BLOGMarch 08, 2018

Gawker takedown: Author chronicles Hulk Hogan’s epic smackdown that bankrupted liberal website

How much do you really know about one of the biggest media stories of all time?

Ryan Holiday, the author and strategist behind the marketing expose “Trust Me, I’m Lying,” is back with a book about the famous battle between billionaire Peter Thiel and the now-defunct website Gawker.

Thiel had it in for Gawker after the site revealed in 2007 that he was gay, but the investor was smart enough to bide his time until he could catch Gawker doing something illegal: publishing without permission parts of a sex tape of Hulk Hogan and his former best friend’s wife.

In his new book, “Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue,” Holiday gives an insider’s perspective on the famous Gawker takedown based on his time with both Thiel and former Gawker chief Nick Denton.

According to Holiday, Thiel’s chance meeting with a mysterious “Mr. A” was the turning point. “Mr. A” and attorney Charles Harder worked together to find any potential dirt on Gawker and jumped on the opportunity when the site published the Hogan footage.

Where is “Mr. A” now? Holiday didn’t say who he was or exactly what he’s doing now, but it’s a safe bet to imagine he’s set for life.

“I would imagine when you solve a problem for a billionaire like this, the world is sort of your oyster from that point forward,” Holiday said.

Want more? Listen to the full interview with Holiday in Hour 2 of today’s show here:

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: Do the ends justify the means? Are there real white hats and black hats anymore? Can you actually be a white taking down a black hat?

If you've done them in nefarious ways, are you wearing a gray hat, or are you wearing a black hat?

There are so many things today that we would all like to see, you know, dishonest, bad media go away and collapse on its own weight. We might even cheer when something like gawker, which was a despicable website, when gawker went out of business and had to shut down, we might all cheer.

However, are we all comfortable with the idea that a billionaire can conspire and make that happen?

Even though, the end is good.

STU: Ryan Holiday is an author. He wrote a great book called Trust Me On Lying, which is a fantastic read, to go back and see how the news you see every day gets to you.

GLENN: Sausage.

STU: It's incredible.

GLENN: You'll find teeth and shoes in it.

STU: You have to read that. The new book is Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue. And it's -- it brings us through this entire story, and Ryan joins us now.

GLENN: So, Ryan, can you tell this story like only you can? Tell this story before we get into what we're supposed to learn from it.

RYAN: Well, it's an almost unbelievable story. In 2007, Gawker Media, a gossip website in New York City, has a Silicon Valley arm called Valley Wag, and they out the Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel as gay. He's at that point the founder of PayPal. He was an early investor in Facebook, but a relatively unknown person whose sexuality was known to his friends. But he was not publicly gay.

He's -- he's humiliated by this. He's frustrated by it. He's hurt. Gawker's headline, I believe, was Peter Thiel is Totally Gay, People. So imagine your most sensitive secret being made public in such a flippant way. And he finds this not to be illegal, but to be disgusting. And --

GLENN: Now, hang on just a second. Ryan, when this happens with gawker, is this -- because I find gawker despicable. They've done things to me and my family that are just despicable.

RYAN: Sure.

GLENN: But on this, people were saying, well, we should out people, because that's only going to make people more comfortable with -- you know, with gay people if they know you're around them all the time. So were they using the ends justify the means at that time to do something good, or are they just dirtbags?

RYAN: I think it's a little bit of both, right? I think they thought, why should he keep this secret? And I think they also thought, why should this be a jet? This isn't something to be ashamed of. But the truth is be with he didn't want it to be public. And I believe that's his prerogative.

GLENN: Yeah, it's his story to tell, not anybody else's.

RYAN: He sort of despairs of being able to do anything about it for five years. He just sort of sits on this. He's frustrated. He's hurt by it. But he can't do anything about it. And it's only in 2012, when Gawker makes another enemy, they run an illegally recorded sex tape of the professional wrestler, Hulk Hogan, that Thiel sees the opportunity that he's been looking for this whole time, that he had been looking for. He had hired a lawyer to spot opportunities like this.

He approaches Hulk Hogan, and he says, look, what they did to you is not only despicable, I think it's illegal both federally and in Florida, where you're a resident. I will fund this. Thiel approaches him through an intermediary. This is totally in secret.

I will fund this case as far as you're willing to take it. And he approaches a number of other people in similar cases. And then for the next four years, this case winds its way through the legal system. And he eventually wins 140 million-dollar bankruptcy-inducing verdict against Gawker in Florida, to the shock of all onlookers and legal strategists at the time. And he achieves that thing that he had set out to do in 2007, which was to both get his revenge and to prevent this -- this website that he believes to be evil, from doing what it did to people.

GLENN: So --

STU: Wow.

GLENN: -- I know Peter -- he is a very, generally quiet guy. You know, he's -- he's an odd duck.

RYAN: Sure.

GLENN: He's a really nice guy. Doesn't seem like a guy who is driven by vengeance. But does sound like a guy -- or feels like a guy who will take all the time necessary in the world. He is not in any hurry. He'll wait until it's right.

RYAN: Well, that's what's so brilliant about what he did. I think most of us, when something is done to us, we react. We respond. Right? A fight breaks out.

A conspiracy, to me, is more something that bruise, that develops. And that's what it was so brilliant about Peter. He didn't -- he said, look, what they did to me I don't think was right. And I'm angry about it. But it's never good to be driven by anger. And so, instead, he steps back. He never forgot what happened. But he looked for an opportunity, where he actually had legal -- legal ground to stand on, where he actually could have an impact. Where the public would be so universally repulsed by what these people did, that he would have a shot at making a difference. So I think both that patience and that ability to be strategic, is why he was able to solve a problem, if that's what you want to call it. That many other powerful people had looked at, and said basically, there's nothing you can do about this.

GLENN: But he didn't do -- did he become the thing that he despised?

I don't get the impression that he did. He -- he did this on the up-and-up. The only thing -- the reason why it's a conspiracy is, he didn't want to be out front. But now that it's known -- he doesn't mind. I mean, he's owning it now.

RYAN: Sure. Look, I think secrecy is a fundamental element of a conspiracy. And I respect that he was willing to see that the optics of a billionaire being publicly in front of this thing completely changes how the public would look at it. You know, he said to me, he got this advice from one of his friends. His friends said, Peter, you have to choose your enemies carefully because you become just like them. So that's really the danger of spending nine years scheming to destroy or ruin someone or something, is that you study them so much, they consume so much of your mental bandwidth, that you can kind of become like them.

