Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Gov. Greg Abbott & Leland Vittert ｜ 10⧸13⧸25
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
182.04097
Summary
A historic day! We look into what President Trump's legacy will be after the negotiation of this historic Middle East deal. Also, Governor Greg Abbott talks a little bit about what's happening with the National Guard up in Illinois. And Leland Vittert, host of On Balance for News Nation, joins me to talk about his new book, Born Lucky.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
A historic day. We look into what President Trump's legacy will be after the negotiation of this
00:00:06.040
historic Middle East deal. Also, Governor Greg Abbott talks to us a little bit about what's
00:00:12.440
happening with the National Guard up in Illinois. It's the Texas National Guard.
00:00:19.140
And Leland Vittert. Leland is the host of On Balance for News Nation, but he's also written
00:00:25.200
a book called Born Lucky. He's a Middle East expert. We talked to him about that. But then
00:00:30.000
we get into his life story. He had, and still does, autism and was barely functional. But
00:00:39.640
his father made all the difference in his world. And now Leland is a raging success. Born
00:00:47.620
Lucky is the name of the book. The author is Leland Vittert, and he joins me on today's
00:00:51.640
podcast. Every life begins as a sound, a steady flickering heartbeat. That sound changes everything
00:00:58.040
because in that moment, a listening mom hears life. Here's a heartbeat. Preborn exists to
00:01:04.920
make sure more mothers get to hear that sound. They partner with clinics all across the country
00:01:08.960
to provide free ultrasounds and counseling for women who face unplanned pregnancies. You
00:01:13.720
know, there's a reason why people who are on the side of abortion do not want mothers or
00:01:17.640
Planned Parenthood or anybody else to offer an ultrasound. I mean, they fought that and
00:01:21.720
fought that and fought that. No ultrasound, no ultrasound. The reason why? Because then
00:01:25.220
you're like, that is a baby. Statistics show when a mom sees her baby like that, she is much
00:01:30.980
more likely to choose life. And when she does, preborn is there offering practical support,
00:01:35.780
baby supplies, classes, compassion. Every donation helps another heartbeat to be heard. Another
00:01:42.200
family given hope. You're not just funding a machine or a program. You're giving a mom a chance
00:01:47.300
to hear her child say, mom. This is why the truth really matters now more than ever. Because
00:01:53.360
when a mom hears it, lives are saved. $28 will provide a free ultrasound. And this is your chance
00:01:58.640
to make a difference that will echo through the eternities. Will you answer the call? Go to
00:02:03.240
preborn.com slash Beck. That's preborn.com slash Beck or dial pound 250 on your phone and say the
00:02:08.420
keyword baby. That's pound 250 keyword baby. Do it now because life matters. Sponsored by Preborn.
00:02:17.300
Hello, America. You know, we've been fighting every single day. We push back against the lies,
00:02:21.820
the censorship, the nonsense of the mainstream media that they're trying to feed you. We work
00:02:26.800
tirelessly to bring you the unfiltered truth because you deserve it. But to keep this fight
00:02:32.080
going, we need you. Right now, would you take a moment and rate and review the Glenn Beck podcast?
00:02:37.540
Give us five stars and lead a comment because every single review helps us break through big tech's
00:02:42.820
algorithm to reach more Americans who need to hear the truth. This isn't a podcast.
00:02:47.740
This is a movement. And you're part of it, a big part of it. So if you believe in what we're doing,
00:02:52.580
you want more people to wake up, help us push this podcast to the top. Rate, review, share. Together,
00:02:58.380
we'll make a difference. And thanks for standing with us. Now let's get to work.
00:03:02.200
Welcome to the Glenn Beck program. Quite an incredible day. And, you know, I would just like
00:03:22.240
to hear from those people today that have been saying, you know, Donald Trump is going to get
00:03:25.980
in all kinds of wars and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh, no, apparently not. Um, you know,
00:03:31.380
the, the real problem is, is that people, when, when George W. Bush told me in the Oval Office
00:03:39.000
back in 2007 or eight, he said, don't worry, Glenn, the next person that gets in here,
00:03:45.800
no matter what party they're from, they're going to realize they're going to have to do pretty much
00:03:51.360
the same thing because they'll have the same advisors and they'll know that their hands are
00:03:56.800
really tied as president. And that scared the hell out of me. I mean, he was trying to make me feel
00:04:01.840
better, but I didn't feel better. Wait a minute. The president really doesn't have any power to do
00:04:06.940
anything. We're going to continue to go down this road, even though it doesn't work. That's why when
00:04:11.500
Obama got in, nothing really changed. He didn't shut anything down or do anything big because he was
00:04:17.580
going for the same advisors. And so all these advisors that are like, you know, we've got a
00:04:22.840
hundred years of experience. Uh, we've been working on these things and it's, uh, Donald Trump came in
00:04:28.680
and said, I don't agree with any of this stuff. We're going to try something different. And so he
00:04:35.300
got rid of those advisors and he's like, who'd you just marry? Honey? Yeah. Okay. Bring him over here.
00:04:41.160
We're gonna send him to the middle East. Um, I mean, he just, he broke all of the rules and he's a
00:04:49.640
negotiator and he's a business guy and he's, he's a builder. So he thinks differently. Um, and look at
00:04:58.860
the difference. I mean, if you, you want to look at, uh, the way he has changed the world, he has
00:05:06.300
greatly changed the world. We're not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination.
00:05:11.160
But he is greatly changing the world. He is breaking everything that the state department
00:05:16.640
and the years of the guys who have been thinking exactly the same way, what they've been building.
00:05:21.900
He's breaking all of that. And he's like, no, we're going to build it a different way. We're
00:05:26.240
not going to be a global community where everybody is answering to, you know, the United nations.
