On this episode of the Glenn Beck Show, Glenn and Jay Shetty discuss the latest in the economy, the 2020 election, Joe Biden's latest attack on Donald Trump and his supporters, and Michelle Obama's comments about the upcoming election.
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00:01:52.000You know, Biden has continued his attacks on Donald Trump and his supporters. Now, this is something, again, the New York Times just said that Donald Trump does, but apparently not Joe Biden. But let me just tell you what happened. It is a speech last night in Charleston, South Carolina.
00:02:15.380Uh, he said that Donald Trump and his supporters, uh, are defeated Confederates. Oh, so wait, we would be Democrats after the civil war, the defeated Confederates wouldn't accept the verdict of the war they lost.
00:02:34.320So they say they embraced what is known as the lost cause, the self-serving lie that civil war was not about slavery, but about state rights. Uh, they call that the noble cause. That was a lie. Yes, Joe, it was a lie. It is really weird, but you would know it best because you're a Democrat.
00:02:55.320And that was the lie of the Southern Democratic Party. Uh, next, we're living in an era of second loss cause. Once again, there are some in this country trying to turn a loss into a lie, a lie that if allowed to live, will once again, bring terrible damage to this country.
00:03:11.240This time the lies about the 2020 election. Let me say what others cannot. We must reject political violence in America. I agree. Like the Klan, which was an arm of the Democratic Party or BLM, which is an arm of the Democratic Party. Um, he says always, not sometimes, but always it's never appropriate. So I would assume that would be like, you know, BLM.
00:03:41.220Um, today, the violence of January 6th was the extension of an old playbook from the threats of violence and intimidation. Now there was a period there, but I would add, uh, just the kind of stuff we were talking about with the Klan, which was a, uh, a violent arm of the Democrat Party. I just thought I'd throw that in.
00:04:07.700Hmm. Yeah. They don't, it doesn't get mentioned all that much, uh, the history of these institutions. Yeah, no, it really, it's strange. It doesn't. Now, um, Michelle Obama came out and, uh, she said she is terrified by what may come out of the 2024 election.
00:04:27.700Is she giving a warning? Is she giving a warning? She's not, I mean, let me just, she's not saying that she's giving a warning about Donald Trump in 2024, is she?
00:04:35.640Yeah, she is. She is. That's the same thing the New York Times did today.
00:04:39.340Yeah. So she's on this podcast with Jay Shetty.
00:04:48.480Of course. You don't get Michelle Obama if you're not, if you're a different Jay Shetty.
00:04:52.920Oh, she says, what's going to happen this next election? I am terrified about what could possibly happen. That's weird because so am I, because our leaders matter who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit. It affects, it affects us in ways. Sometimes I think people take for granted. Here she is. Listen.
00:05:14.340The things that keep me up because you, you don't have control over them and you wonder where are people, where are we in this? You know, where are our hearts? What's going to happen in this next election? I am terrified about what could possibly happen because our leaders matter. Who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit. It affects us in ways that sometimes I think people take for granted.
00:05:41.980Yeah. Is he wearing a snuggie in that interview? He seems to be wearing a blanket with sleeves. Is it a snuggie? Is it a slanket? What is it? Because, uh, you know, this is, this is why shows in snuggies. I'm going to start doing the show in a snuggie. I didn't know that was allowed.
00:06:04.720I have to tell you. I have to tell you, this is, this is why people put their good money into signing up for blaze TV because they get the kind of deep questions like slanket or snuggie, which is it. And I don't think I've heard anybody else ask that Stu. Congratulations. Thank you very much, Glenn.
00:06:22.440Yeah. Um, she said she, uh, she knows too much because she was married to the president who knows everything about everything in the world. Wow. She listed wars in too many regions. Uh, the future of artificial intelligence, the environment, education, whether people will vote, people being too engrossed in their phones as other issues that keep her awake at night. Uh, then they focus the discussion.
00:06:52.440They focus the discussion on what offends her, you know, and many times, uh, I've been in conversations and it's turned to that very familiar phrase. I wonder what offends Michelle Obama. Uh, and she spoke about it and she dislikes injustice. Thank God somebody does. Uh, she dislikes ego, right? Greed. Don't you know it. And racism.
