The Glenn Beck Program - Best of The Program Guests： Rudy Atallah & Salena Zito ｜ 8⧸11⧸20

00:00:00.000 welcome to the program today we go into um a little bit on mail-in voting what's going on

00:00:05.100 with that situation the big explosion in lebanon uh we also talked to ken buck about what's going

00:00:11.520 on in washington dc and the constant corruption selena zito's on she's great she's talking about

00:00:16.940 what what does it feel like uh being on the ground and actually being out traveling she's

00:00:21.820 been reporting from all over the country even in the middle of the pandemic um the economy uh how

00:00:26.300 do we get that moving forward are we running short on supplies for building and construction and

00:00:30.760 things like that there's some real evidence of that and my ridiculous paper towel purchase from

00:00:35.960 some shady chinese website that did not go well we tell that story and a brand new business that

00:00:40.880 it is going to be launching here in the future it all comes up on the podcast today make sure to go

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00:01:07.760 well at youtube.com just search for stew for stew does america and glenn i guess is there too you

00:01:12.800 can probably check out a lot of his fantastic stuff as well it's all on youtube and podcasts

00:01:17.920 all across america here is the podcast for today

00:01:21.600 you're listening to the best of the glenn back program

00:01:32.300 i wanted to bring a good friend of mine on he's lieutenant colonel uh rudy atala and he is a

00:01:42.660 retired air force officer he's the chief operating officer of the nazarene fund and the executive

00:01:49.840 chief executive officer of white mountain research um he grew up in lebanon if i remember right he grew

00:01:57.980 up he was a native to beirut he speaks i don't know how many different languages he is a straight

00:02:04.220 up guy worked at the white house for a while uh and it's an honor to call him my friend rudy is with

00:02:10.360 us now hi rudy hi glenn it's an honor to be with you um i just wanted to check with you real quick

00:02:18.200 on something what's happening in lebanon my gut tells me this is the start of something really

00:02:24.820 not good am i am i wrong on that no your gut is right spot on actually it's uh it's a start of um i

00:02:35.920 i'm afraid to say that um if things continue trending this way lebanon is going to go back

00:02:40.920 to civil war uh unless the international community really finds a solution to uh to the issues right

00:02:47.000 now okay so tell me tell me exactly what we know uh i know you have a team on the ground in lebanon now

00:02:55.220 tell me what we do know about uh this imodium nitrate uh was it from hezbollah from iran

00:03:04.060 why was it there and what happened yesterday with the riots

00:03:08.940 yeah so hezbollah has controlled uh hezbollah has slowly slowly taken over and controlled the

00:03:18.160 lebanese government so the entire lebanese government is extremely extremely corrupt and

00:03:22.980 controlled by iran uh through its proxies hezbollah inside lebanon uh once they took control of of the

00:03:30.920 the government they they uh they control the airport and they also control the seaport where

00:03:36.100 the explosion happened and with their control of the seaport they were they were bringing in

00:03:41.320 all types of weapons missiles missile propellants and of course ammonium nitrate so the combination

00:03:48.320 of all of that and nothing entered or left the port without hezbollah knowing about it

00:03:53.340 in fact after the explosion occurred they cordoned off the entire um you know facility the entire

00:04:01.160 port itself did not allow anybody near it um and uh the sad thing about it is the explosion was so

00:04:08.860 massive that it devastated a good chunk of the city and it impacted close to 85 percent of the

00:04:16.000 christian area in beirut oh my gosh so so so the bulk of the damage has occurred in the in the

00:04:24.060 christian areas right now as of as of today we have um we have over 2 000 critically wounded uh 6 000

00:04:32.320 total wounded uh 200 dead with many many more missing and over 350 000 people are homeless my my cousin

00:04:41.260 lost his entire home his entire business my father's house was damaged my closest friends all their

00:04:47.700 homes were destroyed um so it's been it's been uh an incredibly difficult time for everybody

00:04:55.300 and and yesterday with riots what was what was really um crazy that was happening is you had

00:05:01.860 uh plain people in plain clothes from the from the hezbollah side driving into the christian areas

00:05:09.880 where the damage occurred and basically offering up to buy homes from people saying oh you lost

00:05:15.800 everything we'll purchase your place from you it's it's something that they've done over the years

00:05:21.100 they've slowly basically entered and penetrated christian areas by asking to purchase land from

00:05:27.620 christians and from people now they're doing it with this damage which is very very alarming so the

