The Glenn Beck Program - April 26, 2024


Best of the Program | Guest: Christopher Bedford | 4⧸26⧸24


Episode Stats

Length

44 minutes

Words per Minute

143.75807

Word Count

6,413

Sentence Count

476

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary

On today's show Glenn Beck talks about the importance of memory and how it is the key to who we are and what we are meant to be. He also talks about Elon Musk and his insane attack on the media.


Transcript

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00:00:30.000 Great show for you. Everything you need to know to get ready for the weekend on this Friday podcast.
00:00:35.220 We begin next.
00:00:36.640 First, I so want to urge you to prepare.
00:00:42.960 I told you a few, what, about two months ago, that I was putting my family on high alert to make sure that everybody knew where we were supposed to meet and everything else if things went to hell in a handbasket.
00:00:55.640 That I was preparing to make sure that we had everything that we needed, and then maybe just a little bit more for some of our neighbors.
00:01:04.600 That we had curtailed our spending as much as we could to make sure that we were getting out of debt because trouble is coming.
00:01:12.400 And this is a warning.
00:01:16.740 The time is growing very, very late.
00:01:21.200 I want you to at least look into protecting your savings, your investment for your 401k.
00:01:29.080 Please look into how you can protect these things, your investments, your money, with gold or silver.
00:01:38.640 Gold is expected to go through the roof.
00:01:42.800 It already has, I mean, it's crazy what's happening right now.
00:01:48.140 And that's because the world has lost its mind.
00:01:51.640 And it's only going to go up.
00:01:53.660 I think, don't listen to me for investment advice.
00:01:56.500 I'm just telling you what I believe and what I do.
00:01:59.500 Silver is still at a pretty good price.
00:02:02.420 And that is going to be something that you're going to need, I think, just in kind of a change over time.
00:02:10.020 You never know what's going to happen.
00:02:12.040 So please, would you call Lear, Lear Capital Now, get your free wealth protection guide.
00:02:19.980 Lear will also credit your account $250 towards your purchase just because you listen to me.
00:02:23.980 So you don't have to buy anything now.
00:02:25.740 Just get their guide and listen to them.
00:02:28.860 Do your own homework.
00:02:31.040 And if you decide to buy, buy at Lear Capital.
00:02:34.700 800-957-GOLD.
00:02:36.980 800-957-GOLD.
00:02:39.740 You're listening to The Best of the Glenn Beck Program.
00:02:55.060 I'm going to talk about a few things.
00:02:57.780 How everything is changing, how the media is being used to change things.
00:03:02.440 And this insane attack on Elon Musk.
00:03:08.680 Memory is really kind of important.
00:03:11.820 It's more than a record.
00:03:14.060 It's more than the sum total of our experiences.
00:03:17.280 The chronicle of our lives.
00:03:19.920 More than a tally of good and bad lessons learned.
00:03:22.940 Although it is those things as well.
00:03:25.560 But fundamentally, our memory is the key to who we are.
00:03:34.940 Entities which lose their memory, people, groups, churches, nations, lose not just the mere knowledge of their past.
00:03:43.920 Of who they were or have been.
00:03:49.440 But they also lose the knowledge of themselves.
00:03:52.820 The knowledge of their purpose.
00:03:54.540 Of who they are.
00:03:55.820 Who they're meant to be.
00:03:57.420 They lose the present and the future.
00:04:01.460 Remember when you were a kid, it seemed like everybody on TV suffered from amnesia at some point.
00:04:07.160 I thought amnesia would play a big role in life.
00:04:10.340 No, it doesn't.
00:04:11.220 It's like Gilligan's Island in the quicksand.
00:04:13.980 I've never run into quicksand ever before.
00:04:18.020 And I've never had amnesia.
00:04:20.240 Although some days I'd like to have amnesia.
00:04:22.220 But we are memory holing things.
00:04:28.120 What is the memory hole?
00:04:30.220 The memory hole was in the, I think it was the Ministry of Love.
00:04:37.160 Where you were taught to hate.
00:04:39.860 And the Ministry of Truth.
00:04:43.840 Where you were taught what lies were.
00:04:47.540 And you were forced to do it in 1984.
00:04:51.520 Memory hole was a door in every room where people were being taught the truth.
00:04:58.500 And you'd open up the little door and you'd take whatever the truth was, all of the photos, the documents, and you'd throw them in the memory hole.
00:05:08.560 And at the bottom of the memory hole was a fiery furnace.
00:05:12.540 And so it would burn up all the record and it was in the memory hole.
00:05:17.140 You don't retrieve that in the memory hole.
00:05:22.100 It's gone.
00:05:23.080 When you lose the knowledge of yourself, the knowledge of your purpose, what you were meant to be, you are truly lost.
00:05:36.380 Think of any movie or series that starts with a hero waking up to find their memory gone.
