RADIODecember 27, 2023

How a new Biden rule will CRUSH small businesses

Former investment banker Carol Roth recently warned in a Blaze Media op-ed that "32 million small businesses are about to get blindsided." She joins Glenn to break down a new rule that goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. On paper, the Corporate Transparency Act is marketed as a way to prevent against money laundering. But in reality, the act — which suspiciously only targets the smallest of small businesses — is full of traps that could land entrepreneurs in jail. Carol explains this 2-pronged attack that not only makes operating a small business a legal nightmare, but also sets up "a massive data collection program." Carol also clears up the confusion about what the Federal Reserve's 2024 interest rate predictions would mean for average Americans.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So I was just trying to explain to Stu at the top of the hour we were talking about what you were talking about. And I want to start with what the fed did.

Because right now, if you look at the poll numbers, that are coming out, from all of the swing states, it's pretty dark news, for Joe Biden.

STU: Yeah. New Bloomberg poll that is out today of the swing states. Real quick, we'll go through them.

Wisconsin, Trump 45, Biden 41. Georgia, Trump 49, Biden 43.

Michigan, Trump 46, Biden 42.

Pennsylvania, Trump 46, Biden 44.

Nevada, Trump 47, Biden 44.

North Carolina, Trump 49. Biden 40.

And Arizona, Trump 46, Biden 42.

GLENN: That's not good.

STU: If you're Joe Biden.

GLENN: If you're Joe Biden.

And that comes from Bidenomics.

People are just not believing it.

However, what the fed did, yesterday, by saying, they're going to lower the interest rate three times next year.

Doesn't that mean more free money is coming out. And it will -- it will juice things to make people feel better for the short-term.

CAROL: Okay. So a couple of things. First, what happened yesterday, was they decided they would hold rates steady.

They did something called the dot plot, which is an expectation of the members, of where they think interest rates will be. And from that projection.

It was extrapolated, that that there could be three interest rate cuts next year.

GLENN: Okay.

CAROL: Now, that being said, what the members project is always wrong.

So some of -- I know this is shocking news you to.

GLENN: Yeah. Right.

Wow. What a surprise.

CAROL: Now, they're economists. They couldn't project their way out of a paper bag if they tried. So this is an expectation, that if everything were to stay on the trajectory that they think with the same variables today, that they would be in a position, to normalize rates.

And what that is telling you. Is that they think by that point in time, the monetary policy, will have worked its way through the system. That will inflation coming close to their target. Probably not their target. And that they will try to normalize interest rates.

It doesn't mean that -- this particular statement, is it not mean that they're going to print additional money.

It's just a shift in the interest rate.

That being said, there are other factors, that could lead to all of that happening. But this is just, you know, hey.

We have no idea what's going on, but we want you to put something out there. By the way, as you led in with Stu's poll numbers, that could perhaps create some more optimism for people.

To say, oh, well, things are getting better. Maybe you should vote for Joe Biden.

GLENN: Sure. Correct. Correct.

And that's -- you know, this is the one thing that the fed can do. They can raise the interest rates.

They can tighten money. And they can make a politician's life and reelection hell or happy.

It is really -- this is why you don't ever tie these two things together with politics. But they have. They have. So we'll see what happens.

CAROL: They have.

But it's wild. If you think about what's happened, we've been in this massive tightening cycle. And you have the indices. One of them, hitting an all-time high. And two of them getting close back to all-time highs.

That's sort of the opposite, that what should be happening with policies. You have this weird thing of what's going on, where you have this magnificent seven tech stocks, that are at this point, more than a quarter of the S&P 500 is the largest chunk that seven stocks have ever accounted for, in terms of the stock market. In terms of S&P 500 before. And so they are driving the narrative.

You know, if you pulled that out, and you normalize things. Things look very, very different. So you're getting this kind of disparate story. Something that would probably be very different. And look a lot more like last year, if people weren't so all in on AI and all of these promises.

GLENN: Yeah. And so here's the -- by the way, I don't know if you've seen the AI newscast. Have you seen this yet?

Came out yesterday.

Do we even have that? Do we have that polled yet?

No. I just we'll have to do that tomorrow. There's a new AI newscast. All written by AI.

And delivered by AI people that look absolutely real.

And they're like, you know, don't worry about it. There's not going to be any bias. Because we're all computer generated.

Like, oh, that doesn't fill me with confidence.

Okay?

That doesn't make me feel good. But I digress. Let me talk you to about the other thing.

You wrote a great op-ed yesterday, for -- as a warning to small businesses. This makes no sense to me, if -- if you're trying to do what the government says they're trying to do.

What this looks like, is let's attack the smallest business owners, that we have in our economy. And get them to close their doors.

That's what it feels like to me. Explain what's happening.

CAROL: Yeah. It's part that. And it's part a massive data collection program, that nobody knows about. It's a rule, that goes into effect. January 1st. 2024. That no one in the small business community had heard about.

Was put on my radar by a couple of my great followers over the past couple of weeks.

I had not heard about it.

I was a small business expert, advocate, and someone who owns a small business. Nobody told me about this.

So this is the corporate transparency rule, and what they're trying to gather is beneficial owner information for businesses. And it's estimated that this could impact up to 32 million small businesses.

Including sole proprietors, that have entities. So this is focused on entities.

