Best of the Program ｜ Guest： John Dodson ｜ 3⧸11⧸25
Episode Stats
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Summary
Sometimes the help you need comes from a place you'd never suspect. On today's show, Glenn Beck explains why USAID is a waste of money, and why it's time to close the doors on the agency's unlimited coffers.
Transcript
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Okay, we've got quite a show riddled with facts.
00:00:33.840
We break down the debt, our debt, and what we're spending and compare it to the top 500 companies in the country.
00:00:48.040
Also, it's time to close the doors on the unlimited coffers of USAID.
00:00:54.860
We're telling you the truth about USAID and trying to arm you with an argument that you can make with your friends who are just so blind they hate Elon Musk.
00:01:04.380
I think we should burn down Elon Musk's cyber trucks.
00:01:17.500
Sometimes the help you need comes from a place you'd never suspect.
00:01:20.580
For instance, let's say you're a parent at a kid's school board meeting, fighting tooth and nail against the evils and, you know, the stuff that they're trying to put in your kid's head.
00:01:29.200
But you know who's there fighting right along with you in many cases?
00:01:41.560
They have amazing coverage in U.S.-based customer service.
00:01:44.140
And they fight every day for the values that built this nation.
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00:01:55.860
They're America's only Christian conservative mobile phone company.
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And their mission is to passionately defend our God-given constitutional rights and freedoms and to glorify God.
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Right now, I want you to go to PatriotMobile.com slash Beck or call 972-PATRIOT.
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Defend freedom with every call and every text you make.
00:02:14.980
Visit PatriotMobile.com slash Beck or call 972-PATRIOT.
00:02:25.860
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:02:34.020
We're going to get back to the border and what's happening with guns here in just a minute.
00:02:40.360
I want to stop before we get there and just do a little mop-up on a couple of other stories that are out there.
00:02:49.300
You can get it by going to GlennBeck.com and signing up for our newsletter.
00:02:52.080
There are several stories that are out about how the EPA has just cut their budgets.
00:03:02.980
Doge is trying to do all this stuff and they have no right to do it.
00:03:07.640
And USAID, Rubio cut a whole buttload of money out of that and said, we're not going to give it to you.
00:03:14.060
And everybody is saying, we've got to feed the world.
00:03:22.260
We should be charitable and we already are the most charitable people.
00:03:35.300
But let me just first give you a little, just a little comparison here on what we're spending
00:03:59.480
If you look at Walmart, they pulled in $611 billion.
00:04:06.540
This is the biggest store, the biggest revenue king in the world.
00:04:17.520
How much, how many times have you shopped at Walmart or done, bought anything from Walmart
00:04:25.000
Now, if you're in New York, you would look at Walmart.
00:04:29.720
But for the rest of people, we're at Walmart all the time.
00:04:35.160
So Walmart, we are spending, our government's spending is like every store, every truck
00:04:56.640
Now, at the top are things like Apple, Amazon, Google, ExxonMobil, and then 496 other massive
00:05:13.460
Their total revenue for a year is $18.1 trillion.
00:05:20.940
That's the 500 largest corporations in the world.
00:05:35.920
That's 35% of what these companies, the 500 biggest companies in the world.
00:05:42.880
Think about what they're making, what they're providing, what they're doing.
00:05:47.300
Imagine if we spent 35% of what they are making and building and everything.
00:05:54.780
If we bought 35% of that in oil, in computers, whatever.
00:06:02.780
However, if we got 35% and purchased that, but that's what we're spending, but we're not getting
00:06:10.700
One third of what America's biggest, 500 biggest companies earn spent by our government.
00:06:24.200
So, you look at the headcount of the Fortune 500.
00:06:30.360
How many people do the Fortune 500 companies employ?
00:06:44.940
Look at America as a company, because it is, gang.
00:06:49.180
It has to be run like your family or a company, or we go broke.
00:07:01.720
Again, think about everything that those 500 companies produce.
00:07:07.660
All of the cars, all of everything that they produce.
00:07:22.900
One in 10 Fortune 500 workers could be a federal employee.
00:07:38.160
In 2023, two years ago, our budget was $6.3 trillion.
00:07:53.900
If you're going to make more money to spend more money, that's fine.
00:07:57.240
You'd spend more money and make more money, and you'd never have a problem with it.
00:08:07.340
Has our Fortune 500 companies given us 250% of growth?
00:08:27.460
The government spending money it doesn't have, and printing and borrowing money.
00:08:39.860
It's the fact that the government doesn't work within the framework of common sense or a capitalist system.
00:08:53.100
Fortune 500 companies churn out cars, phones, oils, medicine, everything that you use every day.
