The Glenn Beck Program - Best of The Program ｜ Guest： Ajit Pai ｜ 1⧸25⧸21

00:00:00.000 hey it's monday stew and i look for look for fun conspiracy theories uh uh and invent a couple of

00:00:07.220 our own uh gee why would they say that this show pushes conspiracy theories that's crazy sounds

00:00:12.200 crazy sounds crazy uh also we have uh ajit payan you may not know who he is yeah but he's the uh

00:00:19.520 head chairman of the fcc big part of the trump administration uh one of our favorite trump

00:00:24.720 administration officials and that he's done a great job and one of the things he's done is

00:00:28.040 protect the internet uh when the left was trying to take it over he stood up against that

00:00:31.740 and clearly won the battle and he's got some concerns and uh some exciting things to talk

00:00:37.180 about on today's uh broadcast also on the podcast we talk about the real meaning behind the impeachment

00:00:44.680 and the 14th amendment what they're really trying to do don't want to miss the second of today's

00:00:48.860 podcast here we go you're listening to the best of the glenn beck program

00:01:00.420 welcome to the program mr pat gray from pat gray unleashed the podcast you can hear on blaze tv as

00:01:11.060 he records it live before this broadcast uh or you can uh check it out wherever you get your podcast

00:01:17.140 hello pat yeah hello glenn how are you oh perfect just i mean so perfect you know i'm so glad the

00:01:24.200 media said uh over the weekend uh cnn was talking about how joe biden what he's doing is just boring

00:01:30.740 there's i mean he's just not doing anything he's just not doing anything that's exciting or you know

00:01:38.700 controversial right like they're just 19 boring executive orders exactly and they're all like

00:01:45.660 hey maybe you should order more paper clips yeah you know exactly and who cares about paper clips

00:01:52.620 except for the fact that none of them are about paper clips they're about things like the border

00:01:57.400 right right well just release all all people that ice has in custody yeah all of them no big deal

00:02:07.900 yeah just all of them yeah it's not everybody it's not like he's releasing

00:02:11.660 well he is releasing all of them yes he is uh but he's not releasing more than all of them

00:02:18.520 no that would be controversial yes but this isn't uh this isn't nope he's also inspired uh caravans

00:02:26.120 again so we got uh yes we have that going on we had one of 8 000 last week that was broken up a

00:02:31.340 little bit uh we have another one of 3 000 that launched uh again like yesterday that's great

00:02:36.580 that's only that's great you know 11 000 people that are headed i think it's wonderful states of

00:02:41.960 america hey by the way uh did you did you hear that jeff bezos and amazon little upset yeah i did hear

00:02:49.440 yeah little upset there's a they're trying to unionize amazon and he doesn't like that i mean

00:02:56.160 when you got a corporation like amazon that's working well why not throw a little bit of the

00:03:05.260 postal service in there with it you know what i mean let's get a couple of really good unions in there

00:03:10.700 so um amazon has just filed with the national labor relations board because the unions said what

00:03:21.140 we're going to do because it's so huge instead of having a meeting where everybody votes uh what

00:03:26.140 we'll do is we'll have mail-in ballots and uh and uh bezos doesn't like that because he

00:03:35.260 he says mail-in voting there's too much of a risk of fraud by the labor unions yeah the only way it

00:03:43.220 can be valid and fair uh-huh is to have an in-person voting system right well not only that not only that

00:03:51.520 he said um the concerns about election security run uh particularly high because we don't have

00:03:59.880 a reliable electronic signature platform hmm hmm so amazon doesn't have that yeah hmm that's interesting

00:04:12.680 that's uh so i throw that in i mean again some of the stuff gets out of where the election was you know

00:04:19.200 crazy but the one they keep saying like will we check the signatures it's like i buy things every

00:04:24.500 day and they supposedly check the signatures like they they don't even look at my signature when i

00:04:29.460 sign a credit card receipt for thousands of dollars they don't even care like they check the signatures

00:04:35.420 i mean i'm not saying they don't go through a check but like how reliable is that check i have

00:04:39.260 literally signed at mickey mouse at times i really have yeah i signed one jesus at one point

00:04:45.180 just to see just to see nope i just i actually signed it jesus mccool nothing nothing i i sent my

00:04:55.140 kid up there the other day to buy lunch with my credit card and they gave it to him like i he's not

00:05:00.240 he didn't get the credit card he's nine they don't care he's on his cell phone american express i know

00:05:08.520 i know i've i wrote i wrote the check i don't know why it's not there for last month's payment

00:05:13.680 i just need lunch today um tim matheson for for for some reason now tim matheson is the guy remember

00:05:24.640 do you know who he is yeah he's the guy from national lampoon's animal house animal house yeah

