The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Benjamin Teitelbaum & David Sacks

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00:00:25.440 today. Conditions apply. Really important show today. Civil asset forfeiture. We have a woman 0.99

00:00:31.940 whose whose life has been destroyed. Why? Because a big company accused her husband of something.

00:00:40.020 DOJ never filed charges, but took all of their assets. Hour two of the podcast, something you're

00:00:47.400 not going to hear any place else. What did the language that Putin used in his speech tell us

00:00:53.840 about his next moves? Why is that important for us to learn? We have an expert on Putin and the

00:01:02.940 philosophy of the fourth political theory. Then the COO of PayPal warning us that what's happening

00:01:12.820 in Canada might be right around the corner here in America. Don't miss a second of today's podcast.

00:01:19.800 And don't miss tonight on Blaze TV. It's Studios America at 8 p.m. Eastern, followed by Glenn TV

00:01:25.680 at 9 p.m. Eastern. Really important one. This that we are exposing what may be the real reason why

00:01:34.620 they wouldn't talk about the money and China with COVID. It's going to be a fascinating one.

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00:01:50.900 Subscribe, rate and review. Here's the podcast.

00:01:59.900 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

00:02:03.760 Okay. Man alive. I'm I'm I'm looking at what's happening all over the world, including Russia. We have a take on Russia that you're not going to get anywhere else in an hour from now. It is something that I have been talking about internally and occasionally here on the program. But it is time for you to really understand this.

00:02:30.180 That's coming up next hour. We have we also have the the Chinese social score system that is now beginning here in America.

00:02:43.780 An expert on that coming up in hour number three. And this hour, I want to talk to Amy Nelson.

00:02:50.000 She is the founder, the Riveter. The FBI seized her family assets without any charges. 1.00

00:02:57.860 I got this letter last night. Glenn, I heard you mention my family this morning on your show.

00:03:01.900 I wanted to write and say thank you for noticing our story, which is almost unbelievable.

00:03:07.200 Two years ago, Amazon accused my husband of a crime called honest services fraud.

00:03:12.400 Although we now know that Amazon lawyers met with the DOJ 87 times in effect to persuade the government to charge my husband with a crime.

00:03:23.600 But no charges were ever filed. Nonetheless, the government seized our money via civil forfeiture forfeiture in May 2020.

00:03:33.780 We're just getting the money back last week.

00:03:37.200 I'm a trained litigator turned an entrepreneur, and this experience has been stunning at every turn.

00:03:45.580 We welcome to the program, Amy Nelson. Hello, Amy.

00:03:50.020 Hi, Glenn. Thanks so much for having me.

00:03:51.720 You bet. I'm sorry we didn't see your story earlier.

00:03:54.420 We just saw it this week and it is horrifying. Horrifying.

00:03:58.880 It is. It's, you know, I'll be honest.

00:04:01.140 I didn't really even know that civil forfeiture existed before this happened to my family.

00:04:05.620 Yeah. It is one of those things that everybody thinks it can't happen to them until it does.

00:04:11.540 And it is so unconstitutional and terrifying.

00:04:15.300 Tell me what happened.

00:04:17.040 It really is. So my husband worked at Amazon Web Services for seven years.

00:04:22.500 Amazon Web Services is a division of Amazon that really builds the Internet.

00:04:27.180 So the Internet lives in these big warehouses with server racks and people buy what are called instances on those server racks.

00:04:35.280 And that's Amazon Web Services. And it generates billions of dollars for Amazon every year.

00:04:40.360 And in fact, some of their biggest clients or maybe their biggest client is the government.

00:04:44.760 It's our intelligence community.

00:04:47.080 AWS serves the National Security Agency, the CIA, the FBI to the tune of billions of dollars every year in revenue for Amazon.

00:04:54.660 And my husband's job was supply.

00:04:58.260 He helped Amazon Web Services find real estate to build these data centers.

00:05:03.860 And he left AWS in 2019.

00:05:07.160 And in on April 2nd of 2020, we got a knock on our door around 645 a.m.

00:05:14.300 We lived in Seattle at the time and it was the FBI.

00:05:18.900 And that was the first time that we learned that a couple of months prior, Amazon had accused my husband of a crime called private sector honest services fraud,

00:05:28.860 which is depriving your private sector employer of your honest services.

00:05:34.220 And from there, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I want to make sure that's usually I mean, it's it's hard to prove in the private sector, in the public sector.

00:05:43.420 It's usually bribery or you're leaving out information.

00:05:48.280 You're profiting on a relationship without telling the other side.

00:05:52.220 Right.

00:05:52.940 Right.

00:05:53.200 It's usually I mean, it's usually used in the public sector where you have a politician who they say took a bribe to pass a bill.

00:05:59.960 Correct.

00:06:00.800 And it's I believe it's pretty rarely used in the private sector.

00:06:04.940 It is.

00:06:05.340 And in fact, it you know, it's been pared down very much.

00:06:09.420 They they charge skilling the CEO of Enron with private sector honest services fraud.

00:06:13.980 And that was actually overturned at the Supreme Court.

00:06:17.200 And it's it's hard.

00:06:18.360 I think the bounds of private sector honest services fraud, even the statute, they're very they're very.

00:06:22.520 They're still kind of unknown and being shaped.

00:06:24.160 They're treated differently all over the country.

