BLOGFebruary 08, 2018

‘Social Media Doesn’t Reward That’: Why Can’t Conservatives, Liberals Listen to Each Other?

How do we heal division in our country when we can’t even have conversations?

“I really feel one of the biggest problems is nobody’s listening at all,” Glenn said on today’s show while sitting down with Eric Liu. “Nobody feels heard right now.”

Glenn's Refreshingly Honest Conversation With (Gasp!) a Logical Liberal

Liu, founder and CEO of Citizen University, leans liberal in his political views but has the same passion for bringing people together. He pointed out that we’ll have to be better than our political leaders if we want to reach across the aisle. We’re learning terrible habits from our political leaders and the way social media encourages extreme views.

“That’s a set of habits that nobody’s modeling for us in national politics,” Liu said. “Nothing in our daily lives rewards that. Social media doesn’t reward that.”

Listen to their full conversation on today’s show here:

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: So much to the, I think, chagrin of my friends and chagrin of his friends, we are friends, Eric Liu. He is the founder and CEO Of Citizen University. Also, the executive director of the Aspen Institute. Citizenship and American Identity Program.

He's -- he's from Seattle. I don't think I need to say anything else. He's from Seattle.

(laughter)

GLENN: So we don't necessarily agree on everything. But we have become friends because we both are trying to find sane ways to have conversations with each other and other people. Or we're doomed. We're doomed.

Welcome. How are you?

ERIC: Glenn, it's great to be back. It's great to see you.

GLENN: How is Seattle?

ERIC: It's beautiful. It's thriving. It's booming. You know, you grew up in the area.

GLENN: I know. I love it. I love it. I love it.

I don't think I would be welcomed there anymore. I don't think I was welcomed there ten years ago, let alone today.

ERIC: Well, we'll follow-up and bring you back together, and we'll do something in Seattle.

GLENN: Yeah, good. I would love to.

So would you agree with me that both sides, to one degree or another, have become unhinged on the extreme edges?

ERIC: Yeah. I think our politics today, and especially if you spend more than ten minutes on social media, it is about voices on the unhinged extremes.

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: And it's about this pattern that plays out over and over, where each extreme has to gin it up in order to feed the rage and the anger about the other side's extreme.

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: You know, that is our politics as it's mediated, you know, especially through social media. But I think -- you were talking about this before we went on-air. There is a broad swath of, you know, sane people. You know, interested bystanders. People who aren't super active in politics, super active in commenting on politics, who just want to understand each other, and who just want to fix stuff.

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: And some of them are as progressive as I am. And some of them are as Libertarian as you are. And many of them are all points in between. But they're not interested in the game-playing and the posturing that so much of national politics is about today.

GLENN: Yeah. I mean, I -- we're making everything about politics now. Absolutely everything is about politics.

And we're not going to survive. That's nuts.

The story today came out on sports -- sports illustrated. They just did a swimsuit issue, that doesn't have any swimsuits. All of the women are completely naked. And they're beautiful women. One is lying down naked, face up with the word "truth" painted on her rib cage. Another one is naked with "feminist" emblazoned on her arm. The other is the daughter of Christie Brinkley that is staring at the camera, laying on her side with the word "progress" written across her back. And they've put this -- this is -- I don't understand this. This is Sports Illustrated, a magazine for men, trying to say, see, we shouldn't objectify women. I don't understand that.

ERIC: Yeah. There's a lot that is great fundamentally about the Me Too movement and the fact that our society is waking up to shifting norms on what's okay when it comes to actually treating women with respect.

GLENN: I agree. I agree. I agree. Yes.

ERIC: But I do not look to Sports Illustrated as my moral guide on the objectification of women. Okay?

GLENN: How do we find a way -- and tell me what your feelings are on the people that, you know, on the -- on the dangers -- even Margaret at wood brought this up, the dangers of just these kangaroo courts, who are not even a kangaroo court. Just, you're guilty, and you're done if anybody accuses you.

ERIC: The danger is there. But I think actually as a society, we're navigate it right now. I mean, this is somewhat uncharted. Right? It's not like the society has tried before to have deep equity between men and women, on what -- who gets to harass whom. We've never done that before. We're having a society-wide reckoning.

Are there going to be cases where people abuse that -- the power that comes with that?

Sure. But are our institutions and are the leaders in our institutions fundamentally trying to reckon with that in good-faith? I actually think we are.

And even this kind of absurd Sports Illustrated cover is a sign that -- you know, one thing you can say about Sports Illustrated is they're trying to tune into the zeitgeist. They are aware of the market place, right? And they know the zeitgeist is, you got to be on the right side of the speech. Right?

GLENN: Yeah. Right. Right.

But if I did photos of naked women and put #metoo, I don't think I would get the pass that --

ERIC: Well, exactly.

GLENN: -- from either side, in my case. From either side.

STU: Yeah.

ERIC: The question is one of -- you know, in the law, they talk about standing. Do you have standing to make a case? Right?

During the Super Bowl, we all watched the ads and stuff. I didn't think Dodge Ram trucks had the moral standing to use an MLK speech about the dangers of commercialism to sell trucks. To me, that was -- and to lots of Americans, that was, you know what, message and messenger not aligned here.

GLENN: You mean the MLK message?

ERIC: Yeah. Yeah.

GLENN: So the MLK message -- may I present an opposite point of view. That's a sermon that most Americans have not heard, was really good. I agree with you that the images of the truck coming in, halfway in. You're like, okay. That's really -- you don't need that.

Just a simple Dodge at the end would have been perfect.

ERIC: Yeah. Yes. Would have been great.

GLENN: However, I have had more email on a monologue that I did on forgiveness, and I used that sermon the very next day. I've had more email on that from people who woke up. So, I mean, you can't necessarily reject it as universally bad that they did it. Because it did affect people.

ERIC: Well, look, I mean, Sports Illustrated was trying to do something like the right thing. But the equivalent would have been, had they had a cover -- if they said, this year's swimsuit issue, here's what it looks like. And it was a black cover that just said, we're taking some responsibility for feeding this culture in which women are treated like objects and which men feel they have permission to treat women like objects. We own a piece of that.

GLENN: And it would be the lowest selling Sports Illustrated.

STU: But that would be a powerful statement. Writing it on naked women's bodies doesn't seem quite as --

ERIC: It would be low-selling as a swimsuit issue. But the whole country would be talking about it. Would be talking about Sports Illustrated.

GLENN: Yeah, that's true. That's true.

So who have you found, Eric, I have been looking for a while, people like you, that we don't necessarily agree, but we can have really good conversations. And we can move things forward together.

ERIC: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Who have you found on the -- on the left or in the media that is really willing to do that?

ERIC: Hmm. You know, and I'm not sure if she's been a guest on your show, but my friend Neera Tanden --

GLENN: Nope.

ERIC: -- who runs the Center for American Progress.

Big, big progressive think tank, that I know you cross swords with. Right? But Neera is both able and willing to have conversations with anybody. And to have them in ways that aren't just the made for TV food fight, that are really trying to say, what's your deal? Right.

What are you getting at here?