00:05:29.860 right he was otter in that right and and what he's been doing since is oh it's terrific stuff

00:05:39.020 right whatever it is so so anyway i've seen all of his film yeah oh so um so he he tweeted out

00:05:48.100 so wonderful to have a first lady with class and heart and can speak english oh yeah 0.98

00:05:59.080 melania trump what a dummy she only speaks five languages only five she's only fluent in five 1.00

00:06:07.760 and no class did you see her you see her out sitting on the washer and dryer that she put 0.98

00:06:14.500 on the back porch of the white house sitting there with a crop top and she's sitting there just

00:06:22.140 drinking a budweiser and i thought could we get some class wouldn't it be nice wouldn't it but no

00:06:28.160 no no you got a supermodel in the white house and they hated her guts for four years for no 1.00

00:06:34.420 apparent reason whatsoever is there any first lady that had more class than melania trump 1.00

00:06:41.220 not that i can think of she was always classy i think jackie o would be the only one that i could

00:06:46.400 think of that was was in her category yeah jackie o had real class but you know i was at the white

00:06:55.040 house and i'm in the rose garden remember when she redid the rose garden yeah yeah and what did

00:06:59.380 they say they said she ruined it that it was ridiculous it was terrible do you know what she

00:07:04.300 did because i was standing in the rose garden it is beautiful you know what she did no not exactly

00:07:10.320 yeah she uh uh restored it to the exact plan of jackie o they had changed it since so all she did was

00:07:19.840 like i think jackie o had the right plan and they restored it to the jackie o plan and that was

00:07:27.640 classless unbelievable i mean it's just unbelievable i i just but the class of dr jill biden wow now

00:07:37.620 that yeah i yeah that's amazing um san francisco hotels are being used to house homeless people

00:07:45.780 and there's a new executive order that has just been signed by joe biden it's so boring i i shouldn't

00:07:54.320 even read it to you um under the order certain kinds of emergency housing for the homeless are eligible

00:08:02.000 to be fully reimbursed through september now uh not sure if this executive order uh if if this

00:08:13.920 emergency will will fit this executive order but i'm guessing it does uh so now we are going to be

00:08:24.320 paying for the hotel rooms of the homeless in san francisco

00:08:31.980 i have to ask you do you have a line anywhere do you have a line on on taxes where it's just like okay

00:08:41.080 okay no because i almost feel like that's taxation without representation because i'm paying for

00:08:47.200 programs in california i don't get any representation in california why am i paying for policies that i

00:08:55.620 vehemently disagree with in california california should have to pay their own bill i don't live in

00:09:02.700 california for a reason i live in texas for a reason you know texas brought home all of its own gold

00:09:10.520 we have our own gold reserve now we finally got it out of the federal reserve it took us five years

00:09:17.400 but we got it and now we have all of our own gold reserves i did that for a reason because texas knew

00:09:25.560 this ain't gonna last is texas why does texas have to pay for the nonsense in california 0.99

00:09:33.220 is it just me because i feel this way about why am i if those if they're using federal funds

00:09:40.660 then no that's i mean that's completely wrong these ideas this is why you know madison did not want this

00:09:47.400 to be the outcome right where we just send a bunch of money to the federal government and it distributes

00:09:52.680 it all over the correct all over the country correct the opposite of the model right and it's it and

00:09:58.320 they're doing it in california they're going to do it with and if it's executive order do i really

00:10:04.700 have representation there because they're spending money through executive order it's supposed to go

00:10:10.880 through congress but even if it does go through congress um i don't have any representation in

00:10:18.360 california who's who's the one going to hold the budget for us who's going to be the one that holds

00:10:24.820 the feet to the fire who's going to make sure that california has some austerity instead of just

00:10:31.020 continuing to spend money i mean i just think we are setting ourselves up for massive problems because

00:10:39.980 when new york fails which it will when illinois fails which it will i have no problem helping a neighbor

00:10:49.360 but not the neighbors who have been living it up not the neighbors who are like you guys there's 0.93

00:10:54.800 so stupid party why would i help them i i think new york will probably be fine because 0.95

00:11:03.780 i just imagine the sales of the poster that andrew cuomo made celebrating how good what a good job he 0.99

00:11:10.700 did on coronavirus those are probably selling so much that he can just pay off all the budget

00:11:14.480 problems with that right and or his book yeah just just either one the book about what a great job he

00:11:19.320 did with the coronavirus that was released just as they went to the highest peak they've had

00:11:23.740 since the beginning of the by the way speaking of more problems 7 000 national guardsmen are going

00:11:29.200 to remain in washington through mid-march now 7 000 so dc's essentially an occupied city then

00:11:38.720 i guess i guess that's what i guess it's great that's what they said trump wanted to do to portland

