Glenn and Sarah discuss the disappearance of a young woman in Washington, D.C. and the bizarre case of a man who bought cleaning supplies from a Home Depot wearing a mask and gloves, but forgot to bring his cell phone with him.
00:03:23.420He you know, he was he was going to Home Depot and he showed up wearing a mask and a hat and gloves.
00:03:34.680And he bought four hundred and fifty dollars worth of cleaning supplies.
00:03:40.100And what's weird about this, too, is he got lost, apparently, several times and then lost on his way to his mother's house because he didn't bring his cell phone.
00:03:50.260So anyway, so he was concerned about cleanliness, cleanliness.
00:03:54.680We're in the middle of a raging triple demic right now.
00:23:46.100Why are we not the free state of Texas?
00:23:49.440We are relatively much more free than places up north, but we're not the free state of Texas.
00:23:57.980We should all be striving and pushing our governors and our legislatures to pass things that make us free men and women unencumbered by this nonsense that is being jammed down everyone's throat.
00:24:19.460So here's what I, here's what I want you to do.
00:24:31.960You can get the story at glenbeck.com or just look for Sarasota's new college, Florida's new college, and support this in every way you can.
00:24:40.680They are going to be coming with switchblades and automatic guns.
00:24:47.640They are going to be, it won't be a 22.
00:24:50.920They'll be coming with proverbial 45 caliber, uh, weapons to this fight, and it will have an endless, what do they call it?
00:25:05.700Uh, so we need to be prepared to stand up and, uh, fight back, but that is fight back the right way.
00:25:14.940You know that I was earlier, I was reading to you the, um, uh, Thomas pain, American crisis.
00:25:21.980And in it, he says, in fact, I want to read it to you exactly in it.
00:25:26.440He says, I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been and still is that God almighty will not give up a people to military destruction or to leave them unsupported to perish.
00:25:45.700Here's the important part who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war by every decent method, which wisdom could invent.
00:25:59.820Neither have I so much the infidel in me as to suppose that he has relinquished the government of the world and given us up to the care of devils.
00:26:10.700And as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up to heaven and ask for help.
00:26:17.500I cannot imagine how the progressive movement that is pushing the slaughter of innocence can look up and say, Lord, help us.
00:26:29.840Knowing that as Lincoln said, God is not on our side.
00:26:53.740He wants peace and love and understanding, and we must do everything we can.
00:26:59.840To remain peaceful, kind, loving, doing all of the things that we can in our power, and he will pick up the slack.
00:27:09.460But if we don't, if we are conniving or anything else, he cannot bless us.
00:27:17.780So, do everything in your power and not one thing more.
00:27:24.680Florida, Ron DeSantis announced on Friday, is taking back education, and he is changing the board of regents for the new college of Florida,
00:27:48.360Florida, which is a progressive university that's been floundering in lies for a while.
00:28:50.280Chris, can you walk us through the litany?
00:28:52.040Yeah, so this is something that just keeps happening, and even in the last 48 hours, I've gotten a major retraction from the Washington Post.
00:29:00.520They wrote this ridiculous hit piece against me about my appointment to the board of trustees at New College.
00:29:06.240The editors admitted to me and then had to retract four false statements, and there was only four paragraphs in the story that were about me.
00:29:13.980So they were actually one false, one complete brazen lie per paragraph.
00:29:19.220And then the following day, which was yesterday, I spent all day hounding Jonathan Shade from the New York magazine, and he, too, ended up retracting a completely false statement.
00:29:31.460He made up a quotation, attributed it to me, and then I said, well, where did I say this?
00:29:36.680He couldn't prove it, had to retract it.
00:29:38.700But here's the thing, Glenn, both of these publications have done the exact same thing twice.
00:29:45.460Last year, the Washington Post had to retract multiple false statements about my reporting on critical race theory.
00:29:51.560Also last year, Jonathan Shade, the same author, made up a quotation that he attributed to me that was totally false, had to retract it.
00:29:58.860I'm starting to think that these things aren't a coincidence.
00:30:02.720Well, I don't go too far out on a limb on that.
00:30:06.260You know, they know, the press knows, they can say anything and retract, and the retraction doesn't matter.
00:30:12.060The charge is out there, and the print is out there, and it's online, and it'll be forever online, and that will be the part that is passed around about you.
00:30:21.620I mean, we are dealing with really nefarious powers at work that know exactly how to smear and discredit people.
00:30:30.680So let me go, let me take you to Florida here.
00:30:34.840How did this unfold with New College, and what exactly are you trying to do, and the governor trying to do, with education in Florida?
00:30:46.700So New College is Florida's smallest public university.
00:30:50.300It's on the beach, actually, in Sarasota, a beautiful location.
00:31:01.760They accept almost anyone, but very few students choose to enroll in the college.
00:31:06.380They've had this kind of broken culture for a number of years in which even, you know, professors and staff members are kind of at odds with the students who are a very kind of left-wing progressive activist.
00:31:19.720It's almost like Evergreen State out in Washington State that famously imploded a number of years ago.
00:31:25.440And the Florida legislature in recent years has considered actually just abolishing the college, totally defunding it, and transferring its assets elsewhere in the system.
00:31:34.140But Governor DeSantis had a kind of bold and dramatic alternative.
00:31:38.160He said, let's bring in a new board of directors.
