The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program ｜ Guest： Alex Adams ｜ 6⧸1⧸26

00:00:00.000 When you travel well, your KLM Royal Dutch Airlines ticket takes you to more than just your destination.

00:00:06.880 It takes you to front row views, voices lost in the music, and new shared memories.

00:00:13.900 And when the last song fades,

00:00:16.060 Welcome aboard, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.

00:00:17.900 The KLM Royal Dutch Airlines crew is here to ensure your journey home hits all the right notes.

00:00:25.500 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. When you travel, travel well.

00:00:30.000 great show for you today it is monday we talk about patriotism uh because of all the crap that's

00:00:43.020 going on in this article that i read from the new yorker no offense the guy just doesn't get it

00:00:47.620 uh and i understand that the way he was raised etc etc and speaking of that way he was raised

00:00:52.000 do you want to understand who james talrico is and what he actually believes you have to know

00:00:57.320 how he was raised, what his mother, how his mother raised him, what they went through

00:01:01.600 when he was a child, and you will know exactly who he was. Also, we spoke with Alex Adams today

00:01:09.020 about foster care. He is with the administration, what's going on there,

00:01:13.320 and an update on Iran that is really important for you to be all on today's podcast.

00:01:17.520 you're listening to the best of the glenn beck program

00:01:28.700 democratic party trying to paint themselves as i i don't i don't know what i don't know what we're

00:01:38.740 going to talk about patriotism here a little while because we got lectured by patriotism but i

00:01:42.940 i couldn't get further down on this story from the new yorker than just his sources of who he's

00:01:48.640 like going to you know i i just looked into some great people that talk about patriotism really

00:01:53.960 really because those aren't the sources that i would go to for patriotism but maybe it's just

00:01:58.320 me so i want to get into that because everything is being redefined right now patriotism this

00:02:02.880 summer because of the summer of 250 uh you know uh we have to redefine this now what is it what

00:02:09.980 does it mean well let's start at something simpler what does it mean to be a democrat

00:02:13.700 i'm not sure exactly what it means to be a democrat um it certainly does not mean moderate

00:02:22.640 uh that's for sure james tallarico is being painted by the democrats as moderate you know

00:02:28.220 he's just like any other texan you saw him in his t-shirt right he was wearing a red white and blue

00:02:33.420 and he's got his his texas flag shirt and he's eating a turkey leg and he wears cowboy boots

00:02:39.420 come on really is that what we're down to yeah and i know who you are because you wear a red hat

00:02:48.480 even though it doesn't say mag on it i know what all red hats mean what what does a red hat mean

00:02:55.220 simpletons how dare ken paxton take this poor man james del rico his words out of context he's not

00:03:06.860 a radical leftist right right neither is anybody in virginia so i asked my researchers you know

00:03:12.860 can we look at these claims because i want to see you know i want to be able to present to you

00:03:17.880 who james talrico really is in his own words okay now earlier this month he said to cbs news about

00:03:25.080 his past statements and paxton's attacks he said this there are some statements that i've made that

00:03:30.980 i that i certainly regret there are statements that i've made where i've missed the mark i'll

00:03:35.500 be the first to admit that but ken paxton is intentionally clipping my cringy comments

00:03:41.920 to distract from his career of corruption okay cringy comments okay first of all let's give

00:03:49.860 credit where credit to do anybody makes mistakes we all make mistakes and to be able to say hey

00:03:54.140 i've made mistakes and i own up to him unfortunately what he didn't say was which were the mistakes and

00:03:59.800 which were the cringy comments that that paxton is taking out of context so let's start one of

00:04:05.100 the biggest criticisms of Tallarico is that he believes God is non-binary. Now, we're in Bible

00:04:11.580 country. Not really. Not really. I don't think so. Pretty radical. A lot of people on X are sharing

00:04:18.480 a short clip of him making that claim on the floor of the Texas Senate or legislature. But

00:04:25.000 was that taken out of context? Of course it was. Of course it was. So let's look at the longer clip

00:04:33.440 so we can all see. Here it is. The first two lines in Genesis use two different Hebrew words to

00:04:42.740 describe God. One is the masculine Hebrew noun for divinity. The second is the feminine Hebrew noun

00:04:53.140 for spirit. God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary.

