Korea, and Kim Jong-un's uncle. We have Kim Jong-il, who was the dear leader. He's their Jesus figure. And Kim Jong-il's mother, who is always referred to as anti-Japanese heroine, Kim Jong-suk. They always picture here with a gun in her hand. So this is the holy trinity that keeps Korea safe. And they have Mount Paektu at the north, which is basically like their Mount Zion, which is the spirit of Korea and basically the embodiment of the Korean energy. So they have a lot of mystical stories about this family and basically -- but for Kim Il-sung, you know, who is almost a messiah figure, Korea would still be under the boot of Japan.

GLENN: So when the UN passed these really tough sanctions -- I'm for the sanctions. I don't know what else to do. Going in with military is just -- is almost and may be an act of insanity.

MICHAEL: Right.

GLENN: But, you know, when you see the sanctions, the people have no idea that their leaders are the ones that are starving them and choking them to death. And this will only be blamed on us. And it will only make their lives worse.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

GLENN: How do you break that, in that culture? Is it even possible to get people to understand, "No, no, it's -- your leader is evil?"

MICHAEL: Well, it started happening on a micro level. You remember towards the end of the Cold War, despite decades of communist propaganda, what happened is Russia people were watching American soap operas on television. And they were thinking to themselves, it's all well and good what I'm taught in school, but why does the maid on this television show have a fur coat and I'm literally wiping my butt with newspaper? You know, I don't care about Marx, whatever. I just want food for my kids.

GLENN: Right.

MICHAEL: And North Korea, the same thing is happening. They are seeing that all these other countries are wealthier than them. It doesn't matter what you teach me in school. I want my kids to have food. It's as simple as that.

So one of the things that has happened is they have changed their propaganda from, we are wealthy, and the world envies us. And now the propaganda says, we are keeping Korea pure. So it is also the most homogeneous and most racist country on earth. This is something that's not talked about in the press, that they believe Korea is the only country that has been racially pure since Neolithic times. And they regard the South as a region under US occupation, where we basically assault southern Korean women -- Americans do -- and do with them as we please. Us -- we being barbarians. So that's another aspect of their propaganda.

GLENN: So looking at what you know about North Korea and hearing the president yesterday --

MICHAEL: Yes.

GLENN: -- how is that interpreted by Kim Jong-un and -- and the people around him?

MICHAEL: I would honestly say it's going to be interpreted with a bit of respect.

GLENN: Oh, good.

MICHAEL: And here's why: They are bullies. Right? So let me -- when they talk about we know how to treat America -- in their words, they say, when necessary, we'll slap her across the face.

And, you know, I remember last year, year and a half ago, there was this photo released of Kim Jong-un in front of his Apple Computer. And there were nukes striking Austin. And the things that they get away with saying are just completely outrageous. So Trump was basically using their language against them. So on some level, they're going to have a bit of respect for it, just like anyone who runs his mouth. At a certain point, you have to get in his face. Now, I'm not saying you have to get in his face and shove him, but on some level, they're going to say, okay. This is going to be a difference in tone at least, from previous administrations.

GLENN: So where does he go from here? You know, he has killed everybody in his family who could have challenged him. He's done it openly. He's killed everybody around him that could challenge him.

MICHAEL: He's only killed one person. And actually, let's talk about how evil this family is: Kim Jong-un's aunt. Kim Kyong-hui, Kim Jong-il's sister, that was her husband who was killed. And she's such an evil woman, that when her daughter married someone who was below their social station, she drove her daughter to suicide.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: Wow.

PAT: Didn't he have both his uncle and his brother killed -- the guy in the airport, right? Which one was that?

GLENN: The brother.

PAT: Wasn't that his brother? And then supposedly he had his uncle torn apart by dogs.

GLENN: Yeah. I thought -- he had somebody else killed by standing them in front of a cannon and blowing a hole through.

PAT: Are these urban legends, or did that actually happen?

GLENN: Is that the way he is, Michael?

PAT: Did we lose him?

GLENN: We've lost Michael.

Okay. So get him back on the phone. Let me take a quick break. Fascinating --

PAT: I guess we'll never know.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: Having somebody -- I can't wait to also talk to him about his experience in the former Soviet Union.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: Anyway, he'll be back in just a second.

First, our sponsor this half-hour is Goldline. What would the opening salvos of war with North Korea bring?

Thousands dead. Some say that a million plus could be dead within the first 24 hours. The region surrendering North Korea has become the world's industrial powerhouse. It is, you know, some of the biggest economies in the world are there. And would be affected immediately. Which would wreak havoc on not only a human scale and human life there, but also I believe the rest of the western world --

PAT: Yeah, you have South Korea who is the eleventh largest, and you have China the second largest.

GLENN: And you have Japan, which is, what? The fifth largest? The fourth largest?

PAT: Yeah. In there somewhere.

GLENN: I mean, it's all affected. And I would just suggest that you do your homework now. I -- I hope this is not going to be what the experts are starting to say it's going to be this fall. But a lot of people now -- and it actually gives me some comfort. Because these clowns are usually wrong. But a lot of people are saying real trouble with the economy is on the horizon. Please find out if gold or silver is right for you. You have your money in a 401(k) or an IRA, consider moving some of that money -- some of it -- 10 percent into gold, physical gold that you can hold.

Call now for as little as $2,500. You will get three months of price protection. All the way up to a year for a 25,000-dollar investment. But make sure you read all their information. They're waiting for your call now at 866GOLDLINE. 1866GOLDLINE or goldline.com.