GLENN: I really feel one of the biggest problems is nobody is listening at all.

ERIC: Yeah.

GLENN: Nobody feels heard right now.

Somehow or another, the left still controls most of the media. Doesn't feel heard. And the right now that they control the House and the Senate, they don't feel heard. And it's because nobody is -- nobody is actually -- I guess emoting what the average person is feeling right now. You know, we're all scared. It's amazing. I saw a YouTube video of a liberal talking about how afraid she was that Donald Trump was going to build concentration camps. And it was in a room -- probably had 1,000 people in it. And they were all like, yeah, yeah. And I remember, I debunked the lie about Obama making concentration camps. Because that was a big deal.

STU: A big conspiracy theory at the time.

GLENN: Big conspiracy. I was called a conspiracy theorist for debunking that conspiracy theory. And now the other side is feeling the same kind of fear that so many Americans did when they didn't trust the president. And I think this is a moment where we can wake up and say, see, this is why the president should never have this much power. The president should not be able to affect our lives, to the point to where we're afraid of him.

STU: Yeah.

ERIC: I actually agree with that. I think there's one lesson that people on the left are learning today, and that is the dangers of this imperial presidency. Right?

Which is not a Trump phenomenon or even an Obama phenomenon. It's been going back half a century at least, right?

GLENN: Been going for a long time, yeah, yeah.

ERIC: At least since World War II. Right? Concentration, power in the executive, right?

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: But I think you're -- I want to go back to something you were saying about listening and being heard, right?

We live in this time right now where there is -- and we've talked about this. There's so much pain. There's so much pain.

The segment you were doing right before the break, in which you were just speaking to a human, an individual about the pain they were feeling in their journey. And you were tying it to the pain that you have felt at various points in your journey, right?

That kind of conversation which is both about listening -- but it's about, I'm not just listening to the words you're saying and the points you're making. I'm trying to listen underneath, to the emotional currents there. That's a set of habits that nobody is modeling for us in national politics. And that we as citizens, frankly, it's gotten easier for us to shed those habits. Because nothing in our daily lives rewards that, right? Social media doesn't reward that.

GLENN: The media doesn't reward --

ERIC: The media doesn't reward that.

So we've actually got to build experiences where we see each other face-to-face again. You know, if we were having this conversation by phone, this would be different. But I'm looking you in the eye right now, Glenn. And I'm looking at you as you've spoken about these questions. And there's a human connection here. That I can't now just call you a nutjob and call you a this and call you a that. Like, we've connected on some level, right? It doesn't mean we're going to agree on the issues.

But it means I'm not going to demonize. And I think the deepest ill in our politics is how we've forgotten how to rehumanize each other.

GLENN: That's -- I just wrote a member of the press morning, a private conversation, that dealt with that. I said, we are -- we are calling each other subhumans, exactly the way the early, you know, 1920s Nazis were starting to. Train people that you're subhuman. If you don't agree with me, you're subhuman. And we're training each other that way.

But it doesn't -- social media is not the only one that doesn't reward it. Media doesn't reward it either. I mean, if you're not going to call somebody a nutjob or a Nazi. You don't win. And they don't put you on. And you, Stu -- was it you yesterday that said that you had seen somebody say, no, well, on the surface, this means X and X. And the guy was like, no. But that's -- can you tell the story?

STU: Yeah. It was an interview about some controversial comment that had gone on media. And they had brought someone on to kind of answer for it. And the typical kind of cable news back and forth. And that's essentially, when the person was pushing back against it. To say, yeah, but you got to admit on the service, it's an insult.

It's like, well, isn't the point here as human beings, that we go beyond the surface, that we think a little deeper about these things?

Because we can all get frustrated at the surface of it. We can all find the worst possible intent of a comment and turn it into something that is going to enrage our side. But that shouldn't be our goal.

GLENN: So, Eric, how do we do that?

ERIC: Well, it starts with something I actually want to give you guys credit for, which is, you got to put something at risk. Right?

When you started a couple years ago saying, I own my piece of how our politics and our political culture have gotten toxic. And I've decided I want to be part of the solution. I want to start reaching out and having conversations across certain divides, right? You put a bunch of stuff at risk.

You feel it acutely, right? You feel it every day. You put -- I don't have to name it. Right? It's not just about the business side of things and the listeners and the sponsors or whatever. I'm talking about reputational power and so forth, right? You put stuff at risk.

And I often ask myself and I ask my friends who are left of center, what are we willing to put at risk in order to change this politics? In order to go a little deeper, beyond the surface and beyond just this throwing of flames at each other? Right.

So number one, it's being willing -- and I want to name the fact that you all have started something and set in motion a different cycle of responsibility, taking rather than responsibility shirking with, right?

GLENN: Thank you.

ERIC: There is only one way to break the cycle of dehumanization and responsibility shirking, and that is to break it.

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: That is to say, you know what, I didn't start it. I'm not the one to blame. But darn it, I'm actually just going to say, I'm stopping right now, and I'm trying to change direction here. Go a little deeper. And rehumanize. And, yeah, I may pay some price for that. But this is a question of purpose.

STU: One of -- a famous poet said, we didn't start the fire.

GLENN: It was Billy Joel. Stop it.

ERIC: A poet. Yes, indeed.

(laughter)

GLENN: So what do your friends say to you, when you say, what are we willing to lose? What chip are we willing to put up?

ERIC: Let me tell you about something we've been doing at Citizen University. For the last year plus now, a year and a quarter, we've been doing these regular gatherings that we call civic Saturday. And these are basically a civic analogue to church. It's not church. It's not synagogue or mosque. But it's about American civic religion. Right? The stuff that you and I, civic nerds, are steeped in. Right? Understanding the language and the texts and what you might think of as civic scripture, whether that's from the declaration of the preamble or King speeches or Susan B. Anthony or whatever it might be, and understanding that we have all inherited this body of values and text and idea. And we do these gatherings with the Ark of the Faith gathering.

We sing together. You turn to the stranger next to you. You talk about a common question. There are readings of these texts.

There's a sermon that I've been giving. And then afterwards, there's more song. And then there's an hour afterwards where people kind of form up in circles and talk about, what are we going to do together? Right?

And I go to length to tell you about this, because number one, it's been amazing how people have responded to this. There is this need, across the left and the right, whether you are traditionally religious or not, there is this need in our political life for a space where we can come together and rehumanize, right?

Number one. Number two, when in that space, I've said to folks in these sermons what I've said here, which is, we've got to be willing to take risks. We've got to be willing to ask ourselves, what are we willing to put on the line?

And people are -- people sit there for a minute because they haven't been asked/challenged to do that in a long time, right? All of our political leadership is about, let me indulge you. Let me indulge your worst instincts. Let me indulge you. Not what can you do? And maybe even give up a little bit, in order to start solving the problem, right? And that leads to different kinds of conversations.

And, frankly, not all of them are about Trump or national politics. A lot of these conversations then come to life in our city, which is changing dramatically right now.

GLENN: That's what it should come down to in the first place.

ERIC: Yeah.

