Best of the Program | Guests: Eric Bolling, Craig Strazzeri, Rob Henderson & John Solomon | 8⧸27⧸19
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Summary
In this week's show, we talk about a new social credit system in China that keeps track of every chinese citizen and rewards them with points for charitable work and charitable donations, but also rewards them for joining the Communist Party and other Communist Party activities.
Transcript
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hey want to tell you about our podcast today you are gonna love it yes we're talking about a new
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social credit system that sounds great not for china this time but for us for us we get one too
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yes and we've all opted into it oh i love that fantastic yeah that's coming up we have eric
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bowling on he just talked to mike pence has an interview exclusively on the blaze that airs
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tonight you don't want to you don't want to miss too that 5g does cause cancer uh i believe just in
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cats and uh you know my love for cats so it's well and i'm not saying these things just to piss people
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off no not at all that was clear i think in today's program um we also talked to someone about uh
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luxury beliefs luxury beliefs what are luxury beliefs it's an interesting new phenomenon and
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you'll see it it's sort of tied to virtue signaling i guess but that is on today's program and john
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solomon with the latest on the russia investigation which is really fascinating the russia clinton and
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what patrick byrne has said as well and part two of our economic update happens every day this week
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part two recessions good for the economy bad for presidents
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you're listening to the best of the glenbeck program
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okay for anybody who hasn't been paying attention i want to explain the chinese social credit system
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since 2014 in china the social credit system um is it has been implemented and is evolving into
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a single nationwide point system for all chinese citizens and it is akin to a financial credit score
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it follows you everywhere there is no place to hide from the cameras it is evolved now in
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you have to have a certain app on your phone and they monitor you you every day you take a um you
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take this app you open it up and you have to kind of take a test about what the great leader is doing
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today and he you know it gives you all the news of what the great leader is doing and what the
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communists are doing that is so good for you then you have to take a test if you don't open that app
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every day your social credit goes down if you're not taking that test your social credit goes down
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they track you and feed you everything that they want to feed you and you must consume it
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if you jaywalk across the street your social credit goes down if you are if you speak ill about the
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country your social credit goes down if you are talking to someone who has a low social credit score
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your social credit goes down it is uh it is horrible what is happening in china it is becoming a true
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police state orwellian 1984 and it aims to punish for any kind of transgression that can include
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membership in or support for the falun gong or the or tibetan buddhism if you haven't paid your debt
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if you have uh excessive video gaming criticizing the government late payments failing to sweep the
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sidewalk in front of your store or house smoking or playing loud music on trains jaywalking anything
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that is unacceptable by the chinese government it also awards points for charitable donations even taking
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one's own parents to the doctor and the punishments are harsh there are bans on leaving the country
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bans on using public transportation so in other words uh sorry all of a sudden you get to the bus and
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your phone says offender not enough social credit you have to walk you're not taking a bus you can't
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check into certain hotels you will immediately not be hired for any high visibility job
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if you have spoken out against the government you have posted something that shouldn't have been posted
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your children will be pulled out of the private school and may not even make it into a public school
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it can result in slower internet connections and also uh social stigmatization
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um because you are you are now registered on a public social blacklist
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your your face actually goes up on billboards electronic billboards in your neighborhood
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and anyone who interacts with you their social credit goes down
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they brag that they can keep people locked in their house just because
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it is authoritarianism gamified now i've told you for a while if google and silicon valley is helping
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them do these things what makes you think that they won't do the same here
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well they are there are now 40 or so pilot projects operated by local governments at least
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six run by tech giants now beijing is is doing this china is doing this they have two nationwide lists
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one called the black list the other one is the red list that's kind of like a a white list here
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uh the chinese government shares its list with all technology platforms
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um they uh they give you every month a social credit and that social credit uh is determines the rest of your life
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now some chinese people are unaware that this even exists at this point because they haven't gotten it