00:05:06.080 In Genesis 1.26, God speaks of God's self in the plural, saying, let us make human beings

00:05:16.040 in our image to be like us that's the infinite multitude of god the masculine the feminine 0.65

00:05:26.280 and everything in between trans children this is our god's children made in god's own image

00:05:36.180 there's nothing wrong with that 0.54

00:05:38.760 wait

00:05:41.420 wait

00:05:42.860 wait there's a lot to unpack here

00:05:45.200 first of all

00:05:46.520 let us make man in our image

00:05:48.960 has been debated

00:05:49.920 forever

00:05:51.700 forever

00:05:53.380 he's coming out and stating it like it's just a fact

00:05:56.800 you know what I mean

00:05:57.680 it's like what was it

00:05:59.800 one of my favorite comedians said

00:06:01.740 you know the Frank Sinatra song

00:06:04.540 if you can make it here you can make it anywhere and frank sinatra just said it and it was just a

00:06:09.860 fact it's not a fact it's a line what he's saying is not a fact it might be his opinion but it is

00:06:17.560 not a fact okay take more than one bible study class james take take more than one take more

00:06:25.660 than one i think there's lots of arguments on what god was talking about there and what genesis means

00:06:31.440 by that but maybe this is just one of these statements he missed the mark on because it

00:06:35.420 sounds to me like he believes that god's non-binary so i don't know i don't know but here's what he

00:06:42.580 told cnn about it listen what is your response to them using that and explain what you were talking

00:06:49.240 about well i understand that that comment is a little provocative i said it on the house floor

00:06:55.880 when the extremists in the Republican legislature were picking on school kids who were different.

00:07:02.480 But I don't think it's controversial theologically.

00:07:05.580 Most Christians would acknowledge that God is beyond gender.

00:07:10.060 In fact, the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatians,

00:07:13.720 said that in Christ there is neither male nor female.

00:07:17.560 And so if someone's got a problem with that statement,

00:07:19.900 they shouldn't take it up with me, they should take it up with the Apostle Paul.

00:07:22.620 i'm pretty sure that's not what the apostle paul meant but i wouldn't call this an exact

00:07:30.420 backtrack okay beyond gender is not non-binary beyond gender means no male or female i mean i'm

00:07:38.780 just using your argument here this is not mine but your argument he's beyond gender means there

00:07:45.020 is no male or female it just is okay that's not non-binary okay i don't know what you're talking

00:07:54.880 about here okay but what's even harder than gender here's a radical claim another one from

00:08:02.220 talarico listen to this modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two

00:08:08.300 biological sexes in fact there are six which honestly representative hefner surprised me too

00:08:14.120 surprised me too because i i am you know am not well versed in this this issue area i'm not a

00:08:20.540 scientist i'm a politician a lot worse than a scientist ah no scientist clearly you're not

00:08:25.540 scientist i you know what i think people who say there are six genders they also are not scientists

00:08:30.960 but that's just me a few days ago he tried to walk that one back as well he apparently now quote

00:08:36.820 knows there are two sexes a man and a woman but he also suggested that he was referring to a very

00:08:43.740 small percentage of people who are born with chromosomal abnormalities. They're born with

00:08:53.380 six different genders. I don't know. But God, still non-binary. Okay. He also believes that

00:09:01.860 because God is non-binary, he made some children trans. Here he is talking about trans children. 0.82

00:09:09.440 Something that you love that's not family or friends.

00:09:13.740 um i love i'm just saying this because it's on my mind the trans children who showed up

00:09:21.820 yesterday at the state capitol to advocate for their humanity they shouldn't have to

00:09:26.280 but it was an inspiration to watch okay all right so this is the moderate

00:09:34.040 democratic platform in texas this is the moderate version okay he's not an extremist he wants you

00:09:41.940 to know, and the Democratic Party, and everybody's screaming, he's a moderate. He also wants you to

00:09:47.220 know that some of those trans children will eventually need abortions. Before we go further,

00:09:54.020 I want to acknowledge that our trans community needs abortion care, too. Defending trans Texans

00:10:01.020 is something we have to do every day at the state capitol. Right. And you better believe I'll be

00:10:05.520 giving sermons on that, too. So when I use the word woman, it should not be understood as an

00:10:10.760 exhaustive term, but rather as a lens through which to understand, examine, and interrogate

00:10:17.800 patriarchy. Ow! Ow, my head hurts. Okay. So when he talks about women that are going to need 0.55

00:10:32.300 a an abortion he's not he wants you to understand that women is just a lens and not an actual fact

00:10:44.160 but it it would be the trans men that would need the abortion you know the ones that are actually

00:10:52.560 female that claim to be men they're the only ones that can get pregnant not the trans women 0.99

00:10:57.400 the trans women were guys they don't have a uterus they don't have ovaries they don't have a vagina 0.99

00:11:03.760 they have none of it they cannot push a baby out they can't create a baby i don't understand what 0.99

00:11:10.400 he's more on that later um he was saying this by the way in a church and delivering quote a sermon

00:11:16.620 on that but it explains an awful lot about what this guy believes here's something also you may

00:11:23.060 not have heard from anywhere else. To Tallarico, the abortion debate is not about what you think

00:11:30.180 it is. Because here's what he said later in that, and I'm quoting, sermon. The disagreement

