The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program ｜ 2⧸26⧸26

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00:00:13.900 It's mind bubbling.

00:00:15.140 So on today's podcast, India takes a step away from helping support Russia and China.

00:00:19.440 This huge shift, massive shift towards the West.

00:00:23.820 Why is this happening?

00:00:25.160 Also, admitting the worst thing a man can admit, I was wrong.

00:00:28.480 I say those words and explain what I was wrong about and correct it on today's podcast.

00:00:35.040 And Elon Musk on AGI, Artificial General Intelligence.

00:00:38.300 He says it's coming at maybe the end of this year, and you shouldn't save for retirement anymore because it will become unnecessary soon.

00:00:47.800 Crazy look into the future, all on today's podcast.

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00:01:58.100 Hello, America.

00:01:59.100 You know we've been fighting every single day.

00:02:00.860 We push back against the lies, the censorship, the nonsense of the mainstream media that they're trying to feed you.

00:02:07.160 We work tirelessly to bring you the unfiltered truth because you deserve it.

00:02:12.060 But to keep this fight going, we need you.

00:02:14.260 Right now, would you take a moment and rate and review the Glenn Beck podcast?

00:02:18.260 Give us five stars and lead a comment because every single review helps us break through Big Tech's algorithm to reach more Americans who need to hear the truth.

00:02:27.060 This isn't a podcast.

00:02:28.440 This is a movement, and you're part of it, a big part of it.

00:02:31.900 So if you believe in what we're doing, you want more people to wake up, help us push this podcast to the top.

00:02:37.020 Rate, review, share.

00:02:38.580 Together, we'll make a difference.

00:02:40.660 And thanks for standing with us.

00:02:42.000 Now let's get to work.

00:02:44.260 I want to play something that Elon Musk just said on some podcast just a couple of days ago that is shocking, shocking.

00:03:08.280 I want you to listen to this.

00:03:09.320 Let me take you through it.

00:03:10.160 Yeah.

00:03:13.340 Well, one side recommendation I have is don't worry about squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years.

00:03:19.460 It won't matter.

00:03:20.320 No.

00:03:22.760 Okay.

00:03:23.520 Either we're not going to be here or...

00:03:26.160 It just...

00:03:27.680 Stop.

00:03:29.160 You won't need...

00:03:30.000 Stop.

00:03:30.420 Only Elon Musk can just say something like that and then just move on.

00:03:35.180 Yeah.

00:03:35.580 Don't save for retirement.

00:03:36.920 You know, it's not going to matter.

00:03:38.620 Okay.

00:03:39.460 Okay.

00:03:39.960 Now listen to the rest.

00:03:41.060 Go ahead.

00:03:42.900 To save for retirement.

00:03:44.360 If any of the things that we've said are true, saving for retirement will be irrelevant.

00:03:49.180 The services will be there to support you.

00:03:52.280 You'll have the home.

00:03:54.040 You'll have the healthcare.

00:03:56.060 You'll have the entertainment.

00:03:57.520 The way this unfolds is fundamentally impossible to predict because of self-improvement of the AI and the accelerating timeline.

00:04:04.600 Yeah.

00:04:04.740 It's called singularity for a reason.

00:04:06.260 Yeah.

00:04:06.480 Exactly.

00:04:06.700 I don't know what goes...

00:04:07.700 What happens after the event horizon, you know?

00:04:10.620 Exactly.

00:04:11.120 You can never see past the black hole or the event horizon, the light cone.

00:04:14.780 I mean, Ray has a singularity out way too far.

00:04:17.580 I mean, this is like the next...

00:04:19.900 What?

00:04:20.220 What's your timeline for this?

00:04:22.540 We're in the singularity.

00:04:23.440 Well, we are in the singularity, for sure.

00:04:24.920 We're in the midst of it right now, for sure.

00:04:26.800 And maybe we just feel as well.

00:04:27.380 Well, we're in this beautiful sweet spot, which is, you know, the...

00:04:30.220 We're on the roller coasters.

00:04:31.400 We're just...

00:04:32.120 Yeah, exactly.

00:04:32.960 That's a great analogy.

00:04:34.200 It's like that feeling of...

00:04:35.320 You're at the top of the roller coaster and you're about to go...

00:04:36.780 Yeah, but you know it's going to be a lot of Gs when you hit it.

00:04:40.140 Yeah, a lot of Gs.

00:04:41.440 It's like, I don't just have courtside seats.

00:04:43.920 I'm on the court.

00:04:44.560 Exactly.

00:04:45.640 And it blows my...

00:04:46.400 And still blows my mind, sometimes multiple times a week.

00:04:50.420 Yeah.

00:04:51.440 And so, just when I think, I'm like, wow.

00:04:56.260 And then it's like, two days later, more wow.

00:04:59.620 Yeah.

00:05:01.460 Exponential wow.

00:05:03.120 Yeah.

00:05:03.600 I think we'll hit AGI next year in 2017.

00:05:09.420 You got that?

00:05:10.500 I mean, just...

00:05:11.560 Did you hear that?

00:05:12.860 I think we're going to hit AGI next year in 2017.

