RADIONovember 13, 2023

How Rob Schneider went from 'ignoring God' to standing for Christ

Actor and comedian Rob Schneider recently turned 60 years old and a lot has changed since his days in Hollywood. For starters, he recently converted to Catholicism after "going through life slugging along and ignoring God." Rob joins Glenn to tell the story of his transformation and explain how seeing evil spread around the world helped bring him to Christianity. And he also explains the lessons he has learned while growing older, including why he's willing to speak out for Israel and against the woke gender movement.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So there is a broad coalition for American communities. It's gathering tomorrow.

March for Israel.

And it's happening at the national mall in Washington, D.C.

And it's to show the support for Israel and Jews.

I wish I could be there.

I could not rearrange my schedule.

But I recommend, that you go tomorrow.

I've checked this out, six ways to Sunday.

These organizations, I don't agree with on everything. But on this, I absolutely agree.

March for Israel tomorrow, at the National Mall in Washington, DC.

We have Rob on? Schneider is with us now.

You just turned 60.

Hey, old man, how you are?

GLENN: I don't know how that happened?

Do I have to join that AARP?

STU: Yeah. I know. I think you have until 65.

I think. I don't know. I'm only 59.

ROB: Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

GLENN: So I'm not old like you yet.

ROB: All right, Jr.

GLENN: So, Rob, you wrote a great article about your journey into 60. And your advice into 60.

But you also talk about you've -- you've become a practicing Catholic.

You've -- you've -- were you Christian your whole life. And just never practicing?

What's your story?

ROB: Yeah. I was kind of going through life, slugging along, ignoring God.

And pretending that there was -- you know, kind of like the atheists mistake of -- and, you know, they're my friends, atheists. But they make the mistake of thinking like this whole universe is just this gigantic thing, expanding and bumping into stuff, and meaningless.

And that we're some accidental freak of intelligence.

That just happens. And then it will all go away.

And I just think that if my buddy Norah O'Donnell said, we -- we are a small fraction of the universe.

So if there's such a thing as compassion and love and empathy, then it must be endemic to this whole thing that we exist in.

And I -- I think that that little voice of Jesus Christ, was never -- was always coming back to me, even though I was going away from him.

And then finally, I think during all of this.

And kind of more obvious. I don't know how else to say it. But kind of more obvious evil in the world.

GLENN: Yeah.

ROB: I think it kind of -- it gave me -- you know, a -- I kind of got back to it, that way. Because if there's really organized evil in the world. And I don't think it's at all more powerful.

But I do think it's here to challenge us, as individually. As a family. As a community.

And I think also, as you and I have come to really understand them.

As a nation.

GLENN: Yeah.

ROB: That I think coming to God. And realizing, his father Rick Burger said.

And some people are having a question about Christianity. Is -- in Jesus. Whatever form it is. Just for me, Catholicism works. Because it's the closest to the word. Closest to the actual word of Jesus. Through -- to the Greek and the Latin.

And that's why it works for me.

GLENN: So, but -- you know, I saw an article about this.

In -- let me look. I think it was Christianity Today.

No, ChristianPost.com. And it talked about how you're -- you know, how you're -- you have failed in the past, to show Christ's forgiveness to those who you disagree with.

And it's really beautiful stuff, that you've said about forgiving people, et cetera, et cetera.

But then it goes into, yeah.

Yeah. But he's repeatedly weighed in on LGBTQ-related issues, on his X account.

He was talking about the -- the female athlete getting spiked in the face, by a male competing with the women.

And he wrote, this has got to stop. And parents, coaches, and women athletes all refuse to play against these men. It all stops.

And then he was on the Glenn Beck Program. And he talked about gender mutilation.

And so they're trying to say, that see, you really haven't changed. Because you're not forgiving of those things.

ROB: Well, that's the difference between, Christ doesn't want us to just stand down and accept evil. And forgive evil. And looking to perpetuate.

Christ wants us to stand up against it.

You don't want to -- Christ knocked over the -- the merchants that were no longer practicing.

At the temple.

Because he -- and sewed righteous anger.

We have protect the most vulnerable members of our society. Our children.

Now, there's this weird justification that seems to be okay, for women. Now suddenly, for the, quote, progress.

That they even take a backseat to other men. And that's what these people are.

