The new Netflix movie “A House of Dynamite” has caused a stir at the Pentagon and led many Americans to change how they think about nuclear war. The film’s writer, Noah Oppenheim, joins Glenn Beck to address the controversy and explain why his movie ends the shocking way it does…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Noah, welcome to the program.

NOAH: Thank you so much for having me.

GLENN: You bet. I have to tell you, your movie, frustrating, because it ends. And I'm like, wait, there should be five more episodes.
This should just not be a 90-minute movie. There's so much more.

Really compelling the way you told the story. So congratulations on that. First question: Are there going to be sequels?

NOAH: Well, first of all, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. It means a lot coming from you.

There is no plan for a sequel. You know, we -- we wanted the movie to be a provocation, in the best sense of the word. You know, a provocation to a larger conversation about this nuclear issue, which I'm so glad to be having with you right now.

GLENN: Yeah. Was your primary source the Annie Jacobson book, or was that just one of many? Did you go to government sources?

How did you get all this information?

NOAH: We spoke to a wide variety of people, who had worked in places like the White House, the CIA, strategic command.

We -- you know, I had worked as a journalist, previously. And so new folks who had held these kinds of jobs, Kathryn Bigelow, who is the director of the movie had made Hurt Locker, Zero Dark 30. So she has extraordinary relationships in the national security world. And obviously, there is some incredible body of work that has been done over the past several decades.

Think tank folks, authors, journalists, et cetera.

And, you know, it's surprising how much -- a lot of this information is in the public domain. In terms of what procedures the government would follow. In -- in case of an attack like this.

And then a lot of it, you know, you can build by talking to sources. You know, much like you would do, if you were trying to report out a story or get to the bottom of something.

GLENN: You know, it's amazing to me, that most presidents don't ever ask for training on this.

They don't -- they don't do dry runs. This is -- you're the one person that could change the whole world. In 15 minutes.

And you're coming into it, most of them are coming into it, absolutely dead cold. If something would happen. They don't -- they don't know how it works.

And this is not something. I don't know how you would make the decision, in that amount of time.

NOAH: Yeah. Two of the most terrifying things that we -- that we zeroed on early was this question of sole authority and decision time. Right? So the idea that in the United States we live in a nuclear monarchy, the president of the United States has the sole authority to determine whether these weapons are used. It's not like he has to build any kind of consensus with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has to decide. He has to decide under extraordinary time pressures.

So if a missile is launched from the Pacific theater. That part of the world. It's under 30 minutes to impact on the continental United States.

If a missile is launched off our coast by a Russian sub, for instance, it would take ten to 12 minutes. So you do have a scenario, in which one person has arguably the fate of all mankind in their hands, and they have a clock ticking. And, you know, depending on where they are, and what the target is. They're probably running for their life or being evacuated. Worrying about their own family.

And it's all put to them, what you want to do.

And if you -- that's not scary enough. The cherry on top is, we spoke to people who had worked directly with presidents. Directly with secretaries of defense. And we said, how often is the president rehearsing this. Practicing for it. Preparing. And they said never.

Basically never. They get one briefing when they take office, or they're introduced to the military. We're all familiar with the guy who follows him around with the suitcase. The nuclear football, if you will. Their process is explained, how that would work. And then after that, they never think about that again.

And, you know, Ronald Reagan, we were told, was the last president who participated in any kind of live nuclear decision-making exercise.

And it's -- and so the -- the guy who has the most responsibility, all the authority, is also arguably, the least practiced and prepared of any one of his --

GLENN: It's really.

It's terrifying.

You know, I've talked to President Trump about nuclear capability.

And I will tell you, you can say whatever you want about Donald Trump.

But one thing I know he's afraid of, is nuclear war.

He -- that has kept him awake, night after night after night.

He knows. Like Reagan did. And Gorbachev did.

You start that, you push that button. It's over. It's all over.

There's -- I mean, you hinted at it, you know, when you -- you were like, I've got -- if we fly these missiles over this country, what are they going to -- are they going to perceive this as a threat?

You know, missiles with Russia. I think in the movie, you've got Russia saying, how do we know you're not going to bomb -- we should just trust you?

It's over!

NOAH: Yeah. All of which begs the question, I think, for President Trump and for all of our leaders, what do we do about it?

You know, how do we solve this problem? We've lived with this threat, in the background of all of our lives, since the dawn of the nuclear age.

Despite my last name, not related to Oppenheimer.

GLENN: Half the name.