00:07:20.580She condemned unfairness and bullies. Um, and she also decried childish leadership in which somebody is just base and vulgar and cynical. You know, she's not cynical. The police don't always do you like that. White people don't always do you like that. That would be cynical. Uh, anyway, she says she just wants to resonate. Good.
00:07:42.240I want to, I want to, I want to be a face of reason and compassion and empathy. And that's much more important than my feelings because my feelings, I can take care of those. She's on the road of being a Republican. Listen to that. Her feelings don't matter because she's in charge of those.
00:08:05.200That's the first progressive Democrat I've ever heard say that. She also talked about, and this is going to come as a surprise to you about being another. She said, you know, you learn how to be excellent all the time because you can't be less, you know? Uh, and as she said, I just find it interesting that some people can be indicted a bunch of times and still run for office while black men can't.
00:08:30.460And I thought of that. I thought of that when, uh, her husband won the presidency two times in a row. Uh, I thought, boy, you know, I thought this was a country where a black man can't run, uh, for office. And, uh, I, I must've been mistaken.
00:08:44.880It's called oppression. It's called oppression. It's oppression that, you know, only eight years in the white house. Do you know that they created that constitutional amendment limiting presidents to two terms just to stop the first black president?
00:08:57.420That's why they did it. Not, uh, I know it's sad. It's sad. And now it's hard to believe, but it's true.
00:09:03.820It was a white guy that, uh, well, he was really our first black president. Um, FDR. Oh, really? FDR. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. You didn't know that. I always thought it was Clinton.
00:09:14.820No, he was second, but no, no, he was the second black president. Yes. And neither Clinton or FDR were black, but they were, but they, well, it depends on how they identified that particular term.
00:09:26.100I mean, one of his terms where he was a black president and, and one of them, he was a native American president. One, well, he was, and he was a, a lesbian woman for one of his terms.
00:09:36.900Really strange. Cause his wife was too, but anyway, this is the kind of thing that I shouldn't think she's talking about. The reason that she could bring to the table.
00:09:49.560Now, Stu, I mean, that's exactly how I would introduce her to the political process is getting her on some big show like the Jay Shetty show, which is anything but Shetty. You know what I mean?
00:10:09.280Yeah. The, the, the, the, the snuggie guy, this, the, you're going to put them on a show with a host that's wearing a snuggie and that's how you're going to launch the campaign. That's how you do it.
00:10:16.840Right. That's how you do it. And, uh, and, you know, I know you still think that, you know, I'm crazy and I might be crazy for saying that she, cause she's keep saying she's not interested in it, you know, but wow, she's concerned.
00:10:29.720And what, what kind of person are you, uh, that could save the Republic that, that your party would come to you and say, look, he clearly can't run.
00:10:41.800We can't, we can't start a new campaign right now with anybody else. Uh, and you know, she might say, well, you've got a great qualified black woman in Kamala Harris.
00:10:52.960And I mean, you'd have to say, well, no, we just picked her for color. Um, she's not strong enough to be the president. Everybody hated her even in our own party.
00:11:05.280And then she would remember, and then she would go, Oh, you, you know what? You're right. And I could be probably the only replacement because you can't replace him with another white man.
00:11:15.960If you have a black woman right there on the side of the stage, well, okay. I care about my country. I don't, my president will run it anyway.
00:11:24.220To be clear. I don't think you're crazy on this, uh, on this theory. I think it's plausible, especially if things continue to go badly. I mean, you know, you know what Joe Biden's approval rating is right now on average 38%.
00:11:41.660Okay. I really would have thought it was shocking. Yeah. It is. I, I, wow.
00:11:48.300But like that is down. I mean, he's down from when it was terrible. Like this is, it's just really ugly.
00:11:56.100Well, wait a minute. Wasn't Donald Trump's at like 39.
00:11:58.760Trump's wasn't good either. Trump's always terrible on approval rating though. From the moment he walked into office, that was not the case with, uh, Barack Obama or Joe Biden.
00:12:06.880And it continues to go down for Biden. Things continue to get worse for his candidacy. And of course he has other limitations that neither of those candidates had, you know, including an age that starts with an eight.
00:12:18.640If they, if they could just, and I mean this sincerely, if they could just shut up or imprison anyone that would speak out against his policies or point out that, you know, they're not working.