(OUT AT 10:23AM)

GLENN: We're talking to Michael Malice. He is the guy who went over to North Korea, wrote a book called Dear Reader, and saw behind the curtain, if you will. He's also a former citizen of the Soviet Union. So he has -- he has seen it from both sides. We were just talking to you, Michael, and we lost our connection, about, you know, we have heard that he killed his brother and his uncle.

MICHAEL: Right.

GLENN: And then a lot of the people around him who could have challenged him, he has taken out and done horrible things to. True or false?

MICHAEL: Okay. So the last part is false because theres no -- there's no one around him who could have challenged him because the point is, it's only a descendent of the great leader Kim Il-sung, who could be in the leadership position. So the people at the very top there, it's not like they were voted in. They're only at the very top specifically because of their loyalty to the regime. In fact, unless you're loyal to the regime, you're not allowed to even step foot in Pyongyang. You're geographically assigned where to live in North Korea, based on how loyal you and your family has been to the regime. That's number one.

GLENN: Wow.

MICHAEL: So he killed his elder half brother, who he only met once, I believe, because, again, only a descendent of Kim Il-sung can be the leader. So if your brother is killed, there's no plan B for you, if Kim Jong-un is taken out. There's not a Mike Pence sitting in the wings.

GLENN: Hmm.

MICHAEL: And lastly, one of the things that I was fighting about -- fighting, you know, when writing Dear Reader is the sensationalism. We tend to believe the craziest possible stories about North Korea. And South Korea reported that his uncle -- technically, his aunt's husband was eaten by dogs. That's not true. He was shot. But he was killed, and with her agreement.

GLENN: So then, you know, we keep hearing that he feels backed in a corner.

MICHAEL: That's right.

GLENN: Who is he backed in a corner by if there's no -- if there's nobody to take his place?

MICHAEL: Well, he's -- there's increasing pressure from America. There's increasing pressure from China. And what would happen is when -- you remember possibly Romania, when Ceausescu, the evil dictator of Romania for decades, when he was take -- there was a moment, and it's a very beautiful moment for everyone who loves freedom, when this horrible dictator was on TV, and for the first time the crowd starts booing. And you see the look on his face. And two or three days later, him and his wife were shot.

Kim Jong-il took that video and showed it to all the leading party cadres and said -- said, "If the masses rise up, this is what is going to happen to us." So when these regimes go down, the people at the very top like Gadhafi, like Hussein are personally killed, and with good reason.

So that's another very important incentive for Kim Jong-un to do anything he can to stay in power. It's not like if he's removed from power, he's going to, you know, retire to Saint-Tropez. This man is a monster.

GLENN: So I've only got about 30 seconds here, so perhaps I ask it and then we come back on the other side. Because I really want to know also about, you know, the former Soviet Union and your life there.

MICHAEL: Sure. Yeah.

GLENN: But I guess what I would like to know -- and I don't know if you could answer this: So is he likely to just kind of be quiet and allow himself to be put into a box, or is he the type that will fire off a missile because he's a god?

MICHAEL: He's the type who was taught and believes, you fight fire with twice as much fire and escalate whenever possible, especially when you're the small dog.

GLENN: Okay. So what that means exactly, we come back. You can find Michael at MichaelMalice.com.

(OUT AT 10:30AM)

GLENN: Michael Malice, he is an author and commentator. He's an expert to North Korea. Traveled to the very closed country. Wrote a book called Dear Reader. The unauthorized autobiography of Kim Jong-il.

You just said to me, Michael, that Kim Jong-un is a guy who believes if you're hit, you hit back twice as hard. You don't back down. And as you're describing the traits of Kim Jong-un, you're also describing our president.

MICHAEL: Well, I mean, to some extent. You remember during the campaign, Trump did apologize for the audio that got out. And I don't think President Trump would be comfortable starving 10 percent of the population.

GLENN: Oh, no, no, no. I don't mean it that way. No, no, no, I don't mean it -- I do not mean to equate the two of them. I mean, just as far as tactics.

MICHAEL: Yes.

GLENN: You know, last night, I thought the press -- the press was crazy last night.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

GLENN: They were almost saying, you know, we got to have war because, Mr. President, now you're not going to have any credibility. You can't back down. It was crazy.

MICHAEL: Glenn, it was terrifying that they're basically saying, "Oh -- first of all, the idea if North Korea is going to attack us, that they're going to go after Guam is insane on its face. They're going to have one shot, they're going to make it count, to be totally Machiavellian about it.

But let's have some perspective: For decades, we had hundreds, if not thousands of nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union pointed at us and our allies. And that was something that we managed to deal with. So this situation is not entirely without precedent.

GLENN: Okay. So that is --

MICHAEL: So everyone should take a deep breath, you know.

GLENN: So my position today has been pretty much that: Take a deep breath.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

GLENN: There is no good answer to this. The thing to do is walk away, keep your eye and ear to the ground.

MICHAEL: Yes.

GLENN: But just walk -- there's no good answer to this.

MICHAEL: And --

GLENN: Is that enough for Kim Jong-un?

MICHAEL: Well, it's scary to me how so many people are saying that because Kim Jong-un is treating our country and our president with disrespect, that we -- I saw one commentator say, "We should rain hellfire on North Korea."

GLENN: That's craziness.

MICHAEL: I mean, these are 25 million -- you want to talk about having the moral high ground, being the moral leader of the free world, and you're going to be killing 25 million slaves and hostages. What kind of person are you that -- not only that, what kind of person are you that that's your first reaction, as opposed to a last resort? It's terrifying.