I don't think that he became anything like Gawker. But, for instance, there's a seminal moment in jury selection, where they notice that overweight female jurors are the most sympathetic to their case. Now, that's not disgusting. But there is an element of unpleasantness in selecting a juror to then exploit their most vulnerable body issue to win a case --

GLENN: But don't you think -- that's done in the court system every day of the week.

RYAN: Agreed. My point is, I think we -- we tend to be idealists about change.

GLENN: Yes. Yes.

RYAN: We think that we can make change without getting our hands dirty or without dealing with some of this unpleasantness.

GLENN: Yes.

RYAN: And so there's compromises of pursuing something of this magnitude. And I think Peter was so committed to what he was doing, that he felt that that end did justify -- that means did justify the end.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: So Ryan has spent a lot of time with Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel -- this is not an anti-Peter Thiel book. Peter worked side by side. He had unprecedented access to Peter. And while Peter didn't -- I don't think, Ryan, unless there's another conspiracy theory. He didn't fund this book. He just gave access. More with Ryan Holiday.

The book is Conspiracy. And there's some tough questions that we have to ask ourselves. More in a minute.

GLENN: We're with Ryan Holiday, he's the author of a book called Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue. It's a very tough question that we have to tackle, but I want to get a couple more facts out of the way here before we do with Ryan.

STU: Ryan, a couple of things that we picked up from the book, one thing that Peter had conversations about his strategy, trying to get Gawker to go away.

RYAN: Uh-huh.

STU: They discussed at least seemingly -- he comes off a little flippantly, but at least considered doing things actually illegal when it comes to the approach.

GLENN: Yeah. What was the -- what was the example, Stu?

STU: Well, I'm sure -- I'm sure Ryan can walk us through the examples. I don't have them in front of me.

RYAN: Sure.

GLENN: Go ahead, Ryan.

RYAN: Sure. It struck me as a little bit of a tempest in a teapot by the media coverage. Because it's like getting in trouble for thinking about speeding and then not speeding.

GLENN: Yeah.

RYAN: But, you know, if you think about Thiel's position, he finds Gawker to be this great evil. He's trying to do something about it. But as a billionaire, he has essentially limitless resources. He's also the majority owner of one of the most powerful in intelligence and defense companies on the planet. So he has these immense resources.

And so it's a question then of, which of them is he going to use and what limitations is he going to impose on himself?

So theoretically, could he hire private detectives to follow Gawker writers and attempt to find dirt on them, that would be embarrassing? Could he start a rival website that would focus, but nothing on their personal lives? Could he bribe employees to leak information to him? Could he -- could he lobby politicians to go after them?

Like there's many things that he could do. But what he decides, actually, early on, after sort of laying all these options on the table, is that he -- that he wants only to do what's legal and ethical, because he's -- he's both, I think an ethical and moral person. But also, because at some point, your involvement is made public. At some point, you win.

And then the public looks at what you did, and they judge you for this. Right?

And so his belief was that, if they accomplished this thing they were trying to accomplish with unethical or illegal means, the victory would stand. And it would also be, as we were talking about earlier, it would be pyrrhic, in that it would come at a great cost to himself because he would have had to become the thing that he was trying to change in the first place.

GLENN: I have to tell you, this is kind of being spun as an anti-Peter Thiel book, and just that alone speaks volumes. I don't know how many billionaires there are that would have the self-control that he had, to say, no, I want to do it -- I want to do it the right way.

Can you tell me anything -- because you have an exclusive in this about a guy named Mr. A. I know you're not going to tell me who. But what is Mr. A's role?

RYAN: Well, that's -- it's one of the weirdest twits of this story, this incredibly well-covered story.

I think people thought, I guess myself included, felt like Peter Thiel was involved on a day-to-day basis. And, in fact, he sort of follows the start-up model, which is, in 2011, he has -- he has dinner with this promising young college graduate, who has told Peter he has an idea. They sit down to dinner.

And this kid says, Peter, I think I can solve your Gawker problem. I think that buried in their archive of posts are illegal acts or acts that make them vulnerable to -- to civil judgments. And I think -- he says, if you give me $10 million and three to five years of time, I think I can make something happen here. And basically, on the spot, Peter invests in this kid. And this kid is Peter's go-between, his operative who hires the attorneys, who vets the cases, who makes the decisions day-to-day. And Peter is -- is -- and the way that Peter puts $500,000 in Mark Zuckerberg's hands and he goes and makes Facebook, Mr. A goes and makes this conspiracy a reality.

STU: Wow.

GLENN: So what do you think Mr. A is going to be doing now?

RYAN: Well, I would imagine when you solve a problem for a billionaire like this, your world is sort of your oyster from that point forward. I think he's got basically limitless options now. And has one patron who is probably willing to back him on any project under any condition.

GLENN: Holy cow.

STU: Wow. What was Peter's motivation in cooperating with you, Ryan, on this book?

RYAN: Well, as I'm sure you guys have seen, in the coverage just talking to me. This is a story that has been intensely covered, but with such bias and such sort of tribal instincts on behalf of the media. Because the media sees what happens to Gawker. And they think, oh, that could happen to us. Let's circle the wagon. So there's been this incredible amount of judgment about what's happened.

And I think that's greatly impacted the coverage, right? To such a degree, that Peter has become, in many people's eyes, this sort of James Bond villain. And that's really not what he is, when you read him and you see what he did and why he did it. So I think -- I had written critically about Gawker many times. You know, myself. My emails were once hacked and leaked to Gawker. So I know what that feeling is like. So I was willing to at least be fair. You know, I told Peter, look, you're not going to get to see the book before it's printed. You're not going to have any input on it. I'm going to play it down the middle, but I think he at least believed that I would play it down the middle, rather than holding him up as the villain, if that wasn't true.

GLENN: Yeah. So, Ryan, there's -- if -- I'm just trying to think this through. If a billionaire -- let's say George Soros, who is not a friend of mine. If he decided to go after me and I was doing something -- and TheBlaze was doing something that was blatantly illegal. And I don't mean death by a million paper cuts, what a billionaire could do.

RYAN: Sure.

GLENN: I don't think I would have sympathy for Peter, if he had just been paper cut after paper cut, technicality after technicality, just keep him in court and bleed them dry.

RYAN: Right.

GLENN: I don't think this is a problem for the First Amendment, if they're going after things that are really, truly illegal and they're big.

And I'd like to get your response on that when we come back. What does this mean for the First Amendment? That a billionaire can mark somebody and then take them out? Is that good for the republic? When we come back.