GLENN: Eric, we're going to continue our conversation at 5 o'clock tonight on the Glenn Beck Program. He has written a book, You're More Powerful than You Think. His name is Eric Liu. And we'll have more tonight at 5 o'clock. Make sure you join us on TheBlaze.com/TV.

RADIO

EXCLUSIVE: A Sneak Peek Into Glenn's Sit Down With President Trump

President Donald Trump has made more progress than any other president, or many presidents combined in the first 100 days. Glenn is sitting down with the President for an exclusive 100 day interview, and they have a lot to discuss. President Trump has the opportunity to turn this country around and fix the damage done by the previous administration, but the clock is ticking. Glenn gives a sneak peek into what he and the President will discuss in his exclusive interview at the White House, including the economy, the power grid, and how critical it is that his presidency is a success.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

STU: You've got, of course, your interview with the president of the United States. Going to be airing tonight.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: On Blaze TV. BlazeTV.com/Glenn. By the way.

Promo code Glenn. If you would like to join Blaze TV, and save 20 bucks.

You have kind of an approach here? At this point? Do you know what you will ask him?

GLENN: Had to.

I mean, I do. I've got pages and pages of questions and notes.

But now I have to -- you know, it will take me an hour or two, just to whittle it down to the questions I think I can get in.

You know, I've got 45 minutes or an hour with the president. And that's from the moment he walks in, to the moment he leaves.

So you don't have a lot of time.

And, you know, every -- every single word counts. I know -- I want to start with this. I asked just for a list of the things that he had accomplished on the first 100 days.

And we got to page 89. I'll have all of them tonight.

This is the first I think 89 days.

Look at that.

STU: Hmm. A lot.

GLENN: That's just a list of the accomplishments of the first 89 days.

That's -- what did you say? 4 inches thick? I mean --

STU: Crazy.

GLENN: This guy has made more progress than any other president, or many presidents combined in the first 100 days. Nobody has done what -- what he's done.

But, you know, one of the things that I don't know how -- because I can't ask him directly. So I have to ask him several questions all the way through, that will kind of give you a sense of, are we looking for a reprieves? Is that what we're going to get, a four-year reprieve?

If the economy doesn't turn around fast enough, because I believe the president can turn it around. But if it doesn't turn it around fast enough. Or if people don't understand that he is changing the entire structure of the world.

And he's trying to do it in two years. Really.

We're going to be left with a reprieve and not a -- not a fundamental change. And does he think that's really possible?

Especially, without Congress.

I will rail on Congress. I don't know if he will join me on that.

I really want to know why he isn't pounding Congress into the dirt.

I mean, Congress they're not helpful at all.

No matter what everyone says.

I talked to the people just the last few days here, to tell you that the Senate and the House leadership is on the president's side.

And they don't their butt from their elbow.

They have no idea what they're talking about. They are not on his side. They are not working with him. And that's obvious.

I mean, they should be passing.

You know, I know this is going to be -- you know, he said, I'm going to pass the largest tax cut.

Well, he's not.

What the Congress is doing, is he's actually -- he's thwarting the largest tax increase in American history. That would come next year.

Well, the country needs a tax cut. A tax plan, that will actually encourage spending on business.

Encourage, you know, spending on -- on creating jobs.

I also want to talk to him about energy.

I mean, what are you?

What do you think, Stu?

What are the questions that you want to know?

STU: I think the economy is a big one. And how he's going to kind of go forward with that.

We talked about having that sort of positive agenda. I think that will be helpful.

Seems like the markets are like that today. And there's a little bit of an approach change over the past couple of days, and that seems to be helping quite a bit. I think that's a big one. I think certainly energy is a big one. Department of Education is another one.

GLENN: Wait. Wait. Wait. Those go back to the positive. Like we talked about energy.

Going in and saying, look, I'm going to build all these nuclear power plants in the next three years.

Because testimony on the hill. Yesterday. Take before yesterday. From the president, you know, former CEO of Google. Eric Schmitt was pretty clear.

We are going to -- right now, the cloud services, if you will.

The compute power. For all of the big, you know, computer cloud servers. They require currently 3 percent of all of the electricity that is used in the United States.

3 percent.

In three years, they will require 99 percent of our energy.

Well, there's no way that can happen without us having blackouts and brown Brownouts.

And the rest of the country, just starving itself from electricity.

That will just collapse everything.

So a positive way to deal with this, is to say, I am going to do the biggest energy push ever in American history.

And he's already done it for oil.

And coal.

Now he just needs to say, I'm cutting the red tape. I'm going to make sure that they're safe. But there's new technology now with -- are nuclear power plants. And we're going to drop them in city after city after city.

Where those cloud servers are going to be.

Because if Eric Smith is right. And I believe he is.

Each one of these cloud servers by 2030. Will need a nuclear. Full-sized nuclear power plant, themselves!

That's incredible!

STU: It's incomprehensible.

But, yeah, as you point out. Instead of saying, you know, like an alternate approach to that, would be, hey. We need to stop these AI companies from doing this. We need to make sure that they are not -- that's what I would say, the left would typically do in a situation like this.

They would try to stop the company from growing and innovating.

They would say, you need to do more with less.

And I think the conservative argument there, is to say, hey. No.

We will give you the tools that you need. We will make it easy for these companies to build nuclear power-plants in a safe way, of course.

But reliable energy that can -- that can fuel these things would be great.

I think the same thing. I think you look at Trump's economic plan. He wants to bring let's say manufacturing back to the United States.

Well, there's a couple of ways you can do that.

Both ways are completely consistent with what Trump wants to do. One of them are obviously tariffs. Has almost all the attention. I think there's a reason why the media focuses on that.

I think they would rather talk about the tariffs.

Because they're not as popular. The other side is incentivizing. It's cutting regulation. It's cutting taxes. It's making the United States into the greatest state to do business.

People will want to come here. And the Democrats have worked really hard to take that impression away from the world over the past 20 years.

And Trump, I think in his first term did a good job encouraging that sort of development here.

I think it went pretty well with the economy.

And I think that just -- I think he believes that.

Still, he just -- it hasn't been the focus of -- as much of the messaging. And I think that could help.

GLENN: This is -- this is the problem.

And I'm going to try to get him to explain this.

I can't ask him. I don't think I can ask him directly.

Because the president, if you say, look at how much trouble we're in.

And, you know, is this fixable?

Of course, he will say, yes. It's absolutely fixable.

But he needs to articulate. Or somebody needs to articulate how close to the edge of the abyss we are.

I mean, you know, Stu, you know I have -- I have talked about this economic stuff, over and over again.

I had a conversation with somebody, who I can't say who.

But they believe me, they absolutely know what's happening with our dollar and the economy and everything else.

Okay? An official in the government, that that's -- you know, that's pretty much what they do.
And I said, look, I'm trying to get my arms around this.

Because I'm thinking about, you know, why he called it Liberation Day. And I think it's because he's changing the whole system.

You know, that was set up after World War II.

And yada, yada, yada.

And I said, and I don't think people understand that, if we -- if he fails, this is it.

This is our last chance, to save America.

We're over!

And this individual put their hand on my shoulder, and said, no.

Listen.