GLENN: No. I was watching last night -- I'm so glad to hear you saying this, Michael. I was watching CNN. And they kept going on and on and on about, you know, how the president said all these things. And now there's a red line. And -- and -- and -- and commentator after commentator yesterday was saying, "You know, we don't have a choice. We can't be embarrassed. We can't, you know, be the laughing stock."

And I'm thinking, "We're talking about the possibility of millions dead. Who cares about your stupid honor if all it means is, you know what, I said something I shouldn't have said? I'm going to shut my mouth now, and what do you say we leave those millions alive?"

MICHAEL: Glenn, I'm going to make it even worse. The people in these concentration camps are told constantly and explicitly -- there's like 100, 200,000 people. Should the US imperialists invade, we will kill you all and burn these camps to the ground. So like you're saying, if someone has a gun to my kid's head, if someone -- if at some school, someone has a bomb that they're going to blow up a school, they can call me every name in the book. Please, call me all the names you want. Just don't kill the children. And the idea that, well, we better go in and kill the children first, as the response, is even more demented.

GLENN: How is North Korea -- if the United States would respond, I can't imagine that South Korea -- because it would be almost like our American civil war --

MICHAEL: Right.

GLENN: -- is going to sit happily by as, A, Seoul is most likely destroyed.

MICHAEL: Yes.

GLENN: And, secondly, they have family members up there. It would be viewed as the United States killing their family members, would it not?

MICHAEL: To some extent, those families have been separated now for 70 years with no communication with each other.

But let's talk something else: You know, people saying they have nukes now. This is unprecedented. They've had missiles pointed at Seoul for decades.

GLENN: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Seoul is a city with, you know, tens of millions of people, with skyscrapers. Can you imagine the imagery of missiles hitting a city full of skyscrapers? Even if they didn't have nukes, is that something people are comfortable with? Or it's just, well, at least it wasn't nukes that are hitting these skyscrapers. I mean, is that what we're talking about? And that is what we're talking about.

So it's a very dangerous situation. And, Glenn, I know you remember very well the -- the war mania that led up to the Iraq War, and how everyone was like, "We got to do something. We got to do something now. Emergency. Emergency. Emergency." Let's freak out. Let's do things as quickly as possible.

And it's like, what I was taught growing up in school is that war is a last resort. It's not the first thing you do, and it's not your best option, especially when you're dealing with a regime that is comfortable with killing its own citizens to maintain its hold on power.

STU: Talking to Michael Malice.

KimJongilbook.com is the site.

Michael, is there an increase in their resources lately? I mean, they've been able to outpace all of our intelligence estimates as to what they've been able to develop.

GLENN: Like crazy.

STU: They're dumping money into things like renovating the Hotel of Doom, which, you know, is only the Hotel of Doom because they didn't have money at one point. Are they --

MICHAEL: Well, no, the Hotel of Doom -- so let's talk about how North Korea uses their army. North Korea, everyone in the army does construction. So they're not just sitting around or whatever. They actually build things.

So that hotel, which is I think at one point, the largest building in the eastern hemisphere or something crazy, the Ryugyong Hotel was structurally unsound. So it was never completed because it can't be completed. It's a complete mess.

And it just looms like this giant hulk over Pyongyang. But let me also talk -- you talk about having empathy for the North Korean people. When I went there and we were taking the bus from the airport to the capital city, my guide pointed at that hotel, and she goes, "Look, there's our latest rocket launch."

And, you know, we don't think of them as human beings. They have a sense of humor. They have families. You know, when you're on the street, you see the grandmothers doting with their grandkids. You see teenage girls giggling when you wave at them. The fact that these people are capable of having some semblance of humanity in the most inhumane country on earth behooves us when you read news reports and trying to make them out to be clowns. Keep in mind, again, like I said earlier --

GLENN: They're not clowns.

MICHAEL: -- if someone has your family as a hostage, you're going to put on clown makeup too.

GLENN: Yeah. And it's not -- the people are -- you know, when -- I think when somebody says, you know, these people are clowns, they're meaning, you know, I think people like Kim Jong-un, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. He's not a clown.

MICHAEL: No.

GLENN: He knows what he's doing. He just operates with a completely operating system than we do.

MICHAEL: Right. And the whole point of my book is spelling out how they operate and what they're doing. Because it's very logical. It's very methodical. But let me speak a bit about the clown issue: Like, I remember there was an article in a British paper that showed the marching. And it referred to Kim Jong-un's miniskirted robot army, that these young women, you know, in the army are all marching in lockstep and ha-ha-ha. It's like, you know, they're hostages. Of course, they're going to march like they're told. They're not robots. To call someone a robot is to act like they don't have a soul or a mind of their own, and they very much do.

GLENN: Okay. Well, let me ask you -- first of all, can we have you back? We're running out of time. Can we have you back tomorrow?

MICHAEL: Of course. It's an honor. We'll figure it out. We can figure it out, yes.

GLENN: Let me ask you two other questions: First of all, Otto Warmbier, the kid that went over.

MICHAEL: Right.

GLENN: Was caught stealing a propaganda poster.

MICHAEL: Right.

GLENN: Fifteen years.

MICHAEL: Trespassing.

GLENN: What did you say?

MICHAEL: Trespassing.

GLENN: Yes. Fifteen years to hard labor. Looks like they pretty much tortured him to death and dumped on our body, I thought, in a way that was very reminiscent of the Godfather.

MICHAEL: Yes.

GLENN: Sending us a message: Here's -- here's your citizen back.