00:05:41.780 Their fundamental character traits may remain, but they're unmoored.
00:05:50.480 Not only unable to recognize family from strangers, but without knowledge of who they are and what that means and how they should act next.
00:06:00.500 All of a sudden, somebody throws a blow and they're like...
00:06:03.780 And they're able to just take on anybody.
00:06:09.900 Whoa, what kind of man am I?
00:06:14.680 Am I a killer?
00:06:16.940 They don't know.
00:06:19.080 It leaves people open to manipulation, to being reprogrammed with lies by whatever bad actor wants to use them for their own purposes.
00:06:31.500 Have you seen Argyle yet?
00:06:32.980 It's exactly what I'm talking about.
00:06:36.260 This is also true for societies.
00:06:38.700 If we forget our stories, if we stop telling them or allow others to edit them to suit their purposes, we lose them.
00:06:49.900 Forget both who we are and who we can and should be, and we leave ourselves open to anyone with an alternate story to tell.
00:06:59.020 This is what's happened to religion, Christianity.
00:07:03.240 We stopped reading the Bible, and so now we're listening to scientists and atheists and people who are saying,
00:07:11.140 live for the day, man.
00:07:13.140 What's wrong?
00:07:14.260 What's wrong with that?
00:07:15.800 I mean, okay.
00:07:17.340 So, you know, O.J. Simpson killed the ice cream guy.
00:07:21.560 What's the problem?
00:07:22.720 He was just living his life on his terms.
00:07:25.200 There is a problem.
00:07:30.340 We forget who we are, who we serve, and we leave ourselves open.
00:07:37.160 Now, this is the open intent of the 1619 Project and Howard Zinn.
00:07:43.600 It's the logic behind the many reimagining policies, behind the words of Michelle Obama.
00:07:54.020 Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices.
00:07:57.480 We are going to have to change our conversation.
00:08:00.140 We're going to have to change our traditions, our history.
00:08:03.200 We're going to have to move into a different place as a nation to provide the kind of future that we all want.
00:08:09.720 This is the trade of every post-modern, post-Western, post-Zionist, post-monotheistic, radical, atheist, thinker, Marxist, or leader.
00:08:22.440 Just forget the stories of our founding and our purpose.
00:08:31.780 Remember who you are.
00:08:34.720 Simba, remember who you are.
00:08:37.180 Well, it seems kind of important that Simba remembers his roots.
00:08:42.360 Why is it not so important for us?
00:08:45.520 These stories that tell us why we're here and what we're here to do.
00:08:51.500 We have new stories for you.
00:08:53.700 Stories that will tell us we're all born in sin.
00:08:56.660 That we're all irredeemably evil.
00:09:00.620 That we should be torn down forever because then we can go ahead and do so.
00:09:05.540 It's always the same.
00:09:07.520 First, the old memories are torn apart.
00:09:10.220 The old stories.
00:09:11.300 They have to be denied, delegitimized, erased.
00:09:14.800 And then the new, more suitable, enlightened ones can replace them.
00:09:20.880 Some, including maybe many on the left, truly believe the old stories are garbage.
00:09:28.240 But they haven't done their homework.
00:09:32.820 They truly believe the new stories are true.
00:09:35.700 But they often openly believe that they believe this all while denying the foundation of the old stories.
00:09:44.060 Still, they can enjoy the fruits of what's built on that foundation, the material and moral benefits that they take for granted and are currently destroying because it's all they've ever known.
00:09:55.980 But cut flowers are not life.
00:09:59.660 What happens?
00:10:00.760 You cut a flower and they fade, wilt, and die.
00:10:04.740 They're a silent memory of what was and what could have been.
00:10:14.260 To misquote Patrick Rothfuss, all around them hangs the cut flower silence of a beauty of a culture waiting to die.
00:10:24.160 They don't produce any seeds.
00:10:27.080 There's no next generation of flowers.
00:10:29.180 When they fade, only rot will remain.
00:10:33.300 What was will be no more.
00:10:35.380 We are cutting the flowers of our future.
00:10:39.340 The ultimate responsibility, and possibly the solution, is found with us.
00:10:45.440 This only happens if we allow someone to cut us from the root.
00:10:50.400 We must tell our stories.
00:10:55.120 We must tell the truth.
00:10:57.160 We must tell the stories of our own lives, of our families.
00:11:01.120 Do you know why our families are so broken?
00:11:02.960 Because we don't know where we came from.
00:11:05.880 And I don't mean as a people.
00:11:07.660 I mean as individuals.
00:11:09.360 We don't know the stories of how we got here.
00:11:14.300 We're all immigrants.
00:11:16.500 That's what everybody says.
00:11:17.660 We're all immigrants.
00:11:18.560 But how many of us know who brought the family here?
00:11:23.380 Why they brought the family here?
00:11:25.540 What it cost them?
00:11:29.500 We should do this on every available occasion.
