The Glenn Beck Program - July 09, 2019


Best of the Program | Guests: Dave Isay & Michael Shellenberger | 7⧸9⧸19


Episode Stats

Length

54 minutes

Words per Minute

162.74861

Word Count

8,933

Sentence Count

630

Misogynist Sentences

10

Hate Speech Sentences

7


Summary

Glenn Beck takes a look at the New Zealand gun grab, and takes a deep dive into the conspiracy theory surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He also talks about the Epstein scandal, and how it could have a major impact on the 2020 election.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey podcasters, great show for you. Today we have a little look at how well things are going in New Zealand with their gun grab.
00:00:09.400 You remember, only one person in their house, in their parliament, decided, no, no, no, we shouldn't do this.
00:00:15.520 Only one person out of all the representatives said they shouldn't because it was the voice of the people.
00:00:22.380 Well, how are the people doing with turning in their guns? 1.5 million guns estimated to be in the hands of New Zealanders.
00:00:30.680 How many have been turned in since this began? The number will astound you.
00:00:35.940 Also, some other things that might just astound you today.
00:00:39.460 We also have an expert in nuclear energy and somebody who has really done his research on Chernobyl
00:00:49.060 and says pretty much the entire Chernobyl story on HBO is a lie.
00:00:56.840 He goes further. He says it's a very dangerous lie.
00:01:00.560 And you'll understand all on today's podcast.
00:01:09.460 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:01:13.500 So we know that Google and YouTube aren't just silencing conservatives online.
00:01:23.100 They are also manipulating their algorithms to interfere now with the 2020 election.
00:01:28.000 This is not me saying this. This is this is a guy from Harvard who has been studying it
00:01:32.840 and is actually a Clinton supporter and saw how Google is manipulating algorithms in a very dangerous way.
00:01:39.780 Also, companies like Verizon and AT&T are taking the proceeds from your mobile phone bill
00:01:45.640 and they are they are funding things like Planned Parenthood, et cetera, et cetera.
00:01:49.860 The private company, it's their right to do it.
00:01:52.360 It's also my right to say, I don't want my money going there.
00:01:55.600 So what do you do?
00:01:57.060 Well, we used to not have a choice, but everybody's using the cell, the same cell towers.
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00:02:10.560 I think you even get a month's worth of free service and their causes go to freedom of speech.
00:02:18.180 For instance, they've given two million dollars in the last couple of years just to protect freedom of speech.
00:02:23.620 So if you want great cell service, a lower price and a company that shares your values, go to PatriotMobile.com.
00:02:31.340 That's PatriotMobile.com.
00:02:33.300 Use the promo code Beck.
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00:02:42.080 So years ago, a couple of friends of mine here in New York started something called a conspiracy dinner.
00:02:47.560 And it was only called a conspiracy dinner because at the time we were all called conspiracy, conspirators and conspiracy theorists, even though it looks like almost everything we said has come true now.
00:03:00.760 So it's not really a conspiracy.
00:03:02.720 In fact, we had videotape it.
00:03:04.300 But anyway, that's a different story.
00:03:06.020 So last night, now it's kind of a joke that these these that it's called a conspiracy dinner.
00:03:10.880 And it's it's super smart people that want to get together and just talk frankly about the world.
00:03:22.680 And it was fascinating to me last night because there were there were two people at the table that were former liberals that are no longer liberals.
00:03:38.720 A lot of libertarians and I would say most of them.
00:03:44.280 In fact, I think the libertarians would consider themselves now conservatives because they're so tired of libertarians, you know.
00:03:55.460 Just being.
00:03:57.480 Just being worthless on being able to win.
00:04:00.800 They're just not willing to win, I think.
00:04:03.840 Anyway, we were talking last night and.
00:04:07.120 Yeah.
00:04:08.720 The Republicans better wake up because the Republicans.
00:04:14.280 There was no love at this table at all for the Democrats, for sure.
00:04:20.440 A lot of love at that table for Donald Trump and zero love for the Republicans.
00:04:27.960 The Republicans are seen as useless, totally and completely useless.
00:04:36.820 And at some point that thing is going to catch up to them because what are the really honestly what are they good for?
00:04:44.440 I don't know anybody who's even talking about Republicans anymore.
00:04:48.000 I don't know anybody who's really talking about Congress and excited about this congressman or that congressman or we got to get the congressman.
00:04:55.440 But they all feel that we have done so much in the last 15 years and all of it for relatively no payback.
00:05:07.820 We didn't really get any payback on that.
00:05:11.100 We didn't we didn't get anything for our for our hard earned effort of getting these guys in.
00:05:17.300 And most of them just kind of flip or wishy washy or have no power.
00:05:22.860 So what's going to happen to the Democratic Party?
00:05:26.180 Well, I think you could say what's going to happen to both parties.
00:05:31.720 And the Jeffrey Epstein.
00:05:36.800 Scandal, I think, I think is really interesting and important.
00:05:43.540 Here's a guy that in 2002 had enough political clout to be able to have this thing swept under the rug.
00:05:50.340 Now, if you're if you're paying attention to this story, you will think that there is a possibility that this is all about Donald Trump.
00:05:59.380 And I think there is that possibility.
00:06:01.720 I think the media thinks that I think they're hoping that they can just make this about Donald Trump and his secretary of labor,
00:06:10.740 who was actually the prosecuting attorney down in Florida back in the early 2000s that kind of made a sweetheart deal.
00:06:18.020 Unlike any other sweetheart deal I've ever seen, it was an absolute miscarriage of justice.
00:06:24.000 And so I think they're trying to make it about him.
00:06:26.520 But when Nancy Pelosi's daughter.
00:06:30.280 Comes out and tweets and I want to get this exactly right.
00:06:34.580 Quite likely, some of our faves will be implicated in this case.
00:06:39.500 When Nancy Pelosi's daughter is signaling, hey, Democrats better wake up because some of our favorite people may be implicated.
00:06:51.700 Yeah.
00:06:52.860 Yeah, it looks like they might be.
00:06:55.180 And this I don't know how this guy survives.
00:06:58.340 Yesterday he was in court and he was trying to strike a plea bargain and they're negotiating very, very tough with him.
00:07:09.860 They're trying to get him to to flip evidence on the people that he who were the people that he was servicing with underage girls.
00:07:23.900 I'm not sure what's going to happen.
00:07:26.860 But if you're Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton came out yesterday.