MICHAEL: No, no, no, no. That's not it at all. They had him as a hostage. If you have a hostage, you want to return the hostage in one piece so you get your ransom. So when things turned south, they knew they couldn't take care of him, and that's why they dropped him off here. Think about it.

He didn't serve a day of hard labor. They treat their hostages very, very well because they're a valuable resource. Remember when they kidnapped that Ling reporter, they got President Clinton to fly to Pyongyang and kiss Kim Jong-il's ring? That's a great coup.

GLENN: Right. But this guy it looks like he was drugged and tortured. That's --

MICHAEL: My understanding is that the autopsies showed no signs of trauma, and this could have been self-harm.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: Okay. Had not heard that one.

STU: Wow.

GLENN: One last question.

MICHAEL: Sure.

GLENN: Is there a -- is there something that we could be doing right now, other than sitting on our hands and just hoping for the best now? Is there something that we should be doing or we should be encouraging some other country to be doing?

MICHAEL: Yeah. We should be sitting down with China and saying, what is it going to take for you to turn on these people once and for all? And, frankly, Glenn, if they have --

GLENN: Oh. Did we lose him again?

MICHAEL: -- of food and they don't have concentration camps, I'm fine with it.

GLENN: You're saying: If -- if China would just roll in and they were still communists, but they were fed and no concentration camps...

MICHAEL: Right. Communism in the Chinese model, do you know what I mean? I could live with that. They don't have to have some Western liberal democracy. As long as they don't have to live in constant fear that their children are going to be murdered, that's all I need.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: How old were you when you left the former Soviet Union?

MICHAEL: Two years old.

GLENN: And your parents came over here with you, when?

MICHAEL: '78.

GLENN: So they escaped and knew what they were escaping?

MICHAEL: Oh, yes. Oh, of course. And it wasn't anywhere near as bad towards the end as it had been, you know, when they were growing up. And it certainly wasn't anywhere near as bad as North Korea.

GLENN: Do you watch the TV show The Americans?

MICHAEL: I couldn't because they have being patriotic Russians, and that wasn't a thing. By the '80s, everyone was cynical and knew that the system was nonsense.

PAT: Huh. Wow.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: Okay. So I'd love to have you on, maybe again tomorrow. Because I'd like to talk to you about what it's like to live in a communist country.

MICHAEL: Oh, absolutely.

GLENN: What you know. And how we've kind of blown it here on our side. And maybe perhaps you have some insight on Putin as well, on --

MICHAEL: Well, I'll just tell you one sentence: We fought the KGB, and now we have the NSA. No, I'm not joking. I'm not joking. What's the difference?

PAT: Oh, man.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: Mike, good to have you on. Michael Malice. MichaelMalice.com. MichaelMalice.com. You can buy the book, Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Biography of Kim Jong-il, and we'll talk to you again tomorrow a little bit about, you know, what it's like to live in a communist country and what your family saw and how that relates to today. Thank you so much, Michael. We'll talk to you again.

MICHAEL: Thank you so much, Glenn.

GLENN: You bet.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

Max Lucado & Glenn Beck: Finding unity in faith

Glenn Beck sits down with beloved pastor and author Max Lucado for a deep conversation about faith, humility, and finding unity in a divided world. Together, they reflect on the importance of principles over politics, why humility opens the door to true dialogue, and how centering life on God brings clarity and peace. Lucado shares stories of faith, the dangers of a “prosperity gospel,” and the powerful reminder that life is not about making a big deal of ourselves, but about making a big deal of God. This uplifting conversation will inspire you to re-center your life, strengthen your faith, and see how humility and love can transform even the most divided times.

Watch Glenn Beck's FULL Interview with Max Lucado HERE

RADIO

Confronting evil: Bill O'Reilly's insight on Charlie Kirk's enduring legacy

Bill O’Reilly joins Glenn Beck with a powerful prediction about Charlie Kirk’s legacy. Evil tried to destroy his movement, Bill says, but – as his new book, “Confronting Evil,” lays out – evil will just end up destroying itself once more…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Mr. Bill O'Reilly, welcome to the program, how are you, sir?

BILL: Good, Beck, thanks for having me back. I appreciate it. How have you been?

GLENN: Last week was really tough. I know it was tough for you and everybody else.

But, you know -- I haven't -- I haven't seen anything.

BILL: Family okay? All of that?

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. Family is okay. Family is okay.

BILL: Good question good. That's the most important thing.

GLENN: It is.

So, Bill, what do you make of this whole Charlie Kirk thing. What happened, and where are we headed?

BILL: So my analysis is different for everybody else, and those that know me for so long. About a year ago, I was looking for a topic -- it was a contract to do another book. And I said, you know what's happening in America, and around the world. Was a rise in evil. It takes a year to research and write these books.

And not since the 1930s, had I seen that happen, to this extent. And in the 1930s, of course, you would have Tojo and Hitler and Mussolini and Franco and all these guys. And it led to 100 million dead in World War II. The same thing, not to the extent.

But the same thing was --
GLENN: Yet.
BILL: -- bubbling in the world, and in the United States.

I decided to write a book. The book comes out last Tuesday. And on Wednesday, Putin lobs missiles into Poland.

Ultra dangerous.

And a few hours later, Charlie Kirk is assassinated.

And one of the interviewers said to me last week, your -- your book is haunting. Is haunting.

And I think that's extremely accurate. Because that's what evil does.

And in the United States, we have so many distractions. The social media.

People create around their own lives.

Sports. Whatever it may be. That we look away.