00:05:32.900 riots yesterday the people are fed up because there's economic depression um you know the the

00:05:39.640 major devaluation of the lebanese pound against the dollar um a lot of the food that was entering

00:05:46.060 the ports was being basically whisked away out of the country and moved across the border into syria

00:05:52.220 to continue propping up the asad regime and hezbollah was behind all of this so the people are starving

00:05:58.700 their the the value of their money is not is not there they can't purchase anything and and what's made

00:06:05.640 it worse is there's there are no jobs you the lebanese population is 4.5 million now add on top of

00:06:13.200 that 1.5 million syrian refugees from the war in syria and you have an extremely you have an extremely

00:06:21.120 volatile area now with no jobs and nothing so people yesterday had so they were so fed up they went into

00:06:28.500 the streets and they were basically clashing with the police and yesterday uh we've had a total of

00:06:34.560 over 728 wounded and and uh right now the entire the entire uh government resigned uh so the the prime

00:06:44.120 minister hassan diyab resigned and uh but uh he's going to continue working with his people hassan diyab

00:06:50.920 and the government lebanese government was all handpicked by hezbollah and by iran so um the people are

00:06:57.920 waiting to see what's going to happen right now they the people are pushing for a guy named uh

00:07:03.880 nwab salam to become the next prime minister because the constitution of lebanon states that

00:07:09.620 the prime minister must be sunni and uh and so the people are trying to to select their prime minister

00:07:16.060 but we will see what happens this is where the rub is going to be is that nobody wants iran or

00:07:21.360 hezbollah to be in control of government anymore and iran's not going to take that sitting down

00:07:27.160 no they can't lose lebanon yeah yeah yeah there was something else that was really that's really

00:07:35.600 interesting and i think your listeners need to know is that you know it's funny the the uh the last

00:07:42.280 week on friday uh was when the the hague was going to come up with its final verdict in uh in the long

00:07:50.500 long uh investigation of 600 million dollars worth of investigations on the assassination of the

00:07:58.620 former prime minister of lebanon in 2005 uh rafi hariri and the verdict the final verdict has the

00:08:05.500 finger pointing directly at hezbollah and directly at iran for killing the former prime minister whom

00:08:11.120 everybody loved in in lebanon and so hezbollah was not going to take that sitting down and it's funny 0.55

00:08:17.300 that you know a couple of days before that final verdict came out um this whole explosion happened

00:08:23.960 so it delayed everything now the hague is not going to come up with its final verdict until the 18th of

00:08:29.700 august so now it's buying time for hezbollah to do whatever it's now they dissolve the government so

00:08:35.720 hezbollah is probably going to say well look there's no government so you can't come in here you can't do

00:08:40.300 anything in here and it allows them time to shuffle around and iran now has pledged full support to

00:08:46.660 lebanon and this and basically the guise of humanitarian aid and we all know what that means

00:08:52.720 it means you know full support on every other front uh of course bringing in weapons and missiles and all

00:08:58.820 that stuff so this is how the game is played wow that's uh depressing what rudy do you believe that

00:09:06.720 this was intentional or a mistake and was there really a fireworks depot in there or was this all

00:09:14.740 stuff for rockets and uh bombs yeah i i think i personally think it was very deliberate uh the

00:09:24.120 timing is kind of uh the big question and you know you look at who benefits from this whole thing of

00:09:29.920 course uh hezbollah benefits majorly from the whole thing there were no fireworks at the port um i mean

00:09:36.240 the port is near the place where i used to live ashrafi so they they maintained all their ammos their

00:09:42.360 weapons and their ammonium nitrate and now the people are afraid um also because they're saying

00:09:48.920 that some of the experts are saying that 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate it wasn't all there there was a lot

00:09:56.580 of it missing so now people are living in fear of a potentially second explosion and i think you know

00:10:04.320 they're you know rumors start to rise and people start to talk but but hezbollah controlled all of

00:10:09.380 that and they are known hezbollah is known to sacrifice its own people for the cause i in 2006

00:10:17.180 when the during the israeli incursion uh of lebanon i you know i i used to i was talking to my friends

00:10:25.300 they would you know they would literally sacrifice their own kids and then send in people reporters 0.60

00:10:30.680 take photos and it would send them to death on france and say see the israelis are killing kids 0.50

00:10:35.560 and the israelis weren't doing anything they were sacrificing their own people just for for our their