00:11:36.900 about the legality of abortion is not a disagreement about life. It's a disagreement

00:11:43.440 about personhood. No one disagrees that an embryo is biologically alive. We each have

00:11:49.660 trillions of living organisms inside of us right now as we sit and talk in the sanctuary. 0.98

00:11:56.060 So the question is, is an embryo a legal person whose rights trump those of a woman? 0.97

00:12:03.600 I don't know many people who would seriously answer yes to that question. Legal personhood 0.92

00:12:10.920 evolves with life, and life is change without clear or definite boundaries. But the only way

00:12:18.560 we can allow the rights of an embryo 1.00

00:12:20.860 to trump the rights of a woman

00:12:22.900 is if we believe a woman is not a full person. 0.89

00:12:25.980 And let me remind you 0.97

00:12:27.320 that that has been the default belief

00:12:29.440 throughout most of human history.

00:12:32.600 Being Christian

00:12:33.900 and being pro-choice

00:12:36.700 are absolutely consistent

00:12:38.620 because Christianity

00:12:40.120 is a feminist religion. 1.00

00:12:43.820 Ah! 1.00

00:12:44.860 Oh my gosh.

00:12:46.220 I don't know. 0.81

00:12:47.180 Ow.

00:12:47.460 again this is the moderate Texas this is the moderate that they're trying to sell you okay

00:12:55.640 where do I even begin on that one okay so we have a ton of living organisms in us is that like

00:13:02.520 we might have a tapeworm so like the baby could turn into a tapeworm I'm not I'm not really sure

00:13:09.320 how to where to go with that one that organism that's living inside of you it is a baby it's a

00:13:16.080 baby. It might not look like a baby at the beginning, but it turns into a baby. The tapeworm

00:13:22.980 stays a tapeworm. So I want you to understand, yes, abortions do kill humans, just not necessarily

00:13:31.600 full humans. Well, now let's just get into that. Let's just get into that. As a dad with a child

00:13:41.280 of special needs let's just get into can you define what a full human is what is a full human

00:13:47.640 is a full human somebody who has a fully functioning body arms legs brain eyes ears

00:13:57.080 nose mouth what is a full human because once you get into well that's not really human well that's

00:14:04.860 not really life then you get into well that's not a life worth living and then you could just kill 0.99

00:14:10.820 anybody. So denying women the right to elective abortions is akin to enslaving women. And Jesus, 0.78

00:14:23.180 who was, quote, a radical feminist, empowered women to kill their own babies whenever they 0.98

00:14:29.880 wanted to. I guess because screw the patriarchy. What? What? By the way, it is not in line with 1.00

00:14:38.180 Christianity. It used to be called the quickening. It wasn't called abortions. Look it up. It wasn't

00:14:44.420 called an abortion. They didn't know. They didn't know when they were pregnant. They didn't have a

00:14:48.400 pregnancy test. They didn't sit, cop a squat, and look at the color. Is it a plus sign? Is it pink? 0.97

00:14:53.960 Is it blue? What is it? They didn't do that. They didn't have any of that. They only knew they were

00:15:00.000 pregnant when it was called the quickening, when something happened inside of them and the woman

00:15:04.920 could feel it. Then you throw yourself down the stairs, you're going into colonial jail

00:15:10.920 because you're intentionally trying to kill a baby you know is in there. Hello? 0.55

00:15:17.180 Hello? So what's going on here? Does he actually believe all this stuff? And there's a lot more.

00:15:24.200 The answer is very clear. Once you learn where this guy, learn this, okay? Because in that same

00:15:32.300 sermon, Tallarico gave his testimony, not for his decision to follow Christ, but why he became

00:15:39.120 a radical feminist. And it actually starts with a tragedy, a real tragedy. And I want to share that

00:15:45.900 so you can understand him. And you know when he's lying and when he's not, when he's saying,

00:15:50.260 oh, no, I'm really just like you. Look up my Texas flag shirt. No, no, no. We didn't have

00:15:56.580 all the experiences that you had, James, and I feel badly that you had these, you were horribly,

00:16:04.240 horribly misled. And I can understand how it happened, but the rest of America and certainly

00:16:12.720 the rest of Texas needs to know this story. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

00:16:26.580 I saw something on patriotism from the New Yorker that is really sad.

00:16:31.760 It's very sad.

00:16:32.320 But I think a lot of Americans might feel this way. 0.52

00:16:34.940 But then you introduce the typical raising of the typical American. 0.60

00:16:41.020 And you put them even back into a time period that is before my time period where you were fighting the, you know, the hippie movement and the Vietnam War and all of that crap. 0.57

00:16:52.120 And so you get a real taint there.

