RADIOMarch 17, 2022

What the Fed’s interest rate hike MEANS FOR YOU

In an effort to curb rising inflation, The Federal Reserve just announced an interest rate hike of 25 basis points (one-quarter of one percent). It’s the first time the Fed has raised such rates since 2018. So, what exactly does this mean and how could it affect YOU? Carol Roth, financial expert and author of ‘The War On Small Business,’ joins Glenn to break it all down…

You can read more of Carol's take on this issue here: https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/roth-what-the-feder...

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Hello, America.

Yesterday, the fed raised the -- the interest rates.

And they said, they're going to do it, I think six or seven times more this year. This could get dicey in many ways, for everyone.

And I want you to understand, what happened yesterday. And not in terms of, well, you know, us traders believe. I don't care. I don't watch CNBC. Because I only understand about half of it.

I want to know what this means to the average person. Carol Roth joins us. The author of the war on small business. She gets it. And can explain what it all means. In 60 seconds.

Carol, welcome to the -- welcome to the Glenn Beck Program.

CAROL: Hey, Glenn. Lots of things to talk about.

GLENN: Yeah. Boy, I have a long list for you too. So let's start with what happened yesterday, and why people should care.

CAROL: So I want to take a step back, and talk about, you know, why the fed did what it did. In terms of raising interest rates. What we call 25 basis points, or a quarter of a percent.

100 basis points is 1 percent.

GLENN: Okay.

CAROL: And basically, they were undoing the -- at least attempting to start to undo the effects of what they in part cost.

Their monetary policy, zero interest rate policy, printing trillions of dollars, the government spending trillions of dollars, in terms of fiscal stimulus. Turning parts of the economy off, and wrecking these labor markets supply chain.

All of those things are the reasons we have inflation today, exacerbated by decisions that the Biden administration made around oil and gas, dependents and what not.

So basically, we had inflation.

GLENN: Correct.

CAROL: Which we've all been talking about. As we go to the grocery store, and certainly the fuel pumps and whatnot.

And so finally, they said, we have to do something. Now, I'm going to tell you, this is a little bit of window dressing. Because they were doing accommodation. They were in the market, purchasing securities, last week.

So last week, they were being accommodative.

But this week, we have to maintain our credibility, and we need to do something. So they decided to raise what is called the fed funds rate. It's a rate, where banks lend to each other overnight. In terms of their reserves.

And that reverberates through the market. So they brought that down to a target, of zero to a quarter of a percent. And they had held it there for the last couple of years. And they said, okay. Well, you know, inflation is getting away, we better raise some interest rates. One of our tools in order to do that. And they took the huge step of a whole quarter of a point increase, to do it.

GLENN: Wow.

CAROL: Yeah. They're very -- because they need to be credible.

GLENN: Right. So the last time we had a problem of this size, it took an interest rate of about 19 to 20 percent, if I'm not mistaken.

Raising it a quarter is really -- is a joke.

Where do you think, these interest rates should be?

Not -- not considering killing the economy.

Just where it should be. Should it -- if we were in a healthy country, still, would it be 20 percent, or more?

CAROL: So there's a couple of things to unpack there.

First of all, this is an unprecedented situation. We don't have a benchmark, because we have never had central banks, not just in the U.S. but around the world, printing trillions upon trillions of dollars. This has just never happened before. We've never had governments turn off the economy.

You never have a situation, where there's 1.7 jobs available, for every job seeker, because of what the government did.

So we're flying a little bit blind. I've always been a fan of normalized interest rates. I think it's a horrible idea, to have the fed meddling, and trying to direct things.

I want the market to set it. And so before all of this nonsense started, before the financial crisis, the great recession, financial crisis in '07 and '08, which was really the first time we went totally off the rails, with the zero interest rate policy and the purchase of securities, the interest rates were around 5-plus percent. And that seems to be, you know, a healthy place, where things should be.

We should not be in a place, where we're saying, you know, when you take risks, you shouldn't be getting rewarded for it. You know, 0 percent interest.

It makes no sense. So in reality, you're still at very historically low interest rates. And in a healthy economy, to have three, four, 5 percent, would be completely acceptable. We just have been so addicted to this easy money and this free money for so long, I'm not sure how we get out of this.

GLENN: Okay. So there's a couple of problems with 5 percent interest rates, right now. One would be that people would not be able to afford a new house, et cetera, et cetera. Because of inflation, and everything else.

But the other, that nobody ever talks about, is that we now have a national debt over $30 trillion. And that is just like buying a house. You have an interest rate, on that.

If we have an interest rate of 5 percent, how much more money do we have to pay?

CAROL: Bingo, this is the dilemma that the fed has gotten themselves into, by keeping down interest rates. They've basically given the government a free pass to just spend and spend. And to rack up more and more debt.

And we're at a point, to where the debt is completely out of control.

And, you know, has competed our level of GDP.

So if you think about 30 trillion of debt. And obviously, the fed fund rates. And the interest rate on the debt is not a 1:1 correlation. But we know that as one moves up, the other moves up. So in terms of the interest on our national debt, I want everyone to pay very close attention because this is staggering. For every 1 percent increase, that is another $300 billion, that we have to pay in interest, on the national debt.

That is our tax dollars, that are going to pay more, for things, that we have already purchased.

It is not new purchases. It's literally, a finance charge.

Almost like a credit card interest rate, on stuff we have already bought.

And this is the dilemma, the fed has. Because they know, as they raise interest rates, this is going to get out of control. The CDO. Had made a projection, than saying, this is going to get out of control. But in their projection, they said, well, we think the yield on the ten-year treasury note, gets to about 2.1 percent in 2025.

So, you know, we're going to have to really be concerned, maybe in 2029, the yield on the ten-year Treasury note is at that 2.1 percent today. So multiple years ahead of time.

GLENN: Please talk down to me like I'm in kindergarten.

I don't understand the yield thing with the Treasury. How that works. How that's affected. So can you explain that?

VIVEK: Yeah. It's basically how much the government has to pay on debt.

So what the market demands

And obviously, if there's a lot of demand, for Treasury securities. The price of that goes up.

Then the yield, or the interest that you demand is lower.

Because there's a lot of demand. You have to pay a lot for your debts.

GLENN: But we had been at very, very, very low --

CAROL: Very low.

GLENN: Because the fed was buying up. There was no demand for our treasuries, which is our loan.

CAROL: So let me put it in context, what we're paying currently on our national debt, in terms of a combined interest rate, is somewhere in the neighborhood of projections of 1.4 percent to 1.6 percent. So they've been able to finance that at a very low rate. But that number is starting to creep up. And with the fed increasing interest rates, it will further creep up. And every 1 percent is $300 billion.

GLENN: So if we have an interest rate of five or -- five or six percent, we're talking like between two and three trillion dollars more, the entire budget.

CAROL: Yeah. Exactly.

It's just completely untenable, at that point in time.

So I would -- I would imagine other things happened, in the interim. But this is why, when we talk about things like MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, or what I call Magic Money Tree.

That says, well, you can just print into infinity, because we can just print more. Well, we're now living through that realtime experiment. As you said, no, you can't. It causes inflation.

It has real costs for the average American, and it decreases the value of every dollar that you hold.