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all to the entire country but their goal is china 2020 to have the entire country on this
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surveys done by the government show that 80 percent of the chinese citizens that are surveyed
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strongly approve of the social credit system of course they do you're tracking them
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now if you are disturbed by any of this let me tell you what's going on now in america the new york
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state department of financial services announced earlier this year that life insurance companies
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can base premiums on what they find in your social media posts if you have an instagram picture showing
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you teasing a grizzly bear at yellowstone with a martini in a hand and a bucket of cheese fries in the
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other you're going to pay a higher rate however if you are doing yoga you're going to pay a lower rate
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anything that shows you're healthy and wise you're going to get a lower rate anything that shows you
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that you are doing anything at all dangerous you're going to get a higher rate now that seems kind of
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reasonable it's like well you know i have i have insurance uh on me i can't go to a war zone i can't fly a
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plane uh i can't go cliff you know climbing all the stuff i'm never gonna do i'm fine with they were
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like you can't do these things anymore and i'm like does that include jumping out of a perfectly
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good airplane with a parachute and they're like yeah and i'm like good check that one off my list
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so you don't have a problem with it per se unless you do those things if you are somebody that is into
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adventure sports you better tell the truth or you're going to pay a very high penalty
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now there's also something called a patron scan so the insurance companies are kind of like well
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i think that's probably okay you say you don't smoke and then you're seen smoking on facebook
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that's probably okay but now now we have patron scan this company sells three products kiosk desktop
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and handheld systems and what it is is designed to help bar and restaurant owners manage customers
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patron scan is a subsidiary of the canadian software uh company a biometric company it's now on sale in
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the united states canada australia and the united kingdom and it helps spot fake idea ids but it also
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tracks troublemakers so when you arrive at let's say a patron scan uh using bar what they do is they ask
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you for id they scan it the company maintains a list of objectionable customers designed to protect
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venues from people who have previously had a problem in any bar fighting sexual assault drugs theft or any
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other bad behavior but the bad behavior that list is up to each restaurant so if you go into some
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restaurant with a maga hat can you be put on this scan now if you are banned in one bar you will be banned
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in all bars that use this system and that's in australia the united states the united kingdom no matter
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where you go you are known as someone who can't go into the bar now the kind of behavior all up to the
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individual bar the owners of each bar can ignore the bans if they want the data of non-offending
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customers is deleted in 90 days so even if you're not doing something wrong they're still holding all
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your information for 90 days uh the they keep a private list that are not shared with other bars
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if they want but if you are a bad customer it can be kept for five years um they do have uh an appeals
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process but it's up to the company whether they listen to it or not uber and airbnb we all know that
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when you get into an uber if the driver has written something bad about you you're probably not going to
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get into another uber if you have somebody who who didn't like you can say whatever you're going to
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not be able to use uber airbnb is now the same and that is a private list so if you are in a
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an airbnb and think about how big airbnb is now if you're in an airbnb and the owner didn't like
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something or said you did something even if you didn't do it they can alert airbnb it's kept confidential
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you have no right to see what your accuser is telling you and you are banned from all airbnb
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whatsapp also developing for communications a new uh social credit score for example you can be
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banned on whatsapp if too many other users block you you can also get banned for selling uh for sending
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spam threatening messages trying to hack or reverse engineer the whatsapp app
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or using the service with an unauthorized app now this is small potatoes in the united states but
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not for the rest of the world because in many parts of the world this is the main form of communication
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not being allowed to use whatsapp in some countries is like not being able to use a telephone in america
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now here's the problem nobody likes anti-social violent rude unhealthy reckless people we got it
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so what's wrong with this technology as i have said before what is now being built completely changes
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our system we have always had protections of the first and second amendment we've had protections of privacy
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supposedly under the constitution we don't anymore first amendment freedom of speech nope uh how about freedom of
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assembly nope freedom of of of assembly with people that you choose nope it's not protected
