Best of The Program ｜ Guests： Sean Hannity & Clay Travis ｜ 8⧸4⧸20
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Summary
Today on the show, we talk to Sean Hannity about his new book, Live Free or Die, Governor Kristi Noem from South Dakota and Clay Travis about the wokeness of all sports right now, including the NBA and what is going on in China. Plus, late breaking news of a massive explosion in Beirut.
Transcript
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Welcome to the podcast. Today we go into the economy and what is going on with the economy
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considering the pandemic. It's been an ugly process and it seems to be on the road to getting
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worse. We talked to Sean Hannity. He's got a new book out called Live Free or Die. We discussed
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that. Governor Kristi Noem from South Dakota. She's on the program and Clay Travis about the
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wokeness of all sports right now, including the NBA and what is going on in China. Plus,
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late breaking news of a massive explosion in Beirut. We'll get into that as well. You can
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always go to the podcast and subscribe. All the episodes here are free and are also available
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for Stew Does America. That's my show. It's available on blazetv.com slash Glenn as well.
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Use the promo code Glenn if you want to save 10 bucks. You can go there. And I would also
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encourage you to vote for Glenn for the Radio Hall of Fame. You can do that at radiovote.com.
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This is the last week you can do it. One vote per email address. Radiovote.com. Here's the podcast.
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Who's ready for a hard lockdown for the next six weeks, huh?
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Boy, Neil Kashkari, the president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, is calling for America
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to go into a hard shutdown for at least a month, maybe six weeks to stop the spread of COVID,
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arguing the U.S. government can afford it. Oh, cool. Can you believe that from a Fed chairman?
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Oh, jeez. Yes. Yes. Yes. I can do. I can do, actually.
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This was the Fed's idea. Remember, the Fed is the one that walked in to the Oval Office and said,
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Mr. President, here's how we do it. And they had already modeled, strangely, a complete shutdown.
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Wow. And they said, we'll have a V-shaped recovery. It will be great. Of course,
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the V-shaped recovery has not happened, but they're saying that's because of the president.
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He just didn't do it right. So now, Mr. Kashkari says, we got to really shut it down.
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Yeah. For six more weeks. Shut everything down. Total lockdown of restaurants and bars and movie
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theaters and any non-essential business. Absolutely everything. And then, once we get that case
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countdown, so that our testing can take over, as well as our contact tracing, that will actually
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be enough to control it afterwards. So just one more hard lockdown for a month and a half.
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Okay. Just to finish off any of the businesses that are still open, we'll just finish those off.
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All right. And then we'll just start a whole new thing in six weeks.
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I can't remember, but he sounds really familiar.
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No. No. He was the guy who oversaw TARP for the U.S. government.
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So he's the guy that gave us TARP and oversaw TARP. And now he's the chairman of the Federal
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Reserve, strangely in Minneapolis, which is really fantastic. And he's, I mean, you know
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what this is? This is the reset. The Federal Reserve wants to reset the entire globe.
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They are, they're angling to be the central bank of the world. And they want to reset our
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economy, our money. And it's, it's all out in the open. It's, there's no conspiracy about
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it. In fact, the economic forum is having a, a big forum on this to, to put it all into
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place in January, but they have to have the United States hobbled to be able to do it.
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And this will hobble us. I mean, we're already hobbled. This just kind of puts us out of our
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misery, doesn't it? Another six week lockdown. What, what happens to businesses? So many restaurants
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have closed around us where, where we live. The three of us that I, I just can't believe
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how many are gone permanently already. It's amazing. It's amazing. Our movie theater that's
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near us still hasn't reopened. Uh, I mean, I don't, I don't know how you survive after
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five months or six months of zero income. I don't know how that happens. You don't, right?
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I mean, you don't, you're seeing now a lot of these businesses that at the beginning were
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able to weather, uh, you know, the storm. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but like
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I have, you know, an Instagram account where I just, you know, I basically follow a lot
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of like local businesses and restaurants and little places that we go. And just every day
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you turn the thing on, there's another one saying like, we tried really hard. We, we
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lasted four months, but this is it. We're shutting our doors in a week. Yeah. It's really
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freaking depressing. Terrible. Yeah. Because I mean, how long can you stay open when you're
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just doing takeout? Even if they allow you to be open, I mean, nice restaurants, you're
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not going to go take out. Uh, I mean, I have, but, uh, it's not going to happen very often.