We are over. So he said the same thing I did. He just wanted to make sure that I understood, exactly what I was saying. And I found that to be a little terrifying. And I don't think people truly understand, this is it! This is it.

If -- if you -- if you want to have a country left, we're going to go and experience tremendous pain.

I mean, Ronald Reagan talked about this.

You know, there's going to come a time when none of the choices are good. And everybody wants to eat around the edges, and not take the whole pie. You have to have the whole pie. You can't eat around the edges anymore. You've got to fix the entire thing.

And that is going to be really painful.

And dangerous. And I -- I don't know if I can get him to talk about that.

I mean, how would you ask him?

STU: Do you think that's the way he sees it?

Do you think -- because it does seem like the types of maneuvers, he's made, when it comes to foreign trade, for example.

He really does see.

Not just something we need to tweak. An absolute, monumental crisis.

Right?

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: Because that is a big change, and I think maybe slightly different than the perception going in. And that's something he will kind of have to deal with, with the American people. That's why maybe he's having issues with some of the independents, losing support among independents. I don't think he's going to see. You know, I don't think he runs his operation. I don't think he looks at it and says, okay. This isn't polling well right now. So I don't want to do it.

GLENN: No. He doesn't. He sees himself. And thank God, he sees himself as, if I don't do it, no one will.

And I think that's true.

I don't know of -- Donald Trump is completely unique. You know, he's been forged in the fire, where he wasn't in 2016.

He is now.

I mean, what are you going to do to him?

You try to throw him in jail. You try to throw his family in jail. You try to destroy his business, his reputation. You try to call him every name under the sun. They tried to kill him not once, but twice. I mean, what are you going to do to this guy? He doesn't care.

And so I really believe that this is so far beyond him. He knows, look, I am here, that the time for a reason. And it's to save the country, in the way I believe it needs to be saved. And so it is a complete departure from The Great Reset, but it is a Great Reset. The world has been shaping us for this reset.

I've been talking about this since 2008. They shaped us for this reset to where they would -- they would manage the decline to a certain point.

And then it would kind of fall apart and then collapse into this new system that they had built. Well, he's dismantling that, at the same time trying to put the system back into place they can't be they had taken apart.

It's -- I mean, it's -- if he can pull this off. It's going to be a miracle. We will be the first people in the history of the world, to pull this off.

And it's -- it's an interesting -- going to be interesting to see how all of this works out. All right. More in just a second.

GLENN: You know, I'm talking about the Great Reset. Have you seen that Klaus Schwab has resigned?

STU: Hmm. Sad to see him go, Glenn. He's done such good work at the World Economic Forum. He's been able to usher us into this new world that we've all been asking for and demanding. Sad to see.

GLENN: Well, especially, he's done some really good work apparently on the buttocks of several women. Which, you know, I don't know -- I don't know, let's just say they were nice little polite pats on the butt, you know, as they passed by. Hey, sweetheart, how are you doing? Apparently, he's created a very obscene culture at the World Economic Forum. Now, who would have thunk it.

Every time he comes to town, the prostitutes go through the roof, because they're shipped from all over the world. But, no, I'm sure it's a very pro-woman, you know. He really cares. He really cares deeply. But apparently, he's in trouble for sexual harassment. And also -- yeah. Also, problems with some funds. Apparently, he used some funds to buy big houses. But it's no big deal, right?

I mean, eh. He can get away with it. He's Klaus Schwab. I hate these people so much. I hate these people so much.

And the -- the -- the hypocrisy of these people just kills me.

Kills me. One of the other things I want to ask him about is The Great Reset. And how, I mean, six years ago, you remember when we started talking about The Great Reset.

And everybody said, that's -- and now look at it!

Everybody knows about DEI and CRT and everything else.

Everything they said, you have the court system, now defending.

Saying, you can't come back. Wait a minute. I thought it was a conspiracy theory.

I'm just counting conspiracies.

Isn't that what you want?

It's incredible.

I mean, want to know, if you will stand up to the courts.

STU: Yeah. What does that mean exactly too?

I don't know. Obviously, right now, we have six Supreme Court justices that were -- that were actually named by Republicans. Right?

Three of them by President Trump himself.

What does that mean as far as -- I know they took a stance against him, deporting certain people.

And they'll --

GLENN: I can't believe it.

STU: That sort of battle has been fascinating.

GLENN: These people.

When we were saying, we should vet people.

When they're coming in. Ask them. Hey, here's an idea.

COVID. Can we see if they've had their vaccine?

No. You can't do that!

Now, we're trying to ship them back home. Oh, we have to have a sit down with them.

We have to have a formal interview. You know, before we get rid of them. We have to really sit down and talk to them.

No problem bringing them in. None!

Riddled with disease. Not a problem. Hang on just a second. I think you left a few of your fingers behind. They just fell off.

You want to just take them with you, as you enter the United States? No problem coming in, all kinds of problems leaving.

STU: Well.

GLENN: How does this make sense?

STU: A lot of this has to do with your hatred of Maryland fathers. You have always been against people who are just fathers in Maryland.

GLENN: I was a father in Maryland for a while. My daughter was born in Maryland. And I was the dad. So I was a Maryland father.

STU: Wow. You can't be deported. That's apparently the rule.

Did you see the explanation?

I love this. Of the domestic violence thing.

Where she filed a restraining order against him for domestic violence.

Everybody is like, hey. He beat his wife.

She says now, no. That was not true.

She filed a domestic violence restraining order against her husband. Quote, in case things escalated, end quote.

GLENN: Oh, that happened.

Tania did that to me, last week.

STU: It's a case.

GLENN: I need a restraining order. He might kill me.

He was not threatening to kill me. But in case he does. Gosh, this is terrible!

RADIO

MANY Young People are Turning to God. Is THIS Why?

According to multiple reports, young people have flocked to the Catholic Church, especially the past year. Glenn believes it’s because of rituals. While progressives tried to change our shared traditions, some institutions are holding tight, and our young people are noticing. “Those rituals you do as a family are very important,” Glenn says. “They’re very human. And they’re not just Catholic traditions…a bride walking down the aisle, a soldier saluted at a ceremony, even the way we light candles to honor the dead. They mark moments that matter in our lives and they help organize things in our mind.” And in the religious sense, they create clarity, something that our younger generations have very little of as the world tells them nothing really matters.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: It's Good Friday. One last story on faith. I was reading an article about Tammy Peterson. The wife of Jordan Peterson.

Last year, she walked into a Catholic Church and embraced a new faith. She was a survivor of cancer. And she found, you know, solace in the rosary's ritual. You know, beads and their rhythmic prayers and all of that. And it gave her peace through all of the fear that she had. She shared this last year with the Catholic Herald interview.

And she's not alone.

A New York Post article, this week, reports a surge in young people converting to Catholicism, with year-over-year converts increasing from 30 to 70 percent.

The archdiocese of Fort Worth says, there was a 72 percent jump in converts in the last year!
Something is happening. And I think it's rituals.

You know, Barack Obama knows, said his wife. That we're going to have to change everything. We're going to have to change our traditions. Our language. Our history.