They're men. They're not women. In any way, shape, or form.

And there's this strange societal narcissism. That is somehow accepted. In some ways.

And it's an attack on women. Which is an attack on God. And I think we need to stand up and protect them.

And it's just a -- there is evil that can perpetuate. And you know it's wrong. And the people know it's wrong.

And I know that -- that the female athletes, like Riley Gaines. Are actually talking, stepping up.

And my wife actually corrected me. Because I said, why don't the student athletes and these women step up.

You know, who are on these swim teams or basketball teams. Or volleyball teams. Step up and say something.

And she said, they do. But people aren't listening to them. Because people don't listen to women.

And I said, wow. I think she's right.

GLENN: I will tell you, that there's a great misunderstanding on speaking the truth.

That's all that Christ spoke. Was the truth.

And sometimes, people don't like it. Oh, well.

It doesn't mean that I stopped loving you. Because you're my brother or sister.

And I hope that at some point truth corrects you, and you come on the side of truth.

But I don't hate you. And I don't -- that's why I don't take it out. I try not to take it out on you. It's really hard. It's really hard.

ROB: It is hard. It is hard. And it's supposed to be hard. And it's supposed to be difficult. But we have to -- we have to try to -- we have to trust that -- that righteous instinct.

And it's there to challenge us.

But we cannot be silent.

And we cannot -- we cannot stand down. When -- you know, especially the most vulnerable members of our society. Are now under attack.

And I think it's -- you know, the LGBT community, that were -- it wasn't -- if not the whole community. But the community that is pushing us. Knowingly knows it's wrong.

Because they went to a group of attorneys, and they got advice, about how to do this. And they said, don't deal with any publicity. As far as, you know, the gender issues.

And the gender, what they call protections.

And it's interesting, because they just rename protections for something that is the opposite of it. Which is mutilation.

Because you have -- and I tell people, who -- because they use our good will against us.

Which is inherently evil.

But if these children, can't vote, or we don't allow them to drive.

We don't allow them to own a gun. We don't allow them to join the army.

We -- or even get tattoos.

Because they are not capable of making these permanent decisions.

About these things. But yet, we're able to do these horrible -- and they are for horrible things.

GLENN: Right. Right.

ROB: And that have lifelong repercussions. And you see, Prager University, there's a wonderful -- wonderful film. I say wonderful, but there was a very knowledgeable.
And informing film about the detransitioners.

And it's just -- it's criminal. And what it is, it's sad.

And let the child -- when you turn 18, before they decide to do something.

I think 18. My child, my oldest one. She wasn't an adult at 18 either.

She became an adult at 25. But I do think, at least, at a minimum, if you have any conscience at all.

Then they should be -- any faith at all, that you have -- wait until they're 18, until they make a decision.

And just don't jump on any new fads.

Especially a fad that has the -- the real evil of it, is this idea, that they can be infertile.

And destroy themselves for life.

I think there is a -- there is a really attack on babies.

There's an attack on girls. There's an attack on women.

GLENN: This whole thing is a culture of death.

I mean, you look at what's happening with the Palestinian rallies.

Where they're openly chanting, you know, death to Jews. And send them to Germany.

And all of these horrible, horrible things.

This -- every bit of this evil.

ROB: Coming at us. It is a culture of death. It's a culture -- I think there's different ways to look at this.

And, you know, my coming to Christ, was also an illogical sense of, I do think that you have the atheists now who have -- it's like the opposite of the Snopes trial.

The Snopes trial, which cornered in subtrials in the 1920s, which was about Christianity and evolution. And the idea that Christianity was -- was trying to close and limit the idea of God's plan. Of -- which could have been evolutionary in part, for sure.

Was -- was basically putting a splenetic spin on Christianity and faith.

What you have now, is the opposite of the Snopes trial.

You have the fanaticism, coming from the atheists, coming from godless people. And that are not wanting to see the potentiality of God, and the potentiality of what they're doing could be wrong.

And just a real, real -- exposing this. Seeing the LGBTQ community.

Who are supporting Hamas and the Palestinians.

And somebody whispering.

They would kill you. In a minute.

They will stone you to death.

These are not people. These are murderers.

You have to call them what they are.

And really, the sad thing about the pro-Palestinian things you see on campus.