00:11:46.020 make it an occupied city now we have 7 000 national guardsmen and desantis is calling them back he's

00:11:53.080 like you're not you're not keeping any of my national guarded march i mean i i understand that

00:11:57.340 like maybe the next day they don't leave because that would be kind of an obvious cue to everyone if

00:12:02.020 there was going to be a problem but mid-march i mean what what's the limiting what's the limiting

00:12:07.200 argument here like at some how why would you send them home in mid-march then the people are going to

00:12:11.960 come in april right like there's no limiting principle here to stop this so desantis is pulling

00:12:18.400 the troops back uh so is uh so is texas yeah they're gonna lose yeah all the red states are

00:12:24.760 gonna be like no we're not gonna we're not gonna we're not an uh an everlasting occupying force in

00:12:29.640 this in washington dc yeah and they're making them sleep in parking garages now they moved them out of

00:12:35.480 the marbled floors of the of the capitol building and put them in a parking garage they said that they 0.91

00:12:40.940 national guard asked for that not bull crap i'd say that's bull no they said that they they wanted 0.59

00:12:46.920 to be we want to sleep in a parking garage it's more comfortable for them we'd we'd hate to be in 0.94

00:12:52.860 a hotel put us in a parking garage i mean please those are comfortable please we don't want to go to

00:12:57.360 a hotel though that's for the homeless right we'd rather sleep in the garage

00:13:02.100 the best of the glenn beck program

00:13:08.080 it's an honor to have ajit pai on with us again former fcc chairman uh ajit how are you

00:13:24.320 my gosh they've silenced him already hey glenn how are you there you are having me on you bet how

00:13:31.740 are you sir pretty good pretty good hope you're doing well also on this monday morning um so you

00:13:37.680 were the uh chairman of the fcc before that you were the commissioner at the fcc you were appointed

00:13:44.280 then by barack obama um and approved unanimously by the uh senate so everybody agreed that you were a

00:13:53.100 a good guy that could get the job done um you've done some amazing things i believe that you and

00:14:00.780 and when you were at the fcc those involved with you save the internet uh from net neutrality tell

00:14:08.600 me about the health of the internet and where we are today because of those challenges before we look

00:14:14.340 to the future well the internet in terms of its infrastructure is stronger than ever and this is

00:14:20.860 remarkable when you consider that when we made our decision to repeal these heavy-handed net neutrality

00:14:25.440 regulations back in 2017 the left was caterwauling about how this was the death of the internet as we

00:14:32.300 know it that was according to bernie sanders others said the internet would slow down to one word per

00:14:36.960 time the others said that you'd have to pay 15 per month just to be able to tweet all these things

00:14:44.100 have fallen by the wayside speeds are now twice as fast as they were back in 2017 internet infrastructure

00:14:50.300 has been built out so that millions more americans have access uh obviously it's a much different

00:14:55.900 environment than those uh hyperbolic predictions would have suggested and to me at least the proof

00:15:00.640 in the pudding has been during the pandemic we've had our internet infrastructure has held up despite

00:15:05.440 the increase in traffic whereas in europe which still has these net neutrality regulations they had

00:15:10.500 to go hat in hand to companies like netflix and youtube and beg them to throttle content because they

00:15:15.540 don't have the infrastructure that's necessary to sustain these loads so we made the right decision

00:15:20.500 and i'm glad we did so are you still hearing the voices where those forces still out there for

00:15:26.340 net neutrality and to bring some of these regulations back and if so why you know i'd say we still hear them

00:15:35.180 all the time whenever i'm on social media i see it uh and it's incredible i think it's more of a

00:15:41.460 religious issue with some folks on the left and what does that mean what do you mean by that

00:15:47.780 because what i mean by religious issue is there is literally no set of evidence you can ever provide

00:15:53.800 to these people to persuade them that there's not a problem you look at the last three years without

00:15:58.960 these net neutrality regulations we haven't seen any kind of market failure we haven't seen broadband

00:16:03.380 providers broadling or blocking content nonetheless they say that these rules are absolutely vital and

00:16:09.380 the internet's about to die meanwhile these very same advocates are going to the tech giants and

00:16:14.360 telling them we want you to censor content that we don't like and so the hypocrisy of these advocates

00:16:19.860 is just stunning it's just as i said there's literally no evidence we could provide in terms of

00:16:24.640 faster speeds more infrastructure you have open internet all that kind of stuff that would persuade

00:16:30.200 them and so it's not a reason policy debate anymore and at least on some quarters at least it's much

00:16:36.240 more of a issue of religion do you believe or do you not and uh that's unfortunate because we're

00:16:42.900 after all we're making policy here we're not putting our finger in the wind the hypocrisy is overwhelming