00:07:29.860 Let me let me give you the exact quote from Bill Clinton.
00:07:34.920 Bill Clinton said yesterday.
00:07:39.480 Quote, this is from his office.
00:07:43.340 President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago or those of which he has been recently charged in New York.
00:07:53.460 In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took a total of four trips on Epstein's plane, one to Europe, one to Asia, two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation.
00:08:08.100 Staff supporters of the foundation and his Secret Service detail traveled on every leg of the trip.
00:08:16.300 Now, this is Clinton's office saying this.
00:08:18.240 He had one meeting with Epstein in his Harlem office in 2002.
00:08:23.520 Around the same time, he made a brief visit to Epstein's New York apartment with a staff member and his security detail.
00:08:30.840 He has not spoken to Epstein in over a decade and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein's ranch in New Mexico or his residence in Florida.
00:08:42.000 Okay, so the statement that's going to cause him problem is staff supporters of the foundation and Secret Service detail went along on every leg of those trips.
00:08:55.660 The problem is, is that Clinton went on at least 26 trips on the plane that was dubbed the Lolita Express.
00:09:06.060 Now, when you've got a plane and it's called the Lolita Express, I think this is an open secret, don't you?
00:09:14.300 I think when that's the nickname of the plane, between 2003, he said, between 2001 and 2003, I just went on a few of these trips.
00:09:27.840 Well, 26, according to the FAA logs.
00:09:31.460 The listed destination of those trips were the Azores, Singapore, Brunei, Norway, Russia, among others.
00:09:40.520 On at least five of those excursions, remember, when you get on a plane, there's a record of it because of your ticket.
00:09:50.080 When you're on a private plane, you have to have a manifest.
00:09:54.260 You have to know the names and see the IDs of every single person on board, and it's logged with the FAA.
00:10:02.720 You can't just bring a friend on the plane.
00:10:07.300 It's against the law.
00:10:08.360 You have to have them on the manifest.
00:10:12.080 So he said that, you know, my Secret Service is with me every time.
00:10:16.540 But on five of those flights, the flight logs denote that Clinton was not accompanied by any Secret Service personnel.
00:10:24.720 The former president did occasionally travel in the company of the woman Maxwell.
00:10:30.740 This is the New York socialite, the one who looks like she's the pimp.
00:10:34.200 And also, Epstein's former assistant, both women previously investigated by the FBI, Florida law enforcement, over concerns they helped recruit the underage victims.
00:10:47.120 Clinton claimed he had one meeting in his Harlem office in 2002 around the same time he made a brief visit to the New York apartment with a staff member and security detail.
00:10:57.160 The former president stated he had not spoken in well over a decade, never been in many of the locations.
00:11:03.660 Okay, the problem is he didn't travel with his security detail on five of the 26 flights that he took with Epstein.
00:11:17.760 Why did he dismiss the security detail?
00:11:21.580 Why didn't they go with him?
00:11:23.800 Could be perfectly innocent.
00:11:26.180 But when you have a guy like Clinton traveling 26 times with a guy like Epstein, you kind of wonder.
00:11:35.420 I wonder.
00:11:36.660 Now, they're using this to go after Donald Trump with a line that he gave to, I'm trying to remember where it was.
00:11:48.820 Let's see if it says it here.
00:11:50.040 It doesn't.
00:11:51.100 Oh, yeah, here it is.
00:11:52.340 In New York Magazine.
00:11:53.820 They did a profile in 2002 of Epstein.
00:11:58.280 And this is what Donald Trump said.
00:12:01.800 I've known Jeff for 15 years.
00:12:03.280 He's a terrific guy.
00:12:04.760 He's a lot of fun to be with.
00:12:06.240 It's even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do.
00:12:09.740 And many of them are on the younger side.
00:12:11.980 No doubt about it.
00:12:13.980 Jeffrey enjoys his social life.
00:12:16.400 Well, I mean, that's pretty clear.
00:12:19.260 I mean, he's got a plane called the Lolita Express.
00:12:22.980 And Donald Trump is like, hey, I just want you to know he likes them young.
00:12:29.620 That's a problem.
00:12:31.480 But is it a problem for the president?
00:12:33.880 Did he get involved at all?
00:12:38.160 Well, I will tell you this.
00:12:40.500 Mar-a-Lago, according to a court filing, Mar-a-Lago dumped Epstein from its roster of members because he approached an underage girl there.
00:12:53.900 She filed a protest and Trump immediately had him removed from the members list.
00:13:01.560 That's a really good point in his favor, is it not?
00:13:06.000 Now, here's what this all boils down to.
00:13:13.720 An affidavit in New York.
00:13:18.200 Her name is Sarah Ransom.
00:13:20.420 And she says, I'm currently over the age of 18.
00:13:23.620 I reside in the country of Spain.
00:13:25.240 In 2006, I was 22 years old.
00:13:28.800 I was living in New York.
00:13:30.860 And I was introduced to Jeffrey Epstein by a girl that I had met.
00:13:35.840 Shortly after meeting Jeffrey, he invited me to fly on his private island to the U.S. Virgin Islands, which I did.
00:13:41.940 After that first trip, I traveled to the island several more times, usually on one of his private planes, always at his direction.
00:13:49.500 I'm told that my name appears on the flight logs of one or more of those trips.
00:13:55.040 On a few occasions, Jeffrey also arranged to have me flown to the island on commercial flights.
00:14:00.180 As it turns out, the primary purpose of those visits was to have me have sexual relations with Jeffrey, Nadia Mikova, and various other girls and guests he brought to the island.
00:14:16.740 During one of my visits, I met Maxwell.
00:14:21.040 This is the woman who is currently the madam.
00:14:28.840 Watching her interact with other girls, it became clear to me she recruited all or many of them to the island.
00:14:34.840 Once they were there, she appeared to be in charge of their activities, including what they did, who they did it with, and how they were supposed to stay in line.
00:14:43.380 She assumed the same supervisory role with me as soon as I arrived.
00:14:48.260 Some of the girls appeared to be 18 or older, but many appeared to be young teenagers.
00:14:53.680 I recalled seeing a particularly young, thin girl who looked well under 18, and I recall asking her age.
00:15:01.860 I later learned she was a ballerina, but she refused to tell me her age or let me see her passport.
00:15:07.620 In addition to spending time with Jeffrey on his island, I spent time with him in New York City.
00:15:13.920 At his townhouse, I was also, listen to this, I was also lent out by him to his friends and associates to have sex.
00:15:23.220 Among the people he lent me to was his friend, Alan Dershowitz.
00:15:27.680 On one occasion, I was in a bedroom at Jeffrey's New York townhouse with Jeffrey and Nadia Makanova.
