The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program ｜ Guest： AG Ken Paxton ｜ 5⧸17⧸24

00:00:00.000 We take on society on today's podcast. What the hell have we become? Are we getting better or

00:00:06.040 worse as a society in the last four years? We also take on the cat fight that happened

00:00:14.320 in Congress. We have Ken Paxton to talk about a very important case in Texas.

00:00:20.600 The governor just pardoned somebody that was found guilty in Austin of shooting a BLM protester.

00:00:28.020 The guy that he shot was pointing an AR at him and threatening him. He felt threatened,

00:00:36.640 but the liberal jury in Texas found him guilty. It's an amazing story. That and so much more on

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00:02:07.140 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

00:02:12.000 Well, hello, Stu. Welcome to Friday. Glad you're here.

00:02:15.500 Thank you, Glenn. Welcome to Friday. Yeah. The Michael Cohen testimony. Woo! Such a trustworthy

00:02:23.800 guy. It's hard to believe that he'd have some inconsistencies on the stand, but I mean,

00:02:28.180 he can't, can't, anything's on the table these days, you know? Who would have thought?

00:02:33.440 It is amazing. Listen, I want to play, cut one, Anderson Cooper talking about this last night.

00:02:39.260 The last 20 minutes of court today, right before the lunch break, it was incredible. I mean, it was,

00:02:47.440 you know, Ellie Honig on my program last night had talked about, you know, on a cross-examination,

00:02:52.840 lawyers want to kind of put the witness in a, you know, build a box around the witness and then slam

00:02:58.660 it shut. That's what Todd Blanche did to Michael Cohen. It was an extraordinary cross-examination by

00:03:05.160 Todd Blanche. And, you know, Michael Cohen's, throughout the day, Michael Cohen, when cornered

00:03:11.180 in, when he found himself in a corner, he does have a pattern of suddenly not understanding the

00:03:17.260 question that's being asked. Seemingly kind of, I mean, one could say buying time to try to figure

00:03:22.420 out what, how he wants to answer. Uh, but he definitely suddenly starts to, you know, have a

00:03:27.620 Todd Blanche repeat questions and say, I don't quite understand what you mean. I'm confused by the

00:03:31.580 question. Uh, but this time Michael Cohen was, was cornered in what appeared to be, uh, a lie,

00:03:40.060 I think to many in the room and had to adjust suddenly his memory that he had just testified to

00:03:46.860 on Tuesday. Adjust his memory is a great phrase. Let me play one more cut from a CNN. This is an

00:03:56.860 analysis, uh, on CNN about that moment. Listen, cut to, I don't think I've ever seen a star cooperating

00:04:03.440 witness get his knees chopped out quite as clearly and dramatically as what just happened with Michael

00:04:08.420 Cohen. I've certainly seen very effective cross-examinations of cooperating witnesses.

00:04:12.660 I've seen aspects of their story cut into and called into question, but this goes to the heart

00:04:18.560 of the allegation here, that phone call on October 24th. And it looks to the jury and to Anderson Cooper

00:04:24.260 and Kara Scannell and judge George Grosso, who are all in the, in the courthouse, that that was a

00:04:28.780 devastating moment. So here's what happened. Michael Cohen is on the stand and he's testifying about a

00:04:35.280 phone call that happened. The whole case is really pinned to this phone call. And, uh, Michael Cohen has

00:04:43.760 been saying, yeah, I called the boss and, uh, I told him we're going through with a deal. Need your

00:04:49.160 approval. Okay. Well, what Michael Cohen didn't know apparently is that the, uh, defense had all of

00:04:58.080 the text messages between Michael Cohen and the guy he actually called, which was, uh, Trump's, uh, you

00:05:06.020 know, security guy. Keith Schiller. Yeah. Yeah. And so he was texting back and forth because Michael Cohen was

00:05:14.180 having some 14 year old hassle him and making crank phone calls to his phone, which makes me happy.

00:05:21.000 I'd love to know who that 14 year old kid is. I'd like to give him some meat. Um, but anyway, he, uh,

00:05:27.580 uh, he, he's writing and texting back to the security and saying, this kid is, is, uh, constantly

00:05:34.740 calling me. What do I do? How do I do it? Who do I talk to? And the security guy says, uh, I can help

00:05:41.740 call me. That was two minutes before the phone call. So they started with the testimony saying,

00:05:49.640 really? So, uh, you were calling Trump. It looks like you didn't talk to Trump. It looks like you

00:05:56.340 talked to security. What did you talk about? Well, I told him we were going to get really, because two

00:06:02.160 minutes before you're asking him about a phone call and he says, call me. And you called him right back.

