RADIOJanuary 12, 2024

Is Biden's Houthi strike connected to the 2024 ELECTION?

The United States and United Kingdom have carried out strikes against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen. But while many, including Glenn, believe it was way past time for America to show its dominance, maybe Biden should have asked Congress first. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) joins Glenn to explain what he believes this is really about: "This is election season. And when you're at war, there's a greater tendency to vote for the Commander-in-Chief...and I am worried that he's going to draw us into a war." Rep. Massie also lays out what the media ISN'T reporting: "With 33% of Congress, the President can go to war...It's ridiculous!" And he also addresses his recent drama with presidential candidate Nikki Haley.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Thomas Massie is with us. Who was just on CNN, questioning the intelligence of some of the -- the anchors there.

I don't know how you could possibly do that, Thomas Massie.

THOMAS: Well, I just questioned their preparedness. Now, I never questioned that about you or your staff.

GLENN: And we're the ones you should, really. Really.

THOMAS: No, she claims -- she referenced 19 different things I voted on. And claims, she spent a whopping two minutes studying one of them. And it made her an expert.

GLENN: Okay.

We want to talk to you about what's happening overseas with the Houthis.

I am -- I am really torn on this because I feel as though we are backing into yet another war.

I also think, there are people in this administration, that want war.

I also know that this administration continues to send money over to Iran.

So, you know, our -- our literal enemy in this, we're helping fund.

So this isn't serious on anybody's part.

However -- we -- however, they are shooting at us, launching missiles at our Navy.

And aren't we defending ourselves.

How should we look at this.

THOMAS: Well, first of all, you should look at it, as this is election season. When you're at war, there's a greater tendency to vote for the command-in-chief who is waging the war, and I am worried that he will draw us into a war with this.

Now, I believe he has an obligation to come to Congress.

And I think he had time to do it. If he had time to organize this international coalition. Or police with Great Britain to pull this off.

He had time to come to us. And, you know, the War Powers Act, requires him to do that. It allows him to respond defensively in the case of emergency.

But that would be like an imminent attack. It wouldn't be something where you planned, you know, some kind of retaliation for things that have gone on for months.

So --

GLENN: The war. Can we talk about the War Powers Act for a second.

Because I believe the War Powers Act, is correct, in a world where we have missiles.

If somebody is launching a missile. The president is it not have time to go to Congress.

And say, hey. I want to make my case here. That in 12 minutes, we will all be vaporized.

However, like you said, it's been 90 days.

Ninety-plus days since this happened, we've watched it happen.

They've been -- they've been fighting and shooting against us, et cetera, et cetera. The president has a responsibility to go in front of the American people, and Congress, and make his case. And Congress needs to decide. Correct?

THOMAS: Absolutely. Absolutely.

You are absolutely correct. We have abdicated -- we've been involved in Yemen. Here's what I don't see being reported in the news, since about 2015.

And in 2018, I teamed up with Ro Khanna, and he tried to get a War Powers Resolution passed.

GLENN: Yep.

THOMAS: To get it back out of him, and this was in 2018.

Paul Ryan did a parliamentary trick. He hid the vote on our War Powers Resolution in the farm bill. And then, so people voted for the farm bill. And put our War Powers Resolution to bed, so we tried again.

And he hid it in the Manage our Wolves Act if you voted for the Manager our Wolves Act to come to the floor of the House, you voted against the Ro Khanna/Thomas Massie War Powers Resolution, according to the War Powers Act, to get us out of Yemen.

GLENN: Think of this. Our Congress is voting on management of wolves, but not whether or not we go to war.

THOMAS: Correct. And then so a year later, we were able to get it to the floor. We passed it in the House. We followed -- you know, I don't even agree completely with the War Powers Act that was passed in the 1970s, especially not the interpretation that people have of it. But we were able to get a resolution passed. To get us out of Yemen in 2019. Then it went to the House and the Senate.

And they passed it with 53 votes. But Donald Trump vetoed it.

Now, it's within his authority to veto it.

But that demonstrated to me, how ridiculous the War Powers Act is.

Because effectively, it takes -- it takes two-thirds of us to override a president's veto.

So what it means is, the War Powers Act, with 33 percent of Congress, the president can go to war because it takes two-thirds to stop him.