00:05:31.640
We're going to be our own States. And that's the way it should be. Now, if you don't like that,
00:05:36.680
if you want to be a global community, that's fine. But that doesn't mean we all go to war
00:05:40.320
with each other as you're seeing. If you find a way for everybody to work together, if you
00:05:46.480
find a way that where everybody wants to be successful and have some peace. Now, there
00:05:50.980
are going to be some people like Iran. I don't know what's going to happen with Iran, but
00:05:55.580
I'm hoping that there is some sort of mutual agreement between the Arab States that, you
00:06:01.120
know, if Iran starts something, it's not going to just be, you know, um, it's not just going
00:06:11.000
to be Israel that has to respond or the United States. It's time for the Middle East. Now
00:06:17.200
that they're together to take that on themselves. If there is trouble there, because that one
00:06:23.560
hasn't been solved yet, but he reached out and said, look, Iran, we don't have to be enemies.
00:06:29.840
We, we, now is the time for you to come to the table as well.
00:06:35.220
It's so clear that this is how he actually sees the world, right? He does see the world. Peace
00:06:41.420
through strength is something that he really believes in. He talked about it quite a bit in
00:06:46.460
the speech about how this is, this didn't happen because he was decided to let everyone have what
00:06:54.080
they want or to be super nice to everyone. This happened because they have really big weapons
00:06:58.820
that are really powerful, that hit the targets they want to hit. And many of them he shared,
00:07:03.380
as he pointed out, shared with Israel, uh, many of which that they have themselves to use when needed.
00:07:09.900
And, uh, he didn't, that is the, the approach here. This is not a, it's, it's so weird because I
00:07:16.240
think the left and the media see Donald Trump as a guy who is either this maniacal hawk that is
00:07:23.180
going to go just blow up everything all the time. That's one of the worries that they said. And we
00:07:27.540
said at the time, that's none of his history points to this. Nothing. What are you talking about that?
00:07:32.080
Um, but back to when he was 20 years old, he talked about this stuff. He hates war. Yeah. And I think
00:07:37.480
some other establishment, uh, criticism comes to him because, you know, you look at like what Russia did
00:07:44.640
with Ukraine. Right. And you say, okay, well, Russia invaded Ukraine. And, and there's a lot
00:07:49.060
of people like on the hawkish, you know, right. Who would say, okay, like, right. They're in the
00:07:53.240
wrong here. What are we going, why are we going to go and do anything with them and say that, you know,
00:07:57.780
he's too weak on these issues. He's constantly trying to give everyone what they want. He's
00:08:02.260
always negotiating. And like, neither of those are really true. Like there, some, there are elements
00:08:07.860
of those, like Donald Trump will attack a country he believes is in the wrong. If he needs to,
00:08:13.860
you've seen it with Soleimani back in the day, he'll do the things he believes he needs to do,
00:08:17.660
but he's not ideologically committed to doing that all the time. The same thing with negotiating.
00:08:22.400
He's also limited in his scope. Yeah. Usually limited in his scope. Uh, same thing with, uh,
00:08:27.940
but like not limited in his scope when it comes to ISIS. No. Right. Like he came in and was like,
00:08:32.200
he talked about that in the speech too. He's like, I talked to, to, to general, uh, raising Cain
00:08:36.620
and, uh, everyone told me it was going to take four or five years. He told me it would take four
00:08:40.600
weeks, but we'd probably have time left over. And he was right. We went in, he, we did it his way.
00:08:45.780
He found a general who was on the ground who said, look, I don't want to talk ill about my superiors,
00:08:50.120
but here's what I think we could do. And he picked him and he said, we'll do it your way because
00:08:54.040
your way makes sense. And then it was over in a month. Right. Incredible. That is a totally different
00:08:58.940
way of looking at these things. And because he just doesn't have that, he doesn't, he's not
00:09:04.580
involved in that, that world where there's just calcification over ideas. Like exactly what we
00:09:09.760
talked about when it, when it comes to, uh, George W. Bush, right? Like, uh, you know, this is kind
00:09:14.360
of where we are and the same advisors advise the same things. And it doesn't always mean that it
00:09:19.680
works out perfectly. It doesn't always mean he's always right. He is a guy, I think with that type of
00:09:24.640
stuff, at least when he, when it does go down the wrong road, oftentimes he'll reconsider.
00:09:29.620
You know, I mean, I think that's what happened with Russia. He went down that road with Russia.
00:09:33.620
He really, and again, he talked about this in the speech, believed he could solve that
00:09:36.700
immediately. He said it before the election. He said, we could get that done in a couple of days.
00:09:40.480
He said, I, I talked, I called over and, uh, and Whitcoff was in there talking and it was 15
00:09:46.700
minutes in. And I called him like, what's going on? Why is this taking so long? And they're like,
00:09:50.680
he's still in there. And he talked to him for five hours and it didn't happen. And he,
00:09:54.500
he admitted it didn't happen. And you saw the change that he had there where he was all of a
00:09:59.540
sudden saying, well, you know what, maybe Russia isn't serious about this and we should start doing
00:10:02.620
more to, to put pressure on them in other ways. But like, that's oftentimes just mocked as failure,
00:10:08.780
right? He went in there with this big approach and it didn't work. Well, he's trying something else.
00:10:14.180
He's trying things that he believes will end these conflicts. And that is consistent with who he's been
00:10:18.700
for a very long time. I mean, you can come up with criticisms for Donald Trump, but this stuff has
00:10:22.600
been pretty successful. His, the stuff that he's done, particularly in the Middle East
00:10:26.640
has been incredibly successful. Name the president that has not moved us closer to war
00:10:33.560
or brought us into war in the last, you know, five where we've had troops on the ground. We're
00:10:39.720
sending troops everywhere. Name, name the last president that didn't do that.
00:10:44.100
I mean, you know, you could, I guess you could say, you know, Joe Biden, who's withdrew a bunch
00:10:52.940
of troops from Afghanistan. That didn't work out very well. It didn't get us just slaughtered.
00:10:56.920
It made everything worse. Yeah. Uh, no, you're right. I mean, I, it's, it's not his, he has a
00:11:03.680
priority for this not to occur. It's very important to Donald Trump, I think quite clearly. And he
00:11:09.560
believes he can get it done. And in, in some circumstances it's worked, which by the way,
00:11:16.000
nothing else we try typically works. You know, sometimes war will end the, the thing you're
00:11:22.460
dealing with at that given moment. We have seen that happen, but oftentimes does turn into something,
00:11:27.860
uh, worse in the longterm. And to be clear here, you know, one of the problems that if we were going
00:11:33.240
to poke holes in this at all, as to what happens so far, there is always a completely ridiculous
00:11:39.540
ratio of how many Palestinians get released compared to how many Israelis get. 20 to 2000.