GLENN: I am -- I'm currently on a -- on a couple-week rant of, we've got to do something, and how that always leads to bad things. You just don't make good decisions when you're angry, upset, emotionally. We've got to do something usually also means, I'll violate my principles because I want this pain to stop.

So what are our principles? I -- I don't -- I didn't like Gawker. Gawker did some things that were dangerous for my family. I thought they were despicable people. And I did wish them to go out of business. But I wouldn't have done anything to get them to go out of business. And I like the way Peter Thiel did this. He waited to see, is there something that they have done that breaks the law? When they had Hulk Hogan, that was an illegally recorded tape. And for what? What was the purpose of exposing that?

So Peter took them to court on that. The problem is, he's a billionaire, has unlimited resources. And are we setting a precedent that somebody who has an axe to grind can put another company out of business? One man can put a media company out of business if they want to?

Are we -- did anybody learn that lesson in a negative way? Ryan is with us.

Ryan Holiday is the author of the book Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue.

What have you come to, Ryan, on that?

RYAN: Well, that is the big question. And it is potentially scary to think a billionaire could shut a media outlet down? And then when you step back, you know, your point about not reacting emotionally, well, did Peter actually do anything new that doesn't happen every day, anyway, right? The ACLU. The Sierra club. The NRA. They back cases all the time that they think move their ideology forward or stands up for one of their constituents. And so the idea of a wealthy person backing a lawsuit, not out of financial gain, but out of ideological alignment is actually not remotely new. And if you were to ban it, society would undoubtedly become a worse place, right?

Why shouldn't your rich uncle be able to support you against a person who ran into you, with their truck, right? You want that.

GLENN: So there's the legal question, which I think he did everything right. And then there's the ethical question, which I think he did everything right.

But you have to ask that ethical question too. And would you have felt different if he would have taken Gawker on, with -- with almost frivolous lawsuits and just done death by 1,000 paper cuts? Do you think it would have been a different story for you?

RYAN: Absolutely. Because there you're not attempting to win. You're not attempting to have your argument validated. You're attempting to destroy someone for something they may not have done something wrong.

So Peter's decision, for instance, not even an attack on First Amendment grounds because he believes that's sacred. But to look instead at the individual's right to privacy, right? Is there a newsworthiness in this sex tape, or is there a copyright claim here? He specifically did not sue them on say frivolous, libel, or defamation grounds because he was worried about the precedent that it might set. And he didn't believe that there was anything wrong there.

So his distinction is really, really important. And I think, you know, a potential hypothetical would be, what if a liberal had backed Shirley Sherrod in her lawsuit against Breitbart, when they ran that deliberately edited, manipulative tape of her in I believe it was 2011.

GLENN: Yes.

RYAN: And I don't think many of the people who are deeply upset about what happened to Gawker, I don't think they would be upset if Breitbart had gone out of business in 2012. I think they would be cheering at the exact same way.

STU: It's very interesting. Yes, that's absolutely true. I wanted to get your take quickly on -- I can't remember the guy's name who actually wrote the story.

But he -- he's become somewhat of a cause celeb on the left of a guy -- because he's not the guy -- he's not Nick Denton who ran Gawker. But the guy who actually just did the post.

He's a lowly --

Yes. Yes. Just -- you know, a writer. And he's working for Gawker. Not making a ton of money. And he was involved in this lawsuit. And he has been presented as this guy who got in the middle of this thing. And he was helpless in this situation. And now he has no chance of making any money. He owes an ungodly amount of money for this lawsuit and can't do anything about it. He wasn't wealthy. He didn't own Gawker. Do you have any perspective on that and how that went down?

RYAN: Yeah. So in a way, he's just doing his job. Gawker publishes these stories all the time. It's so unremarkable when you get to the Hulk Hogan tape, that Nick Denton, the CEO isn't even notified, right? The case that bankrupts the company, the CEO doesn't know about it until after it is published. Because that's how run-of-the-mill it actually was.

So, yes, it was unfortunate that this individual, this writer doing his job, takes the full brunt of it in the public eye. You know, during the trial. And then is held liable -- the jury says -- holds him personally liable for about $100,000 of this 140 million-dollar judgment. But what people forget is that months after the verdict, Peter and Hulk Hogan settle with Gawker that releases both Denton and Daulerio from these individual claims. And they're able to walk free.

You know, they were not necessarily ruined by it. And Peter said, look, my goal was to destroy Gawker, not to ruin these people personally. But individuals are held accountable for their actions.

GLENN: Yeah.

RYAN: And that's life.

GLENN: I mean, we all have choices, no matter if everybody else is doing it. We still have a choice.

You know, I'm so intrigued by Peter. I think he is a real force for good. And I think he's a deep and thoughtful man, that doesn't make everything that he -- everything that he does right or good. But he really seems to think about things.

RYAN: Yes.

GLENN: And I heard him say once, it's not that I think I'm right, I'm not even sure if I'm right, I just don't think other people are even thinking about these things. What does that tell you about him?

RYAN: He would say that even about this case. That it's often not that he was right and other people were wrong. It's that Gawker wasn't even -- Gawker just assumed that this Hulk Hogan case would get settled. They weren't even taking it seriously. And so Peter is a person who has theories about the world. And he's willing to put some skin in the game. Right? He's willing to throw some weight behind them and see what happens. And I think -- to me, the lesson of what happened, and what I tried to write about in the book, is that, you can fundamentally disagree with what Peter did, and you can think that it's dangerous and alarming that Gawker doesn't exist anymore. But there is something to study, a lesson to learn, about how this guy did it. And why he did it.

And how he was able to effectuate the change that he needed to happen, outside of writing op-eds or putting out a petition. You know, he -- he made real change in the real world, where other people said, there was nothing you could do about it. And to me, that's a lesson that -- and in some ways, that's an inspiring things right now, in this society, where we're stuck, you know, on both sides of the aisle. I think we just feel like change can't happen. And here, a guy made something happen.

GLENN: Yeah. When -- I saw that in the book that -- that phrase.

I -- I thought to myself, that is something that the world is not even rewarding now. It doesn't reward you to think. It doesn't reward you to think outside of the box and to think differently. And it doesn't reward you to say, I'm not sure if I'm right. I just want us to think about that. And that's really what we're missing.

RYAN: And the irony is that in some ways, Gawker was part of that problem, right? I think one of Thiel's objections to them is not just the despicable things that they did and the violations of privacy, but as the site that just sort of made fun of everyone for every mistake, every failure, every personal idiosyncrasy.