00:15:36.500 After a short time, Alan Dershowitz entered the room, after which Jeffrey left the room and Nadia and I had sex with Dershowitz.
00:15:45.660 I recall specific key details of his person and the sex acts and can describe them in an event it becomes necessary to do so.
00:15:55.780 I affirm under the penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.
00:16:02.420 Ah, wow, that's going to hurt Alan Dershowitz.
00:16:06.600 Now, Alan Dershowitz says that I can prove that I was never there.
00:16:11.860 I don't know how you prove something didn't happen, but he says he can prove that this is a lie.
00:16:18.820 Although, you know what this makes me think of was, isn't there a, I'll have to ask my Scottish friend, but I believe there's a dish from England that I, it's called Spotted Dick.
00:16:39.060 And I think that is an actual food item.
00:16:43.260 Don't know why I'm bringing that up, because what I'm really thinking about is Michael Jackson.
00:16:47.140 You remember what happened with Michael, Michael Jackson?
00:16:51.400 Just, I'm just saying.
00:16:54.280 They photographed him, right?
00:16:55.760 They photographed me, they photographed, they photographed my penis, they photographed it, and they drew lines around it, and they swatted it around, and I didn't like it.
00:17:11.040 What kind of freak would do that?
00:17:13.460 I don't know.
00:17:14.560 It was horrifying, it was horrifying.
00:17:16.800 They made me pull my pants down, and they took pictures.
00:17:20.580 Yeah, that'd be bad.
00:17:21.520 Thank you.
00:17:22.080 That's bad.
00:17:22.560 Yeah, it would be very bad.
00:17:23.680 Now, what they found, what they released Monday is that they went into Epstein's house, and they found at least hundreds, I'm quoting the FBI, at least hundreds and perhaps thousands of sexually suggestive photographs of fully or partially nude females that appear to be underage.
00:17:46.340 They were in a locked safe.
00:17:49.220 He's a sex offender.
00:17:50.720 He's not supposed to have any of these.
00:17:53.680 So, he is now saying he will turn evidence, a rumor is, that he will turn evidence if they just kind of, they let him go.
00:18:07.780 I won't do any more than a year in jail, and I'll tell you all of the names involved.
00:18:14.440 How's this going to work out?
00:18:17.880 This seems like, doesn't this seem like a mob movie where that guy is the guy who gets the shiv in the eye someplace towards the end of the movie?
00:18:29.200 Especially when you're dealing with the royal family and American royalty of both sides of the idol.
00:18:38.420 The best of the Glenn Beck program.
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00:18:56.800 Did you see the girl that was licking the ice cream?
00:19:00.680 Yeah, the blue bell.
00:19:01.420 And then, yeah.
00:19:03.060 Put it back in the, it's just the.
00:19:06.140 What did you think of that?
00:19:07.620 You know, it's disgusting.
00:19:09.480 And it creates another weird thing that we're going to have to worry about has somebody licked my ice cream.
00:19:15.380 It got so bad that in some parts of Texas, they've actually got people guarding.
00:19:20.420 They've locked down the ice cream and you have to go seek out one of the employees to unlock the ice cream so you can buy, you know, half a gallon of ice cream.
00:19:29.760 Am I the only one that, am I the only one that has to take that plastic wrap around the lid off?
00:19:37.480 Do they have that on blue bell?
00:19:39.360 Because I think that, that was, wasn't that one of the things that they were yelling about is why don't you have one of the plastic wrappers around the top?
00:19:46.740 I'm trying to think if, if you have to.
00:19:49.460 I don't know, I usually am not the one that opens the blue bell.
00:19:52.480 Right, I'm just the one that finishes it.
00:19:53.840 But I am the one.
00:19:54.260 Yeah, almost every time.
00:19:55.080 I'm the one who finishes it.
00:19:56.560 I never open it, but I know if it has something to do with that empty container going into the garbage can after it's been almost licked clean, I can answer that.
00:20:09.680 So there was a guy, did you see the guy with the scope mouthwash?
00:20:13.920 Did the same thing?
00:20:15.200 No.
00:20:16.440 What, he gargled it and spit it back into the jar?
00:20:18.560 Oh yeah, I mean, he was just so obnoxious.
00:20:22.140 Now, here's the thing.
00:20:23.520 One of them, one of them actually has the, has the receipt for the ice cream and they have her on tape going back.
00:20:38.420 She licked it, put it away, and then walked off camera.
00:20:42.160 Then they have her on the store camera going back in, getting that ice cream and taking it up front and buying it and taking it out of the store.
00:20:52.760 Which, you know, it's nice to think that they, nice to think that they did.
00:21:00.980 That they didn't leave it, yeah.
00:21:03.020 Right, the, we don't know this suspect that has been arrested, but she faces 20 years in prison.
00:21:10.800 Which, for the licking, that's a little stiff, I think, a little severe.
00:21:19.540 You think?
00:21:20.800 I think maybe a fine, you know, a public health safety issue fine of some sort, $100 or whatever.
00:21:28.460 $10,000, $10,000 are on the table for committing second degree felony of tampering with a consumer product.
00:21:38.080 Wow.
00:21:38.580 Now, this is the Texas code, so I don't know what you get.
00:21:41.400 I mean, you're lucky you're not hung in Texas.
00:21:43.400 You screw with Blue Bell ice cream.
00:21:45.400 That's true.
00:21:45.860 I think they can hang you in Texas.
00:21:48.420 But 20 years in prison, and I'll bet you, Pat, that this is, comes from the Tylenol scare.
00:21:56.680 Do you remember that?
00:21:57.320 Yes.
00:21:58.460 Yeah.
00:21:59.180 And I was trying to remember the other day.
00:22:01.060 The Tylenol scare happened, well, it was real in one case, I think.
00:22:05.980 Somebody opened up a Tylenol and, I don't know, laced it with cyanide or something.
00:22:11.320 Do you remember?
00:22:12.100 What was that?
00:22:12.680 Yeah, it was something like that.
00:22:13.600 Mm-hmm.
00:22:14.360 It was definitely tempered with.
00:22:17.180 Right.
00:22:17.460 And Tylenol, most people don't know this, Tylenol should be out of business.
00:22:22.920 This is the most remarkable recovery of any consumer product I have ever seen.
00:22:29.880 Mm-hmm.
00:22:30.080 It was marked as poisonous.
00:22:31.880 They said, throw all your Tylenol away.
00:22:34.940 So everybody got rid of their Tylenol because it was poison.
00:22:39.280 Remember, we've all been X-raying our candy for things that never happened on Halloween.
00:22:44.840 This actually happened.
00:22:47.300 They had to get rid of all of it.
00:22:48.860 But it is because of Tylenol that we have the tamper proof, that we have the seal on the outside, that we have the foil seal on the inside.
00:22:59.320 Still no explanation for the cotton, but that's why we have that.
00:23:05.180 And I'll bet you she gets 20 years or she's charged with something that could end up with 20 years because of the Tylenol issue.
00:23:16.780 This is the best of the Glenn Beck Program.
00:23:29.320 Hey, it's Glenn, and if you like what you hear on the program, you should check out Pat Gray Unleashed.