It's ridiculous!

GLENN: So what are you hearing up on the Hill, about all of this?

Where are we headed, Thomas?

THOMAS: I mean, I am worried, that we are going to be expanding conflicts in the Middle East.

That this is -- that there's some people up here, that is just begging for a war with Iran.

And whether it's -- something that grows out of Gaza. And whether it's something that grows out of Yemen.

And I think we need to take a step back and look at this. And say, is that the best interest of our country, to have a full-blown war with Iran?

And I'm worried that this president would like to have something hot going on, before the election. Or during the election.

GLENN: Well, the national intelligence agencies came out today. And warned that the -- that Hezbollah, has assets here in America.

And that they're concerned that this could mean a direct strike here in the homeland.

Which I don't think would play well for all of those who have an open border.

THOMAS: Yeah. I mean, this is the big exposure we have with the open border. Not only are we going to economically destroy our country, by bringing so many illegal immigrants into the country so quickly.

It's so porous. That, you know, Hezbollah can walk across the border. And no doubt, they are here. They could activate.

I mean, what was it? Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were actually from Saudi Arabia, and were here legally for the most part, I think. But now we're looking at a different threat. And it only takes 19 to, you know, do something very bad in this country. As we saw on 9/11.

GLENN: Nikki Haley, during the last debate, basically called you an anti-Semite.

Why do you hate the Jews so much?

THOMAS: Oh, my gosh.

As Ron DeSantis says, that cheap garbage, and as I tweeted. I'm living rent-free in her head, and trust me, there's lots of empty space in here.

She has -- her understanding of the bills that I've been voting on, is 1 inch deep.

Whereas, Ron DeSantis, even though he and I disagree on this issue, he understands where I'm coming from.

And he's not AstroTurf like Nikki Haley is.

This is why she stopped taking questions at town halls.

If you go more than one question deep. She doesn't know what she's talking about.

But she was attacking me. I didn't vote for the 14 billion-dollar financial package to Israel.

Now, we can have a discussion about that.

Whether we should -- we can afford that. Whether we should be doing that or not.

But she claims I'm anti-Semitic or anti-Israel. Because I'm not voting for foreign aid.

But here's the thing. I've never voted for foreign aid on any country. I'm not picking on any country.

And then there were some resolutions where we can have legitimate disagreements about whether it's on free speech.

And that there were -- there was a vote that I took, against a resolution that says, anti-Zionism, is anti-Semitism.

Now it's true that a lot of anti-Semites are against Israel, just by definition. But it's not true.

That if you have harsh criticism of Israel, or even if you don't believe in Zionism, that you are also an anti-Semite.

Because if that were true, there would be a lot of Jews who were anti-Semite.

GLENN: I know. I was going to say. A lot of the Hasidic Jews in America.

Despise Israel.

Say it's an abomination of a state. Because it's not a religious state.

So are they anti-Semites too? Yeah, I don't think so.

THOMAS: I don't think Jerrold Nadler is an anti-Semite. Jewish. He spoke against that resolution against the floor.

GLENN: Okay.

DAVID: You know, the sad thing is we've had 19 votes like that, since our new Speaker became Speaker. And what we should be focusing on is our own spending bill cutting spending.

Instead, we passed these resolutions.

Which are frankly political gotchas.

The Republicans are trying to use that issue to catch the Democrats up in votes. Then use them to get unelected.

And, I mean, I just don't have an appetite for that when we should be focused on our fiscal issues.

Right now, in the House, we're about to throw away all the spending caps, that were put in place this summer. I was on your show talking about this, taking the heat from you.

GLENN: Because I said, oh, I remember when I was young and naive.

THOMAS: Yes. And I said, you know, maybe I'm getting fooled here. Because, Glenn, they're signing it into law.

They did the White House and the Senate, put those caps into law.

And now, they are undoing the law.

This is -- I mean, we've never gotten that far, kind of Lucy and the football.

I mean, my foot contacted the football.

I've never gotten to that point.

The problem is you said, illegally blocking or something. They are about to. What happened is the Senate and the White House had buyers remorse.

And the military hawks here, and the appropriators on the Republican side are forcing Mike Johnson through -- I will call it violence.

Parliamentary violence.