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freedom of religion no uh they they're banning christian ads now just because they're christian
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that doesn't sound like a good thing i mean that's protected by the constitution not really
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uh second amendment nope anybody can say no no guns here and they don't have to do anything about it
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they can pressure banks now to say don't do business with the gun manufacturers or the gun businesses or
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people who have a gun don't do business with them we're going to cancel their their financial services
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totally fine because it's a private company don't quarter soldiers in the house well the nsa is already
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doing it but so is so is google so is amazon they're listening to your conversation there is no such thing as
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privacy anymore and no law can stop these things because they're private companies they can do whatever
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they want in china they're doing it by force because the government china is going this way
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just as orwell predicted in 1984 but just as brave new world predicted huxley said it would come with a big
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happy face on it it would come through service and and it would be great and you'd want this service
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both of those i remember a time within the last 10 years people were saying oh looks like huxley was
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right orwell was wrong no they were both right one 1984 fits the east huxley applies to us in the west
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hey it's glenn and if you like what you hear on the program you should check out pat gray unleashed
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his podcast is available wherever you download your favorite podcast welcome to the program fellow
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blaze co-worker uh eric boling who is heard on the blaze yeah do we get minimum wage have they
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raised the minimum wage yet glenn no they haven't told me that i'm no i'm i'm a long way from making
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a uh 15 an hour and that's why i'm voting for uh bernie sanders um so uh you met yesterday with
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the vice president tell me about it so um yeah real interesting there's a faith and freedom conference
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um i guess a fundraiser that jeff duncan was putting on in south carolina and uh i had the
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opportunity they said you want to you want a little exclusive one-on-one with the vice president i said
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absolutely i drove i live in charleston now so i drove out to greenville and um i got a few i got
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like 12 minutes with the vice president one-on-one exclusive and it was fantastic because you know i'm
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driving up there and i'm thinking i i there's so much going on right now there's so much going on in
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the trump world do i do this um how how how much you know as you know glenn you get someone that
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you've who's doing kind of you know reaching out you're doing your favor doing a one-on-one
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exclusive how hard do you press the gas i said you know what there's too much happening right now i
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got to go full throttle and i did i asked them the important stuff i asked them what's what's the
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stuff with nikki haley you know the ambassador tweeting that calm down everyone we're we're good
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friends with with the vice president i said yeah yes and point blank is nikki haley vying to be the
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vice president in 2020 you know and then i said has the president told you you are his running mate
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in 2020 i mean those are questions i think he wasn't expecting me to ask yeah but i will tell you this
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because i floated the theory uh among friends um uh at the white house and i have said you know i have
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nothing against mike pence i really like mike pence and i think mike pence was a uh one of the reasons
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why donald trump was elected because he was able to galvanize the religious right um and and make
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people feel comfortable with uh with donald trump however uh i think having nikki haley on the ticket
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with donald trump with no offense to mike pence uh i think would be very advantageous for the
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president uh this time around yeah i agree i think he uh he couldn't lose with either one um i think
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you're probably right that maybe you know you check another box with with nikki haley the you know
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trump you know let's be honest he's i believe he's going to win with a wider margin than last time but a
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lot of it's going to come down to the suburbs and and you know the female vote and nikki haley
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would certainly uh firm up that but i did you either way i think it's an easier ride with with a
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with a female vice president i know that i i mean i know when you have 12 minutes you probably have
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four questions maybe if the person wants to wants to talk um did you get into the economy at all and
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the trade war is are they do you get the sense that they are very well aware that if the economy turns
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this president's going to have a real uphill battle yeah so so yes and that that's where i started
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because you know like i had said at the time the president was flying back from the g7 and i said
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that we were in the midst of a trade war in china we've had conflicting comments coming out one from
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the president one from stephanie grisham is comms director another one from the president again i said
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look are we are we prepared the president said he's prepared to continue to raise tariffs on china
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infineum if they don't if they don't relent and play ball and he says we are and i said well i said