Rituals bring things back together. At a time when we are told, you know, if you disagree with your family. Don't get together with your family. Those rituals that you do as a family, are very important.

They're deeply human.

And they're not just Catholic traditions or relics of the past. They're everywhere. A bride walking down the aisle. A soldier saluted at a ceremony. Even the way we light candles in honor to -- to honor the dead. They mark moments that matter in our lives, and they help organize things in our mind.

And rituals, in Catholicism, the Eucharist, or the confession, elevate this instinct. This need to the sacred. So it's not just -- it's not just a routine.

It is a bridge to meaning. And that matters.

Because when you have meaning, and there's a storm in your life, it gives structure, so it doesn't feel like the storm is just going to wipe you out entirely.

There was a study in 2013, in Scientific American. An article by a psychologist.

That explained that rituals, religious or not. Reduce anxiety. Steady us after loss.

And boost confidence before big moments.

And you can look at this. I mean, it's not faith-based. But think of athletes with a pre-game routine.

Or just a child calmed by a bedtime story.

Rituals amplify this.

New York Post. Noted that young converts now especially Gen Z crave, quoting, the clarity and certainty rejecting the, quote, last week alternatives of modern worship. Why? Because modern worship tells you, you can believe anything. There are no real rules. God will always just take you as you are.

And, I mean, he will. Warts and all. But you've got to do a little something. Try this on for size. How alive is the church over in England?

Has it ever been alive?

Church attendance among 18 to 24-year-olds has jumped from 4 percent to 2018 to 16 percent in 2024.

I would say there's something going on here.

And experts are saying, it is a hunger for substance. And for Tammy Peterson, it was the rosary. That was her lifeline.

And, you know, whatever it is, but whatever the ritual is. You don't have to be a Catholic or anything.

Whatever you are. But what if we all leaned into our rituals a little bit more?

Because they're universal.

I mean, think of the -- think of the little things that we do every day. The morning coffee poured in the same way, the same cup every day. A family holiday tradition. A quiet moment of prayer every day.

Rituals build communities. Like a congregation singing together. In unison.

Or a neighborhood block party. They mark time! They give us mile tones. Baptisms. Graduations. Funerals.

We now live in a world of screen and rush and rituals slow us down.

I don't have time!

Yeah. You do. That's exactly what you need. Rituals. It will slow you down. Make you present in the moment. They're not about rules.

They're all about meaning, if you do it right. This isn't about recognizing, you know, one faith over another. This is about recognizing what rituals do for us. The New York Post highlights how young people facing permaconflict.

Permaconflict. And secular individualism, are seeing traditional Catholicism as cultural defiance.

And you don't have to be a Catholic to find this. Maybe your ritual is, I don't know what it is.

But whatever it is, it can shape your heart and your day. And as we head to Easter this weekend, as we head to our hopefully -- you're attending your Easter service this weekend.

Take time to find your family's ritual. And I say that, my kids are scattered everywhere. And I'm having to go to Washington on Sunday.

And for the first time, I think in my life, I'm not together with my whole family on Easter. And I hate that!

Hate that. You know, things happen in life.

But no matter what faith you are, I mean, we can all learn from each other.

We are all part of one big body. And one big effort.

Because I believe the other side, as we started this show.

We started talking about this really evil editorial. This op-ed. On Substack. That started talking about. You know. When do we start killing people?

Hello?

There is evil. We are witnessing the growth of evil.

But I just gave you some status that show, yeah. But good stuff is happening too.

Generation Z is the hero generation. You watch. You watch.

They will put this back together. Just no matter where you are. No matter what you're doing this weekend, if you're a believer, just say it out loud this weekend, to somebody.

He has risen. Just share it with somebody. Just share the peace.

Live your ritual, whatever it is. Live your ritual.

It's so important.

RADIO

Former OpenAI Researcher WARNS of “Reckless Race” for AI Control

AI development companies like OpenAI and Google DeepMind are in a “reckless race” to build smarter AIs that may soon become an “army of geniuses.” But is that a good idea? And who would control this “army?” Glenn speaks with former OpenAI researcher and AI Futures Project Executive Director, Daniel Kokotajlo, who warns that the future is coming fast! He predicts who will likely hold power over AI and what this tech will look like in the near future. Plus, he explains why developers with ethical concerns, like himself, have been leaving these Silicon Valley giants in droves.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So we have Daniel Kokotajlo, and he's a former OpenAI researcher. Daniel, have you been on the program before? I don't think you have, have you?

DANIEL: No, I haven't.

GLENN: Yeah. Well, welcome, I'm glad you're here. Really appreciate it. Wanted to have you on, because I am a guy. I've been talking about AI forever.

And it is both just thrilling, and one of the scariest things I've ever seen, at the same time.

And it's kind of like, not really sure which way it's going.

Are -- how confident are you that -- what did you say?

DANIEL: It can go both ways. It's going to be very thrilling. And also very scary.

GLENN: Yeah. Okay.

Good. Good. Good.

Well, thanks for starting my Monday off with that. So can you tell me, first of all, some of the things, that you think are coming, and right around the corner that people just don't understand.

Because I don't think anybody. The average person, they hear this. They think, oh, it's like social media. It's going to be like the cell phone.
It's going to change everything. And they don't know that yet.

DANIEL: Yeah. Well, where to begin. I think so people are probably familiar with systems like ChatGPT now, which are large language models, that you can go have an actual normal conversation with, unlike ordinary software programs.

They're getting better at everything. In particular, right now, and in the next few years, the companies are working on turning them into autonomous agents stop instead of simply responding to some message that you send them, and then, you know, turning off. They would be continuously operating, roaming around, browsing the internet. Working on their own projects. On their own computers.

Checking in with you, sending messages. Like a human employee, basically.

GLENN: Right.

DANIEL: That's what the companies are working on now. And it's the stated intention of the CEOs of these companies, to build eventually superintelligence.

What is superintelligence? Super intelligence is fully eponymous AI systems, that are better at humans at absolutely everything.

GLENN: So on the surface -- that sounds -- that sounds like a movie, that we've all seen.

And you kind of -- you know, you say that, and you're like, anybody who is working on these.

Have they seen the same movies that I have seen?

I mean, what the heck? Let's bring -- let's just go see Jurassic park. I mean, ex-Machina. I don't -- I mean, is it just me? Or do people in the industry just go, you know, this could be really bad?

DANIEL: Yeah. It's a great question. And the answer is, they totally have seen those movies, and they totally think, yes, they can get rid of that. In fact, that's part of the founding story, of some of these companies.

GLENN: What? What do you mean? What do you mean?

DANIEL: So Shane Legg, who is I guess I'll give you the technical founder of Deep Minds, which is now part of Google Deep Minds. Which is one of the big three companies, building towards super intelligence.

I believe in his Ph.D. thesis, he discusses the possibility of superhuman AI systems, and how if they're not correctly aligned to the right values, if they're not correctly instilled with the appropriate ethics, that they could kill everyone.

And become a -- a superior competitor species to humans.

GLENN: Hmm.

DANIEL: Not just them. Lots of these people at these companies, especially early on. Basically had similar thoughts of, wow. This is going to be the biggest thing ever.