00:09:01.320
And it's efficient because it has to or it will go out of business.
00:09:11.580
We spend all of that money, all of that money, 35% of what all 500 of these companies actually make in a year.
00:09:29.220
Do you believe we've gotten 250% better as a nation?
00:09:36.360
Do you believe we're 2.5% better than we were 25 years ago?
00:09:43.480
So here's how they've been spending your money, and this is why all of these cuts matter.
00:10:26.240
Billions that could have fixed roads or, I don't know, fed our veterans, gotten some of our veterans off the streets.
00:10:32.280
The VA, they announced yesterday that they have renegotiated 2% of their contracts and saved almost a billion dollars with 2% of the contracts renegotiated.
00:10:47.080
If 2% saves that much just for the VA, let's just start with the VA.
00:10:53.100
What are the, how much savings would happen with the other 98% of the contracts?
00:11:02.520
What would happen if we renegotiated, oh, I don't know, 50% of all of the government contracts and line them up with common sense?
00:11:20.760
When you're a business, I don't care how big you are, ExxonMobil could go out of business.
00:11:27.760
Somebody comes up with a better way, a better thing, they'll go out of business.
00:11:32.660
And there's nothing that could stop that because they don't have guns that says, you will buy oil from us.
00:11:47.760
No matter how much we suck, no matter how much we waste, you're buying it from us.
00:11:53.300
Oh, and by the way, if we want to waste money beyond people's imagination, we can.
00:12:00.040
And we're going to bill your kids and your grandkids.
00:12:12.680
Our deficit in 23, it's bigger now, but our deficit in the last confirmed numbers in 2023 is $1.7 trillion.
00:12:22.540
That means we spend $1.7 trillion that we don't have.
00:12:26.440
That's $1.7 trillion, $2 trillion more than we can collect from people.
00:12:45.320
Imagine a company that has a debt 1.3 times its revenue.
00:12:57.900
But it goes out of business because the banks won't lend it any more money.
00:13:02.920
Everybody in the stock market will take their money out and say, I don't believe in that one anymore.
00:13:06.500
But we have the full faith and credit of the United States of America because we're big workers.
00:13:27.440
$34 trillion in dollar bills would circle the entire planet 130 times.
00:13:38.000
The deficit of $1.7 trillion is three times the Walmart revenue.
00:13:55.160
If you spend $65,000 a year, you have to borrow $15,000 every year.
00:14:13.720
What do you think your interest rates would be?
00:14:16.240
What do you think the bank would say you are as a credit risk?
00:14:20.140
What do you think your credit card interest rate would be if they would even issue you one?
00:14:31.360
A business has to sell what people want or it goes out of business.
00:14:39.720
A restaurant run by the federal government serves you cold soup littered with flies and they don't care.
00:14:49.160
Because if you don't buy it, it doesn't matter to them.
00:14:54.260
Your great-great-grandkids are going to have to pay for it anyway.
00:14:58.420
No competition, no accountability, just a blank check.
00:15:02.200
The government has our credit card and it has no limit.
00:15:06.440
It swipes $6.3 trillion, pays $4.6 trillion, and then charges the rest.
00:15:48.380
$312 million to kids for their companies at COVID?
00:15:56.860
I know it's pocket change, but not to you, not to me.
00:15:59.260
We'll never make that kind of money to be able to give it to the government in our taxes.
00:16:03.400
Every million counts when you're talking $6.3 trillion.
00:16:28.060
Cutting programs means somebody's going to hurt and they're going to lose votes.
00:16:48.420
Why is the house on fire and we're debating paint colors?
00:17:08.540
Once upon a time, the food in your table told an American story.
00:17:11.740
It was a story of sweat and toil, of love for the land.
00:17:14.920
It was a story of sacrifice and delayed gratification and a food you can trust when that gratification finally came.
00:17:22.320
These days, when you put that plate down with that steak or chicken, what story is that telling you?
00:17:26.860
Whatever it is, it's probably not an American story.
00:17:30.100
So much of the meat you buy in the supermarket comes from overseas.
00:17:32.940
Even if it has that little product of the USA, that's a lie.
00:17:36.420
Good Ranchers would like to change that for you.
00:17:39.160
Every box of theirs tells an American story because every box is filled with meat that was raised and butchered right here.
00:17:45.080
Right now, you can get free ground beef, chicken breasts, or wild-caught salmon for every box for a year, plus $25 off when you subscribe to Good Ranchers.
00:17:53.620
Go to GoodRanchers.com, use the promo code BECK, and claim your $25 off and free meat in every box for a year.
00:18:08.400
This is the best of the Glenn Beck program, and we really want to thank you for listening.