00:23:35.460 His podcast is available wherever you download your favorite podcast.
00:23:39.340 Dave Isay is a friend of ours.
00:23:41.280 He's the founder and president of StoryCorps.
00:23:44.320 StoryCorps, if you listen to NPR, you are very well aware of.
00:23:48.740 It's something that has been running for a very long time, and it's one of the things I just love listening to.
00:23:54.600 And Dave came into my office, I don't know, about a year ago.
00:23:58.140 Less than that, I think.
00:23:58.860 Less than that, and said, we're going to do something new, one small step, and try to bring people together and have them find their way back to each other and just staying away from politics.
00:24:16.580 Yeah.
00:24:17.000 I mean, I think what one small step is about is this.
00:24:19.660 I mean, when I stepped in, is this a new studio?
00:24:23.580 No, these are, yeah, these are new studios for the Blaze here, yeah.
00:24:26.500 So, you know, we were talking about how bananas the country is going, right?
00:24:30.180 And it's about a culture of contempt, and it's taking the, you know, it's taking the temperature down on this culture of this incredibly dangerous culture of contempt that we have in the country now.
00:24:39.920 I was thinking as I walked in, I was at one of the big social media companies last week, and I was saying that, you know, when we call each other, you know, morons or racists or Nazis, like, you can't bully someone into changing their mind, right?
00:24:57.000 When you call someone a name, it doesn't change them, it actually hardens their beliefs, right?
00:25:01.500 And brings them, makes them more extreme.
00:25:04.280 And I said to this person at this social media company, we've created a way for billions of times a day, 24 hours a day, we're telling each other we're morons, right?
00:25:13.940 And it's just dividing us in these ways that are, you know, an existential threat.
00:25:18.620 It's so funny, Dave, because I don't think people are like that in real life.
00:25:24.560 When I travel America, that's not the way they are.
00:25:27.500 They're still living neighbor to neighbor.
00:25:29.680 But we go inside our house, and all of a sudden, we become an animal online.
00:25:35.360 Yeah, yeah.
00:25:36.300 And I think, I mean, what you saw when I, I mean, you've been thinking about this, obviously.
00:25:40.660 And when I came in, I mean, it was incredibly generous of you to invite me in.
00:25:45.820 And, but you got, you said, like, I totally get it.
00:25:48.980 Like, and, and, you know, and, and it's just, it's, in the last year, it's just gotten, it's just gotten worse.
00:25:54.480 You know, and, and we have to, it's enough already.
00:25:57.420 You know, we've got to figure this thing out.
00:25:59.060 Or, you know, our, the, the, the very fabric of our democracy is, is it, is it risk?
00:26:04.080 I think.
00:26:05.300 It's, I agree with you.
00:26:06.780 I think that there is a, you're not, again, we're all involved in it.
00:26:14.860 But there are catalysts on both sides that are really interested in keeping us divided.
00:26:21.200 You know, we have a political system that learned long ago, the more I divide, the stronger I get.
00:26:29.620 And, and until we solve that, I don't know how, or until we just reject that, until we say, I'm just not going to play that game anymore.
00:26:37.080 Yeah.
00:26:37.360 And I think more and more people are doing that.
00:26:38.980 Yeah.
00:26:39.760 Well, I, I, I hope so.
00:26:41.180 And, and, you know, it's really, it's a little, it's tilting at windmills to some extent, you know, and, and the, I mean, there is definitely a, you know, there's a fear industrial complex.
00:26:49.940 Um, and, you know, the, the, the truth is, as, as you well know, like the only truth is love, right?
00:26:57.200 Full stop.
00:26:58.180 That's it.
00:26:58.720 You know, and that's getting buried.
00:27:00.660 We have to just start telling the truth.
00:27:02.340 It's, it's weird because, you know, you say there's a truth, um, uh, uh, uh, what did you call it?
00:27:07.640 A fear industrial complex, a hate industrial complex.
00:27:10.800 Okay.
00:27:11.100 But you know, that's it, right?
00:27:12.200 That's what you're talking about with politics, right?
00:27:13.760 But it is, but it is strange because there are things to be concerned about.
00:27:18.160 So it's, it's this weird thing that, you know, you say there's a fear industrial complex, which I absolutely agree with.
00:27:26.020 But because of that, there are real problems that are enormous.
00:27:32.880 Absolutely.
00:27:33.420 You know, we, we are, you, you started with, you know, we, we could lose the Republic.
00:27:38.360 Yeah.
00:27:38.720 We absolutely could.
00:27:40.100 And I think we're really close to that if we don't turn around soon.
00:27:43.260 Yeah.
00:27:44.020 But that's not fear mongering.
00:27:46.500 That's telling the truth.
00:27:48.020 Yeah.
00:27:48.340 It's because of the lot, a lot of the fear mongering or I read something, uh, from somebody right after the election of Donald Trump and it was from a democratic operative.
00:27:58.580 And he said, um, uh, you know, in some ways we have to blame ourselves because we took men like Mitt Romney and said he was the antichrist.
00:28:07.860 That's right.
00:28:08.500 And, and when I say, I mean, obviously there are, of course there are things to be afraid of.
00:28:12.460 Yeah.
00:28:12.740 But the fear industrial complex is about making us hate each other.
00:28:15.540 Yeah.
00:28:15.920 And that's not the answer.
00:28:17.280 Right.
00:28:17.700 Right.
00:28:17.920 That's never the answer.
00:28:18.960 You know, we have to, you know, the, the, the story core, which, which you, you mentioned earlier, which I run, which is this, um, project that just brings people together to talk to each other, have these conversations that go to the library of Congress.
00:28:29.940 It's built on the idea that, you know, none of us are the worst thing that we've ever done, you know, assume the best intentions and other.
00:28:37.140 And if, if you have these kinds of golden rules undergirding that the country can move ahead.
00:28:41.520 And if not, we just, we, we, you know, it's, it's, this is, you, you look at the last week, the last two weeks, some of the things that happened.
00:28:48.020 It's like, it's like Vladimir Putin's like dream.
00:28:51.400 Oh, it is.
00:28:52.080 It is.
00:28:52.620 Absolutely.
00:28:52.960 It's like, like he couldn't imagine things going better, you know, for this country from his perspective.
00:28:59.220 But one of the things that story court does is, you know, as we get rid of the golden rule, as we get rid of church or God or whatever it is, that is the, has been the governor on us, you've replaced that with history.
00:29:15.400 So when people enter the booth, they're not willing to say, if I, I think if people really understood your tweets will never go away.
00:29:25.100 So your children and great grandchildren, those are all being put in the national archives as well.
00:29:30.100 Those things will be able to be seen forever.
00:29:33.540 When you go into a story core booth, you know, this is being recorded for the national archives.
