Would you rather question whether you would rather have millions dead or Donald Trump in office? Good Friday is a day of pain and humiliation and death, but when you look at the original version of Good Friday, it seems like something you would want.
00:00:00.000Welcome to the podcast. It's Good Friday. Today we try to bring some positivity and maybe a little wider thinking than just trying to analyze every little thing that goes on with coronavirus.
00:00:14.060Also have Pat Gray on the program, Bill O'Reilly for an hour. And we hear audio of what happens when you ask people, would they rather have millions dead or Donald Trump in office? Shockingly, the answer was not particularly easy to come up with for a lot of these people.
00:00:31.680And Senator Tom Cotton will also join us. He's the senator who really called this early on what might happen with coronavirus and why we needed to take it seriously. We'll get to all that on today's podcast.
00:00:44.060Also, we'll remind you on tonight's Stew Does America, we've found the cure for COVID-19, which is coming from the country of Turkmenistan, who just banned the word coronavirus and now they have no cases.
00:00:56.400So we're going to try that on the show today, banning the word coronavirus, a coronavirus free program on Stew Does America.
00:01:03.320That comes up tonight as well. Make sure you subscribe on your podcast platform to not only Stew Does America, but also this program and rate and review and be generous.
00:01:15.060I mean, you know, it's a holiday weekend. Here's the podcast.
00:01:17.460You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:03:46.460I wrote a book called The Christmas Sweater.
00:03:48.260And it's how I understand the sacrifice of Jesus, because my mother sacrificed everything to give me one last Christmas present before she died, and it was a sweater.
00:03:58.860And I didn't appreciate it at all, and I realized how poor we were on that Christmas.
00:04:06.100And for a long time, that sweater haunted me, because I understood what it meant to her, and she noticed that it didn't mean anything to me.
00:04:16.360And I carried that guilt around with me for a long time, and I couldn't get past it.
00:04:25.020It's weird how many times, how many, what he did for us, and how many times we still just reject it.
00:04:32.060We can't, we just don't think we're worthy.
00:04:35.340We just don't think that we're good enough.
00:06:56.220He's the opposite of the majestic oak that everybody's like, we cannot cut down that historic oak that has provided shade for our family for generations to come.
00:09:31.340And we regarded him as a criminal, a nobody, or worse, cursed and struck down by God, afflicted by God, because somehow he was.
00:09:40.280But he was wounded for our transgressions, our rebellion.
00:09:46.680He was bruised for our iniquities, our sins, our thoughts, our deeds, our broken promises, our greed, gluttony, cruelness.
00:09:54.440The darkness that we all hide, the things that we just don't care about, the people that we just are invisible, the people who are suffering right now in our own neighborhood, perhaps in our own house, but we don't do anything about it.
00:12:03.840All of the worries that we currently have right now, all of the worries about our neighbors and and about our children and what's going to happen with school and what's going to happen.
00:18:54.560It is for the New York Times, Washington Post, the media.
00:18:57.580It's almost exclusively a hate Trump thing there.
00:19:00.400But for the far left, the George Soros cadres, it's about really destroying and then remaking America.
00:19:08.460And they're trying to find a way to do that within the pandemic.
00:19:15.120So if they can destroy the capitalist economy, which in the short term is being badly battered, as everyone knows,
00:19:23.800but if they can really damage it in a long-term way, it's going to be a lot easier for the next Bernie Sanders to get this socialism into the system.
00:19:35.500So I think that's the emerging story that most people are not aware of.
00:19:41.000I will tell you, Bill, that I'm really disgusted by so many people and how they are using this pandemic to try to, as you said, destroy America.
00:19:55.500America, you have people now talking about 18 months of quarantine.
00:20:00.760There is absolutely no way on God's green earth any country can survive 18 months of quarantine.
00:20:26.460And, you know, you and I are simpatico or the day for Stu on this.
00:20:33.500So there is a powerful segment, well-funded, that has co-opted some in the media to get the message out that our health care system is evil,
00:22:19.200Same transmission in Austria as in the United States, but nobody reports this because it doesn't fit in to the wall of doom mosaic.
00:22:32.820I have to tell you, Bill, I think it's actually worse than just not reporting on things.
00:22:37.660For instance, the governor of South Dakota, I'm sure you've seen her talks that she's been giving on the Constitution and, you know, how she's not going to violate the Constitution for this.