00:10:40.860 own cause so they will do anything to win the battle

00:10:43.460 we have a team from the nazarene fund on the ground

00:10:48.620 yes sir or is it you have a team we do yeah yeah it's the same team i have parts of so nazarene fund

00:10:57.420 and my uh non-profit the blessing projects.org i i i have everybody there several teams running

00:11:05.140 around we're feeding people and we're helping the poorest of the poor i mean uh yesterday in addition

00:11:11.180 to all the riots it rained and many of the homes have no roofs or no windows so the water's flooding

00:11:17.340 people are are starving many people are afraid to go to hospitals because of covid because we do have

00:11:23.960 a covid outbreak as well so so in addition in addition to no food in addition to the explosion

00:11:31.540 in addition to the crisis you have covid you have everything else on top of it so

00:11:36.440 we're talking major major disaster um it's unprecedented

00:11:41.120 you have a hundred thousand children uh that are homeless now um what what time of day did this

00:11:49.960 happen where was everybody were they at home together uh were the families separated

00:11:56.360 generally speaking do you know

00:11:58.920 yeah it it was it was in the afternoon and and families were together but what happened is because

00:12:07.140 it started off as a slow burn with a lot of smoke people congregated to their balconies they

00:12:14.120 congregated in the streets and they were you know they were everybody was using their phones to

00:12:18.540 videotape that's why you have uh you know so many captures of the explosion and it was a slow burn and

00:12:25.540 it was about you know five to seven minutes later and then you had the massive explosion the detonation

00:12:31.460 was so big that they actually felt it in ladnaka cyprus 100 miles away it registered 4.3 on the richter

00:12:39.160 scale it's considered the third largest non-nuclear explosion in history i've never seen anything like

00:12:46.340 it i mean i honestly thought it was a nuclear weapon when it went off you saw the explosion you saw the

00:12:51.880 fire and then you saw that i mean you just saw the air the air pressure just boom uh push out from that

00:13:00.760 i've never seen that except for a a massive massive bomb or a nuclear hydrogen bomb terrifying um thank

00:13:10.020 you so much rudy thank you for bringing us up to speed um anything you need anything you need from

00:13:15.120 us or the listeners just your support and prayers anything you can do we're bringing in aid we're trying

00:13:22.620 to bypass the corrupt government we're trying to make sure that none of the the funds that we send

00:13:27.960 out there goes to the government itself or to local politicians because they control everything

00:13:33.780 we're trying to take it directly to the people anything you can do to support us would be greatly

00:13:38.820 appreciated because the need is great you can go to the nazarenefund.org the nazarenefund.org and help

00:13:48.400 these christians and the christian community that took the brunt of all of this which always seems to be the 0.99

00:13:55.220 case uh in the middle east the nazarenefund.org the best of the glenbeck program

00:14:02.740 really one of the uh most honest reporters i have ever met uh you know back in the day

00:14:15.000 uh i was i was skeptical of every reporter not skeptical enough um and i'd seen all of the tricks

00:14:23.020 and this reporter said she wanted to do an interview and i was like uh-huh and we set for

00:14:28.840 an interview and she asked tough questions uh but she actually got the story right um she was working

00:14:36.360 in pittsburgh at the time now she's everywhere she's a national political reporter for the washington

00:14:42.120 examiner she's a columnist for the new york post the author or co-author of the book the great revolt

00:14:49.080 which kind of goes into why donald trump won in 2016 if the press ever cared to read it they would

00:14:56.700 know why uh he won and they would stop doing what they're doing quite honestly um but uh selena joins 0.95

00:15:03.100 me now because i just read one of your columns selena so much the same but so much different in

00:15:09.400 pennsylvania this election year you got it right last time what are you feeling and seeing so far

00:15:17.320 with what 80 days away from the election oh well first of all thanks for having me on i remember

00:15:23.500 that first interview well it was in columbus ohio and i could tell you like all right who is this girl

00:15:29.600 what's he up to yeah yeah yeah i didn't trust anybody uh it was obvious but awesome awesome yeah but

00:15:39.620 what i love about you is you actually listen to people um you did in that interview and you are

00:15:46.800 as a reporter you're one of the only people that still go to the coffee shops and you talk to people

00:15:52.660 in the supermarket you talk to real people and that's what gave you such an edge last time when

00:15:59.320 you were the only one saying uh guys he's gonna win he's gonna win yeah yeah you know you're hit on a

00:16:05.900 key point glenn and and it's not even as much as that i you know um get out of town if you will i'm

