Best of The Program | Guests: Russell Vought, Rebecca Friedrichs, & Matthew Bocci | 9⧸9⧸20
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Summary
The White House has ordered the end of critical race theory training in government agencies, and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has been tasked with finding out exactly what is going on and what is being taught in our schools.
Transcript
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hey welcome to wednesday we have a big special on blaze tv tonight that is about brainwashing
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our kids this time it's part two it's about uh the new sex ed course that is just horrific we
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talk about it in great detail and and also what is happening in washington with uh the critical
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theory which is marx it's what's destroying our country right now it's it's black lives matter
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it's what's happening in our schools it's the cancel culture that's all critical race theory
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donald trump is standing against it we have the director of the omb from the administration to
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talk about how they're going to cut all of these programs how they are going to uh find out exactly
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what is going on because now we've found out that deep state israel and the government unbeknownst to
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the president has been funding critical race theory of propaganda and lessons inside the government
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trying to turn our own institutions against itself it's phenomenal then we find another document dump
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that the teachers unions along with the board of education if you will uh it has funded a radical
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group trying to teach teachers to overthrow the government of the united states we got a comment
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from betsy devos who is of course against all this this has been in play now since we think at least
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2004 if you didn't believe in the deep state in 2016 i get it if you don't believe in it now you're a moron
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what do we do about it all that and an incredible story from a kid who is nine who lost his dad on 9-11
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the first survivor story from a child of a 9-11 victim all on today's podcast and don't forget to
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subscribe at blaze tv.com slash glenn use the promo code glenn get access to that special also
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new studios america and so much more at blaze tv
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yesterday we found out that the white house has ordered an end of critical race theory training
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now for government agencies that's a start we need to get it out of our schools as well
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um we have um uh russ vote on with us he's the director of office of management and budget and
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what that does in case you don't know this is the guy responsible for overseeing the implementation
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of the policy from the president the management the regulatory agendas all across the executive branch
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kind of a tough job uh when you got a guy uh that is uh doing so much to cut all of that stuff
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russ how are you sir i'm doing fine thanks for having me on glenn you bet so uh first of all
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what what what was it that was seen at the federal level that got the president's attention
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and said we got to stop this right now well i think you've seen a lot of these kinds of reports
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begin to percolate up uh in the news and we specifically mentioned that in in uh the memo that
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we put out on friday uh but you know the president has seen some of the great work that's been
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uh put out there by chris ruffo uh some of the investigative work that's being done uh as a
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result of whistleblowers quite frankly as we get a handle on uh the many areas where the agencies are
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often contracting out with third parties that have ideological bents that are are teaching content
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that's inconsistent with uh our the the long history of our country but quite frankly uh the future of
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our country because if you if you teach the the workers of the federal government uh to hate their
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country uh where are we going to be down the road so uh we did some important work last week on the
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behalf of the president and uh we're going to be working to make sure it actually gets implemented
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and it's not just a policy prescription so how pervasive was it how many agencies were involved uh
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it was any of it systematic or was it all coming from you know this blm movement
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it's not new uh that's for sure uh but to be honest with you glenn we're just getting
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this at the beginning of this process we want to do a full review we want to have extensive
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implementation guidance we want to do a formal rack up of all the spending we don't want it to just be
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anecdotal although we have quite a bit of anecdotes uh that we know of which is why we put out
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essentially a cease and desist letter uh to get started in the meantime but this has been going
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on for a number of years it seems like and is not just uh a result of the last several months of of
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the blm movement um and the the unrest that it has caused across the country uh i think it you know
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if i'm guessing a lot of it was uh ramped up in the last administration and it it has probably
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ramped up in the last several months as as uh agencies trying to make sense of the moment that
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we're in uh but unfortunately they got some bad guidance and uh some bad instincts on that front