They're just like, well, we'll cause the government to shut down. And you will be blamed for it, if you don't undo the evil from this summer.

GLENN: Good. Good.

You know, honestly, Thomas, you know and I know, this government is dismantling America.

We would be better off with a government shut down for a while, to be able to put it back on a leash, by cutting all of this spending.

I mean, good! Good!

Shut it down.

THOMAS: I agree with you. But there's another option that they agreed to this summer.

Which is, if they would do what Jim Jordan and Warren Davids and I prescribed, and they agreed to.

Which is a long-term CR.

It would -- there would never be a threat of a shutdown, but there would be a one percent cut on April 30th to every department, in the United States, America's government.

And there wouldn't be a chance of a shutdown.

But that would motivate, I think, people to come to the table and get policies, like securing the border without a shutdown.

Here's what happens: When you have a shutdown.

We've got -- and you know this as well as I do.

There's at least a dozen members sharing the GOP conference who will cross the aisle and sign something with the Democrats to, you know, stiff us on this.

It's deplorable, but they will do it. And some of them have already announced their retirement. So they don't care.

GLENN: So bad. So bad.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thomas Massie. As always, keep taking them on. Thanks.

THOMAS: Thank you, brother, bye.

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The most INSANE Deep State story you've never heard

Was an NGO with deep government ties trying to RESTART the opium trade in Taliban-run Afghanistan while former Taliban members were on its payroll...only to be caught DESTROYING the evidence?! The State Department's Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Darren Beattie joins Glenn Beck to expose what he found when he was made Acting President of the United States Institute of Peace. Plus, he debunks ProPublica’s claim that DOGE “targeted” an “Afghan scholar who fled the Taliban.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Darren, welcome to the program. How are you? Darren, are you there? Is he there?

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: Okay. Check if he's there. Is he? Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney.

STU: Trying to shut him down. They don't want peace. They don't want peace.

GLENN: They don't. They don't.

He is -- he is a big-time anti-globalist. I've got to tell you, what we're doing with the State Department. I absolutely love. The State Department has been a big problem for this country for a very long time. It's what's gotten us into these global wars. These endless wars, and everything he is.

And, I mean, I don't know what happened to Marco rube, but he is tremendous.

And the way president Trump is appointing different people like Darren, it's fantastic. Darren, are you there? Darren.

STU: Something must be wrong with the lines. Because we are talking to him offline on the phone here. And it does seem to be working, but not coming through our broadcast board here for whatever reason.

GLENN: Well, let's see if we can get that fixed, and maybe let me just talk here for five, six minutes on something else. Then we'll take a break and come back and see if we can get him.

There's something else that I really want to talk about. And that is this flag-burning thing. Now, it's not an amendment.

This is something that the president is putting up in an executive order and has very little teeth to it.

But I -- I -- look, I understand. As a guy putting an enormous flagpole up at my house today.

I mean, an enormous flagpole.

I love the flag. I love it!

And there are a few things that make me more angry than see somebody you set our flag on fire.

For a lot of people, that's a punch in the gut, especially our military people. And it has been planted on distant battlefields. It's raced after victory. Saluted in the morning, or should be in our schools and folded and given to the hands of grieving families. It feels like spitting on every sacrifice, that ever made this nation possible. And the argument against flag burning is really simple: It dishonors the idea of all of that. Okay?

And it defends millions of people, including me. It disrespects, I think the veterans that bled. The families who mourned. The dream that binds us together.

However, here's the hard truth: Symbols only mean something, in a land where freedom is alive.

If you outlaw the burning of a flag, the you have placed the cloth above the Constitution that it represents. You have made the flag an idol.

We don't worship idols. If you can only praise the flag and never protest it, it just stops being a symbol of freedom. And starts being an idol of obedience.

Now, that's the argument for allowing it. At least to me.

Because the real strength of a free nation is -- is to -- it's -- it's how we protect, not the speech we love, but how we endure the speech we hate!

And the Supreme Court has already ruled on this. And, you know, they -- the line they drew wasn't an easy one. Freedom of speech, stops where it directly -- directly insights violence. And that's it same thing, kind of, in this executive order.

You can burn the flag. But if I'm not mistaken, but if it incites violence, then you're in trouble.