If it goes well, it could be the best thing that ever happens. If it goes poorly, it could literally kill everyone, or do something similarly catastrophic, like a permanent dystopia. People react to that in different ways. So some people voted to stay in academia.

Some people stayed in other jobs that they had, or funded nonprofit to do research about this other thing. Some people, decided, well, this is going to happen, then it's better good people like me and my friends are in charge, when it happens.

And so that's basically the founding story of a lot of these companies. That is sort of part of why Deep Minds was created, and part of why OpenAI was created.

I highly recommend going and reading some of the emails that surfaced in court documents, related to the lawsuits against OpenAI.

Because in some of those emails. You see some of the founders of OpenAI, talking to each other about why they founded OpenAI.

And basically, it was because they didn't trust Deep Mind to handle this responsibly. Anyway how --

GLENN: And did they go on to come up with -- did they go on to say, you know, and that's why we've developed this? And it's going to protect us from it? Or did they just lose their way.

What happens?

DANIEL: Well, it's an interesting sociological question.

My take on it is that institutions tend to be -- tend to conform to their incentives over time.

So it's been a sort of like -- there's been a sort of evaporating growing effect.

Where the people who are most concerned about where all this is headed, tend to not be the one to get promoted.

And end up running the companies.

And they tend to be the ones who, for example, be the ones who quit like me.

GLENN: Let's stop it for a second.

Let's stop it there for a second.

You were a governance researcher on OpenAI on scenario planning.

What does that mean?

DANIEL: I was a researcher on the government's team. Scenario funding is just one of several things that I did.

So basically, I mean, I did a couple of different things at OpenAI. One of the things that I did was try to see what the future will look like. So 2027 is a much bigger, more elaborate, more rigorous version of some smaller projects, that I sort of did when I was at OpenAI.

Like I think back in 2022, I wrote my own -- figuring out what the next couple of years were going to look like. Right? Internal scenario, right?

GLENN: How close are you?

DANIEL: I did some things right. I did some things wrong. The basic trends are (cut out), et cetera.

For how close I was overall, I actually did a similar scenario back in 2021, before I joined OpenAI.

And so you can go read that, and judge what I got right and what I got wrong.

I would say, that is about par for the course for me when I went to do these sorts of things. And I'm hoping that AI 27 will also be, you know, about that level of right and wrong.

GLENN: So you left.

DANIEL: The thing that I wrote in 2021 was what 2026 looks like, in case you want to look it up.

GLENN: Okay. I'll look it up. You walked away from millions of equity in OpenAI. What made you walk away? What were they doing that made you go, hmm, I don't think it's worth the money?

DANIEL: So -- so back to the bigger picture, I think. Remember, the companies are trying to build super intelligence.

It's going to be better than humans, better that night best humans at everything. While also being faster and cheaper. And you can just make many, many copies of them.

The CEO of anthropic. He uses this term. The country of geniuses. To try to visualize what it would look like.

Quantitatively we're talking about millions of copies.

Each one of which is smarter than the smartest geniuses.

While also being more charismatic. Than the most charismatic celebrities and politicians.

Everything, right?

So that's what they're building towards.

And that races a bunch of questions.

Is that a good idea for us to build, for example?

Like, how are we going to do that?
(laughter)
And who gets to control the army of geniuses.

GLENN: Right. Right.

DANIEL: And what orders are going to be give up?

GLENN: Right. Right.

DANIEL: They have some extremely important questions. And there's a huge -- actually, that's not even all the questions. There's a long list of other very important questions too. I was just barely scratching the surface.

And what I was hoping would happen, on OpenAI. And these other companies, is that as the creation of these AI systems get closer and closer, you know, it started out being far in the future. As time goes on, and progress is made. It starts to feel like something that could happen in the next few years. Right?

GLENN: Yes, right.

DANIEL: As we get closer and closer, there needs to be a lot more waking up and paying attention. And asking these hard questions.

And a lot more effort in order to prepare, to deal with these issues. So, for example, OpenAI created the super alignment team, which was a -- a team of technical researchers and engineers, specifically focused on the question of how do we make sure that we can put any values into these -- how do we make sure we can control them at all?

Even when they're smarter than us.

So they started that team.

And they said that they were going to give 20 percent of their compute to -- towards me on this problem, basically.

GLENN: How much -- how much percentage. Go ahead.

DANIEL: Well, I don't know. And I can't say. But as much as 20 percent.

So, yeah. 20 percent was huge at the time.

Because it was way more than the company, than any company was devoting to that technical question at the time. So at the time, it was sort of a leap forward.

It didn't pan out. As far as I know, they're still not anywhere near 20 percent. That's just an example of the sort of thing that made me quit. That we're just not ready. And we're not even taking the steps to get ready.

And so we are -- we're going to do this anyway, even though we don't understand it. Don't know how to control it. And, you know, it will be a disaster. That's basically what got me delayed.

GLENN: So hang on just a second. Give me a minute.

I want to come back and I want to ask you, do you have an opinion on who should run this? Because I don't like OpenAI.

I like X better than anybody, only because Elon Musk has just opened to free speech on everything. But I don't even trust him. I don't trust any of these people, and I certainly don't trust the government.

So who will end up with all of this compute, and do we get the compute?

And enough to be able to stop it, or enough to be able to be dangerous?

I mean, oh. It just makes your head hurt.

We'll go into that when we come back.

Hang on just a second. First, let me tell you about our sponsor this half-hour.

It's Preborn. Every day, across the country, there's a moment that happens behind closed doors. A woman, usually young, scared, unsure, walks into a clinic. With a choice in front of her. A world that seems like it's pressing in at all size.

And she just doesn't know what to do.

This is the way. You know, I hate the abortion truck thing. Where everyone is screaming at each other.

Can we just look at this mom for just a second? And see that in most cases, it's somebody who has nobody on their side.

That doesn't have any way to afford the baby.

And is scared out of their mind. And so they just don't know what to do. She had been told 100 times, you know, it's easy. This is just normal.

But when she goes to a Preborn clinic, if she happens to go there, she'll hear the baby's heartbeat.

And for the first time, that changes everything. That increases the odds that mom does not go through with an abortion at 50 percent.

Now, the rest of it is all in. But I don't have anybody to help me.

Sheets other thing that Preborn does. Because they care about mom, rather than the baby. That's what is always lost in this message. Mom is really important as well.

So they not only offer the free ultrasound. But they are there for the first two years. They help pay for what ever the mom needs.

All the checkups. All the visits. And the doctor. Even clothing. And everything. Really, honestly.

It's amazing. Twenty-eight dollars provides a woman with a free ultrasound.

And another moment. Another miracle. And possibly another life.

And it just saves two people not only the baby, but also a mom. Please dial #250. Say the key word baby.

#250. Key word baby or visit Preborn.com/Beck.

It's Preborn.com/Beck. It's sponsored by Preborn. Ten-second station ID.
(music)
Daniel Kokotajlo.

He's former OpenAI researcher. AI futures project executive director. And talking about the reckless race, to use his words, to build AGI.

You can find his work at AI-2027.com.

So, Daniel, who is going to end up with control of this thing?