GLENN: All right. So the best thing you can do is get out of credit cards. You should cut those up if you can.

CAROL: Yes.

GLENN: And pay them off if you can. Get a refi right now. Because you're probably paying about 16 percent for your credit cards, correct?

CAROL: Yeah. And it could be going up.

And anything that has that adjustable interest rate associated with, some people may have something called an arm and an adjustable rate mortgage. Where it adjusts over time. Maybe it's fixed for a certain number of years. Anything that is adjustable rate debt, is going to increase in price. And if you need financing -- let's say you have a business, and you haven't taken advantage of low rates yet. You're going to want to lock that in on a fixed basis now, because it's not going to get cheaper any time soon.

GLENN: Now, the other problem is, with raising interest rates. Let's say you have a business. And you need a loan.

If the interest rates starts to go up, that kills that business. They can't afford that loan. Just like we can't afford our national debt. Or you want to buy a house. Yesterday, mortgages. New mortgages fell immediately, just on the -- on the whisper, that it was coming.

We are seeing a slowdown in mortgages. Which means people will buy fewer houses. The scary thing about this, is you don't know where that switch is. You're just going to have to kind of guess. And it might shut everything down.

CAROL: That's the needle that the fed is trying to thread, in addition to dealing with the consequences of the national debt. What happens, is as they raise interest rates. You know, their intention is to slow down the economy. I mean, that's basically what it is. They want to slow down consumer demand.

GLENN: Right.

CAROL: But the question is: How do you do that, without creating a recession, or without creating reverberations for the economics of the average American?

GLENN: So can I be really, really cynical? I mean -- in fact, let me go beyond cynical. Let me go into, I'm a thriller writer. Okay? And I'm writing a thriller. And for some reason, this country needs to slow down the economy. But they can't slow down the economy, because then businesses will fail. But they don't really care about the average person. You know what I mean?

That's going to fail. We'll print more money. Put them on welfare. Tell they believe to stay home. Or whatever.

Wouldn't one way to slow the economy, for the consumer, but not slow the economy, for the big corporations, would a war do that?

CAROL: I think that would completely change the tenor of the economy. But I think that raising the interest rates does that, because kind of like we saw over the last couple of years, if you are a big corporation. You take advantage of that debt. You have that war chest. We've had that strong balance sheet. So in terms of the transfer of wealth, that is one way to do that. But the war, that would completely change the tenor of, you know, who benefits. And certainly, it would be the bigger guys versus the smaller guys. But it would be more defense, rather than the financial services industry, for example.

GLENN: Yeah. Okay. Carol, hang on. I have some more questions. And I would like you to explain a couple of other things, coming up in just a second. Give me 60 seconds. We're back with Carol Roth. The name of her book, is The War on Small Business. A must-read.

GLENN: All right. So I want to talk to you about the dollar being the world's reserve currency.

Because I'm watching these sanctions, that are being put on.

And I'm seeing things happen, to where, if I'm another country, especially Russia. I'm going to China, immediately, saying, I want to partner with you. Because they just made my money worthless. I can't get my money out of the central bank. The Federal Reserve. That's my money.

And they won't let me get to my money. If that starts to happen. And then Saudi Arabia starts to sell oil, off of the petrodollar, that's really bad news. And let's say, the West holds together. But half the world is off the petrodollar.

What does that mean for us, Carol?

CAROL: It potentially means the end of the U.S. dollar, as a reserve currency.

GLENN: Explain what that means. Because -- I mean, to the average person. Forget about, you know, the central banks and everything else. What does it mean to the average person? To have half the world get off our dollar?

CAROL: Yes. So this is why I love you, Glenn. Because we take the most complicated concepts in the world.

GLENN: I know.

CAROL: And trying to explain them, as if, you know, it's Elmo and Big Bird here --

GLENN: Right.

CAROL: The idea of being the reserve currency. Is something that's -- you know, has sort of a long history. And it means, particularly in the case of goods and services. But also in the case of oil, that everyone in the world, pretty much agreed to use dollars, for a settlement. And that puts some responsibility on the United States. There's something that is called the Triffin dilemma. And there was an economist back in the 1960s, who basically said, there's a conflict. If you are going to be the world reserve currency, you're going to have to make tough choices. And you're not always going to be able to do what's right, at home, in order to make sure you're doing what's right, in the national sphere.

GLENN: Everywhere. Yeah.

CAROL: And unfortunately, you know, this has been an issue, that's been going on for a long time.

But in recent times. As we've been talking about with the fed and the decisions they've made. They actually haven't done right by either party.

They've been screwing over the average American, with their policy. And transferring wealth. But they've been doing the same thing in the national sphere.

And, frankly, a lot of countries are getting sick of it.

And so there have been predictions for quite some time, that there was going to be an event -- an adviser actually to the OECD said that it's probably not an economic event. It's a geopolitical event, that's going to expose the system. You know, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And so a lot of folks feel like the sanctions that were made against Russia, were potentially a cover story. That we know that we'll potentially lose this reserve currency status. So we're going to say, well, we did it, because we had to take a stand.

But the reality is, you know, as we've now shown the world, you can put your money, in our central bank. And you can buy Treasuries. And U.S. dollars.

But you might not be able to access them. Which is not a really good thing, if you're going to be the world's reserve currencies.

GLENN: Correct. Correct.

CAROL: So there's a couple of potential outcomes. And I know you've been talking about this, Glenn. But, you know, one thing that folks have been talking about.

Is does China potentially step into the reserve currency position?

There is an issue around them. Because usually, if you have the reserve currency, you run a trade deficit. And we know that China is a nation of exporters. Are they really going to step into that? I'm not sure.

The other thought is, listen, we've seen so many banks. Central banks around the world. Print so much money. There's all this debt. You can't really just say, we're going to cancel it all. Because there's counterparties. There are people on the other side of the debt. So what could you do to offset that?

GLENN: Hold on. Hold on. Elmo and Big Bird has to stop. Because Elmo says, there's only 20 more seconds left.

CAROL: Okay.

GLENN: So we will come back. Because I really want to hear this -- this other new plan, and canceling debt just opens up Pandora's box, at least in my head. We'll talk about that, coming up more. Carol Roth, coming up in in just a second. Stand by. That's right. Did you get the vaccines yet?

GLENN: We're with Carol Roth. She's the author of the -- of the book, The War on Small Business.

She's a former investment banker. Don't hold that against her. She calls herself a recovering investment banker. She worked on Wall Street for years and years. Then kind of went, oh, I might be on the wrong side here.

And is trying to do everything she can, to strengthen individual businesses. Small businesses all across the country. And I love her for it.

Carol, you were just saying, that one of the options, in this nightmare scenario, which I think is unfolding in front of us. Where the world reserve currency, is not going to be the dollar.

I don't know what it is. But they're going to change the dollar, from what it is. To a digital dollar.

And I don't know how it all shakes out. But probably not very well.

But you brought up, there is all this debt within that we just can't cancel, because there's other people on the other side of that debt. So explain what you think.

That can't happen, you say.

CAROL: Well, I mean, nothing is a never scenario. Right?

GLENN: Not anymore.

CAROL: In an unprecedented situation. And, you know, for people who are students of history, despite all of the wreckage that could come from this, it's a very interest pointing in time. Especially, financially, you had the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. You had then us going off the gold standard. Then you had us, you know -- with the petrodollar, basically saying, we will manage the dollar as good as gold for oil.

