The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program ｜ Guest： Jon Ronson ｜ 9⧸2⧸26

00:00:00.000 On today's podcast, there was something that is said at the closing arguments for the Charlie Kirk pre-murder trial, and it really stuck out.

00:00:10.400 It was from the defense, and it was the word true.

00:00:16.420 I think we should stop and look at that word in that context for a moment.

00:00:20.960 And also, John Ronson, one of my favorite authors, the guy who did Ministeric Goats, he's written so many great, great books and movies.

00:00:30.360 He's got a new one called The Castle that is absolutely outrageous.

00:00:33.860 I started reading it the other day, and it is so good.

00:00:37.700 You're not going to be able to put this book down, and it talks about men who have lost their way and how lost they can be, especially if they follow the algorithm.

00:00:48.940 And we also talked to you about what happened yesterday in Congress, both left and right,

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00:01:06.340 And we need to talk about that right now.

00:01:09.160 And we do on today's podcast.

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00:02:13.060 let me take you now to uh uh to provo um one of the defense attorneys that the the um the judge

00:02:33.320 said the case can go to trial on every count this is for charlie kirk uh his killer and what the

00:02:39.500 defense attorney said out loud

00:02:41.140 with his wife

00:02:43.560 sitting there is

00:02:45.140 and I want you to think what is the

00:02:47.460 one word that sticks out to you

00:02:49.340 this is what he said with everybody listening

00:02:51.200 cameras on it is

00:02:53.300 true that Mr. Kirk spoke

00:02:54.920 hatefully of certain groups of

00:02:57.240 people then he itemized it

00:02:59.400 you know people whose gender identity

00:03:01.140 doesn't conform people who aren't

00:03:03.120 you know strictly heterosexual people

00:03:05.240 you know have sex outside of marriage

00:03:07.400 uh what what word sticks out there and i got it i have to tell you richard novak who is the

00:03:16.440 you know the attorney he's just making a motive argument okay the state says robinson killed

00:03:22.420 charlie because of his relationship with his roommate novak's point is that the prosecution

00:03:27.260 has exactly one text message and nothing else nothing on the phone nothing on the computer

00:03:32.420 nothing in the apartment and you can't build a motive out of a single sentence that that's a

00:03:37.000 legitimate argument, and it's his job to make it. And the judge, to be fair, agreed with the

00:03:44.200 standard at this stage is only reasonable, okay? What's the word, however, that sticks out? Because

00:03:51.480 he didn't build it that way. He could have said the state only has one, you know, text and nothing

00:03:57.860 else. He said that too. But what else did he say? What word carried all the weight?

00:04:08.860 Here it is. It is true that Mr. Kirk spoke hatefully of certain groups of people. It is

00:04:17.780 true. True? Not the state alleges, not Mr. Robinson may have believed, but true. Stated as a finding

00:04:30.100 on the record in front of the widow about a man who can't stand up and answer for himself in a

00:04:35.180 proceeding where nobody is on the stand to test it. It is true. And you know what? This is such

00:04:41.520 a scumbag move. It's the oldest move there is against a dead man. You don't say he deserved

00:04:46.280 it, you say, well, killing him is explainable. And you put the reason in the victim's mouth

00:04:52.240 and let the jury pool do the arithmetic on its own time, because this is true. No, it

00:04:57.660 is not. No, it is not. And you know what keeps us arguing with each other? People are

00:05:07.880 on our own side. The loudest voices insisting that Tyler Robinson didn't do it are not on

00:05:13.640 the left candace owens she has spent a year telling her audience he's innocent then what

00:05:20.900 last month month before she publicly offered her folder of material to his defense team

00:05:26.060 she says the federal government is lying about everything she suggested people inside of turning

00:05:31.260 point including charlie's widow is just you know uh perpetrating a cover-up on this she spent

00:05:37.100 months pointing at israel and then in a live stream debate in august conceded well i can't

00:05:43.180 really prove that. I can't say Israel shot him. Okay, wait, what? Now here's the real proof in

00:05:49.900 this pudding. Robinson's own defense lawyers are not touching her file. They filed their motions

00:05:57.700 without one word of what she had. In a court, they went out of their way to put distance between

00:06:04.960 themselves and the theories. The men trying to save the defendant from the death sentence looked

00:06:10.080 at all the material and went yeah there's nothing really there okay that should end the conversation

00:06:15.340 but it won't because there will be people people who will take this and it'll probably get in front

00:06:19.320 of Candace and then she'll use it I don't really care I really don't care you know who cares

00:06:24.400 because that was never about Charlie and what I'm talking to you is about Charlie

00:06:31.220 it's about Charlie

00:06:33.840 Charlie

00:06:37.540 turning point the president

00:06:39.720 the party the coalition

00:06:42.400 every one of them have been a target

00:06:44.660 ever since Charlie died

00:06:46.240 and from our side

00:06:47.440 and a movement that spends the next

00:06:50.540 14 months fighting itself

00:06:52.800 over who

00:06:54.440 really did it is a movement

00:06:56.140 that doesn't really have to be

00:06:58.580 beaten in November

00:07:00.280 It's being handled internally already.