00:16:48.580 but as you mentioned there's no evidence you can present but the evidence is there right like the

00:16:53.340 speeds have gone up dramatically since they promised they would slow down to a trickle yeah and that's

00:17:01.280 the incredible thing and the speed is the most objective one there's a group called ukla o-o-k-l-a 1.00

00:17:06.540 the independent company they do their own assessments of speeds they were the ones who

00:17:10.800 were saying hey the speeds are tracking upward and upward and i kept pointing this out to you to some of

00:17:15.680 our critics and they would say well the speeds were going up anyway and so you didn't have the

00:17:19.700 responsibility for that i said no no you if you look at the february 28th i think it is 2018

00:17:25.060 the entire senate democratic caucus put this out on twitter if we lose net neutrality you'll get the

00:17:30.540 internet one word at a time and so i said look that is objectively false like there's no debate about

00:17:36.620 this this this internet did not slow down and nonetheless there's still some folks who say no

00:17:41.900 it's still at risk your broadband providers are going to start censoring content any day now and

00:17:46.860 it's always the sort of boogeyman that's right around the corner that we have to regulate against

00:17:51.940 as opposed to the concrete problems that we can see on the internet which is not any type of stuff

00:17:58.240 like this it's more that people in rural areas don't have access or people in urban areas can't

00:18:03.020 afford access and those are the types of problems we need to be addressing not this phantom of net

00:18:07.520 neutrality which to me at least is a solution that won't work and to address a problem that simply

00:18:12.220 doesn't exist um it is 5g has been described to me as 4g being the size of a garden hose

00:18:19.820 and 5g being the size of a channel for all of the all of the information i know uh my wife just uh 1.00

00:18:30.580 i don't remember where she was but she used real 5g and she she was i mean she never comments on speed 0.90

00:18:38.380 unless it's really really slow and she said to me oh my gosh glenn you can't imagine how fast it was it

00:18:44.760 was just like load load load load it was just there every time um it's yeah go ahead can you

00:18:52.580 describe 5g and what it will mean and how far we are away from that really being everywhere 1.00

00:18:59.100 i'm really excited about 5g this next generation of wireless connectivity and unlike some of the

00:19:05.900 predecessor transitions we've had yet 1g to 2g 2 to 3 3 to 4 the 5g is going to be a leap partly

00:19:12.820 because of the speeds you mentioned that uh you know 100 times faster speeds than 4g a much more

00:19:17.920 responsive network so when you click on the link it'll come up almost immediately but it's more

00:19:22.520 the fact that this technology will underlie all kinds of different industries uh health care for

00:19:27.340 example if you want to do a telehealth visit with your doctor much higher uh resolution video

00:19:33.700 much lower latency as they call it so you can immediately see uh what the doctor is looking at

00:19:38.960 and all that kind of thing it's going to be tremendous if 5g with doctors means because the

00:19:43.840 latency goes from uh what 100 milliseconds to down under 10 which means in some cases you might be able

00:19:54.120 to actually do surgery on the other side of the world with 5g exactly right i mean that is the future 1.00

00:20:01.740 that's within grasp and if you think about all these low latency applications from telehealth to gaming

00:20:07.080 to you name it that's a really big deal so i'm really excited about the work that the fcc did over

00:20:12.060 the last four years to help that potential become a reality here in the united states so i just bought a

00:20:18.480 refrigerator the other day and it said bluetooth enabled and i'm like i don't want my refrigerator

00:20:26.340 to be bluetooth enabled the amount of information that is going to be going out of our homes now

00:20:33.300 with 5g because it allows it allows 5g allows everything to be smart a smart item um are you

00:20:42.120 concerned at all about privacy and uh and and just the use of all of this information on the american

00:20:50.480 people absolutely and this is why many years ago i called on congress to come up with legislation on the

00:20:58.240 federal level to establish rules of the road for privacy in the digital world we don't have that

00:21:03.360 right now and so what you see is some states like california taking the lead and essentially regulating

00:21:08.940 on their own within that state or you see europe implementing very strong privacy regulations and

00:21:15.260 essentially multinational companies like google and facebook uh abide by those same restrictions in the

00:21:20.520 u.s just as they would in europe because you can't have different uh privacy protections across uh

00:21:24.980 you know across the world so i think right now it'd be great for congress to sit down and put on the

00:21:30.220 page some of those basic privacy protections but the other issue related to privacy is security glenn

00:21:35.760 i mean as you know as everything gets connected the network is only going to be strong as its most

00:21:41.860 vulnerable point and we're talking about 5g and security there are companies like huawei and zte

00:21:46.700 other companies in this space that could look to compromise some of our networks for their own gain now