NOAH: We've lived with this dynamite in the walls.

For so many decades now. And really, since the end of the Cold War. We haven't really thought or talked about it very much.

It obviously is on President Trump's mind.

He does talk about it. He talks about trying to build the Golden Globe. And a better defense missile system.

You know, I think -- I think this question of, how do we make the world safer?

And it may be, part of that is building a better missile defense system. It may be part of it is reengaging with an arms control and an arms reduction process. Right?

You start our last remaining treaty with the Russians, that -- that governs the development and, you know, proliferation of these weapons. Is set to expire at the end of the year. Maybe we should engage in a process with Russia and China. To try to dramatically reduce the nuclear stockpile.

There are a lot of levers, that the president can pull to try to make you us all safer.

GLENN: So part of the controversy with your -- your movie, which is House of Dynamite, and it's on Netflix.

Part of the controversy, I guess, with the -- with the Pentagon is that the ground-based missile, interoceptors, and the interoceptors, you say it's 60 percent success. I think -- I think Annie Jacobson says, it's like close to zero.

And the Pentagon says it's 100 percent every time. What do you think it really is?

Is it 60?

NOAH: So there's a few factors involved here. The record of -- the testing record for this system, which was the ground-based mid-course interoceptors, is -- is public.

And it is 61 percent. They have done a series of tests over the last 25 years.

And if you add up the -- you know, the number of successes, over the number of failures, it comes to 61 percent.

The -- the Pentagon in their memo, is trying to say that the last several tests have been successful.

The previous ones were not.

So they say, if you only count the most recent ones, it's 100 percent.

That's like saying, I made my last -- I made my last two free throws. So I am a 100 percent free throw shooter --

GLENN: Exactly right.

NOAH: Yeah. So that being said, they're not wrong, in that that the system is getting better.

The software is getting better.

All of it is improving. It's nowhere close to being able to say, it's 100 percent effective. And part of that also comes down to the conditions under which these tests are undertaken. Right?

If I tell you, Glenn, I'm going to throw a baseball at your head. It's a lot easier for you to brace yourself and be ready and catch that baseball.

If an attack were to happen in the real world, it's far less likely, you know, it's far more complicated to defend against.

So, you know, this though, is not a debate between, you know, us as film makers and the Pentagon. It's really a debate between the Pentagon and a much wider community of experts, about the efficacy of this system.

You know, like I said, it's a good conversation to have. Do we want to improve the system.

Do we want --

GLENN: Yes, we do.

NOAH: -- to get more and more money to build something like Golden Dome?

GLENN: Yes, yes, we do.

Yes, we do.

The -- one thing that you didn't hint on, that was in Annie's book that I thought was fascinating. Was that when the president has to finally make the decision, he still doesn't know if it's nuclear-tipped.

There could be a conventional weapon on a ballistic missile, that is being sent by North Korea, let's say.

I mean, it would be an incredible waste.

But, you know, if we launch, before the missile hits, we don't even know if that's nuclear.

And we would have then started a nuclear war. Because we're launching nuclear weapons.

And they didn't!

NOAH: I think that one of the things that we're trying to capture in the story that we taught, which, of course, is a fictional story. Is the difficulty of making decisions in the thick of war.

And that particularly, when you have such a tight decision window. When that clock is winding down, so rapidly. It's -- you're going to find yourself being forced to make calls with imperfect and incomplete information.

And the other thing that is scary, is that the system that we built to -- that governs the use of nuclear weapons was designed during the Cold War for a specific purpose.

It was to make sure that the Soviets believed they could never get away with a first strike.

That if they launched missiles at us. The president would be able to fire back, so quickly. That our decision-making. Our command and control apparatus. Would be able to retaliate.

And so maintaining that deterrent threat, we needed to make sure that the president could respond, and retaliate as quickly and as easily as possible.

So that's the world we still live in now.

And so, again, if one domino falls, there's not a lot of breaks built into this.

The idea is to make it easy for the president to fire back.

And so, yeah. The mistakes can be made. I think it's miraculous, frankly, that we're all still here.

GLENN: It is. It is.

It really is.

Noah Oppenheim. We're talking about the show on Netflix called House of Dynamite. If you haven't seen it yet, it's a must-watch. It is an absolutely thrilling 90 minutes, that will scare the living daylights out of you. Because you'll be like, that can't be true! Right? That's not the way this works. No, that's exactly the way it works. And we're talking about nuclear war. We will come back for a little bit more here.