00:11:46.520
To 2000. It's a hundred to one in this case. And it's always 50, a hundred, 150 to one. It's
00:11:51.700
always something like this. And you look at the guys who are coming back from Israel and they're
00:11:55.520
all healthy and well-fed, look like they've just been at a resort. And then you look at the
00:12:00.140
hostages coming back from Hamas and they just look horrible. Many, you know, they look either
00:12:05.020
bad to horrible. Yeah. And, um, the issue here is all of the people that were taken hostage
00:12:12.120
by Hamas will return back to life in Israel, hopefully be able to adjust to life with their
00:12:18.300
families, going to church, uh, living, uh, as, as they were, or at least as close as they
00:12:23.880
can get to that. It'd be weird if the Jews started going to church.
00:12:26.820
Well, you know, whatever. I don't know if they're all Jews. I mean, there was people
00:12:31.700
from other countries as well. Um, but, uh, the, uh, the opposite will happen likely with
00:12:38.240
the 2000 Palestinians. Many of these were hardcore terrorists. Many of them were real criminals.
00:12:45.660
Many of them were in, you know, either involved or, uh, suspected to be involved heavily in the
00:12:53.220
October 7th attacks. Yeah. A lot of these people do in the future. There's a lot to come here.
00:12:57.600
So there's a difference though. They're releasing many of them that are being released
00:13:01.860
did not have charges against them. They were scooped up and not charged with something.
00:13:07.620
So, you know, they were holding these to keep combatants off the battlefield, but they were
00:13:13.440
not necessarily charged. They didn't have them. They were the ones on video murdering children,
00:13:18.100
right? Like it wasn't them. So correct. But again, some of them were suspected. They
00:13:22.940
believed they had planning, um, you know, possibilities. They were in groups with the
00:13:28.680
people who were doing these things. And there is certainly a risk as we've seen after 9-11
00:13:34.140
that when you take terrorists and you put them in Guantanamo for a few months and then you
00:13:38.840
release them back, they become the heads of ISIS. Like this stuff does happen. So there's a long
00:13:43.780
road ahead. This is not a, it's, it's a victory lap for a very small piece of this, but a very
00:13:48.820
important piece of it. If they can keep the peace between the Arab world, forget about
00:13:54.220
Hamas. You keep the peace and you hold together a coalition of the Arab world with Israel.
00:14:01.520
That's, that's worth all of it. Massively important. Massive. And while it might not
00:14:07.540
necessarily solve Hamas or Hezbollah or any of these other groups, it, if we have a place
00:14:16.240
where Israel and these, and many of these Arab nations are in a good place together.
00:14:22.180
And maybe some of these countries are actually overseeing Gaza. Yeah. Um, and they are the
00:14:28.600
ones that need to come in and be the bad guys when Hamas does these things. It's a totally
00:14:33.760
different dynamic. There's no way to turn against Israel if that situation is true. If that, that
00:14:41.620
relationship can be maintained and that'll be difficult. There will be times where that's
00:14:46.280
going to be really difficult to maintain. But again, it's a path. It's, it's like a possibility
00:14:50.860
of success. We were in a situation. I mean, as long as we've done the show together, Glenn,
00:14:55.200
a hundred percent of the time I can, I was convinced this was never going to occur where there would
00:15:00.860
even be a chance where Arab nations and Israel would be buddy, buddy, or at least something close
00:15:05.940
to it. I would say 99.9% of the time, because the Arab accords were so historic. You're like,
00:15:11.800
wait, what just happened? Yeah. Yeah. The Abraham accords. Yeah. I agree with that. And of course,
00:15:16.340
there's always the possibility of a miracle. That's the only thing really I held out hope
00:15:19.880
for. This is, this might be it manifesting itself. And that's great. Uh, here's what Hillary Clinton
00:15:25.160
said. I really commend president Trump and his administration, as well as Arab leaders in the
00:15:29.860
region for making the commitment to a 20 point plan and seeing path forward, uh, for what's often
00:15:34.580
called the day after it's going to take a lot of work. It's going to take a lot of coordination.
00:15:39.200
Uh, but the U S took advantage of a opening that was available and we were able to be successful.
00:15:45.640
That's great. Good for her. Not what Biden said. No, the Biden administration is like, Donald, what
00:15:51.440
who doc are you? I don't know what you're talking about, but congratulations, Hillary Clinton,
00:15:56.280
for at least being honest, uh, which you know, who's honest today. If you're not saying, wow, good job,
00:16:03.900
Donald Trump. Well, you know, you're not an honest broker of anything. Yeah. I don't really know who
00:16:11.000
loves the idea of buying or selling a home. I really don't. I guess some people do, uh, you know,
00:16:15.380
and then you get into the middle of it and you're like, uh, appraisals, inspections, closing costs,
00:16:19.780
you know, mountain of paperwork. It feels like it was designed to test your sanity really. And through
00:16:24.680
it all, you start wondering who's actually on my side here. That's why I created real estate agents.
00:16:30.720
I trust. It's not a random list. It's a network of handpicked professionals who earned their spot
00:16:36.780
by showing real results and real character. We vet these agents six ways to Sunday and they know
00:16:43.260
their markets inside and out. They communicate clearly. They actually listen and they, and they
00:16:49.620
understand that buying or selling a home isn't just a transaction. It is a life move. So when you work
00:16:55.540
with a real estate agent from real estate agents, I trust.com, this is somebody you can trust. You're
00:17:00.180
not just checking boxes. You're working with one of the, one of the best people who understand that
00:17:06.560
you're taking one of the most important steps in your life. And it's somebody beside you who gets it.
00:17:11.820
So don't guess, find out the real estate agent that we recommend. This is my company,
00:17:16.580
real estate agents. I trust.com that's real estate agents. I trust.com. Now back to the podcast.