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miss oh you know in all honesty mr vice president i'm i'm against tariffs and i love a lot of things
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that you guys are doing but tariffs is not one of the things i like i said but it seems to be working
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i said is this is this president trump's idea or is this steve mnuchin talking in his ear
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with larry kudlow in the other ear you know playing hardball with china was just coming from
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the president he said he laughed he said eric as you know and i've known the president for 15 years
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as you know the president for a long time he has a lot of smart people around him but he everything
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he does just comes directly from the president so he did he weighed in on that and he's ready to play
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hardball with china but i also said well in that case can i ask you this what's this idea about
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nuking hurricanes and he he laughed again he said oh you know that that that didn't happen
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all right all right so when does this uh interview air we're gonna put it up live tonight um they
00:20:12.860
tell me it's gonna be up around 7 p.m on the on the blaze uh platform like usual you know my show
00:20:19.020
usually comes out around 7 p.m on tuesday wednesday thursday so that will come out tonight you
00:20:23.540
know it was it's really fascinating because i got into somebody i asked him what's what's the
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what's the greenland uh idea what's that all about he really explained it in a way that i hadn't ever
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thought of like it became you know when i went into it thinking you know trump sees it as a you know a
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really you know high profile real estate buy and and maybe some sort of you know what was the
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motivation i went through it as a security as a financial yeah um and he really broke it down and
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it made a ton of yeah i mean donald trump the press has made fun of donald trump on this one nobody
00:21:00.940
should we've had three or four presidents that have wanted to buy greenland and it is always uh
00:21:07.060
gone sideways but it actually is a very wise move if somebody could get it done eric we'll watch for
00:21:13.720
that tonight only on blaze tv if you are not a subscriber please subscribe and support the
00:21:21.080
talent that is trying to find the answers for you um you know we we are a good solid team and uh and
00:21:29.820
voices that are across the spectrum of the conservative movement but we are all doing our
00:21:36.100
very best to get you the truth eric does america you can't spell america without eric in the middle
00:21:42.480
uh that's tonight you don't want to miss it it'll be downloaded around 7 p.m subscribe to the blaze
00:21:56.020
we go to uh craig strasiri who is um uh the cmo with prager university
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prager uh has been going through trouble with google they are they are starting their lawsuit
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against google today ninth circuit court i thought it was the supreme court but it's not there yet
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it's ninth circuit court which is a crazy courtroom welcome craig how are you i'm great thank you
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glenn thank you for having me sure so as you're getting ready to go in and and and present the oral
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arguments tell me tell the listeners first exactly what you are you're fighting
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yeah so google and youtube as you know they are a giant corporation that has a lot of power and
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control and can control what people see and so over the past few years uh the problem has only
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continued to get worse and so there are now over 200 prager videos that are being restricted and get
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this glenn five of the videos that dennis prager does on the ten commandments are being restricted so
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they don't even hide their bias at this point it's it's uh really unfortunate so our case uh our case
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is really centered around this argument about a public forum the distinction between a public forum
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and a publisher and so a public forum which could be a physical location or it could be a website
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is a place where the business invites someone to come on excuse me sorry the business invites the
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public to come and use their platform for speech so youtube says anyone can come on here and give us
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their opinion but then they turn around and censor us for their political viewpoint so uh that's the
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basis of our of our lawsuit what do you think the odds are of winning because this this doesn't just
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affect you that affects really anybody who is being uh shadow banned uh and it is in my opinion
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critical that you win this if you lose this uh and i'm guessing you will in the ninth circuit court of
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appeals because they're insane um but if if you do lose this this is a very bad blow to freedom of
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speech these corporations will have no restrictions uh on on any of their behavior
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no that's right that's exactly right and the ninth circuit is crazy and and if we lose it we're in big
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trouble it's getting more and more scary and if they have the power to to control what people see and
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just restrict content that they disagree with uh then this is this is really scary and most of america
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doesn't even know this is going on because the mainstream media has completely ignored this issue
00:24:37.060
well they're they're doing things like for instance they they are banning uh prager university
00:24:43.140
um as you said 200 different videos dennis is the best voice ever on the ten commandments i mean
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his books on you know his books on the old testament and his his uh his videos on the ten commandments
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there's just nobody even close to him there's nothing uh that is you know political partisan
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that is going on with that this is just an anti-religious uh bias that they have
00:25:12.780
yeah exactly i mean it clearly shows that they're targeting us for our identity and