So if you're a single member LLC or if your business has an S Corp. Even if you don't have employees, you're impacted. And basically, what they're saying, is that you have to register, with a group that's out of the Treasury called FinCEN, which is the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network because they want to prevent money laundering, much in the way that hiring 87,000 IRS deps was meant to go after 800 billionaires. Right? That's exactly what they're --

GLENN: Right. Hang on.

But FinCEN is the group that tagged Hunter Biden that everybody ignored. Right?

CAROL: Correct. That's the irony of the timing here. Is that you have all these flags. Suspicious activity reports and the like for Hunter Biden. And the Biden family.

That were made. And went completely ignored.

But now you want to go after the small business.

And why I say going after the small business. There are all kinds of groups that are exempt.

If you are -- a lot of the different financial services are exempt. I'm guessing because they already have to register with FinCEN.

But if you are a large business and you have at least 20 employees and $5 million in revenue, you don't have to register for this time.

GLENN: Hang on just a second.

So they're going after money launderers.
What kind of crappy money launderer are you, that you're not at least making 5 million?

Hunter Biden made $5 million in one deal. What are you doing it for? You're doing it for snacks? I mean, that's ridiculous.

CAROL: You're money laundering for Doritos or something like that, just for fun and giggles.

And that's what the ridiculousness is. The burden. The invasion of privacy. The collection of small business information, which puts it at risk. Obviously, any time, not only is it a personal invasion of privacy, but it's the potential for cyber criminals to go after it.

GLENN: So what is it that they're collecting on you?

CAROL: So it's called BOI. Beneficial Ownership Information.

And so it's what you might think. It's your name, it's your address, it's all the names you do business under. It's your government ID.

So, again, you don't need ID to vote. But to be a small business, apparently you need one. So something like a driver's license or a passport. And they're going to associate all of that in this national database, so that they can track who is doing business as a small business entity.

And, again, with so many up to 32 million small businesses in this country, the benefit of potentially tracking down a few money launders, which we know, we have one, that they've done absolutely nothing about. Versus the burden this creates, in terms of privacy. There's a fee, Glenn. Surprise, surprise, $85.

And that is, if you don't need to hire someone else to make sure you do this the right way.

GLENN: And if you don't do it exactly right, a massive fine is coming your way, right?

CAROL: So not only fine, but you could also go to jail. There's a jail penalty, associated with not participating in this.

You have to not only do it the one time, which they say the initial burden is three hours. That's assuming that you know how to do this the right way.

Think about three hours, and filling out a form for a small business. That sounds pretty invasive, right?

GLENN: I don't have three hours a day. I don't have three hours to do stuff. You know.

CAROL: It comes them away from revenue-generating productive activity on some nonsense here. And then, by the way, any time something changes, it is up to you, to make sure that you keep them informed.

GLENN: Unbelievable.

CAROL: And, again, if you don't do it, in the certain period of time. Well, oh, I forgot. I moved.

Okay. Well, now FinCEN will come out.

GLENN: This is -- this is the way Germany did it.

All dictators do it.

Every time, they go so -- make so many laws, that are on your back. And on your shoulder.

That you -- you could guarantee you're breaking some law, that you may not even know about.

But they've made it so everybody is a law breaker at some level or another.

So you better not step out of line.

You better shut your mouth right now.

Because you think you can't go to jail?

Oh, really?

Did you move last year? Did you let FinCEN know about it?

CAROL: You must be a money launder. That $10,000 that you collected as a hobby mom and decided to put in an LLC structure.

GLENN: Let me give you one more thing on this. This is being blamed.

This isn't Joe Biden. This is not Joe Biden.

And it's not. It happened, I believe in January 2020. So Donald Trump was still in office.

It went -- it went to his desk. Both houses voted for it.

It went to his desk. He vetoed it and said it was insanity.

He vetoed it.

It went back. Both houses passed his veto.

And then it was -- it was lost.

So this isn't Donald Trump's fault. This isn't Joe Biden's fault. This is the Congress and the Senate.

I don't know what they're getting out of this. Except more information on you.

But it is wrong.

CAROL: It is. And I think it's something we have to really try hard to repeal. If you're an existing business, you have all year. You have, you know, one full year, in order to comply. If you're a new business. You start a new business, it's 30 days. Old businesses. Existing businesses. Entities. Have the whole year.

GLENN: Where do you even go?

CAROL: Well, I put a statement in, and the last house and small business committee, on the record, that said, this needs to be a top priority.

So the house of small business committee. This is on their radar.

And we need to be picking up our phone. And calling up our representatives. And particularly if you own a small business. And say, this needs to stop.

There is absolutely no benefit to this.

And all it does, it amasses data collection against small businesses. That will make it harder for people to start. And operate. And create more penalties. And shift the landscape, again, in favor of big businesses.

So I am impersonally not going to look at clients until at least the back half of next year, and try to do everything possible, to get this repealed.

How a pacifist pastor became Hitler’s fiercest enemy

Tucker Carlson recently claimed that Dietrich Bonhoeffer decided “Christianity is not enough” when he took part in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler. Was Tucker right? Glenn Beck, who has studied Bonhoeffer in-depth, dives into the full story of Bonhoeffer and his struggle with these same questions…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: I'll bring this up. Tucker did a podcast yesterday, that I listened to, or a couple of days. Whatever. You know, I listened to it yesterday.

And -- and the reason why I listened to it is because so many friends are like, he's talking about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Glenn. Blah, blah, blah.