00:17:23.140
This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. And don't forget, rate us on iTunes.
00:17:36.700
I'm good. I'm good. I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions. First, any thoughts on the
00:17:48.660
It's just remarkable. It's, I haven't seen anything like this before. When, as you know,
00:17:56.340
the Middle East is one of the most complicated areas in the entire world. And to see President
00:18:01.680
Trump be able to go in there, work with other countries across the entire region, as well as
00:18:06.980
over in Europe and other places like that to galvanize countries, literally across the globe
00:18:12.700
and say, this is what we have to do. Uh, so we have to have peace there. We have to stop the
00:18:18.340
shooting, uh, stop the killing. We have to release the hostages, uh, all of that. Uh, and, and to do
00:18:24.320
that in such a short period of time and to see the effectuation of it, uh, begin overnight, uh, is
00:18:30.580
just stunning. Uh, and, uh, so I would say so far, so good with the release of the hostages, uh, the,
00:18:40.500
the, the test will be tougher, uh, when we get to the next stage, uh, where Hamas, uh, actually has
00:18:46.840
to, uh, step down, uh, from running Gaza, uh, controlling Gaza. Uh, and we have to see them
00:18:55.040
live up to that component of the peace deal. Uh, if, if they're able to pull that off, uh, and if,
00:19:00.480
uh, international, uh, troops will be the ones who will be, uh, ensuring, uh, the, the safety of it
00:19:06.660
in, in, ensuring that it's not U S international troops, but, uh, from other countries, uh, that
00:19:12.760
will be stabilizing Gaza, uh, as opposed to Hamas, uh, then it may be, uh, an extraordinarily
00:19:19.700
valuable deal. Uh, well, we'll keep our fingers crossed on that. Um, I wanted to talk to you
00:19:24.640
because, um, uh, Pritzker, uh, and the courts have just said to the national guard, to the
00:19:30.680
Texas national guard, you can't do anything. Now, last week, I think they said you couldn't
00:19:35.420
deploy them there. You did because of what the constitution actually says, but now you've
00:19:40.580
got a hold on them protecting ice. What's the status on this? All right. So let's, let's
00:19:46.840
go back to fundamentals here, because what I have found is everybody in the country, uh,
00:19:50.800
doesn't understand the fundamentals. I'll rip through it real quick. Uh, one is they are
00:19:55.320
obviously be quote national guard. Uh, and the, the president has the authority, uh, under
00:20:01.580
the constitution, under federal statutes to be able to call up the national guard.
00:20:05.420
And to deploy them under certain circumstances, uh, one of which, which is to deploy the national
00:20:10.900
guard to prevent interference with execution of federal law. And that's exactly what the
00:20:16.520
president has done in, in Illinois, uh, in Oregon, uh, in, uh, California and places like
00:20:23.320
that. And, uh, as you kind of pointed out, and this is detailed, you got to be kind of a
00:20:27.920
lawyer to figure out what these courts said, but very importantly, uh, the federal court of
00:20:32.700
appeals in California, the federal court of appeals in Illinois, all said that the president
00:20:39.180
is fully authorized to call up these national guards, uh, for purposes, uh, that were articulated
00:20:46.000
by the president of why they were needed. Uh, what happened in, and this actually occurred
00:20:50.940
before the national guard were even sent to Illinois, because the trial court judge there
00:20:56.920
said, uh, the trial court, uh, wanted to hear evidence, uh, about whether, uh, what was actually
00:21:03.120
going on the ground satisfy the criteria, uh, of preventing interference with execution of
00:21:09.120
federal laws. And so that, that's all that that's going to happen. Uh, you got to prove that
00:21:14.580
that that's exactly what they are for, because, uh, if they do that, uh, they will be allowed
00:21:19.520
not only to be discharged there, which they are allowed by the courts to do, but they will
00:21:24.360
also be able to be there to carry out the function of protecting ICE as ICE is trying to perform
00:21:30.980
its duty, uh, to, uh, enforce federal law. Now, listen, Glenn, what we've all seen on TV
00:21:37.500
screens across the entire country, the, the way that, uh, people in communities, uh, it could
00:21:43.000
be protesters, it could be assassinators, uh, in these communities across country are interfering
00:21:48.120
with ICE performing their jobs. Uh, and so, uh, this is fundamental, uh, and I know whether it
00:21:54.240
be at these federal court of appeals or when it gets to the United States Supreme Court,
00:21:59.260
President Trump is going to be judicially authorized, uh, to fully enforce title 10, uh,
00:22:07.180
of the federal law to make sure that these National Guard troopers are going to be able to be deployed
00:22:12.680
and protect ICE members who are coming under assault in states across the entire country.
00:22:20.860
He's not allowed to have them, uh, do police duties though. Right. I mean, that's the difference,
00:22:27.540
right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and that's the deal. And that's one of the evidence
00:22:31.320
issues that the trial court wants to hear. So, uh, he, he, the president doesn't have the authority
00:22:38.500
to call up National Guard to act like police officers there, but that's not what he's doing.
00:22:43.520
He's never even said he's trying to do that. But of course, that's the bogus arguments being made
00:22:48.440
by Prisker, uh, and by people like Gavin Newsom and, and, and, and you know, as well as I do
00:22:53.200
Prisker and Gavin Newsom, uh, they, they, they are sanctuary city governors and they are more than
00:23:00.280
happy having chaos in their communities. And the last thing they want to do is to, uh, push down that
00:23:06.240
chaos and allow some National Guard soldier to come in and make the communities more safe. And
00:23:11.680
it's just disgusting that we have governors in this country, uh, who, who actually promote,
00:23:18.820
uh, crime and chaos in their own communities. Now, these are governors who are promoting
00:23:24.420
endangering federal officials who are trying to carry out the functions of their office.
00:23:29.880
And I'm telling you, Glenn, if any of these people, any of these, uh, ICE agents or any federal
00:23:35.200
employees, if they're injured in any way whatsoever, uh, then governor Prisker and
00:23:40.080
mayor Johnson of Chicago, they are an accomplice, uh, in the crime that would injure, uh, one of
00:23:46.080
our National Guard or one of the ICE agents trying to carry out the functions of federal law.