00:21:52.560 whether it's economic espionage or inserting malware or even more insidiously the chinese 1.00

00:21:57.240 communist party looking to compromise security of networks to gain insights on where our national

00:22:02.480 security is vulnerable well people would say that blockchain is going to be really important for

00:22:07.440 our security but when we're at you know uh what is it 56 qubit uh quantum computing even blockchain

00:22:18.940 is vulnerable isn't it i mean now that we're getting into quantum computer computing so fast

00:22:25.100 how are we going to be able to keep things secure that's a really good question and that's part of

00:22:32.360 the reason why a few months ago before i left i asked the fcc to organize a forum around quantum

00:22:38.040 computing to understand what this future looks like and i don't pretend to have the answer to your

00:22:43.520 particular question but i do think it's important for the u.s government to start thinking about

00:22:47.940 quantum and ai and machine learning and some of these blockchain these next generation technologies

00:22:53.400 it might seem futuristic but oh it's here the future can become the present a lot quicker than people

00:22:58.120 think one more question on privacy um before we move on the um um

00:23:05.060 um has anyone suggested that all of my information belongs to me it is it's mine and if i decide to sell it

00:23:17.920 then i will make that decision and i'd make my decision on what parts of it i'd be willing to sell

00:23:24.580 this would not only throttle these uh giant companies that are truly getting rich off of the backs of of all

00:23:32.040 of us uh through metadata and now really amazingly uh detailed data on each of us but it would also

00:23:41.400 return our privacy it would punish the the googles of the world uh financially by taking that incentive

00:23:52.280 away from them but they could buy it from us which would also be something that the american people

00:23:57.660 could make money on is anybody suggesting that i i have seen that suggestion in some quarters in fact

00:24:04.340 i think there might be some legislative proposals floating around congress along those lines uh so i think

00:24:10.240 that's one of the things that people instinctively get is that uh the property right they might have

00:24:14.920 so to speak in their own data is something that should be vindicated now on the other hand there's

00:24:19.780 some who've raised some questions about that for example if you're walking along a road um and you

00:24:24.840 have a smart network transportation network that is monitoring you know how traffic is going so that

00:24:30.960 they can avoid hitting pedestrians and the like is that your data does it also involve some public

00:24:36.080 safety issues and there's some sort of gray areas there but i do think there's a lot to sort out in

00:24:40.520 this you know what is your data who owns it how should it be used these are the kinds of things that

00:24:45.780 congress needs to speak to we don't have a framework right now for understanding that and

00:24:49.540 we need one desperately i look at the bottom of my alexa and i see that it has an fcc license

00:24:55.240 uh on it and uh i wonder if in some ways this isn't and i know this sounds ridiculous but hear me out

00:25:03.960 a violation of the third amendment which is the government can't you know quarter soldiers in

00:25:09.080 your home um i feel as though the government isn't but if they start to collude more and more with

00:25:16.460 these companies they kind of are um aren't they quartering people not the government but these

00:25:22.020 companies aren't they kind of quartering people in our home if they are constantly going and listening

00:25:28.140 to us and gathering information i haven't thought about that angle um but what i will say though

00:25:34.160 the just you know the fcc logo you see on the bottom we're not licensing them all we do is

00:25:39.460 essentially authorize their equipment to say any device in the united states that emits or receives

00:25:44.920 radio frequency or rf we have a responsibility to okay it so we actually don't license those particular

00:25:50.860 devices directly but i do think it's interesting that a lot of us rely on these devices that

00:25:56.380 you pick up a lot of our conversations uh and they deliver a lot of value but i think some people

00:26:01.900 also have the concern you know what are they looking into everything and so i hear that that's

00:26:07.400 one of the things too that it's just a new world this didn't exist when i was a kid needless to say

00:26:11.500 when you when you were inside the confines of your home that was sort of this impregnable fortress

00:26:16.140 so right right your own thoughts and data so it's a much more complicated world now because of

00:26:21.820 technology we're talking to ajit pai he's the former fcc chairman he was appointed

00:26:26.360 by barack obama and um and uh served under trump as well i think he's the best chairman uh that the

00:26:34.240 fcc has ever had and he also is uh somebody who i think really because of his passion has saved the

00:26:41.880 internet uh from net neutrality and we've seen how good the internet has become uh you spoke earlier

00:26:49.560 about when you're talking about hypocrisy about the kind of controversy about big tech companies

00:26:54.540 censoring uh conservative voices generally um and obviously we have a right for free speech we don't

00:27:00.580 necessarily have a right to an audience on someone's private website as someone who's a conservative and

00:27:05.460 is very scared of of a federal intrusion on the internet um i am worried about this sort of new

00:27:13.440 idea from the right where there's a big debate going on whether the government should step in and do