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Oh, I have. The food's just not as good when you get it home that way. And it would be
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nice. I don't know if the government who was, you know, who decided to do all these
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shutdowns would, I mean, it's, it's, it wasn't a mystery that this July 31st date was coming.
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Was it? Did the calendar like switch? Was it like this big, like haze as to how many
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weeks until July 31st? Now you're at July 31st, all these programs have run out. I guess
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we're just going to see what happens. Yeah. We're just going to see what happens. Like
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I'm not a big fan of spending money from the government, but when you, when the government
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comes in and says, Hey, you guys are all going to shut down and they force it and they force
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you to do it. This is more like a, you know, an, an eminent domain situation. They're just
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taking your business for a certain amount of time. And that is very much in the constitution
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that that would be a, an appropriate use of, of, of this sort of, uh, uh, spending. I don't
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love it anyway, but still you can't screw every business owner out of their business
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and then also drop the ball at the deadline. So now none of this money is there for them.
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I, how dare you, they are not doing that. They are not doing that to all businesses.
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They're the big businesses are totally fine. The big businesses, their stocks are going
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up for strangely, no apparent reason other than the fed is printing money and buying those
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stocks. So those companies can, uh, can continue. Amazon's never been better. Yeah,
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they're doing fine. Well, Amazon is, Amazon is different. Amazon and anybody who is on the
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internet like that, I'm talking about, you know, what about GE? GE is not something that
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you buy on the internet, maybe a hairdryer here and there, but it's like, Oh, I'm going
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to build an airplane. Why isn't GE suffering? GE stock is going up. Why? Because they bring
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good things to life, right? Isn't that why? Right, right. Said Dr. Frankenstein. Uh, the, uh, the,
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the fed is buying the stock market. The fed is bailing all of these people out. They are, uh, um,
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they're bribing them. Basically they're bribing them. Look, you are going to survive. Just play ball
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with us. You'll survive. And they're picking the winners and the losers. It's obscene. What
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is, what is happening right now? It's absolutely obscene. And the ones who are going to pay the
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biggest price are us. This is going to go down as the largest theft in the history of planet
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earth. They have taken these small businesses, taken their livelihoods away, taken their, uh,
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their wealth away. They have nothing left, nothing left. And are they getting the loans?
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No, no, no. Is the fed opening up the coffers and making sure that they're fully financed?
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No, no. Do you guys see the Yelp, uh, report that they put out about the restaurants in June,
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they put out a report so that 41% of the restaurants on Yelp, uh, that, that were temporarily closed,
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uh, are going to be permanent closures. 41%. I believe it. This month it's up to 55%.
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Jeez. Oh man. 55% of all the restaurants on Yelp are not going, I mean, that's an incredible
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number, right? Uh, and restaurants for whatever reason, it's just the most visible part of this.
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And we all talk about restaurants, but there's bars. Oh my God. They're like those poor guys in
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New Jersey who are trying desperately to do their business and keep getting arrested. They get their
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business boarded up. They're not even in an outbreak zone right now. Kicked in the boards.
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Right. And opened it back up. Yeah. And got arrested again. Uh-huh. I, I just, it's unbelievable.
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That's amazing too, because there, that's an area where there's not even an ongoing outbreak.
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Like they're still closing them down even when there's not anything going on. I, I, I, you know,
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some of this is just, you can tell obviously just, you know, politically crazy governors grabbing
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power and, and, and, no, it is, it is, it is the Democrats that know exactly what's going on. This is
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a well orchestrated plan. It is look what it's doing. It's shoving people into corners where when
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they're desperate, they either will just go along with any plan or they will rise up. Look what's
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happening in Pinellas County, uh, right now. I think it, no, it's a Pinell County in Arizona.
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The sheriff in Arizona has said, I'm just going to make a citizen posse and I'm allowing all the
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residents to, uh, be deputized. What is that, Stu? What is that? That's something I've been saying
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is going to come for a long, long time. What is it? You never let a crisis go to waste, right?
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And they're definitely utilizing that philosophy here. Right. And this is the Bubba effect. This is
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citizens with no recourse, no recourse. They're going to their, their sheriffs and the sheriffs are
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doing right by the people, but there's two forms of justice. Now there's the justice that's going to
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come from the out of control governor and the police force. And then those citizens who have been
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deputized, uh, and, and they're, they're acting in the name of the sheriff and they're saying, Nope,
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not around here. You're not going to be doing that around here. I mean, this is the makings of a civil
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war. And, and I don't believe for a second that those people on the Uber left and those people
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really connected those, those governors that are really, really connected. You, you, you can guarantee
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that the governor and the mayor of Seattle and, uh, and what's her name in Michigan, uh, and Cuomo,
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they know what this is really all about. You can't do this and expect people to behave themselves,
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expect people just to take it. Oh, I, I bankrupt, you know, 50% of all of the businesses, uh, in these
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small towns. Uh, they're going to be fine. There's, there's nothing, there's nothing that says that
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you look at the, the, the doctors on what they're saying are, is happening to children,
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to children. The CDC just came out and said, schools must open. So why aren't schools opening?
