The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program ｜ Guest： Brad Meltzer ｜ 6⧸24⧸26

00:00:00.000 Oh, there are so many good highlights from today's show, and we can only get to some

00:00:07.000 of them today.

00:00:08.720 I want to start with something that, you know, I started with the fact that New York has

00:00:14.360 just hired a bunch of socialists.

00:00:16.400 They just voted socialists out.

00:00:18.620 Good Democrats, they threw out, you know, and these were all, when I say good Democrats,

00:00:22.200 what do I mean by that?

00:00:23.040 I don't know.

00:00:23.540 Don't define it.

00:00:24.060 But people who were like, I led the rally to get Trump out of office.

00:00:29.180 I did all these things, but you're not socialist, are you? Now the socialists are coming in and

00:00:33.820 they're eating their own. And the problem with this is, is no one is teaching in a understandable

00:00:41.140 way what socialism is and what capitalism is. You can't defend it if you can't teach it. And so I

00:00:48.400 modeled how you teach what socialism is and what capitalism is. And I start with the famous pencil

00:00:54.820 story. Um, also the world cup, I am in love with all the people coming here, um, because they have

00:01:03.880 a, they have a skewed idea. They've been told by their media and their politicians, America bad,

00:01:10.220 um, America, just a killing field. And then they come here and they're like, Oh my gosh, no,

00:01:14.380 this is much better than our country. And they're expressing it. We're seeing it now because of

00:01:19.640 social media. So I, I talk about that, um, the world that came to see and now how politicians

00:01:25.540 are twisting it because everybody's talking about the world cup. So let's take a world cup story

00:01:30.040 and make it into immigration. It's what the wall street journal did. And it's a lie. And I expose

00:01:35.560 it today. Also one of my favorite guests, Brad Meltzer is with me. Um, he's got a new book out

00:01:40.560 for kids. Uh, perfect for the two 50. I am Teddy Roosevelt who, and we talk about this. Teddy 1.00

00:01:45.880 roosevelt is one of my favorite presidents and one of my least favorite presidents um because

00:01:50.740 i mean i'm it's weird i i cut him a break and i don't know if i should cut him a break but i cut

00:01:57.400 him a break on some really bad stuff um and at the same time i love him on other things and despise

00:02:05.380 him on the other half of his personality you decide uh all that and so much more on today's

00:02:15.880 okay i want to help out the homeschoolers i want to help you out if you can't defend

00:02:34.480 capitalism you can't explain why it's better than socialism because i'm telling you we are

00:02:39.320 going to be a socialist nation if we don't stop this soon and that is going to require us

00:02:44.020 to be stronger people better educated people um and there was something that i read when i was

00:02:51.040 kid and i and i think it was eye pencil i can't i can't remember exactly um and so i'm going to

00:02:56.680 bastardize it horribly but i'm holding a pencil yellow six sides little pink eraser at the top

00:03:05.400 and we've used these our whole life i mean you don't know use them now but we use them our

00:03:11.960 whole life. Everybody had one, okay? Nobody on earth, even though you have these, nobody on

00:03:17.880 earth knows how to make this thing. Not me, not even the man who runs the pencil factory. I mean,

00:03:23.240 he knows what it takes, but he's not the guy doing all of it. Not the CEO, not his best engineer,

00:03:29.300 not the genius three cubicles down who corrects everybody's grammar. Not that guy. It's a pencil.

00:03:36.600 the cedar comes from uh comes off a mountain in the pacific northwest it's cut by a steel saw

00:03:44.240 that steel came from iron ore in minnesota smelted with coal hauled by the rails by people who are

00:03:52.020 long dead okay the graphite comes out of the ground in sri lanka and it's mixed with clay

00:03:59.260 from mississippi the little band up at the top it used to be copper from chile zinc from canada

00:04:08.240 the yellow paint the rubber that never once met a rubber tree in its life all of these things

00:04:14.660 thousands of people on five continents that don't speak the same language who never met

00:04:22.720 who probably crossed the street to avoid each other you know if they did all of them somehow

00:04:28.680 or another without even knowing it have conspired to put this perfect little writing machine in a

00:04:34.200 child's hand for less than a quarter these people couldn't agree on lunch and they built the pencil

00:04:42.200 and here's the key no one was in charge there is no pencil czar there's no department of pencils

00:04:50.960 in a marble building deciding how much graphite Sri Lanka needs to mine this year nobody on the

00:04:58.460 planet wakes up at three o'clock in the morning in a cold sweat thinking dear god does ohio have

00:05:05.160 enough racer erasers nobody does it just happens every day it's a miracle so ordinary we walk

00:05:15.060 right past it on the way to complain about something so here's how you explain capitalism

00:05:23.920 and socialism if no one is smart enough to plan a pencil nobody it doesn't take anybody it just

00:05:31.260 happens who exactly do we figure is smart enough to plan an entire economy

00:05:37.900 you know this person right you meet the man who flunked the pencil but i think he's probably

00:05:47.480 pretty good at running health care or energy or lunch for 300 million people? No, no.

00:05:56.920 There's this economist named Friedrich Hayek. He spent his life on this one idea.

