RADIOMay 07, 2024

Is the Economy About to Return to 1970s-Era Stagflation?

After April’s dismal jobs report released, some experts started wondering whether America has entered a period of stagflation. But what does that mean? And should we trust the data? Financial expert Carol Roth joins Glenn to break it all down. Plus, she reviews “one of the most painful” videos she has ever watched, featuring Biden economic adviser Jared Bernstein trying his hardest to explain why the Federal Reserve’s never-ending money printing is fine.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Carol Roth, the author of the book, you will own nothing. The former investment banker. Carol, yes -- or last Friday, I think it was. The jobs report came out. It was much lower than expected.

And I started seeing things like Bank of America saying, we're in stagflation now.

Are we? And if so, what is it?

And what does it mean?

CAROL: Well, let's talk about some of these data points, Glenn. And then we can go into stagflation. First, we've seen a couple of bad data points. And as we've talked about before. The data is garbage. So we're doing the best we can, what it is they're telling us, without any sense of the actual reality behind us.

We saw before the jobs report, that the first quarter GDP was down, about a percent lower than expectations. Down to 1.6 percent on an annualized basis.

Then we get the April jobs report. And that is also down. It's the slowest job gain. That we've seen in -- I think about six months.

Again, if you believe the data. And what that first is telling me, is that all of this money, that the government has spent to basically window dress the economy. To avoid the double-digit recession.

Remember, we did have a recession. Two quarters of negative growth back in '22. Then we popped out of it. Then we expected that it would employ it down. The government ran these massive deficits, about two times the historical average, on a debt to GDP basis.

That we would normally see. And they tried to prop up the economy. So it wouldn't show we were in a recession. At a very expensive cost, by the way. Normally, when you have an expanding economy, you would see a shrinking deficit. They have did you not opposite.

They ran a big deficit, to try to create this appearance. And with an interest rate. Financing that deficit. You know, at the largest point in 15 years.

GLENN: Right.

CAROL: So we know we are not getting a good return now, on this window dressing. And it is not creating these amazing outcomes for the economy.

You know, on the GDP front. On the jobs front.

Which again, could turn around. It's one set of at that time points. Would shift.

Stagflation is something that I talk to you about. I have been talking about for years. As a very possible outcome here.

And it's very much what it sounds like. It's when the economy stagnates. When you have a low growth number. But at the same time, you have inflation.

So you have sort of the worst of all worlds. You're not making gains of productivity.

You're not making, you know, gains in wages and things like that.

The economy is just hanging out. But you get this long-term sticking inflation.

Which again, we said was very likely, because the government continued to spend at these massive levels.

And they were working against what the fed was trying to do, to break down inflation.

So they are actually at this point, a likely cause of long-term inflation.

Because we have to continue to finance these massive deficits.

And so that's the reality of this sticky situation.

When you hear somebody, like JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon saying, I'm worried that the economy is going to look more like the 1970s, than anything else, this is something that they experience. Experience at that period of time. And he is seeing those parallels. Although, we're in a much worse fiscal situation from a fiscal foundation standpoint, than we were strangely enough in the 1970s.

GLENN: Because of our deficit and debt.

CAROL: Correct.

GLENN: Yes.

So this means that jobs, everything just is the same. It doesn't get better. It could get worse. But it doesn't generally get better for the individual. And prices continue to go up. Right?

That's what --

CAROL: Correct. You're not seeing your growth in wages. You're not seeing massive growth in companies.

The economy just sort of putters along.

You know, you're not seeing the massive layoffs. Or things you might see. With a recession.

Things are just kind of going along.

But not really growing at all.

You're not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. But at the same time, we're encountering that bond, going sticking inflation, that we know destroys purchasing power and is really born, particularly by the middle and working class.

GLENN: All right.

So Carol, I don't want to spend a lot of time on this. Because I have a couple of other things.

But you said, at the beginning of your conversation. You said, if you believe the numbers.

I don't believe the numbers.

CAROL: Correct.

GLENN: But the only reason you change and fudge numbers is not to stop them from looking so good. But stop them from looking so bad.

And the reason why I don't believe them. Is it's just too many times, where they've been adjusted. And there's always adjustments, but not like it's been in the last year or so.

And there's just contradictory information. If you're somebody who is listening now, and, you know, you don't -- you don't necessarily have that. You don't think that, you know, the administration would go that far, and fake numbers.

What leads you to say, if you believe these numbers?