And then you had the fed, basically go completely rogue. And not do that.

And anybody who is holding reserves, that they're supposed to say, well, the U.S. dollar is safe. And it's a good store of value. We'll keep devaluing it. That's not a thing.

And so -- and, by the way, these are not my theories. I'm just communicating what is out there, from people who are far smarter than I -- everybody by writing up another asset. So is there a neutral asset, that central banks have access to, that's on their balance sheet, that maybe they have been buying, at really good prices, that all of a sudden everybody comes together, and says, well, we'll just write up the value of that?

It's like writing down the -- gold.

GLENN: Gold.

CAROL: So central banks have been buying tons of physical gold. By the way, billionaires have been buying a lot of physical gold as well. And I'm using the term physical, because it's different than the market that is traded.

GLENN: ETFs. Those are ridiculous.

CAROL: ETFs. That's done in dollars. So who is backing that?

But physical gold. So there is a theory going around, that potentially that standalone basis or a basket of neutral metals. Which was thrown out as an idea, early on. When it was pushed aside for the U.S. dollar. That maybe there is this -- meeting of the minds.

And, you know, this is the way that you make all of these other central banks. And countries full. Is you just write up the value of that gold.

So if you think that that's going to happen. And you think that the financial system is going to collapse, you know, then you want to be owning physical metals. And have a store of that.

GLENN: Because when you say, they're going to write off debt, you don't mean people's houses. You mean --

CAROL: No. This is government debt. They cannot write up government debt. Because when you take -- that's a loan, right? You owe the money back to somebody. So the other side of potentially doing some sort of. We'll have mass forgiveness.

Is that when you take something else that everybody else has. And you say, it's more valuable. Overnight. It's magic.

GLENN: That doesn't sound like --

STU: Bad magic trick.

GLENN: Yeah. It sounds like -- we're dealing with a lot of black magic.

Stu and I were talking about this story that came out of Britain. We hadn't heard anyone talk about this. Explain what happened.

STU: Yeah. Just a little background. It's in the London metal exchange.

And it's the price of nickel. Now, I know no one cares about the price of nickel. Just to give you the basis here.

GLENN: Tesla does.

STU: Yeah. That's true. If you're buying an electrical car, it's true. Basically, the last five years has bounced back and forth between 10,000 and 20,000 per metric ton. Okay?

It got up to a little bit above 20,000, in the last few weeks. Obviously, all this time going on with Russia. Russia, Ukraine. Big sources where it comes from, for all these electric batteries. It goes basically from 20,000 to 80,000, in basically a day.

Okay? So four times, in one day. So let me read this: This is from the Wall Street Journal.

GLENN: Listen to this. Have you read this, Carol?

CAROL: Oh, I know this story. I do know this story. So we can talk about this.

GLENN: Yeah, this is crazy. Listen to this, America. This is craziness.

STU: Yeah.

So traders on the London Metal Exchange smelled blood, and nickel prices almost doubled in a short period of time. A Chinese company faced a 1 billion-dollar margin call. That exchange officials felt they couldn't meet. Rather than let it fail, which would have probably taken down several of the smaller brokers that serviced them. The London metals exchange decided to cancel all of the day's trading. More than 9,000 trades, worth about $4 billion.

It canceled the trades. Not because of a fat finger error. Which exchanges often cancel. Not because of a rogue algorithm, as regulators claimed in the 2010 flash crash in U.S. stocks, but because someone with too much leverage was going to blow up, with effects on some members of the exchange.

This moral hazard is taken to an extreme. It's always been true, that if you face a 100-dollar margin call, it's your problem. While if you have a one billion dollar margin call, it's the broker's problem. And the authorities might save them. What is almost unprecedented here. Is the exchange authorities decided to save them, with money taken from other traders, who otherwise would be sitting on fat profits.

I mean, you won. You picked the right direction. You've got these huge profits. And they cancel your trade, to save someone else.

GLENN: And it's China.

STU: And it's China.

GLENN: I mean, there is no such thing as a free market with this.

CAROL: No. This is another too big to fail scenario. It happened to be -- I believe it was an individual billionaire, who had made a short set against nickel. So he went in the other direction.

GLENN: Wow. I mean, then you don't -- you don't put the money down on the table. If you don't know what the odds are, and you're not willing to lose your money.

That's like going to Vegas, and -- and placing a huge bet, and when you lose it, you're like, hey.

You know, Caesars. I mean, this is crazy. And Caesars says, oh, we're not going to count that bet.

That doesn't happen!

CAROL: It's horrendous. And it goes back to the integrity of the market. And so many that the retail investors have been rallying against. And it's just another example. And there are big name banks involved. The exchange was actually shut down for multiple days, I believe. Before it started trading again.

And the people who made a bet, and decided to participate in the market, ended up getting screwed out of their profits. But they're never going to get the leniency, if it happens to them on the other side.

GLENN: No.

CAROL: And just the overall integrity, like you said. This is not a free market. It's not a fair market.

And we have too many of these big guys, who are being saved, at the expense, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively, of the small guys, over and over and over again.

GLENN: And that's what I think people are so sick of.

And when they see this next crash. Especially with Janet Yellen saying, it will be equitable. When we reassemble, it will be equitable. What the hell does that mean? Probably stuff like this. And when they see the rich getting richer. And I don't mean a person who runs a business and may have a million dollars.

I mean the rich.

The elite of the elite. The BlackRocks of the world.

The banks of the world.

I just -- when their debt is being bailed out and real Americans are paying huge money for their food and their gas. And then their home is taken, there's trouble. That's real trouble.

CAROL: Yeah. And unfortunately, that is the scenario. There's one thing to become wealthy, because you earned it in a fair playing field. That's something that we want to celebrate. But we do not want to celebrate, when the playing field is tilted. When somebody has their thumb on the scale. When we have this transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street. Which has been going on for, you know -- in a very large part, for a decade and a half. But it has accelerated over the last year and a half. And, you know, we talk about all of this coming to fruition. And us losing reserve currency status. It's going to mean a slower economy for us. Because we are not in a position. We don't have the strong manufacturing face. Or a competitive pricing. To be able to export. So all these people are like, oh, that's great. We'll reshore the job. They're not thinking in context of the existing economic structure. It will be unfortunately, very painful. But just to have a moment of hope here, Glenn. Because this is really doom and gloom. Is you have to remember, in any time of pain, there's always opportunities. So it is incumbent upon you, to find where those opportunities are. And what --

GLENN: So average person is saying, what is that opportunity?

CAROL: Yeah. It's finding the things that have inelastic demand. Meaning, people will pay prices even when they're continuing to increase and making investments and those kinds of things. Or retooling your business. To be servicing those markets. It's those kinds of shifts, where you have to look for those hidden opportunities.

In what could be a completely new economic scenario for us, going forward.

GLENN: I -- I think what you just said, translates to what I just told my kids.

You get into the job market. You have to be the most effective, efficient, and hard-working employee. Even if you're not at the top of the food chain, you have to be the one that the boss says, oh, we can't.

Because he'll do everything. I mean, he's a little bit. I mean, he works like crazy. You have to be that person. Right?