00:18:12.060
Okay, so Rubio is cutting the budget from Matt.
00:18:23.200
Let me just put you at your kitchen table here for a second.
00:18:26.060
You got the bills spread out all over your table, and you're like, where's all this money going?
00:18:35.660
And then you see on your credit card a charge for $70,000 for a musical in Ireland.
00:18:49.520
Honey, did we sign up for a musical in Ireland?
00:19:00.260
No more spending on musicals in Ireland for the love of Pete.
00:19:03.840
But that's what's been happening with your tax dollars through USAID, and it's much worse than that.
00:19:09.380
So 83% of all of the USAID programs are getting the axe.
00:19:15.980
If you have been listening to me for the last 15 or 20 years, I've been circling USAID over and over and over again.
00:19:24.080
Really bad collection of radicals that are spending your tax dollars on things you don't know about.
00:19:37.880
The United States Agency for International Development.
00:19:55.340
Because it's the Agency for International Development.
00:20:00.180
It rolled into the scene in 1961, courtesy of John F. Kennedy.
00:20:06.920
And it was supposed to be our shining beacon in the Cold War.
00:20:10.220
A way to win the hearts and minds, showing the world what freedom and generosity could look like.
00:20:20.140
So, it's less than inspiring when you really know.
00:20:23.620
Maybe it's clever when you know what it was really meant to do.
00:20:34.940
It was meant to buy elections, work with revolutionaries, and also go into countries and say, look how great Uncle Sam is.
00:20:52.780
Your tax dollars, we shelled out $1.5 million to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace of Serbia.
00:21:00.440
I don't think most Americans could find Serbia on a map.
00:21:05.660
Why do we care about what Serbians are talking about around the water cooler?
00:21:17.380
I don't really think that Uncle Sam needs to swoop in with a song and dance number.
00:21:46.880
Are we running a charity or is this some sort of global art festival?
00:21:55.040
However, so USAID finally is caught red-handed funding the meals that ended up feeding Al-Qaeda fighters in Syria.
00:22:07.400
Now, when I got up this morning, I was thinking to myself, you know what?
00:22:16.540
If it was, maybe you should, honey, ask yourself, when the hell did I become for that?
00:22:22.480
And then there's the millions and millions of dollars funneled into EcoHealth Alliance.
00:22:32.420
EcoHealth Alliance, the makers of the Wuhan lab and COVID-19.
00:22:42.940
Okay, also, can we talk about the elephant in the room?
00:22:45.700
And when I say elephant in the room, I mean the one that's wearing a trench coat, a hat, and dark glasses.
00:22:52.480
You know, the CIA elephant that is in the room.
00:23:09.000
Back in the Cold War, they were training foreign police in counterinsurgency tactics, torture techniques in Latin America.
00:23:17.400
You know, all those fun things that we've all grown to love so much and have really caused the rest of the world to love us so much.
00:23:36.160
Well, we have to find new enemies because all that funding is there.
00:23:41.580
Okay, well, the Cuban Twitter fiasco to stir up dissent in Cuba, bankrolled by USAID.
00:23:52.620
Hey, do you remember Hunter Biden, who had that cushy, cushy gig on the board of Burisma?
00:24:00.660
Well, while Hunter was cashing those checks, his dad was VP, USAID was pouring money into Ukraine for development and governance programs.
00:24:30.660
There's going to be people who stand, Democrats and people on the left, and I shouldn't say, really good people who really care about aid, who really care about people.
00:24:43.720
And they're going to stand because they hate Donald Trump so much.
00:24:47.680
They're going to say, just Donald Trump, he just hates helping people.
00:24:58.400
It's about you and me and every single taxpayer who is sick of seeing our money flushed down the drain on pet projects and covert ops.
00:25:09.240
I don't want covert ops that are no longer even overseen by Congress.
00:25:18.180
This is not about turning our backs on the world.
00:25:23.480
It's about making sure that when we do want to help, we're actually helping, not hurting.
00:25:33.040
You're running a small business, and you find out that 83%, 83% of your expenses are going to stuff that doesn't move the needle at all for your business.
00:25:44.340
Fancy coffee machines, you know, random side hustles, you name it.
00:25:50.280
83% of what you're spending, and you're a small business, do you cut that?
00:26:03.040
Because everyone suffers if you go out of business and you don't cut it.
00:26:09.280
You refocus on what works, what keeps the lights on, and that's what USAID, that's what the overhaul is aiming for.
00:26:29.360
I don't want the government in charity business.
00:26:36.100
This is just about making it effective, aligning it with our national interest and, dare I say, our values, if we have any.