00:16:54.220 but then you add modern elitists on top of it and you get the new yorker's uh essay how problematic

00:17:02.520 is patriotism and i just want to show you how to spot things uh quickly in this then i want to talk

00:17:09.800 to you about patriotism because it is june we're in the summer of 250 america's uh 250th birthday

00:17:16.920 uh i went to church yesterday and i my my faith did an hour just on the constitution i was so

00:17:22.840 happy to see that. Thank you for that. And it was really heartwarming and positive and a way to not

00:17:33.020 only celebrate, but also remind us that we are here to form a more perfect nation, meaning we're

00:17:40.940 not perfect. We never have been perfect. We need to try to strive to that perfection, knowing that

00:17:46.740 we'll always fall short as a nation but let's admire some of the things that we have done right

00:17:53.520 you know just at least for the birthday party you can hate grandpa all you want for some of the

00:17:58.440 things grandpa did but on his birthday maybe we should all get together and say hey grandpa you

00:18:02.520 know i know we disagree on a lot of stuff but there's a lot of great things that you did in

00:18:06.140 your life and celebrate those things can we do that apparently some can the elitists don't want

00:18:13.040 you to we'll get into that here in just a second first let me tell you about the burner launcher

00:18:16.600 there is um i mean here's how much time usually do you have to make a decision in a dangerous

00:18:23.600 situation usually it's about that much time just a snap of a finger not very long you don't get

00:18:30.780 time to go home think about it come over come back with a plan whatever happens happens fast

00:18:34.980 and that's why i've always believed that the time to think about everything that you do the decisions

00:18:40.020 you make and especially your personal savior uh safety you have to and savior your personal safety

00:18:45.760 you have to make those things in advance. That's what I like about Berna. Berna makes

00:18:50.860 non-lethal self-defense launchers that can help you protect yourself and your family from a

00:18:55.280 distance. They are legal in all 50 states. They don't require a permit, and they are designed to

00:19:00.920 give you an option when you need one most. Because when a bad situation arrives, you have to be

00:19:07.420 ready. You have to make that decision. And, you know, a plan is not one that just has you standing

00:19:13.660 there hoping things work out you really have to have a plan make it long before the moment

00:19:17.340 and that is by calling Burna right now go on to a Burna's website Burna.com slash Glenn look at

00:19:25.580 their Burna LE Gen 2 Burna.com select yours while supplies last there's a great discount on them

00:19:32.320 it's Burna B-Y-R-N-A dot com okay so let me just give you a little bit of this this essay from

00:19:42.160 the new yorker it says i did not grow up loving america not because i thought i didn't it didn't

00:19:47.560 deserve love but because i didn't think about it america was the pledge of allegiance and the

00:19:51.760 star spangled banner it was maverick and gun smoke it was ed sullivan and high school dances and big

00:19:56.140 cars with big fins it was soda fountains and elvis and stickball it was valley forge and george

00:20:01.340 washington was also white mostly male and invincibly middle class and i hardly gave it a

00:20:06.520 thought with race or class as much for that matter. Depending on where you hail from, America could be

00:20:12.500 the evening sky above Northfield, Connecticut, or the fields of Blue Bonnets in Texas. To a teenager

00:20:18.240 living in New York in the 1960s, America was pretty great. It had saved the world from fascism

00:20:23.220 and now stood as a bulwark against communism. Mickey Mantle good, Nikita Khrushchev bad. My

00:20:29.400 memory may be faulty, but I can't recall anyone I know declaring a love for America, not anyway,

00:20:35.180 until I was 25 and living in Charleston, South Carolina.

00:20:40.880 He talks about how he grew up, you know, in the era of the draft,

00:20:44.400 and, you know, he was singing about draft dodging,

00:20:46.840 you know, flee to Canada or Europe, blah, blah, blah.

00:20:49.680 Vietnam was the first time he actually thought about, you know, the war,

00:20:54.280 and then you had Nixon.

00:20:56.020 I mean, he grew up in a really bad period in America.

00:20:58.780 He did. Grew up in a bad period.

00:21:00.360 And I can understand if that is what you grew up seeing all the time.