They were dis-incentivizing people from thinking outside the box, from being weird. And weirdness is where innovation comes from and creativity. And we should want people to take risks and turn out to be wrong. What we don't want to do is mercilessly mock them, to the point where nobody tries anything because they don't want to end up on the front page of Gawker.com or any website.

GLENN: Ryan Holiday, thank you very much.

RYAN: Thanks for having me.

(music)

STU: I think we sold you on that story.

GLENN: Good story.

STU: Ryan tells it well.

GLENN: Good book.

STU: And there's a lot in here that's not previously been reported on.

Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue by Ryan Holiday. Also, we should have Ryan back on for Trust Me On Lying.

GLENN: For Trust Me. Yeah. He is a guy who has had firsthand experience, really, with fake news. I mean, it was really kind of his job as a PR person.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: And he knows how it works. And it's really fascinating.

STU: Yeah. Quickly on it, the concept in that book was that he -- you know those weird stories that bubble up to the national media. And you're like, how did we even hear about that?

It was his job to try to get them elevated from -- from a blog to a local media, to regional media, to national media, to try to get attention for clients and all sorts of stuff. So he was in the media manipulation business for a long time.

GLENN: And, you know what, it goes to -- remember the first thing that I said when we went to CNN and I said, I'm really uncomfortable with this. The ingesting of news.

STU: Oh, yeah.

GLENN: Because if you make one mistake, that is your basis forever.

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And it's interesting. Because what he did was, it was on a blog. And then he would call the local news and say, did you see this? Did you see this blog?

STU: Did you see this blog?

GLENN: And they would use that as a credible source. And then he'd go to the regional news and said, did you see this in the newspaper? And it got more incredible as it went on.

STU: Yeah.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

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RADIO

Trump told me why he's "DESTROYING" the White House...

Construction for President Trump's ballroom has begun on the East Wing of the White House, and every Democrat in America has lost their mind. Does the President have the authority to alter a historic structure like the White House? Glenn and Stu discuss, as Glenn shares the story where he reveals even Trump was shocked at how easy it was to get the alterations approved.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

STU: Well, you still haven't really addressed why Donald Trump for is knocking down the White House for his own --

GLENN: Well, he just hates America.

STU: That's -- what I've been reading. Yeah.

GLENN: Right. And how crazy excited the left should be that he's knocking down something built by slaves. They're like, we've got to preserve that.

Slaves made that!

It's weird.

STU: I actually do have questions about this though.

GLENN: What? What question do you have?

STU: Well, and they come from, you know, everybody's source of thinking these days. Which are group texts.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

STU: I'm on with some friends. I have some really basic questions of like, I feel like, there would be a conversation and a bill passed if we're going to put a giant new building at the White House.

GLENN: No.

STU: That's not how it works at all.

Is it? How's it work? How does this work?

GLENN: You ready? So the president says, I want to change the White House.

STU: Okay.

GLENN: And the White House architect says, how would you like to change it?

And he says, this way. And they say, okay.

Well, you need to approve all the permits. Okay. I approve all the permits.

Okay. We change it. That's literally how it happens.

STU: Really? They can do anything they want.

GLENN: Well, I mean, within reason.

When I say within reason.

I think with restraint from public outcry.

Like, I want to paint the White House black.

Well, you know, as president, you can do whatever you want.

But I don't think that will fly with the American people.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: So there some standards in there. I will tell you about a conversation I had with Trump next.
(music)

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(OUT AT 10:29 AM)

GLENN: Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. We're glad you're here.

Thank you so much for listening. You know, Stu has been freaking out about the White House.

STU: I'm not -- I'm not freaking out. I just think it's an interesting. I thought there would be more of a process to something like this.

GLENN: No.

STU: Because I certainly was not think at this point, the American people understand what is about to happen. Which is like, the White House is about to double in size.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

STU: My -- just by my eyeball look at it.

It looks like it will maybe be more than two times the size.

GLENN: It's going to be large! But it's not the actual White House. It's part of the east wing.

STU: That's -- that's a totally misleading commentary.

GLENN: No. It's not.

GLENN: Because the White House is the original piece from the 1700s. Okay?

That's the center house. The east wing and the West Wing was not done until FDR. They were added later.

STU: It was a big deal.

GLENN: The biggest change in the White House since FDR. And happened in our lifetime. Right after 9/11.

The White House became enormous. But it was all underground.

STU: Okay.

GLENN: They completely changed everything underground.

STU: Yes.

GLENN: And we didn't have a conversation about that at all.

STU: Because it's underground!

I assume all sorts of things are happening underground. Our well-known monuments and buildings.

GLENN: Right. Sure.

STU: But this is -- this is -- it's not a -- they keep saying this.

They're going to be changed the West Wing.

GLENN: No. The East Wing.

STU: They're going to be changing the East Wing. That's not what they're doing. This is like doubling the size of the White House.

Now, I'm not opposed to that idea.

I'm just sort of surprised that it wasn't like a big conversation and a bill.

GLENN: All right. Okay. Okay. You ready?

So was Donald Trump.

STU: What do you mean?

GLENN: So I'm in the White House with him. And I'm up in the private quarters with him.

And he is showing me some things that he is doing. And talking to me about some other things that I can't talk about. Because he doesn't want.

I don't know.

STU: He doesn't want to discuss it.

GLENN: I didn't want to discuss it. And I don't know why.

Because it's all really good stuff.

So, anyway, we're taking about it. And then he brings up the ballroom.

And we're walking down the stairs, from the residents, and we're going into the ballroom.

And he says, you know, this is the ballroom that Abraham Lincoln had dinners here.

I said, you know, it's that window over there, that Fredrick Douglass had to open up the window and had to crawl in because they wouldn't let him in because he was black. And Abraham Lincoln was like, let him in. He's my friend. Why is coming through the window?

And we were talking about all the history of the ballroom. And that it's very, very small.

Because it was built in the 1700s. And we keep using that ballroom. And he's like, we have to have a bigger ballroom.

We have it out in the wet, and the cold and the rain. Yada, yada, yada.

And so he said, we come over to a window. And he's like, right there, I will build a big, beautiful ballroom.

And it's going to better than anybody thinks. It's going to be the biggest, most beautiful ballroom. And I'm just trying not to laugh. Because that's the way he describes it.

And he said, you know, surprised that I could do that.

And I said, I bet. How long is that going to take? What's that process like?

And he's like, right. That's what I asked.

He said, I went to the -- I went to the -- I don't know, chief usher or somebody. Whoever is in charge of the White House. I think it's the chief usher. He said, I think we should have a ballroom. He's like, what do I do?