00:26:45.680
That's all the while trying to stop the bleeding out of the out-of-control spending.
00:26:57.540
I don't know why we continue to not do anything about it, why we don't demand.
00:27:10.240
The longer we make this about Trump or the left or the right or Biden, the faster the patient called America dies on the table.
00:27:31.240
We can't help anyone if we can't help anyone if we are not secure.
00:27:35.220
In a world where China is building islands in the South China Sea and Russia's flexing its muscles, we cannot afford to waste any of our resources on DEI musicals or transgender comic books.
00:27:49.540
Can we please, for the love of Pete, be a little strategic?
00:27:55.660
But I do not want to bankroll our enemies, foreign or domestic.
00:28:13.100
When our aid ends up in the hands of terrorists, we're not just wasting money.
00:28:21.360
We're betraying the people that we're supposed to be helping and betraying the people who gave that money.
00:28:27.880
Does no one see, you know, I get some of the money that you spend on the commercials.
00:28:37.320
You know, that's why commercials, they pay me because you're going to go out and buy stuff, hopefully, because I've made a good case that it's something that will benefit your life.
00:28:46.280
When you subscribe to the blaze, I get a few pennies on everything that you subscribe.
00:28:53.840
I say this in staff meetings over and over again.
00:29:03.920
I know how hard it is for you to buy a subscription.
00:29:12.640
How can I serve you better is what I ask all the time.
00:29:24.380
Do you really think that this is helping the taxpayer?
00:29:32.200
Do you think that's helping you or your friends?
00:29:43.140
Now, let me just talk to your friends, or let me just give you the case so you can talk to your friends who just hate Donald Trump.
00:30:04.560
It's a chance to clean house, to zero set our budgets and look at it and say, what's important?
00:30:12.240
Do you have subscriptions that you have no idea that you were paying for?
00:30:18.200
You look at the subscriptions like, what the hell?
00:30:20.280
This is $6.99 for that and $8.99 for that and $3.99 for that.
00:30:28.120
You have to zero set and go, okay, let's just do the right thing.
00:30:33.500
Forget about all these things that we have been doing.
00:30:35.540
Let's look and see what is the right thing to do.
00:30:40.680
When you take USAID and you look at it as USAID, you think, oh, that's a force for good.
00:31:00.720
I think we should maybe reevaluate the whole thing.
00:31:03.420
And you don't have to love the guy in the Oval Office to see this makes sense.
00:31:13.280
Accountability should not have a party label on it.
00:31:16.800
When your friends start talking to you about this, Donald Trump, stop it right now.
00:31:29.340
Is waste of your, you know, they say time is money.
00:31:34.720
You're working until April 19th just to pay your taxes.
00:31:42.220
Days after you have to pay your taxes, you're still working to pay those taxes.
00:31:47.180
Are you okay with any kind of waste of that money?
00:31:56.460
It's not going to turn America into some sort of hermit kingdom.
00:32:02.440
Nowhere is anyone saying we should stop helping people.
00:32:16.460
We're saying can we reevaluate for a second here because we're in deep trouble with our spending.
00:32:24.640
We're talking about taking our treasury and locking the doors when there are thieves at the door.
00:32:32.620
And opening the treasury when there's good to be done.
00:32:41.140
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:32:47.640
Take a deep breath because this one's going to set you off for a little bit.
00:32:51.620
Friday, the Department of Homeland Security dropped a bomb saying they're axing the TSA's union deal.
00:33:01.700
Well, because they made this deal under Biden and 86% of our airports, more TSA people are clocking in as union reps than are actually checking your bag.
00:33:20.140
Nearly 200 out of them get paid your tax dollars to sit in meetings, not to stop bombs.
00:33:30.920
But to, I think, give a middle finger to every one of us who's ever missed a flight or slow security line.
00:33:36.680
Last May, Biden's crew gave 42,000 TSA screeners a huge fat union contract, more rights and bigger checks.
00:33:54.700
They have screeners booking sick days, seven months out.
00:34:08.580
You're sick the same time Coachella is happening.
00:34:15.080
So, what's happening is they are just abusing the system and the good ones are all there picking up the slack.
00:34:23.780
I mean, this is the way it happens in government.
00:34:25.680
This is why we've got to cut the size of government and honestly cut the unions out of government.
00:34:32.680
Over 60% of TSA workers now say the lazy ones are just coasting and that's killing morale.
00:34:43.980
Unions are pissed because Trump said, nah, we're not doing that.
00:34:52.600
Okay, first of all, you work for the government.
00:34:54.200
So, you don't really have workers' rights like everybody else outside of the government.
00:35:09.200
He said it cannot happen in the federal government.