And you see it's -- you know, when they say, do not forget. Never forget the Holocaust.
It's because, it is something that can be forgotten. And it is being forgotten. Because it's -- the -- the very few remaining Holocaust survivors, who are children now.

Very young children.

Now, you mentioned, a terrible thing, Glenn.

Which is that the -- the idea that the Holocaust could have been, you know, adding to this horrible anti-Semitism. You realize that it isn't.

It was an apex of anti-Semitism. That there is going to be a continuation of pogroms, and an attack on these people. And our -- on these people. Because it is -- it is a continuation of anti-Semitism.

And it is certainly not anywhere near the end of it.

And for people who -- war is hell.

And war is hell. And the idea that somehow there's a clean war, or there's a way to do it.

I mean, the death of children, in any situation is abhorrent and horrible.

And they -- and they try to prevent it as best you can. But I remember thinking of Robert McElmurry, who was working with the Air Force, during World War II.

They were talking about the firebombing Japanese cities, and -- which was, you know, something that --

GLENN: Horrific.

ROB: Horrific. Absolutely horrific. Dresden was absolutely horrific. Maybe more people died of Dresden than Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined, probably in World War II. Towards the end of -- but to bring Germany to its knees, to end that war. Was -- was a greater good.

And it's all horrible.

But the idea that Hamas is going to be allowed to survive in any form.

For our questioning of it, is what is going to replace it?

You know, that's the question.

But you have to -- you can't sit back and allow your people to be slaughtered.

Your babies. You can't. And we have to stand with Israel.

And we have to know that this is something, that it's -- it's not going to be easy.

And it's going to be -- it's going to require prayer. It will require God's help.

It will require our help.

But we have to be there for that. And not give in to this Hamas, publicity campaign.

Which is very good.

GLENN: We're talking to Rob Schneider.

He's actor, comedian, writer.

And he's just written a piece for TheBlaze.com: The Gift of Turning 60, where he talks about this, and so much more.

And you can find that on the front page of TheBlaze.

Rob, great talking you to. Thank you so much.

ROB: Always. Thank you for your time. And your faith.

GLENN: You bet. Godspeed.

To our veterans...

Americans are bad at saying "thank you." So, this Veterans Day, Glenn wanted to take the time to make it clear: "Your country remembers you. Your country needs you. And your country is grateful in a way that language will never quite capture. Thank you."

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Hello, America. It's Veterans Day, and I want to start there in 60 seconds. First, debt is like gravity. It pulls. It pulls back on you constantly, until one day you realize, you're not moving forward anymore. And the worst part of it, most of it is just accepted. We call it normal. We make the minimum payments. We don't -- the rates come down. And we keep spinning that same old wheel, wondering why we're tired all the time. But it doesn't have to be that way.

American Financing is helping people all over the country restructure their mortgage. You know, pay off high-interest debt. And regain real financial freedom.

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And it will help you keep more of what you earned.

Because every dollar you save. Is a piece of your life you're getting back. It's American Financing.

They're helping you keep more of it. And in a world where everything is getting more and more expensive, that kind of control isn't just smart, it's a little bit liberating and empowering.

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(music)

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GLENN: It's Veteran's Day, and I want to speak to one person, right now.

You!

The one who raised a hand and swore an oath that didn't end when your enlistment did. It was an oath that was older than your commanding officer. Older than the branch you served in. Older than even the nation itself. Because what you swore to defend was not a government. Unlike every other oath that every military man takes all over the world, you swore an oath to an idea.

And today, in a country that sometimes feels dizzy from spinning arguments, I think we should pause and anchor ourselves again to you.

To the men and women who tethered this republic to reality, when the storms came.

We have an amazing story.

If you really know the story of Lexington when the farmers left their plows and damp fields. Because liberty whispered their names.

They met at their church. Their preacher met them out.

They didn't have a chance of them winning.

I think of the -- the Marines who fought through the gas and the mud until the Germans called them devil dogs.

The beaches of Normandy, where boys who had never even see France saw eternity in a single morning on a single beach!

And the men who fought in Korea. And Vietnam. Kuwait. Fallujah. The Skies over Baghdad.