00:23:49.140If you could lie detector, Beck, if you could lie detector the media, the national media, and ask them a very simple question, because I am a very simple man.
00:23:58.880Which is worse, the pandemic or four more years of Trump?
00:24:10.560You have those people, and this is the New York Times, Washington Post, NBC News, CNN, that are going to spin everything about the pandemic.
00:24:19.420It's Trump's fault, and it's a wall of doom.
00:24:22.240And then you have the other people that we just cited, the Soros socialist people, that are saying, okay, now we can suspend all civil liberties.
00:24:51.600But that's what this is if you know your history.
00:24:54.360And so those of us who love our country, who admire the nobility of it and the opportunity that it affords hardworking and honest people, I'm appalled at what's going on.
00:25:08.400But I'm also appalled that American consumers continue to go in and watch this garbage.
00:25:55.700There are the ones that are buying into this snitch on your neighbor kind of thing.
00:26:01.020And I want the government to tell me everything and what to do.
00:26:05.180And then the rest of America, which is, this is ridiculous.
00:26:10.000I actually think, Bill, that this pandemic is real and it is dangerous.
00:26:17.020But I think the way we've handled it, by shutting everything down and going, you know, as you say, Reichstag fire.
00:26:26.060And in some places, really very totalitarian where you're sending police door to door.
00:26:33.540I think that is going to spook many Americans.
00:26:36.640This is exactly what happened under Woodrow Wilson.
00:26:39.200As you know, when he sent out his stormtroopers, we had a quarter of a million people that had badges and they were working for the Justice Department.
00:26:49.380And they were to open your neighbor's mail, listen to your neighbor on the phone, find out who our enemies are that don't want this war.
00:26:57.040And they arrested one hundred and forty five thousand Americans in about a two year period.
00:27:03.200It was disgraceful. And it it sent the left packing because regular Americans saw what this was turning into and went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
00:27:14.320This is not who we are. And that might happen this time.
00:27:17.760I mean, this could very, very well backfire.
00:27:22.080And you saw his blow up. You saw him blow up.
00:27:25.460I mean, this maniac screaming that we can't have a private health care system here.
00:27:31.280And the stats are right in front of you, right in front of you.
00:27:34.600You can see how much more effective, as you just pointed out, our health care system is than that in Europe.
00:27:41.280You can see it. Yet this maniac, Sanders, still won't concede still, because that's a way to control a population through their health care.
00:27:51.100All right. If you're dependent on the government for your health, you've got to do what your government tells you to do.
00:27:56.920But getting back to the pandemic, I mean, we have people I was walking the terror dog, Holly, the terror dog, who has three million Twitter followers, if you can believe it.
00:28:05.360So I'm walking Holly, the terror dog. And then across the street, there's a lady with a mask walking some doxelon or something.
00:28:14.300So I'm about 12 feet away, not six. I'm fine. I don't have a mask other than when I rob a 7-Eleven.
00:28:21.480I do use the mask for that. But I said, madam, how are you?
00:28:26.660I'm fine. And then I hear a muffled. All right.
00:28:30.400And I go, can I ask you just a question?
00:28:33.060What what is that protecting you from in the open air on a lane where there's no other people?
00:28:39.600And it was like silence. What is it protecting you from?
00:29:49.320They signal this week what's going to happen.
00:29:52.980Iger, on his way out with, what, $3 billion, said, you know what we're going to do?
00:29:59.340Well, we're going to take everybody's temperature that comes to our park.
00:30:03.860So when you go to Disney World or Disneyland, you're going to buy your ticket and then there'll be a guy, just like there is with the airlines, checking your bags and you, with a little thermometer thing.
00:30:17.260And if you have a fever, you can't come in.
00:30:22.020That's going to be everywhere, everywhere, even your local restaurant.
00:30:28.040Yeah, Microsoft, Microsoft has already developed something that will set off alarms if you, it just will scan you as you walk in through the door, just like a camera.
00:30:37.920And it'll scan you if you have a fever, it'll set off an alarm.
00:30:41.260They've also developed something where if you're not wearing a mask, it will set off an alarm.
00:30:59.440You're paying so much money, it's $2,000 to get in, so your fever's $105,000.
00:31:05.360You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:31:22.160One of the guys who saw this pandemic for what it was early on was on our program, among other programs, trying to ring the bell is Senator Tom Cotton.