CAROL: Well, like you said, there have been a lot of anomalies in the numbers. And, you know, if you -- you can kind of go back even further. You know, we've changed the method of calculation, of these numbers. At the governmental level, many times since the 1980s. One of the things you have to remember, for something like let's say inflation.

Inflation feeds into things like cost of living adjustments. The amount they have to increase Social Security payments by. So there is an actual reason why it is, that they would want to suppress those numbers.

Another piece of data which I think is very important. Is that entities and individuals no longer want to participate in government surveys.

So we have seen an absolute massive decline in the participation of the data that is being collected by the government.

Which means, when they don't have people in businesses, responding, there are more biases in the data, because it's a smaller subset of people who want to do it.

And it means they have to want to run it through their own adjustments. And seasonal adjustments. In the model.

And it's garbage in. Garbage out. You put bad data in, you'll get bad data out.

There are a lot of things. This isn't just the, hey. The numbers are adjusted massively. And we're seeing the numbers over and over again. Speaking to the bad data. There are some real structural issues as to why many of us think the data sort of isn't worth anything.

GLENN: By the way, we're talking to J.D. Vance in 15 minutes. Right now, we're with Carol Rother. I want to bring up something that is one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen. It's an interview where they're trying to make the case for modern monetary theory. Which is not modern. It's a very old theory. You can just print money, and no big deal. Nothing bad will happen.

And they talked to Joe Biden's economic adviser.

Now, I -- if you would, explain who Jared Bernstein is.

He is -- he is the chair of the council of economic advisers for Joe Biden.

But he's not just some schlub, right?

CAROL: Well, I mean, I will not opine on that. But what I will tell you, is that he's very powerful economically. This is Joe Biden's right-hand adviser who has been, by the way, since the Obama administration, he was Biden's adviser.

And this is the guy who analyzes and interprets economic developments.

He comes up with economic policies. He puts that forth to the president. He's been entrenched in think tanks. He's been a contributor to CBS. He writes op-eds. He was a chief economist, in economic adviser. You know, previously.

This guy is like from the left and far left standpoint. One of the people, who they hang their hat on, to be the economic adviser. And I don't know.

Are you going to play the clip.

It's one of the most painful things I've watched in my life.

GLENN: I want to get your comment on it. And I want to set up. This is a real player in the economy.

This is someone our government depends on.

Listen to him try to explain our deficit, and what's happening with our money. Listen.

VOICE: The US government can't go bankrupt, because we can print our own money.

VOICE: It obviously begs the question: Why exactly are we borrowing a currency that we print ourselves? I'm waiting for someone to stand up, and say, why do we borrow our own currency in the first place?

VOICE: Like you said, they print the dollar. So why does the government even borrow?

VOICE: Well, the -- so the -- I mean, again, some of this stuff gets -- some of the language that the -- some of the language and concepts are just confusing. I mean, the government definitely prints money.

And it definitely lends that money, which is why the government definitely prints money. And then it lends that money, by -- by selling bonds. Is that what they do?

GLENN: No. No.

VOICE: They -- they -- yeah. They -- they sell bonds. Yeah. They sell bonds. Right. Since they sell bonds.

People buy the bonds. And lend them the money.

GLENN: No.

VOICE: So a lot of times. A lot of times. The language and the concepts can be kind of unnecessarily confusing. But there is no question, that the government prints money. And then it uses that money to -- so, yeah.

I guess I'm just -- I can't really talk.

I don't get it. I don't know what they're talking about.

Because it's like, the government clearly prints money. It does it all the time.

And it clearly borrows. Otherwise, you wouldn't be having this conversation.

So I don't think there's anything confusing there.

GLENN: Oh, my God. This is -- would you feel --

STU: Wow.

GLENN: If that was your captain, and you got on to a plane, and he said, hey. We're going to be traveling at 40,000 -- 4,000 -- I can't -- how does this work again? Would you get on that plane?

CAROL: Okay. So I'm going to be generous here first, Glenn.

And then I'm going to be not so generous. The first generous thing I will say is that we've all been in the media for a very long time, you longer than me. And we've all had days, that are somewhat like this. Where we know something really well. And we just can't get it.

So I will -- it could be today for me.

There have been a few times. When I made absolutely no sense, on something I know very well.

So it does happen. That can said. Now that I've been generous.

This is sort of the chief architect of the US economy at this point. Going through a discussion about MMT. I call it magic money tree. I've heard that somewhere along the line. I thought that was great.

And their main thesis. Oh, you got the checkbook. You can just write checks. The question he asked. Which anyone who lives in Zimbabwe would probably know the answer to. Why can't the government just print as much money as it wants.