00:05:20.740 AGI is Artificial General Intelligence.

00:05:24.020 That means the computer, the AI system, is smarter at everything than any human is.

00:05:35.260 It is better at, name the topic, than the best human you can find.

00:05:40.520 And it can do everything that a human can do better than a human.

00:05:44.820 It's not super intelligence.

00:05:46.480 It's just better than humans on everything.

00:05:50.900 He thinks we're going to hit that.

00:05:52.460 Some people said we were not going to even...

00:05:54.240 There was not a chance.

00:05:55.180 Ten years ago, people said we'd never even get to there.

00:05:57.060 We'll never get there.

00:05:57.860 We'll never get there.

00:05:58.840 He's saying we're going to hit it next year.

00:06:00.320 I believe we are going to hit it.

00:06:01.800 I think there's a chance we hit...

00:06:04.680 The world is going to be different by 2028.

00:06:06.900 It's just going to be different by 2028.

00:06:09.600 And we have got to prepare for this.

00:06:13.940 So our last caller was saying, you know, well, you know, Smoot Holly, you know, you can use tariffs to protect.

00:06:20.460 There is a conversation that we have to have right now.

00:06:26.600 We have to have because of artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, you know, entire categories of work dissolving quickly, you know, not in a generation, maybe not even in a decade, maybe in the next few years.

00:06:43.340 Factory workers first, factory workers first, you know, I reached out to Elon Musk and said, for my museum, I want one of the first Tesla robots for the museum.

00:06:53.160 I want to keep it in the box and keep it in the museum, the first mainstream robot.

00:06:58.820 You know what he said?

00:07:00.960 All of the robots for the first, I think he said two years, he may have said one, all of the robots that Tesla will be making for the first two years will be for Tesla.

00:07:10.820 Think of how many robots he's going to be making in a two year period.

00:07:17.760 And all of them are going to be for Tesla.

00:07:23.240 That is a workforce army, army.

00:07:28.020 So, and that's coming quickly, really, really fast.

00:07:32.100 So it'll go the factory worker, then the truck driver, then the coder, then the accountant, you know, the analyst who thought they was immune from everything because, you know, I work with ideas.

00:07:43.340 The ground is shifting quickly.

00:07:46.240 So what is it we should talk about?

00:07:49.620 Well, the world is going to talk about universal basic income, and I am dead set against that, but that's the only thing anybody is talking about.

00:07:59.200 I went back and I did my homework last couple of days on Milton Friedman.

00:08:03.340 Milton Friedman was kind of for UBI, but a different kind of UBI.

00:08:08.320 And he may have the answer that is a bridge, at least.

00:08:13.960 When the world is in a panic, that's not the time to discuss things.

00:08:17.780 You discuss things before you're in a panic.

00:08:20.060 You make decisions before there's an emergency.

00:08:22.300 And now is that time.

00:08:24.400 Because once there's an emergency, the loudest voice comes in, and they have usually the simplest answer.

00:08:30.560 And everybody's like, yeah, yeah, go with that.

00:08:31.940 And that answer is going to be universal basic income.

00:08:35.100 That is the modern version of bread and circuses.

00:08:38.600 And make no mistakes.

00:08:40.160 The communists, the social planners, the Davos crowd, they're going to offer it all as, not as a temporary bridge, but as a permanent arrangement with you.

00:08:52.860 A managed society, a population that is pacified, production, centralized, dependency, normalized.

00:09:00.420 They're already talking about it.

00:09:02.960 Read Yuval Harari.

00:09:08.060 Read his work.

00:09:09.620 He is one of the main thinkers on the left and with all of the elites. 0.96

00:09:14.680 And he talks about, you know, there's just a useless class of people. 0.91

00:09:17.860 We cannot look at it that way.

00:09:20.860 And people are going to go for this, not because they, you know, love collectivism, but because nobody offered them another path.

00:09:27.580 I have been talking about this and trying to get people to talk about this for a while.

00:09:33.000 And there's a guy that we have to revisit.

00:09:36.280 And he's honestly a guy who surprised me that he's in this debate.

00:09:41.160 And it's Milton Friedman.

00:09:42.380 It at least surprised me that he's on the side that he's on.

00:09:45.760 I mean, here's the free market economist, the man being a defender.

00:09:51.120 He's accused of being a defender of the coldest kind of capitalism where they just don't care about babies and children and food.

00:09:57.920 He's the godfather of deregulation.

00:10:01.400 He actually support or supported a version of basic income, but not the kind that's being sold today.

00:10:09.860 He calls it the negative income tax.

00:10:12.640 Listen to what he actually proposed.

00:10:15.260 His idea, the negative income tax, works like this.

00:10:19.700 You eliminate the sprawling welfare state.

00:10:22.480 Okay, really important we do all of these things.

00:10:24.660 Eliminate the welfare state.

00:10:26.380 That's food stamps, housing subsidies, overlapping programs, bureaucracy.

00:10:30.460 Replace all of that with a simple income floor that everybody gets.

00:10:34.540 If you earn below a certain threshold, the government will send you supplemental income.

00:10:41.640 But as you earn more, the support will phase out very gradually.