00:11:32.140 Family meals, trips, dates, nights out with friends.
00:11:35.940 Honestly, because of everybody having a phone, we're losing them at a faster rate now.
00:11:42.160 I remember sitting at the table, having to sit at the table while everybody was talking, and all the holidays, and everything else.
00:11:49.480 And you would look at your sister or your brother and be like, if I have to hear this one more time.
00:11:55.000 You'd hear the same stories over and over again.
00:11:57.740 Yes!
00:11:58.520 And that's why you know them.
00:12:00.740 Are they happening in your family?
00:12:02.400 Quintessentially, that's what holidays and rituals are for.
00:12:09.720 Christmas displays and Hanukkahs, menorahs.
00:12:13.640 If it's done right, they tell a story.
00:12:17.140 If in the telling, the story grows in some ways, acquiring new depth, new focus, more profound meaning, all the better.
00:12:25.400 If it accumulates anecdotes, commentary, interpretations, it becomes richer.
00:12:35.280 Turns more and more from an account of something that happened into a story.
00:12:40.580 Something rich with meaning and lessons, as well as deeds and facts.
00:12:46.840 Our holidays, 4th of July.
00:12:50.820 What is it?
00:12:53.220 We don't even call it Independence Day.
00:12:54.900 We call it 4th of July.
00:12:58.220 It's about what?
00:13:00.880 Barbecues?
00:13:02.180 Maybe fireworks?
00:13:04.660 Getting sunburn?
00:13:07.120 Those are important.
00:13:09.960 But how many of us are telling the story?
00:13:13.640 I know it's awkward and weird at first.
00:13:17.600 This is the week of Passover.
00:13:19.320 This is what Passover is all about.
00:13:28.800 The Seder night is exactly what we need to be doing.
00:13:34.460 The entire purpose of that is to tell the story, to discuss it, so it and its lessons can be carried on, alive for another generation.
00:13:44.900 And it's been working for the Jews for about 3,000 years.
00:13:48.440 So, as Christmas and Easter has kind of done with Christians.
00:13:53.700 But that's going away.
00:13:57.180 4th of July is going away.
00:13:59.660 Everything in our society is pushing our kids away from the stories.
00:14:05.500 Which means away from the truth of who they are, where they came from, why we're here as a people.
00:14:16.200 Well, I'm here because I'm, you know, I'm going to be famous on TikTok.
00:14:23.100 Oh, that's why you were born?
00:14:28.560 Okay.
00:14:36.720 Perhaps more effort on the storytelling, rather than the grilling, could help us with some of the holidays like Independence Day.
00:14:47.580 And with other stories we dare not forget.
00:14:53.100 Memory requires a conscious effort, a choice, a ritual.
00:14:58.720 It requires that a story be told over and over and over again.
00:15:04.620 Do you notice that there is a story being told now to Americans, about Americans, to the world?
00:15:12.160 And it's being told over and over and over again.
00:15:16.560 And look how quickly, because we have a void in our own homes.
00:15:23.100 Look how quickly everything's being lost.
00:15:30.400 The first thing we have to do is know the truth.
00:15:33.920 And then stand up for the truth.
00:15:38.000 Stand up to say, you know, you have no right to memory hole an event.
00:15:45.200 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck Program.
00:15:47.740 So once in a while, somebody comes along that I really am excited to talk about.
00:15:56.400 On the podcast this week, we have Alex Newman.
00:16:04.040 And I think he is, he's a writer that I think I probably recommend to my producers, probably more than any other writer.
00:16:15.680 He really, really gets it.
00:16:18.920 And I talked to him about the world at large because he's he's just come out with a new book on education.
00:16:27.160 And he's also deep down the rabbit hole of the destruction of America and why America is being destroyed and what the plan is.
00:16:40.760 And we talked about conspiracies and conspiracy theories.
00:16:45.220 What's good, what's bad, what do we really need to know?
00:16:50.740 He talks about the 50 in five plan.
00:16:55.320 Wait until you hear about this.
00:16:57.340 Here's cut nine, please.
00:16:59.500 Talk to me about the 50 in five plan.
00:17:01.820 So the U.N. has partnered with Bill Gates on this, what they call digital public infrastructure.
00:17:08.240 That's a very fancy term.
00:17:10.380 And I think the simplest way to understand it is they're building a giant digital gulag for all of humanity.
00:17:15.960 So the U.N. development program has officially launched this.
00:17:19.220 It was officially launched at the end of last year where they're going to get 50 government.
00:17:22.520 They call them countries, but really they mean governments to impose at least some major element of this digital public infrastructure on their population within five years.
00:17:31.040 So it's 20, 20, 20, digital IDs, and those are already emerging.
00:17:35.380 In fact, many states are developing these.
00:17:37.320 I just went through the airport yesterday.
00:17:39.040 You can scan your digital ID, QR code, right?
00:17:41.480 So that's happening.