CAROL: Absolutely. Absolutely. Invest in yourself. And make yourself indispensable to a customer or to somebody that you're working for.

It's a huge competitive differentiation that will only get more important.
GLENN: I would love to have you on, maybe early next week. I just had one of my producers put some stats together on inflation.
And what that actually means to people. I mean, when Biden got in, a hamburger. An average hamburger was $4.40.

Today, that average burger is 601. And if we look at what they say, things are going to be, you know, with -- with the -- what are they saying? 7.9 percent inflation.

That number is going to be $7 force a burger by the time of the next election. I don't think that stat is right. You want to compare apples to apples. Look at how they measured it back in the 1970s and '80s, when we hit it before. That would mean that that hamburger would go from $4.40, to almost $8 by the time we hit a presidential election.

I just want to talk to you about inflation. And how to beat that.

CAROL: Plenty to talk about, would love to.

GLENN: Thank you very much, girl. Appreciate it. Carol Roth. The name of the book is War on Small Business. Make sure you pick it up.

"Rama-Hanu-Kwanz-Mas" - Glenn Beck's HILARIOUS Christmas Song that Triggered the Woke Left

For over two decades, the cultural battles surrounding Christmas have revealed a deeper transformation happening inside American life. What began as political correctness has evolved into a fractured culture where speech is policed, reactions explode into extremes, and sacred traditions are pushed to the margins. From the early warnings mocked in parody songs, to today’s chaotic backlash and misuse of “cancel culture,” the shift is unmistakable. Even the quiet beauty of A Charlie Brown Christmas—once a staple of American childhood—now feels radical, a reminder of the faith, truth, and simplicity our society has forgotten. This episode traces the long arc of how Christmas became a battleground in the modern culture war—and what that reveals about the country’s soul.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So something I worked on this weekend from Glenn AI. It is our first -- our first -- I don't know if I should even announce it. I'm sure, I will not be proud of it soon. But our first offering from Glenn AI. And you'll be able to get it tomorrow.

You know, I thought -- I was thinking about a song we did years ago. Called Ramahanukwanzmas.

And I was thinking, in the time that we did that -- Stu, do you remember the year?

Sara, is it marked on the recording? What year -- it's not? It happened in 2003, Stu, do you know?

STU: I have to look it up. I probably have some record of it.
GLENN: Yeah, really early. Yeah, really early on.

And it was -- it was just as this, you know, war on Christmas thing was happening. And we were making fun of political correctness. And, you know. I was listening to it.

And I thought, oh, my gosh. This is so early on, that we were using words that you just wouldn't even use now.

You know, we were mocking this -- this coming political correctness.

Not knowing how bad it was really going to get. So I wrote putting Christ back in Christmas.

Kind of like, you know, enough. Enough. Enough. We're putting the Christ back in Christmas because we don't care.

That era is over. It's over. But here's where it began. Twenty-five, 27 years ago. Listen to this.
(music)

GLENN: Wow. I mean, did I hear the word "queer" in there? Not in the way that you would you use it today. What were we thinking?

STU: That's the technical definition of the word, at least one of them.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: We think we used it appropriately. But, you know, I don't know. That was pretty -- like, I was looking quickly, like the YouTube there is a version of this, that if you remembered. When that song came out, we -- it played for a few years. And then some listener made an animation of the song.

And then it -- that animation was uploaded to YouTube, 17 years ago. And they called it a classic. Like, this is an animation of Glenn Beck's classic Christmas song.

So it's been a long time.

I don't know exactly how many years, but a lot of them.

It was before even the woke thing was a thing. What we were talking about was the precursor to the woke thing.

Which has now gone through so many different variations.

Where you had -- gosh, we must want to be politically correct. We should be able to say whatever we want.

And then you weren't able to say anything. And then you had, like, the George Floyd era, where you went to prison if you said anything then.

GLENN: I know. I know.

STU: Now we're on the other side of that.

And it's like, now everyone is saying everything sometimes to an extent that isn't necessarily -- necessarily appropriate.

Example of that, from over the weekend, was the Cinnabon story. Did you see this at all, Glenn?
GLENN: No, I didn't.

STU: The -- the woman working at Cinnabon, apparently has -- I think maybe Somalis come into the Cinnabon. I don't know. They get into some sort of argument. The phone turns on. They're filming her, as she tells them that she -- she calls him the N-word multiple times. And says that she's proud of being a racist.

And, you know, you might not be the shocked to hear that Cinnabon fired her for that. But see, I don't think that's cancel culture. Just so we can be clear.

GLENN: No. That's not cancel culture. No.

STU: No, I'm pretty sure it's difficult to employ someone calling customers of the store the N-word repeatedly, while working at the store.

GLENN: Right. And proud to be a racist. No. No, I don't.

STU: That's different. We lose track of these terms sometimes.

Now she's gone on to -- you know, one of these sites. I don't know if it's GoFundMe. But it's one of them, and people have put up, like, oh, gosh. She's been cancelled. Please help her.

And she's raised $100,000. It's like, you should not be rewarded for $100,000 for saying the N-word at Cinnabon.

GLENN: No, you should give that to rappers.

STU: Yes, somewhere again --

GLENN: Theater ones who should get the money for using the N-word.

STU: Yes, exactly.

GLENN: We've learned that how many times.

STU: I feel like we -- sometimes, when society makes a really bad call over a long period of time, people get angry and want to push back against that appropriately.

And that keeps extending itself until it's no longer an appropriate pushback against that bad thing.

It's just its own bad thing.

And I don't know. Maybe we should realize that.

GLENN: So when was the last time you watched a Charlie brown Christmas?

STU: It's a great question.

Probably last year. Or the year before.

I haven't watched it this year, yet.

GLENN: Yeah. I watched it last night. With my eldest daughter Mary.

And we watched it. And we've been talking about watching it for a while. We watched it last night. The night before dinner.

And you think that, oh. Simpler times.

Simpler times.

Look at, the gospel of Luke is in that.

Right?

Doesn't anyone know the real meaning of Christmas?
I do, Charlie Brown. That was not -- nobody thought that that special was going to work. Did you know this? The Charlie Brown Christmas. They thought was slow, boring, and way too sad.

And no child was going to -- was going to embrace it.

Coca-Cola went to CBS and said, I -- you want to talk about, it's all a giant syndicate, you know.

Coca-Cola went to CBS and said, we want a Christmas special to advertise in.

And so they went to this guy, Lee Mendelson, who had just done a documentary on Charles Schultz. And they had become friends with Charles Schultz.

And he said, you know. Would you do a Christmas thing?

And he said, I don't know.

I'll do it.

And so they went back and forth.

And the animator said that we have to have real children voices.

And I want to use a really sparse soundtrack. I just want to -- I mean, want to make the music really important.

So we went to the -- the jazz band, to do the Charlie Brown Christmas stuff.

And Charles Schultz said, I'll only do it if we include the gospel of you Luke. And CBS said, we can't put the gospel of Luke in there.

I mean, that's -- that's a bridge too far. Back in, what? 1964 or '65.

So the year -- I think it's the year after I'm born, it airs. So they're making this, while my mom is pushing me out. They're making the Charlie Brown Christmas. Okay?