00:10:46.000 That way you're not being punished for working.

00:10:48.560 And that last part is really critical because under the welfare system, if you earn a dollar, you lose a dollar in benefits.

00:10:54.320 And so the rational response is, well, why would I earn a dollar?

00:10:58.280 Because I'm never going to make enough to really be happy.

00:11:00.660 So why just, I'm just going to be, I'm going to live here.

00:11:02.760 I'll live off the government.

00:11:04.700 Friedman's system preserves incentive.

00:11:07.540 Okay.

00:11:08.040 You always gain more by working more.

00:11:12.340 Um, because he knows that you just can't make people comfortable.

00:11:17.260 In the lack of work.

00:11:20.060 Okay.

00:11:21.320 And, um, the system that we have now is honestly designed to get people destitute and destroy productivity.

00:11:36.320 This is the opposite.

00:11:37.940 Okay.

00:11:38.680 And I'm shocked that Milton Friedman is thinking this way, but he understood something.

00:11:43.600 Friedman understood something fundamental.

00:11:45.720 Markets require stability, free societies require order.

00:11:52.180 So when we're talking AI, technological advancement is going to become so severe at some point that AI could create pockets of severe displacement.

00:12:05.800 And with that, you'll either get violent populism, authoritarian redistribution of wealth, or a market compatible safety valve.

00:12:15.280 And that's what his negative income tax was a pressure release without central planning.

00:12:20.420 This is absolutely critical to keep the choice decentralized.

00:12:28.480 The individual, you still get to choose how you spend the money.

00:12:32.040 The federal government doesn't decide on which apartment you can rent, what food you can buy, which training program you have to attend.

00:12:38.300 None of that shrinks shrink down the state.

00:12:42.120 But as you create a floor for everybody, this is very different from modern UBI.

00:12:48.340 Okay.

00:12:48.620 It's that's tied to digital IDs, programmable currency, behavioral compliance.

00:12:54.780 I mean, all of that is the new world order and one world government.

00:12:58.660 I mean, but it is coming.

00:13:01.040 If AI eliminates 15 to 25% of current job categories over the next decade, you're going to see sudden income collapse in certain sectors.

00:13:10.580 Huge geographic economic deserts.

00:13:14.000 Most importantly, political radicalization, okay?

00:13:18.920 There is a piece, there's only two copies of this book that I have.

00:13:22.940 One is in the National Archives because it was all handwritten and the charts are all made by hand.

00:13:28.600 And it was made for President Roosevelt in World War II.

00:13:34.900 It was, I think it was the election in 1936 or 38, and it's called Radicalism, Revolution, or Recovery.

00:13:46.660 And they're making the case to FDR, Radicalism, Revolution, or Recovery.

00:13:57.340 That's what really enhanced the New Deal.

00:14:00.980 They chose incorrectly.

00:14:02.640 Honestly, will we choose the right thing?

00:14:08.420 You ever feel like you just need a moment to take a breath?

00:14:11.100 I mean, not a vacation, not a week off, just a little space, a little room in your chest that isn't filled with numbers and due dates and interest rates that never seem to sleep.

00:14:20.460 For a lot of people, that pressure isn't coming from one big disaster.

00:14:23.640 It's just coming from a stack of high interest debt that just sits there month after month,

00:14:27.520 quietly draining your paycheck before you even get a chance to use it for something that actually matters.

00:14:32.640 Credit cards at 20-something percent.

00:14:35.920 Personal loans that looked helpful at the time.

00:14:38.140 That's where American Financing can step in and help you.

00:14:41.140 They are a salaried, employee-owned company, which means their mortgage consultants aren't paid to push you into something that doesn't make sense.

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00:15:01.920 I've done business with these people for, gosh, over 20 years now.

00:15:05.580 It's American Financing, 800-906-2440, 800-906-2440.

00:15:11.960 It's AmericanFinancing.net.

00:15:13.740 Now back to the podcast.

00:15:15.400 This is the best of the Glenn Beck Program.

00:15:17.540 And don't forget, rate us on iTunes.

00:15:20.900 While we were all talking about the State of the Union yesterday, two big stories happened.

00:15:26.800 And this has been unfolding for the last couple of days.

00:15:29.100 And both of these stories are treated as no biggie.

00:15:34.500 And I found them yesterday, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, these are earth-shattering.

00:15:39.960 So let me tell you the first one.

00:15:41.800 Prime Minister of India, Prime Minister Modi, landed in Israel yesterday, and then he addressed the Knesset.

00:15:49.020 Then they signed defense agreements, or they discussed these defense agreements that are going way beyond commerce.

00:16:03.000 It's deep integration of Israel's layer air defense systems, including the Iron Dome and the laser layer known as the Iron Beam.

00:16:13.020 Not a sale, not a sale of those things to India, integration, technology transfer discussions happened yesterday.

00:16:26.980 This is joint production and institutional entanglement.

00:16:32.520 Even if half of what is being reported about the Iron Beam, the cost per interception is accurate, it's game-changing.

00:16:44.360 I don't know if you know about the Iron Beam.

00:16:46.440 You've heard about the Iron Dome.