00:06:08.820 Well, that was part of it. And the whole thing fell apart from there. Yeah. I mean,

00:06:15.920 this is devastating. Yeah. I mean, the claim by Cohen now, again, there's been, he's told every

00:06:22.740 version of the story. So the whole point of this is we're supposed to believe him today and not the

00:06:27.480 other times he's told the story, but on the stand, it seemed to change. Basically, he says he,

00:06:34.720 they had this text exchange about the 14 year old. And if you didn't think Cohen was an idiot. 1.00

00:06:39.140 Please, if you're the 14 year old or know the 14 year old, please have him call me. 1.00

00:06:44.440 He's not 14 anymore, but yes. I know, but I would love to, I'd love to hear his story.

00:06:49.980 Yes. Uh, so for, he's a 14 year old, he's pranking Cohen. Um, and apparently Cohen has an issue

00:06:56.880 figuring out who he's talking to. He's talking to actually a 14 year old. So they're having a back

00:07:02.540 and forth. They think this might be a problem. They, they call Schiller. They have a text message

00:07:07.280 about a exchange about this with Schiller. Then he calls Schiller and Cohen's testimony is basically,

00:07:14.440 he talks to him and has a full conversation about the 14 year old prank calls. And then also has a

00:07:22.820 conversation about the stormy Daniels payment. But wait, wait, wait. On Tuesday, he didn't mention

00:07:31.220 the other part. Right. He didn't mention the 14 year old. Right. No, I know this is, this is his,

00:07:35.580 I'm trying to keep these all separate. This is his new telling of the story. Right. Right. The new

00:07:39.660 telling is he has this conversation and he has a conversation with another person on the same call,

00:07:45.840 which is Donald Trump. And he updates him on the stormy Daniel case. This all occurs in 96 seconds.

00:07:53.140 Now look, it's not impossible. I guess if just everyone goes, okay, all right, here he is. Okay. Bye.

00:08:04.780 Like I, I guess all that detail could theoretically be jammed into 96 seconds, but it doesn't make any sense.

00:08:11.380 Yes. He's he, the first, the email, the first email about that 14 year old kid is this kid is calling

00:08:18.060 me. I don't know what to do. Blah, blah, blah. The guy says, call me just explaining, explaining that

00:08:24.400 right. That's 90 seconds. That's a minute and a half. Just explaining that. What do you then say

00:08:32.380 about the Trump thing? Oh, tell Donald Trump. We're going to be doing the, you know, we're doing the cash

00:08:36.760 thing to click. I mean, that makes no sense. And if it was done that way, there was no conversation.

00:08:48.420 He just blurted it out. Yeah. It is fascinating. And it's fascinating to think about separately from

00:08:53.820 just the Trump legal ramifications of this, but just the, the Michael Cohen ramifications.

00:08:59.600 This is a guy who was in front of everyone's face, lying constantly, constantly when he was on,

00:09:07.660 when he was employed by Donald Trump. And to the point of that, like every, I mean, I didn't know

00:09:11.480 a lot of conservatives who liked him, but certainly every liberal hated him. And now Cohen has reversed

00:09:18.440 course completely and is now lying against Donald Trump. And of course has received largely what you'd

00:09:26.540 expect from the media, which is all of a sudden this newfound credibility. All of a sudden they love him

00:09:31.480 and all of a sudden he's best friends. Now he's lost everybody on the right, right? So now the only

00:09:35.720 thing he has left is on the left, but the only thing he has remaining is on the left. Glenn, what happens

00:09:41.560 to this guy if they don't get this conviction? He is going to have no friends. Everyone is going to hate

00:09:50.260 this guy. You know, he'll get what he deserves. He'll get, he'll get the life that he deserves,

00:09:54.660 which is to be completely discredited. As somebody who was an alcoholic, um, and lost my credibility.

00:10:03.060 When I was at, when I hit bottom, I hit, I lost my family. I lost absolutely everything. I was

00:10:09.420 living in a, in an apartment. Stu was an intern at the time. We lived in the same building.

00:10:18.160 It's true. Uh, I mean, I was at rock bottom. I was literally making zero dollars an hour and had

00:10:26.200 the same, uh, and this was in the same apartment building as you. Uh, so, you know, and when you

00:10:31.540 lose everything, I found when I was literally down on my knees, feeling sorry for myself,

00:10:39.620 I remember praying, Lord, all I want back is my name. I just want my credibility. I will do whatever

00:10:49.060 you tell me to do. I just want to be able to look at people in the eye and say, this is what I believe

00:10:55.760 is true. And for them to at least consider that I'm telling the truth. When you lose your credibility,

00:11:04.380 you have nothing. So this guy is about to receive the worst punishment. I think that you, and it's,

00:11:11.580 and it's always self-imposed. Well, not always in today's world, but it's usually self-imposed.