00:17:42.520 And that's really one of the main reasons for the COVID nonsense.
00:17:48.980 The architecture that was laid down is the backbone of this global control grid that they're building.
00:17:53.500 So then you've got the central bank digital currencies, which are already being unveiled.
00:17:57.140 They've already been released.
00:17:58.580 The World Economic Forum just said a few days ago, 98% of the governments and central banks in the world are working on these CBDCs.
00:18:05.240 Once they're fully operational, I guarantee you they're going to start waging war on cash much more openly.
00:18:10.240 They'll say it's a tool for terrorists and pimps and, you know, every nasty thing, tax cheats, everything you can think of.
00:18:16.200 So then you've got the payment processing systems.
00:18:20.360 And you've also got that.
00:18:21.460 We just had the head of the World Health Organization talk about this recently.
00:18:24.700 The digital health certificates, the digital vaccine passports.
00:18:28.840 They're taking what the EU developed during the COVID, which, by the way, the European Commission was promoting vaccine passports in May of 2019.
00:18:37.280 Long before anybody ever heard of COVID or anything like that.
00:18:40.540 So they're taking all of this together and they are using it to build a control system that will not just be able to surveil and monitor everything you do on an unprecedented scale.
00:18:51.700 When you combine it with AI, the ability to make sense of all this data, it's just mind blowing.
00:18:56.880 But also to manipulate what you do.
00:19:00.140 And so they're talking about this, again, pretty openly.
00:19:02.140 If you look at the World Economic Forum meetings, they talk about the benefits of programmable central bank digital currency, where they will be able to say who can buy what, when, under what conditions.
00:19:12.940 And then the Bank for International Settlements.
00:19:14.840 You know, Carol Quigley, to go back to him for a moment, Bill Clinton's mentor, the guy who really exposed this global agenda to create a one world system.
00:19:22.620 He said the apex of the system was going to be the Bank for International Settlements.
00:19:27.440 This is an institution that's almost entirely unknown to Americans.
00:19:30.840 And what they are working on right now, and this is not a secret, it's not a conspiracy because it's not happening behind closed doors, is what they call a universal blockchain ledger.
00:19:40.900 They want to tokenize every asset in the known universe, every farm, every car, every house, every tree, put it on this ledger, this blockchain ledger.
00:19:49.420 And then you're only able to interact with this blockchain ledger using your biometric digital ID, using your central bank digital currencies.
00:19:57.340 And so if I want to buy something from you, I can't just hand you a $100 bill.
00:20:00.740 I've got to go on my device, connect to this blockchain system, transfer the central bank digital currencies to you.
00:20:07.360 And so this is a mechanism for controlling humanity that I think is really unprecedented in human history.
00:20:13.820 And when you take it all together, it's very obvious.
00:20:15.780 Can I tell you something?
00:20:17.600 Um...
00:20:19.420 Ten years ago, I would have thought that was absolute madness.
00:20:25.340 Uh...
00:20:25.860 2016, I might have thought that...
00:20:29.180 You know, what is making of...
00:20:32.420 I would have thought it was a lot farther down the road than we could...
00:20:38.260 That we would ever get to anything like that.
00:20:40.940 We are so close to that being a reality.
00:20:45.020 The infrastructure is almost all complete.
00:20:49.400 All we need is some sort of an event.
00:20:53.700 We have weakened our kids.
00:20:56.900 We have weakened our health.
00:20:59.520 We have weakened our ability just to stand up.
00:21:03.620 We've weakened every single institution.
00:21:09.100 We've spent like money was going out of style.
00:21:12.540 We didn't save.
00:21:14.120 And what we did save, they've destroyed through inflation.
00:21:19.040 Now, I just want you to go back.
00:21:21.580 Think of how many times you have been told something is a conspiracy theory.
00:21:26.060 Did you hear?
00:21:28.980 I mean, the latest came out yesterday.
00:21:31.740 Natural gas has now been banned.
00:21:34.580 Natural gas stoves has been banned in all federal buildings.
00:21:40.240 You cannot have it in federal buildings.
00:21:43.140 Do you remember when they said that was a crazy conspiracy theory?
00:21:46.640 That that would never happen?
00:21:48.240 They're never going to do that?
00:21:49.940 They are banning natural gas.
00:21:53.000 They are doing everything they can to stop natural gas.
00:21:57.900 While they are also stopping all fossil fuels.
00:22:05.320 No oil.
00:22:07.480 Shutting down giant swaths of oil fields.
00:22:11.420 Because they just passed a bill, or sorry, wrote a new regulation where they are shutting down all of the coal fire plants by 2038, is it?
00:22:25.020 37, 38?
00:22:27.260 That's not that far away.
00:22:30.260 Do you know our power plants that generate our electricity?
00:22:34.540 The majority of them are coal.
00:22:36.600 That's where we get our power, out of that magic little box, you know, by the baseboard of your wall.
00:22:45.420 That's not a little magic box.