Now, Charlie Kirk was an interesting fellow. Because at a very young age, he was mature enough to understand that he wanted to take a stand in favor of traditional America and Judeo Christian philosophy.

He decided that he wanted to do that.

You know, and when I was 31 or whatever, I was lucky I wasn't in the penitentiary. And I believe you were in the penitentiary.
(laughter)
So he was light years ahead of us.

GLENN: Yes, he was.

BILL: And he put it into motion. All right? Now, most good people, even if you disagree with what Mr. Kirk says on occasion, you admire that. That's the spirit of America. That you have a belief system, that you go out and try to promote that belief system, for the greater good of the country. That's what it is.

That's what Charlie Kirk did.

And he lost his life.

By doing it!

So when you essentially break all of this down. You take the emotion away, all right?

Which I have to do, in my job. You see it as another victory for evil.

But it really isn't.

And this is the ongoing story.

This is the most important story. So when you read my book, Confronting Evil, you'll see that all of these heinous individuals, Putin's on the cover. Mao. Hitler.

Ayatollah Khomeini. And then there are 14 others inside the book. They all destroy themselves.

Evil always destroys itself. But it takes so many people with it. So this shooter destroyed his own family.

And -- and Donald Trump, I talked to him about it last week in Yankee stadium. And Trump is a much different guy than most people think.

GLENN: He is.

JASON: He destroyed his own mother and father and his two brothers.

That's what he did. In addition to the Kirk family!

So evil spreads. Now, if Americans pay attention and come to the conclusion that I just stated, it will be much more difficult for evil to operate openly.

And that's what I think is going to happen.

There's going to be a ferocious backlash against the progressive left in particular.

To stop it, and I believe that is what Mr. Kirk's legacy is going to be.

GLENN: I -- I agree with you on all of these fronts.

I wonder though, you know, it took three, or if you count JFK, four assassinations in the '60s, to confront the evil if you will.

Before people really woke up and said, enough is enough!

And then you have the big Jesus revolution after that.

Is -- I hate to say this. But is -- as far gone as we are, is one assassination enough to wake people up?

JOHN: Some people. Some people will never wake up.

They just don't want to live in the real world, Beck. And it's never been easier to do that with the social media and the phones and the computers.

And you're never going to get them back.

But you don't need them. So let's just be very realistic here on the Glenn Beck show.

Let's run it down.

The corporate media is finished.

In America. It's over.

And you will see that play out the next five years.

Because the corporate media invested so much of its credibility into hating Donald Trump.

And the hate is the key word.

You will find this interesting, Beck. For the first time in ten years, I've been invited to do a major thing on CBS, today.

I will do it GE today. With major Garrett.

GLENN: Wow.

BILL: Now, that only happened because Skydance bought CBS. And Skydance understands the brand CBS is over, and they will have to rehabilitate the whole thing. NBC has not come to that conclusion yet, but it will have to.

And ABC just does the weather. I mean, that's all they care about. Is it snowing in Montana? Okay? The cables are all finished. Even Fox.

Once Trump leaves the stage, there's nowhere for FNC to go. Because they've invested so much in Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.

So the fact of the matter is, the corporate media is over in America. That takes a huge cudgel out of the hands of the progressive movement.

Because the progressive movement was dependent on the corporate media to advance its cause. That's going to end, Beck.

GLENN: Well, I would hope that you're right.

Let me ask you about --

BILL: When am I wrong?

When am I wrong?

You've known me for 55 years. When have I been wrong?

GLENN: Okay. All right. All right. We're not here to argue things like that.

So tell me about Skydance. Because isn't Skydance Chinese?

BILL: No! It's Ellison. Larry Ellison, the second richest guy in the world. He owns Lanai and Hawaii, the big tech guy and his son is running it.

GLENN: Yeah, okay.

I though Skydance. I thought that was -- you know them.

BILL: Yeah.

And they -- they're not ideological, but they were as appalled as most of us who pay attention at the deterioration of the network presentations.

So --

GLENN: You think that they could.

BILL: 60 Minutes used to be the gold standard.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

BILL: And it just -- it -- you know, you know, I don't know if you watch it anymore.

GLENN: I don't either.

So do you think they can actually turn CBS around, or is it just over?

BILL: I don't know. It's very hard to predict, because so many people now bail. I've got a daughter 26, and a son, 22.

They never, ever watched network television.

And you've got -- it's true. Right?

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

They don't watch --

BILL: They're not going to watch The Voice. The dancing with this. The juggling with that. You know, I think they could do a much better job in their news presentations.

GLENN: Yeah. Right.

BILL: Because what they did, is banish people like Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly.

Same voices, with huge followings.

Huge!

All right?

We couldn't get on there.

That's why Colbert got fired. Because Colbert wouldn't -- refused to put on any non-progressive voice, when they were talking about the country.

GLENN: I know.

BILL: Well, it's not -- I'm censoring it.

GLENN: Yeah, but it's not that he was fired because he wouldn't do that. He was fired because that led to horrible ratings. Horrible ratings.

BILL: Yes, it was his defiance.

GLENN: Yes.

BILL: Fallon has terrible ratings and so does Kimmel. But Colbert was in your face, F you, to the people who were signing his paycheck.

GLENN: Yes. Yes.

BILL: Look, evil can only exist if the mechanisms of power are behind it.

And that's when you read the front -- I take them one by one. And Putin is the most important chapter by far.

GLENN: Why?

BILL: Because Putin would use nuclear weapon.

He wouldn't. He's a psychopath.

And I'm -- on Thursday night, I got a call from the president's people saying, would I meet the president at Yankee stadium for the 9/11 game?