We all know it's highly inflationary. And we've been living through that for the past few years. That's the very short answer. Of course, there's nuance to this. Of course, there's wonkiness that we can go in and explain the Treasury and the Fed. Just very simple.

So it begs the question to me. Does he not know the answer? Or does he very much know the answer, but he doesn't feel like he could admit it.

And hasn't done the prep. Which, again, these are politicians. Politician mouthpieces. They could just talk around us. Which they do all the time.

I think the answer is that they are just entirely decoupled from reality. So they don't care.

They don't care what it is, Glenn. Money is something very discreet. Money has three definitions. It's a unit of account. It's a median of exchange. It's the value.

At the end of the day, putting it together, what is it? It's a proxy for productivity.

It's an estimation of the labor that you have. Because it used to be. If you were a farmer. You had apples. Somebody who was a doctor at doctor services. You would have to figure out that exchange. Now this creates something that is seamless. So it stands for something.

GLENN: Stands -- time is money.

CAROL: It is. It is your output. So if you don't have an increase in economic activity. An increase in productivity. And you put more dollars in the system. What are you doing?

You're putting in more sort of proxies for productivity. They're chasing the same amount of goods and services. It means that those goods and services have been inflated and valued. Because each one of those proxies are worthless. If you go to Congress. And you ask them, to give you that definition of money. That I just gave you.

Anyone who knows anything about economics. I guarantee you 99 percent of the people couldn't tell you that. And the people on the left do not care. Because it doesn't serve their purpose.

They don't care that this is a proxy of what you have worked hard for.

They want to inflate that away for their own power purpose.

So it is very inconvenient for them to understand reality.

And that's why he can't explain this.

GLENN: I think he knows what it is. But can't explain.

Because he doesn't. He doesn't want to take a position on it.

Because I think they're all in bed with MMT. So he can't -- he doesn't want to say, I am in bed with MMT. Because it's insanity. But I think he also extent can know how to bridge that gap. There's a huge gap between reality and insanity.

CAROL: There is.

GLENN: And I think that's what it is. He just doesn't want to be seen crossing that bridge. Because there's no sane reason to do it.

CAROL: No. And the fact of the matter is, you had all these MMT people, selling this fantasy. And up until a few years ago, there were a lot of people who bought into the fantasy. Although, many of us said no. This is something that stands for reality.

You can't just make it up. Just because you have a checkbook. You can't write unlimited amounts of checks. It doesn't work that way. We have now lived through the worst inflationary period in 40-plus years. And these MMT people have not gotten enough shame. They should be walked through the street and we should go, shame, shame, shame.

Because it's their BS they've been selling into the government, into schools, that has allowed this to occur. And has allowed this decoupling from reality. Because they want to believe in unicorns that, you know, fart rainbows.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

They want to control what you eat! — Cattle rancher's stark warning

American cattle rancher Shad Sullivan tells Glenn Beck that there is a "War on Beef" being waged by the globalist elites and that Americans need to be prepared for this to be an ongoing battle. How secure is America's food supply chain, and what does the country need to do to ensure food shortages never occur in the future?

Watch Glenn's FULL Interview with Shad Sullivan HERE

Iran War & US Riots: An Urgent WARNING About the ‘Death to America’ Mob | Glenn TV | Ep 440

Is the world approaching its FINAL battle? From the anti-ICE rioters to Islamic governments like Iran, the message is the same: “Death to the West… death to America.” Glenn Beck gives an urgent warning about the radical ideologies threatening Western civilization and likens the chaos in American streets to Gotham. Asra Nomani, an expert on Islamic extremism, terrorism, and radicalization, joins Glenn to detail what she saw at a No Kings protest in Philadelphia. Nomani warns that “more blood will spill” due to the dangerous nexus between Democratic organizations, Islamic sympathizers, Marxists, communists, and socialists. “This is the tyranny that will come to your neighborhoods and streets unless we stop it.” Another issue dividing the country and President Trump’s MAGA supporters is the war between Israel and Iran. Should the U.S. help destroy Iran’s nuclear ambitions or let Israel go it alone? Iranian American journalist Nik Kowsar was arrested and threatened with death for his political cartoon critical of an Islamic cleric in 2003. He reveals the truth about the Islamic regime but tells Glenn why he believes bombs won’t bring democracy to the oppressed people of Iran.

Regime change, bombs, or NOTHING: What should Trump do in Iran?