DANIEL: Great question.

Well, probably no one.

And if not no one, probably some CEO or president would be my guess.
GLENN: Oh, that's comforting.

DANIEL: Like in general, if you wanted them to understand, like, you know, my views, the views of my team at the Future Project. And sort of how it all fits together. And why we came to these conclusions. You can go read our website, which has all of this stuff on it.

Which is basically our best guest attempt after predicting their future.

Obviously, you know, the future is very difficult to predict.

We will probably get a bunch of things wrong.

This is our best guess. That's AI-2027.com.

GLENN: Yes.

DANIEL: Yeah. So as you were saying, if one of these companies succeed in getting to this army of geniuses on the data centers. Super intelligence AIs. There's a question of, who controls them?

There's a technical question, of can -- does humanity even have the tools it needs to control super intelligence AIs?

Does anyone control them?

GLENN: I mean, it seems to me --

DANIEL: That's an unsolved question.

GLENN: I think anyone who understands this.

It's like, we get Bill Gates. But it's like a baby gate.

Imagine a baby trying to outsmart the parent.

You won't be able to do it.

You will just step over that gate.

And I don't understand why a super intelligence wouldn't just go, oh, that's cute.

Not doing that. You know what I mean?

DANIEL: Totally. And getting a little bit into the literature here.

So there's a division of strategies into AI's control techniques, and AI's alignment techniques.

So the control techniques are designed to allow you to control the super intelligence AI. Or the AGI, or whatever it is that you are trying to control.

Despite the fact that it might be at odds with you. And it might have different goals than you have.

Different opinions about how the future should be. Right?

So that's it sort of adversarial technique, where you, for example, restrict its access to stuff.

And you monitor it closely.

And you -- you use other copies of the AI, as watchers.

To play them off against each other.

But there's all these sort of control techniques. That are designed to work even if you can't trust the AIs.

And then there's a technique, which are designed to make the case that you don't need the control techniques, because the AIs are virtuous and loyal and obedient. And trustworthy, you know, et cetera.

Right? And so a lot of techniques are trying to sort of continue the specified values, deeply into the AIs, in robust ways, so that you never need the control techniques. Because they were never -- so there's lots of techniques. There's control techniques. Both are important fields of research. Maybe a couple hundred people working on -- on these fields right now.

GLENN: Okay. All right.

Hold on. Because both of them sound like they won't work.

RADIO

The COVID Cover-Up Unraveled: Why No One’s Going to Jail for Millions of Deaths

The White House now fully backs the COVID-19 lab leak theory after years of calling it a conspiracy theory. Glenn reads from the new website, which explains why the evidence points to a man-made virus and highlights the roles of China, EcoHealth Alliance, Andrew Cuomo, Dr. Fauci, and others in the cover-up. But Glenn has known about most of this evidence for years. So, he asks, will anybody be held accountable for this? Will anybody go to jail? But it’s not just government officials who covered this up. It was the Legacy Media, which is STILL lying to you, and yet, millions of Americans still trust it.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: This morning, there was a story. Stu, can you check this out for me? See what gold is at right now.

Early this morning, when I got up around 5:00 a.m. Eastern, gold was spiking again. The highest place it's ever been.

Gold -- I mean, the dollar was starting to fall. Not good. It was today. I think it was three -- 3,300 -- I don't know. Sixty. Something like that. Do you have the number, Stu?

STU: Yeah. 3,435, currently.

GLENN: Holy cow.

STU: Up another 3 percent.

GLENN: 3500!

Almost 3500. That is -- this is not good!

This is not good. The gold going up is a sign of confidence, and the rest of the world -- central banks are buying gold up. And, you know, again, what do rich people know, that maybe you don't know?

Hmm. That things are shaky with the dollar. And things are shaky with gold. So you might want to consider that. I mean, I'm not a financial adviser. This is not a commercial. But I'm just telling you, that this is a big warning sign. Big, big, big warning sign. We're -- we're -- 3500, approaching $3,500 an ounce.

It was -- what was it? You said this just this last week. I had to look it up, Stu. It was at the beginning of the year that it was 2500? Almost came a thousand dollars?

STU: Yeah. I mean -- let's see. No. You're right on there.

It was, yeah. 2024, we were still at around $2,000 an ounce. Early 2024.

GLENN: Two.

Unbelievable!

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: Unbelievable.

STU: Five --

GLENN: We're not even halfway through.

STU: Yeah. Five. Pretty flat years for gold. Between 2020 and 2024. And then it started going up, in, you know, early to mid-2024.

Kind of like a rollercoaster story.

You're just climbing. Up at about 100 percent in the past five years.

But in -- in the past year, most of that gain has happened.

And, again, you've mentioned this for a long time.

Obviously, we talk about gold being a good hedge kind of against insanity. And a good piece of your portfolio.

However, you kind of almost don't want it to be this high. Because it's just in case. Such scary times.

GLENN: No. No. No. Bring lost my gold in that horrible boating accident.

STU: Terrible.

GLENN: You know, you would like -- gold is an investment. You would like it to go up. I don't want it to go up. I don't want it to go up anymore.

I would like it to come back down. This is a very, very bad sign.

All right. So the media over the weekend, they were like, oh.

Do you see what Donald Trump did to COVID.com?

Or .gov website. You put it on the White House dot-gov website. All the lies about COVID!

You mean all the corrections on COVID?

This is -- this is an amazing thing. And I would love to hear your just on this, Stu. About what they -- what they published at WhiteHouse.gov.

The origin, according to public health officials and the media, to discredit the lab leak theory, was prompted by Dr. Fauci to push the preferred narrative that COVID-19 originated naturally.

Point-one, the virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature. Number two, data shows that all COVID-19 cases come from a single introduction in to humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics, where there were multiple spillover events. Three, Wuhan is home to China's four most SARS research lab. Which has a history of conducting gain of function research. Gene-altering and organisms super charging in an inadequate biosafety level.

Number four, Wuhan Institute of Virology, researchers were sick with COVID, with symptoms in the fall of 2019 months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market. We talked about that.

I mean, probably within a couple of months of COVID happening. We had that information.

We were like, let's look back. Why were they redoing all of that -- that institute?

You know, they completely gutted all of the air ducts. Everything else. They've completely upgraded it, around November.

And then lo and behold, in September, we start to find out, that whoa. Something in the wet market happened. By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin, it would have already surfaced. But it hasn't. This is from the White House now. And it goes through all of it.

And then it goes through Fauci's pardon. And his obstruction. And EcoHealth's obstruction, and Dr. David. And, you know, the obstruction of your favorite person.

I think you'll -- I think you'll really like what they say about Andrew Cuomo on the website.

STU: Yeah, this is the best place on the entire internet for that reason.

GLENN: Cuomo's failures.

STU: Just says Andrew Cuomo's failure. And it's a great summary of his entire life, not just this particular issue.

But, you know, it's -- I've done a lot of it. If you followed this stuff closely, it was not new information. Right? It was a good summary.

GLENN: No.