00:22:47.740 That comes from coal fire plants.
00:22:50.780 Where are you going to, because you won't build another nuclear power plant, which is the cleanest.
00:22:58.340 Right up next to that is natural gas.
00:23:02.740 We were told natural gas was fantastic.
00:23:06.640 That's why California went to all natural gas vehicles for the state, remember?
00:23:11.600 Leading the way.
00:23:13.160 Were they lying then, or are we lying now?
00:23:18.380 What are we going to replace that with?
00:23:21.500 And by the way, if we all have to plug our cars in, in 2034,
00:23:26.360 we don't have the electricity today, before they've broken the grid.
00:23:34.340 We don't have the power today.
00:23:37.380 When you shut down all of the other electrical plants and you replace it with magic fairy dust,
00:23:44.540 how are we going to drive, or are we not going to?
00:23:50.580 Are we going to really, without choice,
00:23:59.240 but of course without force, you just won't be able to do it.
00:24:04.100 Gosh darn it.
00:24:05.900 Are we going to live in these 15-minute walkable cities?
00:24:09.660 I have no problem with a walkable city.
00:24:11.980 I like walkable cities.
00:24:13.740 When I lived in New York, I loved it.
00:24:15.820 I walked everywhere.
00:24:16.780 But I also want to be able to go someplace if I want to.
00:24:26.960 Did you see that landing of Lufthansa yesterday?
00:24:32.120 I don't know.
00:24:33.100 I'd be freaking out if that was.
00:24:35.040 That's Lufthansa.
00:24:37.260 I don't know if you know anything about Lufthansa, but they're Germans.
00:24:43.020 Germans tend to be accurate on things.
00:24:45.800 You know why?
00:24:47.120 That was a lesson.
00:24:49.400 That was a training lesson.
00:24:52.260 You have almost 400 people on a plane, and you're doing a train.
00:24:56.520 Could you post that on the front door?
00:24:59.500 So when I'm walking in, oh, the pilot is in training.
00:25:03.280 Okay.
00:25:04.600 No thank you.
00:25:08.840 Planes falling out of the skies.
00:25:10.760 Can't trust Boeing now?
00:25:15.500 When?
00:25:16.300 When?
00:25:17.440 When?
00:25:18.480 Have we ever seen a time when you can't trust Boeing?
00:25:21.640 Do you know yesterday, the GDP came out.
00:25:28.620 For the first quarter, our economy increased at a rate of 1.6%.
00:25:37.400 They had been looking for an increase of maybe 2.5%, 3.4%.
00:25:46.020 Previous period, 4.9%.
00:25:49.640 4.9%, fourth quarter, 2023, 4.9%.
00:25:53.660 It's 1.5%.
00:25:57.860 That's not good.
00:26:00.940 No, no, no, but the economy is doing really well.
00:26:05.260 The economy is doing really, really well, and so you have nothing to worry about because
00:26:10.100 the experts, the one who brought us this economy, the ones who have engineered, socially
00:26:17.400 engineered all of this stuff, the ones who have shut your local restaurant down or your local
00:26:24.000 business down because COVID was so dangerous, now they're going after the unrealized gains.
00:26:37.760 Does America have any idea what this means?
00:26:45.560 It's part of the budget proposal for 2025.
00:26:51.000 2025.
00:26:52.980 If this guy is elected, this is in the proposal for next year's legislation and budget.
00:26:59.720 They want to raise an additional $4.3 trillion by imposing a minimum tax equal to 25% of a taxpayer's
00:27:13.340 taxable income and unrealized capital gains.
00:27:21.420 So your house, now they're saying this is only for rich people.
00:27:29.720 Yeah, that's what Woodrow Wilson said.
00:27:34.000 We're going to tax 7% on only the top 1% and it will never change.
00:27:40.060 Within three years, it was 95% and everybody was paying income tax.
00:27:46.680 So this is only for the very, very wealthy.
00:27:51.140 But if your house is appraised and it goes up, you have to pay that unrealized capital gains.
00:27:59.720 So if your house has gone up by $100,000, congratulations, you now have to pay, I'm not even sure what it is, 25%.
00:28:17.480 Where are you going to get that money if you haven't sold your house?
00:28:22.580 That's the point.
00:28:26.860 They don't want you to own a house.
00:28:30.920 You won't own anything and you'll be happy.
00:28:38.820 This is a way for you to not own anything.
00:28:44.500 What do you think that's going to do to the economy?
00:28:55.780 What do you think it's going to do to people's buying power?
00:29:00.580 To people going out and buying things other than the government and places like BlackRock?
00:29:06.500 Do you know, when we first started talking about Obamacare, I think the government controlled maybe 20, 25% of the economy.
00:29:19.860 Somebody have to look this up for me.
00:29:21.660 I'm sure these numbers are wrong, but directionally they're right.
00:29:25.720 We're approaching 50% of the economy being controlled by the federal government now.