00:11:17.480 You've just lied to everybody and you've burned every bridge. And that's usually what an alcoholic

00:11:23.860 does just to hide their alcoholism. Uh, and there's nothing more valuable. You can lose everything,

00:11:30.440 but if you lose your word and your honor, you have nothing, nothing. You're listening to the

00:11:37.200 best of the Glenn Beck program. Well, the day has finally come to a close as you ease yourself down

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00:12:31.520 the number four relief. When you feel the difference, you know, it works. Now back to the podcast.

00:12:40.020 You know, Glenn, we had this situation with Cohen testifying and saying one thing on the stand

00:12:47.360 where sort of there's like almost like a parallel trial going on at the same time where I mean where

00:12:54.180 you have it's not really a trial, but it's an attorney. And it's sort of like, I mean, there's

00:13:00.480 testimony going on at the house that is vitally important to what we're talking about here. This

00:13:06.100 is this is the Cohen's former attorney Costello is his name, Robert Costello, Robert Costello.

00:13:13.020 And he was the attorney. If you think about the timeline of Cohen, Cohen's a big Trump guy,

00:13:18.760 he gets raided. And in that moment, he needs an attorney. And he gets Robert Costello to be his

00:13:25.320 attorney. Now in the interim, since that went on, Cohen allowed Costello to get out of his attorney

00:13:33.920 client privilege. Why? That part I don't actually remember. I remember going through this a while ago

00:13:41.740 and trying to understand that. And I don't remember how that ended up. I think, you know,

00:13:46.280 I mean, Cohen was certainly trying to portray to everyone that he was completely an open book and

00:13:50.480 he didn't care about what anyone said about him. And he, you know, he was transparent now and he's

00:13:55.720 had this big awakening. I don't know if it was part of that process or what, but basically Costello is

00:14:02.260 now free to talk about his conversations in private with Cohen and go on television and talk about

00:14:08.180 it. So let me give you, let me set this up with a clip of him. This is a longer clip, but it's of

00:14:15.020 House testimony where Costello is talking about what Cohen told him in this moment in 2018. And keep in

00:14:23.500 mind, this is a weird period. He hasn't fully turned on Trump at this point, but he is panicking. And

00:14:29.720 remember, he's not panicking. He didn't get in trouble over the stuff he had to do with Donald Trump.

00:14:35.220 This was stuff that he had, Cohen had on his own, issues with taxi medallions and a bunch of

00:14:41.780 nonsense and tax issues that he was in serious trouble for. Hang on just a sec. Taxi medallions

00:14:47.380 are a New York thing. You have to have this big metal medallion on the hood of your taxi.

00:14:53.060 No, it's not. No, it's not taxi medallions like that. No, no. What was it? So taxi, I mean,

00:15:01.100 maybe with Michael Cohen, I would not be surprised if that's what he thought they were when he bought

00:15:05.020 them. But no, medallions are basically like a pass. There's only a certain amount of medallions

00:15:10.220 they give out. And if you get a medallion, you can drive a cab around the city. Exactly right.

00:15:15.720 Those are marked on the car by this medallion that they put on. And they're hundreds of thousands

00:15:24.000 of dollars. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't know. I was picturing Michael Cohen with a

00:15:28.760 giant gold chain as you said that. No, no, no, no, no. It's not. Okay. No, no. Yes. But yeah,

00:15:33.460 it's basically the rights to have a cab. Now, there's a limited number of them, so they became

00:15:38.320 very expensive. The very typical thing governments do, right? They put a false scarcity on a market.

00:15:45.100 It makes these things really expensive. People come in, they buy them, they sell them,

00:15:49.040 they try to make lots of money. Now, of course, Uber came around and blew this whole thing up.

00:15:54.740 So anyway, he had all sorts of problems tied to that and other business dealings that we don't

00:15:58.800 have time to get into. But the bottom line was this was a very desperate moment for him.

00:16:03.560 And I want to bring this now back to the testimony in the House. This is his former attorney at that

00:16:10.600 time, Robert Costello. Through further cross-examination, Cohen told me that he knew there

00:16:15.620 was money missing from the Trump inauguration. I see where you are now. Thank you. Okay. And then on

00:16:19.620 the next page, into that first paragraph, Cohen decided that while he didn't believe the allegation

00:16:25.700 of the Stormy Daniels story, that he thought the story would be embarrassing for Trump and

00:16:31.460 especially for Melania. So he decided he would take care of it himself. Absolutely. And that is

00:16:36.500 contrary to what this guy testified to in court in New York yesterday. Well, and what's not being

00:16:41.860 talked about is your next paragraph, like the reason and his motivation for that. So if you could

00:16:46.740 just kind of walk through that for the committee? Yeah. Obviously, when we started to talk about

00:16:52.380 the NDAs, and this is the very first meeting at the Regency Hotel, when, by the way, Rudy

00:16:58.660 Giuliani was not involved in representing Donald Trump at that time. Cohen testified that it was

00:17:04.940 a conspiracy between Giuliani and Costello as of this date. Totally false. In any event, he also said

00:17:12.160 that he didn't discuss the Stormy Daniels matter with us. And he certainly did. I specifically asked

00:17:17.900 him because he kept on going back saying, I can't believe they're trying to put me in jail for these

00:17:22.680 NDAs. So I said, Michael, tell me about the NDA. Tell me about Stormy Daniels. What did you do?

