On Day 2 of the Trump administration, we have three of President Donald Trump's most senior officials on the show to talk about their reactions to his first day in office and what they are looking forward to in the weeks and months to come.
00:25:21.440Mike, the idea that we can no longer go after Fauci or any of the people on January 6th, what does that mean to you?
00:25:36.840Well, what it means to me, first of all, is that these guys are going to have a hard time, perhaps an impossible time,
00:25:44.420invoking the Fifth Amendment, not if, but when they're subpoenaed to testify in congressional hearings.
00:25:50.140Because if they've been pardoned, then one can rationally, logically conclude that there's no risk of prosecution.
00:25:59.920And if that's the case, I don't think they can invoke their Fifth Amendment rights to remain silent.
00:26:06.020And we can finally get to the bottom of exactly what happened.
00:26:09.540It also means that there was an understanding that some things happened.
00:26:14.220Some things happened that would otherwise likely be likely to lead to an investigation, if not promote charges to be brought against some of these people.
00:26:26.340But what do you, because I watched enough CNN yesterday.
00:26:30.720I watched CNN enough yesterday to know that they're spinning this as they're just doing this as preemptive against Trump because he's going to go after these poor people.
00:26:39.540Yep. So if you believe that, then you're likely somebody who believed Fauci in the first place.
00:26:47.100And you're quite possibly somebody who, even after Anthony Fauci, was caught repeatedly lying, in some cases under oath, to Rand Paul and others who asked him questions.
00:27:00.560But remember, Rand Paul was raising the question very early on about gain-of-function research.
00:27:07.160Tony Fauci repeatedly denied that there was gain-of-research funding happening.
00:27:12.980And, of course, it was all the time. They were covering it up.
00:27:16.040They tried to use a different name to characterize it, but it was still gain-of-function research.
00:27:21.000Tony Fauci also spread the false rumor that this was, you know, the result of, I don't know, a pangolin and a monkey holding hands in a park somewhere in Wuhan, and that produced the virus.
00:27:38.220And, you know, a lot of people were harmed as a result of this.
00:27:41.120The COVID deaths and illnesses in and of themselves were bad enough, and the predictable, foreseeable outcome of the U.S. government's funding gain-of-research activities in places like Wuhan, a place that was known to have a horrible hygiene record.
00:28:00.440And that's how things like this happen.
00:28:03.240And then the country overreacts, and more bad things happen all over the place.
00:28:07.860Yeah, this has got to be investigated.
00:28:09.520And, yeah, President Biden knew Tony Fauci faced real problems here.
00:28:15.080That's why Trump needed to act, and I'm glad that Trump is going to see to it if the truth comes out.
00:28:22.120Biden may well be able to pardon him, and he, in fact, did.
00:28:26.500But in some ways, that helps us get to the bottom of the truth.
00:28:29.320We've got to subpoena the heck out of these guys and get the truth out of them.
00:28:32.880Because if they tell a lie on the witness stand, if they deny what we now know because of documents to be the truth, they can be prosecuted for that lie.
00:28:51.520And, of course, the whole point here is not we can't undo the damage these guys did.
00:28:58.600And the point isn't to torment them for the sake of tormenting them.
00:29:02.020The point here, Glenn, is that we've got to get to the bottom of the truth because otherwise this kind of pattern of abusive government continues to happen.
00:29:09.260And I will flag here the fact that if we understood the nature of the federal government, if we read the Constitution and understood the twin structural protections at the heart of it, the vertical protection that we call federalism, the horizontal protection that we call separation of powers, this crap would end.
00:29:27.860And so we've got to we've got to restore the movement in America, getting people to read and understand the Constitution, particularly the structural Constitution, which has been badly, badly neglected and bastardized over the last 80 years.
00:29:42.540You're streaming the best of Glenn Beck.
00:29:44.360To hear more of this interview and others, download the full show podcasts wherever you get podcasts.
00:29:49.840Welcome to the Glenn Beck program and Jen Pellegrino, who is America's first Policy Institute senior director.
00:29:56.460She is also American First Policy Institute chief spokesperson.
00:30:01.140If you don't know anything about America First Policy Institute, I kind of say good, really, because they kind of kept everything under wraps and they were just putting their head down, not looking to score points or become famous or anything.
00:30:16.800They wanted to make sure that they could actually get in and do the hard work once this administration started.
00:30:23.600And a lot of the people that have been working with America First are now in cabinet level and just under the cabinet level.
00:30:32.960So there's a lot of a lot of planning that happened here that was started to execute yesterday.
00:30:42.840And, you know, we're so proud of the work that's been done here, Glenn.
