The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Kathie Lee Gifford & Thomas Blackshear ｜ 7⧸19⧸24

00:00:00.000 Well, hello, it's Friday, the Glenn Beck podcast today, we cover the convention start to finish

00:00:05.220 backwards, forwards, and all the ways you can look at it, including the way the New York Times

00:00:11.600 looked at the convention and Donald Trump's speech. What did we really learn? What's happening

00:00:17.860 with the convention? And where is Joe Biden? All of that and more on today's podcast.

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00:01:32.960 So last night, the president came out to speak Donald Trump at the convention, and we haven't

00:01:51.340 had a chance to talk. Thank you, Stu and Pat, for filling in for me the last couple of days.

00:01:56.420 I had to have some surgery on kidney stones, which, oh man, that's a fun ride. So thanks for

00:02:09.840 filling in. But I've been watching the convention this week, and it is the best convention I have

00:02:19.460 seen. And I think it was better than the Reagan conventions, and those were pretty good.

00:02:24.520 Um, this, this had everything you needed in the Republican convention. Uh, it had all of the

00:02:34.300 right people speaking, I thought, all the way through the week. If people spent the time and

00:02:39.920 watched it, actually listened to it, they saw a very different party, uh, than what they have ever

00:02:46.180 seen before. At least I did. And last night, a very, very different Donald Trump. I've never seen him

00:02:53.820 like this. Uh, I've never heard him speak this way. I've never seen him, uh, take the stage the way

00:03:01.640 he did. He was humbled. Uh, and I think, you know, he pushed back on the crowd or the crowd pushed back

00:03:09.780 on him halfway through the speech. He said, you know, I was not supposed to be here tonight. I'm not

00:03:14.860 supposed to be here. And they started chanting, uh, yes, you were. Yes, you were. And, uh, he said,

00:03:21.800 no, I wasn't. An assassin wanted me gone. And, uh, I wasn't supposed to address you today,

00:03:29.100 but God saved my life. And it was not a moment of, uh, boasting. It was a moment I thought of clarity.

00:03:37.940 Now there's something else that happened that I haven't heard a lot of people talk about. In fact,

00:03:43.180 I haven't heard anybody talk about this yet. And I think it's very, very telling. Donald Trump has,

00:03:49.020 uh, kind of shifted gears into this, into this zone of, I know what I know. I know what I feel.

00:04:00.580 And, uh, I know who the other side is and they're dismissed. Um, he's not fighting them like he was

00:04:10.640 before. Now that doesn't mean that he's not fighting. The one thing about Donald Trump is he's a fighter,

00:04:16.140 but it's almost as if he feels that the outcome is already there. Um, and he doesn't need to,

00:04:25.860 he doesn't need to push the envelope anymore. He just needs to say the truth. And, um, so he came

00:04:34.360 out quiet, humbled. He did, uh, about 30 minutes of just riveting, uh, material that he wrote himself.

00:04:42.360 He tore up the speech, wrote this speech himself, uh, which is also not Donald Trump. He usually will

00:04:48.160 ad lib. Um, he doesn't usually write, um, his own material, but he wrote the first,

00:04:55.860 uh, 20 minutes and probably the last 20 minutes as well. Um, the rest of it was kind of a stump

00:05:01.440 speech, but, um, he, uh, he came out humbled and told the story of the assassination.

00:05:13.680 He said at one point, uh, Joe Biden's name. And at one point when he said it, he said,

00:05:21.180 I'm only going to say this once. And he talked about telling the story of the assassination and

00:05:26.900 said, it's too painful. So I won't tell this story again. You'll hear it the first and last time from

00:05:33.080 me tonight. When he brought up Joe Biden, do you remember the context Stu on, on when he first

00:05:42.580 brought up Joe Biden and then apologized and said, I'm, I'm not going to say his name anymore.

00:05:47.180 Yeah. He was talking about the 10 worst presidents of all time and how all of them added up together

00:05:52.200 wouldn't get to Joe Biden. And that's when he said his name. Right. Right. And he said, I, you know,

00:05:58.000 I didn't want, I didn't want it to be unclear who that president was that was worse than the 10 worst

00:06:05.280 combined. Um, he said, but I'm not going to mention his name anymore. Um, and to me that may be lowering

00:06:14.120 the temperature a little bit. I think that's one way to read it, but I think more importantly,

00:06:18.720 I think he strategically is now looking at the fact that Joe Biden's not going to be the nominee.

00:06:29.600 I just don't believe he's going to be the nominee. And, uh, it's only a matter of time. And Donald Trump,

00:06:36.640 why waste his hour of television, or in his case, 90 minutes of television, making a case against a

00:06:44.180 guy who's not going to be running. And that's why he kept saying, they, they made these things.

00:06:51.120 This administration did this and did not say, uh, Donald Trump, or it did not say Joe Biden and did

00:06:57.600 not say Kamala Harris. Now that the Kamala Harris thing, um, I think is because he just doesn't know

00:07:05.840 if Kamala is the one running and, and why, why look back at the people who are so far behind you,

00:07:12.420 uh, at this particular point. Um, but the, the hopeful side of me says that he didn't mention

00:07:19.500 Kamala because he knows it's going to be Michelle Obama. And I only say hopeful because Stu will owe me,

00:07:26.120 I think it's four grand, isn't it? Three. It's definitely three. It's a hundred percent three,

00:07:31.040 three. And even that with inflation, I don't even know if we can really count three. I think we

00:07:37.180 should probably lower. I don't know. Well, we'll talk about that. Five. It should be five. Yeah.

00:07:42.340 Uh, because three just isn't what it was, you know, six months ago when we made this bad.

00:07:47.380 I will say, thank God for Biden inflation, because by the time I paid this bet off,

00:07:50.860 it will be worth nothing. $3,000 will be like what a loaf of bread is. We won't be able to buy a

00:07:56.220 sandwich. No, we won't. Uh, all right. So, uh, there's a couple of, a couple of stories here

00:08:03.940 that explain the speech. The first one is the New York times and the New York times. Trump in RNC

00:08:12.140 speech struggles to turn page on the past. Well, it's a little difficult, you know, when the past

00:08:18.040 involved assassination attempts, um, you know, a little difficult there. Donald, uh, J. Trump has

00:08:25.040 been a man long undone by himself. He imperiled his presidency and political campaigns with personal

00:08:32.060 grudges, impulsiveness, and an appetite for authoritarianism. You know, it's really strange

00:08:38.380 how they keep seeing authoritarianism, uh, in Donald Trump when he's not done anything authoritarian.

00:08:46.500 Uh, I mean, he might say, you know, we should go after the press and take away their license

00:08:51.680 until he's reminded they don't have a license and, uh, and he wasn't serious in the first place.

00:08:58.340 Lock her up until he wasn't serious in the first place. Um, I can't find the authoritarian streak in

00:09:05.660 him myself on anything that he's actually done. Uh, and then they say also he's caused himself

00:09:11.820 problems for his casual approach to the rule of law. Now, Stu, out of he who shall not be named

00:09:21.280 and Donald Trump, which one has the casual approach to the rule of law? I don't know.

00:09:27.960 Should we go over the latest court to overturn his student loan debacle?

00:09:33.180 I know. I know. I read that this morning in the New York times after reading the casual approach

00:09:40.720 to the rule of law. And then, you know, the next story is, oh, uh, another court said,

00:09:45.880 you can't do that with student loans. He just keeps trying to go around the law. Yeah. Over

00:09:52.300 and over again. The court overturned his latest attempt at student loans the same day he announced

00:09:58.180 another attempt for, I think it was $1.5 billion of student loan relief. I mean, he is addicted

00:10:04.260 to giving away money to these people. It's incredible. Uh, his, uh, unwillingness to accept

00:10:12.260 electoral defeat and his actions that have resulted in $83 million in penalties, nearly three dozen

00:10:19.200 felony convictions and additional legal trouble ahead. I mean, that's how they start. Uh, and I

00:10:26.340 mean, you've got to be, I mean, you're just under the spell of witchcraft. Uh, if, if you buy into

00:10:34.780 any of that, but on Thursday night with his right ear still bandaged five days after he was wounded

00:10:41.660 by a would be assassins bullet. Okay. Can we talk about that for a second, Stu? Sure.

00:10:50.240 The bandage. What they're trying to say here is he didn't need the bandage. Do you think he needed

00:10:57.160 the bandage still? Um, yes. My guess is that, uh, his ear looks pretty funky right now and he doesn't

00:11:05.480 necessarily want to walk out on stage with it looking that way. Yeah. I was actually hoping

00:11:10.560 that he would take off the bandage because I think his ear probably looks worse. He lost the top of

00:11:16.580 his ear and you know, that's kind of a, you know, you have to be, I mean, there's, there's conspiracies

00:11:23.620 throwing around now. A third of Democrats believe that he set this up with the, uh, with the secret

00:11:29.820 service. What to have his ear blown off. I mean, how delusional do you have to be? First 0.65

00:11:38.100 of all, he's not the guy who's got the in with the secret service and you know, the spy agencies

00:11:45.180 and everything else. It, the conspiracy doesn't, it falls apart pretty quickly, you know? Uh,

00:11:52.400 it's not rational by any means. And, and it's, this is something Glenn, you see in polling every

00:11:57.420 single time. If there is a conspiracy theory about your political opponent, about a third of people

00:12:04.180 will believe it no matter what it is. That is like, now you can get higher than that. The Democrats,

00:12:09.180 about 50% of them believed nine 11 was an inside job when George W. Bush was president. You can find

00:12:15.280 numbers that get higher, but like the baseline number for a conspiracy theory against your political

00:12:20.060 opponent is about a third. It just, it just is like it's people, a lot of people just taking the

00:12:25.840 position they think hurts their opponent more than them actually believing it. I hope, but there are

00:12:31.220 a lot of people, I mean, joy Reed is on television every single day talking about this stuff. I mean,

00:12:38.440 they threw poor Joe Scarborough off the air. What did they think this guy was going to say? I mean,

00:12:42.920 what do they think of Joe Scarborough if they leave joy Reed on the air?

00:12:50.060 I never thought of it that way. That's amazing. You're exactly right. Yeah. So here, let me just

00:12:57.160 switch gears here. Joy Reed posted a video of herself working through a bizarre conspiracy theory 1.00

00:13:03.660 suggesting that the secret service helped Donald Trump to create the defiant photo image from the

00:13:11.140 shooting. She noted the Biden campaign released a lot of detailed medical information about his

00:13:16.400 condition within minutes of the announcement that he had contracted COVID-19 again. But when it comes

00:13:24.080 to what happened on Saturday with former president Donald Trump, this assassination attempt, we know

00:13:30.060 almost nothing about his medical condition. How come no one has any information about this wound?

00:13:40.420 We still don't know for sure whether Donald Trump was hit by a bullet or whether he was hit by glass

00:13:46.540 fragments, whether he was hit by shrapnel. We don't have any of those details. Glass fragments. Where were

00:13:55.260 the glass fragments from? Was that the teleprompter that they say was hit?

00:14:00.140 There was an initial report. I don't remember who reported it, but there was a report that it was

00:14:06.020 glass fragments, and it wasn't even a liberal reporter. I remember reading it and being like,

00:14:09.700 what? Like, what are you talking about? And then about five minutes later, you could see pictures of

00:14:13.880 it where both of the teleprompters are still fully intact. I mean, it was a crazy theory that was

00:14:19.820 debunked immediately, but people like Joy Reed, who are impossibly stupid, continue to believe it. 0.99

00:14:24.920 And we have a picture, unlike anything I've ever seen, a picture of the bullet in flight as it's 0.99

00:14:34.180 about to hit his head. I mean, it's incredible. Yeah, I think it's actually just...

00:14:39.560 Could have been a fly, a really big mosquito. We don't know. We don't know.

00:14:43.300 Yeah, I think the picture is just after it passes his head. But yes, I mean, it is about as...

00:14:49.200 I mean, it's one of the most incredible photos ever taken. And the photographer who took it

00:14:54.500 has basically the most impossible photo you can take. And it's still not the iconic photo of the

00:15:00.360 incident, which is like kind of a... I mean, you go through the... You caught a bullet in your picture

00:15:05.680 and still like somebody else got the picture of him standing up with his fist up with the blood

00:15:11.120 streaming down his face, which is still the iconic photo of that day. But yeah, I mean,

00:15:16.080 this is so stupid. They believe everything. They believe that, you know, the bandage is fake, 1.00

00:15:21.700 that he didn't actually get injured. Like, I don't know. I thought it was glass that hit him. Now

00:15:26.640 he didn't get injured at all. It doesn't need the bandage. I mean, it's just everything they come up

00:15:31.680 with is dumber and dumber. They're just crazy. Really, truly crazy about him. It's just like they lose 1.00

00:15:41.620 all reason. And for Joy Reid to be on the air on MSNBC is remarkable. And not because they should

00:15:49.780 fire her because of her points of view. I don't believe in that. Just because she's dumb as a box 1.00

00:15:54.500 of rocks, man. Yeah. She's crazy. She is crazy. To be fair, I don't think Joy Reid has lost all 1.00

00:16:01.380 reason. She just didn't have it at any point. So it's impossible to lose for her in particular.

00:16:06.960 All right. Our sponsor, we want to thank them so much for being a part of the program,

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00:18:07.420 This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

00:18:12.800 Let me introduce you or reintroduce you to a dear friend of mine, Kathy Lee Gifford.

00:18:17.060 Hi, Kathy Lee. How are you?

00:18:19.500 Glenn, I was trying this morning to think how long it's been since we used to hang out quite a bit

00:18:25.400 in New York. And then you were smart and got left out before anybody did. And I got,

00:18:31.280 you know, it took me longer. I left about five years ago, but I was praying for us this morning

00:18:36.540 that our time together would be fruitful and blessed and favored of the Lord, because you and I

00:18:44.100 have always understood that about each other, that everything we did and everything that fueled

00:18:50.680 our life was not about us. It never has been. It never has been. So I am so happy to say hello

00:18:58.440 to you again.

00:19:00.060 Oh, me too. Me too. So you've written a new series of books or a new book that I think is going to

00:19:08.480 develop into a series. It's the first. Right. And it's about, you know, right, right. I know.

00:19:18.080 And this is the story of Herod and Mary. So tell me why this story is important and, and what's

00:19:25.480 different about your telling of it.

00:19:28.140 Well, this I've lost track as I'm sure you have to have how many books you've written. I know it's

00:19:32.140 over 30, but I have no idea and I don't care. It doesn't matter. I just keep finding stories

00:19:37.440 that I, that I can't keep inside me. So in 2012, I went on my first rabbinical trip to the Holy Land

00:19:44.660 with an amazing teacher named Ray Vanderlaan. And, and I learned for the first time, you know,

00:19:50.920 Herod is mentioned just twice in Matthew, you know, just twice. And it's just, we know he's a bad guy.

00:19:57.240 You can tell, but there's no, it's all in black and white, no color, no technicolor,

00:20:01.560 no Dolby sound. Right. I went on this trip and I, the stuff I learned about Herod, I went,

00:20:10.600 and this is what happens to me all the time on these trips. I get mad. Why didn't anybody ever

00:20:15.780 tell me this? I was, I'm sick of being in grandma's Sunday school. Stop it. These stories are epic.

00:20:24.120 They're unbelievable. They're not all in the Bible, but if you search deeper and deeper,

00:20:29.380 well, so anyway, I came home so on fire about Herod that I literally, uh, my son found everything 0.50

00:20:37.240 on the internet there was about every book. Cause I thought I got to make a movie about Herod.

00:20:41.800 This is, if Jesus is the greatest story ever told and billions of people believe that Herod is one

00:20:48.460 of the greatest stories never told. And I thought there's something. I don't, I don't know anything

00:20:56.800 really about him. That's the point. And once you start learning his story, you're going to freak

00:21:03.880 that he had, he was one of, first of all, one of the most genius architects, probably of all time.

00:21:10.140 He, the, what he built in, in, um, Israel, uh, the architecture, the, the Caesarea maritime,

00:21:16.160 it took two cents, no, two millennia for them to figure out how the man built a marina

00:21:21.400 on the Mediterranean sea so that Caesar's ships could come to, and he called it Caesarea maritime.

00:21:28.160 Why was it, why was it naming it after Caesar? Cause he needed Caesar. He had no army. He called

00:21:35.700 himself the King of the Jews. He wasn't even a Jew. He was an Edomite, Edomite from basically 0.91

00:21:40.640 modern day Jordan. He, he wasn't a Jew at all. So the Jews hated him. You know how they are about 0.94

00:21:45.700 their ancestry and the Romans didn't trust him cause he was, but he was, he got out of

00:21:51.680 situations. He was like the consummate politician. Uh, he was, he was paranoid like crazy. So he was

00:21:59.600 always looking behind his back to see if, you know, of Julius Caesar was going to turn his back

00:22:03.940 on him or, uh, who, what's her name? Uh, Cleopatra tried to seduce him. He might be the only man

00:22:11.920 that ever said no to Cleopatra, but it's only cause he didn't want Mark Anthony to murder him.

00:22:16.900 He, and he was turning his back about his whole family cause he was the richest man on the planet.

00:22:21.880 And he had all this power. It's a modern day story. Basically Glenn ripped from the headlines.

00:22:27.600 Really? It's going on all over the world. It never changes. He murdered anybody and anybody that got in

00:22:35.320 his way, including his children, the only woman he ever loved his wife, Mary Omni. And, and until

00:22:42.700 our book opens basically at the end of, of his life, when we go back and we tell it from the time that

00:22:48.780 he was first, uh, uh, uh, in, in born basically. And then we juxtapose it against the story of the

00:22:56.580 beginning of Mary's life, this young virginal, uh, teenage girl from, from Nazareth who has been

00:23:04.560 visited by an angel, the purest of any kind of visitations could be. And he tells her what's

00:23:11.460 going to happen because God has blessed her. And she says, let it be unto me, as you have said,

00:23:17.900 I mean, knowing that she could be stoned for this. She'd never been with a man. She knew it, 0.76

00:23:23.160 but she knew nobody else would believe it. So it's an incredible story of Herod's debauchery and his

00:23:29.480 evil is evil all contrasted up against Mary. So people ask me all the time, and I'm sure they do

00:23:36.760 you too, Glenn, Kathy, do you think there's more evil in the world now than there used to be? And I

00:23:41.920 always answer the same thing, which is no evil has been evil was in the garden of Eden. Even when

00:23:48.480 the Lord God was walking in the cool of the day with Adam and Eve, the serpent was there. So we

00:23:54.120 shouldn't be surprised by that. The only thing that's different now is that we have a lot of cable news

00:23:58.320 channels and we have cell phones. I said, but what we have to learn to do is realize that the Lord

00:24:06.920 God, creator God, Jehovah Elohim, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Rapha, the healer, all the names of Jehovah

00:24:14.840 are still here too. And that's who we have to look to. And that's what Mary did. And Mary had a journey

00:24:23.720 to take that would be excruciating, excruciating. And she said, yes, Lord. So basically, we open up

00:24:32.260 the book as a thriller. And I have to give great thanks to my co-writer, Brian Litson, PhD, because

00:24:40.060 I don't know how to write these kinds of books. I've written 30 some other kinds and they come to

00:24:45.880 me. But it was my son, Cody, who said, Mom, we got to take this passion you have for this ancient,

00:24:52.860 evil characters. The next one we're going to write is about Nero. And the next one probably about

00:24:57.960 Jezebel and Ahab. It's always been there. But I want people to have hope, Glenn, that even though

00:25:05.240 this evil is happening, we cling to the living hope. And the living hope shows up in the course of

00:25:13.200 telling the Herod story in the form of a young teenage girl who is carrying the savior of humankind

00:25:20.700 in her womb. And if that doesn't give you hope, what can happen? It really is interesting to me,

00:25:28.080 Kathy Lee, that, you know, in our darkest times, it is a choice. And this sounds really weird,

00:25:38.840 but one of the things that has really given me such hope in really dark times is, you know,

00:25:45.220 this might be the time, and I know everybody has said this for 2,000 years, but this might be the time

00:25:50.480 that Christ comes back. And when you really think about that, it's—I think some people would go,

00:25:56.300 whoa, wait, hold on, just say, I don't want to—but I think that's exhilarating to think that we could

00:26:03.920 be witnesses to those days that people have waited for forever. And when you have real faith that

00:26:12.980 Christ isn't surprised by any of this, God knew this from the beginning.

00:26:19.680 He's sovereign God. Sovereign God, yes.

00:26:20.540 Right. It just—it takes all of the pressure off of—I mean, you still have to do what you're

00:26:26.140 supposed to do, but you don't carry the burden of all this evil. Yes, it takes the fear away.

00:26:32.840 You know, studying rabbinically, which means studying the source material of the Bible,

00:26:39.980 the ancient languages that are still around and they haven't changed, which is the Hebrew

00:26:44.360 and the Greek. You know that in the Hebrew Bible, there is no word for coincidence. None. Because

00:26:50.600 they believe, and I believe, and I think you do too, there is no such thing as coincidence. God is

00:26:55.880 either sovereign God in all things, or He's not God at all. So when you say good luck to somebody,

00:27:01.580 it's a waste of your breath. There's no such thing as luck. There's no such thing as random or

00:27:07.020 coincidence. No. He is sovereign God, and He always has been. He's the only thing that never

00:27:12.400 changes the world around us. My God, every time you wake up and you look at the news,

00:27:18.160 everything—we don't know who's going to be president this weekend. You know, we don't know

00:27:21.380 who's going to—we don't know anything. We just have to know Him. And it's not about religion. And you

00:27:27.400 and I've talked about this so often. It's about relationships with the living God. So I agree with

00:27:34.180 you, but people—when the first—and people don't understand this. They say, well, when the first

00:27:38.100 Christians were there when Jesus—I said, no, there weren't Christians when Jesus was alive.

00:27:41.960 Those were followers of the way. They were all Jews. All Jews. And not until Jesus was dead, 1.00

00:27:48.200 resurrected, and ascended to heaven, did the apostolic period begin. And it was Vero who

00:27:56.560 actually called them little Christians, because based on the word Christo. And he did it derisively.

00:28:04.440 My dog's trying to get off my table. No. I'm going to walk with my phone, if you don't mind,

00:28:08.580 for a second, just so I don't have a dead dog on my tongue.

00:28:11.380 Okay. Come here, VanVena. Come here, get some water. So I find that—

00:28:16.640 We're talking to Kathy Lee Gifford about her new book, Herod and Mary. It's a thriller,

00:28:22.240 but based on the true biblical story. Kathy, you know, you talk about no coincidence.

00:28:30.900 I think there was a change that happened after this attempted assassination on Donald Trump.

00:28:37.660 And it changed the country, and it changed him. Have you paid attention to the convention at all

00:28:44.460 this week and seen him? Because I know you know Donald Trump quite well.

00:28:49.300 I've known Donald since I first moved to New York in 1982, and he was already a good friend of Frank's

00:28:55.040 at that point. And his father, Fred, they all used to play golf together at all those great golf

00:29:00.780 courses in that area. And, you know, I try to avoid politics, because long ago, Billy Graham said

00:29:09.100 to me, Kathy, the only thing I really regret in my life was getting involved with politics.

00:29:14.220 God has put you on this planet to be in the entertainment world. He's given you a boldness

00:29:18.940 about your faith. He's told you—and he says, if I would—I love you, Kathy. He told me this in my

00:29:24.740 20s. God is going to use you hugely in the media, in the world of entertainment. Just keep telling

00:29:32.200 people that he loves him, that God loves them. That's it. And the three times that Frank and I

00:29:38.660 got involved in politics was because we sued the state of New York for things that were against

00:29:43.600 children, and we won every time. But that was not political in the sense of Republican, Democrat.

00:29:49.300 It was about children. Right. So I don't want to ask you about politics. I know. I know you don't.

00:29:58.560 I just wanted to let everybody know I am not a political animal, but I follow it like an animal.

00:30:04.320 And I know how I feel about things. I pray about everything. I pray for Donald because he's a

00:30:10.360 friend of mine. And when I was just giving birth to Cassidy, and that's 31 years ago, he saved me

00:30:16.400 and Cassidy from a crazed psycho who was trying to murder me and her. And he sent his helicopter

00:30:23.200 for me and Cassidy. He sent his—like, more and more every single day until they found this guy.

00:30:29.500 I had more people around me protecting me. And I just—I mean, that's the Donald that I've known

00:30:35.080 forever. Now, of course, yeah, so that's—I can't help it. I have a personal experience with this man

00:30:41.540 that very few people ever have. But I've watched with interest the spiritual changes, the journey

00:30:49.780 that he has been on all these years, because I've spoken to him at my home and—or different

00:30:54.640 places, and Mar-a-Lago, you know, about Jesus. That's all I talk about to anybody. Not if they

00:31:01.380 don't want to talk about it, but if they want to. And he was always so respectful and always

00:31:06.320 understood what I was talking about. Yes. And then he just respected it. And that's what people

00:31:12.360 don't realize about Donald. He will listen to people. He's fascinated by people. And he wants

00:31:18.760 to learn. He wants to grow.

00:31:22.560 This is the best of the Glenn Beck Podcast. It's a compilation of clips from various episodes.

00:31:27.460 If you want to dig deeper into this interview, check out the full podcast episode.

00:31:30.900 I have been taking art lessons for, I don't know, five, six years, and have gotten to know

00:31:39.760 some great artists. And my art teacher said to me as I was trying to say, I just wanted

00:31:46.000 to paint landscapes because it took my mind off of everything. And as she was teaching me

00:31:50.940 and I would paint, she would say, tell me a story. And I would tell her a story of something.

00:31:54.840 And she said, when I finished that landscape, she said, that should be the last landscape you

00:31:58.340 ever do. She said, you have all so many great American stories. You should paint stories.

00:32:03.100 And we started talking about how our artists no longer tell stories. You know, it's kind

00:32:07.960 of like, you know, Hilton hotel art. It's just kind of, you know, what's up on the wall and

00:32:13.800 people can't afford really good fine art. And, uh, it's hard to find things of meaning that

00:32:21.680 you want to have in your home. And so we started working with, uh, 30 of some of the best artists

00:32:30.220 alive today in America and a few of them from overseas that just love America. And we started

00:32:36.500 taking them through the museum, uh, that I have where we have a massive collection of, um, you know,

00:32:45.640 of, of, of American history. And we wanted these artists to go through and find something that

00:32:51.860 really inspired them, a story from American history that they wanted to paint and that

00:32:57.360 they wanted to bring to life. Um, and we are doing a show at my studio. It'll be the first

00:33:04.680 time we open up the studios since for a very long time. Um, and it is called the American

00:33:10.720 narratives in fine art. And it is going to be a combination of paintings and historic

00:33:18.100 artifacts. And there's not going to be any experts there to judge it and say, Oh, well,

00:33:22.880 look at the brushstrokes. It is going to be judged by you. You will vote on which painting

00:33:29.340 told the American story, the best one, which artist moved you to want to reconnect with American

00:33:38.080 history. It'll be something for your whole family to come and see. And also this art will

00:33:42.840 be for sale. Um, to give you, uh, people just don't know great artists, uh, necessarily anymore

00:33:50.460 like we used to, but one of the greatest living artists, I believe in, in today's world, if

00:33:55.680 I had an unlimited amount of cash and I could buy anybody, everything this man's ever done,

00:34:00.800 I would, um, his name is Thomas Blackshear. He is the Norman Rockwell of our day. In fact,

00:34:07.580 he's just been, um, inducted into the illustrators, American illustrators hall of fame, which Dean

00:34:14.640 Cornwell, all these great, great, you know, uh, Winslow Homer, um, are in the hall of fame.

00:34:20.620 He's a living artist and he's incredible the way he tells stories. Um, and he called this week,

00:34:30.640 he's doing a couple of things. He's doing Charlie Chaplin, uh, based on, we have his cane. Um,

00:34:36.580 he's, we have the props, the, the 10 commandment props that you will see from the movie. He's doing

00:34:42.260 this amazing painting of Charlton Heston as Moses. Um, and he called and he said, look,

00:34:48.700 I know this isn't political. He said, but, uh, I want to pray on this, but I wanted to know if I

00:34:54.560 could paint the iconic picture of Trump getting back up off the ground with his fist. And I said,

00:35:01.720 Thomas, whatever the Lord tells you to do, you are more than welcome to do. Uh, Thomas Blackshear

00:35:08.180 joins me now, uh, to talk about that painting and, and, uh, and this art show. Welcome Thomas. How are

00:35:15.400 you? Thank you so very much for having me on Glenn. Good talking with you. You bet. Good talking to

00:35:21.660 you, my friend. Um, so are you going to do the president's rise back up off the stage?

00:35:29.240 I, I plan on still maybe doing a painting like that, but my main thing was trying to make sure

00:35:35.660 I had it in time for your show. I'm still trying to figure out if I'm going to be able to get that

00:35:39.920 done or not, because I am still working on the other three. So, um, that's something I, like I said,

00:35:46.220 I will be doing. It's just a matter of trying to see if I can still get it done on time.

00:35:50.000 And that's what I'm still trying to figure out. So, well, I will tell you, uh, because some of

00:35:55.300 them are going to go up for auction and even if it's unfinished, you should bring it because I think,

00:36:00.060 uh, people would pay a good price for that one, Thomas. I think that is within your style. That's

00:36:06.160 going to be absolutely incredible because it is an iconic moment. Tell, so tell me the stories that

00:36:12.100 attracted you that you wanted to tell. Well, I mean, man, when you sent us that list,

00:36:20.000 you had so much to choose from, it was hard to try to figure out what to do. And, uh, you know, I,

00:36:28.500 I knew for sure. I think the first thing that struck a chord was the piece, uh, to do a piece

00:36:35.380 on the emancipation proclamation because you had a copy of that. So I'm like, yes, yeah, maybe I

00:36:41.120 should do one on that. So that's the first one I chose to work on. And, uh, I think I came up with

00:36:46.120 a real nice design for that one. So I was pretty excited about that particular piece. And then

00:36:52.140 it reminds me, Thomas, if I may, your painting reminds me of, cause I've only seen the outline

00:36:58.680 and the, and the early color study of it. Um, but it reminds me of a cover of, um, that, uh,

00:37:08.260 uh, Norman Rockwell did years ago. And I can't remember the scene, but you have the emancipation

00:37:15.620 proclamation printed. And then you have, I believe it's the Lincoln Memorial and behind in front of

00:37:22.720 that. And then a black man, uh, in the, in the flag wrapped around him, uh, with the opened, uh, 0.60

00:37:32.180 handcuffs or chains and it's just stunning, stunning. Yeah. Yeah. That, that was interesting

00:37:38.800 because believe it or not, that photograph of that man was taken at least almost 40 years ago.

00:37:49.380 And I just had it sitting in my studio. Yeah. Yeah. And I, cause I, you, you took that picture

00:37:55.980 40 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. What happened was this. I was living, when I first got married,

00:38:03.480 I was living in an apartment complex in California and there was a neighbor of mine who, and this

00:38:10.040 woman who was living there had a boyfriend who was a football player. And he, you know, he, he had a

00:38:14.960 nice physique and every time he walked by, I kept saying, man, I need to use that guy on something.

00:38:19.360 So, you know, I went up to him and asked him if he would pose for me. And he said he would.

00:38:23.360 And so, um, he came over and I was trying to figure out, well, what do I do with them? You

00:38:29.140 know? And so I said, well, let me, I don't know why I just said, let me wrap them up in the American 0.80

00:38:33.140 flag. And that's what I did. And to be honest with you, the photographs really weren't that well

00:38:39.220 done, but they were good enough to give me the impression in the image I needed. And I've just

00:38:43.760 been sitting on them for the last 40 years. Unbelievable. So, um, Thomas, besides us,

00:38:51.560 if I may call you a friend, I don't know if you call me a friend, but I, I consider you a dear

00:38:57.300 friend. Um, I don't want to ever assume. Um, but, uh, uh, I just, I just love you so much and I

00:39:06.800 love your work so much. Um, besides me calling you and asking you to do this, why are you doing

00:39:12.980 this particular art show? Cause you are, you're everywhere. I mean, just won the Grand Prix of the

00:39:18.520 West and, uh, you know, inducted in the illustrator's hall of fame. You are so busy.

00:39:25.540 What is it about this art show that is different to you?

00:39:30.480 Well, the show is very unique. No, nobody that I know of has ever done a show like this before.

00:39:38.180 I mean, I mean, for you, first of all, to be the kind of historian you are and then having all these

00:39:43.520 artifacts and memorabilia that you've gotten and, and to do a show where you display a painting and

00:39:51.140 then next to it will be the artifact. I mean, that's just unique and different. It's just a

00:39:55.420 different concept. Uh, and then, like I said, because of everything you own, my goodness. And,

00:40:01.640 and then the artists that you've chosen, I mean, it was kind of interesting because one of the artists,

00:40:05.780 uh, one of my friends, uh, Frank Ordaz, uh, he showed me some of the stuff he was working on.

00:40:11.060 And when I saw what he was doing for you, I said, Oh my goodness, I'm going to have to up my game

00:40:14.880 because it looks so good. I just said, Oh boy, here we go. You know, I got, I can't come in here

00:40:25.220 looking like, you know, some kind of slouch boy. So I've been doing what I could to just try to,

00:40:30.220 you know, do a nice piece with some of the, uh, the images that I'm doing. So.

00:40:35.780 So we've done, uh, you've been up to the ranch a couple of summers, uh, where we've had some of

00:40:41.580 these artists come up and learn how to storytell from people like Pixar and, uh, and, and others.

00:40:48.720 And, um, uh, I, I have gotten the impression, uh, that many of the artists, uh, not necessarily you,

00:40:57.520 but many of the artists, um, have a hard time because they'll be pegged for one particular kind

00:41:04.320 of thing and they want to branch out and they want to tell these stories, but they just haven't

00:41:09.700 had the chance because some of the galleries are like, no, we don't, that won't sell. That won't sell.

00:41:16.060 And they may be right in the end. I would hate to say this. They may be right in the end, but I don't

00:41:20.900 think they are. I think people are hungry for inspiring art. And, you know, one of yours is the picture

00:41:28.420 of the angel guarding the child sleeping. Uh, what do you call that one?

00:41:35.260 That's called Watchers in the Night.

00:41:38.900 Oh my gosh. That is one of the most stunning paintings I've ever seen. Um, and it's religious

00:41:47.860 without being overtly religious. Um, you, you have another one, I can't remember what it's called,

00:41:55.180 but it's a black man and he is wrapped in like a club, uh, a shroud of stars or something. It's been

00:42:03.100 a while since I've seen it. Another unbelievable painting. The image is called Night and Day. And,

00:42:11.780 uh, the painting is supposed to depict nighttime being wrapped up in daylight. And that's the idea

00:42:20.160 I got. But what was unique about the painting was it's the first time I had ever done a painting for

00:42:25.260 an art show and I didn't know what to do. So I prayed about it. And I asked the Lord, I said,

00:42:31.620 Doug, I need a painting. I don't know what to do. Could you give me an image? I just make,

00:42:36.620 I just ask you to make it an incredible design and give me nice colors and a powerful image.

00:42:44.420 And I don't remember how long it took, but it might've been a couple of weeks. But I remember

00:42:49.460 all of a sudden one day he flashes this image inside of me. I saw it inside of my, my mind

00:42:56.500 and it was perfect. And all I did from that point on was copied what he showed me. So, uh, throughout

00:43:06.220 my career, there's been at least six to seven times where God gave me an image and all I had to do was

00:43:14.300 copy it. The, the most, uh, recognized image that I've done. And I did it many years ago is a painting

00:43:20.700 called forgiven. And that pain came the same way where I prayed about it and God showed me the

00:43:27.660 pain. And so when that happens, all I have to do is copy what he shows me. And I, and that's how I

00:43:34.920 get a lot of the images because he just gives them to me. You make that sound so easy, but seeing that

00:43:41.480 he's the greatest painter ever, uh, it's, it's not as easy as you make it sound. Uh, I I'm, I'm so

00:43:50.880 thrilled to be your friend. I'm, I am, as you know, I, I, I own one of your originals and it is,

00:43:58.820 it is, I mean, I, I've got a few really good paintings and that is my favorite painting that I own. And I,

00:44:07.100 I honestly wish I could own many more of yours. Uh, and it's an honor to have you as part of this

00:44:12.840 art show. I, I'm just, you are the Norman Rockwell, uh, you know, the JC Leyendecker of our day. And I,

00:44:19.600 I just, I'm thrilled to have you. So thank you so much. That is a big burden to carry my man, but

00:44:27.460 I appreciate it. Well, you carry it well.

00:44:30.140 You carry it well. Thank you so much. Um, I want you to look up Thomas Blackshear. Uh, it's, uh,

00:44:38.580 thomasblackshearii.com. You'll see some of his stuff. You just go back into his past and you'll

00:44:44.280 find these things that you've seen a million times. Um, and, uh, he's just remarkable. He'll be one of

00:44:51.400 the 30 outstanding top of their craft artists that will be joining me, um, at the studio in September

00:44:59.780 when we try the first, uh, American narrative in fine art, where we are trying to get these artists

00:45:07.480 to be able to see that they can branch out from a barn or a horse or something that kind of feels

00:45:14.780 like America and restore the storytelling to fine art. So, you know, you may not be able to afford the

00:45:22.480 original, but you could afford the print of it and hang it in your home. And it will teach your

00:45:27.380 children about history in a very uplifting and inspiring way. And we enjoy, we, uh, invite you

00:45:34.440 to join us, um, at this, uh, event at the Mercury studios in September. Uh, it will be September 20 and

00:45:44.440 21, Friday and Saturday at the Mercury studios. We have a hundred works of art and the original

00:45:52.480 documents or the original artifacts from American history to sit next to it. Uh, join us. You can

00:46:00.260 find all the information at glennbeck.com.

The Glenn Beck Program - July 19, 2024

Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Kathie Lee Gifford & Thomas Blackshear ｜ 7⧸19⧸24

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