And I don't want to get into -- I'm not going to talk about personalities. I just want to talk about facts. You draw your own conclusion about who you listen to. And you can listen to them or not listen to them. That's fine. But let's make sure we correct facts and not make it about personalities.

Okay. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of my heroes. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of the greatest men to ever live. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a Christian pastor. And let me set it up this way. When the Third Reich grew, and the Weimar republic collapsed, there was this -- there was this -- this movement in Christianity that happened quickly. Within the first year of the end of the Weimar and the beginning of the Nazi regime, within a year, 60 percent of the churches ridded themselves of everything Jewish. Okay? Now, that's hard to do when your main hero figure is a Jew! And the entire history, that said, hey. He's coming, is also written by Jews! Okay?

It's the Old Testament. And, by the way, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They were Jews too! So it's hard to rinse the Jew out of the Judeo-Christian world. But somehow or another, they did it. Sixty percent. Okay?

They've gotten rid of, including many churches, already had gone for it and gotten rid of the Old Testament. That is something that Hitler's people were really pushing for: Get rid of the Old Testament. Well, you have nothing left, if you don't have the Old Testament with the New Testament!

So the world had gone insane. The Christian world had gone insane. Within six months, many, if not most of the churches had replaced the picture of Christ on the altar, with a picture of Adolf Hitler. So he changed the fabric of Christianity, entirely. And he was going after any pastor, priest, anybody, who was preaching something different. Okay? There were a couple of pastors. One played along with it at first. Pastor Niemöller. And he was like, "At first they came for this, and I didn't say anything, and then they came for this."

He didn't say anything at first. Then he -- then he got in -- and he's like, oh, I should do it. But he was praised in the end, for his unwavering faith. He actually stood.

And he actually -- he was -- one of the guys who preached that the Nazis were not to blame alone. They played their role.

But may I quote, would the Nazis been able to do what they would have done, if church members would have been truly faithful Christians. The answer is, no!

Truly faithful.

Now, Tucker said yesterday, that he doesn't think that Bonhoeffer was -- I don't remember the exact lines. I'll probably get it wrong.

Do we have it?

Okay. Go ahead and play it.

VOICE: We really have no choice, but to start shooting them. To be Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And sort of reach the end of reason or even Christianity.

Bonhoeffer decided, Christianity is -- he's a Lutheran pastor.

Christianity is not enough. We have to kill the guy. Not judging Bonhoeffer. He was a great man in some ways.

But, I mean, that's inevitable, once we decide that people are Nazis.

GLENN: Okay. So his point here, he's making about, we have to stop calling people Nazis.

And he's absolutely right. You have to stop calling people Nazis or shooting against them. Exactly right, unless they're actual Nazis. You know what I mean?

I mean, there's a difference between saying, hey. We should not call people Nazis, who are not Nazis, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer shouldn't have called Hitler a Nazi. He was the Nazi.

He's the idyllic Nazi. He's the king of all Nazis. He's a Nazi!

So when it is a Nazi, I think you can call people Nazis.

But, yeah. That does require you then to make a choice.

And that's where Bonhoeffer found himself.

This guy was an amazing man. He was a pacifist. He did not believe in war. He did not believe in killing. He -- and that's how he skated for a long time. Because he was saying, quiet. Quiet. Quiet.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Do not involve yourself in this. God does not want us to kill each other. He was a huge pacifist. His story goes back and forth. You have to read the Bonhoeffer book by Eric Metaxas.

But he goes back and forth. He comes to the United States. He sees faith in action, actually in Harlan. And kind of has this renewed kind of faith experience. He goes back to Germany. He's there for a while.

He knows now that Hitler is -- because he's helping Jews escape. And he knows Hitler is on it!

And he's going to -- he's closing in on him. He's going to get him. He leaves. He comes to the United States. He's here, and he starts feeling guilty. Like, I can't leave my own country. I have to stand! I can't leave and hide!

I've got to stand. So he goes back to Germany. I think on the last vote, that is going into Germany, and he gets to Germany. And he starts plotting Valkyrie. He's part of Project Valkyrie.

Valkyrie is the Tom Cruise movie you've seen, von Stauffenberg, a huge German hero, who was not a Nazi, but he was a German soldier who decided, "Oh, this has got to stop."

And they planned with a lot of people who said, "We've got to stop Hitler." Because look at what he's doing. He's destroying everything, and he's killing millions. And it's got to stop.

And Bonhoeffer, when he got back, he was wrestling with his pacifism. He was a pacifist. A strong one. He really believed that God said, no. No, fighting.

No war. Nothing.

You're not allowed to kill.

But the evil that he saw was so overwhelming, that he started questioning everything that he believed.

And ins class, because he would -- he was teaching these young pastors coming up. In his class, he started saying things to the class members, so if a pacifist saw something that was so evil, you needed to stop it, would it be okay?

And then they would argue. And the class didn't have any idea. He was working it out with the class in his own head.

He was working it out.

How do I work this.

How can I -- am I a Christian. If I do this.

He got to the point to where he said, if you knew of a pacifist, that you respected. And they did get involved in that. Would you still be their friend?

Would you still respect them?

Are they still Christians?

Okay. He's looking to work this out. And he struggled with it.
Hitler grabs him. Puts him in -- in prison.

He's in prison for a long time.

And the only reason why he survived as long as he did, he came from a very famous family.

And so Hitler really didn't feel like he had the juice to kill him. Without causing him other problems.

But he escaped for a while. And he was in prison. He wrote some beautiful stuff.