00:12:31.280For democracy. Right. For democracy. People would love him.
00:12:35.520Yeah. If they, if he was the only choice, my belief is he'd get 100% of the vote and that would show real unity in this country. That's how democracy works. Every single person, one man, one vote, one available candidate. That's democracy.
00:12:52.520As it was outlined by our founders. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. So I don't know. I mean, I, I, so I don't think your, your idea of Michelle Obama making this, you know, his heroic run is, is, is implausible.
00:13:06.680I don't know that it's the most likely outcome, but I do think it's a long shot. Yeah. It's a long, it's a long shot, but it would be, it would be one that I think would win the election immediately unless she went out and she started talking to people.
00:13:21.600So they'd have, they'd have to run it in that very democratic fashion of keeping her under lock and key, you know, kind of like they did with Joe Biden. Just, you know, once in a while she'd appear from the basement.
00:13:32.420Um, but, uh, you couldn't have her actually speaking on her own because she hates America and it's clear once you start to hear her.
00:13:41.960Yeah. Can we investigate the, investigate that a little bit? Because I think the assumption is because if you look at Michelle Obama, Obama's approval ratings, for example, occasionally that's pulled and they're very, very good.
00:13:53.560I mean, they, she's overwhelmingly liked by the American people. Now I don't understand that myself, but it's the abs, it's the, the arms.
00:14:02.260I thought it was the arms. Oh yeah. The arms, the arms. Her arms are so beautiful. So whatever it is, she's got good approval ratings.
00:14:08.120Hang on just a second. Hold on. Look, can we just think about her arms for a minute? Just a moment.
00:14:12.040Man, they were beautiful. And they still are Glenn in every way. I miss them. I miss them.
00:14:16.380She's the most beautiful woman in the world. Wow. I'm just, sometimes you just get that, that sense of what that woman really is. You know, all woman, just hear her roar.
00:14:32.260This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:14:38.120If you've gone into restaurants lately and you've been shocked at the price of anything, soup, sandwiches to steak, anything, you, you can fall into what's going on.
00:14:54.300This is a scam. How can a BLT be 16 bucks? We wanted to get Brian will on.
00:15:00.500He's a serial entrepreneur, two-time wall street journal, bestselling author, leading consultant in business and sales management management.
00:15:06.300He's, he's founded seven different country, uh, country, uh, companies across four distinct industries.
00:15:13.220Um, he is currently, uh, the head of, uh, a chain of restaurants, uh, and, uh, they are the Derby sports bar, Cantina Loca, uh, the tavern house in central city tavern.
00:15:29.020He is also in his spare time, uh, a member of the city council, uh, in the town of, uh, Alpharetta, Georgia.
00:15:37.200I hope we have time to talk about that a little bit.
00:15:40.240Um, but he was just on talking about the price of a BLT on, uh, Varney and company and everyone on my staff, uh, Brian found that fascinating and how you broke that down.
00:16:13.440This whole conversation, uh, Glenn started with a friend of mine who sent me this text when he was sitting in my restaurant saying, Hey, Brian, uh, I'm sitting here eating your BLT and it's $16.
00:16:22.880You know, it's only bacon, lettuce, tomato, and bread.
00:16:26.400And I said, you know, Dan, let me break this down for you.
00:16:55.080That's six, that's $16 sandwich has about $5 of actual food costs, which leaves about $11 of gross profit.
00:17:02.160But out of that 11, $2 of that goes towards rent and utilities.
00:17:07.060$2 and 50 cents goes towards, we call our fixed operational expenses, like the TVs and the music and the mats and the towels and all that stuff.
00:17:15.440So labor to make that sandwich was $4 and 50 cents, which only leaves me a profit of $2.
00:17:22.300So on a $16 sandwich, I have $2 of actual net profit that I get to keep unless or until something breaks or something goes wrong.
00:18:15.860I mean, it's not just the price of food, is it?
00:18:19.860No, food has gone up, but our biggest increase in expenses has been labor.
00:18:25.100If you remember, obviously, when COVID hit and everybody was getting all these extended unemployment benefits, when we came out of COVID and tried to bring people back, they didn't want to come back to work.