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Why aren't schools opening the CDC? Let's let science dictate. They're saying you must open the
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schools because there is a real mental health issue that is affecting all of our children.
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Nobody seems to care about that. Why? And it's going to be so impossible. Like they're going to
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be struggling through this in just bumbling around. Like there was already, they still opened up schools
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in, I think it was in Indiana and already day two, they've got like, you know, a few kids testing
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positive for COVID. So now they're shutting down again. I mean, think about what this is going to be.
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If you're, if you have kids in school, which I do, it's going to be open and close and open
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and close and open and close until they figure this out. And did you see the, uh, county commissioner
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in, uh, Montgomery County, Maryland, who said that the public schools can, can reopen and,
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and that you can go physically to school, but the private schools can't wait. Why would that be?
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I'm sorry. I have an update on that. The governor overturned it. Yeah. The governor,
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the governor yesterday, yesterday afternoon overturned it and said, screw you. Yeah. Yeah.
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Thank goodness. I mean, what, what kind of world are you living in where that could have stood?
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Glenn, great to be with you. We have not talked in way too long. Uh, uh, and don't think I forgot
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you still impact, you know, going at me pretty hard in 2016, by the way, let bygones be bygones. Uh,
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I have nothing but enormous respect for you guys, all that you have accomplished and do accomplish.
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And, you know, can I add one thing on this? If you don't mind point of privilege, you know,
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it's funny. I totally, I totally get that. There were friends of mine and conservative friends of
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mine that doubted that Donald Trump would governor as a conservative, totally get it. You know, he,
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he donated to Democrats, he donated to Republicans, et cetera. Hillary was at his wedding or whatever,
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but I've known him for 25 years. I, I felt like I was putting my entire credibility on the line.
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When I told him that I, I, I can understand on paper why people would think, Oh, is he really pro
00:14:06.700
life? Is he really pro Israel? Is he really, um, committed to originalists on the court? And I think
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it's come true. Um, and we had a slight disagreement, but you've always been so kind to me. Let me use
00:14:18.500
your studio for how long, uh, for free, uh, just amazingly generous. So thank you. And thanks.
00:14:24.260
I'd like to reclaim my time, please. I'm reclaiming my time, please. Sean, um, you, you have been on
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the bandwagon as, as I have been that we are going down into really dangerous times. And I am amazed
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how far we have slipped. Uh, if it wasn't for Donald Trump, I think we would be toast by now.
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If Donald Trump loses this election, uh, I don't think America exists. Um, the, the coordination
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in all of these things, um, that is happening around the world and here in America is outrageous,
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obvious, and yet very few people are reporting on it. They'll never report on it. I, you know,
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I use the line almost daily. Donald Trump cured cancer that they would want to impeach him.
00:15:16.840
You know, at the bottom of the book, Glenn, and I, this is, I always hated, I only, I did three
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previous books, the last one, 10 years ago. I always hated my picture on a book. I hate it.
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And I really put, wanted to get this right. It says in Latin, my working title writing in this
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book was live free or America dies. And what you just said is a thousand percent right. It's all on
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the line. There's a part of me that's scared to death in 91 days. If, if the stated Biden agenda
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is implemented and that is, okay, now, now he's plagiarized even Bolshevik Bernie's, uh, socialist,
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socialism, almost word for word. He's promising trillions of dollars to AOC's insane green new
00:16:00.180
deal. And the process will also eliminate the lifeblood of the world's economy, oil, gas,
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coal. Uh, those are tens of millions of jobs, high paying career jobs for our fellow Americans.
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And we finally became energy independent, independent and the world's largest oil
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producer. That's huge. But on every single issue, everyone from the courts, you know,
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Biden will raise taxes. It's amnesty. It's the United Sanctuary States of America. It's appeasement
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like Barack and Joe did with the mullahs in Iran with 150 billion. Uh, there's been no greater friend
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to Israel than Donald Trump. I sure, I don't even know what Joe's policies are. There'll be no vetting
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of Biden the way people like me and you, you vetted Barack Obama. I vetted Barack Obama. We took a lot
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of heat for vetting Barack Obama a lot. And, but the rest of the media wouldn't, the media is so corrupt
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there. They are nothing but propaganda, all things, radical democratic socialist,
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and they are cheering. They, they wake up every second of every day, hating this president that
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let's go pre Corona virus. And if you want, we can talk about that, that created record low
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unemployment that Joe and Barack never dreamed of creating. And the president has.
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So, so, so, so we just talked about, um, on Yelp, 50% of the restaurants on Yelp are now gone
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closed forever. Um, what is the plan? The, the federal reserve is saying that now we have to shut
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down for another hard six weeks. Um, this is insanity, Sean. And I know the president knows that
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wall street's doing well because they're being bailed out, uh, with their stocks by the federal
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reserve. Where is the president? Uh, and how is he going to help the small business person who is
00:18:00.900
really struggling? Listen, small business is the heart and soul of the country. You, we, it cannot be
00:18:09.520
an option. Now the CDC, about a week and a half ago, put out their latest restrictions and what they
00:18:15.380
said, and anecdotally, because I live in, I say this affectionately for Adam Schiff, when this was
00:18:22.480
a Schiff show, the epicenter of this virus in New York. And I was here and I'm watching it. I remember
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within like 36 hours, 18,000 new cases in Long Island, talking to my friends, working in hospitals,
00:18:34.180
very bad. The country demanded the shutdown. Okay. We, nobody knew what we were dealing with.
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Everybody got everything wrong. The medical, the experts got it wrong. The models were wrong.
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And so based on the little, we knew because China lied to the world, this all could have been
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prevented, which drives me insane. I'm so angry, but to go to a shutdown would be a disaster. Now
00:18:58.280
we've learned certain things. We've learned like, for example, what DeSantis did and he was getting
00:19:03.560
hammered because they have the second wave down there, but he went in immediately and mobilized
00:19:10.080
every single agency in the state of Florida. And they protected the people in the villages,
00:19:14.700
every nursing home, every long-term care facility. If you look at Florida or Texas, their total death
00:19:20.540
toll doesn't match just one of the worst days in New York, because we learned we've got to protect
00:19:26.780
the elderly, compromised immune systems, those that have underlying conditions. Okay. So the question
00:19:33.300
is about the economy. Now, if you can't shut it down, the CDC says, if you wear masks four to six weeks,
00:19:39.580
we will eradicate the virus. Um, I've been an early mask advocate, because anecdotally, Glenn,
00:19:47.260
I was going out every week, once or twice a week to my local grocery store, my drug store,
00:19:52.840
every single week, I'd see the same people. They were all in masks. They had the plastic at the
00:19:57.900
cashier, although I do the, my own checkout. And I, every, I got to be friends with this one kid,
00:20:04.500
you know, who stocked the shelves every week. Now remember this too, if the economy ever shut down
00:20:09.640
and farmers didn't farm, packers didn't pack and truckers didn't truck. And guys like this young
00:20:14.300
kid, Robert, I put them on my radio show because I'd see him every week, like everybody else in that
00:20:19.260
store. And every week I'd say, has anyone gotten this virus? The answer was no. Like, okay. Same with
00:20:25.980
my local drug store. I have two actually, Rite Aid and CBS. Same thing in both of them. Nobody got it.
00:20:31.720
They wore the mask. So I've been an advocate of the mask. The CDC is saying that's the case.
00:20:36.900
Now I'm not for mandatory anything. I I'm a freedom guy. But for me, I choose, and I've said
00:20:44.240
this, I choose to wear it for, because my, my parents are long gone. My, my grandparents are
00:20:50.320
long gone. But if I ever got it, I wouldn't want to get somebody else's parents or grandparents sick.
00:20:55.840
And the other thing, selfishly, Glenn, I want to go to a baseball game. I want to go to a football
00:21:01.160
game. I want life to turn to normal. And we can't do it. You have temperature checks when you walk
00:21:07.660
in. They actually have these turnstiles, Glenn, where you can walk through. It takes everybody's
00:21:11.800
temperature record time. Have a high temperature. You can't come in today. Here's a ticket for another
00:21:16.500
day. It would just, just cash this in. So for restaurants, it's harder. I, I'm a little worried.