There's a big debate right now among the political Right over whether the United States should intervene in Israel's war with Iran. Should President Trump bomb Iran? Should he encourage regime change? Or should he completely stay out of it? Glenn Beck and The Federalist CEO and Co-founder Sean Davis discuss.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Sean, welcome to the program.

VOICE: Thank you for having me, sir.

GLENN: You bet. I'm glad to have you on.

You know, I'm not sure -- I'm not sure of anybody's position, because the smart people, like I think you are, are asking questions. And not coming out with these bold declarations. They're just asking questions.

And sometimes, their own response, at least mine is.

It's very nuanced. And I'm not recommending anything.

I'm asking questions, and I'm warning about the mistakes of the past.

I don't trust anybody.

But I also think a nuclear armed Iran is really bad. But I want Israel to take care of it.

I want to be involved in that.

It's their direct right now. Let them take care of it.

What -- where do you go from here. What questions should we be asking ourselves, Sean.

SEAN: Yeah. I love your approach to it. Because it doesn't start with a conclusion.

It's kind of trying to build with what we should be doing from the bottom-up.

Which becomes a discussion of first principles. And I think that's really important.

I think we probably all agree, that we don't want bad people. And we don't our enemies, to have weapons, they use to destroy us.

I think probably everyone agrees in that.

GLENN: Yes.

Well, can I add a caveat to that?

Not just our enemies, but especially those who are batcrap crazy.

Or believe in the return of the Mahdi, and I can hasten his return by washing the world in blood. That kind of -- that puts you in a special category for me.

But, anyway, go ahead.

SEAN: And, again, I think I might even extend it. I'm not sure I want our friends and allies to have it. In a perfect world, we would be the only country, with these massive weapons.
(laughter)

GLENN: Okay. All right. I'll go for that. Okay.

SEAN: So the problem we have is that for, let's call 80 years. You know, 75.

The nuclear toothpaste has been out of the tube.

Soviet -- India, Pakistan. North Korea.

France. Israel.

In South Africa for a time, they all had nukes. And to me, the big problem that I have a really difficult time wrapping my head around, is how do you solve the problem we created with Gadhafi in Libya?

GLENN: Yes.

SEAN: That country gave up their weapons program, voluntarily after Iraq. Kind of before Iraq become another debacle and another cautionary tale. And they gave up their weapons in the US and NATO and our allies. We returned the favor, thanks to Hillary and Obama, by overthrowing Gadhafi and killing it.

I think what that communicated to every leader on earth, good or bad, if you don't ever want to be overthrown, you have to have nuclear weapons.

And so I start with understanding that fact, what is the best, most effective way to make our enemies -- make sure our enemies don't get nuclear weapons?

And I'll tell you, I don't have a good answer. Because we've heard for 40 years, that Iran is on the verge of a nuke.

They're about to have a nuke. They're about to have a weapon. So let's assume we go through with these attacks, and we bomb now or Israel bombs it.

What that doesn't get rid of is the incentive. It temporarily gets rid of a mechanism for I guess enriching uranium. But in four years or five years, how do we deal with that? I don't think regime change is a good idea. We've seen how well that works. It turns into an unmitigated disaster.

And so I think we just have to start with the question, what is the best possible way to incentivize people that we don't like, and don't like us, to not have weapons. And I genuinely don't have a good answer to it.

GLENN: You know what, I keep thinking. Every day I do this job. And I think what Reagan said when I was a kid.

He said, there's going to come a time.

And he was talking to Social Security at the time, but I apply it now to everything. There's going to come a time, where we've made so many mistakes. There won't be a good solution to everything. Every choice will be a bad choice.

And I think we're here. I think we're here. Everything we do, you're like, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't want to do to the mistakes of the past. But I don't know how to stop this now.

You know, regime change. Let me just take that one.

Regime change. It doesn't work. I loved your post. I think it was yesterday.

Yes, our military industrial complex lied about Vietnam. Killed Kennedy. Ran a coup against Nixon, then killed another Kennedy.

Tried to get MLK Jr. to kill himself. Ran drugs through the Americas to fund shenanigans in the Middle East.

Funded Bin Laden in the Taliban. Missed 9/11, and lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Got an ambassador murdered in Benghazi.

Then turned Libya into a slave market run by terrorists. Then created ISIS. Ran the Russia collusion hoax.

Tried to overthrow Trump with the Ukrainian hoax. Weaponized a bat virus that killed millions of people and lied about it. And used the virus they made to steal an election.

Then arrest Trump, tried to bankrupt him.

Try to make him die in prison, and then when they failed, they denied him adequate security, leading him to be shot in the head.