00:21:05.180 um that's how you can get to where you where you are but then you add on top of that you live the

00:21:11.220 life of an elite because i want you to listen to this he talks about you know the history of

00:21:17.560 patriotism the concept if not the word probably emerged during the formation of you know the

00:21:22.860 greek polis in the 8th century bc blah blah blah blah blah and then he talks about um you know

00:21:29.680 Johann Gottfried Herder's notion of the Geist des Volks all made national pride seem like a

00:21:36.840 rational outcome of shared habits, traditions, and language. So he goes right to Germans and the 0.74

00:21:42.340 German Volk. And the Germans, you know, it's interesting how the Germans get a really bad rap

00:21:49.800 because the Germans were the ones that came up with the doctoral system that we have here in

00:21:55.940 America. I mean, in the late 1800s, early 1900s, if you wanted to be a doctor, you would go to 0.63

00:22:01.980 the best German schools. And the German schools were teaching you all of this crap. Okay, that's 0.99

00:22:07.480 how we got progressivism introduced here into America. We went over and we got it from the

00:22:12.440 Germans. But then he goes back into patriotism. He says, since then, writers have spilled a great

00:22:16.780 deal of ink over patriotism. Mark Twain, who was an American, had written about it. Okay, so

00:22:23.860 Mark Twain, good guy, American, 1800s, got it. Then he goes into H.L. Mencken, he said,

00:22:33.040 and also H.L. Mencken, who is that? Well, this guy was a deep critic, fierce critic of democracy,

00:22:41.760 progressivism, and the New Deal, and mass politics. But he was also an elitist, and real

00:22:48.900 key here anti-eglitarian how do you say this word sounds like such a moron all the time 0.98

00:22:55.600 egalitarian egalitarian thank you um egalitarians 0.93

00:23:03.640 um they believe egalitarian means that you believe in the principle that all people are

00:23:11.720 created equal. That's America. But he was an elitist and an anti-egalitarian. That kind of

00:23:22.360 guy believes that it's ruled by the best. It's ruled by the best. Inequality is good. This is

00:23:32.880 a modern progressive because some people are smarter and they should tell everybody what else

00:23:38.020 to do. Okay, so you don't listen to that guy for patriotism. He also admired Nietzsche. Okay,

00:23:44.220 problem. George Bernard Shaw is the next on this guy's hit parade list of people he looked to for

00:23:50.360 patriotism. George Bernard Shaw was an Irish Fabian socialist, advocated for socialism.

00:23:59.200 His views are so extreme for eugenics. He also loved certain dictators. He's the guy who

00:24:07.720 literally came up with gas chambers for the unfit that would later be used by the nazis so you

00:24:14.100 immediately throw this person out then he goes to ursula k uh k leguin okay she distrusted patriotism

00:24:24.300 uh yeah i bet she did she was an anarchist she liked socialism she was a feminist uh she was a

00:24:34.140 critic of capitalism, okay? Her fiction that she wrote explored anarchist and anti-authoritarian

00:24:40.720 themes. Of course, she didn't like patriotism. Then the next one on his hit parade is Tolstoy.

00:24:47.360 He likened it to slavery. Tolstoy was also Christian, anarchist, pacifist. He was a Russian.

00:24:57.180 That's the most important thing. He didn't even understand America, okay? George Orwell was 1.00

00:25:03.940 kinder than most he writes patriotism he wrote devotion to a particular place or particular way

00:25:10.100 of life which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon people

00:25:14.640 good that's that's good you be patriotic like that the problem is nationalism which he maintained

00:25:21.180 was inseparable from the desire for power well yeah in some people i just because i really love

00:25:28.040 my country doesn't mean i want to crush all other countries you again you're talking to the elitist

00:25:35.360 the average person that is patriotic loves the flag loves america loves the bill of rights the

00:25:42.320 declaration of independence loves our history but they don't want to dress their kids up into

00:25:48.280 uniforms put guns in them and tell them go take over the world we're tired of that you know it is

00:25:56.120 the progressive elites, mainly in the State Department, that have always been pushing this

00:26:04.120 stuff that we've got to go, this is a Republican progressive idea, that we've got to go and spread

00:26:11.540 democracy. You know what? The best way to spread democracy is the way we used to do it.

00:26:17.520 Do you know what? I've told you the story about the Statue of Liberty a million times. France

00:26:21.020 didn't give it to us because they liked us. They were fighting Marxism in their own country and

00:26:27.000 they were trying to show America has the best idea. Why does the Statue of Liberty have a broken

00:26:33.440 chain on her foot? Did you know that? She wears a shackle and it's broken. Why? Why does the

00:26:42.320 Statue of Liberty have a chain around her foot. Because America broke that chain. Not at the 1.00

00:26:51.940 beginning. With the Civil War, we broke the chain of slavery. And how did we do it? Here's a tip.

00:27:01.280 With what's in her hand, hand by her side, she's holding the Declaration of Independence

00:27:07.460 and the Constitution. That's why it says July 4, 1776 on the statue right there on the book.

00:27:14.200 That is the idea of independence and all men are created equal that breaks the chain of slavery.

00:27:22.360 And what makes man man? The ability to invent, the ability to dream, the ability to do.