And I said, when a president calls and asks you to meet them, sure.

GLENN: I'll be there. What time?

BILL: It will take me three days to get into Yankee stadium, on Long Island. But I'll start now.

GLENN: Especially because the president is coming. But go ahead.

BILL: Anyway, that was a very, I think that Mr. Trump values my opinion. And it was -- we did talk about Putin.

And the change in Putin. And I had warned him, that Putin had changed from the first administration, where Trump controlled Putin to some extent.

Now he's out of control. Because that's what always happens.

GLENN: Yeah.

BILL: It happened with Hitler. It happened with Mao. It happened with the ayatollah. It happened with Stalin. Right now. They get worse and worse and worse and worse. And then they blow up.

And that's where Putin is! But he couldn't do any of that, without the assent of the Russian people. They are allowing him to do this, to kill women and children. A million Russian casualties for what! For what! Okay?

So that's why this book is just in the stratosphere. And I was thinking object, oh. Because people want to understand evil, finally. Finally.

They're taking a hard look at it, and the Charlie Kirk assassination was an impetus to do that.

GLENN: Yeah. And I think it's also an impetus to look at the good side.

I mean, I think Charlie was just not a neutral -- a neutral character. He was a force for good. And for God.

And I think that -- that combination is almost the Martin Luther King combination. Where you have a guy who is speaking up for civil rights.

But then also, speaking up for God. And speaking truth, Scripturally.

And I think that combination still, strangely, I wouldn't have predicted it. But strangely still works here in America, and I think it's changed everything.

Bill, it's always food to talk to you. Thank you so much for being on. I appreciate it.

It's Bill O'Reilly. The name of the book, you don't want to miss. Is confronting evil. And he takes all of these really, really bad guys on. One by one. And shows you, what happens if you don't do something about it. Confronting evil. Bill O'Reilly.

And you can find it at BillO'Reilly.com.

RADIO

Should people CELEBRATING Charlie Kirk’s death be fired?

There’s a big difference between firing someone, like a teacher, for believing children shouldn’t undergo trans surgery and firing a teacher who celebrated the murder of Charlie Kirk. Glenn Beck explains why the latter is NOT “cancel culture.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: I got an email from somebody that says, Glenn, in the wake of Charlie's assassination, dozens of teachers, professors and professionals are being suspended or fired for mocking, or even celebrating Charlie Kirk's death.

Critics say conservatives are now being hypocritical because you oppose cancel culture. But is this the same as rose an losing her job over a crude joke. Or is it celebrating murder, and that's something more serious?

For many, this isn't about cancellation it's about trust. If a teacher is entrusted with children or a doctor entrusted with patients, publicly celebrates political violence, have they not yet disqualified themselves from those roles? Words matter. But cheering a death is an action. Is there any consequence for this? Yes. There is.

So let's have that conversation here for a second.

Is every -- is every speech controversy the same?

The answer to that is clearly no.

I mean, we've seen teachers and pastors and doctors and ordinary citizens lose their job now, just for saying they don't believe children under 18 should undergo transgender surgeries. Okay? Lost their job. Chased out.

That opinion, whether you agree or disagree is a moral and medical judgment.

And it is a matter of policy debate. It is speech in the public square.

I have a right to say, you're mutilating children. Okay. You have a right to say, no. We're not. This is the best practices. And then we can get into the silences of it. And we don't shout down the other side.

Okay? Now, on the other hand, you have Charlie Kirk's assassination. And we've seen teachers and professors go online and be celebrate.

Not criticize. Not argue policy. But celebrate that someone was murdered.

Some have gone so far and said, it's not a tragedy. It's a victory. Somebody else, another professor said, you reap what you sow.

Well, let me ask you: Are these two categories of free speech the same?

No! They're not.

Here's the difference. To say, I believe children should not be allowed to have gender surgeries, before 18. That is an attempt, right or wrong. It doesn't matter which side you are.

That is an attempt to protect life. Protect children. And guide society.

It's entering the debate about the role of medicine. The right of parents. And the boundaries of childhood. That's what that is about. To say Charlie Kirk's assassination is a good thing, that's not a debate. That's not even an idea. That's rejoicing in violence. It's glorifying death.

There's no place in a civil society for that kind of stuff. There's not. And it's a difference that actually matters.

You know, our Founders fought for free speech because they believed as Jefferson said, that air can be tolerated where truth is left free to combat it.

So I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, at all. I don't think you do either. I hope you don't. Otherwise, you should go back to read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Error can be tolerated where truth is left to be free to combat it.

But when speech shifts from debating ideas to celebrating death, doesn't that cease to be the pursuit of truth and instead, just become a glorification of evil?

I know where I stand on that one. Where do you stand?

I mean, if you go back and you look at history, in colonial matter -- in colonial America, if you were to go against the parliament and against the king, those words were dangerous. They were called treason. But they were whys. They were arguments about liberty and taxation and the rights of man.

And the Founders risked their lives against the dictator to say those things.

Now, compare that to France in 1793.

You Thomas Paine, one of or -- one of our founder kind of. On the edges of our founders.

He thought that what was happening in France is exactly like the American Revolution.

Washington -- no. It wasn't.

There the crowds. They didn't gather to argue. Okay? They argued to cheer the guillotine they didn't want the battle of ideas.

They wanted blood. They wanted heads to roll.

And roll they did. You know, until the people who were screaming for the heads to roll, shouted for blood, found that their own heads were rolling.

Then they turned around on that one pretty quickly.

Think of Rome.