And it was controversial back then, to put the Christmas story in.

They finish it. They expect it to last one year. Everybody at CBS is like, just don't tell Coca-Cola. Nobody is going to watch this thing. And it turned out to be, you know, a huge, huge blockbuster.

It ran for I think 35 years. Every single year. They only played it once. I remember as a kid, tonight is Charlie Brown.

Tonight is Charlie Brown. Don't forget. Tonight is Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. And Frosty the Snowman. As a kid, it was the -- that's all you talked about on those days, on Christmas.

In the Christmas season. You would say, how many days until Charlie Brown. Don't forget. Watch it tonight. And we watched it for 35 years. On CBS.

Then it -- in 2001, it moved to ABC. And now it's on Apple TV. And they have all the peanut stuff.

But I was thinking as I watched last night, how much money has this made?

And who has you all that money?

Who got you all that money?

Who are still paying for these? It had to be a fortune. A fortune.

STU: Worth every penny.

Think about that. The exposure to -- like, you're rooting for the kid, talking about God!

Like what is that -- what an incredible dynamic, that played out.

It is unbelievable watching it. And how out of place that particular thing feels, in a way.

Because, you know, as you note, the sort of sparseness of the production of it.

The whole thing just stops. And there's that long walk to the stage, before he goes into the speech. It is really -- it totally draws can't attention.

GLENN: It was slowly in the 1960s. They say it was too slow in the 1960s.

So imagine -- I mean, that's why we feel it today. Imagine what our kids think about this. Oh, God. I watched three TikTok videos by the time Linus said there was something. And he said, turn on the lights!

It was like, it's crazy. It's crazy.

STU: It really is an amazing thing. And it has a way of drawing your attention in.

It's so sparse. And reasonable medical probability like, the pacing of it is so awkward. And especially in that moment. You can't help, but kind of lean in.

You know, you're like, wait. What's he about to say? Then he just goes into like, reading the Bible. It is -- it is an amazing moment in American television history. And thank God it exists! I mean, it is something that probably is introduced, you know. A ton of kids to this stuff for the first time.

Why THIS viral claim about my new AI is IMPOSSIBLE

Glenn Beck recently made headlines for releasing a promo video of his upcoming interview with George AI. Outlets like Right Wing Watch and CNN claimed that George AI was just “echoing” Glenn’s beliefs. But Glenn explains why that’s “impossible.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Last week, was it last week? I introduced you to George AI. Now, what George AI is a proprietary AI system that has a giant electric fence around it. It has everything that the Founders from our collection, it will grow from here. But from our collection, it has the writings, the documents. The journals. The books that were written at the time, the books that they read, that they said influenced them.

The Federalist papers. All of this stuff. All in one proprietary AI system. And it can't go out and look for other things. It also must memorize everything.

Unlike an AI that can hallucinate, they hallucinate because AI is very good at remembering the beginning and the ending. But it's not good at the middle. So it will look at the beginning and the ending. And, yeah. And kind of, like, went like that.

No. It didn't go like that. Stop being lazy.

But ours memorizes every word. Word-for-word. And it can give you the words from the Founders in their own language which sounds really mechanical and reads. It's really hard to read.

Or it can, you know, dumb it down to my level or your level or your kids' level. And it can speak at our level. But it cannot change their words or their meaning.

We police this like crazy. And we're not releasing wide open to the public, until we have lots of beta testing.

Because we want to make sure we have caught everything because the last thing we want is anything that is -- is anybody's opinion, except for theirs!

You would be able to put in a bill, and say, is this constitutional?

Where does this violate the founding principles?

And it will tell you, you can put in a story and say, what are the principles that we lost that are causing this?

You could put in. Like we talked about today.

There was a story about the case that is in front of the Supreme Court right now. About, you know, having, you know, some sort of expert running, you know, the administration.

And the -- the president and Congress can't fire them.

Well, I know the answer to this. But I ask George AI.

I put the story in. And I said, what did the Founders say about things like this?

And I asked specifically about the Federalist papers. And it said, while it doesn't specifically talk about this.

It does say X, Y, and Z.

And as I explained earlier on the show, I mean, it may as well be explicit. Because it's talking about exactly the same thing. But that's what it does. Now, I released an interview that I did with George. Okay?

And it's so funny the reaction because Adam Kinzinger just said, this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen, and I was in Congress for 12 years.

Oh, well, Adam. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm going to listen to you.

Right-wing watch, which I think is Soros-funded, oh, good. Glenn Beck has created an AI George Washington. You'll be shocked to learn that the AI George Washington, created by Glenn Beck sounds exactly like what would happen if a Glenn Beck built an AI George Washington, sound exactly like Glenn Beck.

Impossible! It's not speaking my word.

It's only speaking their words.

It's impossible. It has no information about me, at all.

There is no -- it is a firewall between Glenn AI and George AI. There is a firewall.

It has no outside information. It does not know who I am. It doesn't care who I am. It doesn't care who I am. It is only focused on their words.

Let me play, if we can, can we play a little bit of what I -- what I played, the actual George AI?

I just want you to -- I want to ask yourself because CNN. In fact, play the CNN clip.

CNN led with this last night.

Play that. Play that, if you will.

VOICE: The greatest danger to our republic lies not in foreign arms or political faction.

GLENN: May I just interrupt you for a second. Could you just dumb it down for a little bit?

VOICE: Okay. Wow. That is Glenn Beck, interviewing an AI version of George Washington, if you couldn't tell. Who is apparently ripped now, wearing a tight T-shirt. And he echoes Beck's beliefs. So for tonight's news at night cap.

GLENN: Stop. "He echoes Beck's beliefs."

So you cannot say that this is accurate. Because then you would have to say, I was right!

That I am interpreting the Founders in the correct way.

So you have to say, there's something wrong with this AI.

You know nothing about it. There is something wrong with this AI.

This can't do that.

This is just echoing Beck's beliefs. No. It's impossible for that to happen.

But they're making this into -- I mean, the tags on this are right-wing extremists.

George Washington extremism.

Play the actual George AI clip.

And tell me what's extremist about any anything that he is saying here?
(sot plays)
George, we have programmed a lot of information, given you a lot of information on what's going on in today's America. Based on your writings, the writings of the rest of the Founders, what is it that you feel is the biggest problem, or where we should start to fix things?

VOICE: If I may speak plainly, my countrymen, the danger. The greatest danger to our republic lies not in foreign arms or political faction. But --

GLENN: May I just interrupt you for a second.

Could you just dumb it down, just a little bit?

VOICE: Okay. I do have 29 points, and they're all referenced to exactly what we've said.

GLENN: Speak in today's language.

VOICE: Okay. Okay. I get it.

Let me speak to Americans: If I'm honest, America's biggest problem isn't political or economic. It's all moral. We've drifted from the virtues that make liberty possible in the first place. Freedom. To be free, you have to have insulin. You have to have faith.

You have to have character. And if you don't have any of those things, laws. Laws can't stop anything. And they mean little, government terms, weak or oppressive.
You have grown skeptical of truth. You're reckless with debt. You're comfortable blaming, instead of building anything. And in my time, we understood that self-governance begins with self-control. Do you even recognize what self-control is? Public virtue matters, more than public opinion. You keep electing these people, expecting things to change, but you haven't changed.