And he said, well, you just have to talk to the architect.

So he went to the White House architect. Now, this is a guy who makes sure the integrity of the White House stays. Okay?

You can't make it into a modern house. Okay? You're not going to redesign the inside. You can add some gold I guess.

You can add a lot of gold, I guess. You can't make it into. You can't wreck the integrity of the White House.

And he said, you know, I just put these flagpoles in. And he's like, all I had to say was, I want to put some flagpoles in.

He said, yes, sir. Where?

He's like, what?

One in the front. One in the back. They were like, okay. Tell us where.

We went out into the yard. Right here. Right there.

And they put them up. And so he's talking to the White House architect. And he said, we've got to have a ballroom. And I think we should have it over here in the East Wing. A big, beautiful -- and he said, but what is this going to take?

And he's like, well, it's going to be very expensive. Are you expecting the people to pay?

And he's like, no, I'll raise the money for it. I'll pay for it, and I'll raise the money, extra, so American people are not going to pay for it.

And the architect said, well, then all you have to do is sign the permits.

And he's like, what?

And he said, well, you have to go through the permitting process.

He's like, how long will that take?

He said, well, the President is the one who controls the process and signs the permits. So as on short as you would like it to be, Mr. President.

And he's like, are you kidding me? And he looked at me, he's like, I'll have this done by spring of next year.

So he can change it. The -- what you have to understand is, the -- the east wing and the West Wing, those -- those are FDR.

So FDR went into a works project. And he added those wings.

The east wing is where the first lady's offices are.

Just the east wing is like, you know, it's -- it's just the east wing.

And it's --

STU: Okay. Shade of the east wing?

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, and so what he's doing is he's taking some of it town, and he's going to link it to the ballroom. And the bail room is going to be the biggest, beautiful ballroom in Washington DC.

It's going to link from there. So you will walk -- if you're in the White House, you will walk from the front door, through the -- the dining room.
Or, the east dining room. You'll go into the East Wing, and you'll go to the ballroom.

STU: I'm looking -- I'm at the renderings as we speak. And that's exactly --

GLENN: I've not even seen the renderings. Just describe it to me. Can I see it?

STU: No. They're mine. This is my computer.

GLENN: Okay.

STU: This is the -- I can't obviously show it to the people here. You can see it over here.

GLENN: Okay. It's big, beautiful. What a surprise, the tables are golden.

STU: By the way, it's different --

GLENN: That's amazing. Holy cow.

STU: My conversation about whether this is the -- the -- you can't. It's already zoomed in. They're not the best images.

Here.

GLENN: There's nothing wrong with that. What is wrong with that? It looks just like the White House.

It fits. It's appropriate.

STU: I was in the middle of saying. It's -- my conversation on this is not whether it is -- looks good or is appropriate or anything like.

I actually think his point on the ballroom is so obvious, every president should have been making it.

The fact that we don't have a big room to have state dinners in.

GLENN: Right.

STU: Unless you wanted to do them off campus everywhere else.

You have to have that, and why not have it at the White House. It makes a lot of sense.

GLENN: Except, I don't want to pay for it, as a citizen. I don't want a dime going for it.

You know what? Hey, all you Frenchies, you can eat on the lawn. Literally, on the lawn.

Just throw the food out on the lawn.

Yeah, I mean, I'm fine with that.

But if he wants to pay for it. If he wants to get rich people to pay for it, go for it.

I don't want any of my tax dollars going for it.

STU: Right. So my criticism is not how it looks. And that we need it.

We actually showed the inside of it. It seems like the facility we should have for these type of events.

We're going to have them somewhere. Why not have them there?

GLENN: Right. And who better to build it than one of the best builders of all time.

STU: Donald Trump. We've had this conversation about how you project American power.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: And I think Trump's approach to -- particularly in the Middle East. I think it's been effective around the world. Of these trappings actually are effective in diplomatic relations with other nations. Donald Trump has a lot of places that are lined in gold. That can have meetings. It's not like that's what he wants it for. The left tries to portray. Of course, he does.

No. It means something to him. And he knows how these people think.

GLENN: No. No.

Because I asked. I -- I won't tell the whole story.

But I really want to, really desperately.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: But, you know, he's gilding everything.

And that's not necessarily my favorite look.

STU: Right.

GLENN: And -- and he -- he came in, Tania and I were alone in the Oval for a while. And we were talking about it.

And he comes in. He says, you know, I'm doing all of this.

You see all the gold? Yes. You can't miss it. You can't miss the gold.

And he's like, you know, it's so important. These foreign leers, they all come from palaces. And they don't understand. And I know, you know, the White House is different. America is different. But they understand power in a different way.

And he said, they are coming from these old countries. And these big buildings.

And these palaces.

And he said, it is important for us to project power.

STU: Yes!

GLENN: And that's -- and that is why he's doing this. Not because he likes gold. He's doing it to project power and wealth.

Notice how many prime ministers.

They're all flying in all the time, from all over the world. You know, I've never seen a president meet with so many foreign dignitaries in the White House all the time!

STU: Yeah. And the media likes to say, well, that's because he's self-important.

And he's --

GLENN: No. He's projecting American power.

STU: Yes. I think so too.

When I say it's important to him.

That's why it's important to him.

He believes it's an important tool in that world.

GLENN: Correct. It's not him.

He knows the language they speak. And not just body language or, you know, spoken language.

All of the entire -- that's what protocol is all about. It all means something.

STU: And so my criticism -- and it's not even criticism.

My observation is not whether it fits. Or whether we need it, or whether it's appropriate.

My -- I don't think my observation here in the group text, that we started this with, which is that, holy crap.

I don't think the American people have any idea what's about to happen. Like every time I bring this up to Glenn.

And we have to understand how these conversations work.

I say, people will look at the White House. And it will be totally different.

He's like, oh, president Tyler did on more than that. In 1940 -- shut up!

That's what I get from Glenn.

Oh, well, there was more changes underground. You don't understand the piping -- that he totally changed the -- the -- the piping back in 1807. You moron!

Okay. I'm sorry.

I didn't know that. What I think of. And, you know, FDR made these changes.

My whole life, it's been the same, pretty much from the outside.

I know what the White House looks like. You go up there, I look at the White House.

It looks like the White House.

It is not going to look like the White House when this is over. It is going to look like the White House plus another White House next to it.

And it's going to be, I think, massively impressive. But I'm surprised there's not more conversation about this.

GLENN: When was the last time you were in Washington, DC?