I want to know, Noah, because I made a decision, what I would do. But I think that is what would make me a really bad president, maybe.

I would love to hear if you guys had a debate, internally. And decided what you would do, if you were the president in that exact situation. We'll come back in just a situation. First, let me tell you about Chapter. There's a good chance, you've already heard it on TV. The Medicare deadline is coming. It's true. It's December 7th. And that's not far away.

But here's what they don't say: For millions of seniors, that deadline feels like a test you didn't study for. Chapter is here to help you pass that with ease. Things change from year to year. Chapter has a team of licensed Medicare advisers who work for you, not the insurance companies. They're the only ones that can look at every single plan. This is a tech-based company. They understand your medical needs. Your prescriptions. Your budget. And then they go out, with AI, and they actually find the plan that fits you perfectly.

So when the next year rolls around, they're still there, helping you reevaluate, adjust, and stay covered. It's free. It's personal. Believe me, they saw their own parents get screwed by this, and they're like, I don't want that to happen to anybody else's parents. Don't wait until December 7th. Get help right now. Chapter's lines will be full by December 7th. Make sure you call right now. Chapter. All you have to do is just hit #250 and say the key word Chapter. #250, key word Chapter. Free and honest advice. #250. Key word Chapter. Ten-second station ID.
(music)

GLENN: From House of Dynamite.
(music)

VOICE: Approximately three minutes ago, we detected an ICBM over the Pacific. Current flight trajectory is consistent with impact in the continental United States.

VOICE: Have we seen dead people fall?

VOICE: No.

VOICE: Is this real?
(music)

VOICE: Chi-Com is asking for the launch instructions right now.

VOICE: I'm going to need you to breathe. You're talking about hitting a bullet with a bullet.

VOICE: So what's the point? Us. That's what $50 million buys you!

VOICE: Get in the car, and just start driving.

VOICE: If we do not take steps to neutralize our enemies, now, we will lose our window to do so!

VOICE: If we get this wrong, none of us are going to be alive tomorrow.

VOICE: We did everything right. Right?
(music)

VOICE: We did everything right!

VOICE: None of this makes sense. Making all these bombs and all these planets.
(music)

GLENN: It is --

VOICE: The world is just ready to blow.

GLENN: It is remarkable. House of Dynamite on Netflix.

I'm talking to the screenwriter. The screenwriter and the movie maker, Noah Oppenheim. Noah, there's one part of this I don't understand.

And maybe this is what would make me a bad president.

Because I would say, I am not striking until that thing hits. And we know that it's hit.

And it's blown up one of our cities. And then I'm going to wait. And I'm going to say immediately to the world. Everyone in the world, you isolate, and -- and take action against this guy. Or I will have no other response.

I have no choice, than hit him back.

But I would take the one hit, in order to try to save the whole world.

Why can't the president wait?

Why is it this constant, you've got to launch before it hits?

Why?

NOAH: I don't think that would make you a bad president at all.

I think that's a perfectly reasonable response to the situation.

I think that the counterpoint would be the -- the argument made by one of our characters. The generals in STRATCOM, who says, if you don't -- now that the genie is out of the bottle.

Right?

Now that somebody has kind of broken this nuclear stalemate that's existed for the last 70 years. That if we don't -- it is now increasingly dangerous. It is increasingly more likely that more weapons logical be launched our way.

We've now entered into what they call a spiral of alerts. Where bays that missile. The one missile is coming towards us. We then raise our level of military readiness. Start mobilizing forces. As soon as we start mobilizing our various forces around the world.

Everybody else does too. Now the nuclear genie is potentially out of the bottle. And do we want to wait and see if more missiles are sent our way. Or do we want to try to make sure that it stops with this one.

And take out the other -- you're enemy's arsenals and command and control systems, before they can potentially launch more.

I agree with you. It's perfectly reasonable to say, I'll take that chance.

There are more coming.

But I want to see what happens with this one first. Somebody else might say, don't take that chance. What are the odds it's only one?

Let's hit everyone else's missiles while they're still in their silos, and their bombers while they're still on the ground and make sure that we limit our losses to just this one city.

GLENN: Jeez. Once you do that, it's over anyway. Once you do that.

NOAH: Yes. That's arguably the insanity of the nuclear deterrent.

Which is once you do -- it's -- it's we destroy the entire world, as a means of defending ourselves.

GLENN: Yeah. Noah, great job. I hope there's a sequel. I would love to see what the president -- what he would choose. Noah Oppenheim.

The -- the show is, a House of Dynamite.