00:16:47.620 What is the Iron Beam?

00:16:49.560 Right now, if you have an interceptor missile, an interceptor missile is anywhere between $2 million and $110 million.

00:16:59.040 Why do third-rate countries love new technology so much?

00:17:05.260 Because they could take $1 million and pour it all into drones, and they could just wipe an aircraft carrier out, okay?

00:17:13.920 Because we have to fire really expensive weapons to take those things down, and so you'll just bankrupt us.

00:17:21.720 What the Iron Laser is doing is it's single-digit dollars of electricity.

00:17:28.000 So you turn it on, boom, boom.

00:17:31.560 It's the electricity that fast, and that's all you're paying for.

00:17:34.800 And it's single-digit dollars instead of $110 million as an interceptor.

00:17:39.940 That changes the game.

00:17:42.360 The economics of attrition warfare completely out the window.

00:17:47.020 The old model has been overwhelm your enemy with cheap drones and rockets until he runs out of the expensive interceptors.

00:17:56.820 That math collapses if defense becomes cheaper than offense, okay?

00:18:03.580 Now, that's one shift.

00:18:05.160 That went over to India.

00:18:07.260 Now, here's the second.

00:18:10.680 India's Ministry of Defense briefly posted and then deleted that the Indian Navy had begun intercepting and seizing the Shadow Fleet oil tankers.

00:18:24.760 Wait a minute.

00:18:26.180 What?

00:18:26.520 The Shadow Fleet, these are ships wildly understood to be part of Russia's sanctions evasion system, okay?

00:18:36.060 This is going from Russia to other countries and from Iran to Russia, etc., etc.

00:18:42.980 He posted that they were now going after the Shadow Fleet, and then the tweet disappeared.

00:18:48.640 But the operations didn't.

00:18:51.340 So let me translate this.

00:18:54.600 India has been kind of a frenemy, if you will. 1.00

00:18:58.860 They're kind of, they just, they always play the edges, you know?

00:19:03.480 Their national identity for 80 years has been non-aligned.

00:19:08.720 We're not going to align with anybody.

00:19:10.440 And they're the founder of BRICS, okay?

00:19:15.200 Historic customer of Moscow for defense.

00:19:19.220 They bought a ton of discounted Russian oil, even during the Ukraine war.

00:19:25.880 India has built its post-independence mythology around strategic autonomy, okay?

00:19:34.040 It doesn't bow to anyone.

00:19:36.960 It's not part of a block.

00:19:38.720 Until this week.

00:19:43.480 India is now policing maritime law against the financial lifeline of Vladimir Putin.

00:19:50.520 That's not a policy tweak.

00:19:52.420 That is a tectonic shift.

00:19:55.480 The Shadow Fleet is not a detail.

00:19:58.820 It's how Russia sells oil outside of the sanctions regime.

00:20:02.800 It's the way Russia gets around us and the rest of the West. 1.00

00:20:06.760 It's how Moscow finances drones.

00:20:10.060 It's how they finance artillery shells and spare parts and political loyalty.

00:20:15.960 If you take down the Shadow Fleet, you constrict the war.

00:20:20.360 And what India is doing is not stopping there.

00:20:24.320 Iran is also using the same kind of network to move sanctioned oil.

00:20:29.320 China buys enormous quantities of discounted Russian and Iranian crude.

00:20:33.920 Now imagine India taking their navy and saying, yeah, we're going to choke that off. 0.99

00:20:48.720 Not just by America, but now joined by India, a non-aligned BRICS founder.

00:20:57.480 The country that for decades used Moscow as leverage against Washington.

00:21:02.700 That's what India does. 1.00

00:21:04.020 They play both sides.

00:21:05.480 But something changed.

00:21:07.020 Hmm, what has changed?

00:21:13.440 Over the last, what, two decades, the narrative coming out of Washington itself, coming out

00:21:20.120 of the United States is, America is over.

00:21:23.540 America is declining.

00:21:24.820 We're managing the decline.

00:21:26.500 We're spending ourself into oblivion.

00:21:28.880 We're not doing any of the things that you and I know we should have been doing for a

00:21:32.780 very long time.

00:21:33.740 So, BRICS, the dollar is going to fall.

00:21:37.960 BRICS will replace the West. 1.00

00:21:40.520 China's century is inevitable. 1.00

00:21:43.800 That's been the narrative for the last 20 years because we hollowed out our industrial

00:21:48.300 base.

00:21:49.360 We financialized absolutely everything.

00:21:52.720 And we were sitting here arguing about pronouns while China and everybody else was building 0.83

00:21:58.580 factories and missiles.

00:21:59.940 And what was happening was our politicians, unbeknownst to you, I mean, they would say

00:22:06.540 it, but they didn't ask you to vote on this.

00:22:08.700 They were managing America's decline.

00:22:13.880 Then Donald Trump came in 2016, but he didn't have it.

00:22:18.060 He didn't, he, he didn't really have his arms around what everything was and how to manage

00:22:23.140 everything.

00:22:25.080 Then came 2024.

00:22:28.040 When Donald Trump came in, the strategy now is not subtle.

00:22:34.800 The moves he's making are all transactional and unapologetic.