Yeah, they did all of those things.

The drug cartels, Iraq, Bosnia, in the 1990s.

Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s. Still Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010.

Plus, Libya, the whole moronic Arab Spring thing. Ukraine in the 2020s.

These were all disasters that cost millions of dollars and countless lives. You're right on every single one of those things.

Every single one of those things.

So how do we make a decision now'

SEAN: Right. And that's why I think it's important to get to first principles. Which is understanding our limitations.

Understanding history. Understanding how other nations view things. One thing that's driven me nuts in the foreign policy debates that we've had in the country, for 20, 30 years.

Is that there seems to be zero desire to put ourself in the position of our adversaries and our opponents. Saying, how are we looking at things?

Some people, if you try to do that, they'll say, oh, well, you're sympathizing with them. Or you're appeasing. Well, no. This is the basic stuff for negotiation.

You're playing chess against someone. You want to understand what they're going to do next.

So you can respond to it.

And we just never do that.

And I look at this. I think there's probably two major options. For either forestalling or preventing a particular regime for getting weapons.

The first one is regime change.

In the short-term, you can tell yourself, we will overthrow these people.

And then they won't want nukes anymore. Because we will put our friends in, and then it will be food.

Well, that's been ongoing in Iran for 100 years. The Brits and the Soviets were the ones who came in and put the original Shah in. It's been a mess over there.

So personally, I throw regime change out the window. Because it opens up pandora's box of just insanity, as we've seen in the Middle East.

GLENN: Okay. Hang on a second. Hang on a second.

Wait. Wait, on that.

Is there a chance that -- you know, I never saw it.

I kept saying. We headed to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Show me the person that will have their face on the stamp. Show me the person that will have their face on the money.

I never had somebody stand up and say, we need to be free.

And we need to fight for our own freedom. You do have those people that are really tired of this, and much more Western.

I don't want to get involved in a regime change. And I certainly don't want you to say, hey. We're going to help you pick a leader.

Is there a chance this time is different? Or is that wishful, stupid thinking?

JASON: You know, I think it's probably wishful thinking, but I don't know.

I tell you, I have a hard enough time figuring out what's going on politically in my own country. Think about all the time we spent pouring over polls in our election. Talking to our neighbors.

This is a country we were born in.

We understand its culture without even thinking about it. We're fluent in the language. We can talk to anyone we want, whenever we want. And we have a tough time, figuring out what is going on here. I don't have a clue what's happening in Iran.

I don't speak any of the three or four languages over there.

I don't understand the culture. I've never been there.

I've not been able to talk to people over there.

I don't know thousand read the news there.

The idea that I, or really any other Westerner can look at Iran and with any confidence say what the people want or don't want, I think it's crazy.

And so I think you kind of have to be humble about your ignorance. And we are largely ignorant of just about everything happening within Iraq, and its culture and its people.

GLENN: I -- I have to say, I think you're right on that.

Okay. So that's out.

What's the next thing?

SEAN: We kind of set aside regime change, probably not a great idea.

Another option is maybe economic incentives. Yeah, we know you don't want to be overthrown.

That's going to be a hard incentive to overcome. So you're going want to regime change insurance. Maybe we can bribe you out of it. All kinds of economic assurances. This and that.

The problem with Iran is they're sitting on oil, which is probably the most precious resource on earth. I don't think that works.

And so I think what we're left with is probably the Whack-a-Mole that's been going on for years. And I think the nation that's probably best sighted to deal with that Whack-A-Mole. They're the ones at risk.

Iran can't reach us here in the US. They don't have the ballistic missile capability. They're not a direct military threat to us.

They're clearly a military threat to our friends and allies in the Middle East.

And so I think the least worst option is probably Israel doing what it does, every five to ten years, and going and trying to degrade their ability to mechanically make the stuff.

Wait to see what happens, do it again over and over. But to me, that's a regional issue.

And, yes, there are allies. And, yes, they're our friends.

But it's far more consequential to them, than it is to us. And so I have no problem with them, doing what they need to do, to address the threats to them.

GLENN: So I'm with you, 100 percent so far.

Now, I'm very -- you know, we're the only ones with the bunker buster that can get into that.

What does that go down, 12 stories?

20 stories, underground.

Can destroy anything with a 20-story footprint, underground.

We're the only ones that have it. It has to be dropped from one of our planes.

And I'm very uncomfortable with that. Very uncomfortable. I mean, you know what, you want to buy the bunker buster? I'll sell it to you. But you got to drop it.