00:29:31.060 50%.
00:29:32.600 That means you're halfway there to communism.
00:29:38.840 You're halfway there to them controlling all of the spending in America.
00:29:45.820 Because they control healthcare.
00:29:49.580 They control travel.
00:29:51.220 They control all of these different things that answer to the government.
00:29:55.360 And they're spending so much money, they're buying all the drugs.
00:30:03.360 They're buying roads and bridges, all of the concrete.
00:30:08.720 They're almost 50%.
00:30:11.040 What does the government create?
00:30:15.320 What is it we have as an asset?
00:30:17.840 You know, if they were out making money, not taking money, but making money, and buying assets with that, that we could go, all right, that's going to appreciate in value.
00:30:31.260 But nothing they make makes money.
00:30:35.300 And everything depreciates in value.
00:30:40.160 Including the dollar.
00:30:42.340 One of the other things they make.
00:30:45.380 The best of the Glenn Beck Program.
00:30:47.840 So two years ago, I had this guy on, Christopher Bedford, and he was writing for the Federalist at the time.
00:30:56.840 And he said, he had written a piece, I think it was, two years after the lockdowns, the West Troubles aren't ending, they're just beginning.
00:31:05.760 And I thought he had some real foresight.
00:31:09.200 And, boy, was he right about that.
00:31:12.820 Christopher Bedford now is a senior editor for Politics, Washington correspondent for The Blaze Media.
00:31:19.780 He has written for The American Mind, The Washington Examiner, National Review, The New York Post.
00:31:25.240 He was the editor of chief for the Daily Caller News Foundation, and we're thrilled to have him at TheBlaze.com.
00:31:32.580 So, help me out on this, Chris.
00:31:38.940 Because for the life of me, I cannot get my head around Speaker Johnson being a secret spy.
00:31:47.480 Do you buy this?
00:31:49.820 Not completely, no.
00:31:51.220 And first of all, it's great to be on the pirate ship, especially in these stormy waters.
00:31:54.940 I think it's a great crew to be sailing with.
00:31:58.120 Thank you.
00:31:59.420 Here in D.C., an article that caught my eye was a 2018 Daily Beast piece after Johnson became the head of the Republican Study Committee,
00:32:11.240 which was founded as a conservative committee but was taken over by Republican leadership under Boehner
00:32:16.340 and kind of became a hangout spot for Republicans.
00:32:19.740 That's kind of started the Freedom Caucus.
00:32:22.020 Now, you saw Johnson had been hanging out with the Freedom Caucus.
00:32:25.880 He'd been going to their meetings.
00:32:27.100 He'd not been paying dues, which is a big faux pas.
00:32:29.800 It's hard to collect those dues, but they go to paying the few shared staff the Freedom Caucus has.
00:32:35.500 He'd not been participating, but he'd been going to those meetings.
00:32:38.920 So, when he became the new chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a lot of his colleagues, Republican, more liberal colleagues, said,
00:32:45.940 well, this guy's just a double agent.
00:32:47.560 He just sneaked on here.
00:32:48.640 He's pretending to not be part of the Freedom Caucus, the conservative group, but really, this is just a conservative takeover.
00:32:56.000 And I looked at that, and I looked at how, since he'd become speaker, someone who I had a lot of hope for, you had a lot of hope for.
00:33:02.360 I was excited to see, wow, this is the first social conservative and Republican leadership in decades who actually cares about this stuff.
00:33:10.440 We might have a fighting chance here.
00:33:11.800 And it's been extremely disappointing.
00:33:14.260 So, I think there's some...
00:33:15.340 That might be an understatement.
00:33:18.760 You know, there's a way that he seems to negotiate, whether it's government funding, impeachment, FISA, now Ukraine.
00:33:25.360 And step one is a major decision comes along his way.
00:33:28.960 And then he goes back and forth, step two, and he's not sure what to do.
00:33:32.240 He delays it as long as he possibly can.
00:33:35.160 But he kind of, he tweaks what was originally offered.
00:33:37.800 He pretends that it was a win, and he asked Democrats to bail him out.
00:33:41.460 That seems to be what's going on here.
00:33:43.900 So, when you look back at this Daily Beast piece, and you look back at the people who've known him, and have known him to be a good man, which, by all accounts, he is in his personal life, you have to wonder what could be driving him.
00:33:58.200 And it seems to be kind of a classic case of Washington, D.C., extreme ambition, an ability to deceive himself, which is not too uncommon.
00:34:07.720 You think a lot of the folks here in Washington are real hypocrites, are real bad men who claim to be doing the Lord's work when, in fact, they're just doing their own.
00:34:15.320 But a surprising amount of them have really convinced themselves they are on the good side, that they are on that really creepy quote, the right side of history, that they are the good guys who are going to come and save the day, and this is why the Lord put them there.