00:07:08.320 Not everybody involved are grifters, okay?

00:07:12.820 A lot of them are grieving.

00:07:15.540 And a lot of people don't believe institutions anymore.

00:07:19.160 And I have to tell you, with good reason,

00:07:21.460 I've spent years telling you not to trust certain institutions.

00:07:26.620 Some good cause.

00:07:27.420 FBI, I think you've earned that.

00:07:29.440 when you've been lied to enough times they're lying to you about this too starts to feel like

00:07:36.560 wisdom instead of the shortcut that it is but it is a shortcut a widow with her head in her hands

00:07:43.700 is not a suspect a father who called the police on his own son is not an actor and just asking

00:07:51.880 questions stop being questions the moment you offer to hand your file over to the man's defense

00:07:58.080 are we ever going to wake up to see

00:08:06.920 that there is actual evil in the world

00:08:10.360 and be able to spot it

00:08:13.680 are we ever going to be able to look at the same thing

00:08:16.860 ever again and go that's evil

00:08:18.980 without somebody on our own side

00:08:21.920 that we used to consider friends

00:08:24.100 looking at the same thing

00:08:27.700 and going no you're evil what there is evil in this story some of it is on a rooftop some of it

00:08:38.440 is in a lawyer telling a room full of people that hatred that charlie had hatred was true

00:08:47.700 and that that hatred was a fair description of the dead man and some of it's on our own side

00:08:54.820 of the aisle, on our own platforms, being monetized, while a family waits for a jury.

00:09:05.860 We have to be able to start holding more than one thing at a time. There's three things.

00:09:10.740 All those thoughts need to be held at once. And we have to do it. We have to do it, or

00:09:16.600 we don't make it let me tell you about what's happening in boston into the fourth day the jury

00:09:32.020 in plymouth sent the judge a note yesterday they can't reach a decision okay there was a gasp in

00:09:39.620 the courtroom judge william sullivan reminded the trial had run more than 80 witnesses more than 300

00:09:45.820 exhibits and ask you got to go back out okay you got to work you got to work on this more you can't

00:09:52.460 just give up they work six more hours and then asked to go home they're more this morning they're

00:09:56.360 back day five 23 hours of deliberation on this case that took five weeks to try three children

00:10:03.940 are dead Cora was five Dawson was three Callan was eight months old and their mother has never

00:10:09.340 denied the killing now everyone outside the room is now apparently an expert on what is happening

00:10:14.240 inside and let me tell you something nobody knows anything I don't know anything nobody knows

00:10:19.220 anything stop going to these people who are telling you I know exactly what's going no they

00:10:24.940 don't are they in the room Monday the jurors came uh dressed up colored shirts one man in a tie

00:10:33.300 dresses and there was one outlet that reported that two of the women were wearing pink now that's

00:10:39.600 what her supporters are wearing is pink and that went everywhere it was on x within an hour or so

00:10:45.820 it's proof the jury is compromised an nbc reporter who i don't know nbc is not you know a truth

00:10:52.760 teller in my book but i don't know might be telling the truth this time said there was no juror in

00:10:57.500 pink so we have an unverified observation assigned a motive that nobody can see producing a verdict

00:11:05.300 that nobody has heard, and that's where we are.

00:11:07.760 We're reading clothing because clothing is all we're allowed to read right now.

00:11:14.820 And where we're all getting wrong here is the shape of the question.

00:11:17.940 It is not guilty or innocence.

00:11:20.040 The jury has five choices, first degree, second degree, murder, manslaughter,

00:11:24.560 which the judge added before the very end, before the case went back out,

00:11:29.240 not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility, and not guilty.

00:11:35.300 Okay, so a deadlock doesn't mean six people think she's a murderer and six thinks she's sick.

00:11:41.540 It may mean that 12 people agree she was sick, but can't agree on how sick.

00:11:49.160 In Massachusetts, the burden runs the other way for most of the country.

00:11:53.200 The defense team doesn't have to prove she was insane.

00:11:56.160 The Commonwealth has to prove she was criminally responsible beyond a reasonable doubt.