00:27:18.360 something to these big tech companies where do you stand on that well where i stand is what i've said

00:27:23.900 for many years which is that these tech giants increasingly are running social platforms that

00:27:29.140 have become the new public square and to the extent that some are either obstructed or prevented from

00:27:35.860 speaking that square i think it's important for people to understand how are these decisions being

00:27:40.460 made who are who is making these decisions and why and i think the past couple of months have only

00:27:46.320 illustrated the fact we don't have any insight here and for me at least as a consumer i don't care

00:27:52.480 whether it's a network operator like you're in a service provider or a content company like a tech

00:27:57.280 platform i just want to know am i able to speak or not am i able to read what i want or not and if i

00:28:04.600 want to understand the rules of the road and i think that kind of lack of transparency is what's

00:28:08.620 frustrating a lot of people nobody knows what's inside the black box so here's the here's the deal i've done

00:28:13.660 broadcast for 45 years i know what the rules are i know what the fcc says i know it's acceptable and

00:28:19.740 not because the rules are very very clear always have been when we get blocked or we get dinged by

00:28:28.380 some of these high tech companies we usually don't know why and so i can't i can't make sure that we're

00:28:36.160 in compliance if i don't know what it means to be in compliance exactly right and that's why some of

00:28:44.080 the decisions seem to be made as they go along as a i pointed this out last summer when i asked on

00:28:49.900 twitter why is the supreme leader of iran allowed to tweet out threats especially author urging the

00:28:56.460 destruction of the as he called it the zionist state and all of this nonsense uh whereas other people 0.98

00:29:02.020 are not allowed to say things which are clearly not as far as that don't go as far as that and

00:29:07.080 i think it just goes back to you know like i said in november 2017 i gave a speech where i said if you

00:29:11.460 are really concerned about a free and open internet what you need to be worried about is not net neutrality

00:29:15.820 it's the question of how these tech platforms operate free from any transparency requirements

00:29:21.520 whatsoever and i think people on the left and the right now i would think agree with that

00:29:25.820 this is the best of the glenn beck program and we really want to thank you for listening

00:29:33.220 we have uh jeep pi the former fcc uh chairman and commissioner former commissioner as well

00:29:46.960 of the fcc he was appointed by barack obama he served under uh uh under donald trump and um and i think

00:29:55.060 he is phenomenal on freedom of speech and regulation uh being minimal let the free market work things

00:30:02.180 out um thank you first of all for everything that you've you've done a jeep to keep the internet free

00:30:09.200 and to keep our voices uh intact i want to i want to talk to you about something that is really disturbing

00:30:16.340 now this is from uh congresswoman tulsi gabbard so she's on the left she said this weekend it is so

00:30:24.600 dangerous uh this is an issue that democrats republicans and independents libertarians should

00:30:30.240 be extremely concerned about especially because we don't have to guess about where this goes

00:30:35.080 or how it ends when you have people like former cia director john brennan openly talking about how he

00:30:42.060 has spoken with or heard from employees or nominees in the biden administration who are already starting

00:30:47.720 to look across our country for types of movements similar to the insurgencies they've seen overseas

00:30:54.260 that in his words uh make up this unholy alliance of religious extremists racist bigots he lists a few

00:31:03.700 others and at the end even libertarians um it's dangerous because of our civil civil liberties it will

00:31:13.480 mean that who could be scooped up uh tomorrow we don't know i am very concerned about the freedom

00:31:22.500 of speech on broadcast radio and the freedom of speech for those of us not just the average man but also

00:31:31.200 those of us who they're talking about deprogramming or uh licensing to be able to have a podcast

00:31:40.060 it's an unfortunate time for those of us who cherish free speech in the first amendment and

00:31:47.660 that's part of the reason why i've been so steadfast in my defense of it because i do think a defining

00:31:52.960 feature of our democracy is that any faction that happens to be in power should not have the ability

00:31:59.500 to define who is allowed into the public square and who is not and i think that's a basic

00:32:06.140 of american democracy over the decades i may disagree with what you say but i will fight to

00:32:11.980 the death for your right to say it i think that understanding has become frayed and i think the

00:32:16.640 first amendment is even more important when we have a tribalistic political culture like we have now

00:32:21.040 because we don't want your ability to speak to depend on whether or not you are in favor with those

00:32:27.780 in power so i don't know what particular information mr brendan was uh relying on when he made those

00:32:32.700 assessments but i'll just simply say as a general matter the first amendment is important for all of

00:32:37.120 us even when we disagree with the message that we might be hearing over the airwaves are you concerned

00:32:43.780 um that the next fcc uh commissioner and chair chairman uh will erode some of these freedoms for radio

00:32:55.460 are we in radio in a safe zone or not i certainly hope so i mean i did everything i could over the