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so this is the kind of stuff that makes a deep state possible uh when you have one arm of the
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federal government teaching that the federal government is racist and all of the anti-american
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marxist kind of teachings uh that just go on without really anyone saying anything or or i mean at this
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point can you even put a finger on when it started or where it started or who's responsible
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not yet and we're hoping that our review can can help us uh draw some firm conclusions from that and
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if we need uh larger policy solutions we'll do that as well uh the president has made that clear
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um but i do think that uh it is a challenge when you have these big agencies uh often the the policy
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officials that the president has put in charge that represent the american people based on the last
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election uh don't have awareness uh of the types of professional development or workplace training
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that goes along and they're they i'm sure they get whiffs uh of of emails that get sent around
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uh to invite them to this or that uh another aspect of i think what the president was trying to do glenn is
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is is provide cover for the hard decisions that agency heads can now make uh to root this stuff out
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we had seen this before the memo from from secretary of energy dan briette the minute he was made aware
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of some of the trainings that were going on in the national labs by sandia corporation uh he immediately
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asked for a review um but that that takes uh courage quite frankly and the president uh has basically said
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look we're gonna we're gonna do this government wide uh and so all of my policy officials uh can get
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after the work uh and you know i'll wear the pressure on on on his shoulder so so can you can
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you and you may not be the right person to ask um but can there's a lot of people that see critical
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theory they don't know what it is when you connect it to marxism and communism they roll their eyes they
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think that's nonsense can you can you explain what it is and why it's so destructive sure and i had this
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conversation with a dear friend of mine last night who who had concerns about the memo or at least
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wanted to have an awareness of the memo and and that is critical race theory is the view of our
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institutions that the reason we see some forms of inequity uh is because our institutions are rotten
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that they are systemically racist that the founding was flawed because of uh its racism and it is a
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kind of the the critical aspect of it is the critique is that uh we're not headed towards we were not
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the civil rights movement was not successful that we uh have not moved towards a colorblind society and
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that one of the reasons is that our institutions are flawed and are leading to ongoing uh inequities
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and so that's the critical aspect of it that leads people to kind of think through um if you if
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something's fundamentally flawed to the core then you need to tear it down the institution needs to
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be brought down and we look out over the last several months and we see critical race theory on
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all of our tvs the wages of of putting this into the bloodstream as opposed to a different view which i
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think is what the american founding was about uh and i've i've i've seen on your programs before glenn
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which is um we are individuals made in the image of god uh as and as a result we are afforded dignity
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as a result of that and the highest aspirations of our country were reflected in the declaration of
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independence and our constitution and over time we've we also have been reforming out of our system
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little by little individuals by individuals movement by movement an effort to eliminate where there is
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is sin and where there is uh evil and dysfunction and and that gets that that gets reformed out but it
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doesn't it doesn't say that the whole enterprise the whole project that the whole country needs to be
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torn down because it's rotten to the core and really those are the two those are the two worldviews
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that are are represented here and and you see it with the hope and optimism of uh the trump administration
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saying look this is the greatest country the world has ever seen and we're going to make reforms as we
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see it where we need to to uh weed this out or weed that out or make reforms but we're not going to
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just toss out the entirety of our great country which has led the world uh in in freedom and opportunity for
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all people well i will tell you i i hope that the president starts to encourage companies to do the
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because there's a lot of companies that are are engaging these same people that have been engaged
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by the federal government to teach this nonsense um that that america is inherently evil and that whites
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are inherently uh racist and cannot be forgiven uh by it have to be the only the only way you can uh
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have an end to racism is with reverse racism if you will it's it's craziness and very dangerous
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can i ask you one unrelated uh question um there was a story that came out today that talked about
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how people are now starting to see um they're starting to fatigue on this this whole coronavirus