00:12:01.700 one juror that can't get there that's enough okay you know how we used to do this because

00:12:08.840 you're thinking this is a flawed system you know how we used to do this

00:12:11.380 in September in September 1670 356 years ago this week at the old Bailey in London that's

00:12:24.560 our big courthouse the old courthouse in London the government had padlocked the Quaker meeting

00:12:29.460 house on Grace Church Street. So the Quakers gathered in the street outside and preached

00:12:34.260 anyway. Two men were arrested. One of them was 25 years old. The charge was unlawful assembly.

00:12:42.400 And the jury came back and said the men had spoken in the street, but they wouldn't call

00:12:47.160 the assembly unlawful. So the judge sent them back. They came back with the same answer.

00:12:52.480 so he told him you know what no food no water no fire no tobacco you bring a verdict in this

00:13:00.020 court will accept or you'll starve for it two nights locked in a room no food nothing

00:13:06.280 the young defendant the 25 year old shouted across the courtroom to them

00:13:11.540 you're Englishmen mind your privilege give not away your right one of the jurors a man

00:13:18.100 named Edward Bushell called back, nor shall we ever do. It's pretty dramatic for 1670.

00:13:26.480 Third morning, they came out not guilty. The judge fined every one of them and sent them to prison

00:13:32.560 until they paid. Bushell wouldn't pay. He filed for habeas corpus from a cell. That November,

00:13:39.720 the chief justice of the court of common pleas ruled that the jury cannot be punished for its

00:13:44.300 verdict. That's where it used to be. A judge may try to open a juror's eyes, but he can't lead him

00:13:50.100 by the nose. The 25-year-old that they refused to convict, he left England. He sailed west.

00:13:59.480 He founded Pennsylvania. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written

00:14:04.840 in his city, named after him, by men who could meet there because 12 strangers went hungry for

00:14:12.640 two nights rather than say a thing that they didn't believe. The man was William Penn,

00:14:18.560 the founder of Pennsylvania. So Massachusetts has a tool for a jury that won't move.

00:14:27.660 Because before William Penn, it was starve them out until they come to a conclusion.

00:14:35.160 Everywhere it's called the dynamite charge. It tells jurors that no future jury will be able

00:14:41.000 be better equipped uh than they are that the evidence will never be clearer than it is and

00:14:47.540 it's desirable that this case be decided judge sullivan hasn't read it yet but he might today

00:14:53.200 that instruction is is what you shall starve for it became same purpose better manners but there's

00:15:01.160 a limit he can send them back but not more than twice unless they agree to it and if they still

00:15:07.060 can't agree it's a mistrial now mistrial is not an acquittal turning 65 feels like you've been

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00:15:35.600 comes in they don't just hand you options they look at your doctors your prescriptions your

00:15:40.280 needs and they help you find a plan that actually works for you over the last year they have helped

00:15:45.700 people in this audience save 1.5 million dollars just by finding better fitting plans and it's

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00:16:01.700 call us free. They've helped thousands in my audience and they can help you to dial pound

00:16:06.520 250. Say the keyword chapter. It's pound 250 keyword chapter. Now back to the podcast. This

00:16:13.820 is the best of the Glenn Beck program. John, always good to talk to you. This is a crazy book.

00:16:21.700 It is right. It's a delight to be here. Thank you for that fulsome introduction. And yes,

00:16:26.940 this is a crazy ass story hey you you start in because this is your son this is your only

00:16:34.560 son right yes and your son calls you and says hey i think if i'm not mistaken he texts you

00:16:42.460 a location and a picture of him in this location because he's like just in case you need to find

00:16:49.000 a body later i'm a little concerned of where we've ended up and so he tells you the story

00:16:55.200 and you go and investigate and it's tell the story this is the opening chapter tell the story

00:17:00.720 sure okay so this is a story that crashed unannounced into my life i'm asleep and i wake

00:17:06.980 up and it's a series of texts of my son uh so i read the last text first and i guess i can't swear

00:17:12.380 so i will paraphrase the last text uh he was swearing in in fear he texted something like

00:17:19.260 it's okay that was very frightening but we left and we're okay now so then I frantically

00:17:26.080 so then I frantically read all the other texts and it turns out that him and three friends have

00:17:31.340 been invited to a party being held by a stranger that one of them had met earlier that week on

00:17:37.860 tinder so they drive to the stranger's house it's in the forests of connecticut and they pull up

00:17:44.440 And this guy's house is a massive newly built castle with towers and turrets, way too many turrets.

00:17:54.140 This would be ostentatious even by Count Dracula's standard.

00:17:59.700 I looked it up, man.

00:18:01.560 I saw the – it's crazy.