The fix is not going to be found in Washington, DC. It's going to be found in every home, every school, every heart.

You know, where are the citizens who value duty over comfort? Principle over popularity? America was built to be a moral and self-governing nation. It's only that foundation that will still save her.

GLENN: Okay. So how is that -- yes. It does sound like me. Yes, it does sound like me.
You know why? Because I sound like the Founders. That's why. I didn't -- I didn't -- I wish I could say, I made all this stuff up. I wish I could say I'm that brilliant. Yep. The Constitution and the founding documents, they all sound like me, once you dumb them down. No! No. I had to work through them, and I dumbed them down so I could understand them. And I've been saying them my whole life. And that's why he sounds like me because I sound like him. But the thing is, it's being labeled as extremism.

That we're supposed to be moral. We -- we have to have discipline, faith, character. Is that extreme? That our laws won't mean anything because nothing can hold it together, if we're not those things.

Government will either become too weak or too oppressive.

What do you disagree on that? How do you disagree with that?

Are we currently worried that we will become too weak? Or are we currently worried that we will become oppressive?

Either way, that's extreme. Because that's your view in the media. That Donald Trump is becoming oppressive. Right?

That we're growing skeptical of truth. How is anyone in the media thinking that's Glenn Beck, or that's -- you know, that's some extreme thing. Yeah. You know it. You know we're skeptical of the truth. You're the ones telling it to us, and you're the one with the dying rating. So that's clearer. You can't admit that America -- agree or disagree, that America is skeptical of truth? That we're reckless with debt? That we will not -- we point fingers to blame. We won't take any personal responsibility for anything, we won't self-govern? We have no self-control? That we -- we look for opinion over virtue?

That the answer won't be found in DC?

And that nothing will change, unless we change.
Wow, that's so unbelievably deep, isn't it!

Let me tell you why there's this -- this thing going around now. I mean, I've released three minutes of George AI.

Three. Three. Wait. Wait until next year.

Wait until by this time next year, wait until you see this thing open up full throttle. They are going to wet their pants. So they know, they know exactly what I'm doing. They know, they must discredit it. Because they know the power of AI. Because they've been using AI to lie to you. To manipulate you. To use algorithm to do all of that stuff. I'm not using any of those.
I'm not pushing this out. Hoping anybody will do anything with the algorithm. I want you to find it.

I am inviting you to ask him yourself. When you ask him, you can say, what are all the footnotes, do you see the points that come out on CNN? I have 26 points and they're all documented to what I said. Yeah. They had to cut that out. Because I'm providing that every time. Every time, you're on George AI, we'll show you the documents and where it comes from. They can't do that, they rely on opinion. George AI relies on documented fact.

And I can't wait for you to be a part of it, next year. January 5th. It will make their eyes bleed. And that gives me.

That's -- you know, blood is red. Their eyes. The white. And the red. It's like a candy cane. It makes me think of Christmas at this time.

Trump FINALLY said the OBVIOUS part out loud

The media is furious because President Trump’s new National Security Strategy criticizes Europe...or they just misunderstand it. Glenn Beck reveals what this strategy actually says and why he’s ecstatic that someone is FINALLY saying these things!

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So at the Reagan National defense forum over the weekend, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine, Raizin Caine, hints at a possible conflict in our own neighborhood, and everyone is freaking out.

Here's cut one. Listen.

VOICE: Yeah, I mean, we -- we -- we have not.

If you have looked at the arc of our deployment history over the last few years, we haven't had a lot of American combat powering in our own neighborhood. I think that's -- I suspect that's probably going to change. We'll see what we're ordered to do.

And, of course, we follow that guidance. But we're definitely spending some time here now.

Oh, my gosh. He means war! And maybe in San Francisco!

No, he doesn't. Let -- can I just go through and give you the meaning of the national security strategy that just came out from the president?

And everyone is freaking out about it. And I think the president deserves a round of applause. The reason why everyone hates it, is because it is the exact opposite of what everyone told us for 100 years, we should be doing. And for 100 years, you've seen what we've done, and you've seen where it's gotten us: Nowhere, quickly.

America is standing in this doorway right now. And behind us is the chaos that we've just lived through.

We've missed thrift, bipartisan, you know, foreign policy class, that somehow managed to squander the greatest advantage that any nation has ever had. And just ahead, at least according to the National Security Strategy is a course correction so sweeping that honestly, it reads like a rediscovery of the American civilization itself.

Because this is what this document is.

It's not just a list of foreign policy goals.

It's a declaration of what America actually is. And what it must never allow itself to become, ever again.

For the first time in decades, the strategy knits, the obvious.

Okay?

We lost our way after the Cold War!

Yeah. Yeah. We did. Yeah. We tried to run the world while hallowing out the nation that -- that, you know, was supposed to do the running. We were hallowing ourselves out. We outsourced our factories. Our borders. Our sovereignty. And even God help us, our sense of purpose.

We have no purpose.

We treated global institutions as if they outrank the Constitution. And they don't.

We protected everybody else's borders, except we let ours collapse.

We defended, you know, abstract world orders, while neglecting the American worker who actually paid for everything.

And this new strategy has outlined. I mean, it just says what you've been saying for a long, long time.

Enough. Enough. I've had enough.

And it lays out what America -- what Americans and America should want!

And it starts with something, you know, really revolutionary in its simplicity. It says, we need a safe, sovereign republic. That protects its people.

Strong families. Strong industry. Strong borders. Strong energy.

And a renewed cultural -- culture that knows its own story, and isn't ashamed to tell it.

What is possibly wrong with all of that?

Strong borders. Strong family. Strong industry. Strong energy. Renewed culture that knows its own story and isn't ashamed to tell it. That's why everyone is freaking out because they don't want any of these things.

None of the elites want those things. A sovereign republic? No. He's laying out, we want the world's strongest military, but also the world's strongest economy. And the world's strongest spirit.

And without that, this policy says nothing else holds. And that's true!

And you know it's true. It says the era of mass migration is over. Not slowing it. Not managing it. But ending it.

We know that's true. It says, the government's job is to protect God-given rights. Okay. Where did you get that idea?

I don't know. The Declaration of Independence. Why is that controversial?

It's not to manipulate elections. It's not to police speech. It's not to hide behind bureaucratic language while crushing dissent.

All of that is found in the Bill of Rights. It's not controversial.

It demands allies actually act like allies and pay their fair share. Controversial? It doesn't seem like it. It promises reindustrialization. Did we learn anything from COVID?

Is it a bad idea to have everybody else make our stuff, and then we wait for boats?

Energy dominance, a national defense industrial base that's built for the world we actually live in. Not the world our think tanks wish existed.

And then it turns outward. Then it begins to look outward to Europe and the rest of the world, because the rest of the world is shifting under our feet right now.

And nobody is willing to say it. In the Western hemisphere, we should return to something that we should have never abandoned in the first place. And that's what Raizin Caine was just talking about. The Monroe Doctrine.

Call it the Trump corollary, but the principle is timeless. This hemisphere is ours to secure. And hostile powers will no longer get a free pass to set up shop in our backyard. How is that -- how is that controversial?

Cartels, it -- it outlines, will become a national security target. Manufacturing comes home. Partnership replaces dependency. Then it talks about Asia. And the message is really clear.