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and they're starting to see this more as a crisis of budget is the president considering anything like
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uh uh you know special economic zones or or you know naming the entire country uh you know an economic
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uh an economic zone to be able to relieve the average business person with some uh from some of this
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regulation that will help them get back on their feet uh well we feel like we have uh over the last
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several months is to treat the economic crisis in the same way that we treat a public health crisis
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uh to the extent where any emergency uh authority that agencies had on the table we have tried to use
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uh by our count we were over about 700 different regulatory or enforcement relaxing uh decisions
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that uh were done on the basis of an emergency and quite frankly we're not trying to make many of
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those permanent and we're going through a review of that right now uh so we haven't done anything uh as
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uh simple uh to be able to say hey the whole country is an opportunity zone but but piecemeal we have
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tried to take that approach and we think we have uh been very successful on that front and if people
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have good ideas uh we're or we definitely have an open mind to where we can do more as a businessman
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that has people coming through my business all the time i i worry about litigation it's only a matter of
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time of litigation somebody gets sick somebody says you haven't done enough whatever is there any
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relief or protection from litigation that is coming uh we hope so we hope that that is a part of
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uh any eventual phase four uh deal uh the president does think we need more legislative uh initiatives
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uh and so that's why he's tried to continue to stay at the table even if the democrats on the hill have
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been uh in in the magnitude of their asks uh made it such that we could not reach an agreement but of the
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things that we believe are still important uh is that uh certainty that comes from potential lawsuits
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uh and i think that's certainly been something that we've heard from the hill as as being an important
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least from republicans on the hill well i will tell you um we really appreciate the cuts that you guys
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have made and uh the things that you have done to roll back a lot of this craziness uh from the last
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uh 15 years i'd like to send you some golden scissors but maybe it'd be better to have an axe
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uh as you continue your job thank you so much i appreciate it
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i want to bring on uh somebody who i just think is remarkable her name is rebecca friedrichs
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uh she's the author of standing up to goliath uh she's the founder and president of kids for kids
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and country.com for kids and country.com or.org uh and uh she was a teacher she saw what was
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happening she stood up and she realized she might be able to do more good outside of the system
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rebecca how are you i'm doing great great to be here so rebecca after the special that we had
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um last what two weeks ago i got a ton of email from people who said i went in and they treated me
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like a moron they pretty much laughed at me they wouldn't give me any information
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i i am convinced that unless we stand together we're not going to make an impact
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you are exactly right we have experienced the same thing even i'm in california so even when we go to
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the state house we we've come together hundreds of us at the senate education committee and they treat
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us like morons they uh talk down to us they um will not pass any uh bills that we bring forward
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saying look we just want some transparency we just want you to let us know what's going on before you
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do this to our kids and they shut us down every single time we absolutely have to stand together
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teachers can't fight it alone parents can't fight it alone and we need our churches to step up too
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we need faith leaders with us and uh we need to help people to realize how important it is to vote
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and to vote their values not to vote because they want free stuff because um if we can can start
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getting good godly people into office at every level starting down at school board all the way up
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uh into the national level then we can end this nightmare so the teachers union taking on the teachers
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union i mean you you took them on uh all the way to the supreme court the california teachers union
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um and the national education association yeah and tell me what happened because you didn't win you
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you were it was looking like you were going to win and then scalia died that's right our case was
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heard in january 2016 we were arguing for freedom from forced unionism for every single government
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employee in the united states of america we didn't think it was right that we were forced to fund a
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union that stood against our values that claimed to represent us but did not we didn't even want to be
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members we didn't want their representation but we were forced to pay for example my husband
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was a professor at san diego state and he was forced to pay 1200 a year in fees as a non-member