00:35:13.340
1937, he writes that public unions are a no-go because they don't bargain with the boss.
00:35:22.880
He said when they slack or strike, we're the ones that end up paying the price.
00:35:37.160
200 TSA union reps are chilling and they're just like, you know what?
00:35:42.240
What can we do to make this job easier and the unions stronger in TSA?
00:35:47.380
They're talking about that while you're barefoot holding your toothpaste in a baggie, missing your flight.
00:36:05.520
We have 7 million people that work for the government.
00:36:20.720
Now, what is the rate of unionization in the private sector, in the real world?
00:36:41.700
And the politicians don't care because it's not their cash.
00:37:08.980
You got a full-time job, but you also have to do the Uber thing.
00:37:11.660
Half of your paycheck is feeding a machine that doesn't even work.
00:37:23.280
Let me go back to our first principles, the Constitution.
00:37:26.460
It says, government serves of the people, by the people, for the people.
00:37:39.420
Where's the part about us funding union reps over our security?
00:37:47.980
It's not even in an article in the New York Times.
00:37:53.020
When the TSA cares more about job security than America's security or your security,
00:38:04.000
You've had your shoes off, laptop out, praying your water bottle doesn't get cavity searched.
00:38:14.200
We've got to make sure you don't have another one in your butt.
00:38:24.560
50,000 screeners, $8 billion a year, 432 airports, safety first, right?
00:38:36.980
How many times do you stand in line and go, you know what?
00:38:50.460
They miss fake bombs and fake guns 70% of the time.
00:39:14.020
Now they're only missing 30%, sorry, finding 30% of them.
00:39:22.120
You are more likely to be groped than protected in those lines.
00:39:29.260
Now, there's two airports that are doing things differently.
00:39:35.880
But San Francisco and Kansas City, those airports are the only two that are privatized.
00:40:00.820
You know, the ones that are finding the guns and the bombs.
00:40:03.840
Because private companies cannot afford to suck like this.
00:40:15.140
We let a bomb get on an airport, on an airplane.
00:40:24.460
However, if a private airport can outdo what the federal government is doing everywhere else,
00:40:42.040
If they miss a bomb at one of those two airports and it goes off on a plane,
00:40:47.440
do you think the people, the plane, the airplanes, the airlines,
00:40:56.240
do you think they get sued out of their mind and they go out of business
00:41:00.420
because they hired a firm that was missing a bomb?
00:41:06.200
So they're incentivized to make sure no bombs get on that plane.
00:41:10.300
The government, are you going to sue the government?
00:41:17.960
Why is your tax money funding a TSA that fails when the San Francisco airport thrives?
00:41:34.900
No airline in the country would allow 70% of the bombs and the fake guns getting through.
00:41:48.100
But the government's like, ah, and they cash the check.
00:41:54.280
This is why our founder, they wanted a lean machine.
00:41:57.340
Madison said in Federalist 51, power hoarding kills republics.
00:42:15.620
Rome collapsed when the bureaucrats got too comfy.
00:42:27.680
Britain's empire wobbled until it slashed its payroll.
00:42:32.120
We have 7 million government workers, more than the populations of 38 states.
00:42:47.200
Our government workers total more than the population of 38 different states.
00:43:05.040
Trump went in and he said, we're cutting your union contract.
00:43:11.620
You're not having these employees spend their whole day trying to figure out how they can make the union stronger.
00:43:17.740
We want every employee looking at how we can make our safety better.
00:43:43.200
What they're doing is, they're negotiating with the politicians, but the politicians aren't the ones spending the money.
00:44:03.820
Because the one that's actually, the one that's paying the salaries isn't represented there.
00:44:14.420
You can't unionize against your boss and your customers.
00:44:45.980
Take the federal government and slash it to 3.5.
00:44:50.980
Have you ever worked for a company that is dying?
00:44:53.620
A company that is out of business if they don't do things drastically different?
00:45:04.100
To save it and to save the employees that we can, because we'll all be out of jobs, you've got to slash and you're going to have some chaos.
00:45:39.980
Why is your tax bill propping up paper pushers?
00:45:49.840
Kansas City and San Francisco, they do it better.
00:46:03.000
You'd rather breeze through than beg some fed to hurry up, right?
00:46:07.680
You'd rather have it done right, competently, and somebody that you can hold responsible.
00:46:13.460
You know, Coolidge was one of the greatest presidents of the 20th century.
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He said, no, there's no striking against the public.
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We're going after efficiency, competence, security.
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so you can enjoy the creative freedom of designing your site just the way you want.
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Talk with AI to create a beautiful site together.
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Whatever your business, manage it from one place
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Gear up for success with a brand that says you best.