00:30:45.540I've been only on the team for a little over a month now, but I look back to my career as a journalist and interviewing a number of experts and leaders from AFPI over the years.
00:30:54.460And it's really been incredible to watch the work that they've done that have led us to this place where we have this mandate, this massive victory, this new day in America that is largely thanks to the work, the research, the policy that AFPI has developed.
00:31:09.940And you think back to 2021 when Brooke Rollins, who had worked in the Trump administration the first time around, had this vision.
00:31:18.780I mean, it was the start of a dark time in this country, the dark winter, as Joe Biden called it back then.
00:31:24.360And, you know, when so many conservatives were out there feeling defeated, feeling like it was over for us and it only got worse as the years went on, Brooke had a vision and thought we could have a great comeback.
00:31:37.780And it's amazing to see how that transformed where we are.
00:31:41.200This is the first time, and I know, you know, it's happened with every president, but this is the first time that I felt we stepped up our game so much we were at least competitive with the left on once you win.
00:31:59.420You know, the left comes in and they've done so much homework that they're building a machine and they've been building this machine forever.
00:32:06.960And we never seem to come in with a schematic and go, no, no, no, that part has to be removed and that part has to.
00:32:13.640And we're building a machine and here are the new parts.
00:32:18.080I feel like we've done that this time for the for the first time in a dramatically significant way.
00:32:26.820And, you know, it's it's been a process, right?
00:32:29.120I think that the left, in my opinion, it goes back to 2020 when our cities were burning.
00:32:33.960And I think Americans were sick and tired of seeing it.
00:32:37.800I remember being in the middle of it in D.C. and on the weekends having to get out of town because I couldn't think about what was happening.
00:32:55.120We have to push back a little bit more because they were doing it on the left.
00:32:58.380And so it's it's been really remarkable to see how, you know, year by year, slowly but surely, we're starting to kind of pull back a little bit to regain that control.
00:33:09.480And obviously, AFPI has been a great leader in that space and getting the messaging out there.
00:33:14.800But I think Americans have just gotten fed up.
00:33:17.400They're sick of being lied to by administrations, by the media.
00:33:21.160And they said, we're not going to have it anymore.
00:33:23.560So why do we have the White House correspondent?
00:33:25.540I mean, I know the history, but the White House correspondents, they control the press room.
00:33:35.920I'll tell you, as when I was a White House correspondent during the last Trump administration, it was brutal.
00:33:42.040You know, they did not want conservative outlets in there.
00:33:45.200Aside from kind of the big names that we all know, the smaller outlets that a lot of people watch, that they look to, that they feel are more truthful in delivering the news, more transparent.
00:33:55.440The White House Correspondents Association was threatened by.
00:33:58.840It was in the way they treated me every day when I was in that room.
00:34:01.640And, you know, the Trump administration said, we want you in there to report.
00:34:12.000So, photographers that would be in there put a ladder in front of where I'd be standing off to the side so that I couldn't see the podium, so that the president, who would call on me, wouldn't see me.
00:34:22.300So, they would do all kinds of things to try to make your life difficult, from putting notes on your station down in the basement at the White House there, the press basement, really kind of some passive-aggressive action and trying to, you know, prevent you from doing your job, because they were certainly threatened by it.
00:34:39.360And so, I really hope, you know, given the way President Trump and his team have handled the media so well, especially this last election cycle, I really hope, given all that they've learned and experienced, that they transform that briefing room.
00:37:02.060Half the time, she had to bring in somebody else to do her work because she couldn't explain the questions that were being asked by the president.
00:37:08.200And she never got her nose out of that book.
00:40:57.520I don't see them, you know, obviously reporting the truth, aligning with, you know, the vision that President Trump has had and reporting on it accurately.
00:41:05.760So I think we are going to see the shift more toward the podcast space, more toward the work like you do, because Americans are fed up with it.
00:41:13.700There was a poll out in December from AP that two thirds of Americans had to tune out the media.
00:41:18.700They were tired of politics and news because, again, it was all lies.
00:41:22.520And for that election, they said, wow, wow, we were misled for how long?
00:41:27.400And the only time they actually changed their minds is when somebody actually who they used to love signs up and says, you know what, I'm going to stand with Donald Trump.
00:41:38.180Then they that's that changes them overnight.
00:41:42.380What do you think about all of these people that are playing, you know, kissy butt with with Donald Trump that are all these executives, Bezos, Zuckerberg, everybody else?
00:41:55.100I mean, I'd just like to hear your opinion first.
00:42:06.740But I really have a lot of concerns seeing some of these individuals, knowing the things that they've said, the actions they've taken in the past.
00:42:14.180And suddenly, because they're backed in a corner, they're supporters, they're fans of President Trump.