One of the most beautiful homilies on marriage, that I've ever read, is from him.

He was a guy who didn't get married.

He was going to get married.

But knew what was going to happen to him. But didn't want to endanger her, so he didn't get married. So he didn't know anything about marriage, except what he had read. What he thought about and read in Scriptures. And he writes this beautiful homily, because he's supposed to give the sermon at his sister's wedding. The Nazis won't let him out to do it. He writes it. It's read at her wedding. It's absolutely beautiful. And deep, deep, deep.

He's in prison for a while. He's now -- it's -- it's, you know, coming up to April 1945. Hitler dies in April 1945.

And everything is falling apart. And so the Nazis start kind of cleaning up the death camps. And they start transferring people. And -- and Bonhoeffer is supposed to be let free. And he gets on to this bus, you know, driven by the Nazis. And he's being transferred to where he will be released. Well, on the way, the tire goes out, and they don't have a spare. And so they're sitting on the edge of the road, and they got all these prisoners.

And these -- this other bus is coming. The other direction. And they're like, "Hey, where are you going?"

They said, "Well, we're going to this camp." Great. Will you just take these prisoners with you? Here's the paperwork and everything else.

Here's the prisoners. You just take them with you. So all the prisoners, who were there, including Bonhoeffer, who was supposed to be released, go to this other death camp. And now he's sitting there on this death camp and waiting for death.

And not supposed to be.

And in that, he is preaching Christ to the guy who did all of the experiments, on the Jews, you know, freezing them. Bringing them up, at high altitude. Until their his pop. All the horrible experiments.

Everything that is now in every hospital in the world.

The book about hypothermia and everything else.

It's the number one book on what the human body can do and how you fix things.

Number one.

It's in every hospital.

Every doctor has it. That was written by that Nazi.

He released it, without Hitler's permission. Because he thought it was such a gift to the world. And he went to prison. Because Hitler said, we're not trying to save the world. We're saving German soldiers.

Puts him in prison. The guy is a vile guy, as you can imagine. He's in, I think a French spy. This woman, she's a double agent. So they're in this cell, with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And he's preaching to them. And they're just vile with each other, in front of him!

He keeps his cool. Keeps who he is.

Comes up to -- a couple of weeks before Hitler is going to kill himself. And they come, and they're going to execute everybody in that cell. So they go out, and the only reason why we know how Dietrich Bonhoeffer died and when he died is because of the way he acted. He went out. They took him out to the would see. And they had built a hanging platform. And one by one, they brought him up. Put the noose around their neck. Trapdoor. They died! Cut them down. Next one. Bring them up. Put the noose around their neck. Trap terror. Opens. They die!

Bonhoeffer, when he comes up, he comes up to the platform, and the guy who is putting the noose around his neck, he says, something like, thank you for your kindness.

Okay?

And the guy is like, what know.

Everybody else is freaking out. Everybody else is, you know.

And he says, "Thank you for your kindness."

He tightens the noose. Pulls the trapdoor. Dead.

He remembers that one guy. And remembers, that was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I don't know if he knew who Dietrich Bonhoeffer was at the time.

But he knew him, because of that "thank you." He died like a very valiant man. Okay?

In a way, I don't know if I could. What is the difference between when you confront evil, when you see evil. I mean, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the guy who said, "Silence in the face of evil is evil itself."

God will not hold us blameless.

Not to act is to act. Okay?

That comes from a deep, deep spiritual place.

What is the difference between that and Thomas Jefferson? Saying, "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God?"

Do you, as a Christian have a responsibility to kill Hitler, if you had the opportunity with not Baby Hitler. Baby Hitler hasn't committed any crime. You're seeing this death machine. And you've tried everything you can to stop it.

Do you have a responsibility as a Christian to stop the evil? I think you do! I think silence in the face of evil is evil itself.

Not to act, is to act. You know, for -- for evil to happen, it's -- it will happen when good men do nothing!

We know that. We have a responsibility to act. But we have a responsibility to do everything Christ-like that we can, first. But you get into this place, to where, you know, whoa unto those who call evil good and good evil.

Everybody starts to confuse the language. Right?

And that's what's happening right now. Everybody is calling everybody a fascist or Hitler.

Everybody calls everybody a Nazi. And so there's no meaning on words.

We can't forget what words actually mean or we will wind up calling good evil and evil good!

That's what happened to so many Christians.

They did nothing. They just went along with it. They just played along, and then it became them! Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a great, great man.

A Christian giant!

And a man who fought real evil, and wrestled with it!

We squabble on the internet. And I don't want to add to that.

All I want to do is make sure that we talk about the facts as they are, so we don't lose our way as everything gets jumbled.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

The RETURN of a Hidden Biblical Alien Race? | Timothy Alberino | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 274

What did Jesus really know about the Book of Enoch and the Nephilim giants? Does the Bible hint at “extraterrestrials” cohabiting with mankind in a forgotten golden age? Glenn Beck sits down with ‪@TimothyAlberino‬ for a mind-blowing conversation that connects the dots from Genesis 6 to the coming post-human apocalypse. As futurists like Yuval Harari openly declare the end of humanity, gene editing, artificial wombs, IVF, and transhumanism are rapidly remaking man in a new image. Alberino issues a chilling wake-up call to Christians: “There’s only one qualification for redemption at the cross of Christ — you must be human.” Are we about to sell our birthright for a bowl of stew and step into a nightmarish dystopian future where humanity itself becomes obsolete? Does transhumanism threaten our eternal salvation? Is our humanity worth preserving? Anchor yourself in the gospel — this explosive episode is a spiritual red alert you cannot afford to miss.