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uh i'm sure your your listeners may be aware that project veritas just had a couple google
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whistleblowers come out you know one of them mentioned that you guys you and your show is
00:25:27.780
on a blacklist but they've also mentioned that prager you has been targeted their own employees
00:25:31.980
are coming out and admitting that they're targeting conservatives and like you said dennis's message
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and the ten commandments are so mainstream uh that it's really getting to be absurd at this point
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their own employees are admitting it yet they they continue to go in front of congress and they
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continue to say that they're politically neutral which is which is obviously a lie so what is your
00:25:50.220
what is your attack i mean what is the you know you're going up against google has who has more
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money and power than god at this point um what is your strategy well this is a classic case of david
00:26:04.040
and goliath and one one reason i'm really proud to work and represent prager you is that we're fighters
00:26:09.120
dennis always says that courage uh with our goodness without courage is useless so we're
00:26:14.440
very courageous at prager you and we're we're really fighting for freedom of speech not just
00:26:17.940
for prager you but for all americans so uh this is a very important case and there's going to be a
00:26:22.680
lot of supporters there today at the courthouse for prager you which is very exciting a lot of
00:26:26.620
people recognize how important this case is and so uh yes the ninth circuit is crazy but we're
00:26:31.520
going to take this as far and as long as we need to all the way up to the supreme court uh to keep
00:26:36.180
fighting well the good news is if you're um turned down by the ninth circuit court they are the most
00:26:41.860
overturned court in the country i mean if they say if they say the sky is blue i'll swear to you that
00:26:48.120
it's red because they're wrong almost every time that is true yeah all right craig best of luck uh
00:26:55.540
anything that we can do to help yes i would encourage your listeners to please go to prageru.com we have a
00:27:01.480
petition against you two that 600 000 people have already signed um if they're so willing and
00:27:06.280
generous that we are a non-profit and any donation will help us keep spreading public awareness on
00:27:10.580
this issue um so we got to keep fighting and i appreciate you having me on you bet thanks craig
00:27:15.160
appreciate it you're listening to the best of the glenbeck program
00:27:23.460
rob henderson writes in the new york post a former classmate from yale recently told me that monogamy
00:27:40.260
is kind of outdated not good for society so i asked her what her background is and if she planned on
00:27:46.200
marrying she said she comes from an affluent family works at a well-known technology company and
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yes she personally intends to have a monogamous marriage but quickly added that marriage shouldn't
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have to be for everyone but she was raised by a traditional family she planned on having a
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traditional family but she maintained that traditional families are old-fashioned and society
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should evolve beyond them i asked myself what could explain this welcome to the program rob henderson how
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are you sir good glenn thanks for having me you bet i i really enjoyed your article um
00:28:21.780
what explains that and why is it a problem yeah well you know glenn i study social psychology and
00:28:30.940
how people are influenced by others as a phd student at cambridge and you know based on a lot of research
00:28:36.340
it seems that social status is a key driver in how people think and how how we behave and in fact you
00:28:43.240
know a lot of this research shows that you know respect and admiration from our peers contributes more to
00:28:48.580
our sense of well-being than even how much money we make and so this is sort of how i came up with
00:28:52.680
the idea of luxury beliefs and so this we experience this sort of pleasure to or pressure
00:28:58.120
to display our status in new ways and you know one way we do this is by displaying you know sort of our
00:29:05.640
prestige our intelligence our education and you know we do this by coming up with sort of clever and
00:29:10.920
bizarre arguments you know and so one concern that i have is that you know the beliefs of the upper class
00:29:17.020
you know they they continue to to change and update as people below them adopt these beliefs and so
00:29:23.240
their beliefs the upper class beliefs become more wild and more exotic and further distance themselves
00:29:27.720
from ordinary people they're sort of constantly updating their belief wardrobe so what is what is
00:29:34.260
is causing them to do that um and and because in the old days if you were rich you might have lived a
00:29:43.840
different lifestyle like the vanderbilts lived a different lifestyle but they didn't want to be known as
00:29:50.960
as um denigrating or or um tearing apart everyone else they wanted to be seen as the average
00:30:00.340
decent american what's happened yeah well i think uh you know two things might be going on one
00:30:07.960
is that um so sort of luxury goods and and having you know uh fancy uh items it's just these goods are
00:30:16.040
becoming more affordable so everyone can uh purchase them and another is that um it's it's maybe not so
00:30:24.300
cool to display your wealth with with material goods anymore um i think a lot of people maybe think
00:30:29.840
it's uh sort of tacky or it's sort of um makes people feel bad you know if i get to afford this
00:30:35.920
item but you don't get to have it and so both of those things simultaneously make material goods not
00:30:40.660
so appealing so a new way that the upper class can display their status is to have these sort of
00:30:47.220
unusual and in some cases even bizarre beliefs um and you know in many cases they hold these beliefs
00:30:54.480
um with good intentions they think that they're maybe doing the right thing but i think alongside
00:31:00.800
that maybe more kind-hearted motive is also this motive to sort of display their social class
00:31:07.400
so give me a give me some examples of luxury beliefs
00:31:12.160
sure so one belief that i talk about in the new york post article is the belief that all family
00:31:19.780
structures are equal there's this sort of non-judgmental attitude that a lot of you know
00:31:24.160
educated people have um you know whether you're single parent or step parent or have a you know
00:31:29.380
polyamorous sort of situation with the parents um you know they're all equal but you know the actual
00:31:35.960
empirical evidence is clear that families with two married parents are you know the safest and most
00:31:41.120
beneficial for young children and you know often it's it's members of the upper class who you know as
00:31:46.560
you as you noted uh reading the article there that grew up with two married parents and you know
00:31:51.260
somehow these are the sort of you know on the uh of the belief that you know monogamy is outdated or
00:31:57.500
that you know marriage is some kind of uh you know an oppressive structure or that you know all families
00:32:02.600