00:34:29.700 And it really feeds into an incredible ego, an incredible amount of ambition, and also just the sad reality that a lot of these folks are pretty weak as leaders and people.
00:34:41.420 They're capable, like many of us are, of standing at the back of the crowd and saying, I agree, this is bad, or being a backbencher who says, I'm not sending any more money to that bloodbath, or I'm going to vote to, I don't care what the defense industry puts on me, I'm not going to let women be drafted.
00:34:59.500 It's easy to say that when you're not the leader, but when you're in the center and you take all those arrows and all those slings and all those scary skiff meetings from the intel community, and it's all on you, you have to answer for that.
00:35:10.720 Well, that's when you find out who's really a leader and who's just ambitious.
00:35:15.280 You know, there's a, in your article for Blaze, you've talked to a lot of his colleagues, and one of his senior staffers that worked with him in 2018 said,
00:35:27.980 the Speaker is someone who could forgive himself for lying because he thinks it's for a higher purpose.
00:35:34.200 He has an exceptional capacity for self-justification.
00:35:39.700 That's not good.
00:35:40.340 That's something I found.
00:35:41.600 No, it's not good, and it's something that I found repeated over and over again about Johnson.
00:35:47.640 You know, when he ran for Speaker as kind of a dark horse surprise candidate, a lot of his colleagues, Republican colleagues, and even the ones who are much more conservative, were willing to say, you know, I know him personally.
00:36:00.660 He's a man of God, and therefore I trust him.
00:36:03.360 But they didn't want to look at the record.
00:36:05.860 They didn't want to look at, well, what happens when leadership puts a little bit of pressure on him?
00:36:09.560 How does his vote change?
00:36:11.900 Will he actually, his personal religious beliefs and his commitments aside, how do those actually shine as a statesman, as someone who's willing to take the arrows for those causes?
00:36:22.540 And they don't.
00:36:23.320 The votes didn't back it up.
00:36:24.960 But he looked at this, as what I've been told by his colleagues, as something that he's been put in this position.
00:36:31.380 He's been chosen for this, and if he needs to lie, if he needs to deceive, if he needs to twist arms to further it, then he is on the right side.
00:36:41.480 Again, that creepy quote that I've heard him saying since, the right side of history, that the other people are on the wrong side of history, and that his actions can therefore be justified.
00:36:51.240 I mean, we see this all the time.
00:36:52.800 You see it on levels like this with politics.
00:36:54.780 You see it, of course, a lot since 2016, with a lot of the left saying that people who support Donald Trump are basically the Nazis.
00:37:03.340 Well, once you say that you're on the side of God or they're on the side of Hitler, then you can justify a lot of actions that I think a moral person would not otherwise be able to justify.
00:37:13.760 So what do you think's coming for him, for the rest of us?
00:37:18.540 Are we just stuck with a guy who is pathetic and weak now because the Democrats would absolutely vote to keep him in?
00:37:31.800 You know, I'm curious about that because everyone's on recess right now and things are quieted down.
00:37:36.960 But the question is, with everything that's coming down next, how is he going to be able to continue to govern here?
00:37:43.620 Right now, he's essentially, even though he's the Speaker of the House and supposedly the head of the Republican coalition, he's really governing as a kind of a prime minister of a center-left coalition, the Uniparty, which has always kind of governed D.C., but now is really being open about it, where he's got half of Republicans on his side and about two-thirds of Democrats on his side.
00:38:07.400 So how is he actually going to be able to pass anything with that coalition?
00:38:12.660 The Democrats will protect him.
00:38:15.040 The Republicans, a lot of them, are never going to come back to him.
00:38:18.260 What's he actually going to be able to do in the next couple weeks?
00:38:22.520 I kind of wonder if he's a lame duck speaker because he's got these folks, but they've accomplished their $95 billion.
00:38:29.560 Then again, there's also already leaked rumors that they're planning the next big handout to the Ukraine war, that they're planning to come in September.
00:38:39.880 And I suspect that he'll still be Speaker through September.
00:38:42.720 But what's going to happen in November is either Republicans are going to lose their slim majority, in which case he won't be Speaker, or they'll win it.
00:38:50.260 And then he's going to have to look around and find out, amongst those liberal Republicans, who are his allies, who is actually going to put him up for Speaker, and what are the alternatives.
00:39:01.340 Right now, he's kind of running against no one.
00:39:03.800 So he could maintain that, but it will be difficult.
00:39:06.200 You being in Washington, hanging out or around these people all the time, watching them, listening to them, what do you think they think is coming in November?
00:39:20.260 I think Republicans are cautiously optimistic for a Donald Trump victory.
00:39:26.920 But, of course, there are a huge amount of shenanigans that are already unfolding.
00:39:33.460 There's worries about what's going to be the new COVID, what's going to be the new moral panic that causes it, so that voting can't be done squarely and sole view of the public.
00:39:43.340 I think the Republican National Committee has been trying to mix up its plan for how to, whether it's going to do early voting, where its lawyers are going to be.