Every generation has a chapter that is written in blood and grit, and it was written by people who never asked for a statue. All they wanted was a chance to come home! And some didn't. And their stories end on foreign soil or carved into white markers in rows so straight, it almost breaks you.

But their gift to us, never ends.

At least, as long as we remember them and you.

Because every -- every free breath we take is borrowed from them! And you. If you're a veteran listening right now, maybe you came home to a grateful nation. Maybe you quietly slipped into civilian life, wondering if anybody saw the weight that you were carrying.

No matter your circumstance, know this: You need to know this.

Millions see you! Millions are grateful. You changed the destiny of my children. And they will never know your name.

You changed my life, in ways you will never understand.

I wouldn't be able to be here, and say these things if it weren't for you!

We take -- we take all of this so lightly. It was you that stood between tyranny and who those couldn't defend themselves.

Have you kept the promise. Most citizens like me. We never make. We never have to make.

Because always did. And you continue to do so.

It's amazing to me, when you are off into war, most times, not every time, we think about you all the time.

We want to give you the very best when you're at war. And then you come home, and then, eh, and you have the worst of our health care. I mean, at least mine was go to Canada to get the health care. I don't know if it's any better up there!

We're not really good at saying thank you. Let me just take just a second, to say it plainly and clearly to you. Thank you. Thank you for walking into the unknown when the rest of us stayed home. I don't know what your motivation was, when you joined. But thank you for believing that liberty was worth more than comfort.

Thank you for the nights you didn't sleep. Thank you for the holidays you missed. Thank you for the kids you didn't see born because you were someplace else.

Thank you for the friends you still mourn. That's why you did it.

Because you're a brotherhood.

Thank you and all your brothers.

Thank you for every scar. The ones we can see, and the ones we will never see.

Thank you -- thank all the families. Thank you for what you've done. The quiet platoon behind every soldier and sailor and airman and Marine and Coast Guardsman, because you served too.

Freedom has always been a family burden. And look at what those families are like. They're usually remarkable!

We live in a world right now that feels -- feels really loud and divided. And suspicious.

And it is!

But, I mean, wanted to take a minute on this day, and let everything just be quiet.

Gratitude has a way of silencing nonsense.

And I want you to know, how grateful I am.

So before we got back into the headlines again, before the noise rises back up, let me end this with the only words that really matter, to every veteran of the United States armed forces. Your country remembers you. Your country needs you. And your country is grateful in a way, language will never quite capture.

Thank you!

Is this the REAL reason Democrats ended the shutdown?

Buried in a recent New York Times op-ed about the end of the government shutdown is the quietest confession you’ll ever hear from the elites: "Why can’t Republicans just accept reality? These [Obamacare] healthcare subsidies are working." But who are they working for? Healthcare prices are still incredibly high! Glenn reminds us what "subsidies" really are: money "borrowed" from the future to hide the failures of the present, and lining the insurance companies' pockets.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So is the shutdown over? I mean, it has to go to the House, and now the House is saying that they're not going to pass it.

STU: Well, the House should be -- I don't think there's any real belief that they won't pass it. The hurdle was the Senate. And they got through the Senate. Now we get to watch the ongoing democratic Civil War, about whether or not Chuck Schumer will be removed or not.

GLENN: It's crazy. It is crazy.

So, you know, let me go through something that came in from the New York Times. What were the Democrats thinking?

It starts out, in this op-ed, back in September, when I was reporting an article, Democrats should shut down the government, I kept hearing the same warning from veterans of past shutdown fights.

President controls the bully pulpit, and parts of the government will stay open, and he decides what parts close.

It's very, very hard for the opposition party to win a shutdown. Blah, blah.

Now they have brokered a deal over the weekend, as the Senate Democrats broke ranks and negotiated a deal to end the shutdown, and return for, if we're being honest, very little according to the New York Times.

The guts of the deal are this. Food assistance, both SNAP and WIC will get a bit more funding. There will be a few more modest concessions on spending levels elsewhere in the government.

Laid off federal workers will be rehired, and furloughed federal workers will be given back pay.

Most of the government is funded, only until the end of January. Get ready, we'll be doing this again.

The deal does nothing to extend the aspiring affordable care tax credits, which Democrats essentially have shut down the government for, in the first place. First of all, it's not the affordable care tax credit.

That's -- that's not why you shut it down.
There are tax credits, yes.