00:23:50.640
Um, tell me why Donald Trump chose Texas. Cause I know he always does everything he does is for a
00:23:58.240
reason. Why did he choose the Texas National Guard?
00:24:01.200
Uh, president Trump knows that the Texas National Guard is the most elite National Guard that we have
00:24:08.080
in the United States, uh, whether it be serving, uh, on our homeland or serving on foreign lands. Uh,
00:24:14.640
he knows that they have the expertise, uh, of dealing with, uh, civil riot control. Uh, they have done
00:24:22.880
that on the border, uh, in the harshest developments in the toughest of times. Uh, they have been deployed
00:24:28.840
around the state of Texas by me, uh, to deal with situations like this, uh, where we needed the
00:24:34.760
National Guard to, uh, have the back of our law enforcement officers during the George Floyd
00:24:41.000
protest during other protests. Uh, and so, uh, these are proven and tested, uh, National Guard, uh, who we
00:24:49.240
have a very large number of them. And he, he knew also that if we sent our guard there, uh, we would
00:24:54.840
still have plenty of guard, uh, thousands of them on the border as we do right now, uh, as well as
00:25:00.440
plenty of other National Guard to be able to perform whatever other function, uh, that I, as governor
00:25:06.280
would need, uh, them to be able to provide. And so, uh, this is just easy math for him, uh, and coming
00:25:13.560
from a state, uh, that has the kind and quality and training of National Guard that President Trump
00:25:20.040
respects. Um, the rules of engagement, I've always concerned about, you know, the National Guard kind
00:25:26.440
of just being sitting ducks. They can't really do anything. What are you going to do? Shoot. Um,
00:25:31.400
what are the rules of engagement? Yes, it's very simple and great, great question. Uh, and, but there
00:25:37.640
are rules of engagement, uh, that our guard had been very well trained on for literally years. Uh, and
00:25:43.720
then when they arrived in Illinois, uh, they went back over the rules of engagement and that is, uh,
00:25:49.800
they don't go proactively and shoot somebody or anything like that. Uh, if their, their mandate,
00:25:56.760
uh, is to protect the ICE agents, but in protecting ICE agents and other federal employees, uh, if they
00:26:04.760
come under assault, uh, they have, uh, certain tactics and strategies that they can use, uh, to
00:26:11.720
make sure that they're going to maintain safety around them. Some easy examples, uh, they would,
00:26:15.960
and, and I haven't been told exactly what they are down there, but I'm going to
00:26:19.720
change generally what they do. Uh, they, they would have, uh, tear gas capabilities, uh, flashbang
00:26:25.400
capabilities, pepper ball capabilities, uh, less than lethal force capabilities, uh, to make sure
00:26:31.400
that they're, they're going to be able to maintain crowd control, uh, in, in ways that will protect
00:26:36.360
the safety of the federal officials while at the very same time, not doing any physical harm, uh, to
00:26:42.840
anybody in the community who is threatening them. But also Glenn, remember this, uh, it was just a few
00:26:49.160
weeks ago, uh, where, you know, guard needed to be there, but they were not there, uh, at the time
00:26:55.160
of the shooting in Dallas, Texas, uh, when there was an assassination attempt by a gunman trying to
00:27:01.080
kill murder, uh, the, uh, uh, uh, national, I'm sorry, the, the ice agents there. Uh, and, and, uh,
00:27:10.040
you know, are you supposed to just stand back and say, yeah, have at it, take your best shot.
00:27:14.920
Of course not. Uh, they would, they would have been, uh, in charge, uh, of trying to eliminate
00:27:21.800
that shooter before that shooter, uh, shot, uh, what turned out to be, uh, two illegal immigrants
00:27:29.000
who were in detention. You know, there's, there's, um, uh, that's the second incident here in Texas.
00:27:35.000
Um, and I know the first one, the first one, I think everybody, but one has been, uh, arrested
00:27:41.240
and that was, that's, you know, quite a, um, uh, quite the accomplishment, uh, on that to get,
00:27:48.240
make sure you get everybody involved. Um, let me, let me switch to the border here real quick.
00:27:53.520
I read a story today about how the drug cartels have, at least in Baja, uh, have declared war
00:28:01.680
on Americans. Um, are we seeing anything, uh, any upswing in dangerous engagement from the
00:28:10.240
drug cartels on our border? Well, it, it depends on where you are because, you know, the border runs
00:28:16.880
from the Gulf of America to the Pacific coast. Uh, and you're, you were talking about, uh, in the
00:28:23.280
California area and we, we have not yet seen in Texas, anything exactly like that. We are prepared
00:28:31.040
for it in Texas, which is why we still have thousands of national guard and Texas department
00:28:36.080
of public safety officers on the border. And it's also why we are working in a very close collaboration,
00:28:41.840
uh, with the Trump administration to make sure that we're going to be able to push back on
00:28:46.640
anything like this. But, uh, I'll tell you about two things, uh, further in response to this one,
00:28:51.440
remember, uh, Trump has publicly stated, uh, what is also privacy privately stated. And that is,
00:28:58.320
uh, he is looking to take out the heads, uh, of the cartels, uh, in Mexico. Uh, and he is not backed
00:29:05.840
off of that, uh, in any way, uh, whatsoever. Uh, the, the other thing is, is that we, we all know that
00:29:13.200
we need to be prepared, uh, uh, in, in every region of the border, uh, about a new form of
00:29:19.520
engagement by the cartels. And that will be active drone warfare. And I know in Texas,
00:29:26.000
we're prepared for it. Uh, and we're gearing up the other thing, something that moved that just
00:29:30.320
came out over the weekend, uh, but they'd been working on a couple of weeks. Do you remember
00:29:34.800
back when Biden was president and I was doing everything I could to protect the border and
00:29:40.880
I deployed those big orange buoys, uh, into the water, into the real grand that
00:29:45.680
prevented people from being across the border. Uh, there was an announcement made by the Trump
00:29:50.400
administration that they are, uh, putting down about 80 miles of those big orange buoys, uh,
00:29:57.680
especially in the Eagle Pass area, uh, that would prevent people from being able to cross. And
00:30:02.480
they're looking at other spaces where they would be adding, uh, in the aggregate,
00:30:06.320
more than a hundred miles of those buoys. One thing about those buoys,
00:30:10.080
uh, they are fully effective at preventing people from crossing in those areas. Uh,
00:30:15.040
but they're about, I don't know, about a tenth of the cost of a border wall. And so it's a very
00:30:20.640
effective tool for the federal government to continue to deny illegal entry. But there's also,
00:30:26.800
there's also, we, listen, we, we know the commitment of president Trump to make sure that
00:30:30.640
we're going to have zero people crossing the border during his administration. But what I told
00:30:35.200
president Trump is, listen, uh, you know, we want to work with you for the next three years to make
00:30:40.160
sure that, uh, we stopped that, uh, the flow coming across the border, but we need to do it in a way.