00:06:27.720 But we Amazon had never approached my husband about their allegations.

00:06:32.500 They never asked him about anything.

00:06:34.300 They just went to the Department of Justice.

00:06:36.420 So what was it they were saying he was doing?

00:06:39.680 So, you know, it's we've actually never seen the allegations.

00:06:43.500 Everything remains under seal.

00:06:45.860 So we don't know exactly what Amazon said to the government.

00:06:48.980 But what we understand.

00:06:51.260 Yeah, it's I mean, it's just like stepping back.

00:06:53.800 Right.

00:06:53.980 For years, we had all of our money taken and we have no idea what Amazon said happened.

00:06:58.580 Well, I mean, don't you have a right to face your accuser?

00:07:01.380 Don't you?

00:07:01.840 I mean, you can't know why the government took your money.

00:07:05.000 Well, the way the process works.

00:07:07.620 So, you know, my husband has never been charged with a crime.

00:07:10.640 So he doesn't have a right to face his accuser because he's never been charged by the Department of Justice with a crime.

00:07:16.480 Now, when they took the money via civil forfeiture, the way it is meant to work is if they take your money via civil forfeiture and then they do not indict you with a crime.

00:07:25.180 The government has to file a civil lawsuit against your bank account and the bank account is a defendant.

00:07:30.540 Now, the government did that here, but then immediately after they filed that civil lawsuit, they asked the court to stay, which means to pause the civil lawsuit, because they said, well, we can't possibly litigate this because we have a secret criminal investigation.

00:07:46.960 And so we've just been in that we were in a cycle for years where we could see the allegations.

00:07:52.100 We couldn't even cite the allegations because we didn't know what they were.

00:07:56.820 This is so evil, so evil.

00:07:59.840 This is this is putting people this is reversing American justice.

00:08:04.820 You are guilty until proven innocent. 0.91

00:08:07.980 It is sick.

00:08:10.360 I mean, it it really is.

00:08:12.520 And I will say, you know, I have learned through this experience, which has impacted my husband's career and in a measurable way, impacted my career.

00:08:19.380 I'm just his wife, but it's impacted my career in an immeasurable way as well.

00:08:24.100 In America, I very much feel that you are guilty when accused unless and until you can prove yourself innocent and you have to pay to do that.

00:08:34.940 And I think that's something we really need to consider about our process.

00:08:37.520 And I think the other thing, Glenn, that's completely horrifying about this.

00:08:41.280 This is an allegation made by a private company about private contracts related to private employment terms.

00:08:49.100 And can anybody walk into the DOJ and do that?

00:08:52.300 If I'm Amy that owns a hardware store, can I walk into the DOJ and say, I believe my employee did X, Y or Z in the DOJ?

00:08:59.420 They will jump.

00:09:00.680 They will just take my word and move.

00:09:02.920 I don't think so.

00:09:04.320 I don't think so.

00:09:05.420 I don't know, but I don't think so.

00:09:07.600 You know, what I know to be true is that Amazon has an incredibly close relationship to the Department of Justice and to our intelligence community.

00:09:14.820 And it's very frightening.

00:09:17.460 How much does this cost you?

00:09:21.040 We have spent probably a million dollars.

00:09:24.560 And where did you get that million dollars?

00:09:26.920 I mean, they took, how much did they take from you?

00:09:31.000 So they took around $875,000.

00:09:35.900 Now, they took most of that from our lawyer's client trust account.

00:09:40.780 We had sent money to our attorneys to pay for legal fees.

00:09:44.880 And the government went into our lawyer's bank account and took it.

00:09:48.760 How is that possible?

00:09:50.840 I mean, I don't know.

00:09:52.180 Honestly, I don't know.

00:09:53.060 But our lawyers had already billed a significant, had billed against those funds.

00:09:59.720 And so they repaid our lawyers what they had already billed.

00:10:02.580 So that was how we, you know, that's how we paid for this at the beginning.

00:10:05.740 And then we, you know, my husband and I are in our 40s.

00:10:10.860 We're professionals.

00:10:11.660 We've worked our entire lives.

00:10:14.360 And so my husband was able to keep working until the allegations became very public.

00:10:20.360 So, you know, we were able to keep earning money.

00:10:22.760 I was still earning money.

00:10:24.340 And then we had to sell everything.

00:10:26.120 We sold our house, which we had worked very hard for the down payment for, and where we had planned to raise our four little girls.

00:10:32.500 We sold our car, we liquidated our retirement fund, and we borrowed some money from our friends and family.

00:10:39.420 Is there anybody that is talking to you about suing Amazon?

00:10:44.880 You know, I think there are a lot of people out there who think we have a lot of causes of action against Amazon.

00:10:50.600 I can actually tell you, Glenn, that we did sue Amazon, or my husband, rather, sued Amazon in Washington state court.

00:10:56.960 And he won.

00:10:57.580 And my husband sued Amazon.

00:11:01.340 So one thing that Amazon did that I haven't mentioned is after Amazon had been lobbying for criminal charges for many months, and no indictment or charges had ensued, but Amazon knew the government had seized our money.

00:11:13.720 Then Amazon sued my husband in federal court in Virginia.

00:11:16.420 So after they couldn't get the DOJ to bring charges, but after they knew that we had no money, they sued him, which is very cruel.

00:11:24.500 And I think it's a complete manipulation of the criminal system.