And that's true. But the bar of inciting violence is so incredibly high. And it's -- it doesn't have anything to do with speech that offends. It's not speech that stirs anger. Not speech that wants you to punch the speaker in the mouth. It's speech only, that provokes imminent and specific violence.

And unless it's that be with the government doesn't have any right to -- to get into the business of silencing speech. Ever. Ever. Ever.

It is a hard line. And that standard is really hard. It's painfully hard.

Because what our citizenship requires, this is civics. What our citizenships require, is that we defend -- oh, I hate this.

We defend the right of your opponent to mock everything that we hold sacred.

Now, I want you to think of this. You can burn a Bible. You can burn the Word of God. But some want to make it illegal to burn a flag. Where are our priorities? You can burn the Constitution. The words that actually are the ones that stir us into action. But you can't burn a flag.

You can't burn a Koran. Can't burn them. Can't. Can't.

You will -- you will quickly come to a quick end, not legally. But you will come to a quick end. I don't ever want to be like that. Ever!

You burn a Bible. I think you're a monster. What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?

But you have a right to do it. Why are we drawing a line around the flag? It -- the reason is -- is because we feel things so passionately. And that is really a good thing, to feel love of country so passionately. But then we have to temper that. My father used to tell me, that I think this country needs to hear over and over again, every day. My father -- we would talk to somebody. And we would walk away. And he would go, I so disagree with everything that man just said. But, Glenn, son, he would say. I will fight to the death for his right to say it. He used to say that to me all the time. Which now lees me to believe, I know where I've got my strong opinions from. Because dad apparently would disagree with a lot of people all the time.

But that was the essence of freedom. That is the essence of what sets us apart. Standing for universal, eternal rights like free speech. It's not easy. It means you have to take the size of those people that offend you. It means -- it doesn't mean you have to disagree with it. You can fight against it. You can argue back and forth.

But you -- can you tolerate the insults to the things that you love most. That is so hard, and that is why most of the world does not have freedom of speech. It's too hard! But our Founders believed people are better than that. Our citizens can rule themselves!

And the only way you can rule yourself is if you don't have limits on freedom of speech. So the question is, do we want to remain free? Or do we want to just feel good? It really is that simple. It's why no one else has freedom of speech. It's too hard! I think we're up to the task. Okay. Give me 60 seconds. And then we will try again.

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Elderly men and women. Who remember a time when help never came. All of them wonder. Is anybody going to stand with us, this time?

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All right. Let me -- let me bring Darren in. Darren, are you there now?

DARREN: Yes!
GLENN: Oh, God. Thank goodness.
Thank you for putting up with us. I don't know what happened with the phone system. But, first of all, tell me what the US Institute of Peace is. I've never even heard of it.

DARREN: That is a fantastic question. And I'll try to give the abbreviated answer, because I know we don't have several hours.

GLENN: Good. I know.

DARREN: But US Institute of Peace is one of lesser known, but quite important member of the NGO archipelago, that was created in the '80s. It belongs to the same cohorts as national endowments for democracy.

GLENN: Oh.

DARREN: And some other -- some other better known NGOs that really in the broad context of things. In kind of the sweep of things, was created as a kind of reorganization of the government structure in the aftermath of the church type committee hearings that expose a lot of the dirty dealings of government agencies such as the CIA, and so sort of a broader response to that government lie was to create this NGO layer of governance, with an armed distant plausible deniability, a kind of chameleon character of not exactly being government, not exactly being private, in order to fulfill some of those more sensitive functions that had been exposed in the course of the church hearings.

And so US Institute of Peace is one of those NGOs that had particular focus on conflict regions. But, of course, as I think you -- you suggested earlier, peace requires at the very least, an asterisk. Because there involves a lot of things, that conventional, most American citizens would not think should belong as part of the portfolio of something calling itself an institute of peace.

GLENN: So what was the thing with the -- with this Taliban member that was getting money from us?

DARREN: Right. So this is an interesting case. So there's a whole saga of a takeover of the US institute of peace under -- under DOGE.

And that's really a fascinating story unto itself. Just to give you a sense of what these characters were like. They barricaded themselves in the offices.

They sabotaged the physical infrastructure of the building. There were reports of there being loaded guns within the offices.

GLENN: Wow!

DARREN: There was one, like, hostage situation where they held a security guard under basically kind of a false imprisonment type situation. It was extremely intense.