But this is different. These were the government subsidies. Leave it to the New York Times. Let me lay this really clear. Democrats demanded a continuation of the enhanced subsidies for the American care act. Okay?

They were temporarily expanded during the pandemic. These were not the tax credits. These were extra subsidies stuffed into the 2021 American rescue plan, as an emergency measure. Remember, the one, we had to pass this in the middle of the night. And nobody could read it. Well, that's what it was in it. And these subsidies lowered the premiums more than usual. Expanded the eligibility far above the original ACA income caps. And was always designed to be temporary just for COVID.

So if you were in COVID, and I lost your job, and you didn't have health care or whatever, you could get on the ACA.

Even though, you're -- you're -- your salary was higher than it would be accepted.

Normally. You could get on it.

But once -- once they created this, Washington does what Washington always does, and they won't let it go.

Okay.

It's not the tax credit. To understand why this shutdown will end with such a whimper, you need to understand the strange role the ACA subsidies played in it. Democrats said the shutdown was about subsidies. But for most of them, it wasn't. This is the New York Times saying this.

It was about Trump's authoritarianism. It was about showing their base and themselves, that they could fight back. It was about treating an abnormal political moment, abnormally.

The ACA subsidies emerged as the shutdown demand because they could keep the caucus sufficiently united. They put Democrats on the right side of public opinion, even though self-identified MAGA voters wanted the subsidies extended.

And they held the quivering Senate coalition together. You shut the government down, with the Democratic caucus that you have, not with the Democratic caucus that you want.

But the shutdown was built on a cracked foundation. There were Senate Democrats who didn't want a shutdown at all. There were Senate Democrats who did want a shutdown. But thought it was strange to make their demands so narrow. Was winning on health care premiums really winning the right fight?

Shouldn't Democrats really vote to fund the government, turning towards authoritarianism, as long as health insurance subsidies are preserved? And what if winning the health care fight was actually a political gift to Trump. Now, this is the New York Times.

Absent a fix, the average health insurance premium for 20 million Americans were more than double. The premium shock will hit red states really hard.

Trump's long time pollster had released a survey of competitive house districts. Showing that letting the tax credits expire. Might be lethal to Republican effort to see hold the House. Why were the Democrats fighting so hard to neutralize their best issue in 2026. The political logic of this shutdown fight was inverted. If Democrats got tax credits extended, if they won. They would be solving a huge electoral problem for the Republicans. If Republicans successfully allowed the tax credits to expire if they won, which would be handing the Democrats a cudgel which would beat them in the next elections. This is unbelievable!

I mean, they're saying -- they're saying it out loud. You know what I mean?

They go on in this, to say, you know. Quote, why can't Republicans just accept reality. These health care subsidies are working.

No. They're not. No, they're not.

They are propping. Okay?

They're scaffolding. Holding up a structure that was never sound.

They were a COVID-era brace jammed under a tottering wall. And now, the same architects who swore the House -- the House was safe. They're telling you the splintered wood was actually part of the design. What?

This is the power the mainstream media has. The press still has over mainstream Americans. It's kind of like a hypnotic choke hold.

You say the word subsidy enough times with the right sad piano music under it, and suddenly, we forget what subsidies are. Here's what subsidies are, gang!

Money borrowed from the Chinese. But we're not on the hook for it. We're not on the hook for it.

Money borrowed from the Chinese, from the future, to hide the failures of the present on decisions that were made in the past. Okay?

And now we're told, if we don't just keep borrowing forever, America will collapse. No. What collapses is this crazy illusion. Let's be clear about something the op-ed never will admit. The Affordable Care Act didn't fail because of Republicans. It failed because math is a stubborn thing because insurance is not health care.

Because a program bent around bureaucrats and middlemen will always cost more and deliver less!
We have been subsidizing the symptoms. We never treated the disease here. And now, when a shutdown touches those subsidies, suddenly we're told the sky is cracking. TikTok is flooded with panic videos scripted by algorithms that can't really be trusted.

The influencers don't even know what they're defending. They just know fear pays better than the truth. And here the truth. The system was failing long before Trump. Long before Biden. Long before COVID. And maybe, just maybe, this moment is not a crisis, but an opening.

You know, I've said this for months now.