00:29:40.260 Right.
00:29:40.720 And people are on their best behavior.
00:29:42.620 It's that governor that we seem to have lost.
00:29:44.860 That's right.
00:29:45.440 I mean, it's, it's the, you know, if we live in this world of complete impermanence, everything, nothing matters, right?
00:29:50.500 You write so that you don't think about it.
00:29:52.320 But when you come into a story core booth, your great, great, great grandchildren are going to listen to you.
00:29:57.740 So, you know, when I was at the social media company, I said, you know, half a million people have participated in story core, which is nothing in social media numbers.
00:30:05.420 But nothing's ever got, like no one has ever behaved badly.
00:30:09.000 And the person I was talking to said that really like strains the boundaries of belief.
00:30:13.520 Yeah.
00:30:13.700 But it's true, you know.
00:30:15.080 And, you know, I think we just have to, we have to remember who we are as people.
00:30:19.680 And that truth that, I mean, I know that you know that, you know, all of our lives, all of our stories matter equally and infinitely.
00:30:26.260 And that's all that matters.
00:30:27.600 So tell me what you brought us today.
00:30:29.020 So I have a couple of stories.
00:30:30.980 Do we have time for two?
00:30:32.220 We have.
00:30:32.580 I think we might have time for two, yes.
00:30:34.080 Okay.
00:30:34.620 So this first one is, StoryCorps does do a lot of history.
00:30:39.780 And, you know, this past, a week ago was the anniversary.
00:30:44.040 And I have a personal story associated with this we can talk about.
00:30:46.880 But my dad was, I found out when I was, when I was in my 20s was gay.
00:30:51.360 And he, and I was, it totally took me by surprise.
00:30:56.520 And my, as my brother said, our nuclear family blew up.
00:31:00.100 And he ended up becoming like a, he was a psychiatrist.
00:31:04.120 He was an amazing, amazing guy.
00:31:07.380 And when he told me about, that he was gay, he mentioned the Stonewall riots.
00:31:12.880 Do you, do you know what, what that is?
00:31:14.360 Okay.
00:31:14.680 So 50 years ago, last week, there was a riot at a bar in, in Greenwich Village that led to
00:31:21.460 the beginning of the gay rights movement.
00:31:23.960 It used to be illegal to have gay bars.
00:31:26.460 And he told me about this.
00:31:27.580 And I went out and I interviewed the people who had been there 30 years ago.
00:31:30.740 Um, and then my dad actually ended up dying, uh, very quickly of cancer, um, on the anniversary
00:31:37.160 of Stonewall a few years ago.
00:31:38.660 And this year is the 50th anniversary.
00:31:40.300 So we did a bunch of stories about what it was like to be gay before, uh, 1969.
00:31:46.140 So this is one of those stories.
00:31:47.940 It's, uh, it's a, a dairy farmer, the kid of a dairy farmer in rural Washington in the
00:31:53.060 1950s, uh, who came to StoryCorps with his daughter, uh, to talk about a school assembly
00:31:57.940 he performed at when he was a teenager.
00:31:59.860 Okay, here it is.
00:32:01.360 I'm riding to school with my oldest brother.
00:32:03.940 And on the way to school, I'm putting glitter all over my face.
00:32:07.740 And my brother said, what in the hell are you doing?
00:32:10.540 I said, I'm putting on my costume.
00:32:12.180 He said, well, I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that.
00:32:15.060 So he dropped me off at the school and he called my dad up and he said, dad, I think you
00:32:21.100 better get up there.
00:32:22.360 This is not going to look good.
00:32:24.160 So my dad drove up to the high school and he had his farmer jeans on and they had cow
00:32:30.460 crap on them and he had his clodhopper boots on.
00:32:33.120 And when I saw him coming, I ducked around the hall and hid from him.
00:32:36.720 And it wasn't because of what I was wearing.
00:32:38.780 It was because of what he was wearing.
00:32:41.660 So the assembly goes well and I'm climbing the car and I'm riding home with my father.
00:32:48.540 And my father says to me, uh, I was walking down the hall this morning and I saw a kid
00:32:53.260 that looked a lot like you ducking around the hall to avoid his dad.
00:32:56.380 But I know it wasn't you because you would never do that to your dad.
00:33:00.020 And I squirmed in my seat and I finally busted out and I said, well, dad, did you have to
00:33:05.340 wear your cow crap jeans to my assembly?
00:33:08.960 And he said, look, everybody knows I'm a dairy farmer.
00:33:12.540 This is who I am.
00:33:14.080 And he looked me square in the eye.
00:33:15.960 And then he said, now, how about you?
00:33:18.040 When you're a full grown man, who are you going to go out with at night?
00:33:21.800 And I said, I don't know.
00:33:24.000 And he said, I think you do know.
00:33:26.320 And it's not going to be that McLaughlin girl that's been making goo goo eyes at you, but
00:33:30.040 you won't even pick up the damn telephone.
00:33:32.960 And I'm going to tell you something today and you might not know what to think of it
00:33:36.000 now, but you're going to remember when you're an adult, don't sneak.
00:33:40.380 Because if you sneak like you did today, it means you think you're doing the wrong thing.
00:33:45.600 And if you run around and spend your whole life thinking that you're doing the wrong
00:33:49.420 thing, then you'll ruin your immortal soul.
00:33:54.220 And out of all the things a father in 1959 could have told his gay son, my father tells
00:34:02.680 me to be proud of myself and not sneak.
00:34:06.140 My reaction at the time was to get out in the hayfield and pretend like I was as much
00:34:11.020 of a man as I could be.
00:34:12.500 And I remember flipping 50 pound bales three feet up into the air going, I'm not a queer.
00:34:18.740 What's he talking about?
00:34:21.260 But he knew where I was headed and he knew that making me feel bad about it in any way
00:34:28.560 was the wrong thing to do.
00:34:29.900 I had the patron saint of dads for sissies.
00:34:35.400 And no, I didn't know it at the time, but I know it now.
00:34:38.800 So Dave, tell me what else you brought.
00:34:41.340 So we, you know, a lot of people are thinking about the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon
00:34:46.100 landing this month.
00:34:47.500 This is a space story and it speaks to the, what happens when you have an archive as big
00:34:51.400 as StoryCorps.
00:34:52.140 So when it was the 25th anniversary of the shuttle disaster, we went to see if anybody had come
00:34:56.140 in to talk about it and the brother of one of the astronauts had come to StoryCorps to
00:35:00.720 remember Ron McNair, who was the second African-American to fly in space and one of the seven
00:35:06.560 astronauts to die when the Challenger exploded in 1986.
00:35:09.960 So this is his brother.
00:35:11.020 This is his brother coming to talk about growing up with Ron in Lake City, South Carolina.
00:35:14.820 Here we go.
00:35:15.100 When he was nine years old, Ron, without my parents or myself knowing his whereabouts,
00:35:20.800 he decided to take a mile walk from our home down to the library, which was, of course,
00:35:25.880 public library, but not so public for black folks when you're talking about 1959.