00:18:03.520 It is nuts.

00:18:05.120 Yeah.

00:18:05.340 Yeah.

00:18:06.060 Think, you know, think ostentatious Gothic castle, but then like times that by 10.

00:18:12.440 And it's in a normal neighborhood, if I'm not mistaken.

00:18:15.300 You're driving down the road and it's generally normal.

00:18:17.720 And then this appears.

00:18:19.900 It's like ranch home, ranch home, unbelievable castle, ranch home.

00:18:27.560 And they can't figure out why they can't sell the place.

00:18:29.660 But anyway, I digress.

00:18:31.020 Go ahead.

00:18:32.040 So they cross the drawbridge and enter the Grand Banqueting Hall to discover that there's no party.

00:18:39.480 there's just a small number of equally bewildered looking young people standing awkwardly around

00:18:45.000 so the castle owner comes out and they say to him i'm sorry but where's the party and he said oh no

00:18:51.460 i've invited you here for another reason i want you all to take part in my reality show so they

00:18:59.340 said what's the name of your reality show he said it's called 101 princesses so they said what's

00:19:05.220 the core concept he said i'm the king i'm looking for my queen i've got 101 princesses to choose

00:19:11.480 from and then he said go downstairs to my basement costume room put on some princess costumes he said

00:19:17.980 this to the women in my son's party and then come back upstairs so they went downstairs stop stop

00:19:25.060 stop stop did you have a at this point i'm looking at my son and saying what the hell is wrong with

00:19:31.940 you and your friends that's when you turn around and you leave what's happening definitely poor

00:19:38.980 choice and i was i was asleep and oblivious while all of this happened i was unable to help right

00:19:46.500 right right so yeah so i guess poor choice number one was um not turning around when they got to

00:19:52.660 the great iron gates right um poor choice number two was going down to the basement right dressing

00:19:58.720 up as princesses i've got to say though if they had turned around i wouldn't have a book to write

00:20:03.620 about so i am right in a way it's recklessness and in fact that becomes part of this story

00:20:10.480 about how i'll get hopefully i'll get onto that in a second so they go downstairs the women put

00:20:15.760 on princess outfits they go back upstairs a videographer appears filming begins but they

00:20:22.480 become it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that this isn't a real reality show partly yeah

00:20:30.060 partly because the videographer was also had this other duty which was cutting up meat for the

00:20:34.940 castle owner had this huge slab of meat which is giving it pieces to the castle owner none of the

00:20:41.380 meat was offered to the princesses so they were kicked out after they refused to participate in

00:20:47.780 101 princesses but it's not a good idea to invite a journalist's son in fairness my son was the plus

00:20:54.540 one but still it's not it's not a great idea to invite a journalist's son to your forbidden

00:20:59.640 castle of mysteries right by the way he's leaving an awful lot of color out but this is again just

00:21:06.680 the first chapter he in the same chapter he now goes and is like hey dude what's the deal

00:21:13.900 and this is when it really again first chapter when it really gets weird yes so i go to the

00:21:23.200 castle um by the way i'm just out of hospital i think part of the reason why i went to the castle

00:21:28.200 was because i just had major surgery and i thought you know what you know i felt like life was passing

00:21:33.820 me by like oh you know you know i only have purpose in my life when i when i tell stories

00:21:39.160 So I felt desperate to go to this castle and, you know, fill my life with storytelling because that's better than major surgery, which meant that I was like, every time I moved in the wrong way, it would tear at my surgery skull and I'd like let out a shriek down his castle corridors like Quasimodo at Notre Dame.

00:21:56.540 So I'm like walking around the castle, moving in the wrong way, kind of going, ah, and asking him to explain what was going on.

00:22:05.260 So he says a couple of unwise things about how he brings women to the castle and adapts them to his lifestyle and so on.

00:22:14.700 Then he clearly regrets saying unwise things to a journalist because he gets out a piece of paper for me to sign and it's an NDA.

00:22:24.060 So I say no.

00:22:26.460 And so he puts the NDA back.

00:22:28.800 And I notice he has a whole pile of NDAs in his kitchen.

00:22:32.560 So who else was he getting to sign them and why?

00:22:36.380 So then I leave and he starts sending me very ominous messages.

00:22:41.420 He says he's going to sue me.

00:22:42.940 He has a team of investigators investigating everything about my life.

00:22:47.960 He says he has two murderers on his payroll called Carlos and Brandon.

00:22:53.780 And if I ever—and they're just out of prison for killing someone, even he's afraid of Carlos and Brandon.

00:23:00.240 And if I ever write anything negative about the castle, Carlos and Brandon will be very unhappy.