Cicero begged his countrymen to preserve the republic through reason, law, and debate. Then what happened?

The mob started cheering assassinations.

They rejoiced that enemies were slaughtered.

They were being fed to the lions.

And the republic fell into empire.

And liberty was lost!

Okay. So now let me bring this back to Charlie Kirk here for a second.

If there's a professor that says, I don't believe children should have surgeries before adulthood, is that cancel culture, when they're fired?

Yes! Yes, it is.

Because that is speech this pursuit of truth.

However imperfect, it is speech meant to protect children, not to harm them. You also cannot be fired for saying, I disagree with that.

If you are telling, I disagree with that. And I will do anything to shut you down including assassination! Well, then, that's a different story.

What I teacher says, I'm glad Charlie Kirk is dead, is that cancel culture, if they're fired?

Or is that just society saying, you know, I don't think I can trust my kid to -- to that guy.

Or that woman.

I know, that's not an enlightening mind.

Somebody who delights in political murder.

I don't want them around my children! Scripture weighs in here too.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Matthew.

What does it reveal about the heart of a teacher who celebrates assassination?

To me, you go back to Scripture. Whoa unto them that call good evil -- evil good and good evil.

A society that will shrug on speech like this, say society that has lost its moral compass.

And I believe we still have a moral compass.

Now, our free speech law doesn't protect both. Absolutely. Under law. Absolutely.

Neither one of them should go to jail.

Neither should be silenced by the state.

But does trust survive both?

Can a parent trust their child to a teacher who is celebrating death?

I think no. I don't think a teacher can be trusted if they think that the children that it's right for children to see strippers in first grade!

I'm sorry. It's beyond reason. You should not be around my children!

But you shouldn't go to jail for that. Don't we, as a society have a right to demand virtue, in positions of authority?

Yes.

But the political class and honestly, the educational class, does everything they can to say, that doesn't matter.

But it does. And we're seeing it now. The line between cancel and culture, the -- the cancellation of people, and the accountability of people in our culture, it's not easy.

Except here. I think it is easy.

Cancel culture is about challenging the orthodoxy. Opinions about faith, morality, biology.
Accountability comes when speech reveals somebody's heart.

Accountability comes when you're like, you are a monster! You are celebrating violence. You're mocking life itself. One is an argument. The other is an abandonment of humanity. The Constitution, so you understand, protects both.

But we as a culture can decide, what kind of voices would shape our children? Heal our sick. Lead our communities?

I'm sorry, if you're in a position of trust, I think it's absolutely right for the culture to say, no!

No. You should not -- because this is not policy debate. This is celebrating death.

You know, our Founders gave us liberty.

And, you know, the big thing was, can you keep it?

Well, how do you keep it? Virtue. Virtue.

Liberty without virtue is suicide!

So if anybody is making this case to you, that this is cancel culture. I just want you to ask them this question.

Which do you want to defend?

Cancel culture that silences debate. Or a culture that still knows the difference between debating ideas and celebrating death.

Which one?

RADIO

Could passengers have SAVED Iryna Zarutska?

Surveillance footage of the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, NC, reveals that the other passengers on the train took a long time to help her. Glenn, Stu, and Jason debate whether they were right or wrong to do so.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm -- I'm torn on how I feel about the people on the train.

Because my first instinct is, they did nothing! They did nothing! Then my -- well, sit down and, you know -- you know, you're going to be judged. So be careful on judging others.

What would I have done? What would I want my wife to do in that situation?

STU: Yeah. Are those two different questions, by the way.

GLENN: Yeah, they are.

STU: I think they go far apart from each other. What would I want myself to do. I mean, it's tough to put yourself in a situation. It's very easy to watch a video on the internet and talk about your heroism. Everybody can do that very easily on Twitter. And everybody is.

You know, when you're in a vehicle that doesn't have an exit with a guy who just murdered somebody in front of you, and has a dripping blood off of a knife that's standing 10 feet away from you, 15 feet away from you.

There's probably a different standard there, that we should all kind of consider. And maybe give a little grace to what I saw at least was a woman, sitting across the -- the -- the aisle.

I think there is a difference there. But when you talk about that question. Those two questions are definitive.

You know, I know what I would want myself to do. I would hope I would act in a way that didn't completely embarrass myself afterward.

But I also think, when I'm thinking of my wife. My advice to my wife would not be to jump into the middle of that situation at all costs. She might do that anyway. She actually is a heck of a lot stronger than I am.

But she might do it anyway.

GLENN: How pathetic, but how true.

STU: Yes. But that would not be my advice to her.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

STU: Now, maybe once the guy has certainly -- is out of the area. And you don't think the moment you step into that situation. He will turn around and kill you too. Then, of course, obviously. Anything you can do to step in.

Not that there was much anyone on the train could do.

I mean, I don't think there was an outcome change, no matter what anyone on that train did.

Unfortunately.

But would I want her to step in?

Of course. If she felt she was safe, yes.

Think about, you said, your wife. Think about your daughter. Your daughter is on that train, just watching someone else getting murdered like that. Would you advise your daughter to jump into a situation like that?

That girl sitting across the aisle was somebody's daughter. I don't know, man.

JASON: I would. You know, as a dad, would I advise.

Hmm. No.

As a human being, would I hope that my daughter or my wife or that I would get up and at least comfort that woman while she's dying on the floor of a train?

Yeah.

I would hope that my daughter, my son, that I would -- and, you know, I have more confidence in my son or daughter or my wife doing something courageous more than I would.

But, you know, I think I have a more realistic picture of myself than anybody else.