00:30:45.440
So it's effective for more than just three years for the next 30, for the next 30 years, uh, is what
00:30:51.680
we need to do. And those buoys on the border, the border wall that he's building, some other things
00:30:56.640
are doing in the state of Texas, uh, is ensuring, uh, that what he has done during this term in
00:31:02.880
presidency is going to have a lasting effect to deny illegal entry into the United States of America.
00:31:09.200
Uh, Governor Greg, Greg Abbott, I know you need to run. Um, but I do want to congratulate you on
00:31:14.320
what you've done with Epic City. And, uh, you know, you immediately sprung into action the minute we
00:31:19.280
started hearing about these Muslim Sharia laws that he's possibly springing up. And I want to thank
00:31:23.760
you for that. And, uh, we'll keep our eye on the attorney general to make sure that he enforces
00:31:28.800
those laws. Thank you. You got it. Great to have you on. How are you, sir?
00:31:46.480
Pleasure to be with you, Glenn. Uh, I remember when you and I worked together at Fox.
00:31:51.440
Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, you first, I want to start before I get into your story,
00:31:57.120
because your story is so great. Um, before we get into that, tell me your analysis,
00:32:03.360
because you are foreign correspondent based in Jerusalem forever. What is your take on what's
00:32:08.560
happening right now over in Egypt and, uh, and also in Israel that we don't understand right now.
00:32:17.920
And that's fine in real time, how historic and seismic the shift in the Middle East is right now,
00:32:25.120
because Trump turned 50 years of conventional wisdom on its head. Jared Kushner understood and
00:32:33.200
explained to Trump that the root of all the problems in the Middle East is not the Israeli
00:32:38.000
Palestinian conflict. It is Iran. And I think what we saw over the past eight months and to be fair
00:32:43.600
over Trump's first term, but it culminated in the past eight months is the isolation and degradation
00:32:49.600
of both Iran's ability to act militarily on its own and its proxies. And thus has allowed a total
00:32:57.520
sea change in the power dynamic of the Middle East away from Iran and towards the Gulf countries and
00:33:06.240
towards Israel. So that has totally changed everything. And we're seeing, I think the
00:33:15.120
beginning of it, not the end of how much is going to change in the Middle East for the good.
00:33:19.920
What is it? What does it mean? What does today mean in five years or 10 years?
00:33:24.160
Look, the one thing I learned about being in the Middle East is if you want to predict the future
00:33:29.200
in the Middle East, OK, you must be a prophet himself. You will be proven.
00:33:36.320
And here's why is because things change. If two years ago I had told you after October 7th,
00:33:44.160
Hezbollah and Hamas would be destroyed. Iran's nuclear program would be in ashes. But the real threat,
00:33:49.760
both in Europe and in the United States, would be this wild rise of anti-Semitism and radical Islam
00:33:59.360
terror now calling for the death of Jews and attacks on Jews around the world, you would
00:34:04.560
have called me crazy. Because everybody would have said, oh, you know, everybody's going to rally
00:34:07.680
around Israel. It's the exact opposite of what has happened. So I can't predict the future,
00:34:12.080
but what I can say is, is that for the first time, I think, since the Iranian revolution in 1979,
00:34:18.960
there is a realization of where the real evil in in the Middle East is and a willingness by the
00:34:24.080
United States to confront it honestly. And there are people on how quickly things are changing.
00:34:29.840
There are people on the right, Leland now, that do not recognize Hamas as evil. They are so
00:34:38.880
down this rabbit hole of the Jews controlling the world and Donald Trump and, you know, all of this
00:34:46.400
stuff that they don't, I don't think they actually see the evil in the Middle East. They see it coming
00:34:57.280
from Israel. It's, it's bizarre. And I'm trying to get my arms around it to understand it and
00:35:03.360
understand where it's coming from. But have you noticed it in the right? And what, what is the
00:35:10.700
solution here? Well, I think the solution, Glenn, is exactly what you're doing, which is calling it
00:35:17.620
out for what it is, which is, it's not some new age critical way of thinking. It's rank anti-Semitism
00:35:25.680
and Jew hatred. There's a difference. You would agree, you would agree with me that you can dislike
00:35:31.920
what Israel, how Israel fought the war. You can say, I don't want to fight their wars. I don't want
00:35:36.140
anything to do with it. And I disagree with them. That's different than the message of I'm for Hamas
00:35:42.320
or Israel has to be, you know, destroyed because they're just, they're, they're the source of all
00:35:50.900
the problems in the world. Yeah. And I'll go one step further. It's different than saying
00:35:56.900
Hamas is anything other than an evil terror organization. Um, there, there, there is good
00:36:05.560
and evil and in the world, there is, there is a difference between the two. And I, I don't necessarily
00:36:14.520
like the term moral clarity, but I don't have a better one, um, for what is required in these
00:36:20.200
situations. And this sort of Hamas adjacent talking points or agreeing with these talking
00:36:25.360
points. It's no different than Mamdami, um, who, who sort of, it's like, well, Hamas may,
00:36:30.680
may be bad, but they have legitimate grievances. No, they don't. And, and I'm sorry, once you,
00:36:37.420
once you start raping and pillaging and waging war against civilians, I don't care what your
00:36:42.680
grievances are, you must be destroyed. And then we can deal with whatever the other issues are later.