00:33:05.280 last four years last eight since i served at the fcc to make sure that radio had the ability to thrive

00:33:11.120 into the next century it's the oldest communications medium of addressing the mass market that we've got

00:33:16.020 it's older than the fcc itself and to me at least i think it is one of the important forums for

00:33:21.960 discussion of these types of issues so i hope that the next fcc will embrace that i'm a little more

00:33:27.220 worried about what people will think on the digital side of things uh you know over the internet and

00:33:31.840 the like where as i said you have net neutrality advocates demanding certain types of regulations

00:33:36.460 but then on the other hand demanding censorship on the internet which seems inconsistent with that but

00:33:40.820 hopefully radio can continue to be one of the places where we do still embrace that first

00:33:45.960 amendment value that all of us cherish do you know anything about the people that are coming in behind you

00:33:51.340 yes i served with all the four of the current commissioners who are there including the acting

00:33:56.380 chair so you know i do think they have a shared commitment to a public service to the public

00:34:01.380 interest uh you know they i think they believe in the first amendment just as much as i do so

00:34:06.060 hopefully they will stick by that yeah that's been a bipartisan tradition at the fcc and i think the

00:34:11.960 most dangerous thing would be for us to get back into the game of approving licenses or doling out

00:34:17.220 favors based on whether we agree with the political views of the would-be license holder and that's

00:34:21.940 just not what the fcc should be doing it should be a market-based objective decision not trying to

00:34:27.540 look through into a crowd and pick out your friends um i want to read a story to you and and just ask you

00:34:34.360 your opinion on this and and i warn you that i i find what this man did and said to be disgusting and

00:34:41.360 despicable but there's there's a sentence that had just been handed down that i cannot believe

00:34:49.220 is um is constitutional a federal judge has ordered a kentucky man who allegedly stormed the u.s capitol

00:34:57.060 earlier this month not to make any comments about the breach uh or the u.s government online damon michael

00:35:05.380 beckley who was arrested by the fbi in cub run last week was released on conditional bond which

00:35:12.620 barred him from using the internet to post about the rally that the capital riot rally or matters

00:35:19.380 related to the u.s government uh he was also prohibited from attending any rallies protests or demonstrations

00:35:26.520 and he must be now monitored by gps he said things online like vice president pence my name is damon

00:35:34.040 michael beckley i don't appreciate this one bit the situation you caused here sir we're not putting

00:35:39.720 up with this tyrannical rule if we've got to come back here and start a revolution and take all these

00:35:44.620 traitors out which is should be done then we will i don't agree with that i think that's abhorrent speech

00:35:51.380 but isn't this as a federal judge telling him he can't speak about the government or

00:35:59.060 voice his opinion about the government online isn't that a violation of the constitution and

00:36:06.180 isn't there any protection for him well i certainly share your assessment of the comments themselves

00:36:12.140 this is an area of the law that's pretty well developed and one that i'm unfortunately

00:36:16.300 not as knowledgeable about about whether or not judges can restrain uh the speech in this way so i

00:36:22.920 probably had to defer until i had a chance to you know read the brief study up on that area of the

00:36:27.320 law a little better i know that this is something that has occurred in a number of cases and uh

00:36:31.440 yeah i'd want to express uh more informed opinion after reading all that stuff um tell me before we

00:36:37.220 let you go tell me the the thing that keeps you up at night and tell me the thing that you see over

00:36:44.740 the horizon that really excites you well in terms of what keeps me up at night it is the security of

00:36:51.040 our networks i spent a lot of time over the last four years here domestically making sure the

00:36:55.660 sec did everything we could to secure our networks against uh national security threats from the

00:37:01.520 outside in particular i've been very outspoken about the chinese communist party's determination

00:37:05.440 to dominate the world through technology and in particular to lead in 5g and that's something i 1.00

00:37:11.400 think the we should all be worried about hang on just a second people don't believe me when i say

00:37:16.900 there is a a building i think it's in beijing dedicated all it is is the communist party

00:37:23.380 it's their platform of hackers and they are hacking in and trying to hack into our pentagon

00:37:30.680 i can't remember it's some ungodly number of like 70 000 attempts a day or something like that i mean

00:37:36.680 they they have groups of people that this is their job to hack into our infrastructure true or not

00:37:46.060 that we've heard similar reports and i think that's part of the concern and not only that i mean they've

00:37:52.280 demonstrated that they are willing to export their anti-democratic values when it comes to things like

00:37:56.760 the nba or taiwanese flag emojis or the like imagine what they would be willing to do if they

00:38:03.660 had access to our telecom networks that is a serious threat indeed so explain that for people who don't