00:22:40.020 Carrot and stick and mean both of them.

00:22:43.780 But India continued buying Russian oil.

00:22:48.120 So tariffs followed.

00:22:49.760 Trade leverage followed.

00:22:51.400 Energy dominance returned as a strategic tool here in the United States.

00:22:55.540 Sanctions, enforcement tightened.

00:22:58.520 U.S.

00:22:58.960 naval seizures, seizures of the shadow fleet vessels off of Venezuela sent a very clear message.

00:23:05.900 We are now going to enforce maritime law.

00:23:08.960 We are not screwing around.

00:23:11.920 Carrot and stick and mean both.

00:23:15.840 Here in America, our press said, that's reckless.

00:23:18.960 It's going to alienate India and the rest of the world. 1.00

00:23:21.780 It's only going to strengthen bricks.

00:23:24.980 Except look what just happened.

00:23:28.060 We now have a sweeping trade framework that is reducing tariffs conditional on India curbing

00:23:35.980 Russian energy purchases.

00:23:38.580 First, they said no.

00:23:40.080 Then they said yes.

00:23:42.300 Now they're in Israel partnering on the Iron Dome.

00:23:49.420 And then they begin maritime enforcement against the shadow fleet tankers.

00:23:54.240 Modi standing in Jerusalem discussing the integrated defense architecture while F-22s are sitting on the Israeli tarmac.

00:24:01.700 China is negotiating for supersonic anti-ship missiles with Iran.

00:24:07.740 India is tightening the alignment with the West's security ecosystem.

00:24:12.820 This is not chaos.

00:24:14.600 This is fundamental transformation of the way the world is working.

00:24:21.440 We have pursued cautiously India for a very long time.

00:24:26.180 Then their Silicon Valley section, Bangalore, I think, it realized, wait, I've got to do things differently.

00:24:36.120 Then after the tidal wave, what was that in Japan?

00:24:42.420 Remember the big tidal wave?

00:24:43.360 I can't remember what that was called.

00:24:44.820 But anyway, something formed called the Quad.

00:24:47.720 Bangalore grew, the Quad was formed, relations start to thaw, suspicion still lingered, India still balancing their relationship between Moscow and the United States, not choosing side.

00:25:03.900 What you're witnessing now is different.

00:25:07.160 The U.S.-India relationship has been thawing because of India's Silicon Valley.

00:25:13.120 What they realized is that we need to integrate with the U.S. and the West on tech.

00:25:20.840 U.S.-India tech integration has to happen.

00:25:25.080 Massive Indian migration to the United States.

00:25:28.020 We are closer.

00:25:29.060 Shared software, AI, semiconductor, defense innovation ecosystems, and then a detox in India from the Cold War socialism that they were going through.

00:25:39.880 Let me explain this in plain terms.

00:25:43.120 India began tying its future to the West and Western capital, Western markets, Western technology.

00:25:50.600 And it was the first slow shift from Moscow.

00:25:54.400 Now I think India is looking at who's going to win AI, who's actually playing for the world, who actually has a solution that will work and that will want partners.

00:26:06.740 And I think they're picking us.

00:26:09.260 Then, like I said, the Quad, that's the United States, India, Japan, and Australia.

00:26:13.620 After the tsunami in 2004, they joined this thing, and then it kind of went dormant.

00:26:20.880 And then it was revised as a balancing coalition against China because China was, everybody knew, China was growing in maritime power and aggression.

00:26:29.420 So India agreed to sit at the security table with America and the Indo-Pacific.

00:26:35.300 India acknowledged China as a structural threat.

00:26:41.240 That's a pretty big deal.

00:26:43.900 India began stepping into the coalition.

00:26:46.180 Instead of strict non-alignment, it was cautious, it was quiet, it was incomplete.

00:26:53.560 But it was the first visible crack in India's 80-year-old posture. 0.98

00:26:57.840 Donald Trump comes in and he sees all of this.

00:27:03.620 He sees what's happening.

00:27:05.260 And he sees the opportunity.

00:27:07.640 What just happened with the shadow fleet enforcement and deeper defense integration is not incremental.

00:27:16.460 It is massive acceleration.

00:27:19.080 For 30 years, India leaned towards the West economically.

00:27:23.660 For 15 years, they leaned to the West strategically.

00:27:28.180 But now, this is a structural move.

00:27:31.400 So why does this all matter?

00:27:33.340 You're listening to the best of Glenn Beck.

00:27:35.500 Need a little more?

00:27:36.500 Check out the full show podcast anywhere you download podcasts.

00:27:40.020 There are moments in a man's life when he has to say three words and it does not come easily.

00:27:45.740 I was wrong.

00:27:48.640 On this one, I want you to understand, I want you to listen to the whole explanation here.

00:27:53.660 Because I don't believe I was wrong in principle.

00:27:56.940 I was wrong in understanding and possibly timing.

00:28:03.540 I've been thinking about this and playing with this for a while now.

00:28:06.860 But I think I am ready to say what I once opposed, tariffs, I now think I support.

00:28:20.300 In fact, I know I support.