00:39:54.080 We know that it's going to be, I think, chaos.
00:39:57.240 Either Donald Trump actually wins and the left wing takes to the streets like they did in 2016, burning cars, attacking people, or Donald Trump loses.
00:40:07.460 And either way, I think that large parts of this country are going to not be satisfied with the election results.
00:40:15.060 The tension that exists in 2016 has not gotten any less.
00:40:18.720 How do the Democrats feel to you?
00:40:21.420 Confident?
00:40:23.280 Worried?
00:40:25.320 No.
00:40:25.760 No, they were significantly more worried before Joe Biden's State of the Union.
00:40:30.540 And you saw that in the pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, people openly wishing that they could have a different candidate.
00:40:37.720 Just like you saw in 2020 with people wishing that it was Cuomo instead of Joe Biden.
00:40:42.960 But, and we'll see a lot, actually, this weekend with the White House Correspondents Dinner, where everyone's going to be paying attention to Joe Biden's remarks.
00:40:51.400 Are they clear?
00:40:52.580 Are they concise?
00:40:53.460 Is he funny like he can be when he's on, like he was at some point to the State of the Union?
00:40:58.360 But there's a real fear amongst Democrats that Donald Trump is coming back, that the constant cycle of drama that they surrounded his entire four years with hasn't stuck with the American people because so much of it was fake.
00:41:13.500 So much of it was just impossible to remember because there were fake scandals.
00:41:17.940 Democrats in town are not confident that they'll get the White House, but they are feeling fairly confident about Congress.
00:41:24.400 We're talking to Christopher Bedford.
00:41:28.480 He is the Blaze Senior Media Political Editor and the Blaze Media Washington Correspondent.
00:41:38.220 When do they come back into session?
00:41:41.280 Next week.
00:41:42.480 Short vacation, and the Senate was even cut down a little shorter because they had to stick around to do the American people's business.
00:41:49.560 And I'm being sarcastic on that.
00:41:51.080 Real quick, any thoughts on the Trump trial this week?
00:41:58.040 Biden said, the DOJ said actually, that Trump is the first president to face criminal prosecution because predecessors, other presidents, just didn't commit any crimes.
00:42:11.400 I remember when Barack Obama left office, the Washington Post said it was a scandal-free administration.
00:42:16.820 Yeah, totally.
00:42:17.340 I think there were some dead border agents who could disagree with that.
00:42:20.900 The Trump trial is going to be interesting.
00:42:23.940 It's in New York.
00:42:24.680 It's tough.
00:42:25.280 The judge is obviously against them, but the prosecution has embarrassed itself so far.
00:42:30.000 The case is so weak that, and you kind of forget that in the hubbub of all the news,
00:42:34.960 that it's relying on a bunch of liars to turn a misdemeanor that is outside of the statute of limitations into a felony because of another misdemeanor that can barely be cited.
00:42:44.780 And it took the prosecution two days even to come up with that argument.
00:42:49.480 And at the same time, the Supreme Court seems like it's going to crack down and at least limit what the president is able to do with his authority.
00:42:58.440 So that will help push some of the other trials back to after the election if that happens.
00:43:03.160 But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter if Trump's in a prison cell or not because he's not out campaigning.
00:43:07.700 He's not able to leave New York.
00:43:09.180 He's kind of stuck.
00:43:10.980 He wasn't able to weigh in on these last Capitol Hill fights.
00:43:14.780 They haven't put him in a prison cell, but they somewhat put him in a room.
00:43:18.940 And that's something that you'll see, and you'll probably see some jokes about it, that this big fancy dinner they're having this weekend,
00:43:26.080 they'll be laughing at us about how they still managed to stop probably the greatest campaigner in modern history from being able to campaign.
00:43:33.140 So do you think that hurts him?
00:43:36.200 I mean, because the people who are going to vote for him are going to vote for him anyway.
00:43:39.580 And the ones who are the ones who, you know, really, they they vote for him, but they really don't like his tweets and his personality and everything else.
00:43:49.080 By keeping him off the road and yet still in the public eye, you keep the focus on Joe Biden.
00:43:57.600 And is there any case to be made that's good for Donald Trump?
00:44:02.100 So far, it actually hasn't hurt him exactly to your point.
00:44:06.360 And the folks in the suburbs who maybe voted for Trump in 2016 and voted for Biden in 2020, they're to your point, they're not going to be swayed by a rally.
00:44:15.260 They're not going to be swayed by the kind of popcorn and rah-rah that goes on at those fun events.
00:44:20.680 And but they are being swayed a little bit by the incredible unfairness.
00:44:24.400 The question is whether or not they're going to be able to actually get felony charges on him, because that's the kind of thing that does spook those those easily frightened voters.
00:44:32.100 Yeah. All right. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it, Chris. Thank you.
00:44:35.920 It's great to be back.