00:11:30.120 What happened to that case?

00:11:32.160 So that case, Amazon sued my husband, and then they didn't move their case forward for years.

00:11:36.760 They let it sit there until another defendant in the lawsuit forced Amazon into discovery.

00:11:42.700 So we are now in discovery, which is, you know, Glenn, as we're sharing facts about the allegations and our depositions of the Amazon executives, my husband's depositions of the Amazon executives who accused him of these crimes will begin next week, actually.

00:11:58.900 And, you know, these real estate transactions at issue were approved by very senior level, the highest level at Amazon.

00:12:07.020 And so there'll be some interesting depositions, I think, where my husband can finally face his accusers and understand what happened.

00:12:14.420 But circling back to this lawsuit in Virginia, Amazon made my husband sign an employment contract that said that they would litigate any disputes in Washington State, where my husband lived, where my husband worked, where Amazon is headquartered.

00:12:27.900 But Amazon threw it out the window and sued him in Virginia, because that was where they were seeking criminal charges.

00:12:34.220 But wait, but how is that possible?

00:12:37.100 I mean, I have contracts.

00:12:38.860 If anything, if anybody litigates on any of my contracts, it is here in Texas.

00:12:44.560 If I litigate, it's here in Texas.

00:12:47.660 That's, I mean, that's common.

00:12:50.340 Frankly, I think that Amazon thinks they're so big, and they have so much money that no one can go up against them.

00:12:54.960 I truly believe Amazon thought, you know, Glenn, 97% of people accused of a federal crime plead guilty, because it's terrifying, because they can't afford to defend themselves, because perhaps the government will use civil forfeiture against them.

00:13:09.680 Perhaps they will, you know, lobby any other number of threats.

00:13:12.920 And so I believe, I believe, when Amazon accused my husband of a crime, they just believed that would be that, and that they would never have to prove any facts.

00:13:21.880 Because if you plead guilty, you don't have to, the accusers don't have to prove anything, right?

00:13:28.000 There's no trial.

00:13:29.040 They don't have to actually explain what happened.

00:13:31.420 So I believe that was Amazon's bet when they started this.

00:13:34.140 And it's a good bet, right?

00:13:35.220 It's a good bet, not because of the truth, but because 97% of people plead guilty when accused.

00:13:41.360 And Amazon is represented by a former federal prosecutor who worked in the district in Virginia where they're seeking charges.

00:13:46.980 And I can imagine that that former federal prosecutor perhaps knows current prosecutors in Virginia and could call them up and ask for some help.

00:13:54.900 But so we sued, my husband sued Amazon in Washington State for breaching the employment contract, and he won.

00:14:03.040 The judge in Washington State said, you know, I learned in the first year of law school that if you want to breach a contract, you can, but that doesn't mean you're not going to pay for it.

00:14:12.480 Right.

00:14:13.380 So we won that, which is, you know, great.

00:14:16.920 But I think, you know, there are other causes of action that I think my husband will have against Amazon.

00:14:22.160 I hope so.

00:14:22.740 So, Amy, what can people do to help?

00:14:27.640 Well, we would love your help.

00:14:28.860 You know, we're waging this battle still against Amazon in civil court.

00:14:32.880 It's costing an enormous amount of money because Amazon is fighting discovery for the lawsuit that they brought.

00:14:38.820 And so we have, we're raising money at a website called nelsonsfightamazon.com.

00:14:44.520 And we would love your help.

00:14:45.720 And we'd also just love help in civil forfeiture reform.

00:14:48.060 So the government should not be able to take money and call it a crime without affording someone the ability to fight back.

00:14:55.360 It's nelsonsfightamazon.com.

00:14:59.140 Correct.

00:15:00.200 Okay.

00:15:01.200 Good for you, Amy.

00:15:03.320 Thank you.

00:15:04.320 God bless.

00:15:05.160 Please keep us up to date on this story.

00:15:07.760 I'd really like to follow it.

00:15:08.840 So anything you can share, let us know next week, will you?

00:15:13.340 I will.

00:15:13.960 Thank you very much.

00:15:14.660 Thank you.

00:15:16.700 nelsonsfightamazon.com.

00:15:17.900 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck Program.

00:15:33.180 Benjamin Teitelbaum.

00:15:34.900 He is the author of War for Eternity.

00:15:38.100 He is also associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.

00:15:42.560 Normally, I would say, warning, just from the book and that he's a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.

00:15:54.040 However, I've talked to Benjamin several times over the last, I think it's the last year.

00:15:59.380 Maybe it's been longer than that.

00:16:00.520 He is watching something and very concerned about something that I am concerned about, and that is the influence of traditionalism as really defined by Alexander Dugan, a very, very dangerous guy who is actually calling for Armageddon.

00:16:20.600 He actually believes that that's the thing that's going to solve all of our problems.

00:16:26.860 And I guess in a way he's right, but I don't think the way he's trying to pull it together.

00:16:32.740 Benjamin, can I call you Ben or Benjamin?

00:16:35.280 Ben, please.

00:16:36.140 Glenn, it's a pleasure to be with you this morning.

00:16:37.800 Thank you very much.

00:16:38.780 I know we've talked about doing this show for a long time, and we may have to cut this into two shows and then maybe even a podcast as well.