00:06:04.380 The knowledge that it takes to run an economy doesn't live in any one place. It's scattered

00:06:10.420 across millions and billions of heads. It's the welder who can feel a batch of steel running

00:06:17.080 brittle. It's the grocer who notices that young families are starting to move in, and they're

00:06:22.820 starting to move in, and they got all these kids, so I better stock up more diapers. It's the farmer

00:06:27.920 that can read the sky. None of them could write down what they know. They couldn't fill it out

00:06:33.680 in a form they'd lose the form but they act on it every single day and the price tag is how they

00:06:41.340 talk to one another copper jumps and a man in a workshop who has never spent one waking thought

00:06:48.380 on the nation of chile suddenly figures out we should use less copper he doesn't know why i don't

00:06:55.160 think he even wants to know why i don't want to know why but the number told him hey slow down

00:07:00.300 on the copper somebody else in the world is using a lot of it and they need it worse than you do

00:07:05.640 right now so slow down that message races around the planet at the speed of light without one human

00:07:13.360 being saying i'll put out the warning on copper they're not there's not there's no forum there's

00:07:19.740 no there's no phone call nobody's scheduling a meeting about it but then we introduce a central

00:07:26.580 planner. Let's just say best heart in the world. It's Mother Teresa with a PhD and a spreadsheet

00:07:34.840 and the most sincere Mother Teresa desire to help the poor. And she stands up and she says,

00:07:42.200 we don't need all this messy haggling over prices. I'll decide. I'm going to set the prices. You love

00:07:48.680 me. I love you. You know my heart. We'll just plan it. How hard can it be? And the second Mother

00:07:55.740 Teresa does that, she turns off the lights. She blinds herself to the one thing that is telling

00:08:01.820 everyone what everybody else knew. She's not stupid. She's not greedy. She's been handed 0.97

00:08:10.020 the job. No human, no computer can pull off because the information she needs doesn't exist

00:08:18.300 in any form that they can hold. It's in the lives of the welders and the hands of the farmer's gut

00:08:24.320 and it dies the instant that you tell them to stop deciding for themselves

00:08:29.260 and wait for the memo.

00:08:31.200 Then the farmer's like, well, I got to tell you, my gut says this,

00:08:34.140 but the memo says do this, and that's when the breadline happens.

00:08:38.440 Breadlines are real, and it happens the same way every single time.

00:08:44.960 It's honestly, it's like a band that only knows one song.

00:08:48.980 That's what socialism is.

00:08:50.380 because those countries,

00:08:54.280 they were not stuffed with lazy people, 1.00

00:08:56.860 evil people, stupid people. 1.00

00:08:59.260 The people were the same. 1.00

00:09:02.140 We're the same.

00:09:04.180 We're proving it right now.

00:09:06.080 We took one nation 0.93

00:09:07.280 and we split it down the middle with a wall 0.86

00:09:10.120 and we waited 40 years

00:09:12.220 like the world's bleakest science fair. 0.93

00:09:15.240 East German, West German. 0.68

00:09:17.440 Same people, same Beethoven,

00:09:19.240 same grandmother's recipe same family sometimes they were on different sides of the wall

00:09:24.400 one side became one of the richest places on earth and the other side bugged its own citizens

00:09:30.860 ran out of coffee and built a wall same people what happened and by the way notice which direction

00:09:37.600 people were climbing over that wall in all of history all the history of that wall not one man

00:09:44.420 ever risked the searchlights and the machine gun towers

00:09:47.340 to sneak into East Germany for shopping or the good food.

00:09:51.880 Pull up a satellite photo of Korea tonight.

00:09:55.640 The south of Korea, South Korea, it is a blanket of light.

00:10:00.000 The north is a black hole with one lonely pinprick

00:10:04.240 where the dictator keeps his lamp on.

00:10:07.140 Same people, same mountains, same conditions,

00:10:11.180 one border

00:10:12.580 one difference

00:10:14.980 so when

00:10:17.540 somebody tells you socialism just hasn't

00:10:19.520 been done right ask them

00:10:21.420 and ask them gently

00:10:22.220 how many times do we have to see

00:10:25.560 the same movie

00:10:26.900 end the same way

00:10:29.320 before we stop being surprised

00:10:31.420 at the ending how many times

00:10:33.500 do you go to the movie and go

00:10:35.540 wait so

00:10:37.560 Jaws 0.96

00:10:39.860 The shark was going to eat the swimmers.

00:10:42.920 I didn't see that one coming this time.

00:10:45.220 We've seen it.

00:10:46.200 It ends the same way every time.

00:10:48.160 We own this story on every format.

00:10:51.400 We know in the end the dog doesn't make it.

00:10:55.860 So let me spend a second being the kind of man I always ask you to be

00:11:00.160 and give you the strongest thing the other side says.

00:11:04.060 Because I can't just hand you an easy version of the argument.

00:11:07.320 I'm not informing you.

00:11:08.680 I would be flattering you. And I don't want to do that. I hate when I ask a question of ChatGPT

00:11:14.080 or some one of these AIs, and they're like, that is a very smart question. Shut up. Just give me 0.99

00:11:18.540 the facts, okay? The socialists will look at my pencil and say, beautiful story, Glenn. That's

00:11:25.060 really not, I mean, that's really Hallmark movie stuff. It's great. I'm going to cry in the end.

00:11:29.180 Oh, and do you end up together? Okay. But your market made that pencil, and the market can't

00:11:38.360 make a single thing that it can't slap a price tag on. It can't price clean air. It can't price

00:11:45.060 a stable climate. It can't price the quiet dignity of a man who has built something with his own

00:11:50.640 hands. So it just ignores them. It runs clean off the cliff with those things and calls it

00:11:56.920 efficiency. Here's the thing about that argument. It's not wrong. And any honest defender of the

00:12:03.000 markets has to own that he's not wrong and then i could go harder uh the wealth doesn't stay polite

00:12:11.540 it doesn't sit in the corner glen sipping water it buys senators it writes the rules of the very

00:12:17.540 game it swears it's it's playing fair a kid born in a dying town with a worn out school you're

00:12:23.860 gonna look him in the eye and tell him you know his reward is tied to his effort when the race

00:12:28.740 was three quarters run before he put his shoes on? Absolutely fair. Absolutely fair. That is

00:12:36.040 correct. So if you want to be honest, where do you land? Well, you don't burn down the engine

00:12:45.700 that lifted more human beings out of crushing poverty than anything else in the entire history

00:12:50.720 of the world. This is why I'm a conservative. You look at the whole situation, you go, what worked,

00:12:56.240 what doesn't. Okay. The engine is good. The corruption is bad. Okay. That's what you have

00:13:05.020 to do. When China and India finally quit trying to plan every single pencil and let the markets

00:13:10.640 breathe, a billion people climbed up out of the kind of poverty that kills your children.

