GLENN: All right. So... read the bill. I read the bill.
Now we have this financial reform bill, and here's the great thing about it. It gives the president the opportunity to take over businesses that the president or the treasury believes are too big to fail. It doesn't define that, other than it could be a threat to the nation, to the financial stability of the nation. Well, there's a lot of things that could be — I mean, couldn't Weiner have made that case against gold companies? Mark my words. They will. Couldn't somebody make that against Fox News? Because they're talking down the economy. They're saying these things won't work. Of course it won't work, if everybody says it won't work. It's a threat to the economy.
Now, I know those are extreme cases, but when do you stop thinking, well, that will never happen. At what point does this country start waking up and going, well, now, wait a minute, some really crazy things that we said would never happen here are happening! Probably about the time that you start thinking, man, I really hope there's a lake of unquenchable fire that burns for all eternity but does not consume.
PAT: I thought we had gotten past that particular issue.
STU: Why are you just trying to antagonize the media? Why do you do this? You just antagonize them.
GLENN: Antagonize?
STU: Just to taunt them and I don't know that that's necessary.
GLENN: Because they're so easy.
STU: To get fired up? It is true.
PAT: That's true.
STU: You make a good point and it is —
GLENN: It's so easy. It's my only pleasure in life. It really is.
STU: But to intentionally try to fire them up, I mean, is that really what you should be doing? This may be a larger philosophical question or potentially —
GLENN: Maybe the media would be all fired up, they could all get together and pretend that they are a lake of unquenchable fire.
STU: You are doing it again.
GLENN: Are you telling me the newsrooms — you walk through newsrooms. You are telling me they are not already in hell?
STU: They don't look —
GLENN: They are in hell.
STU: They don't look happy typically.
GLENN: No, they are not.
STU: It doesn't look like a warm and inviting environment.
GLENN: No, you know what is a warm environment? Hell! Where there's a lake of unquenchable fire that burns but does not consume.
So anyway, the president has this authority to just take over businesses. Okay. But in Section 112 they set up a council. Like this. And this will all be put together by our new regulatory czar. And there's a council, and the duties and purposes of this council in Section 112(B), to promote market discipline by eliminating expectations on the part of shareholders, creditors and counterparties of such companies that the government will shield them from losses in the event of failure.
So we've already taken over General Motors, we've already taken over the biggest insurance company, AIG, we've already taken over the financial sector. What else have we — what else have we deemed?
PAT: Healthcare.
GLENN: What?
PAT: Healthcare.
GLENN: Healthcare. Now we have all of these things, but how this is going to work. We are giving the president more power to take companies over if they're too big to fail. We don't have to go through congress anymore. They can just do it. But there's also a council in the same bill that gives the president authority that says we're setting up a council to tell people that that is not going to happen.
Are these people, are they schizophrenic? Are they insane? Or are they from a lake of fire that burns forever but does not consume? Because consuming things is bad.
[NOTE: Transcript may have been edited to enhance readability - audio archive includes full segment as it was originally aired]