00:27:29.760 That's the torch. The torch is imprisoned lightning. That's what they used to call

00:27:35.540 the electric light bulb it was imprisoned lightning and so it's the imprisoned lightning

00:27:41.900 it's the free man that can come here under the law and dream that can light the entire world

00:27:49.740 so anyway he goes into george orwell by the way george orwell was a democratic socialist so again

00:28:02.040 I don't think I'm going to him. Or Voltaire, which is a French Enlightenment. Where did the

00:28:08.600 French Enlightenment get us? And more recently, the philosopher Richard Rorty, capable of

00:28:17.780 defending patriotism. Richard Rorty, he is much more, again, of a, he's an American, but much more

00:28:28.960 of a continental thinker okay and then martha nesbaum martha nesbaum a popular philosophy

00:28:38.600 who advocates cosmopolitanism over strong patriotism and emphasizes global justice

00:28:45.040 and often aligns with progressive left liberal academic thought so throw this entire thing out

00:28:51.600 this guy grew up in the 1960s where there there were real scars and america was really wrestling

00:29:00.380 but up until barack obama we were making real progress on that we were healing those scars we

00:29:08.740 were starting to have color blindness and then barack obama and his progressives came in

00:29:13.540 and they started saying no no no you've got to notice color no you don't you don't

00:29:21.600 patriotism is not about red hats

00:29:30.500 it's not about waving flags

00:29:32.680 or chanting slogans at rallies

00:29:34.440 it's not about

00:29:36.320 God bless the USA

00:29:37.460 it's not about any of that stuff

00:29:40.080 that can make you feel good temporarily

00:29:42.500 but that's

00:29:43.820 sugar highs

00:29:45.700 real patriotism

00:29:48.620 is deeper, much deeper

00:29:50.400 it's the it's the steady bone deep love of the country that raised you

00:29:57.940 even when it didn't get things right do you hate your parents because they made mistakes 1.00

00:30:04.360 if you did you're a fool you're a fool 1.00

00:30:08.900 i didn't plan on telling you this but i'm going to tell you this because i'm 1.00

00:30:16.340 I feel compelled to.

00:30:21.540 My father was horribly abused when he was a kid, horribly.

00:30:27.740 He ran away when he was 16. 0.93

00:30:29.820 He ran to the YMCA in Los Angeles where he was repeatedly raped.

00:30:35.660 None of us knew this.

00:30:36.960 I'm the only one in the family, he told.

00:30:38.660 None of us knew this.

00:30:40.840 He spent his whole life trying not to be his father.

00:30:44.560 And so, when you try not to be something, you're just not there.

00:30:50.120 And my father wasn't there when I was growing up.

00:30:52.200 He just wasn't there.

00:30:53.040 He was working all the time.

00:30:54.080 He was a great guy.

00:30:55.620 He never abused any of us, yada, yada, but he was just not his father.

00:31:00.200 And when he told me this, when I was in my 30s, I began to understand him.

00:31:05.700 He was just not my father because he was not his father.

00:31:09.980 So, he didn't know what to do.

00:31:12.000 And so, he did really nothing.

00:31:13.320 Unfortunately, he married an abuser.

00:31:15.580 He married two of them.

00:31:17.100 And he abused and she abused my sisters, both my mother and my stepmother.

00:31:29.200 I had a falling out.

00:31:30.260 I never was close to my dad.

00:31:32.600 Then in my 30s, I sober up.

00:31:34.760 I get to know him.

00:31:36.360 We have a close relation.

00:31:37.480 We're on the phone all the time with each other.

00:31:38.920 He taught me more than any other human being.

00:31:40.580 then abuse started again of my sisters again older as they have children

00:31:49.900 and i saw that this was going to be passed on and i said to my dad dad you got to stop it right now

00:31:59.220 because if you don't i will i will stop it but it will cause so much damage we won't we won't

00:32:04.360 see each other again it just please please and he said son you have to do what you have to do and i

00:32:10.400 said, you're telling me, dad, that you agree with me stopping this, but I'm telling you, please,

00:32:17.600 please help me so we don't have to go through that. Well, he didn't. And my father and I had

00:32:22.920 a horrible breakup. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck podcast.

00:32:30.820 Hear more of this interview and others with the full show podcast available wherever you get

00:32:35.400 podcasts there's a lot going on we have to talk to you about iran there's some uh breaking news

00:32:41.040 happening uh with that i don't think it's necessarily good but let's let's take it step

00:32:47.100 by step um also bill gates is in the news what a fraud this guy is um now we find out that he is

00:32:55.880 he's actually paid people to help create this mr rogers kind of version of him he's a terrifying

00:33:03.620 guy quite honestly um and we have uh alex adams on he is the hhs assistant secretary for family

00:33:10.460 support the president has taken the administration for children and families um and they are

00:33:20.440 launching a a a new initiative to make sure that no child is left behind and this is

00:33:29.060 specifically talking about families that are foster care families and this was a hard decision

00:33:38.740 to have Alex on not because it's not worthy or anything else but because I know so many