00:13:15.780 A billion. No charity, no revolution, no five-year plan ever came close a thousand miles

00:13:23.500 to something like that number.

00:13:26.040 What it did was let ordinary people own things,

00:13:29.300 trade things, keep a little of what they earned.

00:13:32.440 You don't put out a house fire by knocking the house down.

00:13:36.060 You build the thing the market can't,

00:13:39.000 the rule of law, a real shot for that kid,

00:13:43.060 a fence at the edge of the cliff.

00:13:45.080 You build it around the engine,

00:13:47.460 not in place of the engine.

00:13:49.820 And the part that has almost nothing to do with money,

00:13:51.940 When the government owns the work, the government owns the worker.

00:13:54.980 You keep saying, well, the capitalist owns the worker.

00:13:58.300 Well, the government will too because it's humans that are involved.

00:14:03.760 A man who can take your living can make you say almost anything.

00:14:08.400 He can make you applaud until your hands bleed when all you want to do is weep.

00:14:13.360 You won't weep.

00:14:14.720 You'll clap because he owns you.

00:14:16.520 in a free economy if one boss fires you for what you believe you just walk down the street to the

00:14:23.840 next one unless the government is involved the government is supposed to be the policeman

00:14:30.100 if a powerful man hates your idea somebody else prints it they might even just print it just to

00:14:36.940 make a buck off the controversy that grubby profit hungry marketplace is the very same thing that

00:14:44.080 keeps the dissident fed. The freedom of the spirit and freedom of the wallet were never

00:14:49.420 two things. They were always one thing wearing two coats. So let me quickly end where I started

00:14:56.360 with the pencil. The reason why this little miracle works, the reason a quarter's worth

00:15:02.960 of cedar and Chilean copper assembles itself in a child's hand with nobody in charge,

00:15:07.940 is that it trusts something that no planner ever can or will.

00:15:13.860 It actually trusts you.

00:15:17.100 It trusts the welder that they've never met,

00:15:19.800 the farmer, the grocer, the grandmother.

00:15:22.580 It trusts that millions of free people,

00:15:24.780 each one knowing one small true thing,

00:15:28.520 will, between them,

00:15:29.980 know more than any genius in any capital ever could.

00:15:34.100 Socialism says that the people at the top

00:15:36.780 are wise enough to run your life.

00:15:39.800 Capitalism at its best says something much humbler

00:15:42.260 and a whole lot more radical.

00:15:45.020 Nobody's that wise.

00:15:46.140 Not the king, not a committee, not a computer,

00:15:48.300 not the man with the spreadsheet

00:15:49.440 and the very sincere face, not Mother Teresa, nobody.

00:15:53.600 So we'll leave deciding the only people,

00:15:56.680 leave it to the only people who actually know,

00:15:59.280 which is all of us, one at a time.

00:16:02.340 And I'd rather live in a country that admits

00:16:04.120 nobody knows how to make this pencil

00:16:06.140 because that's the country that figured out how to make a billion of those pencils 0.89

00:16:10.700 and then hand them to the poor.

00:16:16.440 More in a minute.

00:16:20.500 This is the best of the Glenn Beck Program.

00:16:29.220 Keeping yourself and your family safe means being prepared for situations

00:16:32.480 that can put you or them in danger.

00:16:34.920 It means being prepared for all the situations, you know, even those situations where deadly force is not needed.

00:16:41.240 In fact, it's a real problem.

00:16:42.720 There are more of those than you think.

00:16:44.120 And if you're a gun owner, it's unfortunately easy to think a gun will provide you all the safety it needs.

00:16:48.760 But you never pull a gun unless you're prepared to kill somebody.

00:16:51.440 And I'm not in all situations, you know, but they can go bad fast.

00:16:56.460 There is a tool for this.

00:16:57.720 It's the burner launcher.

00:16:58.780 It's a non-lethal alternative to safeguarding your home that will teach somebody a very painful, non-lethal lesson.

00:17:05.020 It's legal in all 50 states, no permits or background checks required, and it can be used by all age groups over 18.

00:17:12.220 My kids carry them in their backpacks.

00:17:14.580 You'll be confident that you are prepared to defend yourself against potential threats.

00:17:18.880 Go to Berna.com slash Glenn.

00:17:20.460 Learn more about it.

00:17:21.220 Try before you buy it at a sportsman's warehouse located near you.

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00:17:28.780 this is the best of the glenbeck program and don't forget rate us on itunes

00:17:37.800 all right there is something really glorious that is happening in america and i can't believe it's

00:17:49.060 happening with soccer in the world cup i mean i am not interested at all in the world cup and

00:17:53.680 finally, I am fascinated, suddenly fascinated by the World Cup. And I think why is because the

00:18:01.720 world came and they didn't lecture us. They came to play. And somewhere between the kickoff and

00:18:08.340 the final whistle, the people who came to watch, the visitors watching, are discovering something

00:18:14.720 the people who sell them opinions never wanted them to see. They're seeing the actual real

00:18:20.000 America. They arrive here and they have expected to see the caricature, the cruel, broken down,

00:18:26.320 dangerous, you know, cops riding on the hood of a car, shooting people. And instead they find a

00:18:31.700 barbecue or a stranger waving to them into a parking space, you know, 70,000 people in a

00:18:39.120 stadium who really don't care, you know, what flag you arrived under. Just can you play or not?

00:18:45.900 for years these people have been told america is the villain you don't you're not gonna like

00:18:52.560 americans and america is a bad place instead have you noticed how many of them are like i would live

00:18:58.420 here in a heartbeat and all because of soccer soccer has everybody's attention and because of 0.72

00:19:06.380 that politicians are reaching for soccer too and i was really disgusted yesterday before i get to

00:19:11.480 that let me just play a couple of things that i think are a really cool that what people are

00:19:15.000 actually saying uh about us um let's play uh but but um let's play cut 16 please have you got a

00:19:27.840 message for the scottish fans that i can't remember that i soon did yeah absolutely stay here never

00:19:32.580 leave dude this is new glasgow now don't leave i just want to say thank you to the fan base you

00:19:37.540 guys are absolutely electric you brought an energy to boston that we've been missing so thank you

00:19:41.520 very much. And it's now added Scotland to the list of places to visit because you guys are a great

00:19:45.920 crew. Please don't leave. We're going to miss you guys when you're gone. This was the best

00:19:50.960 thing that happened to this city. These Scots, all these Scots here, man. I love these people 1.00

00:19:57.500 and Uncle Fern. I'm saying right now, a year from today, I'm going to Scotland and I'm going to do

00:20:04.600 videos over there and I'm going to have a hell of a time. I'm going to go for 10 days over there.

00:20:11.520 okay those are boston people who are like i just love these people and i feel the same way i don't

00:20:17.640 care i don't care what country they're from i don't care what they look like i don't care what

00:20:22.920 flag i don't care what team they're rooting none of it none of it they're coming over and they're

00:20:28.580 discovering i love america and we love them it's great it's great now let's wreck it with politics

00:20:38.360 when we started winning the u.s team started winning the narrative machine kicked into gear

00:20:43.780 wall street journal now the editorial board has published a piece titled america's immigrant

00:20:48.960 soccer team and then of course the weasel john cornyn amplified it arguing the team's success

00:20:55.460 really reflects america's historically welcoming immigration system okay all right this is not

00:21:02.700 about soccer this is all about politics the article is clearly aimed at the ongoing debate

00:21:08.220 over birthright citizenship and the supreme court case that is expected to rule on it okay

00:21:14.340 soccer is just the vehicle so let's take their article let's count the journal noted that six

00:21:21.680 of the 26 players on the roster were born outside the united states technically true but birthplace

00:21:28.320 is not the real question now is it the questions the question is how many of those players became

00:21:34.240 americans five of those six were born to at least one american parent so i don't care where you were

00:21:42.560 born if one of your parents is an american you get citizenship at birth that's not immigration

00:21:49.780 in any meaningful sense of the current political debate that is not being debated so you remove

00:21:57.960 those five and you're left with one actual immigrant on the roster. He was born in Mexico.

00:22:05.860 Zendayas, I guess. I don't know. He moved to the United States as a child. He became a citizen

00:22:11.940 when his father was naturalized, when his father stood up by every public account, lawful, ordinary

00:22:19.520 immigration story, the kind that very few people object to. He stands up and says, I will protect

00:22:26.100 to defend the Constitution of the United States.

00:22:27.820 He takes the test.

00:22:29.720 And every player representing the United States

00:22:32.020 in the World Cup

00:22:32.700 has to be a verified American citizen.

00:22:35.720 There's no ambiguity on that one.

00:22:38.180 Yeah, but what about birthright citizenship?

00:22:41.300 Okay, let's count those cases.

00:22:44.340 Maybe you get four, maybe.

00:22:47.360 One born in New York to Nigerian parents

00:22:50.140 before growing up in England.

00:22:51.920 Then you have another one who was born to parents

00:22:54.180 It came from El Salvador in Guatemala.

00:22:56.660 Then you have a couple of others that were born in the United States,

00:22:59.900 the foreign-born parents whose status at the time is not publicly documented,

00:23:03.520 so I don't know.

00:23:04.760 But if you grant everyone the benefit of the doubt, that's four of 26.

00:23:08.680 That's not a quarter of the team.

00:23:10.460 That's not an argument for open borders.

00:23:13.260 What the players demonstrate is something else entirely, Wall Street Journal,

00:23:17.300 that people from around the world want to be a part of America.

00:23:21.340 there's so much slight of hand in this story it is crazy take a true statement that ambitious

00:23:30.400 people from everywhere strengthen this country quietly substitute a different claim that border

00:23:35.280 citizenship ship and legal distinctions no longer matter that's what's happening here you're watching

00:23:40.480 a magic show they're not the same argument and then you get john cornyn coming in john cornyn

00:23:48.440 john cornyn republicans already made their judgment on you in in 2026 in the primary

00:23:56.080 yeah oh my gosh it was just this year wasn't it it seems such a long time ago

00:24:01.800 he lost his party's nomination ken paxton won ken won despite being outspent by cornyn

00:24:11.460 10 to 1 you couldn't buy the voters okay why because people are done with the republican

00:24:19.180 establishment and people like john cornyn what makes moments like this so striking is here's

00:24:24.320 a politician rejected by his own voters who is still trying to shape a conversation they've moved

00:24:30.560 beyond maybe it's conviction maybe it's habit maybe maybe it's something else hmm i wonder what

00:24:39.540 that could be either way the larger story is not about one senator it's about the political and

00:24:45.200 media establishment just making mistakes in volume for influence for forever for my whole life they

00:24:57.480 just assumed they were the referees and for my whole life they generally were the referees

00:25:02.100 but today you're discovering wait a minute i'm just an ordinary participant participant in the

00:25:08.520 game i'm just i'm in the bleachers here how did that happen and i think that's the most encouraging

00:25:13.160 part of this whole story a new generation is coming up behind these weasels in the media

00:25:18.360 and these weasels in washington people who are tired of the stale arguments the broken trust

00:25:23.340 the endless attempt to divide americans into competing camps we're done with it they all want

00:25:28.840 i don't care who they vote for i actually do if you're a socialist you don't want this

00:25:34.920 but generally speaking everybody who's joining in now they want a country confident enough to

00:25:41.700 welcome visitors proud enough to be admired clear enough about what citizenship means

00:25:46.820 look at the listen to the people in boston a country we want a country that is open to those

00:25:53.840 who want to contribute if you come here legally raise your hand take an oath commit yourself to

00:25:59.780 the nation's future generally speaking we're happy welcoming you okay because

00:26:05.980 america does not owe anyone a place here but because citizenship means joining a shared

00:26:14.400 project we want you here if you want to share in it the question in oh man the question is not what

00:26:23.480 america can do for you the question is what can you do to help build america that's the country

00:26:31.300 millions of visitors are seeing right now a group of people who are like they love their country

00:26:37.340 they're nice they don't want to hate people that's not who they are and maybe someday the

00:26:44.080 united states lifts the the world cup trophy it would be sweet but this year the trophy is not

00:26:50.680 the most important thing to me. What's remarkable is that the people who were told to fear America

00:26:54.960 spend 90 minutes at a time seeing it for themselves. And they're discovering that

00:27:00.800 the country they were warned about is not the country they found. So who's been lying to them

00:27:08.040 the whole time and why? By the way, Cornyn, we're not going to miss you. It's sad. It's really sad

00:27:15.240 and pathetic to see you've lost and now you're doing everything you can to burn the house down 1.00

00:27:20.140 on the way out. It's really sad. We should have seen how much you really, I mean, how it's almost 1.00

00:27:26.720 psychotic. If I can't have you, no one will. It's psychotic. You're a really bad boyfriend or ex

00:27:34.140 husband, really bad. And I for one, not going to miss you. I'm glad they threw your ass out the 0.94

00:27:41.380 door in Texas. All right, back in just a second. There is so much going on. If you're trying to 1.00

00:27:46.380 teach your kids or yourself about American history, I mean, this is the summer to join

00:27:50.460 Torch. I mean, there is so much going on. And on July 1st, I think that's next week,

00:27:56.060 we're doing a live special. We have a new doc that is coming out, America 250 doc,

00:28:03.140 and it's called The Golden Door. And it's really, really good. We take you from New York

00:28:08.880 to the White House. And it is, I mean, it's really well done, really, really well done.

00:28:16.380 I'll be there live. We'll be taking questions and things. Jason will be with me and we'll be

00:28:22.460 doing it from Washington, D.C. It is on July 1st, 8 p.m. only on Torch. You're really going to love

00:28:29.560 this because of the history and inspiration and quite honestly, the truth. Here is a trailer

00:28:34.720 from Golden Door that premieres on Torch next week. Now on the base of the Statue of Liberty

00:28:41.140 is a poem, and it's called The New Colossus. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled

00:28:49.900 masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these the 1.00

00:28:57.120 homeless tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door. For more than a century, 1.00

00:29:04.640 Americans heard those lines as an invitation to the world's dreamers, the fighters, the people

00:29:10.520 who looked at tyranny and said, I'm going to go to a place where a man can rise, where

00:29:14.700 I can be who I was born to be.

00:29:19.440 It was never intended to be a suicide pact.

00:29:22.880 And that's why I say this with zero apology, zero new immigration, until we can get this

00:29:30.140 right.

00:29:31.160 Because you can't understand immigration if you first don't understand its purpose.

00:29:36.360 Well, we're going to correct that.

00:29:37.220 From New York City, where it all started.

00:29:39.260 We'll take a tour through history from some of the historic sites that wrote the immigration

00:29:45.100 story in our country.

00:29:47.160 And speaking of stories, I'm going to tell you the story of a young woman who stepped

00:29:50.060 off a boat from Scotland.

00:29:52.900 One generation later, her child achieved something I can guarantee you she could have never dreamt

00:29:58.820 of.

00:29:59.820 You think this kind of success happens in Somalia?

00:30:09.260 it begins uh next week uh you'll see it live with me june uh july 1st 8 p.m let me just play a

00:30:18.960 little montage of the people who are coming in what they're saying about america let's remember

00:30:23.400 this listen here are the things i love about americans first of all amount of patriotism

00:30:29.420 flags everywhere and i absolutely love it nobody on this planet can come even close to the amount

00:30:37.540 of patriotism Americans have, especially American South. Another thing that really stands out is the

00:30:43.760 amount of water Americans consume daily. Believe it or not, nobody else drinks so much clean water

00:30:50.120 as Americans. At first, I thought, oh my God, this is so dumb. Nobody needs so much water. And to be 1.00

00:30:56.040 honest, the only dumb one in this situation was me. I decided to give it a try and started drinking 0.98

00:31:01.340 water on regular basis and i've never felt better headaches went away skin cleared out it's

00:31:08.140 absolutely amazing thing i love small talk it makes you feel so much better of course nobody 0.95

00:31:14.540 gives how are you really doing that your day is crap no that's why you put a smile on your face 0.90

00:31:18.940 you leave your problems at home when a cashier tells you hi how are you doing with a smile on 0.98

00:31:23.100 her face it automatically brightens your day and i love it okay i am just walking around randomly

00:31:30.700 no idea what's ahead of me but i gotta show you these houses and these places

00:31:39.500 gosh no 10 foot fences no rabid people trying to burgle rape and murder the citizens

00:31:49.660 in washington my goodness look this is wow look at this they really used to build

00:32:01.480 beautiful buildings look at that that would be a death trap in south africa imagine walking 0.99

00:32:07.760 through there in the middle of the day or the middle of night i can also basically guarantee 0.97

00:32:13.500 you'd have your throat slit in South Africa. 0.99

00:32:16.360 But not yet. 0.94

00:32:17.820 This is the land of the free, ladies and gentlemen.

00:32:21.440 This is actually truly overwhelming.

00:32:24.640 Look at that little fence.

00:32:26.560 Such a tiny little fence.

00:32:28.420 That's literally just decorative.

00:32:30.420 Let me stop this here.

00:32:32.280 Let me stop this here.

00:32:33.820 This is how we change the world.

00:32:37.540 This is honestly why the French made the Statue of Liberty for us. 0.59

00:32:41.120 They were trying to teach their own people.

00:32:42.380 It's why Washington Crossing the Delaware, that painting was painted in Germany for the Germans by a German painter saying, look, America has it.

00:32:51.180 We have beat our chests and we're like, we're going to make everybody free.

00:32:56.740 You're going to we're going to come in and bomb you and then we're going to give you our your freedom the way we like to give it to you.

00:33:04.100 No, the way to change the world is live the example, just live the example.

00:33:09.920 and then when people come over here they do what they're doing my gosh you would not believe

00:33:14.440 america they have it down look at what they're doing now we don't have it down you know that

00:33:19.720 i know that imagine how bad it is over in their countries that they think we've got it down

00:33:23.980 we don't need to get arrogant we need just to to recognize yeah this is a special place

00:33:30.200 this is a place that is different than everywhere else in the world and it's good it's good do we

00:33:37.660 have problems to fix? Yes. Can we fix them? Yes. Why can we fix them? Because we're Americans.

00:33:43.380 So let's fix it the American way, not the European way. European way is government will fix it. You 0.98

00:33:49.380 just sit down, stay out of it. We'll fix it. We'll tell you how to live your life. It's not the

00:33:53.780 American way. That's not how we got here. This is the greatest example I have ever seen in my 1.00

00:34:00.860 lifetime of just live your life the way you're supposed to people will notice and they'll say

00:34:08.660 my gosh we got to be more like that what makes them special that's how you take real freedom

00:34:14.340 the real principles of our country and share them with the world not through the state department

00:34:20.360 not through USAID not through any of that live your principles America and people will notice

00:34:27.640 and want it.

00:34:28.960 Hello, America. 0.98

00:34:30.220 You know we've been fighting every single day.

00:34:32.040 We push back against the lies, the censorship,

00:34:34.800 the nonsense of the mainstream media

00:34:36.760 that they're trying to feed you.

00:34:38.320 We work tirelessly to bring you the unfiltered truth

00:34:41.440 because you deserve it.

00:34:43.240 But to keep this fight going, we need you.

00:34:45.720 Right now, would you take a moment

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00:34:49.440 Give us five stars and lead a comment

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00:35:13.180 Now let's get to work.

00:35:15.740 This is the best of the Glenn Beck Program.

00:35:22.180 American manufacturing used to mean something.

00:35:24.500 Your neighbor worked for the factory in the town and was proud of the work they did.

00:35:28.480 American Giant is doing their part to bring that back.

00:35:31.640 They use cotton that was grown by a neighbor, milled by a neighbor,

00:35:35.060 sewn and finished by a neighbor, all here in the U.S.

00:35:38.620 American Giant makes quality clothes that are 100% American.

00:35:42.540 They know that American manufacturing matters.

00:35:45.780 When you go to the American Giant website and look at the clothing,

00:35:48.940 you'll not only see it, you'll feel it.

00:35:51.720 Not many companies make products like that today.

00:35:53.920 But thankfully, American Giant does.

00:35:56.680 You can find cheap clothing online.

00:35:58.520 It's made overseas by cheap labor and it'll last you a little while.

00:36:01.260 Or you can buy clothing that's made in America with lasting quality.

00:36:05.500 Clothing that will be passed down from generation to generation.

00:36:08.940 That used to be normal.

00:36:10.100 It is normal again with American Giant.

00:36:12.440 Buy American today at American-Giant.com slash Glenn.

00:36:16.580 Use my name.

00:36:17.220 Get 20% off your first order at American-Giant.com slash Glenn.

00:36:21.900 probably not probably definitely top five probably either one or two favorite guest of all time

00:36:30.800 is brad melzer um we are like brothers from another mother we both love love love history

00:36:36.540 um we love exploring the things that nobody knows about and learning them just for ourselves even

00:36:42.580 if we don't share them and then we bore everybody to death by sharing them and strangely if you

00:36:47.880 catch us on a good day. We don't bore you to death. You're fascinated by it. Uh, Brad Meltzer

00:36:52.500 is the King of this. Uh, and he has written a new book. I am Teddy Roosevelt. He has this whole

00:36:57.120 book series out for kids, um, about, you know, heroes of American history. And this one is about

00:37:03.720 Teddy Roosevelt who I have a love hate relationship with. Um, I love the guy, but he was also,

00:37:09.460 and I give him a break and maybe I shouldn't, but I give him a break because it's, he's before you 0.83

00:37:15.360 start to see the results of what deep progressivism does um and you know eugenics and everything else

00:37:23.600 but he was deeply into all that stuff but he also at the same time is a monstrous hero i mean just

00:37:30.520 he belongs on mount rushmore because he is a giant sized hero a man like no other brad is

00:37:38.220 going to talk to us about that and then we're going back to the news here in just a second

00:37:40.880 brad how are you my man i miss you so good to see you oh so good to see you thank you so for

00:37:47.200 joining us on zoom um so i want to talk to you i want to talk to you about teddy roosevelt but

00:37:52.420 let's start with the news the um the fight that happened at the white house i thought of theodore

00:37:58.820 roosevelt the whole time everybody is freaking out theodore roosevelt that's his kind of thing

00:38:06.740 don't you think uh well here's what i think i actually was not a fan of the fight of the white

00:38:11.880 house because i just felt like it was um i think what i love about the teddy roosevelt is teddy

00:38:18.660 roosevelt would fight teddy roosevelt was the guy who got in the ring yes he had fights there

00:38:24.740 but also wanted to fight there um i just don't like the money making part of it right like i

00:38:30.100 like the fighting part i get i you know teddy roosevelt has this nixon has bowling everyone

00:38:34.660 president has their thing i just didn't like the cash value of it but of course how could i not

00:38:39.720 think of teddy roosevelt when you're thinking of fighting it's the guy who truly you know was was

00:38:45.900 the guy who had fights at the white house how do you how do you reconcile him as a as a parent

00:38:53.440 because i there's parts of me that absolutely loves him as a parent and there's parts of me

00:38:59.580 that go you would be in jail today he used to take his kids out and i don't remember the age

00:39:04.400 you probably do but he would take them out they were very young and he would just take them out

00:39:08.560 in the middle of the forest and say find your way home and yeah they'd have to find their way home

00:39:13.760 because they he taught them how to survive in anything listen he's complicated every hero and

00:39:22.780 and i listen i owe you a huge thank you this whole series started i came and launched it on your show

00:39:28.940 it was to give people better american heroes to look up to we started with the obvious

00:39:33.640 I am Abraham Lincoln. I am Amelia Earhart, people we love. I am Rosa Parks. We've done together on

00:39:39.260 this show. And every book I've done, Glenn, someone has written to me and said, that person

00:39:45.060 has this wrong with them, that wrong with them. They shouldn't have done this. They shouldn't

00:39:48.200 have done that. And they're right. Every person we've written about is complicated. The only

00:39:53.100 person that's perfect is, of course, God. And everyone else take a number, right? We're all

00:39:58.520 flawed in some way. And Teddy Roosevelt, the reason why it took me so long, this is our 39th

00:40:03.840 book in the series is he was most complicated, maybe the most complicated person we've written

00:40:09.720 about. And yes, I don't, I don't feature, you know, some of the things he's done that you've

00:40:15.220 talked about. I don't feature problematic things he's done as his presidency goes on,

00:40:20.320 but you know what I do feature? I love the fact that when he's a little kid, his father doesn't

00:40:25.340 like bullies. And his father says, when you have money, and you have power, that doesn't make you

00:40:32.420 fantastic or strong or terrific. What it does is it gives you a responsibility, a responsibility

00:40:38.780 to help other people. So you see those orphans that are in the streets that have no place to

00:40:43.480 live, we got to help them. You see these workers that are suffering under bad conditions, we got

00:40:47.640 to stand up and make sure they're not being taken advantage of. And that's what he does with the

00:40:51.560 environment and the great outdoors, our mutual love, right, has always been, is he goes to those

00:40:56.480 great outdoors and says, we have to protect them. And we have a responsibility to the environment

00:41:01.240 too. And those are the parts, of course, that I picked to feature in the book. You know, my editor

00:41:07.000 was like, maybe we shouldn't talk about the later parts of his life. Maybe we shouldn't talk about

00:41:11.100 these parts, but maybe we don't talk about abandoning your kids in the wilderness. But that

00:41:15.880 doesn't mean he doesn't have amazing, amazing things to teach us. No, I know. But I mean,

00:41:20.620 you're writing a kid's book and i i get that and you you cover all the important things that make

00:41:25.700 him a great guy um but i but he is so i think he's probably the the president that is he's probably

00:41:35.940 the most complicated president since jefferson i think those two i have a hard time reconciling

00:41:42.480 i like both of them i like and i can understand both of them um and maybe because um

00:41:50.360 um roosevelt is closer to me and i don't even know if this is right you know he was a big

00:41:55.540 eugenics guy i mean we have some documents where he is like look we wouldn't do this with our

00:41:59.880 cattle just let him breed with anybody we got to pick and choose who we breed you know who we let

00:42:04.900 have children um but i i look at that and think he's at the beginning of this science he doesn't

00:42:12.020 understand what it's going to turn into um and you you could have made that case back then because

00:42:18.420 you didn't have any negative. Am I being too kind on that? I don't think you're being too kind on

00:42:25.860 eugenics. I mean, that's a huge issue. I think as we all look, that's a moment in time where

00:42:33.780 I certainly don't think he knows what's going to happen in the future and what it's going to be

00:42:37.520 turned into. Of course, what I focus on very strongly is how he gets there. And as you said,

00:42:44.120 he's a complicated president, but as a person and as someone growing up, it's an incredibly

00:42:50.460 great hero to give to my kids and all that. Let's talk about why, because it is important.

00:42:55.240 I think today, Teddy Roosevelt is sometimes held out as being that strong guy, the macho guy,

00:43:00.420 look at him, he's the big stick, the whole thing, but that's not who he is when he's growing up. 0.71

00:43:05.700 He's actually sick a lot. He's smaller than everyone else. He gets picked on. He's so scared

00:43:10.620 when he's little that his mother used to read to him to go to bed because he was so scared to go

00:43:15.300 to bed. He used to get bullied. And that's when he takes boxing lessons because his dad is like,

00:43:21.060 listen, fighting's a last resort, but if you're being picked on, you got to stand up. And I can

00:43:26.060 tell you, my editor wanted to take that part out of the book. And I was like, no, no, no, no, right?

00:43:31.640 We have to put that in. I learned the same thing from my dad. I remember being picked on and my

00:43:36.460 dad teaching me how to throw a punch. And not that that's the answer, but listen, when you're

00:43:41.740 pushed around and someone picks on you, you have to stand up and say no. And that was a key part

00:43:48.480 of the book that we put in there. And what I love is, go ahead. Do you think that's his turning

00:43:53.800 point? I think the turning point is this. And it's the part that I think you and I, I'm going

00:43:58.840 to wager just knowing how much we know each other is your favorite part of his story, which is his

00:44:04.680 turning point he's not the great outdoorsman he loves animals his whole life he you know he had

00:44:09.700 like mice and and and spiders he used to keep in his room he was a weird kid he'd keep like

00:44:15.100 animals in his pockets and he you know called his bedroom the roosevelt museum of natural history

00:44:19.520 that it's a weird kid but here's the turning point his father dies and then soon after his

00:44:26.080 mother and his wife die on the same day glenn on valentine's day and on that day he's devastated

00:44:34.000 loses the great two women in his life and he can't get over it so he moves in that moment he can't

00:44:41.380 he's suffering in new york he moves to their ranch out in north dakota and in north dakota

00:44:48.000 he just sits under the stars and he listens to the wolves and it's there that he really develops

00:44:55.100 that need and that and that truth what i can call his experience in the great outdoors

00:45:01.700 He's never a great writer until he gets out there.

00:45:04.140 And then he starts spending 12 hours, 13 days in the saddle.

00:45:07.400 You know what that takes.

00:45:08.940 In degrees that are crazy below zero temperatures.

00:45:11.960 And what I love about him when he does that is he's not the best writer.