00:16:45.980 But I want you to let's start with Putin's speech and what he said that I think only a few people really can pick up on that know what who Alexander Dugan is and what his plan is.

00:17:01.960 So tell me what we learned from Putin's speech.

00:17:05.720 If you listen, and good morning again, Glenn, it's a pleasure to be with you.

00:17:10.100 If you listen to that whole speech, you could come away from it thinking that this was all about kind of dry policy decision making on his part.

00:17:19.000 He spends a lot of time talking about the economy of Ukraine, spends a lot of time talking about the history of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party, some of the policy decisions that he thinks that they made wrong and need to be corrected.

00:17:30.400 But at the very beginning of that speech, he said something almost in passing that, yes, would, I think, go by unnoticed for a lot of listeners.

00:17:41.300 And that he said that Ukrainians and Russians have a spiritual bond between the two of them.

00:17:48.840 And that tells me, and it should tell a lot of observers, that Putin is thinking in two ways, and he's motivating himself in two ways.

00:17:57.420 There is this, again, this dry, almost technical policy-based discussion and motivation he's trying to push to the Russian people to say, well, we have to do this because NATO is going to come to our borders.

00:18:10.780 Ukraine perhaps has nuclear ambitions.

00:18:13.700 We have to deal with that.

00:18:14.680 The other piece, though, is that Russia has a sort of spiritual mandate to collect its lost children and to unite itself with the populations around the world that are its natural kin.

00:18:31.740 That is what stands out to me as I hear this, and that is what also makes this particular situation that we're dealing with today actually about something far much bigger and much more intractable, I would say, as well.

00:18:45.600 Okay, so let's talk about Dugan and just define traditionalism.

00:18:50.200 This is something that if you read the fourth political theory, there are times that you will read it and go, yeah, I kind of agree with that.

00:19:02.200 Because I think this is what Brexit is about.

00:19:05.400 I think this is what some Canadians feel.

00:19:08.180 I think this is what some Americans.

00:19:09.340 All over the world, people are feeling like, hey, you know, I'm French, and, you know, I think France is pretty great, and I'd like to be French, and I'm not embarrassed about France.

00:19:21.540 Same thing with Brexit.

00:19:22.980 They want to be British. 0.99

00:19:24.480 It's this feeling that we are being told that our traditions and our country is not good, doesn't have anything special about it.

00:19:36.680 And people are pushing back on that.

00:19:38.760 All of our traditions are being threatened.

00:19:42.740 That part of his definition of traditionalism is, I think, something that connects with people all around the world.

00:19:51.600 But that's not what it means, correct?

00:19:55.360 That's just a small piece of it.

00:19:57.380 And sometimes, you know, when we're exploring ideas, details matter.

00:20:01.780 Yeah.

00:20:01.880 You can have a sort of doctrine that is appealing in a lot of senses, but a small detail can turn into something sinister.

00:20:08.500 So when Putin is referring to the spiritual mandates of Russia, that connects him with a prominent Russian philosopher, kind of a mysterious mandate and a political operative named Alexander Dugan.

00:20:21.980 He has associated himself with a philosophy called traditionalism or the traditional school.

00:20:28.120 It asserts that time does not move in linear fashion.

00:20:32.700 That is to say, we're not necessarily progressing forward in a clear direction.

00:20:36.520 But instead, it moves in cycles.

00:20:38.760 And most of the time, society is degrading, save for one moment when there's an apocalyptic explosion and destruction of the social world and we are reborn into a golden age.

00:20:50.560 It's that last piece, Glenn, that is that is so so key here, because when you look at history in the way that that these traditionalists do, there can be justification for Armageddon, as you put it, for destruction, mass destruction.

00:21:04.960 Chaos, just total and complete chaos.

00:21:08.880 Yes, as as a sort of prelude to a golden age, a utopia that we're going to be reborn into.

00:21:16.880 That's that's one of the distinguishing features.

00:21:19.080 That is what is paired with this, I'd say, small T traditionalism that you were referring to earlier. 0.90

00:21:25.320 People wanting to to to preserve and conserve values and identities that matter to them.

00:21:31.640 This this apocalyptic aspect of the ideology is what is distinguishing this this way of thinking.

00:21:37.760 I will tell you that Ben and I have talked off the air and I've wanted to do this show for a while, but I have waited until I think people are in the right.

00:21:49.080 A frame of mind to understand it.

00:21:51.780 I think this is one of the most critical things that we can learn about, especially those of us on the right, because this is how you will know if there is a troublemaker in your midst.

00:22:07.140 Because a lot of people will hear some of this stuff and go, yeah, that's me, too.

00:22:15.920 But that's not what they mean.

00:22:17.880 And they have a different vision of the future.

00:22:22.000 So it's you please listen to what we're talking about here.

00:22:27.780 It goes way beyond Russia.

00:22:30.900 But let me stay in Russia for just a just a couple of more minutes.

00:22:34.520 What is what is Novo Russia?

00:22:39.740 Novo Russia. 0.60

00:22:40.540 This would be the this was this is Dugan's way of describing these eastern territories in Ukraine that are breaking off, apparently, and have been recognized as independent states, people's republics by Putin.

00:22:55.700 And Dugan has been referring to them as new Russia, as a new expansion.

00:23:01.180 And Putin in the past has borrowed that language from this this renegade philosopher that I've been speaking to you about.

00:23:07.760 He used that.