00:28:21.820 I believed and I believe sincerely that free markets are not just efficient, but they're moral.

00:28:30.640 And I still believe that free markets are moral, that voluntary exchange between borders lifts all boats, that protectionism is a relic of fear.

00:28:41.380 And I hate that.

00:28:42.440 And I still believe those things because historically there is truth in that.

00:28:48.060 But historically there is also proof in the other way.

00:28:53.340 And let me explain.

00:28:54.760 After World War II, the United States stood alone.

00:28:58.140 We had everybody's gold.

00:28:59.340 From World War I and then World War II, we had everyone's gold.

00:29:03.460 Everybody's gold.

00:29:05.020 Our factories, we didn't lose anything to a bombing here.

00:29:09.220 Our factories were untouched.

00:29:10.880 Our industry was unmatched.

00:29:12.700 Our dollar unquestioned.

00:29:14.860 Free trade worked.

00:29:16.420 Why?

00:29:18.740 Because we were the apex predator.

00:29:21.820 In a world of economic rubble, we were Tyrannosaurus Rex. 1.00

00:29:26.740 And in that environment, tariffs would have been stupid for us. 0.98

00:29:31.820 Why would we impose tariffs? 0.95

00:29:33.500 We wanted the world to buy our stuff.

00:29:35.800 We're an engine.

00:29:36.860 We're just churning stuff up.

00:29:39.440 Okay?

00:29:41.120 But that's not the only chapter in American history.

00:29:43.780 Let's go back further.

00:29:45.240 Before we had everybody's gold.

00:29:48.100 The founders, and there's a great George AI on income tax.

00:29:53.560 Unrelated to this, it's so funny because the George AI came up and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is exactly, I mean, this is tied directly to what I'm talking about today.

00:30:01.640 The founders did not like income tax.

00:30:04.880 They didn't want any direct tax on people.

00:30:06.860 Okay?

00:30:07.340 The founders used tariffs as the primary funding mechanism of the federal government.

00:30:12.340 They did not have an IRS.

00:30:13.960 They did not believe in income tax.

00:30:16.000 They funded the entire government on tariffs, excise tax, and duties on imports.

00:30:22.800 That's it.

00:30:23.980 Okay?

00:30:24.140 It was simple, it was transparent, and it tied government revenue to trade rather than the confiscation of labor.

00:30:33.460 Okay?

00:30:35.300 That's how we set it up first.

00:30:37.320 Then came Abraham Lincoln and the early Republican Party.

00:30:41.840 Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans were unapologetically pro-tariff.

00:30:45.840 Why?

00:30:46.920 Ever wonder why the Republicans had for such a long time, oh, they're just for big business.

00:30:51.980 They're for big business.

00:30:53.140 It kind of comes from this in a way.

00:30:55.660 Okay?

00:30:57.860 America was industrializing at the time.

00:31:00.140 We were a nothing country back in the 1800s.

00:31:03.980 Okay?

00:31:04.140 We were still kind of a joke to the rest of the world.

00:31:06.920 We were a neat little experiment.

00:31:08.440 Let's put it that way.

00:31:09.260 And we needed to protect our infant industries from European dominance because they had all of it. 1.00

00:31:16.960 We had nothing.

00:31:18.180 So we enacted tariffs, and tariffs allowed us to make our own steel, our railroads, our manufacturing.

00:31:25.460 It helped turn a fractured farming nation into an industrial powerhouse.

00:31:33.580 Tariffs are not a sin.

00:31:35.960 They weren't then.

00:31:36.940 They aren't now.

00:31:37.780 Now, tariffs are a strategy.

00:31:41.920 So what happened?

00:31:43.000 Because tariffs were very, very popular from the founding of the country up until, hmm, 1913.

00:31:50.600 This is when tariffs start to get a bad name.

00:31:55.080 Tariffs.

00:31:55.540 What happened in 1913?

00:31:57.240 Oh, Woodrow Wilson, the Federal Reserve, and the income tax.

00:32:03.960 Okay?

00:32:04.140 Tariffs and income tax.

00:32:08.800 The federal government untethered itself from trade and tethered itself to your paycheck instead.

00:32:14.960 However, it didn't fully untether itself from trade.

00:32:19.120 And this changed everything because by 1930, Smoot-Hawley come in, and they're rightly or wrongly blamed for worsening the Great Depression because tariffs were imposed.

00:32:30.420 And that's protectionism.

00:32:31.680 And it has become politically toxic.

00:32:34.220 Okay?

00:32:34.420 I believed they were toxic.

00:32:38.240 And one reason why they were toxic that I now understand is because they were coupled with high taxes.

00:32:46.940 You cannot have both tariffs and high taxes.

00:32:52.080 I'll explain that in a minute.

00:32:53.800 So after World War II, America dominates the global economy. 0.78

00:32:59.280 Free trade is not just workable.

00:33:02.580 It's to our advantage.

00:33:04.940 Okay?

00:33:05.280 You got to start thinking.

00:33:06.880 You know, we think all idealistically.

00:33:09.400 Well, that was the principle, free trade.

00:33:11.600 And they weren't thinking that way.

00:33:13.680 Okay?

00:33:13.860 They don't think that way now.

00:33:15.180 Why?

00:33:15.480 All of a sudden they were pure and like the driven snow back in 1940 or 1950.

00:33:20.760 No.

00:33:21.700 They knew this was advantageous.

00:33:24.060 We had all the gold.

00:33:25.160 We had all of the industry.

00:33:26.420 We needed to sell stuff to the rest of the world.

00:33:29.820 So we opened our markets because we owned the markets.

00:33:34.980 And conservatives, including myself, inherited that worldview.

00:33:39.640 And we never asked beyond that worldview.

00:33:42.800 Free trade just became synonymous with prosperity because there are times when it is.

00:33:52.880 Tariffs become synonymous with stagnation because when you have all of the cards, why would you block your own market?

00:34:00.460 If you're trying to sell to the rest of the world, don't do that.

00:34:03.900 Okay?

00:34:04.060 Inflation became the argument ender because that's what I always argue.

00:34:09.980 Well, tariffs are going to raise prices.

00:34:11.980 Case closed.

00:34:13.460 Okay?

00:34:13.880 But here's what I failed to see.

00:34:16.080 Free trade works when all of the players are playing free.

00:34:19.640 We all know that, right?

00:34:21.520 It works when your trading partners are not subsidizing industries, manipulating currencies, stealing intellectual property, weaponizing supply chains, using slave labor.

00:34:32.780 We've said those things, but it never gets you over the hill.

00:34:38.700 Here's what got me over the hill.

00:34:41.260 Tariffs or free trade works when you own the markets.

00:34:46.180 But there comes a time when you then have to look at it and say, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute.

00:34:52.520 Now, we own the markets, but everybody else is weaponized trade against us.

00:34:57.340 And now, we're hollowing out our own industrial base.

00:35:02.400 You know, we're financing our adversaries' rise.

00:35:06.380 We see China.

00:35:07.800 We're funding that.

00:35:08.980 What are we doing?

00:35:10.040 We're hollowing ourselves out, and we're funding them.

00:35:13.860 This is insanity, okay?

00:35:16.000 It works when trade is reciprocal.

00:35:19.220 But when it's not, free trade becomes unilateral surrender.

00:35:24.540 And for decades, we told ourselves that cheap goods were proof of wisdom.

00:35:28.540 No, it was just proof of cheap goods.

00:35:31.820 Because while we were getting the cheap goods, our factories closed.

00:35:35.380 Our communities were collapsing.

00:35:37.240 Our strategic supply chains were all moved overseas.

00:35:40.720 We financialized our entire economy, while others were industrializing theirs.

00:35:49.600 And we confused low prices with national strength.

00:35:55.020 I didn't get this.

00:36:00.040 I mean, I've slowly been getting it.

00:36:02.220 But I didn't really understand it until I started to see the world, the bigger picture that Donald Trump is doing with tariffs, okay?

00:36:11.660 Because I believe 2024 was our last call.

00:36:14.800 We were at last call.

00:36:16.320 You either have to change your ways, or you're going to die as a nation, okay?

00:36:20.980 Structurally, we have to change.

00:36:23.680 The era of effortlessness American dominance is over, okay?

00:36:29.920 Unless we rebuild, unless we retool, unless we think out of the box, unless we start new strategies, unless we start saying, wait a minute, this doesn't work.

00:36:39.520 What about we try this, okay?

00:36:43.300 The lights will slowly and then quickly go out.

00:36:48.480 I have had very long conversations with the president about tariffs.

00:36:52.020 He has been remarkable in his conversations, only because he's been honest.

00:36:57.480 He'll listen to me go on and on and on, and he'll be like, well, Glenn, I've already thought of all those things.

00:37:01.000 I think you're wrong.

00:37:01.960 I'm going to do tariffs.

00:37:02.840 It's been refreshing to have a guy who will listen to you, actually take you seriously, listen, and then say, thought about that, thought about that, thought about that.

00:37:10.720 You haven't changed my mind, okay?

00:37:13.400 But I didn't understand his vision.

00:37:19.160 I believe because he has the vision to see the world economically as it truly is, but also the vision to see economically, business-wise, how it can be.

00:37:34.960 He understood tariffs are not just punishment and higher prices, okay?

00:37:40.820 You use tariffs strategically as leverage, as negotiation, tariffs as industrial policy without the bureaucracy, tariffs used strategically, not universally, tariffs used as a tool to bring trading partners to the table, tariffs being used to build domestic capacity.

00:38:02.240 When he keeps saying about these $18 trillion, everybody just, they blow it off like it's no big deal.

00:38:08.180 That's $18 trillion.

00:38:11.740 That's just about half of our entire national debt.

00:38:16.860 That $18 trillion is not being given to us.

00:38:20.000 That's foreign countries saying, I'm going to invest and build factories in your country, and I'm going to build about $18 trillion worth of factories.

00:38:31.300 What does that mean?

00:38:33.160 That means jobs.

00:38:35.060 $18 trillion worth of factories.

00:38:39.360 Let's say half of that is true.

00:38:43.680 That's pretty remarkable.

00:38:45.740 You know what that will do?

00:38:46.960 That will rebuild our industrial base, which we hollowed out because we didn't have tariffs.

00:38:53.160 I'd never seen them deployed in the way he's deploying them.

00:38:57.820 You know, I didn't understand the full history of it.

00:39:01.300 The founders did.

00:39:02.480 The founders did.

00:39:03.360 Lincoln did.

00:39:04.320 Early Republicans did.

00:39:06.940 I think we as a nation understood the other side in the 1940s and 50s, how they could be strategically removed and work to our advantage, but for a limited time.

00:39:18.400 Instead, we married into them and said, universal principle.

00:39:21.640 It's not.

00:39:22.640 It's not.

00:39:23.320 Tariffs are not isolationism.

00:39:28.960 Tariffs.

00:39:29.700 Now, listen to this, because, man, when I thought of this, I thought, oh, my gosh, I've always hated two words.

00:39:36.020 Nation building.

00:39:37.880 We're nation building.

00:39:39.500 Oh, my gosh.

00:39:40.220 My eyes start to hemorrhage when I hear nation building.

00:39:46.780 Right?

00:39:49.500 I've always hated that.

00:39:51.540 You know why?

00:39:52.800 Because those two words always meant we were building someone else's nation at our expense.

00:39:58.460 How many times have you or heard people say, on the left and the right, why are we nation building?

00:40:04.860 Our schools are failing.

00:40:06.080 Our factories are closing.

00:40:07.260 Our streets, our airports are falling apart.

00:40:09.200 Why are we building somebody else's nation? 0.89

00:40:11.040 Let's use the money here.

00:40:14.340 To everything, there is a season.

00:40:18.380 We were nation building.

00:40:20.920 That's what we were doing in the 1940s through the 1960s.

00:40:24.140 We were building other nations that had been completely destroyed.

00:40:28.480 So we allowed them to put tariffs.

00:40:31.940 We bought their goods.

00:40:33.880 They did it.

00:40:34.580 We were just open.

00:40:35.680 We sold them our stuff.

00:40:36.720 It was good for us and good for them for a while.

00:40:40.340 But to everything, there is a season.

00:40:42.200 After a while, they caught up.

00:40:44.420 They rebuilt their nations.

00:40:46.880 And we helped them do that.

00:40:48.100 But then we just kept this in place.

00:40:49.720 And by the time we hit the year 2000, China is rising.

00:40:53.700 Russia is weaponizing energy. 0.60

00:40:55.620 Our factories, our treasuries, our institutions, all hollowed out.

00:41:00.900 Okay?

00:41:01.960 No tariffs.

00:41:03.900 Not noble at some point.

00:41:06.500 They become negligent.

00:41:08.200 So this is why I'm reversing myself.

00:41:11.840 Not because I abandoned free market.

00:41:13.380 I believe in the free market.

00:41:14.940 But I think I've misunderstood the free market and to everything there is a season.

00:41:20.360 Okay?

00:41:20.540 A true free market cannot exist if your industrial base is gone.

00:41:27.880 And what no tariffs did to us, we did it intentionally, was nation build someone else at our expense.

00:41:37.200 After a while, it hollowed us out.

00:41:39.300 You cannot have a free market if supply chains are controlled by China, adversaries. 0.99

00:41:47.420 A free market doesn't exist if your middle class has been hollowed out all in the name of theoretical efficiency.

00:41:54.640 Tariffs, properly understood, properly used, are not anti-market.

00:41:59.880 They are a defensive tool to restore market sovereignty and to rebuild our nation.

00:42:07.260 Now, when these tariffs are nation building, our nation.

00:42:12.320 You know, and I bought the inflation argument as the strongest valid point.

00:42:17.540 Tariffs raise prices.

00:42:18.780 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they can.

00:42:23.720 And if you let them stand with high income tax alongside the tariffs, you've got the worst of all worlds.

00:42:32.880 So here's where I want to go further.

00:42:35.660 Tariffs and income tax cannot coexist.

00:42:40.720 Okay?

00:42:41.700 They cannot coexist.

00:42:44.660 Donald Trump talked about this.

00:42:46.220 This is what got me thinking on this part.

00:42:47.680 This is what finally pushed me over the edge.

00:42:49.300 He started to talk about getting rid of the income tax.

00:42:51.960 And I was thinking, okay, let's just play this out here for a second.

00:43:01.520 Investing is all about the future.

00:43:03.540 So what do you think is going to happen?

00:43:05.580 Bitcoin is sort of inevitable at this point.

00:43:08.040 I think it would come down to precious metals.

00:43:10.640 I hope we don't go cashless.

00:43:12.740 I would say land is a safe investment.

00:43:15.360 Technology companies.

00:43:16.280 Solar energy.

00:43:16.980 Robotic pollinators might be a thing. 1.00

00:43:20.080 A wrestler to face a robot.

00:43:21.760 That will have to happen.

00:43:23.360 So whatever you think is going to happen in the future, you can invest in it at Wealthsimple.

00:43:29.100 Start now at Wealthsimple.com.

The Glenn Beck Program - February 26, 2026

Best of the Program ｜ 2⧸26⧸26

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