00:16:14.480 always on the road i have done that continuously through covid but responsibly i always have a mask

00:16:21.500 on i always keep a distance from some from from people all people um but still able to understand

00:16:28.800 what's continuously going on i never take highway i never take like interstates and turnpikes i stick

00:16:35.520 to the back roads because that's where you can understand and listen to people listen who cares

00:16:41.800 what i think i'm i'm one person it's listening to people in their communities in their hometowns and

00:16:50.480 in their homes is where you understand where the election is going and so i just came back yeah go ahead

00:16:57.440 from you were so you were on the back roads in pennsylvania and what did you find the same and what

00:17:02.620 did you find different and what does it mean well you know i think all of us can say if we first if

00:17:09.220 we if we drive past something pretty quickly it'll look like it did every year right like you know

00:17:15.980 people are in their yards people are you know getting food to eat but then when you slow down and you

00:17:22.940 really look you can see how much things are changed uh and that goes from how we eat to where we eat

00:17:30.120 and how we look when we um when we participate in things that are outside of our homes we have masks

00:17:36.980 on we keep a distance we don't eat inside we eat outside and we are american so we try to adapt as

00:17:44.900 much as we we can but there's been also so much taken away from us and and you know and a lot of that

00:17:53.760 is just simple joys like hugging your grandchildren hugging your parents you know if you if you're

00:18:00.820 someone that has to be out of the public you do that very reluctantly because there's so much unknown

00:18:06.980 so one of the things besides you know watching people eat one of the things that i noticed is

00:18:14.300 and this is one of the things i pointed out in 2016 and everyone sort of laughed at me and that was the

00:18:20.000 amount of trump signs and people would say rightly so that signs don't vote they don't vote but they

00:18:29.160 tell this story or part of the story about enthusiasm and in 2016 in pennsylvania it was insane well it looks

00:18:38.980 remarkably different from 2016 in that there are more trump signs and people don't just have one they

00:18:45.980 wow or they have a flag and the most important sign you see is the one that's homemade which you see

00:18:53.520 hundreds of them that defines a um a more um a more strident enthusiasm than just going down to the local

00:19:04.200 um you know the republican uh committee headquarters yeah yeah and pick it up now in 2016 you saw very

00:19:13.580 few clinton signs most clinton signs you saw were clinton for jail this year i have biden signs um

00:19:23.520 so uh i've stopped to talk to people my assumption and this is why you should listen to people

00:19:30.260 my assumption was especially in particular in some of these rural places where i've read numerous uh

00:19:37.740 stories in the new york times and the washington post about how these voters are turning on trump

00:19:42.800 so in my head i'm thinking well they voted for trump and they didn't uh and they're not going to this

00:19:48.700 time but when you listen you find out that these are people that voted for clinton you know it wasn't

00:19:54.800 like nobody in pennsylvania voted for clinton trump only won by 40 000 votes but what it then and i think

00:20:01.520 this is so fascinating what they have told me to a person is you know we couldn't even get clinton to

00:20:09.300 they didn't even know this county existed in pennsylvania you know they they didn't they didn't

00:20:14.880 care to put signs up they didn't think that was important well in rural ex-urban uh and suburban

00:20:21.420 areas sometimes that's incredibly important when people live further apart and and and in particular

00:20:28.320 now you know they want a place in a way to show their how they feel about something um but a sign is a good

00:20:36.520 way to do that so that's what i have seen that has changed there are about more biden signs out there

00:20:42.760 than there were clinton but i would still say the trump signs over biden signs are a hundred fold more

00:20:50.960 now what does that mean go ahead yeah well i wanted to i wanted to ask you um they're just based on a

00:20:58.180 couple of headlines just today americans are growing less willing to beg for permission to make a living

00:21:03.720 uh next one faith leaders protest governor newsom's order barring in-person worship uh poll reveals half

00:21:12.000 of democrats don't think joe biden will serve all four years if elected president right um who is going

00:21:18.840 to pay do you think and who is going to be blamed for the the riots on the streets the uh not being able

00:21:28.520 to go to work who's going to be blamed is that going to be on donald trump or is that do you think

00:21:33.980 going to be on the democratic party well you know donald trump has certainly has plenty of faults

00:21:42.760 but one of them is not that he's to blame for riots and that and he's to blame for these uh these cities

00:21:50.820 that are having these you know massive protests uh i have a story coming up in the wall street journal