00:23:08.960 I mean, Crimea was really a Dugan plan, wasn't it?

00:23:14.220 Absolutely.

00:23:15.100 I mean, it was it was one small piece of a Dugan plan.

00:23:17.680 Right.

00:23:18.880 I can to catch your listeners up, Dugan, after the fall of the Soviet Union, this this philosopher, after the Soviet Union fell apart, he wanted to see not the revival of communism and the communist state, but a Russian nationalism that would expand almost to the to the exact boundaries of the former Soviet Union.

00:23:39.160 But do so not carrying this secular ideology, but instead of a really fanatical Russian nationalism and federalism and all of those states that started to move out of the Russian sphere, Georgia, the Baltics, Ukraine, all of those in his mind were targets to be brought back in.

00:23:58.960 And it was imperative that Russia do it forcefully, decisively to establish a boundary for American and liberal democratic ideology in the world. 0.69

00:24:09.760 It was important for him to set a boundary there to show that liberalism, that democracy, lowercase l liberalism, was not the fate of the whole world.

00:24:18.100 But in fact, those those territories needed to imagine a different future for themselves, a future that returned in his mind to their roots rather than looked forward to a different future.

00:24:28.560 And it is the same kind of thing in a way that that that that Hitler used faith of people.

00:24:36.780 He used all different faiths.

00:24:39.340 It wasn't just Christianity.

00:24:40.620 He destroyed those faiths as he went in. 0.99

00:24:42.940 But Dugan is using faith.

00:24:45.500 And that's why that spiritual element, because the Ukraine plays a very important part for Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

00:24:55.300 Right.

00:24:55.960 It is the spiritual, I don't know, center for that, isn't it?

00:25:02.620 It's it's one of them for sure.

00:25:04.780 It's it's also a sort of mythological center for the the origins of the Russian ethnicity and state as well.

00:25:12.400 Which is even worse, because that that's exactly what Hitler was doing with all of the other religions. 0.91

00:25:17.620 He was tying he was just tying all these myths together.

00:25:21.220 Yes, Chris, you know, you look at the union of religion and nationalism and and that you start to find yourself in a place where your state acts as though it has a divine mandate.

00:25:33.140 And that is a dangerous place to be.

00:25:35.540 It's it's it's not surprising.

00:25:37.340 And what perhaps surprised your listeners, given what we're saying here, that one of Dugan's ideal states in the world today is Iran, because there you have a union of state power with religious authority.

00:25:48.060 And the ability really the justification for anyone in that state to question the actions of the government is is shackled, because if you do that, you are questioning a religious authority that's not allowed to be questioned.

00:26:03.360 So this is all all this goes to to a celebration of authoritarianism in a way to equip the power of the state or a demagogue with greater cultural in addition to to military and economic and political power.

00:26:21.040 All right. I want to talk about the fourth political theory, if you can define what it is.

00:26:26.020 I also want to do one more thing, a stop on on Putin.

00:26:31.180 Does he is he the lunar Putin or the solar Putin, which will understand what is his real game here?

00:26:38.680 And then I want to bring it home to America, which is extraordinarily important for all Americans, but especially those on the right.

00:26:49.180 And we'll give you that information here in just a second.

00:26:52.380 We are with Benjamin Teitelbaum, the author of War for Eternity.

00:26:57.980 He is a guy who I have talked to several times there.

00:27:01.940 They're really I think there's about three of us, Ben, that that are watching and understand what the importance of Alexander Dugan.

00:27:11.320 And it's it's a little frightening. Everybody I talk to, I think there's one other guy that I know that we all look at each other, goes, why aren't people paying attention to this?

00:27:24.040 It's so important.

00:27:26.480 What is what is the fourth political theory?

00:27:29.960 So, yeah, this is a challenge, Glenn, to explain.

00:27:34.600 I know, I know.

00:27:35.120 But if if if the when Alexander Dugan speaks about a fourth political theory, he's speaking about an alternative to the other three made Western ideologies that that fought throughout the last century.

00:27:50.860 That is to say, liberalism being one lowercase still, it's you know, when Americans hear liberalism, you think Democratic Party, but we're really just talking about free market, democracy rights of individual law and communism being a second one and fascism being a third.

00:28:09.980 Dugan's belief was was that communism and liberalism in World War Two combined forces to kill the third political theory, fascism, and then liberalism, the first political theory allowed communism to die of old age, essentially with the with the Soviet Union.

00:28:28.780 But Dugan wants to see an alternative to all all of these, one that you might say fuses elements of the second and the third of communism and fascism.

00:28:38.680 In his mind, the danger of liberalism and the lower lowercase still liberal democratic world is is its rampant individualism and its contempt for history, its its devotion to progress and the belief that really our roots are something to be overcome and escaped.

00:28:57.460 And also its will toward globalization and building larger, larger and larger communities.

00:29:02.960 What he wants to see is what he wants to see is a world that is shrunken, basically, in its scope, and where the identity of your group or your tribe becomes the primary object of political activism.

00:29:18.340 That is to say, not the individual, as in liberalism, not the class, as in communism, and not the race, per se, as in fascism, but a slightly, let's say, related concept, which is the ethnos or a small community or the tribe.

00:29:34.680 To see a society that works on preserving those differences, that's that's what a fourth political theory should be doing.