00:17:27.980 He said, I got a call from a lawyer representing Stormy Daniels who represented that she was going 0.86

00:17:34.300 to testify that Donald Trump had sex with Stormy Daniels. Michael Cohen said, I didn't believe the

00:17:40.920 allegation. But I knew that such an allegation would be terribly embarrassing. He said, it would

00:17:46.400 be embarrassing. He focused on Melania Trump. He said, I didn't want to embarrass Melania Trump. He

00:17:53.400 said, that's why I decided to take care of this on my own. I went back to that several times. You did

00:17:59.860 this on your own? On my own. Did Donald Trump have anything to do with it? No. Did you get the money

00:18:05.300 from Donald Trump? No. From any of his organizations? No. From anybody connected to

00:18:10.580 Donald Trump? No. Where did you get the money? I took out a HELOC loan against my property. I said,

00:18:16.760 why would you do that? He said, I didn't want anybody to know where I got this money. I didn't

00:18:22.000 want Melania to know. I didn't want my own wife to know because she's in charge, he said, of the

00:18:27.240 Cohen family finances. He said, if she saw money coming out of my account, she'd ask me a hundred

00:18:32.180 questions and I didn't want to answer any of them. It was clear after talking to him

00:18:37.380 for several days after that, whenever we talked on the phone or in my office, that he kept on

00:18:43.680 bringing up the subject that he felt he was betrayed by not being brought down to Washington,

00:18:48.700 D.C. This guy thought, he said to me, that he should have been Attorney General of the United

00:18:54.280 States or at least the Chief Assistant to the President. Ludicrous, but that's what he thought.

00:18:59.660 And he was very angry about that. He wanted to do something to put himself back into the inner

00:19:05.420 circle of Donald Trump. That's why he took care of this on his own. It had to be a motivation.

00:19:11.540 Michael Cohen is always working for things that benefit himself. And that's what he was doing here.

00:19:17.800 That's completely different to what he said that he told the grand jury. That's completely different

00:19:22.660 to what he's testifying to in New York. Nobody has heard this side of the equation.

00:19:27.260 This is incredible because this is Michael Cohen's former lawyer, who Michael Cohen gave him

00:19:34.800 permission to violate attorney client privilege. That is absolutely, absolutely falls directly in

00:19:46.660 line with who we know Michael Cohen is. I mean, yeah, it does. And the grand jury wouldn't listen to

00:19:54.760 this. They tried to cut him off, cut him off, cut him off. Listen to this. This is when was this 0.93

00:19:59.280 clip from Fox? It's a couple of days ago, but this is from Fox News. Before I testified on a Monday

00:20:05.260 before the grand jury, I gave Alvin Bragg's assistant DAs the courtesy of about an hour and a half

00:20:13.080 Zoom conference where I told them all of the exculpatory material that I had that they were

00:20:20.020 supposed to put before the grand jury. But when I appeared before the grand jury,

00:20:25.580 they were asking me questions that in my opinion, and I've been a federal prosecutor myself, I was

00:20:31.520 deputy chief of the criminal division in the Southern District of New York. Those questions

00:20:35.800 they were asking me were not going to elicit the exculpatory information that I had. So I began to expand

00:20:43.340 upon my answers, and the DA's office was trying to shut me down saying that I had finished my answer.

00:20:50.140 And I told them that when I'm in the middle of answering a question, I'll decide when I finish

00:20:55.640 my answer. And I asked them not to interrupt me again. But basically, they only put in a small

00:21:01.640 cherry-picked group of emails. I presented maybe two to three hundred emails and text messages to them.

00:21:08.860 I had them with me, luckily, in chronological order. They put two or three into evidence. I asked them,

00:21:15.660 are you going to put the rest of them into evidence? And they said no.

00:21:20.660 What's fascinating about this, a couple of things, Glenn, is Costello is not like a Michael Cohen. He's

00:21:26.860 not just some like crappy attorney. As he mentions, he's had like high-level jobs. He was a prosecutor.