00:36:48.860
So what do you think happens to this Palestinian movement here in America now that this is over?
00:36:54.600
I don't know, but it scares me number one. And I think number two, uh, what we've seen is it's not
00:37:00.340
really a Palestinian movement. It was an anti-Jew movement. It was the sort of graph on a BLI of the,
00:37:07.860
the neo-Marxist oppressed oppressor worldview that just grafted on to the pro-Palestinian movement.
00:37:17.340
But at their core, they're neo-Marxist anti-Semites. Um, and we know that because now that there is a
00:37:23.340
peace deal in Gaza, okay. And ceasefire. And if anything, it's going to help the Gazan people who
00:37:28.700
they said were starving and so on, you know, terribly oppressed. Well, they're not anymore,
00:37:32.980
but yet these people are still marching around calling for the death of Jews, right? You know,
00:37:38.060
when we knew a peace deal was happening on October 7th, there were thousands in the streets of New
00:37:42.140
York saying we needed another October 7th, this one even stronger. So that's who we're dealing with.
00:37:50.380
And I appreciate you calling it out from the right, because I think there is a, an element of the
00:37:55.280
right, but thank God there are people like you, Glenn, who on the right are saying, this is crazy and
00:38:01.820
this is wrong and this is despicable. That doesn't happen on the left. Okay. You've got Kathy Hochul
00:38:06.620
endorsing Mamdami in New York city. That's the governor of the second or third largest state in
00:38:11.680
the country endorsing a guy who is Hamas adjacent. That doesn't happen in the Republican party or on
00:38:17.780
the right. Can it though? I mean, on the left, can it, I mean, they have let this go for so long
00:38:23.820
that it is really powerful. And those are the kinds of people that do kill people. Um, and so
00:38:31.100
it is, it is so empowered on the left. Can the politician expect to live, uh, if they go against
00:38:39.580
this? I think when it requires politicians with actual moral courage, um, and people can take from
00:38:47.340
that what they will, but if you are, if you're more concerned, if you're so concerned about your own
00:38:51.680
political future, as so many on the left are, that you are unwilling to name, shame, call out whatever
00:39:00.380
you want to use the term as people who are Hamas adjacent and those who endorse people who are Hamas
00:39:07.560
adjacent, that pretty much says everything about who you are and what you care about.
00:39:12.320
I'm not sure it's just about your career politically though, anymore. I think we're,
00:39:17.760
you know, we've entered a, you know, this we've turned a page and, uh, the violence is real now.
00:39:23.760
And there are people that are unhinged that will, uh, they'll, they'll take you out. They will take
00:39:31.380
you out. That I think that's very true. And I think where we are seeing the most of that language
00:39:39.540
is from the left, but that is a different discussion. Yeah. Leland has a new book, um,
00:39:44.740
out that is called born lucky. And, uh, you wouldn't think that when you actually hear his
00:39:50.960
story. Um, and I didn't know this about you Leland at all. And you are a, you're an amazing success
00:39:59.140
story. Um, well, go ahead. No, no, I was just gonna say, thank you. Um, you know, I think what
00:40:05.300
you're talking about is the fact that when I was five years old, I was diagnosed with what we now
00:40:09.440
know to be autism. Um, and born lucky is the story of my dad adapting me to the world rather than the
00:40:18.260
world to me. And the reason, you know, we debuted on the New York times bestseller list at number
00:40:22.940
four, and we've sold out three times on Amazon back in stock now is not because of me. Um, you
00:40:28.980
know, Glenn, I'm a television anchor, but I'm not that narcissistic to think it's about me.
00:40:32.820
It's about this story. And born lucky is proof for every parent of a kid who's having a hard time.
00:40:38.420
It doesn't matter if it's autism, anxiety, ADHD, anything. It is proof for every parent of a kid
00:40:44.420
who's having a hard time, how much power they have, how much agency they have, what they can do.
00:40:50.260
And it's not anything that the experts tell you. So when you were in fourth grade, you did an IQ
00:40:55.700
test for the school and your spread was 68 points. You were borderline retarded on the low end when it
00:41:03.140
was your verbal test, uh, but nonverbal, you were in the genius category. That's phenomenal.
00:41:10.340
Well, now my wife would tell me I'm probably still borderline many things, um, right now,
00:41:16.880
but so you pick up on this moment in the book where my parents are told they need to get me
00:41:23.380
evaluated, which is what no parent wants to hear. Right. And I was having terrible issues in school.
00:41:28.260
I never got invited to a birthday party or anything like that. But if a kid touched me in line,
00:41:32.180
I would turn around and hit them. Uh, you know, kids would make jokes and I would try to be serious.
00:41:36.580
I would run into kids on the playground. It just, nothing worked and had really terrible sensory
00:41:41.940
issues. You know, uh, I had my socks on the way I didn't like, or a jacket or anything like that.
00:41:46.180
I would completely melt down. And then obviously what was all these learning disabilities. So the
00:41:51.300
parents take me to this medical office building for all this testing, linoleum floors,
00:41:56.660
bad magazines, old coffee, whatever. They wait for two hours. They're terrified. I'm their son, uh,
00:42:03.060
who's that my sister at the time was one or two years old. So they bring me back from all the testing
00:42:09.220
and they say to my parents, we really don't understand what's going on inside his head.
00:42:13.700
Um, you know, severe learning disabilities, terrible behavioral problems, awful sensory issues,
00:42:19.540
all the things of what we now know to be autism. And my dad said, what do we do? And the woman said,
00:42:24.980
there's not much. And he said, is there anything we can do? And she said, generally not.
00:42:30.260
And that began my dad's quest to adapt me to the world and to find things that I could have self
00:42:38.020
esteem in and to, to help me earn self-esteem rather than given. So wasn't going to be good
00:42:43.140
at school. Wasn't going to have friends. Wasn't going to be good at athletics, but he started me
00:42:46.980
at that age a little bit earlier, actually doing 200 pushups a day, five days a week,
00:42:52.180
hard work, effort equals achievement. It's something you can take pride in. Um, your character was a huge
00:42:57.620
part of his lessons. Um, something you can take pride in. And that was, that was this process.