The greatest political opportunity of our lifetime now, is health care reform! Real, actual reform.

Not another Washington quick fix. Not more subsidiary easy or anything else. Not a Band-Aid over a bullet wound. But the Republicans won't do anything about it. I believe, and I say this without hesitation, I think. That Trump and RFK Jr. together may be the only combination force in American politics with the will to take a flamethrower to the bureaucracy, that is choking doctors and nurses. The pharmaceutical lobby, the insurance labyrinth, the 50 states wrapped in 50 different versions of red tape. All of it has to be confronted. And here's why Trump can't afford to miss this: If he solves even a quarter of this problem, if he can find the way to lower costs, if he increases access. If he frees the market to actually work across state lines, he'll not only win in 2026.

He'll be launching a momentum, that will carry Vance into the presidency in 2028.

This is the key here!

But he has to remember something Washington has long forgotten. The people he's negotiating with, they don't want a deal. They don't fear collapse.

They come it. They have been playing a slow motion Colour Revolution. One that the company has to be impoverished. Has to be frightened. And has to be divided to accept the new power structures.

Colour Revolutions only work if your people are hungry, if they're afraid, and they believe the people in the head of the government are authoritarian.

When that happens, you can have a Colour Revolution. And every day, America does not break. Every day, the economy still stands. Every day, people wake up and realize their lives are not as hopeless as the media insists.

The revolutionaries lose their leverage. So the shutdown is not the crisis.

The crisis is the addiction to government medicine. So here's the battle line that matters, I think, most right now: While the press spins, you know, panic, Trump has to gather the brightest minds. The innovators, the disrupters. The people who build things, rather than manage decline. That's what he does best. You know, if Elon Musk could do for NASA, what Washington could not. Then why can't we find. Maybe even get Elon Musk. Why can't we unleash the same kind of thinking on health care.

It's time for radical thinking!

Imagine a system where your doctor spends more time listening, than actually checking boxes.

Imagine competition across state lines. Imagine prices that behave like normal prices because the market is finally allowed to work and government doesn't have its finger on the scale.

Imagine freeing the nurses and the physicians from the paperwork prisons they're in. And letting them practice medicine again.

This isn't utopian. That's just uncaptured America. The America before the bureaucratic glacier, settled over absolutely everything in our lives.

Trump is the one that can do this. He's -- he's hitting home runs, grand slams, all -- all the time.

All the time.

Health care is the crack in the wall, where sunlight is still getting through. If you solve this, if you solve the pressure and you -- you lower the pressure on the engine behind the Colour Revolution, you win!

You win. I'm not even talking about election.

You save the republic.

You solve this.

And you solve the fear that drives half of our political dysfunction.

Washington thinks the shutdown is a battlefield. It's not!

The battlefield is health care. The future is decided there. And the man who breaks that system open. And let's Americans breathe again, will shape this country for a generation.

And the only guy to do it, is Donald Trump.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

They're WATCHING You... The Terrifying Truth about Phone Surveillance

What if your phone knows what you’ll do before you do? Glenn Beck and former Navy SEAL Erik Prince expose the terrifying reality of modern surveillance, from the government’s secret data networks to Big Tech’s behavioral tracking systems. A global “surveillance capitalism” industry has been born, merging private corporations with intelligence agencies. Today, every app, ad, and algorithm harvests your movements, conversations, and even your thoughts. This conversation reveals how smartphones have become digital soldiers quartered in your home, and how privacy, freedom, and free will are vanishing in the age of data control.

Watch the FULL Interview HERE

America’s Economy Has CANCER - The Brutal Reality of What Trump NEEDS to Do Now

Glenn Beck warns that America’s economy is suffering from a deeper disease... one that can’t be cured by printing money, free checks, or political spin. With inflation rising, housing unaffordable, and healthcare collapsing under government control, Beck argues the nation faces a “cancer” that only painful but honest reform can heal. He and Stu Burguiere break down why short-term fixes like subsidies and stimulus will only fuel the crisis, and why the only real solution lies in deregulation, competition, and courage. Will Americans endure the hard medicine needed to save the nation, or turn to socialism out of desperation?

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program.

Stu does not share my -- my optimism. And I -- you know, I think that's too strong of a word. I'm not optimistic.