Once we put that on our plane, and we drop it, aren't we then part of the war?

SEAN: Right. And that -- like I said, that might be the least worse option to the extent that we have to be involved.

GLENN: Yes.

SEAN: When it comes to foreign policy. I think a lot about what Mike Tyson says.

That everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face. Once you go and drop a bomb on someone, once you engage in offensive military capabilities. Now, you may rhetorically say, well, it's preemptively defensive. It's an offensive move, whenever you bomb another country.

You are creating the conditions for all kinds of chaos. Who knows how they're going to respond?

Maybe they're rational. They understand, look, we will have to take this one on the chin.

We don't want to fight with the US.

We don't want to fight with Israel. We will have to deal with it.

And maybe they decide. Hey, we were in the middle of negotiations. We thought we were trying to get somewhere.

And if they're going to do this stuff with us, then to heck with this.

We will just unleash hell. That can happen.

Now, I don't know if it will. It's probably less likely to end up taking it.

But it's a possibility. Whenever you go and punch somebody in the face, you now have to deal with the consequences of how they will respond.

GLENN: All right. Back with more in just a second. Can you stay with me for just a few more minutes, Sean?

SEAN: Of course.

GLENN: Before we go to back to Sean, Jason, I had to look up in the break, preemptive strikes.

Is that something new?

Because I know that's -- my age, maybe.

I remember, I don't remember people saying, we have to preemptively strike, more than when it -- when the nukes started coming. And that's when everybody was like, you have to do it before you get one.

Is this a new thing? Or has this been going on forever?

JASON: I want to start out with saying, I'm so glad for Sean in having this conversation.

Because it is sorely needed right now.
It's so bad.

There's a weird irony with preemptive or preventive strikes.

Because the first modern preventive strike, looking at the Cold War era was the start of the six-day war.

When Egypt blockaded Israel, amassed 100,000 troops in Israel.

GLENN: Wow.

JASON: Did the first modern preemptive strike. If they would not have, they would not be here right now.

It's another coal in the fire really.

What is the red line --

GLENN: Sean, what is the red line?

Is there a red line?

SEAN: For us. Or for Israel?

GLENN: You know, any society. Is there a red line?

I think the answer for Israel is a lot sooner than ours.

But is there such a thing as a red line, to go first, and preemptively strike?

I'm sure there is. I'm sure there is.

It's so situational, that I would have a hard time saying right now, this is a red line, that satisfies all conditions for all nations.

GLENN: How about just for Israel?

Red line?

SEAN: For Israel, I would think it would be a delivery mechanism and the actual developed warhead. That's probably what I would look at. Can this immunization at this moment, deliver a nuclear warhead to us right now?

That's what I would say is the red line.

But, you know what, I have not had a country trying to wipe me off the earth for, you know, the last 80 years, 75 years.

GLENN: 5,000.

SEAN: Right.

But hard for me, just given my position, to know exactly what their -- I would say, it's probably close to the same thing.

An ability to attack the US people. Now, you'll hear from the Pentagon and people saying, well, they can hurt our troops in the region.

My view is, well, that's probably a good reason to not be meddling in the regions all the time. Because --

GLENN: Hmm. Hmm.

Sean, thank you so much. What a great conversation.

I really appreciate it. Thank you for being reasonable, rational. And allowing people to disagree.

And learn from our disagreements. Thank you, Sean. Appreciate it.

JASON: You're very gracious. Thank you, sir.

GLENN: You bet. The CEO of the Federalist.

Sean Davis.

Will Trump HIT Iran with a “bunker buster” bomb?

Will President Trump get America involved in Israel’s war with Iran by helping drop a “bunker buster” bomb on Iran’s main nuclear facility? Would that cross a red line? Glenn Beck asks House Foreign Affairs Committee member, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who explains why she believes such debates are pointless right now. Plus, Rep. Luna addresses a 1980s CIA "playbook" that exposes a strategy to "set off riots and destabilize governments."

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Representative Anna Paulina Luna is joining us now.

Congresswoman from the great state of Florida. You guys are kicking it, down in Florida.

I mean, you really -- you're making Texas look bad, quite honestly. But thanks for coming on.

ANNA: Thanks, Glenn. I would like to say, we're leading the nation not just in politics, but also the White House. So happy to be here.

GLENN: Yeah. All right. I have to ask you a little bit, about are we going to war? What's happening? Is this negotiation? What does your gut tell you on this?