00:20:43.240Business owners are on this tightrope, and you have to balance what you can charge on one end with what the consumer is willing to pay on the other.
00:20:51.140And so as long as you can keep that balance, you can stay on the tightrope and stay in business.
00:20:54.880But if you charge too much, they stop coming.
00:21:03.920And in our case, we've made sure we put our locations in what we call high-traffic areas.
00:21:09.320So we're getting, you know, organic traffic running around our restaurants, which helps us drastically.
00:21:15.800But you look at these small operators that are out there, you know, fighting all these costs that don't have that organic type of traffic, and that's why they're going under.
00:21:41.580It's a different world in a lot of ways.
00:21:43.300And I actually do a lot of sales and management training.
00:21:45.620And one of the other things we know in today's environment is there's so much information online that people can research almost anything before they ever walk in your door.
00:21:54.760And they already know what your competition's charging.
00:21:57.240They already know what they should be paying.
00:21:59.320And so, again, you're back to this balance of you either need to create something extremely unique that will drive people in and make them want to buy from you,
00:22:08.980or your chances of success are diminished greatly.
00:22:11.520So, I called COVID the great washout, Glenn.
00:22:14.940All the weak operators that used to be able to make it because we were in a booming economy, when COVID hit, it just washed out all those weak operators and only left the ones that are strong.
00:22:25.420Now, you've got people that are coming in behind us and trying to come in and undercut.
00:22:29.840But all they're going to do is lose all their money and go out of business and hurt the rest of us.
00:22:34.380It's an interesting time to be in business.
00:22:37.760But if you're a true entrepreneur, it washed out a lot of people who were just, you know, my dad used to have his own bakery.
00:22:45.300And that is hard keeping that afloat, you know, a one little one-man shop in whatever you're doing.
00:22:55.680It wiped out a lot of people who are just working for themselves.
00:22:59.000Yeah, just working for themselves and only making enough money to live on.
00:23:04.020And most of the people that got washed out didn't have any financial security behind them, savings, you know, they just weren't able to weather that bump.
00:23:12.500Which is one of the things I teach entrepreneurs today is you better have enough security behind you that if the next COVID comes along or if something weird happens, you're not going to get wiped out at the drop of a hat.
00:23:22.420We laid off 150 people in one day in March of 2020.
00:24:44.920Maybe they won't go up as much, but they're not going back down.
00:24:47.040People get very confused on how that works.
00:24:49.080But if we can get the economy booming again to where people aren't afraid to spend their money and they aren't hoarding it, trying to wait to see what's going to happen, then people go out and they'll have more fun.
00:24:59.100They'll spend more money, and I think we'll all be okay.
00:25:01.100It's just taking a little bit of time.
00:25:09.440Brian Will, he's an entrepreneur and explaining what is really going on.
00:25:13.740It's going to get harder and harder for people to see and easier and easier for politicians to create boogeymen and say, you know, it's these evil store owners.
00:25:32.540When, in reality, all of the regulations, just what's happening with meat in California is truly terrifying.
00:25:41.460Stu, would you write down – I'd love to get somebody from, you know, the pork producers or the beef producers of America to explain to America the dilemma that they are in right now.
00:25:53.720Chicken producers, anybody who's producing eggs, all of this.
00:25:58.340California just passed a law before the new year, and it's now in effect that animal pens have to be a certain size.
00:26:09.280If the pork and beef producers, pork producers say, if we have to put this in, then that's going to cost about $3,500 a head for every pig.
00:26:22.620And that would obviously put us out of business or raise the price skyrocket.
00:26:29.060And so they're put into this position to where they either are not going to sell to California, which is a big buyer, or they have to abide by California law.
00:26:45.300And that will cost the entire country more money because they have to build all of these different pens and barns and everything else.
00:26:56.960I personally, and I'm in a different situation than any of the other farmers are or ranchers are, but I personally would say, screw you, California.
00:27:06.480California, I'm tired of California dictating to us what we can and cannot do.
00:27:31.160This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:27:45.840Now, Stu, I don't want to speak out of turn, but I have heard the reason Secretary of Defense, you know, he doesn't want to say why he was in the hospital.
00:27:57.180It was for elective surgery, and I've heard a lot of people joke about this.
00:28:02.820What does he have in transgender surgery?