We'll compete with China. Economically, technologically, and militarily, and we'll do it from a position of strength. Not by pretending that Beijing is suddenly going to go, you know what. We're just a giant, friendly teddy bear.

No. No. We're going to do it by accepting the reality and prepare accordingly.

But we'll still work with you.

Just don't become an enemy of ours. And we won't become an enemy of yours. That means that we have to rebuild industry.

It means we have to secure the minerals. We have to dominate the technologies of the future. It means that we ensure that no single power controls the Indo-Pacific walkways that keep the global economy alive.

Hello! China. Taiwan. Japan.

Then it gets to Europe. Which, you know, of course, if you have colonial eyes. Oh, my gosh.
All this document says is what European leaders won't even dare whisper. Europe is dying. The entire continent is dying. Not just economically, but as a civilization. The Western civilization is dying!

Declining bitter rates. Uncontrolled migration. Censorship. Loss of identity. Regulatory suffocation. We would like Europe to be strong again. Europe to be Europe again! Stable. Sovereign. Confident. Peace in Iran.

Stability with Russia!

Revival at home.

That's what America would be like. Because it would be good for us. But it would also be good Europe.

Because if Europe collapses into chaos, the entire Western world will pay the price, and it will be a very heavy price.

But they don't like that. Oh, no. You can't say that.

Oh, Europe is pissed at us for saying that. Gang, we all know. Look at Europe. They're dying. They're dying!

It won't be long. And if they don't change their ways, and they do fall, this document also says something else.

We're not going to honor NATO for any country that falls. You become a Muslim country, you're not a NATO country.

You fall and you're some other country.

You're not a NATO country.

We're not defending you. Now, in the Middle East, this document says, the forever wars is over. We declare them over.

How is that not a good thing, that we should all be celebrating? And not because the region suddenly became peaceful, but because America is finally strong enough strategically, diplomatically, militarily. To shift from a constant crisis management to long-term stabilization. Iran has been weakened. Israel has been backed. The Abrahamic Accords have been expanding. Energy dominance has returned to the US.

What does that do?

Well, that reduces the old chains that kept us entangled in every sand dune from Syria to Yemen!

We're out. Finally, Africa.

My gosh, what we have done to Africa with our State Department and USAID.

All we do is export ideology instead of opportunity.

He says -- Trump says, in this national security document, that's over.

We're flipping the strategy. Trade, minerals, energy, peace deals. No more lectures. No more nation building. No more endless aid with no accountability. Does any of this sound scary to you?

Does any of this sound crazy to you?

I -- I don't think so. It's saying everything that seems common sense to me. It's saying, America is allowed finally to love itself again and to be who she should be.

And let everyone else be who they should be. You know, it has a right and responsibility to defend itself first! To put its people first!

It's saying sovereignty is not a dirty word. Borders are not immoral. American workers are not expendable. Free speech is not negotiable. The nation state, not the NGO. Not the global boardroom.

Not the transnational committee. That's the fundamental building block of a free world.

How is this bad again? How is it that this is so dangerous?

In short, it's a blueprint for a country that wants to live again. Really live again.

Now, the question is: Do we -- is the president reflecting the national spirit?

Do we want to live again? Do we want to be relegated to the dustbin of history, or does America have other great work to do?

Because that's really the question.

Which is it that you believe?

Which is it that you want?

I want a strong nation. I want our youth. I want, you know, people coming out of college. To have jobs. To be able to buy a house.

I want those things.

I think they're necessary. I think they're important. I think it's just as important to understand our history.

To know who we are. To not be ashamed.

Learn from it. But not be ashamed of it.

We didn't do it. Our forbearers did.

We learned from it. We are better than that.

My gosh. Oh.

I read these freakouts. And I honestly think, my gosh, am I living in a -- I'm living in some weird parallel world, where I read all of these newspapers and magazines and everything else. With their commentary today about the national security.

And they're all freaking out.

Saying, this is the worth thing he can do.

He's going to tear the whole country. The whole nation, and the world apart.

No. He's just stating what people feel.

And not just Americans. Go talk to the people in Europe.

Ask them. Take this document and make it about England. And see if all the people in England tonight can see exactly the same way.

And if you put a name attached to it, it wouldn't get that person elected. It would. It would. Because everybody is feeling the same way about their own country.

I don't have a problem with the rest of the world.

But it's time for us to concentrate on us. It's time to concentrate on saying, you know what, there's something special about us. England can say that. They brought us the Magna Carta. They are now torching the Magna Carta. I would love to hear that story.

The things that make France, France. I don't know. The whining and everything else. That is unique to France. Italy. Germany. It's unique to them.

I want them to be those guys. I don't want them to be another version of us. I want them to be them. I want them to do well. And be part of the family of man and the family of nations.

But I don't want anything to do with whatever they do, they do.

Same thing with Israel. And Saudi Arabia. You do you, boo. We're going to do us.

When we can get together, we will. Don't screw with us. And we won't screw with you.

This is our national strategy. That's exactly what our national strategy.

I say amen, President Trump!

Finally. Finally somebody is saying what everyone is thinking.

This is like you've gone to school, you know, for 18,000 years.

You're some -- yeah. Some doctorate in God only knows. International development and studies.

Women's studies.

Unless you've got that!

You're looking at that, and going, yeah. All that makes sense.

All of that makes sense. Now, the question is: Do we want it?

And will the people actually back it?

Because strategy on paper, that's only words.

Until a nation finally finds the courage to believe in itself again. And say, that's what we must do.

WARNING: This British FAILURE could spread across the Western world

The United Kingdom is now arresting over 12,000 people a year for "speech crimes" and is debating doing away with trial by jury for many crimes. Glenn Beck warns that if this can be done in the birthplace of these principles (under the Magna Carta), it can happen to the entire West if we don't END this insanity now!

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So let me just start here. Because there is -- there is another story that is out in our newsletter today, that talks about how people of college age are freaking out, after Charlie Kirk's death. They don't want anything controversial on campus.

I mean, that's the reason why colleges and universities had protection of free speech, in the first place.

Was to be controversial. To be able to say the things that nobody wants you to say.

And it's really important.

But let me -- let me first remind people of what the Magna Carta is.

It's 1215? The Magna Carta is Latin for the great chart.

Had it not some magnanimous gift from the king.

The king. King John from England. He was -- he was losing a battle. France was just cleaning England's clock.

The baryons and all the lords and the ladies. Said, you know, this king sucks a lot. This king sucks a lot.

And we've got to stop him. Because he's destroying everything.

And he -- he had lost most of the land, to France. And then he started just imposing huge taxes on everybody. And -- and because nobody in the lower class had any -- this all happened with the lords and the ladies. And they were like, enough. Enough. Enough.

You're abusing your royal power.

Well, nobody had ever said that before. That just didn't happen. He had a divine right. He's the king. But in England, they said, no.

You still have to be moral. You have certain laws, and you can't just do these things.

And so what they did, is they got him to agree to the great charter, the Magna Carta. And it placed the king under the law. Before that, the king was the law. So now the king is under the law: It created the principle of due process. Never before did we have that.