I am hopeful that someone in Washington, on our side understands what we're facing here. That health care is the biggest win!

It's the biggest win. And totally winnable.

STU: Yeah. And I do think -- if -- you know, if it was the top priority of Donald Trump. I think, he would be able to move Republicans toward trying to come up with something, I guess.

But I don't show much optimism on that. Because as I was going through that whole scenario, it wasn't just that we said these rates would go up, and that the Affordable Care Act wouldn't be affordable and gave all of the reasons that wound up playing out with risk pools and everything else.

And it wasn't also that we would say, hey. They're going to try to solve this by more government subsidiary easy. And more dependence on government.

We said all that stuff. And that's what we just talked about.

But other thing we said was that after this thing got passed, the Republicans would bail on opposing it. We would no longer have an opposition. We're now to the part of the story where the right-wing position is just normal Obamacare.

And the left-wing position is new expand, fancy, times ten Obamacare. The question of whether we triple down on Obamacare.

Or double down on it. That's now a conservative position.

GLENN: Okay. So let me give you some hope.

I talked to Dr. Oz. And he said, they're introducing something here in the next couple of months.

Should be, any time now.

And it will be done at the state level. And it will be to stop all the barriers from state to state.

And you get -- you get your -- your -- your funding for different programs if you get rid of those barriers for your insurance companies.

And if you don't, well, you don't get your funding. And so they will be incentivized to do it.

So I do think that there's some thinking about this, that's going on, with RFK and Dr. Oz.

In fact, let's see if we can get them on. Maybe I'll go up to Washington and do a podcast with him.

Because I think this is the big win here. Because if you look, you have to -- you have to change the life of people, in the next 15 months. Twelve months, if you want to win the election!

And if you -- if you want to win with J.D. Vance. You're going to have to do it in the next 18 months, at the very minimum, okay?

It's going to get harder and harder to do it.

So you have -- you have the things. What are the levers the president has in front of him?

Housing. What is the problem with the housing market?

The housing market, there's a couple of problems.

One, we don't have -- we have a shortage of housing. Okay. Because everybody freaked out. You know, 2008, we had a housing glut. Now, maybe we should go to other way.

So we didn't build enough houses. So now we have this giant housing shortage.

So can the president fix this one quickly?

No. Millions of houses need to be built. And how is he going to do it?

Unless there's a land grab, okay?

Unless he opens up federal land, which we saw how that one went. So he can't really fix the housing thing. He could help it, by saying, "Hey, BlackRock, you guys stop buying houses."

But how do you do that?

I mean, is that the right thing to do? I mean, it's the right thing to do for the people. Constitutionally, can you do that?

I don't know. I don't think so.

The next cost that people are feeling. Electricity. What are you going to do with that?

Well, we know that he's building power plants. Or he is -- he is letting the red tape go, on the power plants.

So if you want to build a power plant, you can build a power plant, in record time.

But that, again, is 18, 24, 36 months away. Minimum! Before you have new power plants, where you'll start to see your electricity costs go down. So you can't do that. Food costs. What is he going to do?

Import cheaper food. That's not a good idea.

So what are you -- how do you affect the average person's money? Well, you can send them free money. Which means, we have to print more.

He's going to send free money. It's the money that he's been taking in from the trade barriers.

So he's saying, he's going to send a $2,000 check to people. And that's the first time I've ever seen a check where the money was actually money.

That we had. Not printed money.

But that's all you can do. You can even do that. That's all you can do. Because you can't print money. You can't have a stimulus. Or you will Jack the prices of everything up.

And you're in the same loop over and over and over again.

The only place where the government has the tools, has enough sway, Donald Trump could do this.

To start breaking this thing up.

Is health care. And that could change things pretty much overnight.

Within 12 months, if he acted today, within 12 months, you would start to see prices come down. You would start to see competition.

You would start to see some sort of relief. But what else does he have, Stu. What else can he do, that will change people's lives. And he knows he has to do that.

STU: Well, I mean, I -- generally, I think I agree with most of that.

I think that the health care is one, you could do.

Again, that's something you sign up for on an annual basis.

Even if the prices did drop, it would take a while for that to come in.

The easiest way to do this -- and he's, by the way, done a lot of this -- is deregulation. You know, I think what's happening with some of that. And we're not seeing tons and tons of results from that, is because I think he's doing things on the other side as well.