00:38:10.880 understand that well so imagine if we had all these 5g networks built in the united states everyone

00:38:16.320 was using them on everything from smartphones to connected refrigerators to your cars

00:38:20.360 to military installations and let's say some of that equipment was built by the companies like

00:38:26.600 huawei and zte which are themselves subject to chinese communist party rule so what if the chinese 0.51

00:38:32.600 communist party said you know what we just want to see exactly how american consumers are using

00:38:36.540 broadband let's see how broadband around military installations uh is being deployed and whether we

00:38:41.860 can get insights into things like troop movements or missile placements i mean all these kinds of

00:38:46.260 things would be simply one request away from the chinese government to huawei and zte and we would

00:38:52.240 have no way of ever knowing that those requests have been made and that our networks have been

00:38:56.140 compromised and i think that is the risk and that's why i've been so outspoken about the fact that i'm

00:39:00.620 very bullish on 5g's potential but we also need to think about security as a forethought as opposed to

00:39:06.540 an afterthought you once we've installed these networks it's too late you just can't put that genie back

00:39:11.520 in the bottle so we need to be very careful about this threat and not not have a rosy-eyed view of

00:39:18.420 the reality of the situation final question for you uh wait wait didn't you give the well you ask

00:39:23.360 a final question then i want to hear his optimistic thing okay well i was just going to ask my passwords

00:39:27.860 are all set to one two three four five should i change any of them yeah i would definitely urge you

00:39:34.540 to change that and you don't don't change it to password either that's the one that i think is

00:39:37.900 probably not as well advice mine's password zero one two three four five oh that's really uh

00:39:44.180 anyway um tell me what you're excited about tell me tell me what's on the horizon that you say people

00:39:51.300 don't understand how game changing in a positive way this could be i think what i'm really excited

00:39:59.140 about is just the new influx of broadband-based technologies you know when i got into this business

00:40:03.780 broadband essentially meant telephone lines being souped up with tsl to deliver relatively slow

00:40:09.220 service now at the end of my tenure at the fcc we've authorized low earth orbit satellites companies

00:40:14.440 like spacex to deploy broadband from space at a really high speed we've also encouraged electric

00:40:19.940 utilities to get into this business since they have a deep footprint across rural america we've

00:40:24.560 encouraged we've had a huge influx of spectrum thanks to our decisions that allow fixed wireless

00:40:29.020 companies to enter the space i guess all which is what i'm trying to say is all of these different

00:40:32.960 technologies are finally being unleashed through the power of the market to deliver connectivity to

00:40:38.340 american citizens and to me at least broadband is more important than ever and i'm really excited to

00:40:43.060 see how all these companies using all these technologies are able to innovate for the benefit

00:40:47.880 of consumers it's going to be a really exciting decade to come in that regard are you at all concerned

00:40:53.420 i mean i was going to ask you what's next for you but you were appointed by obama but you

00:40:58.480 actually uh served also under donald trump and they're going after anybody that served with

00:41:04.140 donald trump you concerned about your future and what's next for you i don't know i we had the

00:41:10.380 privilege of being an independent agency and i led in that spirit i kept all the political nonsense

00:41:16.140 in washington at arm's length to the extent i could and uh did the best i could and i think

00:41:21.160 you know a lot of the issues uh they didn't have a partisan sheen at all for example establishing

00:41:25.680 988 is a three-digit number for suicide prevention and mental health and making sure people's

00:41:30.460 disabilities had access to technology i mean the all the bulk of our work was pretty non-partisan

00:41:34.700 so as for what the next adventure is i'll have to wait and see but one of the things i found in my

00:41:39.000 career is that it's just such an amazing country that you just work hard and you try to be in the

00:41:44.640 right place at the right time and something will present itself to you so i'm so grateful for the

00:41:49.240 privilege of having the chance to serve and look forward to the next adventure being just as

00:41:53.240 intellectually stimulating and rewarding jeet i would love to do a long-form uh um interview with

00:42:00.120 you on our podcast i've i've got a lot of uh questions on security and uh and uh technology

00:42:07.380 that is coming i would love to pick your brain so if you have time some point i'd love to have you as a

00:42:11.860 podcast guest well sounds good let's let's let's love to talk about it let's figure out what work

00:42:17.160 work and uh and again thank you for your service you've been great at the fcc thank you thank you

00:42:24.360 thank you well i can't say enough how much i appreciate the kind words glenn uh i really

00:42:28.660 appreciate the support from everybody out there in the country thank you god bless ajit pai he was

00:42:34.280 now leaving uh the fcc as the fcc chairperson

00:42:38.520 you

The Glenn Beck Program - January 25, 2021

Best of The Program ｜ Guest： Ajit Pai ｜ 1⧸25⧸21

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript