The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program ｜ Guests： John Lott, Bill O'Reilly, Ted Cruz & Eric Christen ｜ 3⧸1⧸19

00:00:00.000 All right, welcome to the podcast. Today, Mr. Glenn Beck will be live at CPAC. You'll hear him

00:00:05.560 talking from the radio row there and doing the show from DC. You can actually see the show and

00:00:13.240 watch it back. You can also see Glenn's speech that he had at CPAC this morning. Subscribe to

00:00:17.540 BlazeTV. Go to blazetv.com slash Beck. Use the promo code Beck and you can get 10 bucks off

00:00:23.960 your subscription. See the show, see the TV show every night. You also get Stephen Crowder,

00:00:27.780 Mark Levin and Steve Dace and Pat Gray and all the big names. So check it out, blazetv.com

00:00:34.100 slash Beck. Glenn has a couple of interviews, talks to BlazeTV's own John Miller, our White

00:00:40.580 House correspondent during the program. Also talks to Ted Cruz who comes on and discusses

00:00:45.500 what to do with the border. He's got a great idea what to do with the border and it doesn't

00:00:49.000 require the Emergency Act. So that would be kind of a nice improvement there. We also have,

00:00:55.860 we're also talking about the debacle in California with the high speed rail as they start pitching

00:01:02.560 the Green New Deal and building trains everywhere. Maybe we should look at California to see how that 0.95

00:01:08.080 one's turning out as we're about 10 times the projected cost already and almost none of it's

00:01:13.080 built. And we will also go through and talk about Glenn's message to CPAC, the future of this

00:01:21.540 country and whether socialism is the right direction to go. A little spoiler alert, he doesn't think it

00:01:27.120 is. That's all in today's podcast.

00:01:35.820 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

00:01:44.100 All right, Glenn is down in CPAC right now. Glenn, are you with us?

00:01:48.840 I am, Stu. Thank you so much. I'm very titillated by the fact you're here. Oh, I wish I was there

00:01:56.640 too. I really do. Do you? Actually, it's good to be here because the crowd is very young, dynamic,

00:02:04.720 and I think wide awake. It was interesting. I've never had to start a conference before and walk out

00:02:14.140 where everybody's like, I can't believe I have to get up this early for this conference. But people are here

00:02:20.740 because they know the country is in real trouble. They feel it. And the theme today, unbeknownst to me,

00:02:29.840 is socialism. That's what the CPAC started out with in this opening video about socialism and how socialism

00:02:39.880 is coming and what Ronald Reagan said about it. And that's what my speech was about. Did you get a

00:02:46.120 chance to see it? I did. It seemed like it went really well. It was well received. You went through

00:02:51.360 a bunch of, I mean, we're going to play a little bit of it coming up later in the program, but you

00:02:55.480 really went into socialism. And, you know, one of the things you've talked about for a long time is

00:03:01.100 this sort of conversion of the left from people who deny they're socialists and say you're a racist for

00:03:07.500 calling them socialists and that conversion to taking the mask off and saying, you know what?

00:03:12.100 Capitalism doesn't work. I am a socialist. I'm proud of it. I'm not denying it anymore. Here we are.

00:03:16.800 And I mean, that's America today. That is what we're seeing with the Democratic Party.

00:03:21.140 Yeah, I remember saying that while I was on Fox. I remember saying there's going to come a time when

00:03:25.480 they're going to take the mask off because they want to tell you they want they're dying to tell you 0.99

00:03:30.880 that capitalism doesn't work, you cretin. And and really, if exactly what I had in my mind is 1.00

00:03:39.060 exactly Ocasio-Cortez and what she what she said, I think was on 60 Minutes where she's like, yeah,

00:03:46.760 I'm a socialist, you know, because this isn't working. This isn't working. So if I guess being

00:03:51.980 for, you know, a better system and justice and fairness, you know, if that's what that that's a

00:03:57.820 socialist, then, yeah, I'm a socialist. Exactly what I thought that they would start to say.

00:04:03.280 And now they're saying it in droves. But as I pointed out in the speech, capitalism, capitalism

00:04:08.840 is about justice and fairness. Socialism is about equality. Now, equality sounds nice. We're all for

00:04:17.720 equality, but therefore equality of outcome and equality of outcome does not exist in nature.

00:04:26.140 It's not like all lions are created equal. No, some lions kill and eat other lions.

00:04:32.820 It is unnatural. You've got to remember, we the progressives and socialists try to take man

00:04:39.320 and and perfect him into a God because they don't believe in God. They have to perfect man and man can

00:04:49.200 be a God. Government can be a God. And that's just not true. Our founders understood we're not gods.

00:04:56.000 We're the farthest thing from it. We're animals and there's a natural instinct in us. And so the

00:05:01.680 systems that work are the ones that try to protect equal justice, not equal outcome. And and what's

00:05:12.800 happened is we have social justice and equal outcomes. Well, that's not going to do anything

00:05:18.900 but provide misery. Just misery. Yeah. And we're seeing it. And you talked about any socialism,

00:05:23.660 as I said today, socialism works. It does. I know everybody says it doesn't, but it does. It does

00:05:30.660 exactly what it is designed to do. And you can see it in Venezuela. What does socialism always do?

00:05:38.900 It takes those who are the ranchers who know better than everybody else, and it puts them in

00:05:45.980 charge of the farm or the ranch. It gives them all of the benefits. They create fences because the

00:05:52.620 cattle and the sheep, they're just they're just too stupid. They're going to hurt themselves. And I 1.00

00:05:57.280 know what's best. And so they will they will milk the cows and slaughter the sheep and get richer and

00:06:05.880 richer, take all of the benefits and keep all that cattle just breeding, just consuming so they can

00:06:11.900 live off that fatted calf. And and then what? If there is a bull or a cow or a sheep that just will

00:06:20.180 not remain in the fence, they got to kill that one. They got to slaughter it. If it won't play by the 0.99

00:06:24.760 rules, if it doesn't understand that the rancher is in charge, they got to get rid of it. And meanwhile,

00:06:30.780 what is socialism doing for the elite right now? Maduro is taking gold and shipping it. Another

00:06:40.680 eight tons of Venezuelan gold has been shipped away for who for who for him and Chavez. His daughter is

00:06:50.460 a multimillionaire. How? What did she do besides being the the daughter of the the leader of Venezuela

00:07:00.100 that raped the country? So all it does, it accomplishes everything that it is set out to 0.84

00:07:07.460 do. Make the elite rich and in control, control the masses and let them all be equal, equally

00:07:17.420 miserable, equally poor and eventually equally dead. You mentioned something you kind of described

00:07:23.280 this in a way I hadn't heard you describe it before with socialism and this idea of equality and how

00:07:29.860 socialism targets equality, you know, but it makes us all equally poor. You mentioned holding up the

00:07:36.660 socialist yardstick to measure, measure capitalism, and how we've kind of given into that over over

00:07:45.940 time, we've given into this idea that we're supposed to say, well, well, yes, we swear it will make you

00:07:51.860 equal eventually, when that's not really the idea of what capitalism supposed to provide at the end.

00:07:58.500 Right. It's we say, you know, capitalism creates inequality. Yes, yes. And it's time to just say it.

00:08:07.940 Yes, it does. And that's a good thing. Inequality of outcome. Because if if you try to use the socialist

00:08:15.700 measuring stick, which, by the way, has no numbers on it, I'd like to say that it's a metric measuring

00:08:21.620 stick, but it's not even that there. There's no measuring stick. This system has never worked as

00:08:27.560 they described. It's never been implemented. It doesn't exist, nor can or will it ever exist. It's

00:08:34.320 like measuring things against a fantasy unicorn. Well, your horse can't do what my unicorn does.

00:08:42.240 Well, where's where's your unicorn? Well, I'm I'm gonna get it in a minute. If you would just I could

00:08:48.600 just get your horse out of the way. Maybe I could find my unicorn. You can't. Unicorns don't exist.

00:08:55.100 And so we're comparing our horses, if you will, to their unicorn, which doesn't exist. Why are we

00:09:02.860 playing this game? Yeah, why are we? Why are we? Why are we comparing ourselves to a system

00:09:08.380 that is a fantasy? I'll compare this system to Venezuela. I'll compare this system to Russia.

00:09:15.300 I'll compare our system to Cuba. But what they'll say is, well, that's not really I mean, they didn't

00:09:20.820 do it right. Okay, show me where they did it right. Sweden. That's not socialism. That's a capitalist

00:09:27.860 system with a giant welfare state. That's what that is. So again, give me the socialist utopia

00:09:34.360 that I can compare it to. I can't produce one because it's a unicorn.

00:09:40.340 No, I mean, you can everyone can sit here and say, let's measure this against the perfect

00:09:45.140 thing. The only fair thing to compare American capitalism is to is every other nation in the

00:09:50.420 history of the earth. And if you do that, American capitalism looks pretty damn sweet.

00:09:57.600 When you when you look, Stu, and we've talked about this before, when you look at the the

00:10:05.060 actual stats that because of the free market system, because of the free market, we now have

00:10:13.700 fewer children dying before the age of five than ever before. In fact, the death of children

00:10:23.740 under the age of five has dropped by half since 1990. Now, what caused that Sweden or the American 0.97

00:10:35.200 and free market ingenuity that Americans and the American system has unleashed? When you look at

00:10:42.400 everybody, you don't hear that stat. You don't hear that people are living much longer, much healthier

00:10:49.580 all around the world. You don't hear that capitalism has, yes, made the more the world more unequal

00:10:56.500 because we have lifted billions of people out of poverty. And there are still people in poverty.

00:11:02.060 And there are more rich people than ever before. But we can work on the people in poverty. Why tear

00:11:09.220 down the rich? When you when you know that 70% of the people believe health care and poverty has

00:11:15.820 gotten worse. But just because of the life saving improvements that have happened just in the last

00:11:24.620 two decades, it is the equivalent of averting 27 major plane crashes full of children every single day.

00:11:33.460 Why why are we why is why are we focused on the plane crash? Because there's no bad news in in the free

00:11:42.400 market when you look at it and step back when you're looking at well, look at this. This is a problem.

00:11:48.900 Yeah, yeah, he's got a bad hangnail. Yeah, he might have even a broken foot. America and capitalism has lost its

00:11:59.360 moorings for sure. But it is, it is still the best system. And if we would just recognize that and come back to our

00:12:09.420 center, the whole world changes.

00:12:11.860 Like listening to this podcast. If you're not a subscriber, become one now on iTunes. While you're

00:12:27.780 there, do us a favor and rate the show. Where is john lot? Let me bring john lot in john is here.

00:12:35.080 Thank you, Phoenix. John, come on in john is probably the leading expert on weapons and guns and, and all the

00:12:46.220 stats off the top of his head. John, it's been a disturbing. It's been a disturbing, really weak with

00:12:53.440 what's just passed in Congress, right with HR eight, and I think it's HR 1112. But this is just the

00:13:02.140 beginning, isn't it? Right. Well, I mean, these are just ways to make it very costly for law

00:13:06.940 abiding citizens to be able to own guns and to deny. And it's going to make people less safe. I mean,

00:13:12.700 we're here in Washington, D.C. It costs $125 to privately transfer a gun in Washington, D.C. That

00:13:18.960 may not stop you or I from being able to go and do it. But they're poor people. The very people

00:13:24.680 that my research indicates benefit the most, who are most likely to be victims of violent crime,

00:13:30.340 poor minorities who live in high crime urban areas. It may be great if the police were there 1.00

00:13:35.200 all the time, but they're not. And if, and the system that they have, we keep on hearing this

00:13:40.240 week that there have been three and a half million dangerous prohibited people that have been stopped

00:13:44.780 from buying guns because of background checks. That's simply not true. What they should say

00:13:48.820 is there have been three and a half million initial denial and that something around 99% of those

00:13:54.660 are mistakes. Wow. And the thing is, it primarily hurts minorities. So, so here's what I'm concerned

00:14:01.440 about. Cause I think all of those are valid, but I think they're doing this. And at the same time,

00:14:06.240 they're taking a back door by going in through the financial system and telling Citibank and others,

00:14:12.440 don't do business with gun manufacturers or gun stores. Right. If they close down and say,

00:14:18.000 you have to transfer at a, at a gun store and then make it impossible for gun stores to operate.

00:14:24.960 Right. How, how are you ever going to be able to obtain a gun, sell a gun, buy anything?

00:14:31.240 No, I mean, I agree. There's many fasted ways that they're trying to make it costly for people,

00:14:37.940 particularly poor people to be able to go and get guns to own. And it's also, I think,

00:14:43.400 a step towards registration that they're going to be setting up where if, you know, right now,

00:14:48.620 the bills that they have say that they can't put together registration lists, but the dealers have

00:14:53.820 to keep records of all the transfers as well as the sales that they make. Five years or six years

00:14:59.780 from now, if Democrats have control of Congress and the presidency, they could change the law that

00:15:05.060 says all those records that you digitize, send into the federal government and they have an instant

00:15:09.800 national registration list. That is exactly what happened. For law-abiding people, anyway.

00:15:14.060 That's what happened in the Weimar Republic. Well, we've already seen California and New York

00:15:18.620 and Connecticut and Chicago, places where they've used registration lists that they've already had

00:15:24.780 in order to demand that people turn in guns that they had in those places. So it's, you know, I,

00:15:31.380 look, I've, unfortunately, I've come to the belief that they really don't want people to own guns.

00:15:37.200 And you can see this in lots of ways. Socialists never do. Venezuela lost their rights to a gun 0.82

00:15:43.620 in 2012. Right. And you can see what happened to crime rates afterwards. And of course, now people

00:15:49.400 aren't able to defend themselves against the government that's there. But I'll give you a

00:15:53.520 couple examples. A few years ago when Colorado was passing its background checks on private transfers,

00:15:59.440 I got a call from some state legislators asking me what amendment I would put up. And my suggestion

00:16:04.720 was to put up an amendment that would exempt people below the poverty level from having

00:16:09.180 to pay the new state tax on transferring guns. You'd think that would be a no-brainer. But

00:16:14.800 with the exception of two pro-gun Democrats in the State House, every other Democrat voted

00:16:20.060 against exempting people below the poverty level from paying the new state tax. How many taxes

00:16:25.480 can you think of where Democrats will fight tooth and nail against exempting people below the poverty

00:16:30.880 level from having to pay them? None. Look at the bill that they just passed. You have

00:16:35.500 to do a background check on each gun that's transferred. Let's say I leave somebody 10 guns. Rather than

00:16:42.040 just paying one $25 background check and do it all in one lump moment there, they make you

00:16:48.300 have to spend 10 times that. You'd have to spend, like, if you're doing a transfer in D.C., you'd

00:16:53.460 have to spend $1,250. What's the point? That's craziness. What's the point of counting a separate

00:17:00.460 background check on each gun? You're doing it on the individual. And so, you know, it's just

00:17:06.460 all these little things when you read through there that it's pretty clear that they're just

00:17:10.680 trying to make it costly. Look, do you think, John, the mask has come off of the progressives

00:17:18.460 on socialism? You know, when I said socialism, you know, the people in the White House are

00:17:25.120 socialists. I was called a racist. And I said at that time, there's going to come a time where

00:17:29.500 they'll take the mask off and say, you're damn right I'm a socialist because this doesn't work.

00:17:33.720 Do you think we're close to the time when socialists now in the Democratic Party will 0.56

00:17:39.720 stand up and say, you're damn right I'm trying to take your gun because guns are dangerous

00:17:43.880 and it won't work? Right. Well, I mean, you go and you talk to these people and you say 0.93

00:17:48.080 every law that they have makes it more costly. And there's like no end to the number of laws

00:17:53.540 that they would be willing to push for this. And, you know, you have things like red flag

00:17:59.640 laws that are getting passed. I don't know, it's like 14 states now that have these laws.

00:18:05.140 It's kind of like the old movie Minority Report, the Tom Cruise movie, where they're trying to

00:18:10.400 predict whether somebody is going to commit a crime. But they don't even list in many of these

00:18:15.600 laws specific things. It's kind of like the old definition of pornography. I'll know it when I

00:18:21.420 see it. And so you can have a neighbor or a friend or a relative or somebody else go and lodge a

00:18:29.080 complaint. And without any experts, without just simply on the basis of somebody feels that you

00:18:35.500 might possibly be a danger, the judge can go and take away your guns for up to 21 days, depending

00:18:42.380 upon the state. And all they have to do is meet what's called reasonable cause or probable cause,

00:18:48.460 which reasonable cause is just a little bit more than a hunch that you would have it in terms of

00:18:52.600 a standard. Or they can take away your gun for a year after a hearing. But it used to be that you'd have

00:18:58.800 to have some experts in there. And now it's just kind of feelings that people have whether or not

00:19:05.240 I predict. And I was on a panel for uniform state laws. They were considering putting together a

00:19:13.920 model law for this. And they'd have people who are running these laws in different states come in. 1.00

00:19:18.300 And I was saying, well, so how do you predict whether somebody is going to go and commit a crime?

00:19:23.080 And they'll say, well, we look at their past criminal history. And I say, well, you already have laws on

00:19:27.560 that. If you're a felon, even if it's a non-violent felon, you lose your right to have a gun.

00:19:31.620 What they do is they don't want to have specific things. They want to say, well, if you're arrested

00:19:36.140 but not convicted or a complaint but not even arrest. And they want to make it so you don't even have

00:19:42.640 to have an adjudication that you're guilty of something before they can take away your guns.

00:19:49.340 John, thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for everything you've done. You were

00:19:54.280 instrumental in the book Control. And

00:19:57.620 Well, it's because you're out there and you're able to get this type of information out to people

00:20:02.500 that's so important. And you have it all in your head.

00:20:05.040 Well, I just feel so frustrated because there's so many of these rules that I don't think

00:20:09.200 even a lot of the congressmen that are voting on this understand the implications for these laws.

00:20:14.180 I agree. John, thank you so much. Thank you very much.

00:20:16.180 You bet. We'll talk again. In fact, we've got to do another special on guns.

00:20:20.340 And John will be the first that we'll need to invite.

00:20:26.060 This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

00:20:38.860 Bill O'Reilly. Hello, Bill.

00:20:40.820 Beck, you're in D.C., huh?

00:20:42.520 I am in D.C. I gave a speech at CPAC earlier this morning about socialism.

00:20:50.060 And I can't believe, Bill, where we are.

00:20:53.200 I made a list yesterday on the air of all of the things that these socialists and Nancy Pelosi

00:21:00.220 and the people who are running for president.

00:21:03.340 I can't think of something that they haven't wholeheartedly embraced

00:21:10.640 that America has never been for, with reparations being the latest.

00:21:16.980 Yeah, because the media used to criticize people who were loons,

00:21:21.820 and now it doesn't.

00:21:23.580 And so you can, that's why I said they're out of their closet and in your face

00:21:30.100 because they don't, if you are an extremist,

00:21:34.840 and certainly the progressive movement has gotten to that territory,

00:21:39.100 10 years ago you would have been killed.

00:21:42.420 But not anymore.

00:21:43.860 So they can say what they want, do what they want,

00:21:46.720 no criticism from their team, and that's what you're seeing.

00:21:51.340 And I think the media is doing them such a grave disservice.

00:21:56.580 I mean, you know, the media is in on it.

00:21:58.560 They want it.

00:21:59.540 But they're doing them such a grave disservice because no one is checking them.

00:22:04.820 So I think they believe that they're in touch with the average American.

00:22:08.820 But when you talk about slave reparations,

00:22:11.800 you talk about killing a baby shortly after birth,

00:22:15.700 you talk about a tax of 70 percent,

00:22:18.760 you talk about universal health care,

00:22:24.840 I mean, ending capitalism.

00:22:27.640 The American people are not for that, are they?

00:22:30.760 No, but you're making a mistake in the sense that you think the media supports all this crazy stuff.

00:22:37.120 They don't really support it.

00:22:39.000 The six companies that are running all of the information flow in America,

00:22:44.880 they don't want socialism.

00:22:46.540 They don't want, Disney doesn't want Mickey to pay 70 percent of their ticket receipts

00:22:53.660 at Disney World and Disneyland.

00:22:56.040 They don't want that.

00:22:56.820 Okay, but they have no problem embracing this crew because of Trump.

00:23:07.700 See, if Trump weren't president, if there were another Republican who wasn't quite as flamboyant,

00:23:14.860 I don't think you would be seeing all this.

00:23:17.980 But because Trump's in the White House, this has opened the door to madness.

00:23:22.500 Madness.

00:23:23.680 And you're right, the American people don't want any of this,

00:23:27.620 and that's why this is actually helping President Trump.

00:23:30.640 So I am, in a way, I'm thrilled that the masks have come off

00:23:38.240 and they finally will just say what they're actually for.

00:23:41.140 I think that's really good.

00:23:42.500 The problem, though, is, Bill, if you're right that this is really about Trump,

00:23:46.480 if Trump loses, if the economy goes down or if something happens during the election

00:23:53.820 and he does lose this election, we then have a group of politicians.

00:23:59.860 I mean, anyone so far that is announced will take us straight line to socialism.

00:24:05.820 And if they control the House and the Senate and the White House,

00:24:08.540 they will move on these things.

00:24:11.060 And it's lights out in two years.

00:24:13.920 I can't imagine that happening.

00:24:16.020 I can see Trump losing, but he'd lose to somebody like Biden,

00:24:21.340 not to somebody like Kamala Harris.

00:24:25.840 But you don't think Biden would move that ball?

00:24:29.840 But I think if you look at the abortion poll, for example,

00:24:33.920 after the craziness of Andrew Cuomo and the governor of Virginia,

00:24:38.080 it just flipped.

00:24:40.080 Most Americans say, you know, enough.

00:24:42.000 I'm not supporting any of this.

00:24:43.920 And I think that's what you're going to see.

00:24:46.560 And if Trump can discipline himself a little bit more,

00:24:50.000 he's now, you know, really, really getting it now.

00:24:53.200 But just float above it and then run your campaign in a methodical way.

00:25:00.520 Got a good chance to win.

00:25:01.720 I talked to some leadership of some of the biggest voices out there today.

00:25:10.500 And I don't want to, it was private conversations backstage,

00:25:13.760 and so I don't want to say who said this,

00:25:15.140 but they are concerned that it is going to be nothing but investigations

00:25:21.380 and smears from here on out and which will weaken people from the ability to be able to

00:25:30.160 actually stand up and fight.

00:25:32.720 Beck, I'm going to give you two things that I think you have to pass along to your CPAC pals.

00:25:39.740 All right?

00:25:40.180 Okay.

00:25:40.420 Here's the first thing.

00:25:42.480 And I said this on BillOReilly.com last night.

00:25:45.520 If I were President Trump, I would tell all my children and any employee of the Trump organization

00:25:51.220 to take the Fifth Amendment if called in front of Congress.

00:25:55.180 That is not a fair and impartial body any longer.

00:25:59.120 It is not a court of law, but you can be prosecuted if they can trap you into perjury.

00:26:05.120 Do not say a word.

00:26:08.280 Sit there like they did in The Godfather and just say,

00:26:12.260 we're not talking because we don't believe this is a fair proceeding.

00:26:16.520 That will shut down all of the hysteria off Cohen.

00:26:22.220 Secondly, if CPAC does not organize a countergroup to the boycotters of MoveOn, Media Matters, Bonner Group,

00:26:33.220 all of these people, they will lose the culture war.

00:26:38.180 It's got to be an organized conservative group that can come out and say to Mercedes-Benz,

00:26:45.620 if you pull your sponsorship because these people are threatening you on the far left,

00:26:51.160 we're going to tell our people that you're doing it.

00:26:54.820 There has to be a central organization from the conservative side in this country to fight the George Soros-funded groups

00:27:06.380 that are running wild, threatening freedom of speech in this country.

00:27:11.580 I will tell you, Bill, that I will tell you that that is already, I'm beginning to see that already in action.

00:27:20.660 People don't know about it yet, but I see that force already in the late stages of being put together.

00:27:29.120 It is got to happen.

00:27:30.540 It's got to happen.

00:27:31.340 I love your idea of El Chapo paying for the wall.

00:27:50.060 Love it.

00:27:50.680 Well, it is simple common sense.

00:27:52.680 It is, let's use money criminally forfeited from El Chapo, from other drug lords,

00:27:57.520 the billions that they made illegally trafficking across the border, and let's fund and pay for the wall doing that.

00:28:03.360 He could pay, really, his assets would pay for all of it, wouldn't it?

00:28:06.980 Potentially.

00:28:07.440 If we could track them all down and find them, they would.

00:28:10.020 How much do you think we could actually track down?

00:28:12.340 Well, where the idea came from is this is a little over a year ago when we were debating the wall,

00:28:17.480 and Democrats were complaining it costs too much.

00:28:19.540 Now, set aside, I think Democrats have never in the history of the universe thought anything costs too much.

00:28:24.940 I know.

00:28:26.000 But at the time, the estimates for the cost of the wall were between $14 and $20 billion.

00:28:32.540 At the very same time, the Department of Justice estimates that El Chapo's global criminal net worth is about $14 billion.

00:28:40.920 And so I saw a natural and even elegant symmetry.

00:28:44.780 Yeah.

00:28:45.380 Well, that's what asset forfeiture is supposed to be for.

00:28:48.720 Right.

00:28:48.860 And mind you, this is criminal asset forfeiture.

00:28:52.220 Correct.

00:28:52.340 It's not civil forfeiture, which has been abused many times.

00:28:55.060 Yes.

00:28:55.360 This is after, in El Chapo's case, he has 10 criminal convictions.

00:28:59.400 Right.

00:28:59.660 And look, it's just like if, you know, a drug dealer in Dallas has a Ferrari,

00:29:05.360 and he gets convicted of being a drug dealer, they seize the Ferrari.

00:29:08.080 Correct.

00:29:08.320 That's criminal forfeiture.

00:29:09.820 Right.

00:29:09.960 In this case, El Chapo's got a lot more than a Ferrari, and there's a justice to using the billions that he made trafficking across our border illegally to prevent the next narco trafficker from doing the same.

00:29:22.820 So Mike Pence was just speaking here, and he just said, we are going to build the wall.

00:29:28.060 Mark my words, the wall will be built.

00:29:30.300 Do you agree with that?

00:29:31.040 I do agree with that.

00:29:32.140 It is going to happen.

00:29:33.480 We're going to get the job done.

00:29:34.580 And I commend the president for standing up and leading in this area.

00:29:37.220 How is he going to do it?

00:29:38.680 Well, so there's a lot of focus on the emergency declaration.

00:29:42.600 And your stance on that is?

00:29:44.140 Well, let's take it one at a time.

00:29:45.780 I don't know what's going to happen in the Senate on that.

00:29:48.020 It is going to be a vigorous discussion the next couple of weeks.

00:29:52.100 But the good news is, regardless of what happens on that, the wall is going to be built.

00:29:56.260 Why?

00:29:57.040 So the president said, and DHS said, they need $5.7 billion.

00:30:01.020 Well, let's do a little bit of math.

00:30:02.380 And I'm sorry, I know math is terrible for radio.

00:30:04.140 I know, that's all right.

00:30:05.360 But let's do a little bit anyway.

00:30:06.660 Congress appropriated $1.4 billion.

00:30:10.460 So it's available free and clear.

00:30:12.400 Nobody disputes to build the wall.

00:30:13.760 That could build about 50 miles worth of wall.

00:30:16.180 Beyond that, the president has announced that he is going to take about $600 million in drug forfeiture money that he has and use that to build the wall.

00:30:24.020 That takes you to $2 billion.

00:30:25.200 And nobody disputes.

00:30:26.220 He has clear, indisputable legal authority to do that.

00:30:29.660 Beyond that, there's a second provision.

00:30:31.740 It's called 10 U.S.C.

00:30:33.120 Section 284.

00:30:34.240 Yep, yep.

00:30:34.700 That gives the Defense Department the ability to expend funds to stop narco-traffickers, to stop drug trafficking.

00:30:44.260 And in particular, and it explicitly says in statute, to build fences and border barriers.

00:30:48.340 And so that's in the U.S. code.

00:30:50.120 So why are we even debating this national emergency thing?

00:30:54.280 It is a very good question.

00:30:56.760 The fund that that statute applies to has about $4 billion in it.

00:31:02.620 The administration has announced they're going to take $2.5 billion from that.

00:31:06.880 So that takes you to about $4.4, $4.5.

00:31:09.680 But if they took another $1.2 from that fund, we'd be at $5.7.

00:31:14.340 We'd be done.

00:31:15.460 And you wouldn't need a penny from the emergency declaration that's causing this big fight.

00:31:19.820 How do you feel about the emergency declaration?

00:31:22.080 You know, at this point, I'm still reviewing the legal authorities.

00:31:26.400 I'm reviewing the arguments from the administration.

00:31:29.400 I agree that the border is a crisis.

00:31:32.120 I've seen it firsthand.

00:31:33.420 You and I have been down on the border together.

00:31:35.100 It is a crisis.

00:31:35.960 People's lives are being taken.

00:31:37.240 And all of the Democrats and media folks that are saying, oh, it's not a crisis.

00:31:40.840 It's not a big deal.

00:31:42.160 They claimed it was a humanitarian crisis when Obama was in.

00:31:46.800 It is.

00:31:47.520 Yes.

00:31:48.920 That being said, as you know, I'm a constitutionalist.

00:31:51.920 I believe every president, Republican or Democrat, has to follow the Constitution and follow the laws.

00:31:56.620 So I'm studying the laws carefully on that.

00:32:00.080 And we're having right now in the Senate a vigorous debate.

00:32:02.480 My hope of where we end up in the outcome is, number one, we build the wall and we get every penny of the $5.7 billion that the president says we need to build the wall.

00:32:12.680 But, number two, I hope we don't set a precedent for the next Democratic president to abuse executive power and declare emergencies.

00:32:22.120 Because you know they will.

00:32:22.940 Global warming and gun control and health care and what have you. 0.99

00:32:27.640 So I was just talking to Bill O'Reilly last hour.

00:32:30.080 And he said, I said, Bill, we are on the edge.

00:32:34.340 Everything that you've talked about, everything I've talked about for the last 15, 20 years, it's here now.

00:32:40.500 And we could see a socialist president, Senate, and House.

00:32:49.240 And they'll take it.

00:32:50.860 They will shut it down.

00:32:52.940 It's their turn.

00:32:54.620 They believe in what they're talking about.

00:32:56.680 Correct. 0.99

00:32:57.480 And they're that nutty. 0.59

00:32:59.580 I mean, what has happened to the Democratic Party is both frightening and really dangerous for this country.

00:33:06.460 It's not good for one of the two major parties in this country to get so extreme and so out of touch with the American people.

00:33:14.680 I've never seen anything move so fast.

00:33:17.660 If we don't get the destruction of life with, we're not talking about abortion anymore. 0.63

00:33:22.920 We're talking about infanticide.

00:33:24.380 We don't get that right.

00:33:25.740 The creation of life through AI.

00:33:28.400 And the socialist thing, it's lights out.

00:33:31.420 Look, the Democratic Party, they are now the party of late-term abortion and infanticide. 0.71

00:33:36.460 They are now the party of open borders.

00:33:38.480 Not only do they oppose securing the border, they're now, their presidential candidates are saying, tear down what border walls we have.

00:33:44.200 And abolish ICE.

00:33:45.620 Abolish ICE.

00:33:46.760 They're now the party of socialism and 70% tax rates.

00:33:52.560 Plus, reparations now they're talking about.

00:33:55.400 Seriously talking about reparations.

00:33:57.300 They're now the party that chased Amazon out of New York City because they didn't want 25,000 jobs.

00:34:03.260 And then they attacked Amazon on the way out the door. 0.97

00:34:06.900 This is unhealthy.

00:34:08.660 This is extreme.

00:34:09.460 You take this Green New Deal, which every one of these Democratic presidential candidates is falling all over themselves to support.

00:34:15.120 The Green New Deal, it's incoherent on its face.

00:34:17.840 But if you actually take it at face value, it would ban every airplane on Earth.

00:34:23.120 It would ban every automobile on Earth. 0.97

00:34:25.800 It would kill every cow. 0.98

00:34:29.580 But beyond that, though, if you actually read the bill, which I know you have, it says clearly to change our financial structure and our system to a system that is revolved around social justice.

00:34:44.920 Well, that's the end of capitalism.

00:34:46.400 That's the end of the free market.

00:34:47.520 And, look, all of this is driven fundamentally.

00:34:51.640 The Democrats are a party of hatred right now.

00:34:55.920 The unifying theme in the Democratic Party is they hate Donald Trump.

00:34:59.920 And that burning, blinding emotion has driven out common sense, has driven out reason.

00:35:06.240 Everything is justified because Trump.

00:35:09.200 Yeah.

00:35:09.540 That's dangerous for our country.

00:35:10.880 It is.

00:35:11.380 It is.

00:35:11.880 Ted, great to see you.

00:35:12.940 Great to see you.

00:35:13.060 Thank you very much.

00:35:13.640 Thank you.

00:35:17.520 This sort of popping up of socialism in a time where you're seeing the results of socialism so clearly in Venezuela and other places.

00:35:41.220 And I always find that to be very strange, how something can become popular right at the moment it's being shown it's a failure.

00:35:50.260 Another example of this is the Green New Deal. 0.93

00:35:53.180 Part of the literature around the Green New Deal includes this.

00:35:57.120 Totally overhauling transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, building charging stations everywhere, and building out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.

00:36:11.220 Create affordable public transit available to all with the goal of replacing every combustion engine vehicle.

00:36:18.840 Now, I can't even describe.

00:36:21.260 I don't even know.

00:36:22.420 There's not even a number of trains that would.

00:36:24.860 No, there's no number of trains on Earth that could make air travel stop becoming necessary.

00:36:30.660 It's just air travel is better than train travel in every way, in almost every single circumstance.

00:36:37.080 But it's amazing to see that now they're pushing for high-speed rail all over the country, while at the same time, sort of the marquee attempt at giving high-speed rail to an area that can use it was already approved many years ago and is in the middle of one of the most catastrophic collapses in public history.

00:37:01.060 In California, they promised a high-speed rail to take you, I think it was from, what, Los Angeles or San Diego all the way to San Francisco.

00:37:10.220 And we've seen it's become a huge disaster.

00:37:13.540 I want to walk you through how this has gone so far with Eric Christian.

00:37:17.200 He's the executive director of the Coalition for Fair Employment.

00:37:21.180 Eric, welcome to the program.

00:37:23.640 Stu, good to be with you again, brother.

00:37:25.080 Greetings from the People's Republic of California, where no dream is too big and no cost is too great to achieve that dream.

00:37:33.160 It's true.

00:37:33.480 Whether the dream is a nightmare or not is not material in this particular conversation.

00:37:37.300 It's about the intention, yeah, absolutely.

00:37:39.540 Eric has been basically the guy who has been fighting against this train from the very beginning.

00:37:47.080 Can you take us kind of through how this thing started and all of the cost estimates?

00:37:51.880 And take us through this story, because it really is an amazing journey.

00:37:56.040 Well, just to be clear, I have been a guy fighting this, not even close to being the guy.

00:38:01.160 There are a group of farmers and citizens down in the Central Valley that have really been fighting this with their wallets,

00:38:11.220 with their daily lives devoted towards stopping this government grab of their land, of their businesses,

00:38:20.540 fighting it in violation of the law that was passed by the people of California 10 years ago

00:38:30.080 that approved an initial $10 billion in funding for the concept of what would be known as high-speed rail,

00:38:37.760 taking people from San Diego to San Francisco in 3.2 seconds.

00:38:43.520 Actually, it was about two hours.

00:38:46.660 It passed narrowly, and since then, it's been all downhill.

00:38:51.560 It's basically been all downhill since then.

00:38:54.720 And what we have now is a project that has grown from what they estimated would be about $60 billion.

00:39:02.560 It's now approaching $100 billion.

00:39:05.640 We know it'll be much more, because all these projects always are, as studies have shown.

00:39:10.520 And what we're finding out is happening is it's receiving, in just the past two months,

00:39:17.200 it's received three significant blows.

00:39:21.040 The first was the Gridley-Warren report that showed that instead of actually paying for itself,

00:39:29.500 the reason you don't have any private investment, which the authors promised there would be if we approved this,

00:39:35.080 is because they understand there's not going to be – this isn't going to be a money-making operation.

00:39:40.260 And sure enough, this Gridley-Warren report shows that, in fact, it's going to have to be massively subsidized,

00:39:47.440 because nobody's going to want to sit in a train for nine hours from Merced and head over to the Bay Area

00:39:53.720 or from Bakersfield to the Bay Area, spend nine hours of their day on a train doing that.

00:39:59.500 Nobody's going to do that.

00:40:01.220 And since they've already admitted that it's not going to be going from San Diego, let alone Los Angeles, up to the Bay Area,

00:40:08.040 they're starting it in the middle of the Central Valley, because who doesn't want to take a train from Madera to Fresno?

00:40:13.920 I mean, that's really where the population of California is, right?

00:40:17.140 If you look at travel books, I mean, that is the ultimate dream of any traveler, that trip to –

00:40:21.320 Talk about the ultimate California dream, right, up to the Central Valley.

00:40:24.600 But nobody's going to want to do that.

00:40:26.260 This report showed that it's going to have to be massively subsidized, which is in violation of the law that was passed.

00:40:31.400 The second thing that happened was that Governor Newsom, as liberal as he is and as far left as he is,

00:40:38.980 he had a moment of honesty in his State of the State speech,

00:40:43.920 which he called to question the whole concept of a San Diego to San Francisco line,

00:40:50.500 said, look, let's be real.

00:40:51.540 This isn't going to happen.

00:40:53.260 There aren't the resources for it.

00:40:55.400 It's already massively over budget, behind schedule.

00:40:58.020 So let's just finish up what we've started, and then we'll see where we are.

00:41:02.480 Well, he immediately got blowback from the trade unions, which have a project labor agreement on this,

00:41:09.160 making it a union-only project, of course, because nobody benefits from government largesse like special interest groups do.

00:41:15.640 They know how to latch on.

00:41:16.700 And in California, there's nobody at the tit of government like labor unions.

00:41:21.280 They really take the cake when it comes to that.

00:41:24.200 So they gave him some blowback, and he was forced to backtrack a wee bit, but he did have a moment of clarity there.

00:41:30.240 The third thing that happened was on February 19th, the Federal Railroad Administration sent the State of California a letter

00:41:36.860 saying and listing out in four succinct bullet points exactly why they were revoking their cooperative agreement

00:41:45.520 that they had with the state because it's violating the law that was passed by the people in any number of ways.

00:41:53.840 It's over budget.

00:41:55.020 It's behind schedule.

00:41:56.120 It's not, in fact, going to adhere to the timeliness that it said it was going to get people from place to place.

00:42:03.340 So they're essentially taking almost a billion dollars back now and threatening to withhold it four days from now.

00:42:09.660 Four days from now, California is going to lose that billion dollars that's very much needed just to keep the current scheme that they have going going.

00:42:19.200 So these are three big blows to something that, again, was initially approved by the voters because it sounded really super,

00:42:26.500 really super duper.

00:42:27.600 And it's gone downhill since then because, as we've learned, you know, in Texas, you're doing it the right way.

00:42:34.120 You're doing it with private investment where you have market forces being brought to bear that cuts out the nonsense

00:42:42.000 and the lying and forces people to have to be accountable.

00:42:46.680 Here in California, we're doing it where it's a government-only project, and it's getting government-only results.

00:42:53.040 You know, it's like the DMV and the post office on steroids, and the results are predictable.

00:42:59.200 So that's kind of where we are in a nutshell.

00:43:02.380 And, by the way, most Californians are shown opposing this now.

00:43:05.180 Of course.

00:43:05.580 The state is as liberal as California is.

00:43:07.040 Most people oppose the project now.

00:43:08.700 Of course.

00:43:09.080 And this is the problem with the way that this happens.

00:43:11.900 You know, 51% of people vote for something, whether it's realistic or not, and it gets approved.

00:43:17.160 I mean, going back to this, because the initial approval had certain requirements that had to be met by this train.

00:43:25.460 I think it was two hours or so from San Diego to San Francisco.

00:43:29.680 Correct.

00:43:30.280 They have now admitted, right, that there's no chance that that's possible.

00:43:34.100 They also said it was going to cost about $60 billion.

00:43:37.160 It was just $10 billion when they voted on it, but then it was $60 billion.

00:43:40.320 It was then up to $100 billion, and it's going to be even higher than that.

00:43:44.160 It was promised that there would be no subsidizing once they got the thing built.

00:43:48.360 We now know it's not going to pay for itself.

00:43:50.580 There's been no private investment that was promised.

00:43:55.580 It seems like California writes these laws and these initiatives, and they think if they write it in the form of a law, it will become reality.

00:44:04.900 Like there's some magic trick that happens to physics when a legal thing is passed and the state says it's going to happen.

00:44:12.300 That mindset has got to be just killing the budget of California.

00:44:17.160 Well, my wife has a saying. 0.94

00:44:21.320 My wife commands five Air Force squadrons.

00:44:24.060 She's a colonel, and she is in charge of a lot of people who are the tip of the sword right now in the fight against terrorism.

00:44:30.940 And she has not a lot of time for bovine scatology when it comes to BS, as we like to call it, when it comes to, you know, we need to get the job done. 0.99

00:44:39.340 How do we do it?

00:44:40.320 And one of their operating principles is, you know, okay, you have a plan.

00:44:45.580 You have a step that you wish to take, but what are the second and third and fourth order effects?

00:44:50.300 What is going to happen as a result of that?

00:44:53.440 You know, don't just say we're going to do this, and this is going to be achieved.

00:44:56.860 You have to understand, you know, when they plan this, do you really think the airlines are not going to adjust their fares and lower them in order to keep the market share that they have to keep people from riding trains?

00:45:07.900 There was no assumption of that based in the model that the government created in developing this.

00:45:13.340 And that's the problem with government planning is there's never any understanding of second and third order effects.

00:45:19.380 There's never any contemplation that the market will somehow bend and adapt to try and keep their market share, in this case, the airlines or car makers who are going to still want to sell cars in the state.

00:45:33.800 And all of their assumptions, as soon as, you know, pen is put to paper, are out the window because they just aren't based on reality.

00:45:42.160 They aren't based on real market realities.

00:45:44.320 And that's what's so frustrating about, you know, living in California is, as I kind of quipped when I opened up your segment, you know, no dream is too big and no cost is too great to achieve those dreams.

00:45:56.160 And it really is, you know, it really is the fact.

00:46:00.880 One thing I don't understand, and you mentioned this before, that, you know, look, it's approved largely because it sounds cool.

00:46:05.540 It would be cool to have a cool train and we could take that up the coastline.

00:46:08.220 That would be great.

00:46:08.640 That would be fun, yeah.

00:46:09.260 But, I mean, they're fine, right?

00:46:12.440 But, like, if you watch the documentary series Back to the Future, they go on a train in the one they go in reverse in time.

00:46:20.040 It's 1885 when they're on a train.

00:46:22.920 We have planes.

00:46:24.520 Planes get you faster from a big location to another big central location.

00:46:28.820 Cars get you faster and buses even get you there to a specific location more efficiently.

00:46:33.620 Why this obsession with trains, this old technology, that, yes, it moves a little bit faster than it used to, but it's still tying two, you know, set locations to each other.

00:46:45.980 When populations move, there's very little you can do about it except spend another $100 billion to go to the new place.

00:46:53.400 It just is completely inefficient.

00:46:55.360 Isn't it weird how progressives seem to always view the future as having to go back to 19th century technology, be it solar or, well, in solar's case, early 1 B.C. technology, wind power, trains.

00:47:14.000 It's very, very strange, newer technologies to give us power we need, like nuclear, which would do away with, essentially, CO2 output.

00:47:22.860 They don't want to have anything to do with that.

00:47:24.540 Nope.

00:47:25.080 But they want us to be on solar and wind, which, if it's cloudy and there's no wind, you're in trouble.

00:47:30.900 Yeah.

00:47:31.200 And when it comes to transportation, let's be honest, and this is getting, you know, from a more macro 30,000-foot level why, the question why.

00:47:38.400 And I really think, at the end of the day, it's about control.

00:47:41.620 It's about wanting to control people's movements.

00:47:44.120 The automobile really ushered in an area of freedom.

00:47:46.960 It's only been about 100 years where this has been something that humans have been able to do.

00:47:51.580 Because our country is so large, it's been unique to America in the sense that we really have these vast, wide-open spaces that we're able to travel around freely.

00:48:00.340 You know, it's like for the line from Red October where, you know, the captain is speaking to a second-in-command, and he's talking about when they defect.

00:48:10.360 You know, he wants to live in Montana, and he says, you know, I want to travel from state to state.

00:48:17.780 No papers required, right?

00:48:19.320 And Ramis, the captain played by Sean Connery, goes, no papers needed.

00:48:27.000 Because in the Soviet Union, of course, they needed papers to travel everywhere.

00:48:30.960 And I think the left, ultimately, it's about control and trains.

00:48:33.740 You control your point A to point B.

00:48:36.100 Of course, the second and third order effect question is, okay, when I get to point B, how do I get to where I'm going?

00:48:41.340 How do I get to my house?

00:48:42.940 How do I get to my place of business?

00:48:44.860 It really is amazing.

00:48:46.520 You know, Eric, I've never thought of it that way from a control perspective.

00:48:51.240 That's really interesting.

00:48:52.080 I wish we had more time.

00:48:52.840 We're out of it.

00:48:53.620 I want to get, you know, we should also at some point talk again about what the Trump administration is trying to do, taking back a bunch of this money as well.

00:49:00.180 But we'll get into that next time.

00:49:01.200 Eric Christian, the executive director of Coalition for Fair Employment and Construction.

00:49:04.820 Thanks so much, Eric.

00:49:06.480 Bye.

00:49:07.240 Bye-bye.

00:49:08.380 I never thought of it that way.

00:49:09.540 That is a great point.

00:49:10.320 The Blaze Radio Network.

00:49:15.000 On Demand.

The Glenn Beck Program - March 01, 2019

Best of the Program ｜ Guests： John Lott, Bill O'Reilly, Ted Cruz & Eric Christen ｜ 3⧸1⧸19

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