That are affecting prices the opposite way. So we're not going to see massive drops.

Of course, a lot of this -- there's a lot of big promises that are being made. When you talk about prices coming down, really fast. It's not always achievable.

The president of the United States. We said this for 100 million years, I feel like again, we're on repeat here. The president of the United States is not the guy that sets prices. That's not his job, right? He doesn't micromanage the economy.
He can do things that can help the economy. I think what's happening now, as you're pointing out. I think this is the desperation a little bit seeping into our politics.

Is that there were -- Trump won the election with a lot of people who had faith in him. Not because he was good on even the border or on -- you know -- you know, trans kids. You know, trans men playing women's sports. It was about -- it was that affordability issue. He was really good on that.

People believed that they would see an economy like they saw in 2018 to 2019, in his first term. And we're just so far, not really seeing that.

Now, there's a lot to unwind. From where Joe Biden was. And the way these prices work. When it comes to inflation. Is not necessarily that prices drop down.

That's what is so devastating about a long-term inflation like the one we got from Joe Biden.

The prices get to a set level.

You don't necessarily bring those prices down. As much as, you slow the increase.

Which is difficult.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

STU: Again, one of the focuses of Trump's economic plan is to try to draw a lot of these products to be made in the United States.

As you point out, that is a long-term process.

You're talking about way after Donald Trump is -- is out of office, before you're seeing the -- what -- the potential theoretical benefits of new factories being built in the United States.

It's going to be to take a long time for that to work, if you believe it's going to work. When you're talking about the other side of that. Which is, you know, increasing prices, based on different taxes and such.

You're -- you're winding up with a situation where you're taking the medicine, and you're waiting for those results to kick in over multiple periods of years.

So I think the way he can do a lot of this stuff.

The best thing he can do in a quick way. Is cutting regulation.

You can cut out a lot of this stuff, to increase the speed of the improvement. Like, you want to build a new power plant. He can cut those things from 12 years, to four!

But that's not going to -- it's not an immediate, you know, economic win.

GLENN: No.

STU: What you're talking about.

GLENN: The country has cancer. That's the problem. The country has cancer.

And we can survive. But it's -- going to take chemotherapy and a long time. And so you can't just go in.

If you have cancer, you can't go in and say, well, you know, you told me yesterday, you were going to start chemotherapy, and I had my first chemotherapy, and I feel worse.

And I'm not getting any better.

"It's been six months, Doc. And I'm not feeling any better."

Yeah. You're not going to feel any better at first. Because it's a serious disease. That's the issue that we're dealing with. The damage -- and we said this under Biden. We said this under the first Trump. We said this under Bush. You know, Reagan was saying this. At some point, the -- the sickness is going to be so bad, that there's not going to be anything that feels good to do. And it's going to get harder and harder to take the medicine.
And unfortunately, you know, everybody wants a quick fix. You know, when Reagan came in. And everything was out of control, you remember what Paul Volcker did?

You remember this, Stu?

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: You weren't old enough. But you know it through history. What did he do?

STU: He had to get rid of inflation. That meant jacking up rates. And that was a painful period.

GLENN: To what? To what?

STU: Eighteen to 20 percent, in that range.

GLENN: I think at the top it was 20 percent interest rates. I remember 19 percent interest rates. Nineteen. People are freaking out over five or six. We had 19 percent interest rates. That stopped everybody from buying. You want to talk about not being able to afford a house.

That was it! But that's what sucked all of that money back in.

Well, you can't do that right now. Because the patient is so sick, you can't -- those interest rates will kill everything. It will kill all the jobs.

The whole thing will collapse. So you can't do that. But we're complaining on 5 percent. You know, and we're wanting them lower and lower and lower and lower.

Well, yes.

I want that too. Because there are signs that jobs are going away. But jobs going away is not just the interest rate. It is also AI and automation.

We are in this really ugly place, that we don't have these honest questions, and really explain to each other, exactly what's -- what all of the forces are. You're going to get socialism.

Because that will seem like the only answer.

Just make it stop. Just make it stop.

Well, okay.

But know what all of the forces are that are causing all of these things.

And there is a way out of it.

It just cannot be done in two years!

It can't be!