00:29:43.000 And it should be, in his mind, opposed to progress, opposed to development, and certainly opposed to any any larger state like the United States operating on the global sphere.

00:29:53.980 So you can hear that and say, wow, I see pieces of that from both the right and the left, and, you know, I see a new world order being shaped like that, except he wants to destroy anything global.

00:30:14.320 He also wants to destroy the United States, and I think there are some others that would like to do that, and they are using some of those tactics.

00:30:22.560 He sees the United States, any pathway toward realizing this goal has to, in his mind, go through the destruction of the United States.

00:30:36.220 At least if U.S. global hegemonic power, occasionally he'll say that if the United States were firmly contained within its own borders and its ideals never, never spread anyplace else throughout the world,

00:30:51.180 then perhaps we could coexist. But it's about, it's about containing U.S. power.

00:30:55.780 Okay, 45 seconds before the break. Tell me, is he, is Putin operating, do you think, in Ukraine more under that, or on just a, you know, quick business capitalist, I just want money and I'm going to get those ports?

00:31:12.080 I tell you, I think the way that he has been speaking recently makes it seem like the business-like estimation of Ukraine is more of a facade and excuse to do what he wants to do, which is expand this Russian state.

00:31:28.640 Okay.

00:31:33.560 The best of the Glenn Beck Program.

00:31:46.820 David Sachs, it is an honor and a privilege to have you on the program. Thank you, sir.

00:31:52.460 Yeah, great to be here. Thanks, Glenn.

00:31:53.780 So let's, let's talk a little bit about the social credit system. People, I think, see this in Canada. I don't know how people aren't all up in arms on what's going on, but they may still think that that, well, it can't happen here. Can we talk about what's happening?

00:32:14.780 Right. Well, it's already, it's already happening here. You know, last year, I wrote this piece for Barry Weiss about that financial platform would be the next wave of online censorship.

00:32:26.240 I mean, I was worrying about this last year because PayPal, they helped found, you know, but we sold many years ago. It's now under new management.

00:32:33.480 They are working with partisan left-wing groups like the ADL and the SPLC to define lists of individuals and groups who they deem to have, you know, extremist or unacceptable views, and they're denied access to PayPal accounts.

00:32:47.940 And there are other financial institutions who are following suit, the collective effect of which is to shut people out of the financial system.

00:32:55.420 And if you think it's bad to deny people the right to free speech and to participate in the online marketplace of ideas, how much worse is it to deny them access to the new economy, to the way that they can buy food and medicine and other products for their families?

00:33:10.440 You know, you know, it is really a very severe form of punishment and social control.

00:33:17.840 And, you know, that is what we're talking about. We talk about a social credit system.

00:33:20.980 We're talking about a system that, you know, sort of pretends to allow political dissent, doesn't just send you to the gulag, but it conditions your ability to access the economy and the benefits of society.

00:33:33.620 It conditions that on having the correct views, on having the acceptable views.

00:33:38.680 And, you know, what did Justin Trudeau do?

00:33:40.880 He declared right out of the gate that these protesters had unacceptable views, and then he proceeded to freeze their bank accounts and to shut off anybody who might contribute to them.

00:33:52.900 That is really terrifying.

00:33:55.060 The way he said, you know, we're going to shut down their accounts, we're going to close the off-ramps for Bitcoin, it's not only them, but it's anybody who donated to them or, quote, helped them.

00:34:09.380 That's right.

00:34:10.360 Anybody who was, quote, directly or indirectly involved in the protest was now subject to this law in the, you know, this Emergencies Act that he invoked

00:34:23.440 without really proper basis.

00:34:27.280 And, you know, anyone who, you know, quote, unquote, provided property to help facilitate the protest could now be swept up in the dragon head.

00:34:34.000 And so it's not just if you're, say, you know, one of the organizers of the protest, but if you're, you know, a little old grandma somewhere and you want to contribute $25

00:34:43.880 so that, you know, a trucker, really a poor, destitute trucker can buy a hot meal or some fuel to keep themselves from freezing at night.

00:34:51.840 If that's your intent to make that donation, you can still be swept up in this and you can have your bank account frozen.

00:34:57.540 And one of the, you know, incredible things about it is not just this unprecedented extension of aiding and abetting liability, but also that it's retroactive.

00:35:05.940 That, you know, grandma who made the contribution at the time she did it was completely illegal. 0.94

00:35:10.300 And yet, under this order, she can now have her account frozen as punishment. 0.76

00:35:16.500 And so what is the point of this?

00:35:18.100 It is to signal, and there's going to be a chilling effect in the future, that even if you make a completely lawful donation to a political cause,

00:35:27.300 if that, if Justin Trudeau doesn't like that cause, if he thinks there are, quote, unquote, unacceptable views,

00:35:31.920 that he has the power, that he can invoke the power at some point in the future to freeze your bank account,

00:35:36.540 even though what you did is legal today, that is the precedent they've created.

00:35:40.240 And I think the result of that must be a chilling effect on political dissent.

00:35:44.820 Oh, big time.

00:35:45.860 There are, you know, also including insurance companies.

00:35:49.600 I mean, he took their license away, their license to do business, their trucks away, their insurance away,

00:35:55.960 and their banking, having them debanked, and then said, even when this is over,

00:36:04.400 banks might want to consider not doing business with these people.

00:36:09.260 So basically, I mean, they're lepers.