00:31:41.800Let's get some really smart people that have the kind of strength that's required to do a reform effort.
00:31:46.980And let's turn it around 180 and transform New College, this fledgling, struggling public university, into what they're calling the Hillsdale of the South.
00:31:55.700So a classical institution of learning, of higher education, and that is our task.
00:32:17.180I will tell you, Christopher, the biggest mistake we made was ceding the colleges and just saying, you know what, when they get out into the real world, no, they're out in the real world now.
00:32:28.660And they've changed the real world into this fantasy gobbledygook that they got from these universities.
00:32:35.160We have got to start taking them back.
00:32:37.900I have two kids ready to go to college.
00:34:04.740And, look, conservatives have not figured out how to do it.
00:34:08.560I think that the problem, what I'm observing as I'm talking to people and navigating this new enterprise is that the adults are scared of the kids, you know, really and truly.
00:34:44.560It's going to have higher quality academic offerings.
00:34:47.680And I think that what we've seen with Hillsdale College, where I've been fortunate enough to teach a course recently, is that the American families are hungry for this kind of education.
00:35:23.360That's what I want a university to do.
00:35:25.300And that's what they should be doing, pushing you in every different direction.
00:35:29.860So you see that, you know, you should question everything and know how to question and know how to prove something using critical thinking.
00:35:41.360But that's not what we're getting from our universities.
00:35:43.900So how are you because this is a very progressive school.
00:35:49.640How are the professors and everybody else taking it at the school?
00:36:12.020I'm excited to engage with them as I go to visit the college in the coming weeks.
00:36:16.940But, you know, what I've heard behind the scenes is that professors are chattering, that this is actually a very good opportunity.
00:36:24.720You know, a lot of people don't like what's happening in universities, people who are in science and math departments that are more apolitical, people who are kind of in the political moderate section.
00:36:36.460They don't like what's happening just as much as we as the conservatives don't like what's happening.
00:36:41.460But they're not strong enough to create a defense for themselves.
00:36:46.040We're going to create that space for people.
00:36:48.160And I've looked at the CVs for a lot of the faculty at New College.
00:36:52.040I've done an analysis, actually, of all the full-time faculty.
00:36:55.240There are some incredible scholars there, people who are substantive.
00:36:59.600They have Ivy League university degrees.
00:37:01.740They've written on the classics, Greek, Latin, history, political science, an incredible math department.
00:37:07.660And so there is a very, very strong core of faculty and staff that are absolutely ready for this change.
00:37:16.140I think they're going to, you know, once they kind of put down the New York Times and have a chance to talk to us, new board of trustees in person, I think they're going to be reassured that we're going to create a better university.
00:37:31.680We're going to bring in a totally new curriculum.
00:37:33.280We're going to be abolishing the DEI programming immediately.
00:37:38.500But after those changes, after that period of tumult and conflict, I think it's going to be a great place.
00:37:45.180And hopefully when your kids are approaching 18, you'll consider sending them to New College.
00:37:49.380So, Christopher, I'm just sitting here listening to you and seeing the opportunity and the impact that you have made.
00:37:57.000And it's kind of it's fun to watch you, because when I first reached out to you, I reached out to you as the contributing editor of City Journal to talk to us about what was happening in Seattle.
00:38:09.220And you were just at the beginning of all of this.
00:38:11.500And and now look at the impact that you have made and the impact that you're going to make.
00:38:20.640And this is just really the beginning.
00:38:22.960How do you do you ever think about like, holy cow?
00:38:27.520I mean, I took something on that should have been deadly.
00:38:30.720Everybody probably told you, don't don't do that.
00:38:54.680I wake up every day excited about what I'm doing.
00:38:57.020I wake up every day optimistic about the possibilities.
00:38:59.440And then I've been able to do something that I didn't plan on, but it's been really fruitful.
00:39:04.800I've been able to connect my ideas, my policy work, my journalism, my activism with people like Governor Ron DeSantis, who have said, hey, this is a good vision.
00:39:15.060Let's let this guy loose and and see if we can actually use these ideas.
00:39:19.500And so I'm really kind of blessed and fortunate and feel very lucky to have able to not just sit in a think tank, you know, in New York City writing white papers, but actually say, hey, look, you know, let's use these ideas.
00:39:31.920We believe in them enough to actually do them.
00:39:35.660It's like I believe in this enough where I actually want to do it.
00:39:38.700I want to stake my my own take up take a risk with my own time and reputation, because I think at the end of the day, we're fighting for something that most people want.
00:39:51.820But really, most people feel there are a few champions for.
00:39:56.660I'm trying to serve that purpose for people.
00:39:58.220Christopher, I know I'm sure that we've asked you before, but I would love to do a do at least an hour podcast with you, because I think you are fascinating.
00:40:08.880You are really somebody who is is changing things.
00:40:16.680And I would like to discuss in greater detail what the what the challenges are ahead and also where you get the I feel good in the morning.
00:40:28.220Where you get the bright spots in education, because there's a lot to move.
00:40:32.640So we'd love to we'd love to have you on as a podcast.
00:40:38.760Christopher Rufo, contributing editor, City Journal, senior fellow, the Manhattan Institute, and now on the new board of regents for New College of Florida, because Ron DeSantis is taking on education in a big way now in Florida.