00:31:41.080So you're getting credit from a lot of places as being the guy who saw this coming.
00:31:46.980But is it because you're such a genius or because you take China for what we know China is, not for what we hope China is?
00:31:58.280Well, Glenn, it's certainly far from any claim that I'm a genius, but it does have a lot to do with a clear-eyed view of the Chinese Communist Party going back many years leading up to this pandemic outbreak.
00:32:12.900Specifically in January, as I began to see information in public news sources, not in classified intelligence briefings that I received, just in public news sources, sometimes obscure or foreign sources like East Asian news outlets or medical journals.
00:32:30.240I saw a clear contrast between two things.
00:32:32.700On the one hand, you had the rhetoric of the Chinese Communist Party, which was designed to minimize the threat, soothe over fears, tell everyone everything was okay, don't worry.
00:32:46.780This can't be transmitted from humans to humans.
00:32:49.680Contrast that with the Chinese Communist Party's actions, which were extreme and draconian, shutting down a city that is larger than New York City, literally boarding up doors or welding doors shut on high-rise apartment buildings, allowing the Hong Kong local government to shut down all air travel from the Chinese mainland, shutting down schools, not just in Wuhan, but across the country.
00:33:15.140The contrast between that rhetoric and those actions told me that the Chinese Communist Party understood just how grave this virus could become and is therefore the reason why I started sounding the alarm in mid-January and urging the president to shut down travel with China, which thankfully he did by the end of January.
00:33:37.400So, Senator, I have been concerned about this coronavirus because, for the same reasons, watching what China was doing, thinking this is nuts.
00:33:50.680But I, and I think we're going to be proven to be accurate on this, I was less concerned about the death toll that it would take on the rest of the world than I was the toll on the free market system.
00:34:08.000I mean, we are facing a possible depression, and we've got people in Congress that are, I think, cheering for this.
00:34:17.400They are looking to hurt the economy in any way to change the capitalist system into a socialized system.
00:34:29.660I think we are at a place where our constitution and our way of life is on the ropes, mainly because of the people in Congress.
00:34:41.860Well, Glenn, I would put the responsibility for what we're going through first and foremost at the feet of the Chinese Communist Party.
00:34:49.400They had a chance to keep this virus a local health problem in Wuhan.
00:34:57.620Instead, they allowed it to become a global pandemic.
00:35:01.560And to give you a sense of the extent of Chinese treachery, on January 23rd, the Chinese Communist Party shut down all travel by airplane out of Wuhan inside of China.
00:35:16.560So you couldn't fly from Wuhan to Shanghai or to Beijing or anywhere else inside China.
00:35:22.660But they allowed international air travel from Wuhan to continue.
00:35:27.720So you could continue to fly from Wuhan to other places in the world to include New York and San Francisco.
00:35:34.720That gives you a sense of their treachery in this matter.
00:35:39.240Now, your more fundamental point, though, is very important.
00:35:43.040And I share your concern about what this virus has done to jobs and our economy, not just here in the United States, but in all of our allied countries as well across Europe, in Japan, in Singapore, in Taiwan, in South Korea, what has happened across the civilized democratic world.
00:36:05.720And that's why it is so important that we give our people the confidence that the virus is under control, that they're less likely to get it, and that if they do get it, the health care system will be functioning for them.
00:36:17.640Because that is ultimately what has caused the economy across the Western world to come grinding to a halt.
00:36:23.140You know, Donald Trump didn't shut down the economy.
00:36:25.620The president doesn't have that authority in our system.
00:36:27.500Even our governors and mayors, who in many cases have been aggressively saying what kinds of activities will be permitted, are more or less just reflecting reality.
00:36:38.780If you look at where the state of the economy was in Europe and the United States in the first half of March, before many governments were taking this action, you'll see that our people were voluntarily and spontaneously starting to stay home.
00:36:52.800If you look at, like, say, open table bookings for restaurants or airline travel or so forth.
00:36:58.000So it's not so much a government dictate that has caused the economy to grind to a halt.
00:37:02.800It is our people's understandable fears of the virus.
00:37:06.600But I think, Senator, I think that there are governors that are taking, I mean, the governor of Michigan just banned advertising for products that aren't essential.
00:38:03.900That's why President Trump has only suggested it continue until the end of April.
00:38:07.560We can take stock in another 10 or 15 days about where we stand.
00:38:10.740So there's no doubt that some governors and mayors have made bad decisions.