00:36:13.640 Yes, absolutely.

00:36:14.660 I mean, they're really creating a case of untouchables there in Canada.

00:36:20.600 I mean, like you said, they're towing their trucks or confiscating them.

00:36:24.340 The mayor of Ontario even said, let's sell off these trucks.

00:36:27.100 We've seized them.

00:36:27.980 Now, we'll sell them off.

00:36:28.980 We're going to use them to pay our bills.

00:36:30.980 They want to give these guys a criminal record so they can never work again.

00:36:34.400 They've taken away their insurance.

00:36:35.440 They've taken away their regulatory licenses.

00:36:37.460 And then on top of that, because anybody who helps them, who contributes to them,

00:36:42.620 can themselves now be frozen.

00:36:45.180 No one's going to want to help them.

00:36:46.960 So what happens to those people, David?

00:36:49.400 What happens to them?

00:36:50.520 You cut people's money off.

00:36:57.180 How do you survive?

00:37:00.100 They're creating a group of destitute and desperate people.

00:37:07.740 And you have to wonder for what.

00:37:09.800 I mean, the COVID pandemic is on the way and it's at an end.

00:37:13.820 Even as Justin Trudeau was invoking these emergency powers, a number of the provinces were ending COVID mandates.

00:37:21.180 They got the message.

00:37:22.220 He never got the message.

00:37:23.340 It's just extreme intolerance.

00:37:25.600 You know, I have news for you, though, David.

00:37:27.780 I don't, you know, even if it was waning.

00:37:30.600 I mean, I watched Occupy Wall Street.

00:37:33.900 I was in New York during Occupy Wall Street.

00:37:35.740 As long as you're not breaking the law or destroying property, you have a right to do that.

00:37:42.320 I never said we should sweep those people up.

00:37:44.740 That's craziness.

00:37:46.260 That's craziness.

00:37:47.440 And I should be even stronger on the people I disagree with.

00:37:51.160 I should fight for their right more than my right.

00:37:54.740 Because who will fight for mine?

00:37:56.320 Exactly.

00:37:58.960 I mean, this is absolutely about the right of people to be able to engage in speech and political expression and to have the right to protest against their government.

00:38:09.140 And these were almost entirely peaceful protests.

00:38:12.260 There was no violence.

00:38:14.540 And yet, Trudeau instantly denounced all the protesters as basically being terrorists, which allowed them to apply these anti-terrorist laws to freeze their bank accounts.

00:38:29.620 The most extreme forms of, you know, the most extreme powers that the government has, which is to act on terrorist threat, were thereby invoked to really go after these ordinary, you know, working class men and women.

00:38:45.660 We're talking to David Sachs.

00:38:46.800 He's the founding CEO of PayPal.

00:38:49.880 And he is warning about the coming social credit system that is in Canada.

00:38:55.920 And do we have time to stop it here?

00:38:57.880 You know, one of the things, David, that I found even as shocking is the fact that there was a hacker who went in, hacked, took all of these names, doxed everybody, and the media published them and started humiliating them and pilloring them in public.

00:39:23.140 That's right.

00:39:24.160 And it had real consequences.

00:39:25.760 There was an owner of a gelato shop who was exposed as having made a small contribution to the protesters that they got so many threats they had to shut down their shop.

00:39:35.000 There was a low-level government employee who donated $100.

00:39:38.380 She was fired from her job because of that. 1.00

00:39:40.680 So there's been real reprisals based on that hack.

00:39:43.440 And, you know, I'm old enough to remember when social media cited as the reason they wouldn't publish that they would suppress the Hunter Biden stories for the election, that it came from hacked material.

00:39:53.960 Right.

00:39:54.140 Where was that policy implemented today?

00:39:56.580 Right.

00:39:57.340 You know, this was illegally obtained material, and the press just reported it.

00:40:01.480 So, David, you know, I don't know if you're up on ESG, but that's what Trudeau has done without the emergency order.

00:40:11.620 If you fall out of line with ESG, you're going to be debanked, or you will start to feel the heat of the banking and financial and insurance system.

00:40:29.760 How far away from this system are we to have a true credit score?

00:40:35.700 Do you see this happening sooner rather than later, and what do we do to stop it?

00:40:41.600 Well, this is my main concern.

00:40:43.500 You know, at the end of the day, I'm not a Canadian, and, you know, I watch with scientists of what's happening over there, but ultimately it's going to be up to Canadians to govern themselves.

00:40:51.760 What I'm mostly concerned about is the precedent that Trudeau has set that progressives here in America might look to and implement.

00:40:59.820 And let's identify the elements, the ingredients of this toxic stew that already exists over here.

00:41:06.100 First of all, you've got big tech companies like, you know, my alma mater, PayPal, have been freezing accounts based on, you know, working with partisan political groups to, you know, to shut people out of the financial system.

00:41:18.160 That practice is already taking place.

00:41:21.000 Second, you've got state of emergencies in states like California, where I live, where the governor is still operating under a state of emergency.

00:41:28.340 See, he has invoked emergency powers that never seem to end, even though we just had a Super Bowl where 30,000 people were sitting, you know, elbow to elbow without any masks on it, yet we're still in a state of emergency.

00:41:39.240 Third, we have recently, the Department of Homeland Security has now defined misinformation about COVID or the election to be a contributor to the terrorist threat level.