ANNA: My gut is telling me, that we're not intervening. And based on the president's statement, he is still rightfully so, urging everyone to negotiate. Right now, he's definitely been very open about this.

But I don't want to -- what I will tell you, in the last 24 to 48 hours, I have seen so much disinformation circulating on the internet. Well, a lot of it not coming from security that is in the states, so I will tell everyone. That don't jump to conclusions, don't read into anything, that senator Lindsey Graham is saying or any other members of Congress, that are speculating, that there will be direct intervention. In fact, the White House just yesterday via Alex Sipher on X posted that the military is not intervening. We're simply defending our own. And so what I will tell Americans is first and foremost, President Trump has not changed his position on foreign policies. If he wanted to strike, he would have done it by now. So everyone needs to pray for him. Pray for our country. Pray for the millions in both Iran and Israel right now, and let the process play out.

GLENN: Can you tell me, do you think it's a red line to send over a bomber with one bomb?

Is that -- does that drag us into war?

Or is that just helping?

ANNA: I would say, as of right now, we need to not speculate, but continue to back the White House's position.

Because I think if I were to speculate on where the red line is, I don't think it helps.

I do think that our allies and adversaries are looking to see the members of Congress are doing. I will back the White House's position currently. Which is defending our service members and not intervening --

GLENN: It is. I'm so glad to hear you say that. That is exactly what I just said on the air. Just about three minutes ago.

ANNA: Oh, really?

GLENN: I said, yeah. The world is watching. You don't think the mullahs aren't watching everything that is said on X. You know, we must used to have these conversations where it was global. We're now in a global atmosphere.

And they're watching all of us.

And we can't eat ourselves up. Or they will -- if he's telling the truth.

I think a good negotiator, never bluffs. And he has to back it up.

You know, 60 days. You don't want to see what happens on day 61.

He wasn't bluffing.

And if they think, that we are eating ourselves, alive, they're more likely to go, no.

You know what, go ahead. Go ahead.

It's a really bad thing.

ANNA: What I will say, it's definitely a litmus test for our country right now. You're seeing a lot of people, jumping to conclusions. What I will tell you, there's only a very select few that fully understand what's happening in the situation room.

That's the president, his team, and it's left up there to you. What I will tell you, don't read in, don't speculate. And also too don't jump to conclusions.

Again, in the last 48 hours, I went online. I put out information, because I saw so much information circulating. Something that was said by Kash Patel. His CCP has engaged in basically election engineering. We just saw that in the 2020 election cycle.

They just got busted. This also comes on the tail end of these riots that are absolutely being hunted by the CCP. Neville Singham getting lots of money from them.

And it doesn't stop there.

We saw there was an -- so what I would say is that, you know, I'm partially inclined to think some of these accounts that are attacking the president, are foreign policy positions right now.

Are coming from China. Everything that we're seeing. Three times, that they've done things.

So we have to stick together. It's not, Democrat versus Republican right now. It's America, and fighting for Western civilization.

And so we need to make sure that we're very responsible about our commentary right now.

GLENN: Very good. Very good.

Can we talk a little bit about the -- let's start with Neville Singham.

The guy is -- he is an operative for the CCP. And he is pouring tons of money. And no one in the mainstream media, wants to talk about it.

They just -- oh, that's ridiculous. No, it's not.

Can you give us some information on --

ANNA: Yeah. Of course. So it's not ridiculous. In fact, there's a lot of money -- money at least back to Neville Singham. And I actually look at credit where it's due. So I was on X. And came across this account called Data Republican, and she actually pulled the money trail right to Singham. He also lives part time in Shanghai, China, and he's not registered as a foreign agent.

And so I was able to talk to Comer, and every single member of oversight after seeing the evidence that was presented, actually sent a letter, signed off on it, not just to Neville Singham, but also, to AG Bondi to also request an investigation.

And so what I will tell you is that this should have been done during BLM in Congress back then.

It was not. This needs to be replicated moving forward with everybody else who is engaging, who is not a registered foreign agent in this country.

Also, funding riots like this. In some instances have been acts of terrorism.

And so right now, it's not just a playbook for Neville Singham. We're also -- this is also up to Comer. Because Comer has subpoena authority. Whether or not he will send his subpoena to George Soros, which I've urged him to do.

Even though, Neville Singham is a Marxist and Soros is a globalist, but their end objective is, again, to dismantle the United States.

And so we're basically being hit from both sides right now.

GLENN: I am so -- it is so refreshing.

I mean, I've been talking about this stuff for 20 years.

It's so refreshing. Finally, to have some people step up, and present this in a credible way, in Congress.