Is giving $2000 checks to Americans a good idea?

President Trump has floated the idea of giving low- and middle-income Americans $2000 checks from the profits of his tariffs. But is this a good idea? Glenn and Stu debate…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Good, there's a couple of stories that I think, you know, are worth talking about.

The -- the tariff checks. Which I don't really like. We can talk about that. Also, there's new update on the Jeffrey Epstein thing, that I don't know what it means.

STU: Which one -- where do you want to start? Let me ask you a couple of questions, the 2,000-dollar stimulus check, or the 50-year mortgage idea? Which one is -- if you had to pick one, which one would you pick?

GLENN: If I had to pick one, I would pick the 2,000-dollar tariff check.

STU: Really?

GLENN: I think I would pick the 50-year mortgage. To me, the 50-year mortgage should be available, if some bank wants to offer it. I don't know what the government has to do with any of this.

If a bank wants to say, hey, 50-year mortgage, here you go.

Take that risk. Trust someone will pay you back for 50 years. Okay!

GLENN: I want the money. I want the money.

STU: You want the money?

I've got now for you, Glenn, you're not going to be in the category that receives that money, you'll be paying for it, not receiving it.

GLENN: I'll never get it. Yeah.

STU: But, no. Neither one of those two stories are -- are my favorites. And --

GLENN: Yeah. I don't like -- I don't want to be writing checks.

You know, I don't want to be -- you know, the money is never really the money. It's never -- it's not that we have excess. You know, we've got -- whatever he says. $3 billion. Great. Can we apply that directly to the debt? How about that one?

But he knows he's in trouble. He knows he's in trouble. He can't turn the economy around as quickly as he did the last time.

It's not 2016 anymore. And so, you know, everybody was expecting and voting for him to turn things around. And the price of gas has gone down. The price of eggs have gone down. But you're still -- now we're at 3 percent inflation. Well, okay.

What about going the other direction?

Getting prices down to where they were in 2020?

And gas has done that. But verify other things have done that.

STU: And I think, understandably, it's a central part of his platform.

The tariffs have been a big focus.

He's talked a lot about it. It's also one of those things that, you know, there's a lot of disagreement on.

So I think that's where he's drawn, right? That's him. He likes being in the fight.

He likes being out there talking about these things.

GLENN: Yep. Yep.

STU: So that, I think has -- because it's not a particularly popular issue. He's made it his economic approval ratings, be more difficult, I think. And I think people are feeling, you know, some of the stuff, being echoes from previous administration.

You know, with the spending, and everything else. That's still the major cause of price increases, not tariffs, as of yet.

Some of that, you know, isn't helpful as well.

You try to throw two thousands of individuals dollars to people.

Again, I don't know that that will pass.

You can't just do it.

That's not something that he can just do on his own. He can't just hand out thousands of dollars in checks, I don't think.

GLENN: I hope not.

STU: I haven't seen a financial justification for that, so I don't think that's what he's even planning.

I'm sure he's planning on trying to get something passed to do that, if that comes up. But you're right. We don't have the money.

You know, I don't -- I'm not a person who wants to solve our debt problems with increased, quote, unquote, revenues to government.

I don't think that's the correct way to do it.

But if you have those revenues, just, things are going great, you get more money in.

You're right. I would rather have that dished out toward the debt. At least as long as there is a long-term plan to address it.

I don't know that paying, you know, 1 percent or 2 percent of our debt off, is even better than honestly just dishing out a bunch of money to people.

But I will say, it is what we would refer to as a -- you think it's a -- there's wealth.

It is going from one place to another.

And we are redistributing, and that is what is occurring here.

It used to be something we had a big problem with. It's just, again, something he threw out, maybe it's not even a hard-core proposal.

But we should be concerned about going down that path, long-term.

GLENN: What is -- what is he going to do? Honestly, what can he do?

STU: Well, we talked about this a little bit yesterday. And one thing we didn't get a chance to get to. That I would love to get your thoughts on, is I think this is one of the reasons he's really embraced going all in on AI. I think he sees this, and the opportunity of leading the world in AI, as a way to grow the economy out of the problems that we're facing here, and that's usually his approach. You think that's part of it?

GLENN: Oh, it's always his approach.

Yeah, I think that's 100 percent what it is. He's been convinced that this is the future.
And, you know, if that works, and we're the leader in it, then we will grow our way out.

Because of the taxes and the jobs and everything else.

And we could dwarf through, you know, a really robust economy. We could grow and grow and grow.

Where even just this debt, it doesn't seem so bad.

That's absolutely his plan. But that's a long way away, getting there.

Did you see the story in Texas about the -- the server farm that's all built, ready to go?

They're still working on the power plant. But they have all the permits. And they're actually building the power plant. Did you see that?

STU: No.

GLENN: In Texas. They don't have anybody taking it yet.

STU: What do you mean? They built a server farm with no company attached to it?

GLENN: No company attached to it. Texas is -- and it's not a Texas thing. It's, you know, a bunch of billionaire Texans. They're like, we'll build you a severer farm.

And so they're building these buildings with power plants. Because they want all of them to be in Texas.

And they're saying, don't panic. But you would think that there would there would have been takers for that immediately. And, you know, it's been offered, and nobody has snapped it up, yet.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: That concerns me a bit.