00:23:06.100 So this is chapter one.

00:23:07.400 And then you—well, wait, you forgot one part in the chapter.

00:23:10.640 You are called by, I guess, a friend of his who's not really a friend of his, who's trying to solve things, who's this older guy who's like, I just want to protect him, and you don't really know.

00:23:23.020 I mean, John, you've been to the Bohemian Grove, okay?

00:23:28.640 You were like, this is all nonsense, and you go and you're watching it, and you had to think to yourself, this is crazy when you're watching it.

00:23:35.360 You've done so many crazy things.

00:23:37.300 what was going through your mind with this thing you i mean this is one of the weirdest stories

00:23:45.900 i've ever heard and again it's chapter one yeah no i was kind of freaking out um because i've

00:23:53.020 never had a death threat before uh he did he did temper down the death threats after a while at

00:23:58.880 one point he texted me to say if you take my murder friends out for dinner i'll venmo you the

00:24:03.900 money uh so he was softening his uh his threats at that point um but i was just thinking about

00:24:10.700 what the hell is going on and i started talking to to some of the women who'd been to the castle

00:24:15.220 and and i pieced together the story it seemed that this guy um wanted to be hugh hefner at what is

00:24:24.160 the worst moment in human history to be hugh hefner you can't you can't lord over your princesses in

00:24:31.760 new castle it's never really been a good thing to be hugh hefner but this is the absolute you're

00:24:38.260 right the wrong time to try yeah yeah because all the women just immediately spoke to me you know

00:24:44.540 it was all and you know he he was constantly getting thwarted my son and his friends wouldn't

00:24:50.160 take part in 101 princesses um i heard he would like chase women around the castle for sex and

00:24:56.380 would constantly be getting thwarted so i just thought this is kind of funny actually like

00:25:00.680 on one level there's nothing immediately resonant about his story being a story about the

00:25:07.100 difficulties of luring women to a harrow in your castle in the post me too age but then i thought

00:25:13.620 you know what there's some weird resonances that he's a man out of time he's a man who's finding

00:25:19.720 out that he can't do the things that he used to do and i thought you know what there's a lot of

00:25:24.220 men like that now more sympathetic men men yeah yeah men who used to enjoy you know drive structure

00:25:30.540 meaning from factory work or office work,

00:25:33.260 and now all of those old structures are crumbling,

00:25:35.560 and instead they're being forced to become content creators

00:25:39.640 because that's, like, the only option open to them.

00:25:41.640 So the book becomes about other stories about people like that

00:25:44.760 while I continue to investigate life at the castle,

00:25:47.120 which is very weird.

00:25:48.600 Very weird.

00:25:49.360 But you write about Greg Chisholm,

00:25:53.160 who was a top lawn care influencer on YouTube,

00:25:57.380 that even that world just fell apart and flew apart.

00:26:05.480 Yeah, because he was chasing the algorithms like so many people do.

00:26:09.200 He was the lawn care goat.

00:26:10.860 He was YouTube's first and greatest lawn care influencer.

00:26:15.480 He would turn up at lawn care conventions

00:26:17.580 and it was like Rihanna had turned up.

00:26:20.680 People were like, oh my God, it's Greg Chisholm.

00:26:23.160 But unfortunately, he decided to chase the algorithms more and more.

00:26:28.780 YouTube were encouraging him to make more and more what they called WTF content.

00:26:34.500 So he started bringing his young daughters into the videos and he was doing these skits with his young daughters and it just got weirder and weirder and weirder.

00:26:42.380 All he was doing was following YouTube's incentive structure.

00:26:45.880 but it ended up, to cut a long story short,

00:26:49.020 with him and his two daughters doing skits

00:26:51.660 where they're all dressed as babies and eating pacifiers.

00:26:56.100 This is the kind of story that if you come to it at the end

00:26:58.320 and you see a guy and his two daughters dressed as babies

00:27:01.200 with pacifiers in them,

00:27:03.040 I was just thinking, what the hell?

00:27:05.060 But what I love about this story is that I'm with him

00:27:07.460 every step of the way and every decision he makes,

00:27:09.740 you can disagree with some of them,

00:27:10.940 but they make perfect sense.

00:27:12.720 But in following-

00:27:13.480 At the time.

00:27:14.320 At the time, yeah.

00:27:15.180 But in following YouTube's incentive structure, he ends up in this extreme place which ended up ruining his life.

00:27:24.420 So that's a look at the sort of false promise of these new structures that men are trying to fill their lives with.

00:27:31.360 So, I mean, we've gone from the Marlboro man to, you know, a guy with his daughters dressed as a baby with pacifiers in his mouth.