00:38:15.540But in the end, what is more important than what any governor or mayor does is that we have the techniques and the practices in place that we can stop the population-wide measures we have now and return to traditional public health control, which is case-based measures.
00:38:31.580So rather than saying everyone needs to stay at home, we can just identify those people who are sick and those people who have been around them and tell them you individually need to stay at home.
00:38:41.100And the president outlines that at his press conferences and what we're doing in terms of getting testing up on a rapid basis, getting antibody testing, producing masks, not just for doctors and nurses, but for people at the workplace and so on and so forth.
00:38:53.040So that's how we give people confidence to get back to something like normal life.
00:38:57.020And do you have confidence that we are taking the steps right now?
00:39:00.540I know we ordered 500 million masks for the stockpile.
00:39:05.720We're ordering all kinds of medicine, et cetera, et cetera.
00:39:09.940But are you are you comfortable that if this thing comes back with a vengeance in the fall, we're not going to have to go and shut down again?
00:39:19.700We'll have the tools to make sure that our medical system won't collapse on us.
00:39:28.200Well, first off, Glenn, because there's so much unknown about the virus still, I don't want to say I have total confidence in that.
00:39:36.700We're taking the steps that we know you feel we're taking those steps that we should be taking.
00:39:41.560At this point, after a false start or two related testing at the CDC and FDA in early February, we are rapidly scaling up our testing capacity as quickly as we can.
00:39:54.700The world's very best medical researchers and scientists are looking into every angle for possible prophylactic drugs, therapeutic drugs and vaccines.
00:40:03.160We are producing the kind of, again, personal protective equipment, not just for doctors and nurses, which we, of course, must have, but for people to get back to work.
00:40:11.800So if they're working on the factory line, they can have the masks that they need, because ultimately it's those steps that will allow us to get back to something like normal.
00:40:19.980So we can get out of the situation we're in now, which is buying time through population based measures to produce all those things.
00:40:26.660So, Senator, we're talking to Senator Tom Cotton, the guy who was leading the charge on the coronavirus.
00:40:36.140Let me let me take you back to China for a second.
00:40:40.360What they've done, you could argue, is an act of war.
00:40:44.480I mean, they've killed more people than than died in World War One by far.
00:40:53.180Anybody who would do this as a terrorist strike, we it would be war.
00:40:58.700I don't want war and I'm not suggesting war, but our relationship with China cannot go back to the way it was where we just believe what they say and we ship all of our business over to them.
00:41:19.260I can already tell you that public opinion in this country ran very strongly against China, no matter what business or financial or media elites believe.
00:41:28.080I mean, that's because a lot of Americans have a lot of reason to be hostile towards China.
00:41:33.620If you work in a factory and your job has been outsourced to China, if your industry like rice farmers in Arkansas have seen their proprietary intellectual property stolen or their computer systems hacked.
00:41:44.300If you're appalled by the way China forces women to have abortions or harvest organs from political prisoners or smashes Christian churches or interns, religious minorities, in mass gulags.
00:41:58.520And now to top it off, they've unleashed a pandemic on the entire world.
00:42:04.080So things are going to change and they're going to change rapidly, not just in the United States, but all around the civilized world.
00:42:11.220Because I can tell you, public opinion in America and not just America views China as a pariah state.
00:42:18.820Well, I will tell you what they're doing to France where they're saying, hey, we'll send you some gowns, we'll send you some PPE stuff, but you're going to have to take our 5G.
00:42:28.920Boy, I think if the public really understands how they're trying to profit off of this and extort business out of countries, I think China will be the pariah of the world.
00:42:43.480Yeah, and Glenn, they're doing that all around the world.
00:42:47.220They're trying to exploit this crisis that they created.
00:42:52.420And in many cases, what they're sending is a reflection of Chinese quality control turns out to be defective anyway, as you saw in the Czech Republic or in Spain or elsewhere around the world.
00:43:03.200So I think, again, the peoples of the democratic West, no matter what some of their leaders may think right now, will increasingly view China as a pariah state.
00:43:13.600And that means that we're going to have a fundamental reassessment of our relationship with China.
00:43:17.760So, for instance, I think one of the very first things we have to do starting now is to bring back manufacturing of basic pharmaceuticals and medical devices and medical supplies to this country.
00:43:28.440We cannot continue to allow China to control the market worldwide for items that are essential to life and to health.