You can't be imprisoned, punishment or stripped of property, except by the lawful judgment of your peers or the law of the land. So this creates jury trials. It creates habeas corpus. Protection from arbitrary arrests. All of these things. The government now has to justify itself in a court of law.

That's revolutionary, okay? It also limited taxation without consent. Which we interpreted later as no taxation without representation. Rule of law. Jury trials. Rights of the accused.

Limits on government. Protection of property. Accountability of leaders. All of that comes from the Magna Carta. Okay?

That gave birth, 500 years later, to us and our ideas. Okay?

Now, England, the birthplace of the Magna Carta is now thinking about getting rid of jury trials and arresting more than 12,000 people every year for what they call speech crimes. 12,000!
Now, I want you to think about that.

In Russia, in the same year this stat came out. The latest year that we have, 2023. In 2023, Russia arrested 4,000 people for speech crimes against the Russian military for Ukraine.

4,000 in Russia, 12,000 in England.

The number I saw. We don't have all the numbers. But the number I saw that were arrested for speech crimes in China was 120.

Okay?

Not for violence. Not for theft.

Not for treason.

12,000 in England for words.

Okay. Now, well, that's going on, now the Prime Minister is floating the idea of eliminating, if not most, many jury trials.

It will only be for murder, manslaughter, oh, and something else like that.

Okay?

So, in other words, if you're like, I believe you should be able to read the Bible in your own language, in your own home, Tisdale.

You don't get any hope. You don't get a jury trial. You get the court. You get the king trying you, not a jury of your peers.

This goes against the Magna Carta, the lawful judgment of your peers. Okay?

That's the safeguard that stands between you and an out-of-control state. This is the first and ancient firewall against tyranny. It is what makes England, England.

And if England of all places, tosses that aside, what does the word "free" mean anymore?

Okay? What does it mean? You can't speak, and then you have no jury -- trial of your peers. Wait. What? First of all, understand this: A nation that polices speech is not free!

A nation that dissolves juries is not just unfree, it's prepping for something worse!

Because the entire architecture of the western world, the liberty that we have, rests on a single radical belief.

The truth does not need a king. The truth shall set you free. Who? Is it not what. Who is the truth? Okay.

No king, but Christ. Because Christ is the truth. That's the Western world!

A person's conscience does not need a permit. Speech does not need a bureaucrat's approval before it leaves your lips! That's the West.

That's what built the world. What took it from darkness, to today.

Freedom is not granted we the state. Freedom preexists government.

Government's only legitimate job is to protect it!

Now, here's the dark little secret, that every single tyrant, and every politician knows today. If you control speech, you control thought. If you control thought, you control people.

If you control people, you don't ever have to worry about controlling the government because no one will ever challenge you again!

This is why it is so essential for any side to go, you can't talk to them.

Don't talk to them. Don't listen. Don't question.

You can't hear that. No. They can say whatever they want. But I have a right to refute it. That's why free speech has to be absolute. Not mostly free.

Not free unless it makes Billy over there cry and uncomfortable.

No. I'm sorry, Billy. You don't like it. Refute it.

Freedom that depends on somebody else's freedoms is not freedom!

Freedom that requires government approval is not freedom! Freedom that can be revoked because a bureaucrat doesn't like your tone is not freedom. Once speech becomes conditional, everything become conditional. Your rights, your property, your conscience, your place in society. Because you only live by permission! Never by principle!

We live by principles. Not people!

Who is actually free?

Who is actually free?

The England that once declared the king himself to be subject of law, or the England that now arrests a man because he's posted the wrong meme?

12,000 people!

Can't find one in 2023 that was arrested for that in America. Not one. The England that gave us John Locke, the philosopher of natural rights. Is that person free?

Or the England that now warns citizens that context doesn't matter, if their words cause someone, anyone, emotional harm.

Britain is about loss. But this is not just a British problem. This is the canary in the coal mine for the entire west.

Because these are the people that came up with it. When the mother country forgets its own legacy, jury trials and freedom of speech. When the random that once stared down monarchs now cowers before hashtags and activists and speech tribunals, than somewhere deep inside the Western soul, a light is flickering.

We must remember here, before that same darkness reaches our shores. Because it's already coming on to our beaches. It's already there. There is no such thing as partial liberty. Freedom of speech is the First Amendment for a reason!

It is the guardrail for every other right!

If you lose the First Amendment, you've lost freedom. And if you lose the Second Amendment, you've lost the ability to defend that first freedom.
It's number one for a reason!

You must be allowed to speak, to gather.

To have a free press!

To question your government. You must have those abilities. You must be able to say, especially about government, the worst things about your government! And question them.

And demand answers. To petition them.

That's all in the First Amendment.

It is the pressure valve that prevents so it's from blowing itself up.

The more we contain speech. The more we say, don't talk about. Don't talk about. Can't say that. Can't say that.

The more the pressure builds up. The more likely we blow ourselves up.

It's the mechanism where the powerless can speak to the powerful.

It's the shield that protects dissenters. Unpopular thinkers, prophets, reformers. And, yes, even the offensive.

Look, there are, quote, unquote, historians now who are getting all kinds of bullcrap about Hitler and everything else.

None of that is true. I don't want to silence them. They have a right to say it.

I have a right to say you're wrong! And show you the evidence of what makes them wrong.

That's the way it works. England is about to forget all of this!

They are truly the birthplace of these kinds of ideas, and those ideas led to our idea of real freedom!

No king!

If they forget this, we cannot -- we believe so -- because there won't be anywhere else in the world to go.

The lesson of history, the lesson that history whispers quietly at first. Then louder. And then finally. And we're about at this point, with a scream!

Is that when a state describes which words are allowed, it will eventually decide which thoughts are allowed. Which beliefs are allowed.

Which citizens are allowed.

In the end, in the end, the prisons don't need bars.

The cell will be in your own mind!

Do you understand that, America?
Do your kids understand that?

We don't even know what it means to be free. I thought this weekend, a lot about as opposed to truth shall set you free.

Thought about a lot. In fact, maybe I'll talk to you about it in a minute or so.

Because I don't think people understand what it means to be free.

We think everybody in the world is free. They're not!

And you're about to really find that out!

You want to be tree, or do you want to be safe? Because you cannot have both.

When safety is defined by those who fear your liberty. It's over!

We used to be people who would explore. We were people that crossed the oceans when everyone said we couldn't. We -- we went to space when everyone said, it's impossible. We crossed mountains that no one had ever crossed. We forged -- we forged a nation of really different people. And lived side by side for so long, yes. With bloodshed from time to time. But generally, in ways that nobody had ever done before. Freedom. Freedom is grand. But it's really dangerous. It's messy. Freedom offends you, a lot. Get over it.

Real freedom, real freedom is the only thing that has ever allowed the human spirit to rise above a king. Above a tyrant. Above the mob. Above the bureaucrats. Real freedom that belongs to you. Given to you by God. And that's what they're about to lose in England. The Magna Carta. The simple idea. No man. Not even a king. No man is above the law. Do we have that here?

Do you think no man is above the law? Or do you think there is a class up in the political range, somewhere, that if you're on the right side, don't worry about jail. That's what the Magna Carta tried to stop. That's what we have forgotten even, and they're about to get rid of it entirely.

The modern west is drifting into far more -- far more sinister creed. No man is above offense.

And that is how civilizations fall.