00:27:38.920 um speaking of the balbera man by the way i i interviewed a guy um i interviewed a guy who

00:27:44.980 specializes in playing doofuses and tv ads i'm sure you've noticed that when you turn on the tv

00:27:51.000 these days the ads are full of men who can't do anything right and have to be constantly bailed

00:27:56.340 up by their exasperated wives and i interviewed an actor who specializes in playing doofuses on tv

00:28:02.080 he's one of the only men in my book who's actually thriving uh he said he said to me

00:28:08.100 Yeah, but he had to do an advert for Shoal, the insoles people, and he's walking down the street

00:28:13.580 and he puts on a very comfortable pair of insoles and then he starts galloping like a horse down

00:28:18.880 the street and he had to look doofussy for that. So I said to him 50 years ago, you had the Marlborough

00:28:24.700 man being stoical and masculine on a horse and now you have to be the horse? And he was like, yep.

00:28:31.560 Truth is under attack in our culture.

00:28:35.540 People are embracing lies about gender.

00:28:37.560 They're rejecting the sanctity of every human life.

00:28:40.260 And the government is even punishing people for saying what's true and right.

00:28:44.100 Or worse, the woke mob is doxing them and slandering them with no due process.

00:28:48.580 Just an angry mob making their lives miserable or worse, putting families in real danger.

00:28:54.100 But the biblical principles on which our country was founded still matter.

00:28:57.840 Real patriots and Christians are beginning to stand up.

00:29:00.860 They're showing real courage without a safety net of a big bank account.

00:29:04.760 They're bolstered only by the truths that are self-evident.

00:29:08.160 But these people must be defended.

00:29:10.380 Alliance Defending Freedom is on the front lines of this fight.

00:29:13.320 And they're standing in courtrooms across the country upholding truth and your right to speak it.

00:29:17.720 Your gift to ADF will be matched by a special grant while the funds last.

00:29:21.900 Visit joinadf.com slash BEC or text BEC to 83848.

00:29:26.820 Visit joinadf.com slash Beck or text Beck to 83848.

00:29:32.800 You're streaming the best of Glenn Beck.

00:29:34.640 To hear more of this interview and others, download the full show podcasts wherever you get podcasts.

00:29:40.020 Welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

00:29:43.540 I want to talk to you about something that happened last night.

00:29:48.300 The House passed a resolution denouncing socialism.

00:29:52.340 200 to 20 to 192.

00:29:56.820 But the vote that mattered came hours earlier, and it was procedural.

00:30:03.520 And almost nobody outside of the building noticed.

00:30:07.000 Five Republicans, angry about how their own leadership handled a shutdown deal, voted against the rule.

00:30:14.740 The housekeeping measure that lets a bill reach the floor.

00:30:17.720 The rule was going to fail.

00:30:20.600 Then two Democrats voted for it.

00:30:22.460 Jared Golden of Maine, Marie, I think it's Gluzenkamp, Perez of Washington, 210 to 208.

00:30:33.860 Now, the Democratic leader, he put out a joint statement along with his whip in the caucus chair,

00:30:43.480 calling this a significant breach of trust that necessitates serious responses

00:30:49.820 and referred the two of them to the caucus rules committee a congressman from california told axios

00:30:55.740 he loves it that they have to draw a bright line and kick some ass or this will become the new

00:31:01.920 norm so in other words fall in line fall in line this is such this is such a grotesque day in

00:31:10.280 washington understand what this punishment is for this is not for the socialism vote

00:31:15.760 Golden and Glusenkamp Perez, which was the weirdest damn hyphenated name I've ever heard,

00:31:21.240 both say they voted for the rule because it carried a bill that Golden wrote to protect Maine lobstermen.

00:31:29.140 She has fishermen in her district, and Golden is retiring in a seat that he was never supposed to hold.

00:31:35.240 He said it would be absurd for leadership to expect him to vote against his own bill.

00:31:40.660 But you know what? It's happened before.

00:31:42.220 the party has an argument rules votes are team votes and both parties enforce that

00:31:48.520 well should they honestly i'm so tired of this game so the resolution was a messaging exercise

00:31:57.700 with a republican voter id build stapled to it which is what most democrats say they were voting

00:32:04.320 against, a non-binding resolution that doesn't change one law in the country. They, I suspect,

00:32:12.560 they didn't want to be on the record to have to vote against socialism. So all of that is true,

00:32:17.480 however, and 192 members of Congress still could not find a way to say no to socialism. That's

00:32:25.800 pretty amazing. Now, put that next to what everybody in Washington already assumes about

00:32:30.960 uh november i assume it's not going to go well democrats need three seats to take the house

00:32:38.840 the generic ballot that's been running six or seven points their way has been running that way

00:32:44.440 most of the summer but it's generic you know when you actually have to look at people and

00:32:50.180 when you say you know i want to change and i'd rather have a generic democrat

00:32:53.920 you could go okay i'd like the but when you put a name and a face to it you're like not that one

00:33:00.380 I like the generic one.