are exactly the same um and i think this relaxed attitude about monogamy and marriage it trickles down
00:32:09.260
to the working class and the poor and you know as you said you know marriage between or marriage rates
00:32:13.780
between the upper class and lower class americans were actually quite similar uh in the 1960s because
00:32:19.640
there were strong social norms in place um and then affluent americans during that time started
00:32:25.960
expressing more skepticism about marriage and monogamy and this sort of trickled down to the lower classes
00:32:32.580
and eroded the social norms for for those people but for the upper classes um marriage rates actually
00:32:38.780
remained roughly steady such that they're basically getting married at the same rates today
00:32:42.540
so why the disconnect why the people preaching it they say this do they not believe it
00:32:51.640
you know that's an interesting question about belief um i think that they many of them probably do
00:32:58.220
believe it on some level but i'm also not entirely sure how much belief actually matters i think that
00:33:04.700
this drive for social status is so strong that people can kind of convince themselves of you know
00:33:10.820
strange beliefs if it gives them the sort of respect and the admiration of their peers you know if it's
00:33:16.240
trendy and cool in the moment uh in one social group to say that you know polyamory is is is fine
00:33:23.200
then people will just say that because they don't want to risk being ostracized and outcast by
00:33:27.980
you know their peers so so help me out on on one thing how did it become a uh a luxury um
00:33:37.880
to have some of these beliefs for instance all families are equal that really started at least
00:33:45.000
the way i i see it either one of two ways um it either started as a you know deconstruction kind
00:33:52.760
of post-modernism plan uh and was planted to to destroy our society or it came from a place to where
00:34:02.980
nobody wants to nobody wants to harm or say things that makes the single mom uh you know or the mixed
00:34:11.600
family feel bad um and so you're like no you know you have a good you have a good marriage and you have
00:34:19.080
a you know or you have a good family and your family is mixed and so that's fine whatever but we
00:34:24.960
we can't seem to find it within ourselves to actually go the extra step and say nothing to do
00:34:33.820
with you but if there is a choice it's best that the family stays together i know this first i'm a
00:34:42.220
divorced guy and from my first marriage i have two children it would have been a lot better for them
00:34:49.520
if mom and dad were still together their life dramatically changed their scars and everything
00:34:55.260
else which is normal that doesn't make me a bad guy or you know or mom a bad guy a bad person it's just
00:35:03.220
that happens sometimes but we should be able to say yeah but that's the goal to get here how come we
00:35:12.160
don't say that how come that how come why is that gone yeah well i mean uh i think the the first
00:35:21.340
reason you you posited there about you know sort of post-modern deconstruction i think that that's
00:35:27.880
that's an example of sort of displaying one's intelligence and education you know you can only
00:35:33.380
learn an idea like that in an elite university or or a college right i mean you know ordinary people
00:35:39.200
um aren't spending their days reading about you know derrida or foucault or something like that
00:35:44.540
right um and and i think the second reason you said you know this this idea of like you know we
00:35:49.080
don't want to we don't want to make people feel bad um we don't want to judge people um yeah i think
00:35:55.480
there's this you know belief that you know they're they're downtrodden and we shouldn't make others feel
00:35:59.280
bad and we shouldn't um you know sort of elevate ourselves above them um by telling them that certain
00:36:05.240
certain behaviors lead to better outcomes than others um so yeah i think on the one hand it makes
00:36:09.780
us feel good to have these you know sort of fancy beliefs about post-modernism and then we also don't
00:36:15.560
want to make others feel bad about their lifestyle choices and a luxury belief would be um the one that
00:36:24.080
uh maybe comes from you understanding post-modernism and understanding uh or is it just at the level
00:36:32.580
of i just don't want to be ostracized and this is what my peers are saying because they went to
00:36:39.280
college and were indoctrinated with this crap i think both of those are are you know sort of key
00:36:45.560
components of of luxury beliefs and you know the way that luxury beliefs impose costs on others you know
00:36:52.960
first you know they're the expression of luxury beliefs require you know learning that sort of
00:36:57.800
complicated vocabulary and then you know on the other hand uh the luxury belief of it doesn't
00:37:04.420
matter you know things are exactly the same i don't want to judge and yeah i think that there's a
00:37:09.520
there's sort of both of those components at work here um so that the outcome is that the person
00:37:16.960
expressing this belief is raising their status while also you know intentionally or not creating harm for
00:37:22.980
for people below them you you point something out that i think is so good in this you talk about the
00:37:29.000
um uh religion is irrational or harmful members of the upper class are likely to be atheist or
00:37:36.080
non-religious uh but they have resources and access to thrive without a unifying social edifice of
00:37:42.120
religion um tell me why the upper class is different than the lower class in this you've talked about it
00:37:51.740
yeah i mean yeah a lot of members of the upper class seem to have a sort of passe attitude towards
00:37:59.060
religion that you know they're they're non-religious or you know atheist or agnostic and they sort of
00:38:04.380
approach religion from an intellectual standpoint um but they also have you know in their own lives
00:38:11.560
the upper classes tend to have resources and social connections to to thrive um without having to rely
00:38:19.600
rely on their neighbors or their community you know the sort of people who who are around them and i
00:38:26.920
think religion sort of provides that like unifying social edifice um so that people can come together
00:38:32.680
and have a reason to to care for one another um and i i think that yeah denigrating the importance of
00:38:38.780
religion doesn't really harm the rich very much i think it harms the poor you know lack of religion can
00:38:44.300
give rise to sort of meaninglessness and feelings of despair well whereas the rich they already have
00:38:49.560
those resources they already have the access and oftentimes they find their meaning through you know
00:38:54.860
traveling the world or through unusual hobbies or or even their work as you point out even their
00:39:01.160
profession they might have a profession but most people have a job and there's a huge difference right
00:39:07.140
um yeah exactly most i i only have about uh 40 seconds left can you can you just tell me where are we
00:39:15.560
in this trend i mean you know fashion clothing goes out of style are we at the beginning of this middle of
00:39:24.060
this where are we yeah so it's interesting i think that um one one sign uh that we may be shifting
00:39:34.420
trends here is the popularity of this article in of itself um you know i think that a lot of the
00:39:39.820
things that i point out in that article used to be known as sort of conventional wisdom you know
00:39:44.240
like a two-parent family is good for kids correct um not sure when that became you know sort of