Far more so than the better known story of USAID. And in the course of all of that, they tried to delete a terabyte of data, of accounting information that would indicate what kind of stuff they were up to.

What kind of people they were paying. And in the course of that, DOGE found that one of the people on their payroll. Was this curious figure, who had a prominent role in the Taliban government. And then seemed to kind of play a bunch of angles across each other.

Sort of one of these sixer types in the middle of Afghanistan.

The question is, what the heck is an organization like this, having an individual, who is a former Taliban member on their payroll.

It underscores how incredibly bizarre the whole arrangement is. And to just reinforce that. I think even more bizarre than having this former Taliban guy on the payroll is the kind of schizophrenic posture exhibited by the chief -- one truly bizarre thing is that one of the US Institute of Peace's main kind of policy agendas was basically lamenting the fact that the opium trade had dissipated under Taliban leadership. They had multiple reports coming out, basically saying, this is horrible, that the opium trade is diminished under the Taliban. Meaning, finding some way to restore it. How bizarre is that!

GLENN: What was their thinking?

DARREN: Well, it's -- it's very strange, and it depends on what kind of rabbit holes you want to go down. But the whole story of opium and Afghanistan and its connection to, you know, government entities, is a -- is a very intricate and delicate and fascinating one. But it seems very clear that the US Institute of Peace was involved in that story to some degree because their public reports. They had a full-the time guy of basically lamenting the fact that the opium trade dissipated under the Taliban. And, meanwhile, they're funding this former Taliban guy.

GLENN: Unbelievable. Now, ProPublica got this. And you have released the statement on it. And ProPublica just completely white-washed this -- said this guy was a victim, and his family was taken hostage. Was his family ever taken hostage because he was exposed?

And correct the ProPublica story, would you?

DARREN: Yeah, I mean, the ProPublica thing, as usual and as expected was a total joke.

GLENN: Yes.

DARREN: I mean, this guy, I'm not an expert on this particular person's history. But what's very clear is he was a former Taliban guy, and he was probably one of these people, who was playing all sides, made a lot of enemies. I know that there were several kind of attempts on his life by the Taliban, in the course of various -- various decades.

This has nothing to do with -- with DOGE.

I mean, he's a known quantity in the region.

And somebody who has made a lot of enemies.

And he was not -- he was on the payroll of the US institute of peace.

And nobody is expecting something like that. So then, and, again, there's this sort of hostile takeover situation.

Where the people are barricading he themselves in. Trying to delete all this data.

And sure enough, what's in the data, is stuff like this.

These random former Taliban guy, making his contract with $130,000.

GLENN: You know, this is the -- this is the real Deep State stuff, that I think bothers people so much.

Look, we expect our CIA to do stuff, we don't necessarily want to do it. We expect it.

When it's in the State Department.

When every department is pushing out money to NGOs to overthrow governments and everything else.

It's out of control!

It's just completely out of control.

And who is overseeing all of that.

DARREN: That's a great question.

I think part of the NGO -- UCEF was almost a cutout of a cutout.

A fourth of its money came from USAID.

In many ways, it was a cutout of USAID. Which itself was a cutout.

So there are many layers of distance. Plausible deniability.

And UCEF, I think institutionally really perfected this chameleon structure of being able to plausibly present itself as government. When that was convenient for what they were doing.

And also to present itself as a private organization, when that was convenient.

It's a very intricate setup that they had, that was truly optimized for this chameleon character of plausible denial operations. In conflict zones. Doing God knows what, with American taxpayer money.

And it's just an absolute hornet's nest.

We have recovered that terabyte that they tried to delete. And once we get things settled in the building itself, I intend to do a kind of transparency effort, whereby we release all of this material to the public.

GLENN: Good. Good.

DARREN: Just like I'm doing at the State Department. I'm currently acting as secretary at the State Department. And doing a transparency effort here. After I eliminated the global engagement center, which was sort of the internal censorship office within the State Department, decided, we've got to -- we've got to air this out to the public.

So within the next couple of weeks.

We'll have our next tranche of helps you of thousands of emails, documenting what this were doing.

GLENN: I would love you to go back on, through those emails.

I think you guys in the State Department are doing an amazing job. Thanks for being on.