00:35:31.960 So as he was walking in there, all these folks were staring at him because they were white
00:35:35.700 folk only and they were looking at him and saying, you know, who is this Negro?
00:35:39.220 So he politely positioned himself in line to check out his books.
00:35:43.500 Well, this old librarian, she says, this library is not for coloreds.
00:35:48.760 He said, well, I would like to check out these books.
00:35:51.220 He says, young man, if you don't leave this library right now, I'm going to call the police.
00:35:55.880 So he just propped himself up on the counter and sat there and said, I'll wait.
00:36:01.800 So she called the police and subsequently called my mother.
00:36:05.220 Police came down.
00:36:06.100 Two burly guys come in and say, well, where's the disturbance?
00:36:09.860 And she pointed to the little nine-year-old boy sitting up on the counter.
00:36:13.860 He says, man, what's the problem?
00:36:16.100 So my mother, in the meanwhile, she was called.
00:36:18.120 She comes down there praying the whole way there.
00:36:20.040 Lord Jesus, please don't let them put my child in jail.
00:36:22.300 So, and my mother asked the librarian, what's the problem?
00:36:25.380 He wanted to check out the books and, you know, your son shouldn't be down here.
00:36:29.340 And the police officer said, you know, why don't you just give the kid the books?
00:36:34.160 And my mother said, he'll take good care of them.
00:36:37.560 And reluctantly, the librarian gave Ron the books.
00:36:41.860 And my mother said, what do you say?
00:36:44.540 He said, thank you, ma'am.
00:36:47.700 Later on, as youngsters, a show came on TV called Star Trek.
00:36:52.460 Now, Star Trek showed the future where there were black folk and white folk working together.
00:36:57.980 And I looked at it as science fiction because that wasn't going to happen, really.
00:37:02.180 But Ronald saw it as science possibility.
00:37:04.320 You know, he came up during a time when there was Neil Armstrong and all of those guys.
00:37:09.800 So how was a colored boy from South Carolina wearing glasses, never flew a plane?
00:37:14.460 How was he going to become an astronaut?
00:37:16.940 But Ron was the one who didn't accept societal norms as being his norm.
00:37:21.700 I mean, that was for other people.
00:37:23.220 And he got to be aboard his own Starship Enterprise.
00:37:30.360 You know what's amazing?
00:37:31.540 Both of those stories are 1959.
00:37:33.020 They both start in 1959.
00:37:35.440 And how much we have changed.
00:37:38.680 And that's the frustrating thing, I think, for so many people is we're not those people anymore.
00:37:45.360 We're just not those people.
00:37:47.380 And we can't step back far enough to recognize, look at the progress we've made.
00:37:55.040 Some real good progress.
00:37:57.000 Yeah.
00:37:57.360 And I should say just with when you talk about progress, that library ended up being named for Ron McNair.
00:38:05.660 So now that is the Ron McNair library.
00:38:07.680 Yeah.
00:38:07.860 I mean, there's that great line also, you know, from Maya Angelou, from Clinton's first inauguration,
00:38:14.820 that history, despite its wrenching pain, you know, can't be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
00:38:20.580 We have to look at what it was and face it and make sure that it never happens again.
00:38:25.760 And that's the country moving forward.
00:38:27.840 It's the...
00:38:28.920 And tell the truth.
00:38:29.940 You know, just tell the truth.
00:38:31.880 I've had a problem.
00:38:33.100 One of my favorite...
00:38:34.140 One of my heroes is Winston Churchill.
00:38:36.540 Yeah.
00:38:37.120 Unless you read about him in India.
00:38:38.920 Right.
00:38:39.480 And then you're like, whoa, who is this guy?
00:38:42.420 He's both.
00:38:43.360 Yeah.
00:38:43.500 He's both.
00:38:44.200 It's the trajectory that people are on.
00:38:47.460 Are they getting better?
00:38:48.520 Are they getting worse?
00:38:49.440 Yeah.
00:38:49.840 And that's what we need to do to be able to come together.
00:38:52.320 We have to say, look, we were here.
00:38:55.480 We're now here.
00:38:56.660 We still have a lot of work to do.
00:38:58.120 That's right.
00:38:58.460 But we're on the right trajectory.
00:39:00.340 We have to keep moving in the right direction.
00:39:02.020 Keep moving in the right direction.
00:39:02.880 Dave, thank you so much.
00:39:03.720 It's great to see you.
00:39:04.700 Good to see you.
00:39:05.900 StoryCorps, if you want to be involved with some of these stories, just go to storycorps.org
00:39:13.600 or onesmallstep.
00:39:15.420 Yeah, slash onesmallstep.
00:39:16.880 Okay.
00:39:17.140 And this is about having conversations across the divides.
00:39:19.740 Yeah.
00:39:19.960 And we want to get as many...
00:39:20.800 Like, we're going to start scaling in next year.
00:39:23.140 Okay.
00:39:23.440 And really try and have this be everywhere across the country.
00:39:26.900 But, you know, we'd love the Glenn Beckshaw audience to be pioneers in this.
00:39:32.020 We would love to be.
00:39:32.380 And to really start with us.
00:39:33.180 Thank you.
00:39:33.460 Um, it is, um, storycorps.org.
00:39:41.540 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:39:44.200 There was a story today.
00:39:55.760 You know who Steve Wozniak is?
00:39:57.440 Oh, yeah.
00:39:58.540 Co-founder of Apple.
00:39:59.480 Okay.
00:39:59.560 So Steve...
00:40:00.140 Yeah.
00:40:00.980 Co-founder of Apple.
00:40:01.820 Steve Wozniak came out, um, just, uh, this week and he said, everybody has to cancel Facebook.
00:40:12.440 He said, you know, uh, some people can't because it's their business, et cetera, et cetera.
00:40:17.860 He said, but the average person can, and you have to find a way to get off of Facebook.
00:40:24.100 Get off of Facebook.
00:40:25.940 He did.
00:40:26.600 He got off a year ago.
00:40:27.480 It is.
00:40:29.160 You did?
00:40:30.000 He did.
00:40:31.040 Wozniak did.
00:40:31.980 Yeah, he did.
00:40:32.860 Yeah.
00:40:33.040 Yeah.
00:40:33.300 I would get off if it wasn't for, if it wasn't for business.
00:40:37.640 Yeah.
00:40:38.420 I would get off as well.
00:40:40.360 Um, he says, uh, there are many different kinds of people in some of the benefits of
00:40:44.760 Facebook are worth the loss of privacy, but to many like myself, my recommendation is to
00:40:49.940 most people, you should figure out a way to get off of Facebook.
00:40:53.240 Um, Mike's Mark Zuckerberg buys all the houses around his for privacy.
00:40:58.320 He buys extra lots in Hawaii around his house for privacy, but oh, our privacy hasn't been
00:41:04.620 respected and watched over.
00:41:06.000 He says, they are listening to you.
00:41:09.320 They are watching.
00:41:10.240 He says, people think they have a level of privacy that they no longer have.
00:41:14.420 Uh, why don't they give people a choice?
00:41:16.180 Let me pay a certain amount and, and, uh, and you'll keep my data more secure and private
00:41:21.680 than everyone else handling it for, uh, handing it over to advertisers.
00:41:25.780 He said, everything, everything about you, they can measure your heartbeat with lasers.
00:41:32.700 Now they can listen to you.