STU: The inauguration.

GLENN: So you would not believe the difference in the White House grounds.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: The difference from, you know, when I went with George Bush.

You could stand right at the front gate.

STU: Right.

GLENN: You can't do that anymore.

They've taken the park. The park in the back is all gone.

The security --

STU: Just for security.

GLENN: Everything. All of the trees. Everything that has been done to not see the White House.

Except, for that iconic front.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: You know what I mean?

Everything is -- is not really -- you don't see it like you used to anymore. You don't walk up to it.

STU: The last -- I was in town for the inauguration. Last time I actually walked by the White House.

It's been a long time.

GLENN: Oh, you would not.

You will not recognize it.

I mean, just driving by and seeing it.

You will get pictures and everything else. But walking by it.

Today, you wouldn't recognize it.

It's -- it's -- what has -- what has happened with security is so sad. When I have the bell from the White House front desk, they're will it used to be a little desk right in the front, right as you walk in. There was a desk, and a bell. And I -- I have it. I think it is from Tyler's, you know, administration.

STU: Of course.

GLENN: And you would walk in. And you would hit the bell. And you would say, I want to see the president.

And somebody would say, okay. All right. Sit over there.

And you would wait. And you might wait all day, but you got -- you can walk in without an appointment and see the president of the United States.

You're not getting within two blocks of the White House right now.

It's sad. It's sad what's happening.

STU: Yeah. And for good. I wouldn't disagree with that either.

It's for good reason, security-wise.

I think back, the classic. I think what everybody thinks of when they think of the White House.

Is the scene from Superman two.

GLENN: Try to remember.

STU: When they showed the White House. And it's supposed to be -- it's a motion picture.

But they were too lazy to actually get video footage of the White House.

So it's just a still.

And you can tell, because there's like things that should be moving. That aren't moving. Right.

GLENN: Is that because --

STU: I think that's Superman.

GLENN: On Independence Day, they blew it up.

STU: But that's another example.

You had that picture of what the White House looked like. And, you know, I guess from certain angles, it looks pretty much the same. From the front. You won't notice it. Because it's kind of wrapped around the back. The back is pretty iconic too.

It's not going to look like that anymore.

In some ways, it will look a lot better or impressive.

It is a major change. That when you say, hey, they're redoing the West Wing, putting a ball room in there. That's not what they're doing.

GLENN: East.

STU: Sorry, East. I hate Glenn.

GLENN: I'm only saying it because I know how much he hates it.

RADIO

Is THIS the KEY to understanding Trump’s plan for the economy?

The price of gold is skyrocketing, and that’s usually a bad sign for our economy. But this is no normal economic market under President Trump. What if Trump is using a little-known strategy that hasn’t been seen in decades? Glenn Beck reviews the theory which, if it works, could save our economy, and it all revolves around Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Okay. Before I start this on gold. I want to ask you: What is Donald Trump? Is Donald Trump a guy who likes to cut the spending?

No. He believes in debt, right.

But what he believes in more than debt is growing the bottom line.

So you grow your way out of things.

So keep that in mind. As I'm trying to make sense of gold.

And what I'm going to share with you is just a theory. I think I might be right on this. But I don't know. Okay.

Gold is rocketing. You know, it's -- now almost. What is it? Forty-three or $4,400 an ounce today. And I've always told you, you don't want to see a world with 5,000-dollar an ounce gold. When 5,000-dollar an ounce happens, that means the trust is going away for the financial system. And the financial markets.

The dollar is starting to weaken. And the -- the world is sending a signal, we don't trust any of this anymore!

Now, that may be true. That may be true.

But let me take you to another place. Because maybe something that is happening, that doesn't fit that script. Because you're dealing with something new. You're dealing with Donald Trump.

So I think behind all of it. There is a new strategy, that is taking shape in Washington.

Congress, you know, doesn't have the stomach to cut any of the spending. And Donald Trump believes the opposite, grow can't way out.

Okay? So that's a recipe for a deficit, that is really quite frightening.

But there is someone, and I think it's Bessent. Who is finding a way to pull downtown deficit, without the usual political bloodshed. One of the misunderstood tools in that strategy is something that you're going to be amazed that it hasn't happened before.

It is the revaluation of gold.

Right now, the government values its gold reserves. We have 260 million troy ounces.

That's what they say officially. We might have none. But we have 260 million troy ounces. But we only value it at $35 an ounce. Why?

Because that's the price that FDR in the 1930s set gold at. And said, it's worth $35 an ounce.

That hasn't changed. So that means on paper, all of the government that we have. On paper, the whole gold hoard is only worth $9 billion. Okay. So wait a minute. But market price today is almost $4,500. Which would make that 9 billion actually worth $1.1 trillion.

Now, think about that.

The United States is sitting on a trillion dollar asset, and we don't even count it!

Why does this matter?

I want you to think of your home.

Imagine you're going into a bank, and you want to go buy a car. Okay? And you have your salary. And you're in debt. And you're just barely making it. But your home on paper, has only been valued at $5,000. Because when your parents bought it all those years ago. It was $5,000. And now, you're sitting here. And it hasn't changed in value.

It has in reality. But you're still counting it as the bank. And saying, yeah. Well, my grandfather. Or father paid $5,000 for this.

So it's worth $5,000. You know. The bank would know, no, it's not. It's worth a million dollars today.

What changes if this is called mark to market? This is a usual thing. You mark the price to what the value is. The price of your house goes down, you are poorer, on paper. Because the value of your house has gone down.

And it's marked to market.

If your price. If the price has gone from $35 an ounce, to $4,500 an ounce, then you mark to market, and then everything changes. Suddenly, if that's your house, 5,000 to a million dollars, now you can buy that new car. You walk into the bank. You're like, I will buy a 50,000 dollar car. And they're like, well, let me see your assets. And you're like, oh, well, you have a house that's been paid off, and it's worth a million dollars.

Where, yesterday it was worth $5,000. Today, it's worth a million dollars. Because it's actually worth that if you sold it.

So the bank goes, oh, you're fine. You're fine.

Yeah. Sure. Here's 50 grand. Go buy that car.

Suddenly, your profile looks different overnight.

Okay?

That is what I believe is coming in America. I believe they're going to revalue gold.

Without raising taxes. Without cutting a single program, it would instantly improve the nation's balance sheet.

Our debt to asset ratio, would shift dramatically. Have you noticed in the last year, everybody is like, their debt to -- their debt to asset ratio is way out of whack. And they're now 125 percent.

Whatever it is. Okay?