00:33:02.600 And that happens on both sides.

00:33:04.580 The Senate is harder because the math is different, but it is on the table.

00:33:11.040 And the reason is not socialism.

00:33:15.400 Pew just asked voters in July what they would most want to hear about, and it was prices.

00:33:21.260 People ask which party they trust on the economy, and it's 37 to 36.

00:33:25.800 So it's a coin flip.

00:33:26.900 A coin flip is a catastrophe if you're in power.

00:33:30.380 people are tired and they want normal

00:33:35.260 I read that from Ben Shapiro and he's right

00:33:40.280 they want normal and I thought oh my gosh are we in trouble

00:33:44.640 let me tell you a story we've been here before 1920 this

00:33:47.980 country was wrung out in a way that you know makes us look coddled right now

00:33:52.500 a war than a flu that killed more you know than the war

00:33:56.320 strikes bombs in the mail riots prices that were eating

00:34:00.160 a paycheck alive. You know, socialism and progressivism gone wild. So a newspaper man

00:34:08.580 from Ohio runs for president. He sits on the front porch in Marion, and he let the country

00:34:20.840 come to him. And he gave him a word. And he said, look, here's what Americans are looking for.

00:34:28.720 They're not looking for heroics right now.

00:34:30.940 They're looking for healing.

00:34:33.380 They're looking for normalcy.

00:34:36.160 Now, everybody made fun of him at the time.

00:34:39.080 They're like, you're making that word up.

00:34:40.380 There's no such word as normalcy.

00:34:42.380 And there is.

00:34:44.840 I mean, it's, you know, it's a math word, honestly.

00:34:49.640 He said, I looked it up in my dictionary, and it's there, and it is.

00:34:54.880 Normalcy is not a political word.

00:34:57.180 It's a math word.

00:34:58.160 It shows up in a dictionary of mathematics in the 1850s.

00:35:02.280 And in geometry, normal is a line standing at a right angle.

00:35:08.920 Normalcy meant the state of being square, as in square.

00:35:14.860 Latin root means carpenter's square.

00:35:20.420 So the most famous political promise of the 20th century came out of a toolbox.

00:35:26.120 Normalcy.

00:35:26.940 It's a square.

00:35:28.160 OK, he won 60 percent. Biggest landslide anyone had ever seen.

00:35:33.800 OK, in that same November, nearly a million Americans, one voter in 30, cast a ballot for a socialist.

00:35:42.200 And that socialist was sitting in federal prison in Atlanta serving 10 years for giving a speech.

00:35:47.940 He couldn't campaign. You know, his campaign buttons had his convict number on them printed on the campaign.

00:35:53.880 You know, same country, same election, largest landslide in American history for calm, and a million votes go for a man in prison denim.

00:36:09.480 Here's what we need to take from this.

00:36:12.680 Exhaustion is not moderation.

00:36:16.660 And I think that's what we keep getting wrong.

00:36:18.920 A tired country does not move to the center. It just moves away, and it moves away in any

00:36:29.440 direction that's open. That's the problem. That's 2020. You're sick of the noise, you're sick of

00:36:39.700 the politics, the back and forth, blah, blah, blah, so you voted in the quiet man in the basement.

00:36:44.740 you know i i'm tired of all of this stuff i just want i want normalcy just want to go back to

00:36:52.280 normal so you voted for the guy in the basement you got mandates and closures in a school year

00:36:56.860 that never came back a border you didn't recognize then we were exhausted again 2024

00:37:03.720 same voters same exhaustion opposite door because it was the open

00:37:08.920 And I fear it's going to be the same thing in 2026 unless something changes because they're not going for philosophy or ideology.

00:37:23.680 They're going for rest.

00:37:26.880 You know, when a man doing math in a grocery store, when he's doing the math in the grocery store, he's not being, that's not propaganda.

00:37:35.440 He's not being propagandized.

00:37:36.960 Okay.

00:37:38.240 He's doing math, and his arithmetic is right.

00:37:41.120 And no microphone, no propaganda beats arithmetic.

00:37:46.200 Not mine, not a cable news network, not the president's, nobody.

00:37:50.460 You can be entirely right about the direction of the country

00:37:54.040 and still lose to a receipt from the grocery store.