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of the union and then they would file grievances against him when he was a director so we didn't
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have a voice at all so we wanted to end that we took it to the u.s supreme court case was heard january
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2016 we were poised to win with a five to four decision because sadly there are four justices on
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that court who do the bidding of the unions and uh anyway one month after our case was heard
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justice scalia died and there's a rule in the court that the justices have to be present when
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the decision comes down so we lost his vote we had a four to four tie but the good news is another case
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was built upon our case and it was heard in 2018 and june 27th 2018 every government employee in the
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united states of america was freed from forced unionism so they all might still be stuck in a union
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but they no longer have to pay them okay so here is the thing because i i've been saying the last few
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days because everybody looks at their teacher and they're like my teacher is good and they love my
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kid and blah blah blah blah blah um however you you might feel really good about a teacher but if they
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are if they are in the teachers union or they um they sing the praises of the nea um i don't trust them
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with my child because they they must be part of it or they're so ignorant i don't want them teaching my
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child is that fair i i think it's fair but i and i think the listeners need to know one more thing
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there's three issues with teachers and first of all they're all trapped in a corrupt system so it
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doesn't matter how sweet or wonderful or incredible your particular teacher is if that teacher is in a
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unionized school or school district that teacher's trapped in a corrupt system so the three things
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people need to know about teachers is number one they either have no idea that the union is the bad
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guy they don't they know things are corrupt but the union keeps telling them we're your savior we're
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here to take care of you it's the legislators it's the school board it's the this but these teachers
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have no idea that it's the union that put those legislators in office and those people on the school
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board so these teachers truly are ignorant to what their union is doing that's a problem second thing
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a lot of them know but they're too terrified to stand up to their union like you your whole entry to
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this interview you were talking about how people are too afraid to stand up afraid of losing their
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jobs and their career afraid of all that that's exactly how teachers are and they've been that way
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for about 50 years and so then the last thing is we do have teachers who agree with the unions those are
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the scary ones those are the activists that the unions have been planting in our schools so i agree
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with you glenn teachers have got to stand up but parents have to stand up with them teachers can't do
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it alone stand together and those teachers that don't know what's going on we have something on
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our website called adopt a teacher takes three minutes to read it adopt every teacher you know
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and educate them on the truth and then stand with them and we can end this so i'm looking at your
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website now which is for kids and country.org uh and you adopt a teacher and it's it has uh videos there
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um but it talks about embracing educate enlighten empathize encourage and empower so this is not going
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in hostile this is going in uh saying hey look i just you know can we go have a cup of coffee and let
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me pay for it because i just want to honor great teachers precisely and then i wrote an entire book
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called standing up to goliath and i wrote that book with teachers in mind and parents by the way
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because parents don't realize that the teachers unions have corrupted the pta and everything going
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on in our schools so parents are actually paying into this uh sex ed and all these evils as well and
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don't know it so um yes i ask people to lovingly adopt teachers they know but teachers in their
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church teachers in their neighborhood their family their child's teacher and to approach them with
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grace not to approach them attacking because maybe the teacher doesn't know doesn't have any idea
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educate them most people don't have any idea all the lies teachers have been told so they try to talk
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to teachers and the teachers say but this but that but what about what about and people don't know
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what to say that's why i wrote a whole book all they have to do is hand it to them you know walk
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them through it read a couple chapters and they'll take you to coffee and let's talk about it and just
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help them warm up to the idea that um they've been duped that they've been deceived that they're
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funding evil so that these teachers will stand up and get out of the union rebecca thank you so much
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um i appreciate all of your hard work i urge you to join the effort and just go to for kids and
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country.org uh and look at the information that is there um you i i still recommend rebecca that you
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you organize and you and you help people come together uh in their own towns because everybody feels alone
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and they don't know who's involved and if there's a way to hook up with each other uh you you need to
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you need to hook up with each other because we won't be able to do this by ourselves thank you
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rebecca i appreciate it for kids and country dot org the best of the glenbeck program
00:22:41.820
i just wanted you to start with this somebody from the school district walks into your classroom
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you don't know anything about it but it's about nine o'clock in the morning and what happens
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yeah so they pulled me out of my classroom and i was met by my brother in the hallway and we were
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informed that a plane hit my dad's building that my dad was safe and that they were evacuating the
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tower as a nine-year-old kid i i kind of subconsciously thought something was odd in the sense that they
00:23:15.400
didn't allow us to really ask questions about what was going on um i still don't think too much of it
00:23:20.520
though and i tried to just go about the rest of the day as normally as possible um what perplexed me
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the most was the fact that so many kids were getting pulled out of my school and and yet we were still
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in school nick and i my brother that my mom kept us in school because she had spoken to my father and
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and then started calling family who was coming over to the house to try to help her because i also had
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two young brothers at the time there was just so much chaos and so much commotion at the house that
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she wanted us to stay in school for as long as possible and so you were in school and i got and you
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weren't watching it but the rest of the students they were watching what was happening what was
00:24:00.600
happening right they weren't no they weren't watching it um they were informed they pulled
00:24:06.700
us out of the classroom and then told the rest of the students what exactly happened okay um still
00:24:12.220
then i don't think that the students maybe my classmates knew maybe they didn't know but i
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actually don't really know what they said to them okay um so we they kept us in another classroom for
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a little while while they were informing the students on all the details that they had i guess
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and ultimately um like i said like we we were like the only kids left in school and um and they
00:24:35.780
were all fucked out and at the end of the day when we got on the bus we were the only two kids on the
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bus and just i remember getting back home and and just being like met immediately with all the chaos
00:24:47.660
that i had already described before um and it got worse once i got inside and um the tv was on and the
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footage was on and people were upset and and calling uh my dad and calling hotlines and uh there was a
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can of a sherald missing hotline too they were calling and hospitals etc it was one thing after
00:25:07.960
another um and ultimately my grandmother kind of ushered my brother and i out of the house to go play
00:25:13.740
with our friends because um she didn't want us to continue to witness sure uh the commotion at the
00:25:19.160
house now your dad two weeks before 9-11 woke up in the middle of the night screaming
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he had a dream tell me about that well he insisted it wasn't a dream he insisted it was uh it was a
00:25:32.840
ghost and and that his late aunt who had died of als probably 20 years prior uh was standing at the
00:25:40.000
foot of his bed um in perfect health condition and holding his late sister who died as an infant
00:25:45.680
and for him that moment was life-changing except unfortunately he didn't act upon the feeling that
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he was i guess uh instinctively feeling inside um he didn't he didn't uh follow through i guess too
00:25:59.900
you know he wanted to quit he then expressed that he was not happy he was telling my mom he thought he
00:26:06.560
was going to die young that he wanted to be cremated and this was all leading up to 9-11 and and my mom
00:26:11.900
just basically being like you're 38 years old you're healthy you're in like the best shape of your life
00:26:16.980
and you're talking about wanting to be cremated like it just it was incomprehensible for her and so
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um that morning when he called my mom he called from his cell phone uh his desk phone was out the
00:26:30.680
line was out and he got through on his cell phone which surprised my mom because she thought that he
00:26:37.060
was gonna quit that weekend before he said he was gonna quit the final and so um and and essentially
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what happened was he only would call her when he was leaving when he was out of the building or out
00:26:50.360
of the office from his cell phone all the other times he would call from his uh desk phone so for
00:26:56.380
her to receive the cell phone call to her she thought he was he actually walked out and and and my father
00:27:02.820
was a was a joker he liked to pull pranks on people and so when he told her a plane hit the building
00:27:07.880
she was blown away and excuse me initially she was thinking he was joking and then he told her to turn
00:27:13.840
the tv on and then she's she's blown away by what she's seeing and realize that this is not a joke
00:27:18.380
so um you for several days um you and your brothers um actually would call your dad's phone
00:27:31.960
and leave messages to your dad thinking that maybe he was still alive
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there was the slightest possibility in my mind that perhaps he lost his cell phone maybe he called
00:27:47.920
his cell phone um like you know so uh my mom actually retrieved the the phone messages because
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um she thought that he may have called his cell phone and lost it too she was holding on to that
00:28:00.040
belief as well but for me i was calling that phone and hoping that he'd pick up the other line
00:28:05.140
um and uh i left voicemails on his phone until his mailbox was full and couldn't receive any more
00:28:11.680
and um just basically begging him to come home and obviously he was you know naive but just not
00:28:17.960
really understanding it and um until they finally came and told us that they found him so you write in
00:28:25.920
your book that the house was full of family and friends and when you looked at the television you saw
00:28:32.360
people jumping uh from the towers and that stuck with you and it actually led you kind of down a