That would change. The dollar would legitimately appear to be stronger, and the deficit, at least on paper, would shrink!

Now, add to that, again, what Donald Trump believes. And you may not agree with it. But he believes, I can grow the economy.

So you combine that with the H-1B one visa fees. You do the tariffs. Expected, you know, to bring in money. And then also, the expected eight to $12 trillion in foreign capital investments. That are flowing into the United States.

If all of that is real, suddenly, the picture doesn't look quite so desperate.

Because it looks like, we are growing again. And we actually would be growing again.

The debt doesn't shrink by cutting. It shrinks by growing.

It shrinks by growing the economy and expanding the economy, beneath it.

That's Trump's mark!

That's always what he's believed in.

So while I've been sitting here going, you don't want 5,000-dollar gold, you don't!

But it also might be a good thing. Let me give you this. There's more. Washington is floating the idea. And Mike Lee got hammered for this.

But this is a Bessent idea. Mike Lee is floating the idea of selling off portions of fast, federal portfolio. We have all this land. These are not national parks.

These are not. We have millions of acres of un-- unproductive, and unused territory.

I have known this from central bankers for 20 years. That they actually have said, we should sell the national parks.

You know how much the national parks. I don't want you to sell me the national parks. No. What are you talking about? No. We're not selling the national parks.

But that's not what they're talking about. They're talking about cutting the inefficiency out of every department. And taking land that is unusable, and sellable, that the government is holding, and doesn't need to hold.

Selling that land, okay?

Which would allow us to build more houses. Expand. Et cetera, et cetera.

And -- and increase the bottom line on the ballot sheet. Suddenly, with all of this, the pressure valves are opened up.

Okay? Also, put in here, nobody seems to be panicking about the government shutdown. And what is the government shutdown doing? What is Bessent hoping he gets an opportunity to do? Cut.

So now you're expanding with gold. The possibility of selling federal land at some point. You're bringing in $12 trillion of investment. You're getting the raw earth minerals from Venezuela and from South America and from elsewhere in the world. You've solved our military peace problem. We're no longer the world's policemen. So we're not having to do all of that stuff, which is a drain on blood and treasure. All of a sudden, you're target to see that America is actually shoring itself up.

So what looks like chaos right now, may actually be a controlled implosion. Of a broken system.

Because remember, this is exactly what the left was going to do.

The left, through the WEF and the Great Reset, they wanted to implode the system.

But they had a safety net that we were going to fall into, and that was a global world order. Donald Trump doesn't believe in a global world order, but he does believe, we are in trouble!

He knows that.

He has a different idea. I think we might be seeing a reanchoring of America's finances in hard assets, real productivity, and if Bessent and the president can pull this off, we may be watching the birth of a -- the building of a -- of a new foundation of a new financial order. One where, you know, we're -- we're regrounding ourself in -- in value that's actually real.

It's dangerous. If confidence breaks, if the terrorists who are already here, thank you, Joe Biden, managed to disrupt the perception of reality.

If we start having, you know, real trouble on our streets, and we go unstable, then the illusion flips.

The -- the revaluation becomes a revelation, that even gold cannot cover the sins of a government that has just not paid attention for this long. And, you know, there's no pretending that. But if we can hold together this fragile unity in this country long enough and they can revalue the system and rejigger the system, keep your eye on gold.

It may be the canary in the coal mine. It may be, this is real trouble.

But remember, not every alarm means disaster.

It's how you react to it.

You I would have told you four years ago, and I did. When we said, we're going to -- we're going to kick Russia and China off the SWIFT system. That's a really bad idea. Because you have no plan. You have no replacement for the SWIFT system. You're now taking the assets of a sovereign country and saying, "Yeah, we can do that." That will drive the prive of the dollar down. People will sell our reserve currencies. And the only thing they had as backup was a global new financial order.

None of us wanted!

Notice, we're not talking about CBDCs.

We're talking about gold.

This government is talking -- Donald Trump is talking about rebalancing and growing. Not a global world order.

So it could be that the price of gold is, you know, just a fire. That could burn out of control.

As it would have just a few years ago. And it still may. But it also may be that the rise in gold and what's happening with Donald Trump is a backfire. Is a -- you know, when you set fire in a forest fire, and you burn back into it, to put it out. This may be a fire that we're setting that could put all of this out. It may -- this heat may actually forge something new.

Because I think there's real strategy here. When you look at what I talked to you about a minute ago. Why are we bombing those boats?

That's strategy for something bigger. That's not -- that's not a War on Drugs.

That's not. That's strategy for something bigger. Knowing that he's resetting the entire world.

Knowing that he likes the revaluation of things. And he likes to grow the asset sheet.

Knowing he's not a dummy. Knowing that he wants to keep America's sovereignty true. Gold will tell the story. Whether it's collapse or America's rebirth. One way or another, we're going to know, soon.

We're going to know soon.

Watch gold!

RADIO

The REAL reason Trump keeps BLOWING UP Venezuelan boats

Is President Trump’s “war on drugs” against Venezuela actually about something much bigger? Glenn Beck looks at Trump’s bombing of drug boats in a new light: Is Trump really trying to reset the global order and stop China’s economic conquest in its tracks?

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So when we talk about the War on Drugs, most people just kind of roll their eyes. We've been talking about the War on Drugs forever. And it doesn't make a difference at all.

Another failed campaign. Another round of speeches. Another generation caught in the crossfires. But what if I told you, the drug war that you're actually watching today, has almost nothing to do with cocaine or fentanyl.

I think the average person would go, yep. That sounds true.

And I believe it is. It has everything to do with oil and minerals and the rebirth of American sovereignty.

But you have to understand about Donald Trump, he is reshaping everything. Just as the WEF said, we're going to go for The Great Reset. We're going to reshape the world. He's doing that single-handedly. He's taking on everything and reshaping the world to have a stronger America and one that is protected, not mired in endless wars. And strong financially and militarily. So we can protect ourself. With American sovereignty.

So what's taken place right now in South America is not a narcotics operation. Again, this is my opinion. You know, I was talking about it yesterday. I was like, it's like the Monroe Doctrine.

This may be as important as the Monroe Doctrine, which the Monroe Doctrine was in this hemisphere, don't screw with any of our allies. You're not going to put enemy ships.

And you're not going to play around with countries in our hemisphere. This is our hemisphere.

America is supreme in this hemisphere. You do your own thing. Then we kind of got weak on that. And then China was all over.

Russia was all over the southern part of the western hemisphere.