00:21:32.160 He's done all of this stuff. He's well-respected. He's an actual respected attorney. Yes, there's no

00:21:38.180 debate about that. And what he's saying he did is he went to Alvin Bragg and said,

00:21:43.920 hey, you guys should know this stuff. You're in the middle of going through this, and you're not

00:21:49.720 aware that this guy has told the exact opposite story. Let me lay it out to you. He basically warns

00:21:57.100 them, don't go forward with this because you don't have all the information. They take that information,

00:22:01.560 and when they talk to him, specifically design questions so that he won't be able to get to

00:22:09.460 the information he's brought in. And he realizes this as someone who's gone through this process.

00:22:15.420 He's a former prosecutor. He knows how this stuff works. So he realizes they're trying to lead him

00:22:21.200 away from the stuff that will actually make Michael Cohen look bad. And he, of course,

00:22:28.000 has a major issue with this. Glenn, I don't know. If you're Donald Trump, you're looking at this,

00:22:36.520 and things have gone pretty well for you in this trial. Oh, my God. Do you extend this and call

00:22:41.140 Costello to the stand next week? I would. I absolutely would. Because he's not a friendly

00:22:48.660 witness. He's a neutral witness. He's just telling the truth and has the stuff to back it up. I have

00:22:56.720 to tell you, Stu, as I'm listening to this, all I can think of is, who do I know that is a credible

00:23:03.200 investigative journalist that will do all of the homework and join with me to write a book on the

00:23:11.580 attempted assassination of the President of the United States? Because all of the information now

00:23:18.420 is there. And this whole thing from, you know, the Russiagate, all of this stuff, we now have the

00:23:30.240 truth. But nobody's tied all of it together to show you this plot. We know it. We've lived it.

00:23:38.260 But somebody needs to document in hard facts the entire plot from 2015 all the way to today.

00:23:49.840 Because I've never seen anything like it. And no one has paid a price for it. It's extraordinary in

00:23:59.020 American history. I don't think there's ever been anything like this. And this is a modern day

00:24:05.180 assassination attempt. You and I both know, and I hate to even address stuff like this, but you and

00:24:12.040 I both know there are those people, and I don't know who they are, and I don't know how many there

00:24:17.040 are, but there are those people that hate Donald Trump so much because they will destroy, because he

00:24:23.520 will destroy their plans for a new world order. They will, they would at least consider an actual

00:24:32.360 assassination if this doesn't work. And that's terrifying. But this is a modern day assassination

00:24:40.920 of a man's character. And it's a gigantic conspiracy that is now out in the open.

00:24:51.860 In the sense of the Clarence Thomas high-tech lynching, right? It's that same type of approach.

00:24:56.780 Exactly right. So do you buy the, the, the left-wing pushback on Costello is basically

00:25:04.120 that at this time, Cohen had not turned against Donald Trump. So the idea is that Cohen goes in

00:25:13.280 there, he's still defending Donald Trump because he has not turned on him yet. And he's saying all

00:25:18.200 these things, which is essentially his public line. I know it was me. I did it. It had nothing to do

00:25:22.460 with it. I don't think they slept together, all this stuff. And Costello gets that out of him.

00:25:27.900 And the idea is Costello had a relationship with Giuliani, which is, he kind of brought that up in

00:25:33.980 one of the clips. He's being accused essentially of being a setup. Trump gives him Cohen, or Trump

00:25:40.120 gives him Costello because he knows he'll get this out of him and then he can use it against him later.

00:25:44.620 Okay. So here's how I would respond to that. Uh, first of all, uh, explain the testimony yesterday

00:25:51.980 from Cohen, uh, explain it. You can't, you now know, and, and even CNN has admitted,

00:26:00.720 it looks very much like he lied. Okay. So we know who he is. We know he's lied in the past. Um,

00:26:10.000 and now a credible, uh, attorney under oath, uh, who is able to say attorney client privilege

00:26:17.960 who has no record of being a liar. Uh, he comes and he says this. So wait a minute. So you,

00:26:26.500 the left, they knew that Cohen was lying under Donald Trump. And so did we, when he was a friend

00:26:33.000 of Donald Trump, we knew he was lying. So he was a liar. Then we know from yesterday, 1.00

00:26:38.580 he's a liar. Now this attorney says, um, he's not only a liar, but Alvin Bragg is so distorting 0.99

00:26:49.080 the truth that he's a liar, but forget about Al, uh, uh, Bragg. Just look at Cohen. When do you, 0.92

00:26:58.380 how do you pick and choose when Cohen is lying? You can't, he has no credibility. He cannot,

00:27:05.740 you, you cannot trust a word he says. And this guy hasn't lied. Least that I know of. So he has

00:27:16.240 credibility as an, as a credible attorney. The only thing they can do is again, assassinate a man's 0.59

00:27:23.400 character. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Our attorney general from the

00:27:27.800 great state of Texas, Ken Paxton. Ken, how are you? Welcome. Well, great to be back. Happy Friday.