00:33:43.620 people that have been raised in foster care that had the worst most horrific movie style kind of

00:33:52.700 upbringing that i've ever heard of and i'm very interested to see how we're fixing all of this

00:34:00.740 and what we're doing to make sure that we don't leave children behind but we also don't put them

00:34:05.760 into foster care that is a horror show we'll talk to uh to alex about that here in just a second

00:34:13.260 first let me tell you about our sponsor it's real estate agents i trust.com if you're about to sell

00:34:17.740 or buy a home, you know, and you're not getting the real estate agent from a reputable source,

00:34:23.480 you might as well just flip a coin, honestly. You know, head somebody who knows the local market,

00:34:28.300 tail somebody who communicates well, negotiates effectively, but, you know, doesn't have everything

00:34:33.820 you need. I mean, you could do that. Or you could get it, you know, you could get somebody

00:34:37.000 by not flipping a coin, you can find somebody who has been fully vetted, has all of the skills and

00:34:45.360 knowledge and systems in place to sell your house quickly, get the most amount of money and get you

00:34:51.500 into the right neighborhood with the right house at the right price. It can be done. You just need

00:34:57.480 the right real estate agent, somebody who can sell your home and get you into a new one, even in a

00:35:02.220 very tough market. Well, the name of my company says it all, realestateagentsitrust.com. We're

00:35:08.400 going to help you find the right real estate agent. We've vetted these people six ways to

00:35:12.140 sunday all over the country if we have somebody in your area we'll recommend them there's no cost

00:35:17.620 or obligation or anything else just meet with them see if you like them realestateagentsitrust.com

00:35:23.480 realestateagentsitrust.com alex welcome to the program the assistant secretary for family support

00:35:30.800 from hhs alex adams alex excited to have you on as i said a minute ago i have so many friends that

00:35:39.460 have grown up and co-workers that grew up in foster families that were just from hell uh and

00:35:46.760 i'm sure there are good ones out there i know there are but how what are we doing to make sure

00:35:51.780 that we increase the number of people that want to take children in for foster care and also

00:35:57.840 catch the bad guys for sure well thanks for having me glenn uh last november president trump and

00:36:05.840 First Lady Melania Trump signed an executive order called Fostering the Future.

00:36:09.840 It was a whole-of-government approach to improve child welfare across the board.

00:36:13.780 Many agencies have a role.

00:36:15.600 My agency, the Administration for Children and Families, has a specific role.

00:36:19.560 We launched a campaign called A Home for Every Child, where we're trying to increase the ratio of foster homes relative to the number of foster kids.

00:36:28.440 Right now, we have a national shortage.

00:36:30.440 If 100 foster kids come into the system, we only have 57 homes to care for them.

00:36:35.840 And what happens to the remainder is they get placed in bad situations.

00:36:40.500 Many of them get placed in Airbnbs, short-term rentals, government office spaces, places that are not conducive to a safe, stable, loving family environment that many of us were fortunate to grow up in.

00:36:52.440 So we're trying to get states to commit to increasing their ratio of homes to kids.

00:36:56.960 And there's certainly two ways to do that.

00:36:58.820 First is to recruit and retain better, higher-quality foster families.

00:37:03.120 The most important way to do so is to shrink the number of kids coming into foster care

00:37:07.320 in the first place.

00:37:08.900 As President Trump said, the best foster care system is one that is not needed, and we're

00:37:14.280 looking to ensure that foster care is used as a tool of last resort when it is in the

00:37:21.440 best interest of the child, when it is necessary to protect them.

00:37:25.500 But the first and foremost goal is to preserve families, keep families together when it is

00:37:31.140 safe to do so.

00:37:32.540 Okay, so how do you make that judgment? Because, I mean, you get into foster care, how? Because either you have no relatives left and your parents either abandoned you or died, or most likely it's because the Department of Children and Families comes in and says, we've got to get these kids out of here. It's a dangerous situation, right?

00:37:54.540 Yeah, well, most states define neglect and abuse. And in cases of abuse, if a court makes a finding, the child can be removed from the family and enter into foster care.

00:38:09.560 I used to run a state child welfare system. I'm from Idaho as well, so we're neighbors, Glenn.

00:38:16.300 And one of the things that we started doing is we started building predictive analytics into the hotline.

00:38:26.060 So usually the first step in a child welfare case is a medical professional or a school personnel calls a hotline alleging neglect or abuse of a child.