00:41:50.160 So in other words, misinformation, in their view, can contribute to terrorism.

00:41:53.980 So we have now all the ingredients where you have politicians invoking fake state of emergencies, you've got big tech companies shunning people out of the political system,

00:42:02.260 and you've got this very scary and dangerous redefinition of terrorism to effectively apply to domestic political dissent.

00:42:10.560 So you have all the ingredients there that Justin Trudeau was able to seize on.

00:42:15.440 All you're really lacking is the emergency necessary to invoke those powers.

00:42:21.320 So that is what I'm afraid of, is I see all the precedents coming together.

00:42:25.100 But we have one thing in the United States that Canada doesn't have, which is a rich constitutional tradition.

00:42:29.440 We have the protections under the Constitution.

00:42:32.980 And so I'm hopeful that our Supreme Court would protect us against, you know, an authoritarian attack on our liberties this way.

00:42:42.120 However, there are many in our, you know, political system who want to pack the Supreme Court as it stands today.

00:42:49.560 And what would happen if the Supreme Court were packed?

00:42:51.600 They would water down these rights and liberties and protections that we have.

00:42:54.840 I think this is an issue that supersedes all others.

00:42:57.720 You know, any political candidate who would give support to packing the Supreme Court should be instantly rejected,

00:43:04.360 I think, by everybody across the political spectrum.

00:43:06.880 And furthermore, I would say, you know, Biden has a SCOTUS pick coming up.

00:43:11.480 The Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee should make this topic number one.

00:43:14.680 What do they think about the use of these authoritarian powers, these fake state of emergencies?

00:43:19.140 Let's hear from them.

00:43:20.540 You know, I don't think Republicans are able to stop the SCOTUS pick,

00:43:22.800 but let's put them on the record and discuss this issue.

00:43:28.380 Are there any other people that have this point of view that is they're in your business?

00:43:35.020 They're in tech?

00:43:36.120 I mean, it feels like as the average person, it feels like we are just up against this monolithic monster.

00:43:43.800 Yeah, I mean, Glenn, it's rather scary.

00:43:49.560 I mean, I'm definitely an outlier in the tech industry.

00:43:53.360 You know, I've been involved in the tech industry for over 20 years, first as a founder, now as an investor.

00:44:00.460 And I can tell you that there are other people who do share to one degree or another my concerns about civil liberties.

00:44:06.640 I mean, I think it does extend across the political spectrum.

00:44:08.900 However, they definitely feel intimidated into silence.

00:44:12.980 They believe that there will be reprisals for speaking out.

00:44:16.340 And so I would say I'm not alone in my views, but there aren't too many people speaking out, and that's pretty scary.

00:44:24.980 Not that you would care at this point, but have you paid a price for it?

00:44:31.880 You know, not that I can tell.

00:44:35.660 I mean, I would say, I mean, but here's the thing, Liz, I'm at a stage in my career where I don't have to worry about it.

00:44:42.840 You know, if I never made another time, frankly, I'd be fine.

00:44:45.900 So for me, speaking out is the most important thing.

00:44:49.740 And, you know, if it costs me some business that I don't know about, then so be it.

00:44:53.800 You know, but so far I've been fine.

00:44:57.660 I've been fine.

00:44:58.460 And, you know, what I'm trying to do, I've participated on this podcast called The All-In Pod with a few friends in tech.

00:45:04.740 Well, you know, one of the main reasons why I've spoken out is to show people that you can speak out and they should have a little bit more courage in doing so.

00:45:11.660 Because I don't think the majority of people across the political spectrum want to see our civil liberties eroded this way.

00:45:22.300 I think it is a bipartisan issue, certainly for Republicans, independents, and I'd say even many Democrats.

00:45:29.760 But there is a hard political left, sort of the progressive left, that is driving all of this.

00:45:37.000 And one of the reasons why they're successful at driving this is because moderates will not, they're too afraid to speak out and oppose it.

00:45:43.520 So I don't think there's a majority, but they are driving the agenda because no one will speak out against it.

00:45:49.560 And it's really a very hypocritical agenda because, I mean, these people, you look at Trudeau, his self-conception is completely at odds with the reality.

00:45:58.240 I mean, he claims to be saving democracy, preserving democracy, even as he is invoking authoritarian powers. 0.70

00:46:05.520 He claims to be the defender of the little guy, of the working class and the disadvantaged, while, you know, crushing these, you know, poor working class truck drivers under the sort of heel of his government. 0.58

00:46:17.640 You know, they claim to be on the side of diversity and tolerance while insisting that there's only one acceptable point of view and, you know, censoring all the alternatives as misinformation. 0.97

00:46:29.620 So, you know, this hard progressive left is completely hypocritical.

00:46:33.640 I don't think most people support it, but they're kind of running unopposed right now because people are so afraid to speak out. 0.63

00:46:41.560 David, thank you for speaking out.

00:46:43.500 Thank you for being on the program.

00:46:45.360 I hope we can have you on again.

00:46:48.080 God bless you and all the things that you're doing right now.

00:46:51.820 David Sachs, founding COO of PayPal, founder and general partner of Craft Ventures.

00:46:57.060 If you see what he has invested in, he is on the cutting edge and God bless him for speaking out.

The Glenn Beck Program - February 23, 2022

Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Benjamin Teitelbaum & David Sacks

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