00:27:34.000 Thank you. Um, yesterday, uh, the governor did something that I am very grateful for. Uh,

00:27:41.640 he pardoned Daniel Perry who shot and killed a black lives matter protester in self-defense.

00:27:49.560 A jury in 2023 found that he was guilty. Tell the story and why it was logical and important to pardon

00:27:58.660 him. Well, so I called on his, I called for his pardon immediately when he was convicted. You have

00:28:05.060 to realize where he's at. First of all, he's in Austin, Travis County, one of the most liberal Soros

00:28:10.340 funded DAs in the country. And for people that don't know, Austin is the closest thing you can get

00:28:18.680 to San Francisco, uh, in Texas. Yes. We hate to say it that way, but it's true. It's a super liberal

00:28:26.540 city. Uh, and the, the, you know, justice there is not justice like it used to be. It's, it's very

00:28:32.800 political. And, uh, so they, they prosecuted this guy and I can tell you somebody who's done some

00:28:38.120 training with, uh, on shooting and having, doing simulations where you have hostage situations,

00:28:44.880 those decisions that you have to make when somebody's pointing a gun at you, you're probably

00:28:49.620 too late. And if you, if you wait for somebody to fire, you're very likely dead, especially

00:28:55.160 if they are AR 15. So this guy was ended up in the middle of it with it. He was a driver

00:29:00.780 and he ended up in the middle of a protest, uh, with BLM and black lives matter. And then

00:29:07.600 surrounding his car, right? Surrounding his car. He thought, I mean, you're talking about

00:29:11.980 intent. You know, those we've seen it a million times. Yeah. And there was damage. People

00:29:16.500 got hurt. Probably got hurt. It wasn't like they were all peaceful protests. Most of them

00:29:20.020 weren't. So yeah, I mean, it's true. It's just nothing ever happened to any of those people

00:29:24.900 that, that I know of that, that did the, the, the property damage and hurt other people.

00:29:28.980 So the, the guy, the guy with the, the, the, the weapon pointed at him and, and Perry shot

00:29:37.140 him and defended himself. And look, who knows what would have happened? Who knows what the

00:29:41.040 guy, they're saying the guy didn't have any ammunition. How do you know that?

00:29:44.240 If you're it, that's, that's what they said. And that's what the prosecutor tried to find.

00:29:49.220 I got to tell you, if a cop points a gun, I'm holding a gun. It's empty. Even if it's a plastic

00:29:57.920 gun that looks like a gun and I'm pointing it at a cop and he shoots me, he's right to shoot 0.99

00:30:05.440 me. I'm stupid for pointing a gun, loaded, unloaded, a toy. It doesn't matter. 1.00

00:30:13.700 Exactly. And you've nailed it on the head. And somehow, um, this guy ends up getting convicted

00:30:19.120 25 years in prison for merely protecting himself. You cannot know if you wait for the other person

00:30:26.280 to shoot, especially for the AR 50, you are likely dead. You have to defend yourself and

00:30:32.260 you have to make a split second decision, which is not an easy decision.

00:30:38.380 So he was convicted by a jury of his peers. And yesterday, governor Abbott, uh, uh, did

00:30:47.960 what you've been asking for, for a while, pardoned him a, is there a reason why it took this long?

00:30:55.220 Cause he was convicted in 2023. And what are the ramifications of the pardon? Uh, I applaud

00:31:01.540 governor for what he's done. Yeah. And I, and I do too. I, he did the right thing. So it, it's not

00:31:06.560 up to governor Abbott initially to make the pardon. He appoints the board, the board of pardon and

00:31:11.800 paroles, and then they have to look at it. They have to analyze it. However long they take, they

00:31:15.780 take, there's nothing that we can do about who's on that board. And I mean, Abbott appoints them, but

00:31:20.300 as far as what they need to go through, what process needs. So they went through their process.

00:31:24.660 It took, you know, longer than I would have hoped, but they at least went through the process and

00:31:29.060 then Abbott can agree with it or not agree with it. And he, he went with it. So, you know, look,

00:31:34.960 he, he put the right people on the board that took this seriously, spent their time and, and

00:31:40.040 commuted this guy's sentence and pardon. And then Abbott was able to pardon him. So I, I applaud that

00:31:45.740 justice actually can happen in this country, but sometimes it's not in a, in a liberal democratic

00:31:51.100 court in Austin. So, um, when they did this, I mean, it, it's been, you know, almost a year since

00:31:57.080 he's been, um, uh, found guilty and he's been in jail. Um, when, when they did this, they started

00:32:04.700 that process right away. Let me ask it this way. They did due diligence. I mean, they tore this. It

00:32:11.240 wasn't something like, you know, I read this in the paper and I think this is wrong. What do you

00:32:15.340 think, Bill? They, they did work hard on the diligence, right? Yeah. They took it seriously.