00:37:58.020 And I think that's what's happening.

00:37:59.740 what you can't argue with

00:38:06.980 is the assumption that the vote

00:38:08.860 only registers the receipt

00:38:10.680 it doesn't

00:38:11.580 it doesn't

00:38:13.420 it hands over the calendar

00:38:15.680 it hands the gavels

00:38:17.640 the committees

00:38:18.500 the judges

00:38:19.740 and those who don't come back

00:38:23.780 for two years

00:38:24.580 and sometimes 20 years

00:38:26.760 because

00:38:28.820 you're voting for normalcy

00:38:31.580 just like you did with Joe Biden

00:38:33.260 and we all said that's not normal

00:38:34.760 and then we voted for normalcy

00:38:37.260 with Donald Trump and it hasn't been

00:38:39.440 normal I've liked it but it hasn't been normal

00:38:41.560 now you're going to do

00:38:43.540 the same thing and you're going to vote for

00:38:45.320 normalcy which have you

00:38:47.420 looked at the candidates they're Marxists

00:38:49.180 that's not normal

00:38:50.100 you're not voting normal

00:38:53.240 back in

00:38:54.080 normal isn't a mood

00:39:01.160 you're voting in a program

00:39:06.560 the gender fights in your daughter's locker room

00:39:09.720 the masks and the closures

00:39:12.080 and the men who told you six feet was science

00:39:14.560 and then told you in meeting notes

00:39:16.220 that were classified

00:39:17.380 no that's not science at all

00:39:18.640 DEI written into the hiring of the company

00:39:21.020 where your son just applied

00:39:22.140 that's what you're getting

00:39:22.940 that's not normal

00:39:23.820 A foreign policy where important decisions get made at a conference in Davos by people who have never stood for an election anywhere on the planet.

00:39:38.780 That's not a warning about the future.

00:39:41.920 It's a receipt from five years ago.

00:39:44.500 And it's still in the drawer.

00:39:46.380 Do you remember it?

00:39:48.320 Do you remember it?

00:39:53.820 and Republicans, you don't get a pass.

00:39:57.680 Five Republicans nearly killed your own anti-socialism vote on Tuesday

00:40:01.620 because you were angry about a shutdown of negotiation.

00:40:04.980 You can't tell the country that the stakes are civilizational

00:40:09.260 and then hold your own vote hostage over a scheduling grievance.

00:40:16.100 Everybody's listening,

00:40:18.000 and they're listening to hear anyone

00:40:22.180 who is saying what they actually believe.

00:40:25.800 And then I'm listening to see, are they doing it?

00:40:29.040 Are they still saying that behind closed doors?

00:40:31.500 And that vote said you don't.

00:40:40.400 Harding was the president.

00:40:42.080 He became president after saying they're voting for normalcy, and they did.

00:40:45.840 Normalcy came off a Carpenter's Square.

00:40:48.980 But a square is not a place.

00:40:51.060 You can't go back to a place, and any man who promises you that he's going to take you back to that place is selling you something, and he's selling you something he doesn't have. Nobody does. Harding was dead in two years.

00:41:06.640 his administration became synonymous for corruption

00:41:12.840 a square is a tool

00:41:16.520 you hold the work up against the square

00:41:20.120 and you find out is that level

00:41:22.220 and is that true

00:41:23.760 we have one

00:41:26.660 it's a few pages long

00:41:28.780 and it starts with

00:41:30.860 all men are created equal

00:41:32.500 and endowed by their creator

00:41:33.820 the other square we have

00:41:36.400 starts with we the people.

00:41:43.080 That's our square.

00:41:44.680 Nobody's holding it up to see if it's normal,

00:41:49.100 if there's normalcy there.

00:41:51.080 Is it square? Is it true?

00:41:53.540 Nobody's doing that.

00:41:56.180 Every one of these fights,

00:41:58.100 the resolution, the punishment, the vote in November,

00:42:01.460 is a piece of work someone is holding up to the light

00:42:05.380 and telling you, it looks straight to me.

00:42:07.980 It looks straight.

00:42:13.160 I know it because I feel it every day.

00:42:15.100 God, I'd love to go back to normal.

00:42:16.660 I don't even know what that is anymore.

00:42:18.460 We're never going back there.

00:42:19.680 We can't.

00:42:20.440 We can't.

00:42:22.520 And the reason we can't is because we won't get our square out

00:42:28.060 and check to see what's true and what's not.

00:42:35.380 Madonna

The Glenn Beck Program - September 02, 2026

Best of the Program ｜ Guest： Jon Ronson ｜ 9⧸2⧸26

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