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GLENN: I want to play the 8/28 question that came up at the White House press briefing yesterday. Here it is.
REPORTER: Second question. Does the president have any reaction to Glenn Beck's August 28th rally which some are taking as an insult to Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech? Has the president said anything to you about that?
GIBBS: I've not seen — let me go back and see what Glenn back has said. I just — you are going to be surprised but I don't spend an inordinate amount of my time watching them.
REPORTER: I understand that the permit is under review right now at the National Park Service for using the Lincoln Memorial to do a rally on the steps.
GIBBS: I will check that out.
GLENN: Let's go through this. First of all, Robert, you don't spend an inordinate amount of time with the Glenn Beck program. I'm sure you don't, watching it. Is that because you have all the George Soros funded people just monitoring and is that — is that how — do you just get a briefing on it? Because boy, it sure seems like you guys spend an awful lot of time worrying. The 8/28 rally, really interesting. Now, who is taking this as an affront to the Martin Luther King speech?
PAT: Some.
GLENN: Some.
PAT: Some are, Glenn.
GLENN: Some.
PAT: Some people.
GLENN: Wouldn't it be interesting to see what those some people are? Because from what I understand according to, according to some reports that I got last night, I haven't seen the exact words myself, but some are the Black Panthers. Some are the Black Panthers. It's very interesting. And there's the usual suspects that are upset about this. It's, boy, you are going to be so disappointed when you see what is happening on the Lincoln Memorial.
Now, the other thing that is going around in the press is that I hear that the permit for the Lincoln Memorial is in the permit process now. "See, Glenn Beck is lying again. He doesn't have a permit." You don't refuse a permit. Remember, this is the federal government. So this doesn't work like you work. This permit process has been in process for, what, eight months, something like that?
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PAT: Yeah, I'd say at least.
GLENN: Forever. You don't — first, you have one level. They say, can we — you say, can we do this. They say, what is it. You have to explain it, you have to put up money, you have to do everything. Then what happens is — here's Liz. Because you're down with these people, and these people are good people. It's the National Park Service. They're good people. They are not political. I just want to explain, Liz, that this is just a — this is the way it always happens, right? And you only get the permit, for anybody?
LIZ: Right.
GLENN: Three days prior?
LIZ: Right. We won't have the permit until the week of. They are always in the application process. That's how they do it with everyone. It's not just us.
GLENN: It's not us.
LIZ: No.
GLENN: And we have no reason to believe that this is a political — I mean, this is the National Park Service. These are good guys.
LIZ: Right. They have been wonderful to work with so far.
GLENN: And there is — the process is you have to first get the initial approval because they could reject you and say, "No, you are not going to do that."
LIZ: Right. You have to reserve the space and see if, you know, there is already an event planned for it and that's what we did a few months ago.
GLENN: Correct. And then you go, you have to put up certain amount of money, right?
LIZ: No, you don't have to pay anything for the space.
GLENN: No, not for the space, but —
LIZ: For the permit fee?
GLENN: No, don't we have to have a certain amount of things guaranteed along the way that we have to have the port a potties and you have to —
LIZ: Right. You have to follow the rules and regulations, yeah.
GLENN: So you have to reserve things and get things done and pay for things along the way, and they check you.
LIZ: Correct.
GLENN: How many times a month?
LIZ: We've met with them twice now in person but we submit things as we go through the process. They have to approve everything we show at the rally, program.
GLENN: Not content. It has to fall within the purview of what we said.
LIZ: Right, exactly, how we file the permit.
GLENN: So they are just making sure that there's nothing, you know, that there's — you know, that we're not, what? Commercial —
LIZ: Going rogue, yeah.
GLENN: Going rogue on them. Commercial sponsorships I don't think are allowed.
LIZ: Right.
GLENN: Et cetera, et cetera.
LIZ: Right, right.
GLENN: But they look at this. It is a free speech event and so they don't interfere with the content of it except for the rules that they have already.
LIZ: Right.
GLENN: And as long as we abide by everything that they've already laid out, the permit is granted, as it is with everyone, the week of. And it's done by the National Park Service.
Now, is the National Park Service probably going to get heat or are they already getting heat? Oh, I bet they are. But we're abiding by everything they've asked. They've been really upstanding and, you know, right people. They've never given any indication they're fans or anti Glenn Beck. They are just doing their job. And we have respected them for that. So anybody who tells you that we don't have the permit, they've never tried to file a permit, as we hadn't. We have experts now that file these permits all the time. We've hired them to get this process done. When it first happened, we said, wait a minute, you are not going to get the permit for, like, a week, until a week before? And they are like, relax, this is the way it always happens. So everyone knows, we have not only the permit, the space of the Lincoln Memorial, we have the space — we have taken the mall and asked for the space from the Lincoln Memorial all the way to the capitol building. We have the entire mall reserved for that day. Not because we're expecting that whole place to be filled but because we wanted to make sure counterprotests and everything else, we want this to be a peaceful event. There is only one sliver of the mall that we don't have. It was reserved by the White House and it is like a quarter of the space behind the Washington Memorial. So we wanted to make it a safe space, we wanted to make it a peaceful space, we wanted to do justice to the space. It is a sacred space to me as well, and anybody who thinks that we're going to desecrate the image of Lincoln, Washington, or even MLK, I invite you to come and bring your family because you will be amazed. You will be amazed at how uplifting this will be.
STU: Glenn, we also have some breaking news because a guy from Mediaite is the guy who actually asked this question. Breaking news from Mediaite in this article. They also have an exclusive upcoming interview with new Black Panther Party chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz who is promising that he also will be attending the 8/28 rally and I mean, if you remember, he's not a fan — the organization isn't a fan of white babies, as we learned yesterday, but they will be — they will be there, I'm sure, to restore honor.
GLENN: I ask you, the American people, to say a prayer of peace and to make sure that our — to, don't sit down, have no fear, do not let them intimidate you.