00:38:35.560 that sends off an entire cascade of events. That cascade of events can change the entire

00:38:40.940 trajectory of the child's life and the family's life. And it was very interesting to me how

00:38:45.740 subjective that whole process felt. So a couple counties had experimented with predictive analytics

00:38:52.940 where it brings additional data into the decision-making. It helps triage and it helps

00:38:57.440 right-size the response from the agency. Idaho is the first state to go live using predictive

00:39:04.040 analytics and uh based on that experience and others my agency the administration for children

00:39:09.800 and families just announced uh competitive grants to allow up to 10 states to experiment

00:39:14.520 with predictive analytics as well we think that will right-size responses and allow agencies to

00:39:23.160 focus on the most egregious cases where safety is truly at risk so

00:39:29.320 so this predictive analytics it's not to uh widen the scope it's possibly to narrow the scope because

00:39:39.280 i know people who have you know their baby fell off of the bed which my son did broke his uh

00:39:44.820 collarbone uh i know i have a friend who same thing happened in a different state and man they

00:39:49.920 were all over and a good parents and they were broken i mean you know um and the state was all

00:39:55.500 over them for months and months and months, and there was nothing going on. So is this to try to

00:40:01.540 weed those kinds of things out and get to the most serious? Certainly the goal. The goal is to

00:40:08.100 right-size the agency's response to the cases where there is true situations going on where

00:40:14.600 a child's safety is at risk, where foster care may be appropriate. So that's one of the things.

00:40:20.920 I mean, certainly, you know, we talked about preventing entry into foster care, but recruiting and retaining good, high-quality foster homes is another.

00:40:31.440 And too many states have larded up foster care licensing with red tape.

00:40:35.460 Certainly, things are necessary.

00:40:36.820 Let's do criminal background checks.

00:40:38.220 Let's do child abuse and neglect registry checks and all of those things.

00:40:43.720 But too many states larded up foster care licensing with just superfluous things like requirements for pet vaccines and other things where when I was a former state child welfare agency director, when my choice was having a child stay in the red roof in or putting them at the family's home, who is a good, high quality family, but we don't know the vaccine status of their pet rabbits.

00:41:07.560 That's a very easy.

00:41:10.020 Yeah, I think it would be.

00:41:12.180 you know we we had a lot of red tape like we required foster homes to have four foot fences

00:41:18.700 around every body of water i bet no farm in weston has four foot fences along all of the irrigation

00:41:24.620 canal let's uh let's roll up the carpet and let's make it easier to get good high quality foster

00:41:30.920 families into the system okay so so tell me about the orphan tax yeah it's another thing we've been

00:41:39.380 focused on. And I always say this is something straight out of a Charles Dickens novel,

00:41:45.520 where essentially a child's parents died, that child's parents had worked. So they were

00:41:53.260 entitled to some social security through earned benefits through work. Traditionally,

00:42:00.020 the child would be eligible for the survivor's benefit. But in 29 states, when that child

00:42:07.740 entered foster care, the state was saying, we are now the parent of that child. We're going to take

00:42:13.360 that survivor's benefit from them. And they're essentially taxing it at 100% and using it to

00:42:20.480 offset permanent costs. These states were essentially stealing from orphans and using it

00:42:27.020 to cover government bureaucratic overhead. So we sent a letter to 29 states asking them to end that

00:42:33.400 practice, which I find morally objectionable. And luckily, 10 states changed their laws this year.

00:42:40.280 Governor Pillen in Nebraska, Governor Landry in Louisiana, Governor Braun in Indiana right away

00:42:45.780 signed an executive order saying, we are going to end this. Other states took legislative action.

00:42:52.300 In Kentucky, the Republican legislature ran a bill that Governor Beshear vetoed. But luckily,

00:42:58.980 the legislature in an overwhelming bipartisan fashion absolutely steamrolled Governor Beshear,

00:43:04.500 and I think the House vote was 91 to 3, so his scheme to tax orphans has been effectively ended

00:43:10.740 in that state. But we still have a number of states to go. Probably the most pernicious one

00:43:17.620 is Minnesota. During the campaign, Governor Walz talked about how he was a recipient of

00:43:23.300 survivors benefits and how it gave him quote-unquote dignity but he is removing that dignity 0.93

00:43:30.260 from his own orphans and his foster care system presumably to give it to somali

00:43:34.820 pirates or whatever so we still have a long way to go and we're going to continue pushing on states

00:43:43.380 a safer ontario means more police and prosecutors making sure my card doesn't get stolen

00:43:48.500 It means building new jails to keep criminals behind bars.

00:43:52.020 And it means there's no need to worry when I play at the park.

00:43:55.380 We're making every corner of Ontario safer to make all of Ontario safer.

00:44:00.100 That's how we protect Ontario.

00:44:02.100 For all of us.

00:44:04.180 Learn how at Ontario.ca slash SaferOntario. Paid for by the Government of Ontario.

The Glenn Beck Program - June 01, 2026

Best of the Program ｜ Guest： Alex Adams ｜ 6⧸1⧸26

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript