The Glenn Beck Program - March 11, 2026


Best of the Program | Guest: Chad Wolf | 3⧸11⧸26


Episode Stats

Length

44 minutes

Words per Minute

145.56575

Word Count

6,426

Sentence Count

344

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On today's show, Glenn Beck ties together the news of the day with a message of love and the trade you make with your time. He talks about the dangers of sleeper cells in America, the Iran situation, and the need to stand up against oppression.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:00:30.000 Today's podcast, I begin with the news and kind of tying a few stories together.
00:00:34.200 What is the news of the day telling us about America and where we're at?
00:00:41.740 Also, a message of love and the trade you make with your time.
00:00:46.520 And from DHS, Chad Wolf, what are we actually facing with the possible sleeper cells here in America?
00:00:54.600 And what, how bad is it with the airports and with DHS because the Democrats won't fund our Department of Homeland Security?
00:01:03.800 All of that and so much more on today's podcast.
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00:02:01.800 800-906-2440. Hello, America. You know we've been fighting every single day. We push back
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00:02:48.780 Now let's get to work.
00:02:58.440 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:03:05.620 I go over the news of the day and we talk about the Save America Act or we debate what's happening in Iran.
00:03:18.780 we're, we're, we're forcing each other into making trades and, and, and no, we're not thinking about
00:03:29.240 that. We, when you're choosing one over another and both of them may be true, what are you trading?
00:03:36.960 What are you trading? What value, what principle are you trading away? Because society has taught
00:03:44.380 you that two things cannot be true at once. And that is a huge lie. Two things can be true at
00:03:50.980 once. I am not for war, but I think this limited action may be right. Notice I say, maybe right.
00:04:02.480 I don't know. I don't know because I can't see the future. I can see what I believe the intent is,
00:04:09.440 but I can't see the future, so it may be a huge mistake.
00:04:13.640 Okay, Glenn, you think it's a huge mistake, maybe a huge mistake.
00:04:17.180 Well, then why would you do it?
00:04:18.380 Well, because I can't see the future, it may not be a huge mistake.
00:04:22.860 It may be the right thing to do because of all of the ramifications
00:04:26.780 of what comes if you don't make that move.
00:04:29.840 But everybody acts so sure, and we're trading so much away.
00:04:39.440 you were just talking about the Iranian girls.
00:04:46.340 I don't understand how the men on the left,
00:04:51.000 do you not have somebody in your life,
00:04:53.640 a woman, a daughter, a mom, a wife, a sister,
00:04:58.340 that you can't see what these women are going through
00:05:02.600 over in Iran and you can't empathize with them?
00:05:06.480 How can you say you want to stand up against the great oppression here in America on homosexuals and yet you will not say anything about this regime that throws homosexuals off building tops or executes them in the public square?
00:05:30.300 What have you traded?
00:05:36.480 Let me tell you what I'm thinking, why I'm thinking this way.
00:05:41.080 Yesterday, it was my mother-in-law's 83rd birthday.
00:05:47.040 She lives with us during the winter now.
00:05:52.120 She was younger than I am now when we first met, and that seems like yesterday.
00:05:59.920 I watch her and I listen to her now and I think, where has the time gone?
00:06:08.380 When we first met, she was a dynamo.
00:06:12.660 She still is, but she was a dynamo, very successful in what she does, very powerful.
00:06:18.660 And I was young and stupid and full of nothing but wide open highways to dreams and worlds, you know, yet to be explored and built.
00:06:29.920 And a long list and seemingly never-ending time to do those things.
00:06:37.680 I was 35 years old when we met.
00:06:41.620 And I was a young man who already had lived a very harsh and fast life.
00:06:47.580 And I wanted to marry her 26-year-old daughter.
00:06:51.320 I told her at the time, I wouldn't be for that.
00:06:53.880 I understand your reluctance here.
00:06:55.820 but I promised her
00:07:00.300 I would love and cherish her daughter
00:07:02.700 and I would treat her right
00:07:07.020 and I hope I have
00:07:11.700 I tried really hard
00:07:13.140 but so much time has passed
00:07:16.360 so much has happened
00:07:17.920 and now just sitting with her
00:07:20.280 I feel like
00:07:22.260 I've missed it all
00:07:25.620 people bitch about their mother-in-law all the time
00:07:33.360 it's a joke
00:07:33.940 but she has brought such
00:07:41.200 wisdom
00:07:42.260 she has brought
00:07:45.780 prayer
00:07:48.680 calm
00:07:49.820 steady
00:07:51.100 quiet foundation
00:07:53.980 almost every day she says to me i hope that you slow down i hope that there's going to come a
00:08:03.560 time when you slow down and at first when she was saying that i keep thinking i have got to speed up
00:08:09.560 i there's not a lot of time left
00:08:11.520 but this is the first time i've lived with a parent since i was 18 and maybe it's just that
00:08:22.280 I'm getting to the age where I am starting to get it, but I'm starting to see things wildly differently.
00:08:32.840 We both realize that time is speeding up, that time is shorter than either of us think.
00:08:38.020 But I think only with time, with age, can you understand the value of those things you trade for time.
00:08:48.360 my grandparents my parents told me when i was younger
00:08:54.140 they told me things that i i just didn't understand you know
00:08:58.300 those are the things they told me when i was younger i heard but didn't understand
00:09:05.040 maybe you can't under understand until you've lived long enough to see the pattern
00:09:10.160 But older people, older people used to tell me all of the time that, that they would say, you know, time just goes by so fast. It just goes so fast. Well, you know, when you're young, that really sounds ridiculous.
00:09:30.120 A year feels like forever when you're 20.
00:09:35.520 Ten years feels like an entire lifetime.
00:09:41.420 But I'm beginning to understand what they meant.
00:09:43.840 Life does not move at a constant speed.
00:09:47.940 It moves really slowly until it doesn't.
00:09:54.620 Jason said something to me.
00:09:56.120 Jason, who does our research for the show and also is the host of our insider broadcast that
00:10:02.100 happens during the show on Torch. He said something this week that he was quoting something
00:10:07.720 you've probably heard, I heard a million times, but it hit me differently this week. And for two
00:10:13.880 reasons, one, with everything that's happening in the world, he said, there are decades where
00:10:19.360 nothing happens and then weeks where decades happen. And that is very true in the world that
00:10:26.980 Jason and I are living in right now on the radio and podcasting and news. That's what's happening
00:10:31.620 right now to the world. But when it comes to life, it doesn't quite fit what I see in my life
00:10:39.780 with my wife and kids and my mom celebrating her 83rd birthday.
00:10:49.360 last night to celebrate her birthday was really simple.
00:10:53.540 We went to a small gelato shop in a small town called Stewart, Florida.
00:11:02.640 And I watched her pick out the flavors of gelato she wanted.
00:11:05.980 And we sat there.
00:11:08.820 And she said, why am I always the last to finish?
00:11:12.320 And my wife said, because you talk a lot.
00:11:13.860 but what she was doing was she was talking about the days
00:11:19.980 that have just slipped by while life happened
00:11:24.100 and that's when I heard that axiom differently
00:11:28.780 perhaps it's better stated
00:11:32.400 in everything that really matters
00:11:36.540 there are years where nothing seems to change
00:11:40.500 and then there are these moments when
00:11:43.860 everything has already changed before you even noticed it.
00:11:50.460 When did my children get taller?
00:11:53.580 Oh, I know, when I was busy working.
00:11:57.600 Our parents get older while we're busy planning.
00:12:03.440 The world is quietly rearranging itself
00:12:06.000 while we're focused on the next thing.
00:12:09.760 And one day you realize
00:12:11.340 that that thing that people told you but never really explained clearly enough
00:12:19.340 time is not something you spend it is something you trade
00:12:25.000 and no one tells you that every day you're making trades you're training you're trading your morning
00:12:36.900 for a meeting, dinner for returning phone calls or emails. You trade patience for exhaustion.
00:12:45.360 You tell yourself, how many times have I said this? It's just this season. It'll slow down.
00:12:51.060 You trade a bedtime story for just one more thing.
00:12:55.680 you trade
00:13:01.740 walks
00:13:03.360 to get the laundry done
00:13:06.280 you trade
00:13:08.680 being really present
00:13:11.100 for just getting through the day
00:13:13.640 and it feels normal
00:13:17.160 and everybody does it
00:13:19.720 but here's the part you don't get
00:13:24.140 until you notice things have passed.
00:13:29.580 Trades don't cost you right away.
00:13:31.920 They compound and they show up later.
00:13:37.860 When your children move out
00:13:39.280 or your child doesn't reach for your hand as much.
00:13:44.960 When you can't remember the last time
00:13:46.640 you were really excited.
00:13:50.240 When your life is really loud,
00:13:53.020 but somehow empty.
00:14:00.860 You don't notice it week to week.
00:14:04.100 You notice it once years have passed.
00:14:10.620 I saw this Instagram post last night.
00:14:14.440 It said,
00:14:15.160 you notice it when the photos on your phone
00:14:18.040 carry more memories than your body does.
00:14:23.020 I don't remember anybody sitting me down
00:14:29.520 and saying, be careful what you trade away
00:14:32.600 because the quiet trades are the permanent ones
00:14:36.460 and I don't know if I would have gotten it
00:14:39.360 so let me just say this
00:14:44.080 today, be aware of what you're trading
00:14:48.600 hold their hand a second longer
00:14:52.740 put your phone down mid-scroll
00:14:56.420 say no to something that doesn't matter
00:15:00.080 and say yes to something that does
00:15:02.100 just today
00:15:03.220 because
00:15:04.980 life isn't made in the big moments
00:15:10.000 and that's what I have lived my whole life thinking
00:15:12.580 it's made of all the tiny ones
00:15:16.420 you didn't realize were important until they were gone
00:15:18.980 and you've traded it away for
00:15:21.560 money, ambition, comfort, convenience, peace of mind.
00:15:28.880 And some of those trades just are not worth it.
00:15:34.040 Some of them you only realize were real mistakes years later.
00:15:39.600 Be careful what you trade away.
00:15:43.560 Be careful what you trade your time for
00:15:46.160 because time doesn't give refunds.
00:15:51.560 Thanks for teaching me that, Mom.
00:16:01.940 Even though I don't think you knew you were teaching me that.
00:16:07.600 We love you.
00:16:13.040 I really love having you down the hall.
00:16:15.080 and thanks for the years of worry the prayers and your wisdom
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00:17:39.600 dot com. Now back to the podcast. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:17:47.920 I want to connect a few stories that on the surface look completely unrelated, but they're
00:17:53.740 actually not. They're all telling you the same thing about how power is working in America right
00:17:58.960 now. So let me start in Washington. The Senate now is preparing to vote on the SAVE Act. This
00:18:07.380 is a complete sham. Now, this is just a bill that says you have to prove you're a citizen to vote
00:18:14.080 in American elections. Think about that for just a second, just this basic idea.
00:18:20.660 If you're voting in the United States, you should be an American citizen. That's it.
00:18:28.120 But the Senate leadership is already warning that it might need 60 votes to pass. Well,
00:18:32.840 yeah if you don't do your job it will and that's where the game begins because technically they
00:18:39.360 are right practically they're hiding behind the rules the senate has called for something or it
00:18:47.080 has something called the filibuster and originally if you wanted to block a bill all you had to do
00:18:51.880 is stand on the floor and talk hour after hour day after day you know your voice giving up your
00:18:56.780 legs shaking. Mr. Stewart, Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Okay. That, that, that's the whole
00:19:02.860 point of that movie. But today you don't have to do that anymore because it's hard. You just
00:19:08.860 threaten a filibuster and then walk away and you need a 60 person vote to bring it back to the
00:19:13.500 floor. No speeches, no fight, no accountability. Okay. No courage, just a zombie filibuster.
00:19:20.240 Republican senators know something most Americans don't. They could force the issue. They could keep
00:19:29.280 the Senate in continuous session for day after day after day. And if Democrats want to block
00:19:35.340 voter citizenship requirements, then let them stand there for 24 hours a day explaining why.
00:19:41.860 Make them hold the floor. Make them say it out loud. But that would require something rare in
00:19:48.500 Washington. Effort, conviction, courage, a belief in our system. So instead, the bill just will
00:20:00.760 quietly die, and the public will never see the fight. Okay, why does this matter? Well, let me
00:20:08.980 tie the next story to this, because at the exact same time this is happening, the Justice Department
00:20:13.940 is saying something else that could stop the country, should stop the country cold.
00:20:19.880 Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dillon says investigators now are finding tens of thousands
00:20:25.660 of non-citizens on voter rolls and hundreds of thousands of dead people still registered.
00:20:32.200 Now, maybe most of these people will never vote, but not one of them should.
00:20:36.780 But, you know, when it comes to our air travel, we don't say, relax, most planes land safely.
00:20:46.280 Have you ever heard anyone actually suggest that Boeing should just come out and say, you know, we've had thousands and thousands of flights, and it was only one door that blew out in the middle of the flight.
00:20:59.280 It was only one plane that crashed.
00:21:01.140 Okay, maybe three.
00:21:02.600 But we've had hundreds of thousands of flights.
00:21:04.980 No.
00:21:06.780 zero tolerance because the system only works if the public trusts it. Not only is the Boeing
00:21:15.340 example ridiculous to think that we would accept because of the loss of life, but even Boeing
00:21:21.140 knows they have to fix that. They have one more plane go down. If they don't restore the confidence
00:21:27.920 in the system of Boeing and their airplanes, no one will buy or fly a Boeing airplane.
00:21:35.600 It's the same thing.
00:21:37.160 Trust right now is the rarest currency in America.
00:21:41.400 You have to have trust in the system.
00:21:45.960 Look what else dropped.
00:21:47.820 FBI director now says the Bureau ran four secret counterintelligence operations from 2016 to 2025 that monitored over a thousand Trump associates, journalists, lawmakers, and advisors.
00:22:02.820 excuse me what this makes nixon look like child's play some of these probes are now under civil
00:22:13.280 rights review the same institutions that tell you trust the system are quietly admitting the system
00:22:20.680 has been used to spy on political movements meanwhile in los angeles investigators just
00:22:28.480 uncovered something almost unbelievable, and we are in the sea of unbelievable and
00:22:35.400 incomprehensible. Nearly half of the hospices in L.A. County show fraud warning signs.
00:22:45.020 Companies were billing Medicare, your tax dollars, that are supposed to go to the people who
00:22:50.420 actually need it, they were billing with zero patients. Multiple hospices registered at the
00:22:59.000 same buildings. This is in LA now. Patients discovering that they were fraudulently enrolled
00:23:04.240 in hospice care, and they didn't even know it. So somebody was using their name to get money
00:23:09.860 to provide care that they never got, and no one did. And every patient was billed to the taxpayer
00:23:18.000 for $29,000. That's not a glitch. That's an industry. And when government money flows
00:23:26.920 without any accountability, predators follow it like sharks follow blood. Do you understand why
00:23:33.220 they had to get rid of Elon Musk now and Doge? Do you see? Do you see? Now let me zoom out
00:23:40.660 because something even bigger is happening. While our institutions are fighting over Senate
00:23:46.940 procedure to trust the system of voting and medicare fraud to trust that your tax dollars
00:23:54.920 are going where they said the world is moving and the world is moving fast the united states
00:23:59.900 just sank 16 iranian mine uh mine layers in the persian gulf 16 and iran is threatening to mine
00:24:07.360 the strait of hormuz that's that is a 20 no i'm sorry is it 20 i think it's a 20 mile stretch
00:24:15.020 where one-fifth of the world's oil passes every single day.
00:24:21.500 And what Iran is saying is, you want this war? Good. Enjoy $200 a barrel oil.
00:24:27.240 But here's what they didn't expect.
00:24:29.780 Their submarines, the one they call black holes, because supposedly they're invisible,
00:24:34.320 yeah, they have giant black holes through them now.
00:24:38.880 And inside Iran itself, something really extraordinary is happening.
00:24:44.060 The Arab tribal leaders in the country's oil region,
00:24:47.560 this is the place that produces about 60% of Iran's crude,
00:24:51.500 just issued a statement calling for a free Iran and the end of the Islamic Republic.
00:24:56.940 That is massive.
00:24:59.640 That's like the oil workers in Soviet Russia demanding the fall of the Kremlin.
00:25:05.280 It tells you the regime is weaker than anyone realized.
00:25:09.240 But revolutions rarely happen cleanly. Sometimes the regime collapses. Sometimes it thrashes around for years. And all the while, when that is unfolding overseas, back here at home, we're arguing whether you should have to prove you're a citizen to vote.
00:25:28.360 what
00:25:31.480 see that's the disconnect here the world is playing geopolitical chess for the whole game
00:25:41.340 and washington is arguing whether the players are even allowed to sit at the board
00:25:46.080 there's another lesson buried in today's headlines look at the media coverage of iran
00:25:53.680 look at the media coverage of the iranian the girls soccer team which i get into here in a
00:25:57.580 minute. One major newspaper, I'll just say, the New York Times, led with photos of people
00:26:03.960 mourning the Ayatollah. But buried deep in the story are the lines that show Iranians are saying
00:26:13.000 they actually hope the bombing continues if it means the regime falls. Wait, what? When is the
00:26:21.060 last time you heard a people in a nation say, please, America, continue to bomb because you
00:26:28.260 can't stop until the job is done. Why does the New York Times show the 10% instead of the 90%?
00:26:36.400 Because the story they want to tell you is always the same. America, bad, enemies,
00:26:43.740 misunderstood, so step back. Here is what the headlines today actually reveal. The institutions
00:26:52.780 that are supposed to protect trust, elections, law enforcement, government spending, the media,
00:26:59.360 are all under strain at the same time. They're not broken beyond repair, but they are
00:27:03.800 deeply strained. Jonathan Martin made a point about me today in Politico. He said,
00:27:11.440 how can one spend decades in and around American politics and not understand the basic macro
00:27:16.380 politics of midterm elections? He's talking about why I'm for the SAVE Act, and he says it's going
00:27:21.620 to hurt the Republicans in the midterms. I don't know your proof on that one, but I don't care
00:27:26.840 about the midterms. Jonathan, that's your job at Politico. Politico. You should be about the
00:27:33.880 midterm elections. My job is to care about the principles of the republic. You know, only caring
00:27:41.500 about the next election, which is very important, don't get me wrong, is what got us here in the
00:27:47.280 first place. A strained system that wobbles more and more each passing day. And when the systems
00:27:54.740 are strained like this, there are only a few things that matter. Principles, transparency,
00:28:02.420 transparency and courage. Transparency means letting Americans actually see the fight,
00:28:10.680 whether it's a Senate filibuster or an FBI investigation. Courage means you have to be
00:28:16.980 willing to stand there and defend your position in the light and let the chips fall where they may.
00:28:23.620 Because if you're not willing to stand up and explain what you believe,
00:28:26.840 you know maybe you shouldn't be blocking the vote in the first place
00:28:30.420 and that's the real story not just what happened but what it reveals about where our country is
00:28:39.160 today a moment where the truth is fighting to surface and the people running the system are
00:28:45.960 deciding whether or not they're going to help it surface or keep it sinking
00:28:50.420 the truth is surfacing whether they like it or not i don't know how it all works out
00:28:58.340 but the truth will always set you free this is the best of the glenn beck program
00:29:06.040 all right welcome to the uh we're talking to chad wolf he is uh the america first policy
00:29:17.460 institute homeland security immigration chair he's also the former dhs acting secretary and
00:29:23.800 i wanted to get him on because the democrats still are not uh you know are not allowing dhs to be
00:29:31.940 funded uh and that is the craziest thing i've ever heard i mean at this time what are you trying to
00:29:38.880 get us all killed chad wolf is uh here with us now um chad the headlines today in some cities are
00:29:46.960 you got to get to the airport super, super early because you might be in line for several hours
00:29:51.880 because people are not showing up for work. I mean, I don't know if I would either,
00:29:56.620 but not showing up for work. It's overwhelming the system. That I don't think should be the
00:30:03.700 headline. I think the headline is what's being missed at the airports because of the shutdown.
00:30:09.880 How safe are we, Chad? Yeah, well, thanks for having me on. I agree with you. I think there's
00:30:15.560 two issues at play here. One is requiring DHS workers, and in this case, airport officers and
00:30:23.580 screeners, to have to go to work, do their job, but not get paid to do it. And then the second
00:30:30.320 piece that you rightfully point out is the security aspect of that. And so this hits hardest probably
00:30:36.480 in our airports, but there are other parts of DHS that are impacted as well, because a lot of these
00:30:42.500 screeners at airports are living paycheck to paycheck. And after they miss one or two
00:30:49.720 paychecks, what we're starting to see, and you indicated long lines at airports, is they start
00:30:55.780 to call out. They start to call out sick because they have to go drive an Uber. They've got to
00:31:00.180 pick up another part-time job to pay the rent, the mortgage, or put food on the table. And so
00:31:06.060 that becomes a problem. It becomes a problem for the traveling public, and it becomes an
00:31:10.660 inconvenience, but the security aspect of it is even if they show up for work, I would want them
00:31:18.180 totally focused and committed on their job at hand. What I don't want are screeners at the airport
00:31:24.060 going through the motions, but really their mind is how do I support my family? How do I support
00:31:29.720 my family? And pissed off. I know, you know, if I'm pissed off at a company, I don't do my best
00:31:35.620 work and i don't think that these people you know intentionally would let something go through or
00:31:41.220 anything like that i mean they're still americans and they're human beings but it is it's just part
00:31:46.500 of being human you know it is wrong to ask them to step up to the plate and come in for a long
00:31:53.780 period of time because there doesn't seem to be any indication that this is going to end soon
00:31:57.660 democrats just don't seem to care about yeah no and i i think what's the frustrating thing is this
00:32:03.700 is entirely preventable. It's, you know, particularly at a time when we have conflicts
00:32:07.820 with Iran and, you know, very, very dangerous world in which we live in. The fact that we
00:32:13.460 would not fund the Department of Homeland Security that is hand in glove with the Department
00:32:18.700 of War, making sure that we're keeping the homeland and everyday Americans safe is just
00:32:24.600 bizarre. It's bizarre to me that the Democrats can continue to hold out on this position.
00:32:29.660 And it's a little, you know, I don't know, I haven't seen any polling or anything, but I suspect that the American people do not support this.
00:32:38.320 No. And as the lines get longer, it's going to get worse.
00:32:42.240 And then people will know who's responsible because, I mean, I was just talking to Cheryl Atkinson and she said, you know, she had just seen a report.
00:32:51.020 10,000 known terrorists, uh, have been on our radar that have come into the country,
00:32:57.080 1500 from Iran. Um, how bad is the possible terror network here in America?
00:33:08.140 Well, uh, it's bad, right? We, we talked about four years of the Biden administration. So over
00:33:13.460 the course of four years, you had, you had over 11 to 12 million individuals come into the United
00:33:19.580 States, over 18,000 known or suspected terrorists, right? The National Counterterrorism Center just
00:33:25.060 testified about that. Over 18,000 known or suspected terrorists tried to enter the country
00:33:30.440 during Joe Biden's tenure, and a variety of them made it in. And so you combine that with the
00:33:37.520 existing networks of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other proxies that have been here in the United States
00:33:43.740 since the 80s, more or less. And it starts to paint a picture of a real kind of heightened
00:33:51.380 risk and threat environment. Now, we have an outstanding law enforcement apparatus, FBI,
00:33:57.320 Joint Terrorism Task Forces, and other things that keep the American people safe. But we're
00:34:01.460 asking so much of them because we don't know who really is in the country. Because I said it at
00:34:08.320 the time, and I think we're facing it right now, is the four years of the Biden administration,
00:34:13.040 We won't really know the destructive nature of their immigration policies for years and years to come.
00:34:19.780 And I think we are staring down the barrel of that right now.
00:34:24.080 Big time. I have to tell you, I would never talk about this on the air.
00:34:27.780 I would love to be a part of a red cell team just on terror because I have wargamed this out since 2001.
00:34:33.740 And there are things that I don't understand why terrorists haven't done.
00:34:38.220 Again, I wouldn't say any of it on the air, but I got to tell you, we are very vulnerable, and it doesn't take a lot of people to pull off some really, truly devastating things in our country.
00:34:53.060 Again, I would agree with that.
00:34:54.560 I think we have, again, certainly a risk of either cells or lone individuals doing a variety of different things here in the United States.
00:35:05.100 And we've seen some of that, unfortunately, and we'll continue to do that.
00:35:09.540 I think the threat environment that we're in today is as high as we've probably seen it.
00:35:15.120 And you see that with the IEDs in New York City and elsewhere.
00:35:20.280 So, again, I go back to not funding the department is absolutely crazy that you're going to have the airport workers.
00:35:28.420 You're going to have the men and women of the Coast Guard, also very junior, live paycheck to paycheck in some instances as well.
00:35:36.420 You know, they're hand in glove overseas with the Navy down in the Caribbean.
00:35:40.500 And, again, you want them totally focused.
00:35:42.300 And they're professionals.
00:35:43.240 They will be focused, but they're human, as you indicated.
00:35:45.860 And they're going to be worried about their family because when they're deployed, you know, that paycheck needs to come in to make sure that their wife, their kids, their family are taken care of.
00:35:55.280 And that's going to be on their mind as well.
00:35:58.420 Are you more concerned about places like Dearborn and Minneapolis, or is it all around the country?
00:36:07.020 I mean, are there particular hotspots that we should be watching and concerned about?
00:36:14.360 Yeah, I think my concern is throughout the country.
00:36:17.540 I understand the Dearborn reference, but I think if you are an individual with bad motives,
00:36:26.660 that you're going to target, you could target iconic landmarks, things that get high visibility,
00:36:33.760 obviously New York City, Los Angeles, your big cities pop up there. But those cities also have
00:36:39.800 the best infrastructure and law enforcement, right? And those targets have been hardened over
00:36:45.500 the past several decades. So maybe you're perhaps looking to a softer target, or perhaps you're
00:36:51.320 going to lay in wait, right? Because the threat environment and law enforcement is on their guard
00:36:56.080 right now but perhaps you wait until the summer until the world cup arrives um and you decide to
00:37:01.580 do something there at a at a stadium and a mass gathering of some kind so you can see all of the
00:37:07.220 implications out there of of really kind of what the challenge is today here and here in the homeland
00:37:14.340 we are sitting at a time where we are now at war with the biggest terror organization and funder of
00:37:21.880 terrorism in the world with iran um and you know they have allies of china and russia and doesn't
00:37:30.140 dhs also look at all of our cyber uh protection i mean how vulnerable are we with with cyber now
00:37:37.860 yeah absolutely the they certainly have a you know the cyber security and infrastructure security
00:37:43.540 agency or cisa as it's referred to has a big role there now it's mainly defensive posture because
00:37:50.340 what they try to do is not only protecting government networks, but it's important to
00:37:55.660 remember that about 85 percent of our critical infrastructure, such as water, you know, waste
00:38:00.000 treatment plants, water plants and the like, are privately owned. And so CISA provides a lot of
00:38:06.080 intelligence and a lot of capabilities to those private sector companies to make sure that their
00:38:11.220 cybersecurity hygiene and measures are up to date. And you've got about two thirds of that agency
00:38:17.400 that are not working because of the shutdown today.
00:38:20.700 So that's really, really concerning as well.
00:38:23.000 So aviation, cyber, obviously the border and others that DHS does,
00:38:30.160 it's all being impacted.
00:38:32.460 Now, look, 85% of the employees at DHS are exempt from the shutdown,
00:38:37.740 which means they have to go to work.
00:38:39.200 Even if they're not getting paid, they still have to work.
00:38:41.980 That's so wrong.
00:38:42.760 As we've talked about, as this drags on,
00:38:45.680 you know, they could be six weeks without getting a paycheck. And even when the government opens
00:38:51.000 back up, it's not like they get paid the next day. It's going to take two to three weeks for
00:38:56.140 that back pay to come in. So again, you can see how this could draw out for eight weeks.
00:39:01.540 And we're asking these agents and officers, 75,000 law enforcement officers at the Department
00:39:07.480 of Homeland Security, we're asking them to risk their lives every day to protect Americans.
00:39:12.460 and congress can't even give them the pay i would say the low pay that that that we paid them but
00:39:19.160 they can't even do that i i think it's it sends absolutely the wrong message on a variety of
00:39:24.380 different fronts um we heard last week that one of the last things that happened you know as we
00:39:31.960 were bombing iran at the very beginning was there seemed to be some encrypted message that went out
00:39:37.660 and they were talking about the possibility that that was an activation of sleeper cells
00:39:41.740 uh do you have any indication that's real yeah i saw that public reporting as well and just what
00:39:49.660 i saw i i i can't ascertain on how real that is on on whether that's just some reporting or or
00:39:56.040 whether that is is truly what the intelligence community has picked up on but regardless of
00:40:01.600 that i think as soon as you know as soon as conflicts kinetic conflicts start to happen
00:40:07.360 overseas and Iran, the Department of Homeland Security goes, shields up, right, on a variety
00:40:15.580 of different fronts. So even whether or not this went out or not, they are doing everything that
00:40:21.940 they can during a shutdown, mind you, to protect a variety, you know, all the different, you know,
00:40:30.380 from a maritime perspective or a cyber perspective or a border perspective, or how do we screen
00:40:35.280 travelers coming into the country. Obviously, CBP does that on a real-world basis. And so
00:40:41.560 they will augment all of their apparatus to look for suspicious activities around
00:40:50.560 proxies tied to the Iranian regime and others. And so as a threat environment picks up,
00:40:59.980 um, the alertness and what you're looking for across the department, um, as you screen travelers
00:41:07.160 and do other things also ticks up as well. Chad, if you were still the, you know, acting DHS
00:41:13.500 secretary, what advice would you give to the American people today? Yeah, I would say, look,
00:41:22.480 you know, continue your lives, continuing what you do each and every day, but, but have some
00:41:27.860 awareness around what you do. It's, you know, if you go out and you want to go out to dinner and
00:41:35.320 you want to eat on a sidewalk, that's fine. Just have a little bit more awareness of your
00:41:40.940 surroundings and where you're at and making sure that you're, you know, continuing to understand
00:41:48.080 kind of the threat environment the United States is. And I wouldn't say you need to disrupt or
00:41:55.640 change your pattern i think that's what the terrorists want uh us to do so don't give them
00:42:01.200 that satisfaction but be aware of your surroundings and and understand kind of the the situation that
00:42:07.800 we're in are we at more risk because of the funding coupled with mullen in transit in transition
00:42:16.480 does that yeah compound this problem i i you know the the transition of a new secretary coming in
00:42:25.280 And I hope it happens very soon because it helps.
00:42:27.640 It does help to stabilize the department.
00:42:29.260 But look, there are a lot of professionals at the department underneath the secretary at all of the operating components that are doing their job right now.
00:42:38.940 And so I have a lot of faith because I know a lot of them that they're going to do that regardless of what is happening at the secretarial level.
00:42:47.660 Now, we need to get Senator Mullen in there and in there quickly to, again, stabilize.
00:42:52.520 And hopefully, because he's coming from Congress, hopefully can break the logjam on DHS funding.
00:42:58.680 But I would say my overall concern is just the overall threat environment that we are now in tied with the lack of funding for the department.
00:43:09.440 Thank you so much, Chad. I appreciate it. Really appreciate it. Thanks for all that you do. God bless.
00:43:13.900 Yeah, thanks. Appreciate it.
00:43:15.380 That's Chad, Chad Wolf, uh, former acting secretary of, uh, DHS.
00:43:20.720 I have to tell you, I'm flying.
00:43:22.660 I have to be in two different cities this week by Friday afternoon.
00:43:27.260 Uh, and my first stop is in Phoenix, uh, to give a speech here on Thursday.
00:43:31.580 So I'm going to be flying through these airports and I have to tell you, um, please, if you're
00:43:36.880 traveling, thank the TSA that are showing up the stress that they're under right now
00:43:42.720 with their own families.
00:43:44.100 None of these people make a lot of money.
00:43:45.980 The stress that they're under thinking they got to go to work here,
00:43:49.700 but what are they going to do now that they're not getting paid?
00:43:52.620 Can you imagine that stress?
00:43:54.500 I mean, you are under enough stress as it is.
00:43:57.680 Imagine the stress of, yeah, well, I have to go to work.
00:44:00.400 I can't get a second job because I have to go to work doing this and they're not paying me.
00:44:06.400 Thank them for showing up to work.