So what he's doing is he's putting a new Monroe Doctrine together. That's Donald Trump!

Now, look at the map. Try to -- you really have to look at it. Because I could say, imagine the map. And nobody can imagine the map. Venezuela, Guyana, Colombia, okay?

Three names, you almost never heard anything about on cable news five years ago. And suddenly, they're the front page priorities for Washington, DC, and our military.

What? Well, they're smuggling drugs. Yeah, well, they might be. But they're also doing a lot of other things. Including as they told you, terrorist island in Venezuela. They have Hamas and Iran in Venezuela. But whoever controls this little triangle, controls the western hemisphere.

And controls the western hemisphere's future. Its energy. Its minerals. And its manufacturing independence. And Venezuela is the fulcrum. Okay?

It holds the largest crude reserves on earth. And it's oil that is perfectly suited for America's Gulf Coast refineries.

But China and Russia have been moving in. They're like vultures sitting there, offering loans and sweetheart deals to Venezuela. And Venezuela has become more and more communist. And more and more hostile to America.

And they are trying to mortgage that entire system to Beijing's state-run oil giants.

So what are we doing? Well, we haven't done anything about it. We've just let them go in.

Now, all of a sudden, we're doing Navy drills in the Caribbean. And we're doing sanctions. We're moving more ships and more Naval assets, I mean. It is -- it is a full-fledged onslaught. We are sending a message. And I don't know that we're sending a message just to the drug lords, okay?

This is a pressure campaign. That kind of looks like the old drug war, but is really, I believe, designed to crowd out the Chinese influence.

This is about keeping Venezuela's energy in the Western family. Not letting it become another victim of the Belt and Road Initiative and a pawn of China.

Then there's Guyana. Which I thought was in the other hemisphere. I had no idea it was on this continent that's, you know, just below us. Apparently called South America. It's tiny.

It is quiet. And suddenly, a gold rush of oil!

Now, an American company, ExxonMobil leaves the charge there. And Washington didn't just help fight traffickers. It's defending America's offshore platforms. They're building radar networks, they're locking down the entire coast. Because it's not just about barrels. It's about cables. It's about information.

It's about pipelines. It's about rare earth minerals.

All of those things are going to power the next century. And then Colombia, we know. Because that was the first thing that all of a sudden, Donald Trump started talking about Colombia, and then the Panama Canal. And everybody was like, "What are we talking about? Are we back in 1958?" No, nobody talked about it. Nobody had paid attention to it. This guy, he's so far ahead of the curve, he's so far over the horizon, I don't think people really understand what he's doing. Colombia is the hinge between the Caribbean and the Pacific. So we were told for decades that the US military presence there was about fighting the cartels. Maybe.

But I think the truth is that Colombia is the geographic and logistical bridge between the hemispheres. Okay?

It guards both oceans. It buffers the Panama Canal. It sits atop minerals every modern economy needs now. Lithium, rare earth. All of this stuff.

You control Colombia and you control the Western hemisphere's arteries. Now, that's not drug interdiction. That's grand strategy.

This is how -- I kind of want to make sense of the world on two things. And it all hinges around a theory that I'm peddling. A theory. And I could be wrong on this.

That when I look at all of the dots. They don't make sense. This is about that submarine, with cocaine in it. Really. Is it?

We're sending our entire military out to get the submarine. I mean, I want drugs to stop. I get it. But really?

It doesn't make sense to me. So the dots don't make sense. And there's too many on the board, that just don't make too much sense.

Unless you start to frame it in another direction, with not only South America and what we're doing with Venezuela and the drug war, but also gold.

So then I want to finish this in a minute, but then I want to move to gold. Because I want to tell you, I think there's a grand strategy here, that everyone is missing. Okay?

So why does all of this matter?

Trump is the first president since Reagan, I think, to understand that America's strength doesn't come from endless foreign wars. It comes from owning the supply lines. From building the sovereign trade. The energy. The technology pipelines. All of the stuff that runs all the way through our hemisphere, not Beijing. So he's not trying to make America the world's policeman anymore. He's not doing that.

He's making us the secure Citadel. He's forcing every region. Europe. Think of what he's done with NATO. What is he doing?

We're not going to be your policeman anymore. You've got to the step up to the plate. You've got to do it. The Middle East. We're not going to be policemen here anymore. All of you, you do it. You get together. You make peace. He's brokering peace. And also, saying to the rest of the world, "You need to step up."

And he's doing it in Latin America, to the police themselves!

Every move you see. Sanctions. Seizures. Aid freezes.

Even visa crackdowns.

This is all, I believe, about locking down critical resources before China does.

This is economic warfare disguised as moral policing. Okay?

And the irony is, it may be one of the smartest uses of the drug war apparatus we've ever seen.

This one might actually work and do something. So let me tell you something that nobody else is telling. Let me give you what everybody is missing. This is not about ideology.

This is not about drugs. This is about global architecture.

Trump is tearing down the old corrupt border, the WEF great reset corrupt global order. And he is building one not on dependency and debt and endless intervention.

He's chopping the trees down. He's paving the road. And he's laying the asphalt for a new one. A hemisphere that produces its own energy, defends its own borders. Works together. And reclaims the American right to chart its own destiny, while encouraging all other countries to do exactly the same.

And he's making as many allies as he can. In any way he can.

That's what's really happening, I think, behind the headlines. While everybody else is like, shouldn't we do this?

Before you talk about a drug war, ask yourself, does that make sense?

Now, to everybody who is like, no kings! Yeah. That might make sense. Because you're not thinking anyway.

I invite to you look at a much bigger picture.

We know the rest of the world was way down this path of a new global world government and a global world order.

We also know, Donald Trump was never for that. We know that Donald Trump doesn't like wars.

So why do we have the military, Venezuela, of all places?

Because this is not about chasing strugglers through jungles. This is about chasing China and Russia out of our own backyard.

It is a quiet, strategic, and I think, if I'm right on this. A brilliant reset.

Because if Trump succeeds, historians are going to look back at this time and call it for what it truly is. The second Monroe Doctrine.

The moment America stopped apologizing for defending its own hemisphere.

And begin re-- and began rebuilding it's own sovereignty.

Trump believes in a strong America. America first. That doesn't mean, we're going to leave every other country alone.

It just means that we have to do the things that we have to do, to make sure we are strong enough and strengthen the countries around us, as well. And the countries that we have been protecting all these years.

Give them the impetus and also the -- and also the act like to come together in their own regions and rebuild and -- and protect their own sovereignty 1 barrel, one chip, one border at a time.

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