A 24-year-old congressional candidate won the Republican nomination for Congress in North Carolina's 11th congressional district, and he has an amazing life story to tell. We go into the war on history with a new book by Jared Stetman, and Michael Schellenberger, an environmentalist and author of the new book "Apocalypse never," joins us on the show today.
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00:01:34.940You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:01:38.800I think that we there's something going on within the GOP and the GOP doesn't see it happening and they'll blame it on Trump and everything else.
00:01:54.060But I don't think it has anything to do with anything other than Americans just don't believe the GOP has a spine.
00:02:02.800They don't believe they'll actually stand up.
00:02:04.780I mean, look what's happened in the last few months.
00:02:13.240So last night in Colorado, the owner of Shooter's Grill in Rifle, Colorado, could you own a Shooter's Grill in right?
00:02:26.180Could you even live in Rifle, Colorado and be against the Second Amendment?
00:02:30.140So anyway, she confronted Beto O'Rourke when he was a Democratic presidential candidate.
00:02:38.040She stopped in the Denver suburb of Aurora and she came with a Glock on her hip and she said, hell no, you're not going to take our guns.
00:02:47.500Well, that actually was music to a lot of people's ears in her district.
00:02:55.180And so she just beat an incumbent, the five-term Republican candidate and the five-term Republican congressman and somebody that has been endorsed by Donald Trump.
00:04:19.860You know, I'd say over 99% of my voters will be enthusiastically voting for Donald Trump come in November.
00:04:26.240But what you said earlier about a lot of Americans not believing that the GOP has a spine is absolutely correct.
00:04:35.720You know, I was in a terrible car accident about seven years ago, so we would always joke on the campaign trails, like, if you want somebody with a spine, mine is literally reinforced with titanium.
00:04:44.860And, you know, that got a big rise out of the crowd.
00:04:47.580But I believe that the reason people responded so well to it is because right now they want a fighter.
00:04:58.540We're fighting for the absolute identity of our country.
00:05:01.860There is a need now in Washington of a sword and a shield, a shield over the Constitution and a sword to protect it.
00:05:13.560And and hopefully we don't get to real swords or real guns.
00:05:18.240But with the way things are going, this nation could if if the GOP doesn't stand up or if the GOP loses what little power they have and we lose the White House, it's a very different country come January of next year.
00:05:45.720We have got to put a sword in the hand of the American people.
00:05:48.460I want to go to Washington, D.C. to be a weapon, because at this point, we have got to defeat this liberal ideology.
00:05:55.560It's no longer a fringe movement of this kind of Marxist type revolution.
00:05:59.780This is an extremely well-funded and well-organized movement that is being led by by Congresswomen's women like AOC and Elon Omar, but also by a lot of ginormous backers who are taking advantage of the Citizens United case to be able to pour a ridiculous amount of money into all these elections to fund, you know, these fringe elements that infiltrate these Black Lives Matter movement.
00:06:22.860And they're using this this this this tension we have in our in our country right now to be able to take advantage of the American people.
00:06:30.620I don't want to lose our liberties, and I know you don't either.
00:06:34.580And I think that's what the American people are saying.
00:06:36.580Yeah, it's not saying that we don't want you, Mr. President.
00:06:38.820We're saying we want you to have people who will actually fight for you.
00:06:41.580So what do you think what connected with the voter in North Carolina that was voting for you?
00:06:50.520Because you won the Trump endorsed candidate.
00:06:53.940You were 30, if I'm not mistaken, 30 points ahead and you're 24 years old.
00:07:00.900You're just I mean, what was it that people connected?
00:07:05.100Well, one, you know, I've got a great story just about overcoming and having the grit and will to kind of survive.
00:07:11.180Two, I would say, is, you know, being in a wheelchair has taught me kind of empathy, the ability to see people that, you know, have a different background than me and empathize with them and really understand the people who feel like they've been left behind and disenfranchised.
00:07:25.460And I'll tell you, that's exactly how a significant majority of Republican voters feel.
00:07:30.540They feel like these people in the kingdom of D.C. are up there just passing decrees.
00:07:35.380They're a bunch of career politicians.
00:07:36.760I mean, we saw this evidently in 2016 with that Congress because, you know, we had the House and the Senate and the presidency.
00:07:43.660And I'm sure I watched your show during that time.
00:07:45.460I know you believe like I did that maybe just maybe we can see a constitutional republic come soaring back.
00:07:51.500But these these these these career politicians that were in Washington, D.C., were not working for the best interest of the American people.
00:07:59.280And we did not see them take advantage of that.
00:08:01.660And so I think the people of America of America resonated most with the fact that, one, I want to be a messenger to fight for conservatism and take it to a new generation has been deceived.
00:08:11.500And to the fact that I represent the people of my mountains.
00:09:59.520But I will say that there was a moment in my life when I literally made a T graph of pros and cons of if I was going to give up or if I was going to decide to just fight and not look back.
00:10:11.300And I won by one point on the on the continuing to move on with my life.