00:32:22.320 I mean, just from the time that it took to get this done, this didn't happen quickly.

00:32:27.060 This guy has still been in jail for, I think, well over a year. So it's not like it was some,

00:32:32.580 you know, little half, half, um, half, a half, a little amount of time. This, they took it seriously

00:32:38.820 and they took some time and trying to figure this out. Well, was this justice? And I think they got

00:32:43.040 the right answer. And I'm glad we have this process. And this is a really, this is a huge

00:32:47.940 change in Texas. I mean, we are, we are a right to carry state open carry without a license. Um,

00:32:54.940 we are a, we're a state that has the castle doctrine and it is, we hold true to that.

00:33:02.020 Here's a guy who was, was shooting in self-defense, uh, and it went to the court and they found him

00:33:09.860 guilty that, that in Texas, that's massive, isn't it? Yeah, it is massive. And we, we have

00:33:17.940 not only the castle doctrine that allows you to defend your home. If somebody comes in, you don't

00:33:20.920 have to like ask them if they come into your home, you have a right to defend it. You don't have to

00:33:24.460 wait for them to shoot you. And the same is true. If it's called stand your ground doctrine. If

00:33:30.020 somebody has a weapon that is pointed at you and look, this guy had a right, the guy with the AR-50

00:33:34.920 had a right to carry the weapon, but should he have carried a weapon and should he have pointed

00:33:39.120 it? Um, that's, I mean, that creates, if you've got that kind of weapon and you're pointing it,

00:33:43.840 you should not expect that somebody might be worried that you're going to shoot him. It's crazy

00:33:47.920 to have to wait to shoot you before you can actually exercise your right to defend yourself.

00:33:52.840 And he didn't pay any price for brandishing a firearm.

00:33:56.720 As far as I know, no prosecution of him and no question of him carrying a weapon. You think like

00:34:01.560 Austin and other places would have gone nuts. Some of the democratic politicians that are calling

00:34:05.600 Abbott and saying, calling him out on this thing that, you know, he's a white nationalist or

00:34:09.740 something. What about the guy that actually had the weapon? Why does that, why do they never talk

00:34:14.840 about that? They never talk about it. Uh, does this establish any precedent in law at all in Texas?

00:34:23.440 Is this something that's going to come and haunt us this, uh, this ruling by the jury and judge?

00:34:29.540 Uh, you know, it's Austin. I think we're going to be haunted by Austin for a long time.

00:34:35.880 Okay, but it won't affect other? No, no, no. I, you know, it's an individual jury ruling. And so

00:34:41.940 no other place is required to prosecute and convict and put people in prison for self-defense. You're

00:34:47.660 not, as a matter of fact, it's a violation of the law to do that. And it doesn't hold any kind of

00:34:52.180 precedent at all. Good. Um, can I change the subject and I, and unfair, cause we didn't alert you that I

00:34:57.980 would talk about this. So I don't know if you're, those are my favorite topics. The ones that I

00:35:01.760 don't know about. Uh, have you been watching the Trump trial in New York?

00:35:07.100 I was there. I was, uh, I showed up like two weeks ago. I think I'm the first person to show up and

00:35:11.920 I, and I went there and I was, if you want to know my opinion, I was stunned. Like I knew it was bad,

00:35:17.860 but when I sat there in the morning and I, I, I went into the room, the president was lawyers and I

00:35:23.680 kind of pulled those lawyers aside. I said, I don't understand why you don't object to hearsay.

00:35:27.080 And they said, well, we're not, we're not even, we're not allowed to object to that. I said,

00:35:30.120 what are you talking about? You have to object to hearsay. They said, no, we're, we're prevented

00:35:32.920 by some rule that made no sense to me. And sure enough, we go back in and they tried to object.

00:35:37.740 They said, objection. I think they were just trying to show me and, uh, they objected and the judge

00:35:42.580 said overrule. And I'm like, don't you have to state your objection before it's overruled? He didn't even

00:35:46.740 let them state the objection. Right. They say object. And then the, this, the way it works,

00:35:52.620 at least on TV, uh, I object your honor on what grounds. And then they have to say it. And then

00:35:57.280 he says overruled or sustained. And it, he's not asking the defense. And I understand he's not even

00:36:05.500 asking the, uh, uh, the prosecution. Right. I'd never, of course I only saw one objection the whole

00:36:13.940 day because it was overruled without it, without them stating what the objection was, which I had,

00:36:19.880 I've been in court enough to know how objections work. I'm not, I don't typically do litigation,

00:36:24.360 but I know enough about like, you know, hearsay and it's pretty basic, right? Objection. You,

00:36:30.020 that's hearsay. And the judge is supposed to give you a ruling on that based on the law and

00:36:33.820 the rules of evidence. And guess what? That never was allowed that I saw. That's insane.