00:43:02.980
And you write in the book about the pushups. It was also, so your dad, dad knew you were going
00:43:06.900
to need to protect yourself, right? Yeah. No, I look at my sister who plays a really important
00:43:12.900
role in this book. And I think one of the things that people don't understand, and so many families
00:43:17.460
are suffering silently right now and feel alone with their kid. Who's having a hard time. Doesn't
00:43:22.980
matter what the issue is, is how much the siblings are affected. I mean, my sister's a PhD in math and
00:43:27.860
professor at MIT and Harvard and, you know, unbelievable in every way, but you know, her
00:43:33.380
first memories of me, and I didn't know this until we interviewed her for born lucky is she was in
00:43:38.980
kindergarten. I was in fifth grade and I would come from my classroom downstairs to her classroom,
00:43:44.420
pick her up. And then we would walk home. It's about a quarter mile. And we would get to the back
00:43:48.580
of the school where the PE fields were to the woods, which led to our house. And as we walked into
00:43:53.780
the woods, Liberty said the first memory of my brother ever was every day when he got to the
00:43:59.700
woods, he would start crying and I would hold his hand as I walked home with him. And, you know,
00:44:06.260
that, and that was the bullying and the isolation and sort of the crushing, uh, issues that came not
00:44:12.980
only from the kids, but from the teachers as I grew up, because my, you know, my dad never told
00:44:18.420
anybody about this diagnosis, no teachers, no counselors, nothing. Wow. And, uh, so take me
00:44:26.100
through some of the things that your dad, um, did. Cause I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm impressed with you
00:44:32.340
and what you've accomplished, but your father is remarkable. How did he come up with the things
00:44:38.820
that he did? Cause you are fully more than fully functional in today's society. You're a huge success.
00:44:47.140
What did he do to get you there? Well, it's a great question. Um, I would just tell you,
00:44:52.980
and I'll give you a story a little later that I still deal with this every day. You know,
00:44:57.300
autism is not something you're ever cured of. This is a daily, almost hourly discipline
00:45:02.740
of seeing the world as others see them as my dad taught me to interact and understand the social
00:45:08.820
fabric. But you know, one thing he did, um, he knew I wasn't going to have any friends. So as he said,
00:45:13.140
I thought maybe I could be your friend. So starting at five or six, he and I spent
00:45:17.060
hundreds of hours together every month. I mean, thousands of hours together.
00:45:21.780
And he would take me to lunches with his friends. And I would have loved to have gone to a lunch,
00:45:27.620
like with Mr. Beck, right? Because I was a mini me to my dad. He talked to me about politics and
00:45:32.260
news and events and on and on. And we would get to lunch and you would be talking about, you know,
00:45:38.900
your family or whatever you were doing that weekend or whatever. And I would interrupt
00:45:41.700
like a thousand questions a minute where, you know, how do you pick your topics?
00:45:46.900
How do you do your monologue? Where do you get your advertisers from? How much do you charge for
00:45:50.900
ads on and on and on? And my dad then would never say anything publicly to me, but he would tap his
00:45:55.540
watch. And that was my cue to stop talking number one, but number two, to kind of bookmark that.
00:46:01.140
Right. And so now we're driving home in the car and he says, okay, lucky, you know, when Mr.
00:46:06.900
Beck was talking about his weekend plans or his lunch with, you know, whoever, whatever it was,
00:46:11.380
and you interrupted and asked about his commercials. Why did you think Mr. Beck wanted to talk about
00:46:19.300
commercials at that moment? Well, gee, dad, I don't know. I thought it was interesting. Okay.
00:46:23.140
Well, what could we have talked about that Mr. Beck would have found interesting? That was,
00:46:27.300
you know, with what he was talking about, how do you connect with him? And that was the
00:46:33.620
basis of granularly teaching me the social and emotional connections of everyday life and
00:46:41.300
born lucky is that story of how my dad made me understand that he loved me, but that boy,
00:46:47.620
there was so much work I had to do to fit in, in the world. At one point, um, you know, there was a
00:46:57.300
kid you use right in the book, a kid in middle school who kept pushing me both figuratively, literally
00:47:02.500
teachers wouldn't do anything, came home, told my dad what the kids had done, blah, blah, blah.
00:47:07.380
I finally asked, can I hit him yet? Right. Tell that story.
00:47:13.060
So you have to understand that the school situation that I was in, I've been pulled out of
00:47:17.700
two or three schools before I get started in seventh grade. It was a seventh through 12th grade school
00:47:23.220
and two weeks into school, the principal calls my parents in. So my parents think they're coming in
00:47:28.420
for like a normal, like, Hey, how's two weeks going into school? And they're sitting there and the
00:47:35.700
principal sits my parents down in the little office, looks across the desk at them and says,
00:47:42.980
everybody at this school thinks lucky is really weird. So that's arrow number one through my parents'
00:47:49.220
heart. And then she follows up and I do too. So I had no protection, right? There was an eighth grade
00:47:57.540
art teacher who didn't think I was going to become Picasso and said in front of the entire class,
00:48:02.500
uh, Hey Vitter, if my dog was ugly as you, I would shave its bleep and make it walk backwards.
00:48:07.860
So that was the environment I lived in every day. But there was this kid and he kept Maldon off and my
00:48:13.620
dad had turned me into a pretty hefty little fella. I was fat and kind of chunky and awkward,
00:48:18.580
but I was pretty strong. And you know, my dad had said, you know, the way you deal with bullies,
00:48:23.620
you eventually just hit him in the nose. Great. Um, and I didn't, I slammed his head down on the desk,
00:48:31.940
but it was, it was the beginning of me starting to fight back. And I think born lucky will,
00:48:36.820
people will see how fighting back affected things.
00:48:40.100
That was the last time you had to do that. Correct. It was the last time I was allowed to.
00:48:46.660
Okay. Bornluckybook.com. Bornluckybook.com. This is, you will love, love, love this book. Bornluckybook.com.