00:10:15.600And so ever since then, I've lived like it's like my last day on Earth.
00:10:18.840I have a very real sense of my morale, my mortality.
00:10:22.080And so because of that, I want to make my mark before I leave this Earth.
00:10:26.980Do you remember what that last checkmark was?
00:10:31.760Yes, it was the ability to make a difference.
00:11:22.820But, you know, that's exactly how I see going to Congress.
00:11:26.420It's not a way to enrich myself or to empower myself.
00:11:29.940You know, I see this as a duty to my fellow man.
00:11:32.200And so although I know the more effective I am, the more the media will come after me and I'm ready for that.
00:11:38.020But unfortunately, I know that, you know, because we won against the Donald Trump endorsement, we were kind of the media darling of, you know, the far right and also the far left.
00:11:47.000I was on MSNBC in The View and, you know, they treated me all right.
00:12:07.560I take took account of where our country's at.
00:12:09.540And, you know, as as normal for anybody gets engaged, you know, we were talking about when we want to have a family, what kind of what kind of a world they're going to live in.
00:12:17.240And, you know, so I was thinking about that one night sitting outside and I had this terrible vision of, you know, my child, whether it's a boy or a girl looking up to me while they're reading a history book and saying, hey, dad, what what was capitalism like?
00:12:31.360And I would just be so ashamed if I had to hold my head down and say, well, honey, it's because I didn't stand up and fight.
00:12:38.600And I think that's what what needs to happen in our country.
00:12:40.960I just want to lead a patriot revolution to take our country back because, you know, Glenn, I'm sure it's the exact same reason why you started the blaze, why you have this show right here.
00:12:49.960It's because you realize that this is a battle for the hearts and minds of the future generations.
00:12:54.280And the Republicans are playing checkers while the Democrats are playing chess.
00:13:59.940Uh, it seemed like he was almost amused that I was able to overcome his endorsement at this age.
00:14:07.960I mean, he was really, I would say proud of me and I'm really looking forward to working with him.
00:14:11.780He's having me come up to the White House in a couple of weeks.
00:14:13.740And so I'm really looking forward to be able to be someone in Congress who actually wants to push forward the Trump agenda.
00:14:19.600Uh, I feel like we have so many people who just pay it for that service, but don't actually do it.
00:14:22.720Well, push forward, uh, Trump agenda or whoever's agenda is most closely aligned with the constitution because you must be a sword and a shield for the constitution because it is in dire, dire trouble.
00:14:37.220And you strike me as the kind of young man that will take that oath very seriously and don't let anyone.
00:14:44.200I've had people tell me before, really powerful people, Glenn, we all love the constitution, but these are different times.
00:17:18.200Why did you decide to go from hero to what could be zero, um, and write this book?
00:17:27.100Well, I've been an environmentalist for over 30 years.
00:17:29.520I've been a climate activist for over 20 years.
00:17:31.880Um, and I'm also a father of a 14 year old, uh, girl and she's fine because I talked to her about the science, but her friends are very scared.
00:17:40.820A lot of them, um, are afraid they won't live long enough to have children.
00:17:44.920And they, um, I've talked to them about this and they've said they needed something that really explained the science in a clear way to them.
00:17:52.500Um, and so I really, I dedicated the book to my children.
00:17:55.820Um, I wrote this book because, um, I knew that if you just had to pick, if I knew that if adolescent girls had to pick between the image, they would pick Greta Thunberg over me.
00:19:02.400I mean, in my book, I talk about, you know, the first, there's really three parts to the book.
00:19:06.540The first part is a debunking of common environmental myths around climate change, Amazon deforestation, plastic waste, meat, uh, species extinction.
00:19:16.900The second part of the book is how humans actually save nature.
00:19:22.600We saved the whales by using petroleum and palm oil instead of using whale oil.
00:19:29.200So it wasn't Greenpeace that saved the whales.
00:19:31.200It was American ingenuity, uh, European ingenuity and capitalism.
00:19:36.660Um, so I go through how we say, and the last part of the book is why, if environmental problems are important, but manageable, how did we come to see them as the end of the world?
00:19:48.080And that's where I look at three, the three big factors I view as money, power, and religion, which is basically that as people stop believing in God, as they move, as they stop, as they imagine themselves to be secular or atheists, we have a need as humans for faith.
00:20:35.780How to just kind of feel like, let the chips fall where they may, um, for you, you know, there's just some things that are more important than, than people being mean to you on Twitter.
00:20:45.980So, and, and, and one of those things is my, is the psychological health of my, of my children and of my children's friends.
00:20:54.660So, you know, what happened to the, the founder of Greenpeace?
00:20:59.180I mean, he was one of the original founders.
00:21:00.740They, they wanted to pan an element on the table of elements.
00:21:04.820And he said, they said, you can't do that.
00:21:07.040Uh, he said, they can't, you, you, you can't ban an element.