And I'm not sure that -- I'm not sure what I would do in that situation. I know what I would hope I would do. But I also know what I fear I would do. But I would have hoped that I would have gotten up and at least tried to help her. You know, help her up off the floor. At least be there with her, as she's seeing her life, you know, spill out in under a minute.

And that's it other thing we have to keep in mind. This all happened so rapidly.

A minute is -- will seem like a very long period of time in that situation. But it's a very short period of time in real life.

STU: Yeah. You watch the video, Glenn. You know, I don't need the video to -- to change my -- my position on this.

But at his seem like there was a -- someone who did get there, eventually, to help, right? I saw someone seemingly trying to put pressure on her neck.

GLENN: Yeah. And tried to give her CPR.

STU: You know, no hope at that point. How long of a time period would you say that was?

Do you know off the top of your head?

GLENN: I don't know. I don't know. I know that we watched the video that I saw. I haven't seen past 30 seconds after she --

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: -- is down. And, you know, for 30 seconds nothing is happening. You know, that is -- that is not a very long period of time.

STU: Right.

GLENN: In reality.

STU: And especially, I saw the pace he was walking. He certainly can't be -- you know, he may have left the actual train car by 30 seconds to a minute. But he wasn't that far away. Like he was still in visual.

He could still turn around and look and see what's going on at that point. So certainly still a threat is my point. He has not, like, left the area. This is not that type of situation.

You know, I -- look, as you point out, I think if I could be super duper sexist for a moment here, sort of my dividing line might just be men and women.

You know, I don't know if it's that a -- you're not supposed to say that, I suppose these days. But, like, there is a difference there. If I'm a man, you know, I would be -- I would want my son to jump in on that, I suppose. I don't know if he could do anything about it. But you would expect at least a grown man to be able to go in there and do something about it. A woman, you know, I don't know.

Maybe I'm -- I hope --

GLENN: Here's the thing I -- here's the thing that I -- that causes me to say, no. You should have jumped in.

And that is, you know, you've already killed one person on the train. So you've proven that you're a killer. And anybody who would have screamed and got up and was with her, she's dying. She's dying. Get him. Get him.

Then the whole train is responsible for stopping that guy. You know. And if you don't stop him, after he's killed one person, if you're not all as members of that train, if you're not stopping him, you know, the person at the side of that girl would be the least likely to be killed. It would be the ones that are standing you up and trying to stop him from getting back to your daughter or your wife or you.

JASON: There was a -- speaking of men and women and their roles in this. There was a video circling social media yesterday. In Sweden. There was a group of officials up on a stage. And one of the main. I think it was health official woman collapses on stage. Completely passes out.

All the men kind of look away. Or I don't know if they're looking away. Or pretending that they didn't know what was going on. There was another woman standing directly behind the woman passed out.

Immediately springs into action. Jumps on top. Grabs her pant leg. Grabs her shoulder. Spins her over and starts providing care.

What did she have that the other guys did not? Or women?

She was a sheepdog. There is a -- this is my issue. And I completely agree with Stu. I completely agree with you. There's some people that do not respond this way. My issue is the proportion of sheepdogs versus people that don't really know how to act. That is diminishing in western society. And American society.

We see it all the time in these critical actions. I mean, circumstances.

There are men and women, and it's actually a meme. That fantasize about hoards of people coming to attack their home and family. And they sit there and say, I've got it. You guys go. I'm staying behind, while I smoke my cigarette and wait for the hoards to come, because I will sacrifice myself. There are men and women that fantasize of block my highway. Go ahead. Block my highway. I'm going to do something about it. They fantasize about someone holding up -- not a liquor store. A convenience store or something. Because they will step in and do something. My issue now is that proportion of sheepdogs in society is disappearing. Just on statistical fact, there should be one within that train car, and there were none.

STU: Yeah. I mean --

JASON: They did not respond.

STU: We see what happens when they do, with Daniel Penny. Our society tries to vilify them and crush their existence. Now, there weren't that many people on that train. Right?

At least on that car. At least it's limited. I only saw three or four people there, there may have been more. I agree with you, though. Like, you see what happens when we actually do have a really recent example of someone doing exactly what Jason wants and what I would want a guy to do. Especially a marine to step up and stop this from happening. And the man was dragged by our legal system to a position where he nearly had to spend the rest of his life in prison.

I mean, I -- it's insanity. Thankfully, they came to their senses on that one.

GLENN: Well, the difference between that one and this one though is that the guy was threatening. This one, he killed somebody.

STU: Yeah. Right. Well, but -- I think -- but it's the opposite way. The debate with Penny, was should he have recognize that had this person might have just been crazy and not done anything?

Maybe. He hadn't actually acted yet. He was just saying things.

GLENN: Yeah. Well --

STU: He didn't wind up stabbing someone. This is a situation where these people have already seen what this man will do to you, even when you don't do anything to try to stop him. So if this woman, who is, again, looks to be an average American woman.

Across the aisle. Steps in and tries to do something. This guy could easily turn around and just make another pile of dead bodies next to the one that already exists.

And, you know, whether that is an optimal solution for our society, I don't know that that's helpful.

In that situation.

Glenn's Show Prep

‘Everyone Is Watching Each Other’: Author Explains North Korea’s Isolation From the World

Max Lucado & Glenn Beck: Finding unity in faith

Confronting evil: Bill O'Reilly's insight on Charlie Kirk's enduring legacy

Transcript

Should people CELEBRATING Charlie Kirk’s death be fired?

Transcript

Could passengers have SAVED Iryna Zarutska?

Transcript