00:39:50.460
an edgy thing to say but a lot of people now seem to uh resonate with it and agree with it and i think
00:39:56.800
we may be slowly turning the tide such that a lot of people are coming around back to
00:40:01.420
um these more you know sort of typical conventional beliefs they don't feel the need to you know sort
00:40:08.000
of jump on the bandwagon for the for the latest you know bizarre luxury belief i hope that you are
00:40:13.880
right uh rob henderson thank you so much i appreciate it this is the best of the glenbeck program
00:40:21.760
hey it's glen and i want to tell you about something that you should either end your day with
00:40:36.280
or um start your morning with and that is the news and why it matters if you like this show you're gonna
00:40:43.700
love the news and why it matters it's a bunch of us that all get together at the end of the day and
00:40:48.480
just talk about the stories that matter to you and your life the news and why it matters look for it
00:40:53.660
now wherever you download your favorite podcast the man who previously worked at the associated press
00:40:59.180
the washington post the washington times he is an award-winning investigative journalist
00:41:03.440
and now the executive vice president at the hill his name is john solomon he is somebody who actually
00:41:10.380
is looking for the truth and i appreciate uh his work and his willingness to come on the um on the
00:41:17.740
program welcome john how are you ah good good to be with you glenn yeah so uh tell me i i want to i
00:41:25.500
want to talk to you about a couple of things first of all the fbi seems to be investigating the clintons
00:41:32.900
again well uh that is a good question the fbi should be investigating the clintons again based on
00:41:40.140
the fact that uh there was a discovery of some highly classified evidence that the fbi never examined as
00:41:46.280
part of its clinton email server investigation it's remarkable we're three years uh past the
00:41:52.460
close of that investigation that's a very controversial closed down case james comey
00:41:56.300
remember all the things that went on with that oh yeah uh we now we learned three years later that
00:42:00.960
there was this highly classified pile of documents very important information information that the
00:42:06.540
agents working the case themselves said was going to be important to look at before they made a
00:42:11.980
determination on hillary clinton's culpability and they never looked at it they looked the other way
00:42:16.860
somebody wouldn't allow them to look at that evidence and so three years later thanks to some
00:42:21.440
letters between senator grassley senators grassley and johnson and the inspector general of the
00:42:26.960
justice department michael horowitz we learned of the existence of these documents and the fact that
00:42:31.700
the fbi never looked at them and and what's frustrating is those senators can't get an answer from the
00:42:36.960
justice department and fbi it's the bar trump justice department has not answered these senators
00:42:41.520
about whether they're going to take a look at this evidence why do you suppose that's happening
00:42:45.840
it's a remarkable thing the inertia inside bureaucracy right and so uh there is something in these
00:42:52.620
documents that must be remarkably sensitive and perhaps may may cause pressure or questions to reopen
00:42:57.840
the case and uh it does not appear the fbi wants to go down that path but uh it isn't fair to us in
00:43:04.420
america and it is an equal justice system if you don't complete the job you started we gave mrs clinton
00:43:10.100
a pass during the 2016 election even though there was broad evidence that she transmitted highly
00:43:15.380
classified information on a private server she did not get prosecuted then and we find out that a key
00:43:21.480
piece of evidence wasn't examined that always makes us suspicious in the american public so john it's not
00:43:26.960
i'm not as concerned about the investigation in the clintons because i think i know what you know i think i
00:43:32.980
know what they are i am really concerned that we should be investigating the entire justice department
00:43:41.860
um i don't think that everybody in the fbi is dirty i don't think everybody in the justice department is
00:43:47.680
dirty but there are people apparently that are dirty and will move things for political reasons and that
00:43:56.260
is that's not america once we lose trust in our justice system we become you know mexico or haiti or
00:44:05.060
whatever right no it's so integral and we always expect that whether you're democrat or republican white
00:44:12.540
or black uh live in connecticut or live in florida we're all going to be treated the same when the justice
00:44:18.740
department looks at us and over the last few years we've seen a really strong body evidence that people
00:44:24.320
got treated differently based on their political connections or their political affiliation
00:44:28.300
and that troubles the everyday american i go out when i'm out and about traveling in the real world
00:44:32.780
people come up to you and say you know it feels like there's two justice systems one today for the
00:44:36.600
democrats and hillary clinton and the other for republicans and everyday common man and i think
00:44:41.140
that perception is deeply troubling and and and and really cuts at the roots of our our great democracy
00:44:48.320
and i think bill barr has an enormous opportunity to fix this justice department put the people that
00:44:54.020
are so good in it they're 99 of them are amazing agents and investigators and lawyers get the one
00:44:59.800
percent out and get this house put back in order so that we can trust the uh the legal system do you
00:45:04.700
believe bill barr is that guy i think he is he certainly has uh the credentials to do it he has shown
00:45:11.920
early on in the russia investigation to talk candidly and honestly and not use the euphemisms in the
00:45:17.020
bureaucratic blarney that we heard earlier people using that job uh the real question will come down
00:45:23.240
to will he really identify the faults will he really punish people will there be real criminal
00:45:28.040
prosecution and uh the next three months are our telling point we're going to learn from the
00:45:33.780
inspector general just how bad the russia fisa was we're going to learn from john derm just how much
00:45:39.320
spying went on on a political campaign and then it will be in bill barr's corner to decide how who does
00:45:45.320
he punish how does he punish them how does he fix this how does he make sure this never happens to
00:45:49.960
another presidential candidate or another american ever again what does your gut tell you my gut tells
00:45:57.400
me there will be a lot of shaming there will be a really honest accounting like we got after 9-11 if
00:46:02.300
you remember all the mistakes that the fbi made failing to connect the dots before 9-11 there'll be a
00:46:07.800
lot of shaming a lot of honest discussion about what was wrong no more of these euphemisms and spin
00:46:13.020
jobs that we've gotten from the justice department and fbi i think the threshold for prosecuting a
00:46:18.580
former fbi agent or an fbi justice department official is very high in this because of the
00:46:24.700
natural inertia in the justice department i don't think that's right but i do think that it exists
00:46:29.540
uh and we'll we'll find out uh you know whether the justice department is serious if they they carry
00:46:35.880
out some prosecutions we know for 15 months now andy mccabe has been sitting there identified having
00:46:42.020