And to the -- attorney general et cetera, et cetera.

You know, you had the playbook from 1983. From the CIA.

And this is -- you know, I think it was two or three years ago.

No. It was in 2019 or 2020.

I did a special on the -- you know, the Colour Revolutions.

And how there was the CIA playbook that was out.

And it looks exactly like what is happening here in the United States. I said -- I said, at the time, here's what's coming. And it's all here.

It -- where are you taking this?

And is there anybody, that, you know, can -- can stop this?

Because this -- we are -- we're using CIA tactics on ourself.

ANNA: Well, I would say, the CCP is using this against us.

Right now, just first and foremost.

Yes. We can stop it.

We have to go after the money stream. And I actually also found out via the data Republican.

That $270 million in the USAID fund, was issued to George Soros' NGOs prior to Biden getting out of office.

President Trump can stop that, sending a letter via executive order because Congress is moving very slow.

That's I think a separate conversation.

But we can stop the money streams. And if we don't do anything, though. If we don't do the investigations.

If we don't say, you cannot do this in our country, you're also, by the way, guilty of violating foreign agent registration, the Foreign Registration app, the FAR app. It's just going to continue happening.

So we have to do the due diligence on this.

And if not, every single member of oversight signed off on that.

And to Chairman Comer's credit, he will be playing ball with Singham. So it's going to happen.
It's just, When will it happen?

So the time line, it's possibly indicated on Friday. We're waiting for a response.

He's going to be called to testify.

We are looking at all transaction records.
That's the first thing. The second thing, I want to give some people hope. I actually know Director Radcliffe over at the CIA.

And the CIA back then, remember, there's both good and bad people at the intelligence agencies.

And to their credit, the people that he has appointed, actually are a people like you and I.

And so they are doing their best to weed out this corruption at the agencies. And so what's really been brilliant in all of this.

Kash Patel is also following up on these money trails, to see what outside foreign influences are engaging in this Colour Revolution here in the United States, and he's dropping that information now. So in previous administrations, this might not have happened.

But in this one, they're stopping it, and it's because of social media and kudos to Elon Musk, that we were able to get the information in time, in regards to the No Kings protest, who is funding that.
In regards to potential insider packets that were going to frame conservatives. Frame Republicans.

We are seeing this all unfold in real time. I will tell you, Hispanic Americans, specifically, are not used as pawns. So when you have basically BLM 2.0 happening right now at these ICE riots, and you realize that these are actually largely ANTIFA that are going to be questioned. They're why they're not Hispanic. They're not immigrant.

They have no ties to the communities, and they're simply interning, you know, Mexican flags or BLM flags. That doesn't bode well in the community.

Remember, Hispanic Americans are largely voted for in favor for President trump.

So there is hope. But you can't sit on your hands. You have to get active, you have to get engaged, and you have to be telling people that.

GLENN: You know, for years, I've been angry at the billionaires on the right. That have just not stepped up to the plate.

I really, I suspected with the tides foundation and then with Biden and you all of these green new deals, and everything going on. That money was being funneled off the top.

And then as soon as we appointed DOGE. I said, oh, my gosh. The money is coming from us.

Then he started to find him. That is so critically important. Are we going to stop that funding?

ANNA: Well, yes. And so that's what we've been doing with some of these rescission packages at the White House, that has authorized. We have to move quickly. And we have to be more aggressive with it.

I will tell you, remember, I think just in general, sometimes people can be lazy.

And so what I've been telling people, is you have no idea, the level of personal sacrifice, that Elon really took on.

From taking on DOGE. Especially going after USAID. Which is just like a pot of just corrupt nonsense.

He actually just released, as we were about to call in. He released drug testing results. He had himself drug testing. Because they were saying, he was doing all this crazy stuff.

And he wasn't. Right? They've attacked companies. They literally used his personal family matters in the press. And then they tried to drag a wedge between him and the president.

So what I will tell you is, it's not just him. It's any member of Congress of the Senate. You saw what happened with the president. They tried to assassinate him twice.

Okay?

So if you take this on, the American people need to back these people up.

Because it's not like we're taking it on, because we, you know, want to have our personal lives and our family members put on the line here.

It's because it's the right thing to do. And if we don't do it, who will?

You have to really make sure, everyone sitting together. Remember, look out for the disinformation campaign.

And keep supporting people who do the right went.

Because we need more of them.

GLENN: Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna.

Congresswoman, thank you.

JEFFY: Thanks Glenn.

GLENN: You bet. We'll talk again.