00:36:40.300 Unbelievable. How do you, do you see the testimony yesterday from, uh, uh, Cohen?

00:36:46.580 I did not see the testimony. Yeah. I'd love to hear your opinion on that. Uh, he's, he, I mean,

00:36:54.780 even CNN said they've never seen, uh, a witness cut in half like this. He was caught in his own lie,

00:37:04.400 uh, about the phone call that he made. I mean, the, the prosecution just barbecued him in, in New York.

00:37:14.160 Is it like Austin? Do you think facts will matter when they're that clear?

00:37:21.700 Here's what I'd say. I think in general, if you have a pretty liberal jury pool,

00:37:25.960 many of them have already decided when they walked in and that's why they've got them in that spot.

00:37:30.020 However, there's a lot of jurors and you can just hope and pray that one of them at least will have

00:37:34.980 the courage to actually listen to the testimony and listen to the evidence if there is any,

00:37:39.460 and make the right decision about this and realize this is something we've never seen before

00:37:44.740 where we're not just in New York, but all these other places where a former president is being

00:37:49.680 prosecuted for things that happened a long time ago. And it's all being prosecuted six months before

00:37:54.420 the election. There's no accident for that. No. One last thing. Um, you know, our universities

00:37:59.880 around the country have been set on fire. We, we know we've tracked it. We know they're being

00:38:05.760 funded by the deep left, George Soros, really bad organizations. Uh, they're very well planned.

00:38:13.660 They're planning on, you know, all kinds of things, uh, this, uh, fall. Uh, are we prepared

00:38:22.480 for what could happen in the fall? I don't know if we're prepared. Um, because I mean, all of this

00:38:30.180 is sort of unprecedented and it's hard when you don't control all the levers of government, whether it's,

00:38:35.180 you know, the DAs and all these big cities or certain areas that are, that are progressive

00:38:40.840 like Austin or San Antonio, it's hard to be fully prepared because we have different people in

00:38:47.380 leadership that have a different agenda. And there's certainly people that are sympathetic to

00:38:50.920 Hamas and who would just as soon see, you know, Israel just, you know, destroyed. 0.98

00:38:57.740 Uh, Ken, thank you so much. Have we made any progress on securing the vote?

00:39:02.480 You know what? I told you when I was on there last time, my biggest fear, I just saw an article

00:39:08.360 today that said between, um, 10 and 27% of the illegals that have come into the country

00:39:14.160 have registered to vote. I don't know what the number is. I don't know if that's an accurate

00:39:18.260 number, but I truly believe that's the game. Get them elected, get them, get them here.

00:39:22.300 That's why they started day one of the Biden administration telling the cartels, bring your

00:39:26.120 people and get them here. Cause they want to get as many registered to vote. Cause only three 0.99

00:39:30.260 states actually have laws that have been upheld that allow for citizenship to, if you're a

00:39:36.680 non-citizen to exclude you from voting. So only three states have that three states have tried

00:39:43.200 to pass beyond that. They're in the middle of litigation. I think Kansas and there's a few

00:39:47.020 others. So potentially we could have an Alabama. I think there's total of six states that have tried.

00:39:51.460 We had it in Texas, Glenn, but you'll know this name. Dade Phelan, a Republican speaker,

00:39:56.660 killed it for the Democrats so that we don't have any protection from non-citizen vote because

00:40:02.040 Dade Phelan went out of his way to make sure that non-citizens, illegals could vote in Texas. 0.97

00:40:10.720 Well, that's really disheartening. Thank you so much, Ken, for everything you do. Keep us up to

00:40:16.420 speed on these things and anything we can do to help, you know, the good guys.

00:40:20.940 Let me just say this one thing. It is disheartening, but there is hope because, um, in the end we know

00:40:25.760 that God can do anything. So just like the founders had no, they had no hope and they had no hope that

00:40:31.060 France was going to help them. And guess what? Yeah, I know. Here we are today. Everything but God.

00:40:35.780 Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I don't mean to discourage anybody. Uh, you know, I think you felt

00:40:41.520 discouraged about how out of control our country is, but if we all go out and vote, I don't, I mean,

00:40:48.140 everybody who cares about the Republic, this is the moment. I mean, the campaign slogan should be

00:40:54.680 save the Republic, not make America great again, save the Republic. We all have to go out and, uh, and vote.

The Glenn Beck Program - May 17, 2024

Best of the Program ｜ Guest： AG Ken Paxton ｜ 5⧸17⧸24

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