00:45:19.080 He worked hard in it day after day.

00:45:21.840 And if being out in nature teaches him anything, it's like success doesn't come from having natural gifts.

00:45:28.200 it comes from how hard you work those gifts and that's where he falls in love and starts

00:45:34.180 protecting the outdoors and on this one july 4th as we come up to july 4th ourselves

00:45:39.520 he gives this speech they ask him to speak and he says this quote and this is his speech he says

00:45:45.360 like all americans i love big things big prairies big forests big factories but we also have a

00:45:52.520 responsibility to protect things that can't take care of themselves and that's when he starts

00:45:56.820 protecting yellowstone and yosemite and niagara falls and he creates five national parks those

00:46:03.220 national parks that you and i love so much they exist because of teddy roosevelt that's who gave

00:46:08.800 us the national parks and federal lands and wildlife bird preserves and that's why he's on

00:46:14.300 mount rushmore not because of you know even the big stick or the freedom fighters or anything else

00:46:19.280 it's all because of what he does to our national parks so next time you're in a national park this

00:46:24.660 summer say a prayer and thank teddy roosevelt for that one and to me that is the lesson i wanted for

00:46:30.260 my kids to teach them that love of the great outdoors i love mount rushmore i love around

00:46:36.000 mount rushmore um but i i find it i find it so ironic um that they carved his face in a mountain

00:46:45.460 and he was the guy who was protecting and saying leave everything

00:46:49.760 leave the mountains alone and they carve his face into it so ironic great is when you every when i've

00:46:57.820 been to mount rushmore there's an i can't even tell you every time that i've been there i have

00:47:04.760 someone because i can't help but listen on everyone and someone says oh yeah there it is

00:47:09.160 washington lincoln jefferson and fdr and i'm like it's not fdr i can't help myself i'm just like

00:47:15.140 it's not it's the other roosevelt there's another roosevelt i know and and that is the irony of

00:47:19.080 Of course, my favorite part of Mount Rushmore, you know, there's a secret room behind Mount Rushmore, which I spent a lot of months trying to get into.

00:47:28.020 It's just a storage room.

00:47:29.080 But the fact that there's a secret room behind Mount Rushmore, come on, baby.

00:47:33.300 You know I love that.

00:47:34.260 So cool.

00:47:35.640 um one thing that um the story to me that defines him and his just inner strength to go on

00:47:47.920 is he is going over um to accept the nomination to run for president um and he's going to run

00:47:56.840 against Wilson and he's trying to get the nomination of the progressive party blah blah

00:48:00.360 law which he starts um and he's going to give this speech and he talks so long he's so long-winded

00:48:06.060 he talks so long he folds this speech up and he puts it in his pocket he has then his glasses and

00:48:11.080 he puts his glasses into his pocket into a shirt pocket he puts a heavy coat on he goes across the

00:48:16.080 street somebody shoots him the bullet goes through his glasses then through the speech which i have

00:48:22.000 the speech i know you have the speech that was what trust me i was waiting all day because i

00:48:26.120 know you told me you have it i don't know if i was supposed to say it or not yeah yeah listen

00:48:29.960 it's a great bullet hole in it speech the speech saves his life saves his life protects him in the

00:48:37.240 assassination attempt i debated putting that into the book because it's so good but it goes through

00:48:42.120 it goes through i love the fact that a politician is protected by his own words i know i know so it

00:48:48.680 goes through the speech it's slowed down so much that it just lodges between his ribs and it stays

00:48:54.100 between his ribs forever but then he goes on to give a 45 and he's saying right and he's saying

00:49:00.580 please i you know you gotta there's no microphones or anything there's thousands of people there

00:49:04.280 and he has to project and give this speech and at one point his coat kind of opens up and everybody

00:49:09.840 sees all the blood on his shirt and and they laugh or they like gasp and he's like i told you i was

00:49:14.640 shot but nobody believed him nobody well that's the best part is i'm finishing the speech because

00:49:22.000 i'm not done right and that it is i know again he's complicated but he has these hero moments

00:49:30.980 that you're like oh my goodness like you can't know if i get if i put that in one of my thrillers

00:49:36.840 my editor would say no one's gonna believe that no there's no one that's gonna believe that but

00:49:41.880 he over and over has these moments like he even when he's younger he has these moments when bullies

00:49:47.960 come and pick on him he goes and gets the boxing lessons you can hear the rocky theme being played

00:49:53.840 in your head oh yeah and he then fights back and beats up the bullies and you know again it sounds

00:50:00.480 like something that's just made up but the fact that this guy rises and and when he goes to run

00:50:06.320 for the for his first office he loses he comes in third he runs for i think mayor of new york

00:50:11.200 and i love the fact that he loses and i love the fact he won't stay down on the mat and keeps

00:50:17.760 getting back up that's why i wrote the kids book for him is i want my my sons i want my daughter

00:50:24.000 to have that lesson that you can be it's what it says in the back of the book you know every every

00:50:28.440 kids book we do yes they're history books but they're value books so on the back of i am amelia

00:50:34.400 erhart it says i know no bounds on the back of i am abraham lincoln it says i will speak my mind

00:50:39.580 and speak for others on the back of i am teddy roosevelt it says you know become a force in

00:50:45.380 nature and right now i am america 250 i'm a force of nature on the back and and i as america 250

00:50:52.440 approaches we obviously time this book for that is i wanted to give my kids a lesson of what kind

00:50:58.560 of american they should be at america 250 and teddy roosevelt complicated as we all are as the

00:51:03.900 man yep uh brad i love you thank you so much thanks for sharing the book it's a great book

00:51:09.340 for your kids make sure you get it i am uh teddy roosevelt i am teddy roosevelt and the whole

00:51:14.160 series by Brad Meltzer. Thanks, Brad. Appreciate it.

The Glenn Beck Program - June 24, 2026

Best of the Program ｜ Guest： Brad Meltzer ｜ 6⧸24⧸26

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