00:41:36.000 With a lot of different devices, who knows if my cell phone is listening right now, but
00:41:41.140 I know Alexa has already has been in the news a lot.
00:41:44.520 You should worry.
00:41:45.780 You're having conversations that you think are private or think are to yourself.
00:41:51.460 You're saying words that really shouldn't be listened to because you're not expecting
00:41:57.560 them to be listened to by other ears.
00:42:00.740 There's almost no way to stop it.
00:42:03.920 That's Steve Wozniak.
00:42:05.360 This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:42:20.580 Hey, it's Glenn.
00:42:21.580 And you're listening to the Glenn Beck program.
00:42:23.560 If you like what you're hearing on this show, make sure you check out Pat Gray Unleashed.
00:42:27.860 It's available wherever you download your favorite podcasts.
00:42:31.820 Michael Schellenberger is a guy who on paper should not be on this program.
00:42:36.280 He shouldn't want to come on this program and I shouldn't want to have him.
00:42:39.880 Uh, but I think he's an honest broker of information.
00:42:42.920 He is the founder and president of environmental progress.
00:42:46.720 Uh, he has been an environmental and social justice advocate for over 25 years.
00:42:52.280 Again, not something that I look for in a resume on people that I have on the program.
00:42:58.540 He is also time magazine's hero of the environment green book award winner founder and president,
00:43:04.600 as I said, of environmental progress, but he is not just a climate guru.
00:43:09.680 He's an honest climate guru, uh, and I can't have a conversation with people if they claim
00:43:15.700 to be for the planet and against global warming and they're crying catastrophe, unless you do
00:43:22.480 at least one of these two things.
00:43:24.560 You're a vegan or you understand that nuclear power is the only option that we really have
00:43:31.920 that would be able to replace the energy that we would lose.
00:43:35.120 Michael Schellenberger is a strong advocate for a nuclear energy.
00:43:40.640 Welcome to the program, Michael.
00:43:41.740 How are you?
00:43:42.620 Good.
00:43:42.980 Thanks so much for having me on Glenn.
00:43:45.300 You bet.
00:43:45.900 So did you think twice when we called?
00:43:48.840 No, not at this point.
00:43:51.420 No, I mean, I, I like, I talk, I like talking to people that I don't agree with on everything.
00:43:56.220 That's the, that's, that's, that's America's what America's all about.
00:43:59.280 Isn't it?
00:43:59.640 I mean, I think we've lost sight of that, but it takes Michael, you know, for, to have
00:44:05.100 a conversation like this, it takes somebody that is willing to be honest, at least with
00:44:11.780 themselves.
00:44:12.360 And if you hear something that you, that you agree with, that disagrees with your point,
00:44:17.960 you have to be honest enough to go, huh, I didn't know that I have to look into that
00:44:22.580 more.
00:44:22.840 And if that's true, I might be wrong.
00:44:24.980 And I don't think a lot of people are willing to do that, especially when it comes to nuclear
00:44:29.340 energy.
00:44:30.400 It's crazy how people are just zealots against it.
00:44:33.640 Yeah, I agree.
00:44:35.680 I mean, I was anti-nuclear for most of my life.
00:44:39.280 You know, I didn't, I wasn't a deep thinker in my opposition to it, but yeah, when you
00:44:44.820 start doing the arithmetic, very simple math of how do you transition away from fossil fuels
00:44:52.080 to clean sources of energy, there's just no way to do it without nuclear power.
00:44:56.960 And that became clear to me about 10 years ago.
00:44:59.080 And ever since then, honestly, when people ask me if I'm concerned about climate change,
00:45:03.540 what I say is, well, tell me whether or not we're expanding or shrinking nuclear, because
00:45:08.620 if we were doing a lot of nuclear around the world and expanding in the United States, I
00:45:13.660 probably wouldn't be as concerned about climate change.
00:45:15.860 So for me, the relationship is quite direct.
00:45:19.160 The more nuclear power, the cooler the planet, the less nuclear power, the more heat we're
00:45:26.260 going to have.
00:45:27.960 I have to tell you, Michael, 10, 11 years ago, GM lent me one of their hydrogen cars, which
00:45:34.000 was one of the first things the Obama administration did was make sure that that was shelved.
00:45:38.280 Um, and, and I, I thought this was great, uh, only because the power, uh, just by, just
00:45:46.040 by leaving the rods out at night, all of the hydrogen we could possibly want, which is clean
00:45:52.060 could be made in a nuclear power plant while everybody is asleep.
00:45:55.980 We'd have almost an endless supply of, of hydrogen, uh, where the, the way we have these electric
00:46:02.680 cars, you're still burning coal to make the, you know, the little thing in your walls, not
00:46:07.180 a little magic box that power is coming from something.
00:46:11.720 Yeah.
00:46:12.160 I mean, what I worry about, I mean, basically the trend over time has been to, to have lighter
00:46:17.540 and lighter vehicles.
00:46:18.820 So there's a process called dematerialization where we just use less natural resources as
00:46:24.440 we become wealthier in the society.
00:46:26.100 And that's a really positive trend for the environment.
00:46:28.520 So yeah, what I worry about, cause I live in California and there's just a lot of Teslas,
00:46:33.280 they're really heavy cars.
00:46:35.180 So there's a huge amount of material throughput, a lot of mining, a lot of resource extraction
00:46:40.140 for those cars, hydrogen fuel cells, totally different, much lighter.
00:46:46.180 Um, they have a much, uh, they can travel much farther.
00:46:49.640 Um, there's a bunch of barriers to getting there, but for sure, I think over the next
00:46:53.620 century, we're going to be moving towards, towards some amount of hydrogen fuel cells.
00:46:57.020 All right.
00:46:58.520 So I want to come back to nuclear energy, but, um, the reason why I wanted to have you
00:47:03.000 on today is I heard an interview with you, uh, talking about HBO's Chernobyl.
00:47:09.040 Now I watched that thing and like a dope, uh, took it to be, I mean, how could they possibly
00:47:16.960 say, no, no, no, no, there, there are some things that we changed and there are some things
00:47:21.500 that aren't exactly right.
00:47:23.100 Uh, but it's really only like that one scientist represents a group of scientists.
00:47:27.960 No, when I'm listening to you, almost everything that I saw was not right in Chernobyl, anything
00:47:34.780 that counted.
00:47:36.120 Can you take us through this?
00:47:38.440 Yeah.
00:47:38.840 I mean, it's very terrifying show.
00:47:41.180 I think it's understandable that anybody would watch it would be anti-nuclear by the end of
00:47:45.520 it.
00:47:46.280 And what was so galling about it is that the creator of it and HBO repeatedly claimed that
00:47:52.280 it was based on science, based on facts, and that they only embellished some kind of
00:47:58.880 character details, things that were really unimportant.
00:48:03.220 Well, so, and I was honestly, I've written so much on Chernobyl because Chernobyl just terrified