STU: Obviously, there's a lot of economic considerations as to -- you have to figure out what the cost is, and there's a lot to consider there.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: But it's interesting. I mean, there is a theory, that this is really going to be a bubble, and we're going to see a situation like we did in 2000, where the internet kind of blew up on everybody. And it's not that AI. The internet never came. Right?

It's certainly a big part of our lives. Maybe all of your life. If I happen to be under the age of 30 or so.

The internet came. It did change the world.

But it took a while. And we had a collapse before it really did what everyone was promising what it was going to do.

GLENN: So I told you yesterday, I'm reading 1929. The new book.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: 1929. It is fabulous.

You've got to listen to it. Or read it.

It's just fabulous.

But they're describing what the exuberance was like in 1929.

And how, you know, it's never going to go down. It's never going to go down.

Do you know?

Look at all the things on the horizon.

Look at all the technology that's happening. Look at the people that are moving in.

We have so many cars. And so many refrigerators to sell. And everything is changing. And it's just up and up and up and up. And everybody bought into it.

I mean, it was -- I knew the run-up to the crash of '29 was bad with exuberance. I had no idea it was this bad.

I mean, they were openly calling it stock gambling.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: People were -- people were taking money, borrowing money.

And then they would invest it in a company. But they would watch it as it would go during the day. And they would make several trades, you know, in a week. Because I hear this one is hot. And we'll gain a little here. Then we'll pull it out. And put money here.

I mean, it was gambling. It was literally gambling. And it was just consuming everybody. And the real problem is the banks decides that they would give loans for playing the stock market. And so all of these banks are just so over-leveraged. And I kind of feel like that's what it is here. You know, we're really excited about the future of AI. Some of us are also equally as terrified. But it is going to happen. I just don't know how it's going to happen, and when it's going to happen.

And there just seems to be so much money sloshing around in the system.

And we don't even have the power units.

You see, there's another server farm that's just been built.

And it's sitting empty.

It's been sitting empty for a while.

It's in California. A, nobody wants to build a server farm in California. B, they didn't connect it to its own power plant.

So California, you can't put -- really?

You're going to suck all that energy, when you really have brownouts?

And then the server farms will just go down every once in a while?

That's completely unworkable.

STU: Let me interrupt real quick, from Gavin Newsom, 2028.

I mean, there's never been a man more clearly running for President, and also, you know, this is a guy, we need people to be aware of what it's like in California. And what they're dealing with there.

You're right. It would be insane. To build these types of facilities there. Knowing what California will likely do to you.

You're right. I think we both have the same concerns on AI.

There's a lot of that, that comes along with it.

But, you know, there is a lot of promise as well.

There will probably be really good developments that come out of it.

It will take over the world, and do all the major things that they say, they will do, along with a lot of really terrible ones just like the i Phone.

But, you know, the bad there is not -- it's not linear. It's not this wonderful upswing. Something is going to happen.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: And you look at the way our economy is structured right there. Wow, the bet is big on AI. I mean, it's really the only bet anyone is making right now.

GLENN: I know. Can I switch topics here for a second?

Sotheby's is having a -- a big auction. And something really, really important in the art world is going up for sale.

It is a solid 18-carat gold toilet.

Now, not the toilet that you might have heard before. That one was stolen. They never found it. It's just the gold is worth $10 million.

It's going up for sale. This artist, he's some, you know, cultural phenomena according to Sotheby's. He took gold, melted it down, and made it into a gold throne. Okay?

Apparently, it's a statement on the excess of capitalism. Yeah.

But I think the real statement isn't in the art. I think the real statement is in us.

You know, have you ever heard of Duchamp, Stu?

He was an artist in the 1920s. And he did a -- a urinal. And he was making fun of the art world.

And he just took a urinal out of -- out of a men's restroom and then put it on the wall and called it art. And he was mocking the art world. Mocking them, saying, you know, you're -- you call anything art.

And, you know, as long as you like it, then it goes up on value. Well, the art world critics decided, well, two can play that game. We love that. That is art. That is beautiful art.

And it became one of the most famous art pieces around. Now they're doing it with the toilet. Which should just tell everybody, you know, this whole thing is a con.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: It's a con. The art world is a con.

STU: And this comes from the 100th most important person in the world of art.

GLENN: Thank you.

STU: As named by Art something magazine, several years ago. Glenn Beck.

GLENN: Yeah. My favorite magazine.

STU: It was Art something magazine. But you ever notice how a lot of statements against capitalism end up in the person making the statement with a lot of money?

GLENN: Uh-huh.

STU: That seems to happen a lot.

GLENN: I have noticed that. I have noticed that. Wow.

STU: It's like all these Hollywood movies that make these grand statements against capitalism wind up lining their pockets with millions of dollars. It's so strange how that happens.

GLENN: Yeah, but they hate it. And they hate themselves when they have to spend it.

They just hate themselves.

You know, this artists, he just hates capitalism. But somehow or another. He got enough.

Remember, the last toilet sold for the same.

So the last toilet was like $10 million. So he had $10 million. Then that toilet was stolen.
And so he's made another one, with another ten million dollars' worth of gold.

So this starving artist, somehow or another has coughed up $20 million to bake two gold toilets. But he hates capitalism and rich people.

They're just so horrible.