00:28:42.280
darker path if you will of of trying to what figure out what they were thinking and and trying to piece
00:28:51.580
maybe what your dad was thinking and feeling at that time tell me about the yeah that's go ahead
00:28:58.220
that's that's exactly right it was um i knew a few things regarding my dad's final moments i knew
00:29:06.020
that he had made phone calls to my mom the first one that i described before the second one was
00:29:11.840
shortly thereafter and he said goodbye the last call that i know of and that my family knows of
00:29:17.780
is that he spoke to his brother um and said goodbye so those phone calls happen within minutes of the
00:29:25.080
plane hitting which to me symbolizes that my father knew he was going to die and that he accepted
00:29:31.100
his fate and and and and faith that head-on and in a courageous manner and and what was so remarkable
00:29:36.720
to me looking back is the fact that he didn't sound scared on the phone and he didn't want my mom
00:29:41.820
to fear and he didn't want my uncle to fear and he and he tried to portray that to them um
00:29:46.760
and so that was just such a powerful thing for me and and that courageousness was was really
00:29:52.820
impactful for me um and it really resembles my father as a man too um but the question that
00:30:00.780
started to loom in my mind was the fact that the majority of jumpers from the north tower came from
00:30:06.160
canterford sherald so i thought maybe he was one of them and so i had seen the documentary that
00:30:12.700
showed family members identifying their loved ones through these photos of jumpers or people hanging
00:30:18.560
out of the windows and i reached out to photographers myself as a 13 14 year old kid asking them to meet
00:30:25.800
with me because they had met with widows and blown up photos for them so that they could see um if that
00:30:33.120
that in fact was their loved one these photographers never reached back out to me so i continued to do my
00:30:39.920
own research and ask family close to me if they thought he jumped uh everyone told me no and eventually
00:30:46.780
stopped engaging in those conversations and it then took one person to finally engage with me and
00:30:54.160
fully take on all that responsibility and answer those questions and i was an uncle through marriage
00:30:59.480
who exploited my vulnerabilities and sexually abused me and and told me my father jumped from the towers
00:31:05.580
but in reality that wasn't true this is where this story just goes uh in a direction you just don't see
00:31:12.140
coming uh we're talking to the first time i've ever talked to uh somebody who was a child of a parent
00:31:20.000
uh that who's lost the life was lost on 9-11 uh for the first memoir from a child of 9-11 uh called
00:31:28.720
sway his name is matthew bocce and the book is quite incredible so this is the part of the book uh where
00:31:36.840
you're 14 and you're using drugs and alcohol um right and what how old were you when this uncle by
00:31:46.840
marriage uh comes into your life and starts to it was yeah um so the period of grooming pretty much
00:31:56.440
began when i was like 12 years old um i stopped um well i i didn't really engage in in the same manner
00:32:05.280
that i did in the in the next couple years because um there was other family members who
00:32:09.720
would talk to me about 9-11 so unbeknownst to me he was already grooming me um obviously i know that
00:32:16.720
now but um the the abuse happened when i was 14 um and that's right around that time exactly when i
00:32:23.920
started uh drinking and drugging and yeah and in reality though my story is a story of progression
00:32:29.040
in terms of drugs and alcohol i was a recreational drinker weekends with my friends um pot was
00:32:35.800
you know later brought into the mix like later into high school and wasn't uh an addiction by any means
00:32:42.180
um but ultimately when i got to college um i started experimenting with other drugs uh painkillers
00:32:49.960
especially and other pills and that's when i started to feel some true relief um that i guess i
00:32:55.660
have been searching for for quite some time and once i felt that i i was going to chase that feeling
00:33:01.140
forever um or so i thought back then but uh it took a lot of struggle and determination to get to the
00:33:07.820
point i'm at today so your your mom told you at some point look for the signs from your dad
00:33:15.680
and um you had an odd spiritual moment will you go into that a bit absolutely yeah i i had been in
00:33:28.480
and out of treatment centers for two years prior to getting sober officially um i never tried really
00:33:35.660
going to meetings i never gave sobriety a true shot i tried just cutting out certain substances and
00:33:41.380
just maybe drinking alcohol and other things like that um and then never worked for me ultimately i
00:33:46.800
had been brought back and inevitably i would be back to the same stuff that i was doing in the past
00:33:51.780
so um my dad after he passed away um there was a sign from my father my mom was first told to look for
00:34:00.840
the signs and that sign that happened was a two about two days after 9-11 and a fly landed in her night
00:34:09.340
on her nightstand in her room and she took that instinctively as her sign that my dad was safe
00:34:14.160
and not coming home and that fly ended up staying in our house for six months after 9-11 and would be
00:34:19.420
um the sign that would be constant with me throughout my life into my adolescence and into my teenage or
00:34:27.500
late teenage and early 20s so um essentially i had been facing legal trouble but didn't really care
00:34:36.620
about that i was more so concerned with continuing to get high and so what i did was thinking that i
00:34:43.380
was going to be able to manipulate my way around a drug test gone in with uh a detox mouthwash that
00:34:49.900
would give me clean saliva i was under the impression it would be a mouth swab test i would
00:34:54.500
later realize that it was a urine a urine test which i did not have fake urine i had left it at my
00:35:01.200
house so i went back home after failing and i was given one last chance and so um i didn't know what
00:35:08.920
to do i knew that i could go back in a month use the fake urine continue to get high and continue to
00:35:14.760
live the life of shame and misery that i was living on a daily basis but i walked outside that day i was
00:35:21.880
home alone and i looked up in the sky and was just like mesmerized by a crystal clear blue sky day
00:35:28.900
that brought me right back 9 11 and initially i i just sat there and started crying and i was
00:35:36.360
hysterical and i asked my father i said dad please give me a sign i need help and i would say in an
00:35:42.740
instant a fly lands on the railing that i was leading against and it's this very particular fly
00:35:48.740
so it's not you know i say a fly for me and my family we know what it is and can point it out you
00:35:53.740
know but um it lands there and it would move around in a circle and look at me and stop move around in
00:36:00.120
a circle and stop and i filmed it on my phone and uh i was like i said hysterically crying and right
00:36:06.440
after i that fly flew away i said this is my this is it this is my sign and i called up a detox facility
00:36:12.320
and i said i need a bed as soon as possible and uh i went to treatment and i've been sober since