00:48:08.800 me when it occurred.
00:48:10.120 I was about 15 at the time, 1986.
00:48:14.200 And it was actually one of the main, when I changed my mind about nuclear, what really
00:48:20.220 changed it was when I went and read the actual science about Chernobyl from the World Health
00:48:25.660 Organization, the United Nations has done many studies.
00:48:29.220 And the first thing you discover when you read the science is just how few people died.
00:48:33.980 So, three people were killed in the fire the night, in the fire and the explosion the night
00:48:39.500 of the accident.
00:48:40.760 And then 28 firefighters died several weeks later from acute radiation syndrome.
00:48:46.920 Although, one of the most interesting findings when you read the material is that it's not
00:48:51.540 clear how many of the firefighters died from acute radiation syndrome and how many of them
00:48:56.840 may have died just from being burned from exposure to the fire.
00:49:00.580 They may have survived if they hadn't had, hadn't been burned by the fire as well because
00:49:06.720 that opened up their immune systems to, made them more vulnerable to acute radiation syndrome.
00:49:14.040 And then after that, all we know is that there will be an estimated 16,000 cases of thyroid
00:49:21.240 cancer.
00:49:22.200 And while that may sound like a lot, the mortality rate from thyroid cancer is about 1%.
00:49:27.560 So, very few people die from it.
00:49:29.660 It's easy to treat.
00:49:31.460 So, that brings you to about 160 deaths over an 80-year lifetime.
00:49:37.360 So, you're looking at something around 200 deaths total, which is just, I mean, in any comparison
00:49:45.380 to anything is nothing.
00:49:46.940 I mean, we estimate that somewhere around 7 million people die every year from ordinary air pollution,
00:49:52.880 smoke, not just fossil fuels, but burning wood and dung in poor countries.
00:49:57.880 You know, the number of deaths from people looking at their smartphones while walking or driving
00:50:03.780 in their car, it appears to be somewhere around 4,000.
00:50:07.960 In fact, the death rate from pedestrian deaths and automobile accidents has gone up.
00:50:13.100 That's just annually in the United States.
00:50:15.000 So, I mean, 200 deaths total, and meanwhile, no deaths from radiation from Three Mile Island,
00:50:20.980 no deaths from radiation from Fukushima.
00:50:23.720 It turns out that nuclear is not only the safest way to make electricity, it's literally one
00:50:29.600 of the safest technologies in our society.
00:50:32.260 I mean, it's so shocking.
00:50:34.500 It's sort of so shocking, it's understandable that nobody believes it, because when you watch
00:50:38.440 the HBO special, you think that thousands of people must have died, and the reality is
00:50:44.040 just very different from that.
00:50:46.160 So, can I, can I, first let me just get this out of the way, and then I'd like to take you
00:50:51.560 through the movie step by step.
00:50:53.600 Sure.
00:50:54.580 The obvious thing to say when you hear what you just said was, well, the Russians hit it
00:51:00.840 all.
00:51:01.160 The Russians, you know, didn't track it, because HBO says about the bridge of death, which I know
00:51:06.160 you'll get into, you know, that they didn't track it, so we don't know for sure.
00:51:11.580 But the Russians weren't the only ones interested in tracking this, right?
00:51:17.820 It was the international community that...
00:51:20.000 Yeah, I mean, this is really outrageous, and this is a very easy fact to check.
00:51:26.020 There were many, many studies, dozens, hundreds of studies published in peer-reviewed journals
00:51:30.920 done by foreign scientists going to Chernobyl within days of the accident.
00:51:38.520 For many years afterwards, I interviewed many of the top radiation scientists in the
00:51:44.720 world, including the founder of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, which collects tissue samples so
00:51:49.700 that we can really carefully track how many people were injured or harmed.
00:51:54.080 I mean, it's literally one of the best-studied industrial accidents in human history, and
00:51:59.900 the people who studied it were our academics with no association with the Russian or the
00:52:04.840 Soviet government at the time, you know, incredibly prestigious experts.
00:52:09.720 Sometimes people say things like, well, we really don't know.
00:52:13.240 Radiation is so mysterious.
00:52:14.720 That's complete nonsense.
00:52:16.400 We've been studying radiation's effect on health since 1900.
00:52:20.440 Marie Curie and her husband studied it, you know, 120 years ago.
00:52:25.640 So we know a huge amount about the impacts of radiation.
00:52:29.600 So the idea that there's all this uncertainty or that there was some sort of a cover-up is
00:52:33.960 just complete nonsense.
00:52:36.680 So let's take one of the big things, and that is the firefighter that's in the hospital
00:52:43.380 and his wife comes.
00:52:44.520 There's a couple of things that are completely flipped upside down.
00:52:48.840 For instance, the nurses are warning her, don't get close to him.
00:52:55.720 Don't go beyond that plastic, you know, cover, because the radiation will kill you, when indeed
00:53:03.740 the truth is the exact opposite.
00:53:07.060 She was probably killing him by going past that plastic sheet.
00:53:12.160 That's right.
00:53:13.760 It's pretty outrageous, this part of it, which is this depiction of radiation as contagious,
00:53:22.460 as a kind of virus.
00:53:24.520 And on the one hand, you kind of go, you know, I guess some people kind of go, hey, it's just
00:53:27.860 a TV show.
00:53:28.760 But here's the problem.
00:53:30.960 The fears of radiation and the fears of the people who were exposed to radiation are deadly.
00:53:38.300 In fact, in all the public health reports, it's really sad how many people's lives were
00:53:46.460 hurt.
00:53:46.920 People slipped into depression, anxiety.
00:53:49.540 It turns out that it's really bad for your health to have doctors or others tell you that
00:53:55.420 you've been contaminated, that you're poisonous, to be ostracized from your community, which
00:54:01.080 is what happened both in Chernobyl and in Japan, we know it's just horrible to be stigmatized,
00:54:07.780 to be, you know, ostracized.
00:54:11.340 And so we see huge, you know, mental health consequences of that.
00:54:16.620 So, yeah, I mean, basically, you know, if you have acute radiation syndrome, you know,
00:54:23.040 those firefighters that were exposed to the radiation, once their clothes are removed and
00:54:27.500 they're cleaned, there is no risk of any radioactive particles affecting anybody.
00:54:33.800 So, yeah.
00:54:34.220 Okay.
00:54:34.420 So hang on just a second.
00:54:35.380 I want to, I want to.
00:54:36.140 Yeah, go ahead.
00:54:37.260 I need to take a break and then I want to come back because this is fascinating, especially
00:54:41.100 when it gets down all the way down to the baby.
00:54:43.180 You'll see, you'll begin to see how off this special really is.
00:54:47.460 The Blaze Radio Network.
00:54:52.060 On Demand.