STU: A breakdown of the stuff that we have learned over the past years on this. On this topic. I think the key thing maybe --

GLENN: You know what, I still don't think that it is recognized as the official thing.
I mean, this has been out now for a long time.

You know, we started doing most of this stuff we had in, what?

Six or eight months of the actual outbreak. We knew by the summer.

And we were broadcasting all of this. And we didn't have all of the documents. But we had everything that led up to the document. That said, hey. We have to change all of this.

We had the document before going, hey. I think you guys are wrong. Then a document that said, we should probably talk offline.

Then the next document we had, was no. Everything we were saying, is the complete opposite now!

We didn't have the middle document there. And that's been released now.

So we had all of this stuff, just not the smoking guns. All the smoking guns are there.

And I still don't think -- I mean, and it's partially because, who is going to jail over this?

Millions of people die. Millions.

Is anyone going to be held responsible for this?

STU: That's a great question.

I hope that's a high priority of the administration. There's several things of this level. I will also throw something like Joe Biden is mentally incapable to be president of the United States. And everybody was hiding it.

I put that in the same category.

But I think the key thing from this. Which I don't think enough people know, is the cover-up.

You know, I think -- yeah, that's the real -- it always is.

STU: You're right. We said a lot of these things in the months after COVID came out.

And A lot of it really early, frankly. But part of the problem as to why it didn't become, I think, the consensus at the time. Was all of these institutional mainstream sources, disagreeing with it. Right?

GLENN: Correct.

STU: And no offense --

GLENN: No offense. And the fact, Stu, we couldn't say anything about COVID and not get banned and demonetized.

STU: Oh, yeah.

GLENN: You know, all the shows that we did, unless you were a member of TheBlaze. See them.

We put them online. And you didn't see them.

STU: The solution of that problem was to say it anyway, and get banned and demonetized.

GLENN: Right. Right.

STU: What else are you going to do?

I don't know why else you would have this job, if you aren't going to go for that.

But there was that situation where, sure, we were saying it. And, sure, people in this audience, heard it.

And, yes. Some people on the right were familiar with the skepticism and the pushback on this stuff.

But because none of these mainstream outlets really adopted any of those positions, or took them seriously. Or even gave them a fair hearing. A lot of people just -- you know, understandably. If you're on the left. You look at this stuff, and you say, okay. Well, Glenn Beck is saying it.

I'm not going to believe it. The New York Times is saying it's a conspiracy theory.

I'm not surprised that they just believed that.

That cover-up, where people right under Fauci, are on record, saying they want to delete the emails, so that they can't -- so no one finds out what they're talking about.

That sort of stuff. While I think the lab leak theory. And some of those other pieces of skepticism. That the conservative side had early on.

Had been very much vindicated.

The cover-up as to why it needed to be vindicated. Has not really had the attention it deserves yet.

GLENN: 100 percent try.

Now, why?

Why?

STU: I mean, it's the same people. I will say, some of these -- some of these places have written about this now.

Some of these places have talked about -- talked about it. But it hasn't been -- you know, the, hey, did you know Donald Trump is Hitler sort of march?

And you would think, it would be. As you point out, millions of people have died here.

You would think it would be something that they would focus on, and draw a lot of attention to.
And continue to kind of beat the drum, until someone is held responsible.

And they don't seem to have any interest in that whatsoever. They kind of like -- it seems like, they're now under that stage.

Where they say, look, we have this op-ed.

We've talked about it. Like, and most of them have run an op-ed by now. Right? Like they've run.

But it's not been this constant thing. It's not this deep dive, constantly sending reporter after reporter after reporter to find out, what actually happened. That stuff doesn't seem to be of interest at all.

GLENN: If we make a mistake, we correct it.

Because it drives us crazy that we made the mistake.

And I don't -- I don't want anybody to believe that I'm standing behind something, that we found out was wrong and a lie.

I mean, we might be wrong from time to time.

But we have never knowingly lied.

I think some of won't groups.

They knowingly lied.

The New York Times, they were knowingly lying about Joe Biden and his senility. Knowingly lying. They knew. People in the media, knew. They just didn't want to hurt. Or I should say it this way. They just didn't want to help Donald Trump. They thought a senile old man with the buttons is much better than a Donald Trump.

They thought, not knowing who the president of the United States actually is. You know, they say they're defending the Constitution now.

Because if we don't have a Constitution. If we don't have rule of law. We have no country

Where is your rule of law with Joe Biden?

Who actually was running the White House?

Who was running it?

You don't want the rule of law. You want control.

That's what you want.

And, you know, I would be horrified, if I had been a part of any of that.

Horrified. They're not.

And, you know what, there's no -- there's no consequence.

They're not going to lose any advertisers. The New York Times hasn't lost any real money because of this.

They're just people continuing to watch.

I mean, if we were this wrong about things, I would hope that we would have seen a lot of cancellations.

I would hope that people were like, I don't know if we can trust you anymore, Glenn.

Because we would earn that.

Especially after a couple of years, by the way, all of that stuff we said was wrong.

Hey, in other news!

And that's what they're doing. They just run one little story.

And then they go on, but Donald Trump is Hitler!

Why should I -- that's the thing I just don't understand.

How do people continue to believe the people, who have been so wrong, about stuff that is this important.

They lied to you. They knowingly lied to you.

How? Donald Trump appointed someone to do DOGE.

Yeah. Well, he wasn't elected. Who was the president of the United States?

Because the guy we elected, he wasn't the president.

Why does it matter now, that DOGE, which the president has every right to do.

He's not the president. He's not making these calls on his own. He's reporting the president.

Why is DOGE such a problem, but, you know, Joe Biden crapping his pants and looking, trying to find old jellybeans in the couch from old Ronald Reagan days.

That's totally fine.

I mean, I don't know.

I don't know how people live with themselves. But they do, strangely.

STU: At the very least. Wouldn't it give you a sense of fallibility.

That like, hey. I can get sucked into something like this and be totally wrong, and I should really watch myself next time I decide, I want to write story number 9,345 that Trump is Hitler.

Maybe question whether my certainty is warranted. And I think that's the -- something they just never have that moment of self-reflection.

GLENN: I know. None. None.

It's come out.

Everything about the Russia gate.

Came out now in court documents.

That Hillary Clinton was the one that approved all of that.

And she knew it wasn't accurate. But she approved it.

Why? Why doesn't anybody know about that?

Why doesn't anybody care? Because no one in the media cares. Ends justice means. They just hate Donald Trump so much.

They'll do anything.

Anybody.

They will sleep with.

They will sharpen the knives of anyone that says they'll put it in the back of Donald Trump.

Glenn's Show Prep

‘Social Media Doesn’t Reward That’: Why Can’t Conservatives, Liberals Listen to Each Other?

Glenn's Refreshingly Honest Conversation With (Gasp!) a Logical Liberal

EXCLUSIVE: A Sneak Peek Into Glenn's Sit Down With President Trump

Transcript

MANY Young People are Turning to God. Is THIS Why?

Transcript

Former OpenAI Researcher WARNS of “Reckless Race” for AI Control

Transcript

The COVID Cover-Up Unraveled: Why No One’s Going to Jail for Millions of Deaths

Transcript