I have MAJOR QUESTIONS after Tucker Carlson’s Thomas Crooks exposé

Tucker Carlson recently revealed new information about the attempted Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks that appears to debunk the narrative that he had practically no online presence. Glenn reviews the new evidence and asks the questions we NEED answers to.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Let me walk you through some things that Tucker Carlson has just released. And I want you to hear it. Not as partisan, you, but as -- as an American, who I think deserves straight answers. Because there's -- there's something happening in our country, and we all know it.

And it's easy for us to get lost and go town can the road of conspiracies.

And, you know, one of my favorite lines from John Kennedy, you know, Senator John Kennedy is, we need some new conspiracy theories.

Because the old ones, all turned out to be right.

And we don't need new conspiracy theories. What we need are conspiracy facts.

And we are starting to see the outline of something that does not -- should not make everybody feel really good.

And I'll get into that here in just a second.

But first, the more we learn about Thomas Matthew Crooks, this is the would-be assassin, that got within an inch.

A refraction of an inch of killing President Trump, the story bends in Washington.

And when a story bends forever, that -- that tells me somebody is very, very busy trying to keep it from breaking.

From day one, the FBI, and the cheerleaders in the mainstream media.

MSNBC, CNN, the whole alphabets, all pushed one story line. Crooks was pro-Trump. Anti-immigration. A fringe right-winger radicalized by MAGA memes. Remember that?

That's what the Biden administration said about him. Then we never heard anything else.

Because the story is incomplete. And as we're finding out now. It's also, very, very misleading.

We were told over and over again, he had almost no online footprint. How many times did you hear that, Stu?

He had almost no online footprint.

STU: Yeah. I do remember, as you kind of mentioned. Bits and pieces, came out. He said this. It wasn't a prolific poster.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. And how did this guy come up this sophisticated way of coming up to kill without any online footprint?

Okay. So apparently, there's a very large footprint. He had a discord account. He had a Snapchat account.

He was extremely active on YouTube. His comment history.

And that's where things start to get really, really strange.

So let me take you through the phases of the guy who tried to kill Donald Trump.

Here's phase one.

In 2019, violent, yes.

But directed at Democrats.

In 2019, Crooks' YouTube comments were violent. Very violent. No question.

But they were directed almost entirely to anti-Trump people. And democratic officials.

When I say violent, he was talking about decapitations.

And shootings, taking out government officials.

Now, we all know. I mean, you may not know. I know, but you may just feel like, of course. That's happening.

The government is monitoring everything. Okay?

There are key words. Decapitation of fill in the politician. That shows up!

That rings alarm bells.

If you are talking about violent things, and politics, you get on a list. It's just -- and, you know, you should get on a list. You're talking about things like this.

Taking out government officials. You should. The government should be monitoring stuff like that. Now, remember, this isn't a period when the US government -- we later have learned, was monitoring social media more aggressively than any other point in US history. Okay?

They were looking for these kinds of things. People were arrested for memes! At this time.

But Crooks, nothing. Nothing.

Not a warning. Not a knock on the door. Not the one single action.

Why?

Why?

Because he at that time, apparently was a MAGA reporter.

Why was there no knock on his door.

Now he has a pivot. And I'm not really sure why this happened. Something happened.

And it might have been COVID. Here's the part of the story, no one ever told you.

In 2020, Crooks' online comments, they flip, and they flip dramatically. Suddenly, he is violently anti-Trump. He has anti-Trump supporters.
And, again, still extremely violent. But the FBI and the media, why did they only report the first half of the story.

The half that fit the predetermined story line.

I think we all know, that's the way the system was working.

Why leave out the part where he abruptly becomes very anti-Trump?

Why not tell the American people the whole truth?

Why frame him exclusively as a pro-Trump radical, when the -- when the data clearly contradicts this.

He was. And then he wasn't. You tell me!

Okay. Then enters somebody we don't know who this is. Named Willie Tepes. T-E-P-E-S.

He's the ghost in the machine. Around the same time of the flip, a bizarre online persona appears in Crooks' orbit.

Willie Tepes. Now, this account begins encouraging Crooks' violence, openly, agreeing with assassinations, approving of attacks on government officials.

But here's the kicker. The name Willie Tepes, appears on a national socialist website in Sweden. Now, we don't know if that's the Willie Tepes. But that's the one you can find online.

And we know for a fact, that the State Department, and the intelligence community monitor these circles aggressively.

Okay?

So now you're -- you have our State Department.

We have our intelligence community.

That is monitoring people online, especially Nazis.

In the rest of the world.

And Nazis here. And yet, there's nothing!

Not a single red flag is triggered. Not a single investigation. No monitoring. No intervention.

So why was this FBI monitoring, you know, Catholic churches and priests?

But nothing on Thomas Matthews Crooks. Why?

You're going to have to draw your own conclusions.

And I honestly don't know -- I have fears. But I don't know the reason!

Now, here's where his YouTube history goes absolutely insane!

As the assassination attempt nears, Crooks' search history explodes.

Tucker laid this out.

He searched Trump hundreds of times.

He searched Jack Ruby. He searched bomb making. Car attacks. Sniper attacks. Successful assassinations. How to escape police gunfire. All of these things should ring every NSA alarm bell.

Nothing! Again, nothing! Not then. Not during the attempt. Not afterward. They didn't try to stop him. They didn't stop him. They didn't prevent or try to prevent. They didn't warn anyone.

Instead, as soon as he was shot, they rushed out a narrative. A very specific narrative.

And then they shut down anything that conflicted with it!