00:28:04.520I mean, why not just share what you have?
00:28:06.640And to be clear, that's wrong to do because that's not elective.
00:28:12.240Transgender surgery is the most important thing you can do for your health.
00:36:09.700You have been with the services forever, you and your family.
00:36:19.140What do you look at now and say, this is something that keeps me up, or this is something that I keep looking at and saying, well, that's good.
00:36:34.920Because I do think that we are on a tactical basis, which is we haven't won the war, but we've won a few battles.
00:36:41.900I do think we are turning the tide on some things.
00:36:44.960You mentioned earlier about ESG or some of the real battles, social battles that we've had.
00:36:54.360And I think people are just exhausted by it, and frankly, I think they're sickened by it.
00:36:58.180And we are winning on a couple of those things.
00:37:00.100And I think we're going to – it's going to clearly be one of the primary conversations during the election.
00:37:05.640And I think, again, we're winning some of those battles, or at least we're slowing some of them down.
00:37:09.980But I think this year, Glenn, just has the potential to be just such a mess, and it's going to hinge on the election.
00:37:21.160And you know, Glenn, the last book I wrote that you and I have talked about, kind of the premise of that is the contested election, where we truly have half the country who just says, whoever wins, he's not legitimate.
00:37:35.740I will never recognize him as our president.
00:37:38.660And President Trump is going to be found guilty of some charges.
00:38:11.920He's authoritarian, and therefore we can never let him serve.
00:38:15.960And the second is, you know, he's a criminal.
00:38:17.660And I think, meanwhile, the Republicans look at this and go, well, you all, the projection on this is just beyond irony about them accusing Republicans of being totalitarian when we've seen the history of what they've done.
00:38:31.140And I just don't have a plan about the election this year.
00:38:36.200I worry about the chaos and the riots.
00:38:38.200I think it's going to make 2020 look like a garden party, or at least potentially could.
00:38:43.420And then ultimately putting us in a place where there's actual real uncertainty about who is the president.
00:38:51.680And I don't know how our country walks through that without some just real pain.
00:39:14.820Any of the bad guys just come after us.
00:39:17.800I mean, we're entering that time I talked about in 2008 where all of our enemies will see that we are so weakened that without coordination, they'll just all look at each other and go, now, go, go, go, go, go.
00:39:43.160And how are they going to respond if they're divided or if they're chaotic or if there's uncertainty about who the actual president is?
00:39:48.820And, by the way, the American people will be exhausted by this effort as well, and it's much harder for them to say, well, okay, while we're in the midst of all this, yeah, let's go ahead and intervene in a war in the South China Sea.
00:40:00.460And here's something else to keep in mind with that, Glenn, that's really important.
00:40:04.240Most of the wars that we've been involved with for the last generation, very little sacrifice for most Americans.
00:40:11.360Now, for those people serving, it's incredible sacrifice, but most Americans, it's not.
00:40:16.140But a war with China, for no other reason than this, the best analysis shows a 9% reduction in GDP from a war in the South China Sea.
00:40:26.080To give that some measure, there was a 7% reduction during the Great Depression.
00:40:33.060Every one of us will feel it if we have a war with China.
00:40:37.020And it won't be the kind of thing where we think, gosh, I pray for our soldiers because they're over there fighting a war.
00:40:43.940Every one of us will be praying it intensely because every one of us will be affected by it.
00:40:49.180But there's no way we could go in and protect Taiwan at this point, is there?
00:41:01.320I mean, the hope is that we can manage a deterrence, which would convince China it's just not worth the cost, which is, of course, what we're trying to do now.
00:41:10.080But, you know, if you think that, or someone who would suppose, well, you know, Taiwan won't be nearly destroyed in the effort.
00:41:19.500And as an example of that, some of these exquisite chip manufacturers where the world relies on them,
00:41:26.060they are placed in a position geographically where the focus of the war will be.
00:41:30.840There's very little chance that they would survive unharmed.
00:41:33.420And so when you say, well, you know, can we really go in and protect Taiwan?
00:41:37.240Yeah, we can probably protect the island from being actually militarily taken over.
00:41:43.080But it's going to, again, it's going to come at a real cost.
00:41:47.220What happens if you lose those chip plants?