00:21:57.660 about how people are fleeing to to move out of big cities in america um because of these protests

00:22:07.680 and these riots but also because of covid but um but you know the places where it's the most restrictive

00:22:14.840 when there's the least liberty available are the ones that are run by democrats whether it's a state

00:22:22.180 or a city and and you know people are dumb you know they understand who's impacting their lives

00:22:31.680 and and and while there might be some there might be people out there look they could just never vote

00:22:39.040 for donald trump they just won't show up to vote for joe biden until i think that that is the thing

00:22:47.080 we don't understand you know in my book the great revolt which i wrote with greg brad todd in the back

00:22:53.500 we get we're really nerdy and we did a lot we did polling after i went out and did the anecdotal

00:22:59.660 reporting we wanted to make sure we understood that the reporting matched up with the data one of this

00:23:05.400 is the most important data in there uh 34 percent of self-identified trump voters in michigan

00:23:12.640 wisconsin pennsylvania ohio and iowa did not tell a family member a friend or a pollster that they

00:23:20.520 were going to vote for donald trump and to be honest 2016 seems like a disney movie compared to what

00:23:25.660 we're experiencing right now oh yeah oh yeah i think there's a lot of people that are out there that

00:23:34.200 just won't put a yard i wouldn't put a yard sign on my yard uh i wouldn't put a bumper sticker on my car

00:23:41.200 i'm going to have my car vandalized for a bumper sticker um you know and i hear that from people

00:23:49.980 all the time i i hear that from people all the time they don't want to put signs in their yard

00:23:55.380 in particular the closer you get to a city they don't want to put a sign in their yard they don't

00:24:00.560 want to put a bumper sticker they're worried for a number of reasons how not so much as how much it

00:24:05.800 impacts them but how does this impact my family how does this impact my teenage kids how does this

00:24:10.940 impact my job if i own a business are people going to just cancel my business because i support

00:24:16.200 donald trump

00:24:16.900 you're listening to the best of the glenbeck program

00:24:23.280 stew has found a new podcast that's not racist at all it just blames all the problems on white

00:24:44.720 people and what a surprise it comes from the new york times uh and uh it is about how white mommy and

00:24:54.080 daddy broke the school system yep it's all white people's fault here's the promo from the new york 0.82

00:24:58.480 times this is sarah koenig host of the serial podcast i want to tell you about our new show

00:25:03.580 nice white parents it's reported by hana jaffe walt who's made some of the best most thought-provoking

00:25:09.060 most emotional radio stories i've ever heard back in 2015 hana wanted to find out what would happen

00:25:14.700 inside this one public school in her neighborhood during a sudden influx of white students into a

00:25:19.340 school that had barely had any white students before and then not satisfied that she fully 0.76

00:25:23.560 understood what she was seeing she went all the way back to the founding of the school in the 1960s

00:25:28.520 and then forward again up to the present day what she found eventually hana realized she could put a

00:25:33.340 name to the unspoken force that kept getting in the way of making the school better white parents

00:25:38.640 i've been waiting so long to tell people about this show and now i can finally say it go listen

00:25:44.780 to nice white parents nice white parents is made by serial productions a new york times company you

00:25:49.800 can find it wherever you get your podcasts oh i can't wait to dive into that one yeah it sounds

00:25:54.760 great yeah that's gonna it's gonna be great now that's a surprising outcome yeah i wouldn't have seen

00:26:00.020 that coming i was shocked that the problem with uh with school with schools that are uh that have

00:26:05.520 lots of minorities in them are when an influx of white kids come in and they ruin it and you can 1.00

00:26:12.000 blame white parents think about this narrative at the opposite club i mean it's it was literally

00:26:16.740 written by some white nationalist uh who would say you know what we had these white schools they were

00:26:22.340 great and then all of a sudden these black people came in and ruined them that's the exact story 1.00

00:26:26.080 they're telling except they're just blaming white people i want you to today assign to a producer

00:26:31.020 that take that exact script produce it exactly the same way with i don't know you sarah or somebody

00:26:38.260 somebody's a woman's voice and just reverse it and we're gonna play them side by side tomorrow and you 0.97

00:26:45.720 tell me is this racist because one i guarantee you will sound horrifying even if it's produced

00:26:53.400 exactly the same way just say black parents over white

00:26:57.300 you

The Glenn Beck Program - August 11, 2020

Best of The Program Guests： Rudy Atallah & Salena Zito ｜ 8⧸11⧸20

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