Okay. If that's not weird enough, here's where it gets even more unusual. The FBI -- Trump's own FBI at the time, kept all of Crooks' shifting political and violent history quiet.

Okay. I understand it. When it's Biden's FBI.

But now Trump's FBI.

Now, why didn't Trump's FBI immediately come out. Because I know that you have tan Bongino.

We have it on tape, where he is saying, the guy had no footprint. No digital footprint.

And he's in -- he's being questioned in front of the Senator or the House.

And he's like, look, that's not possible.

There's no way this 20 something-year-old had no digital footprint.

Well, now, he's second in command at the FBI. He would know this!

Why didn't the FBI do anything?

And I want to be really careful on Trump's FBI, or Biden's FBI.

Because I'm not sure there is a difference anymore.

I want you to think of the FBI, and this Deep State, I want you to think of an iceberg.

Okay?

You see an iceberg. And you see just the top of it.

Two-thirds of that is under the water. So we're seeing the tops change. And we're seeing people put in at the top. And we're like, oh, the iceberg is different now. But I'm not sure that anybody has any idea how deep that iceberg goes. So I'm not even -- I'm not willing to blame the people up at the top.

I'm -- I'm questioning, does anyone know how deep this goes. Because I don't think it matters, who is running it. Even more bizarre, they suddenly release the body for cremation. There's no extended autopsy. There's no forensic review. There's no independent experts. It's just all gone. And the crime scene is washed and scrubbed.

It's all washed. Literally washed and scrubbed, before a full reconstruction can be done. Why would you do that?

You don't do that in a presidential assassination attempt. You don't do that in a local homicide case.

Unless, you want something gone.

Unless you want something buried.

Unless you want a narrative. And only that narrative. To survive.

So that's what Tucker laid out today.

Now, based on this, there are questions that need to be asked.

And so let me give you the questions that I have, that need to be asked, and we must demand answers! You feel the republic slipping through your fingers. If we do not correct these things, we have -- we do not have a government of, by, and for the people.

We don't. You must answer these questions. We must demand these questions be answered.

Okay. So let's start with some questions, that have to be asked, just on this case.

Why did the FBI present only the early pro Trump posts?

And they hid the anti-Trump phase?

There's two answers that need to be had. The first one is under Biden.

And I think we know the answer to that. They were building a narrative. Okay.

But it should be asked and answered.

Why did that happen?

Who was involved in that decision?

Then you have to say, okay. After that election, why did the FBI still toe that line. Who made that decision?

Next, we know they're monitoring people. And I'm for the government, finding, hey, how do I build a bomb? How do I get away from an assassination scene?

Successful assassinations, and where are these political people being, you know -- where are they going to be in the future?

That is -- that should be tied together by an algorithm. And it should be notified, so somebody is watching this.

Okay?

We know it's already being done. So why did they ignore Crooks' really unbelievable threats. When ordinary Americans were arrested for memes, why was he completely ignored?

Why did the intelligence agency monitoring extremism somehow miss a kid, openly fantasizing about assassinations?

And then connecting with some guy, it looks like, is from Sweden, who is part of a big Nazi movement over in Sweden.

Why was that ignored?

Why did they clean the scene prematurely?

Why was every digital trace of his political shift kept out of the public discussion? Why did they say he had almost no footprint, when the footprint looks to be really, really large. It was just scrubbed!

Why did every single mistake that our FBI and government made, why does it seem to point in the same direction.

Towards ignorance? Negligence. Hiding inconvenient at that time.

Shaping a political narrative!

When every accident points the same way. It stops looking like an accident.

So was this incompetence?

I don't know what conclusion Tucker is pulling from all of this.

I just appreciate the information.

And I'm not telling you this is a conspiracy.

I am telling you, there is something wrong here.

There is something very wrong.

The official story is impossible to believe.

And the question every American should be asking themselves is really simple: Why would our government the same government that monitors everything, suddenly becomes blind, deaf, and mute, the moment a presidential assassin emerges on their radar. It's not a partisan question.

Because one -- under one president, you can say, oh, well, that's because they were doing -- but then when the president is changed. And this president was the one that they tried to kill. And he said, I want answers to this.

The narrative didn't change.

Why?

Why?

That's not a pro-Trump question. That is a self-preservation question.

If the -- if the government can see everything that you do, and somehow missed all of this! What does that say about our FBI and our DOJ and our CIA.

Because they all would have been involved in this. I mean, they're either lying, they're incompetent. Or they only monitor the people they want to monitor.

None of these options should help us sleep at night. Okay?

The FBI and the mainstream media, MSNBC for sure, referenced leaks from Crooks' social media, the YouTube comments that showed he was pro-Trump. And anti-immigration.

We were also told that Crooks had almost no online social footprint. But he had discord. Snapchat. Very active YouTube. His YouTube comments, in 2019, very violent, decapitating of government officials. And then something happened. He switches. Something is not right here!

I think this iceberg is way beneath the water line.

I think this thing goes so deep, I'm not sure that these -- I had a friend to me, I think the CIA is completely out of control!

And this is a guy, you would not know his name. And you wouldn't know his name for a reason.

But he was very, very highly placed, years ago.

And this is the kind of stuff he did. And he said, I don't think the CIA answers to anybody anymore.

I'm not sure that it's just the CIA. I'm not sure -- it feels a little like you can shuffle the -- the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

But it's the -- it's what's below the water line that really makes the difference, on that ship.