conduct uh created or committed criminality uh clearly lied just like we accused mike flynn just
00:46:48.400
like we've accused papadopoulos and in 15 months he hasn't been uh charged despite two trump attorney
00:46:53.980
generals so when you look at that case you have to wonder are they going to do it now the statute of
00:46:58.960
limitations is coming up on that and it's going to be judgment time pretty soon if andy mccabe gets
00:47:03.800
indicted for lying just like the other people in the russia case did then i think people will feel
00:47:08.200
feel justice is done if he walks this continuing question of two justice departments or two systems
00:47:13.820
of justice is going to persist and i don't think it's just one for the republicans and one for the
00:47:19.900
that's right for the democrats i think it is one for the privileged and then for the rest of everybody
00:47:25.620
else um that's a very good point um john talk to me about the article that you wrote uh a few days ago
00:47:33.120
the 10 declassified russian collusion revelations that could rock washington this fall yep so uh behind
00:47:40.940
the scenes there's been an apparatus that the president has been building hasn't unveiled it
00:47:44.780
yet but it's going to be a special office that's going to declassify and give us true visibility into
00:47:49.900
what really went on in the russia case from from the beginning origins all the way back to march when
00:47:54.460
george papadopoulos first met with an academic in rome all the way through the uh end of the
00:48:00.340
muller report okay hold on hold on hold on hold on sure is this a real office or is this a political
00:48:06.840
office this is a real office okay going to be empowered with the power of the presidency
00:48:11.520
and uh it's going to fulfill the very public statement that donald trump made that he was
00:48:17.360
going to declassify this information i think a lot of people thought when he gave the declassification
00:48:22.220
authority to bar that bar was going to do this sort of public relations declassification explain all
00:48:27.380
the documents he gave that the power to bar so that he could do his investigation if the cia fbi
00:48:32.420
didn't want to give up something he had the power to go get it declassified and look at it or share
00:48:36.700
it with prosecutors and fbi agents working on the case but for the public the president has always had
00:48:41.880
a a different idea in mind somebody that could tell a story explain it all in layman's terms help
00:48:47.160
us understand what happens so it never happens again that office is being set up and i would begin
00:48:52.120
to i believe that in mid-september forward we're going to see the documents be declassified that
00:48:57.360
we've been waiting for for more than two years i picked my 10 favorite that i know from all the
00:49:01.720
investigators i've talked to are the most transformational and uh and they they range from
00:49:07.160
statements that george papadopoulos and carter page made to fbi informants or on tape uh where they
00:49:13.860
were clearly expressing their innocence and that was not provided to the fisa court to uh you know really
00:49:19.520
basic information like what was in the fisa and what was excluded in the fisa we still don't know
00:49:24.320
what was in all those redacted pages there is a significant amount of very important information
00:49:29.580
that will really uh rankle washington in the fall when these documents uh get get public i'll give you
00:49:36.360
one fun one because it just teases the the imagination uh the house investigators that did the house
00:49:43.260
intelligence review they had 53 interviews of really key people most of the main players in the
00:49:47.900
investigation there's a revelation in one of those interviews that the democratic national
00:49:52.180
committee was in touch with the cia and you have to ask yourself the cia has no responsibility on
00:49:57.600
domestic soil the dnc is a political organization why were these two organizations talking and i think
00:50:03.400
when we get that answer we'll see just how big a dirty political trick the russia probe really was
00:50:08.420
holy cow all right um one more question i had somebody um a very well-known big business person
00:50:17.520
who wrote to me and said glenn patrick byrne is out of his mind insane uh and i know patrick he is
00:50:25.460
he is different he thinks differently he's a libertarian um but i don't think he's dishonest
00:50:32.540
uh have you looked into this stuff with patrick are you heard anymore what do you think
00:50:37.840
i have done a lot of reporting over the weekend after his cnn interview so what i've learned is that
00:50:43.100
the original material that my my old colleague sarah carter fantastic journalist one of the best in
00:50:48.120
the country reported early on about patrick byrne is spot on those are accurate uh facts and and that
00:50:54.960
her storyline is the accurate storyline of what byrne did and didn't do with the fbi and what was going
00:50:59.460
on there was some soft operation going on now how much he initiated it versus the fbi controlled him
00:51:05.860
is in dispute but i believe the justice department lawyers who interviewed burn a few months back found
00:51:11.780
him credible and that his timeline matched the other timelines of things that they're finding in
00:51:16.600
the ongoing investigation i think his more recent comments what i've been told by people who are in
00:51:21.480
the know of the evidence his more recent comments spinning a more elaborate conspiracy of multiple
00:51:26.940
people and the fbi controlling him i don't think those are going to pan out with the facts but i do
00:51:32.040
believe there was contact and exchange of information and the fbi might have been using him as a soft way
00:51:37.900
of probing this trump russia uh collusion theory which of course has fallen apart uh very clearly
00:51:44.000
before our eyes but i think it's those are the sort of revelations we're going to get in these
00:51:48.380
documents in the fall there were multiple efforts to probe monitor spy on the trump campaign and we
00:51:54.020
don't know them all we think we do but we don't i don't think we know 70 of what really went on in
00:51:58.940
this investigation yet this fall will be that opportunity for accounting boy oh boy i mean if
00:52:04.240
there's real if if people are actually looking for the truth and it is half of what i think it might be
00:52:11.800
uh we have a we have a a government or a justice department that is really out of control not all of them
00:52:20.640
just some there's a strain in there that is really out of control i agree i i talked to this senior
00:52:28.360
justice department official who has been in the game non-partisan been in the job 20 30 years and
00:52:33.460
he said things that he's seen have shocked his conscience and he said i thought i saw everything
00:52:37.760
in my 30 years i think people are beginning to realize that this was a political operation conducted
00:52:43.400
under the authority of the u.s intelligence community that's something we never envisioned as america
00:52:48.360
would happen and we have to expose it get it out there punish the bad guys and then it won't happen
00:52:53.940
again i think i think that's the the right recipe for solving what happened here i think so too but i
00:52:58.860
have i'm a different man than i was 20 years ago i wonder i wonder if anyone really will be punished
00:53:05.700
they have the same concern we'll have to wait and see yeah i think that's a real legitimate concern
00:53:10.920
john solomon thank you so much executive vice president of the hill thank you you bet bye-bye