00:21:40.640I want clean air, but the, the, the people that are running these things, I, I grew up with my grandfather who was a farmer in the Pacific Northwest.
00:21:50.800And he said, these people have zero experience.
00:21:55.080They are stopping the controlled burns.
00:21:57.440They're going to be responsible for burning down the entire West when they started messing with the, with the, uh, balance of the wolves in, uh, in, um, uh, Yellowstone.
00:22:29.260Well, I mean, I think the interesting thing while I was doing research for apocalypse, never, I discovered that the vast majority of scientists are good scientists.
00:22:37.380So I, I, in part of this, I wrote this book to defend the science and the majority of scientists, the silent majority, um, who stick to the facts.
00:22:47.420There's, there's a small, tiny, it's not even a mind.
00:22:50.280It's a small handful of apocalyptic Malthusian scientists, scientists who think there's too many people in the world who, um, give their information to people like Greta Thunberg.
00:23:02.680So I interviewed the four main apocalyptic scientists and it was very interesting.
00:23:07.920First of all, all four of them immediately, their intuitive response was to blame journalists for having misquoted them, which, uh, you can make of that, which you, which you will.
00:23:19.580Um, I mean, what I did in this book and the research for it is I basically went to the sources and I said, what, what are you pointing to that you think is catastrophic or apocalyptic?
00:23:29.200And none of them could answer that question.
00:23:34.900I first called them out on it last year in Forbes because I wanted to give them a chance to respond and, and, and try to correct me or cancel me or something.
00:23:43.840None of them did because when you stand up to bullies, they back down.
00:23:49.180Actually, all bullies are actually cowards.
00:23:53.640None of them, none of them defended themselves because they knew I had caught them out on this.
00:23:57.300So now it's in the book and there's in, in, in Apocalypse Never, I go through exactly what you said.
00:24:03.880All of the increase in frequency and intensity of fires in the United States, Australia are due to more, uh, buildup of wood fuel and forests because we environmentalists don't like smoke and fires.
00:24:19.460Um, it's the buildup of wood fuel and forest and it's more houses near forests.
00:25:10.660So there's a lot of good news here, you know, um, even the amount of land that we use for food production has been going down, which is wonderful news because that's the main impact that humans have on the natural environment.
00:25:22.120So really everything that people have been told about, almost everything that people have been told about the environment is wrong on the facts.
00:25:28.780I go through it all on Apocalypse Never, and then I want to go a step further and say, what really matters and how is it that everybody became so crazy?
00:25:36.900Now, the reaction to your book, science, does it, do the scientists know that they've set themselves back like 500 years by silencing debate and dissent and, you know, the settle, the science is settled and maybe we should put, you know, deniers into jail and everything else.
00:25:56.720Do they know how much damage that has been done to their, to their trade and to their craft and to the, to, to science itself?
00:26:07.640Now, I was invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to become an expert reviewer late last year.
00:26:14.680I know that came because I had been criticizing the alarmism.
00:26:18.520I was also invited to testify in front of Congress.
00:26:20.940I've been invited to testify in front of, to governments around the world.
00:26:24.260And I know for a fact that there are many scientists who are very good people and good scientists who totally disagree with the alarmism, but they're afraid of their colleagues.
00:26:33.980I mean, you have to remember that the alarmist scientists who are truly in the grip of this toxic religion are bullies.
00:26:42.100They are, they literally, their tactics are bullying tactics.
00:26:45.200And I actually described them and discovered them, but I just, I have known about them for a long time.
00:26:49.760Uh, I myself have been a subject to them.
00:26:53.300And so they, they try to, they try to, they make all sorts of, they lie about you.
00:26:58.440They claim that you're taking money from somebody.
00:27:00.840They claim that you're, you know, that you hate nature or something.
00:27:05.040Um, they basically just attack you personally.
00:27:08.500And, but what I find is that when you confront them and you stand up to them on the evidence and you get, uh, you get a very clear, and I, and that's why there's a hundred pages of my 400 page book are all footnotes.
00:27:23.000So I think the reason they're, they're attacking my book, and you may have noticed that I was sent, my Forbes column was taken down.
00:27:29.340Um, but the, the, the, the defensiveness is, I think, justified.
00:27:34.760They know that my book is dangerous to the radical left, which took over the conservation movement in the sixties.
00:27:41.200They know that my book is devastating for the alarmist and apocalyptic case.
00:27:46.620That's why they're freaking out about it.
00:27:49.200Um, so, you know, I'm, I'm confident that I, you know, that in the longterm truth will win out.
00:27:55.880I mean, obviously there's this bigger problem of what do you do with people that, that they need to believe in something and they end up making up all sorts of bad religions.
00:28:05.400I don't know how to solve that problem, but certainly I think on the evidence, I, my hope is that apocalypse never will, will reset the conversation.
00:28:15.480You, you remind me of, uh, of Nietzsche and his warning of God is dead.
00:29:37.420You're going to go back to a million times when your annoying friend brings up one of these claims and you're going to be able to have all the links, all of it.