00:21:22.380
I have not gotten a definitive answer about whether or not it, if this can get an air conditioning
00:21:27.660
systems. If we do that coupled with, and again, this is only, this is going to be a short period
00:21:34.560
of time that Americans, I would ask them voluntarily to do it because we are, we've made so much progress
00:21:41.280
with a therapeutics. You have Moderna, you have AstraZeneca, you know, we're now in final phase
00:21:47.140
trials of a vaccine. And then by the way, there may be people that don't want to take it. Nobody
00:21:52.780
should get forced to take that. They don't want to take it. They shouldn't have to. And, but the fact
00:21:58.360
that we've been able to break down the sequence of the virus in like six weeks and could have a
00:22:04.100
potential vaccine in nine months would be mind blowing, a mind blowing historical breakthrough of
00:22:10.760
monumental proportions because this is the worst pandemics in 1918. So that would help. Now, can
00:22:17.140
we get all of those businesses back up and running again? I doubt it. You know, you talk, my father was
00:22:23.540
a waiter on weekends, you know, trying to send me and my sisters to Catholic schools. I stay in touch.
00:22:30.540
I only go to like four restaurants and I'm best friends with all the guys. I've gotten to know them
00:22:35.120
all. I've stayed in touch with all of them throughout the pandemic, tried to help them, just mentioned
00:22:40.640
their names on, on air. My security guy goes, are you stupid? And I said, I care more about my
00:22:46.940
friends. I'm not worried about people knowing I go to my favorite restaurants. So it's tough.
00:22:52.020
They've adapted every single restaurant. Now it's an outdoor seating, usually in Long Island, for
00:22:57.840
example. They also take out, drive up, take out. That has been booming. And I urge people, you know
00:23:06.620
what, even though you can't go out to your favorite restaurant, just go, you know, go anyway, go pick
00:23:11.000
up food, support your local community, your local business. So that they're there for you. And I think
00:23:16.660
it's going to be therapeutics. I think it's going to be a little bit of a discipline by the American
00:23:21.680
people. I do like mass social distancing. You don't want to get somebody's mom or grandma sick.
00:23:27.000
And I think we're over this, you know, sometime in the fall, my guess, I think pretty, I feel pretty
00:23:35.420
certain, very optimistic about that. And that would be American goodness, greatness and innovation and
00:23:41.760
ingenuity, you know, at its best. That's what we love about freedom, Glenn. That's what Pat and
00:23:46.460
still love about freedom. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:23:56.260
Clay Travis, an author, radio show host, lawyer, TV analyst, and founder and lead writer of Outkick.
00:24:04.200
I mean, the guy is hogging all of the jobs in America. And it's pissing me off. Clay Travis,
00:24:12.680
welcome to the program. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you guys? Appreciate you.
00:24:16.460
having me. You bet. You bet. Now, I know when you think sports, you immediately think Glenn Beck.
00:24:23.480
But there are some people in the listening audience that are not as good at sports talk as I am,
00:24:30.460
of course. So feel free to talk down to me. Clay, I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things.
00:24:37.320
First of all, these companies that are lecturing us, ESPN, the NBA, that are lecturing us,
00:24:46.460
about how to live our lives and social justice. And then we find out NBA China, the academies over
00:24:55.960
there, they were horror shows, and everybody knew about it. Yeah, it's in the height of hypocrisy. I think
00:25:06.300
for people out there who aren't aware, the NBA in particular wants to brand itself as a socially
00:25:12.960
justice-laden league. And they want to convince everybody that if you're not supporting the NBA,
00:25:20.080
you're a horrible human being. And they've put social justice messages on their jerseys. They put
00:25:25.920
it literally on the court. Nobody is standing for the national anthem. Every single game, it's a triple
00:25:33.360
header there of social justice activism. Yet, simultaneously, they are cashing checks for hundreds
00:25:41.160
of millions or billions of dollars from China. And what I'm sure you agree with me is the closest thing
00:25:48.120
to modern Nazism. I know it's a communist-based government. But if you were trying to analogize to modern
00:25:55.020
society, look, they're aggressively taking over Hong Kong. They want Taiwan, the South China Sea.
00:26:01.960
And certainly, they're pulling books literally out of libraries. They are fundamentally opposed
00:26:06.960
to basic human rights, the First Amendment, to religious freedom. And they have concentration
00:26:11.240
camps. That sounds very similar to the authoritarianism that we saw from Nazi Germany.
00:26:17.160
And so, I think what I'm asking, and what many people out there who are reasonably intelligent are
00:26:22.040
asking is, wait a minute, how can you simultaneously lecture America and try to tear down American values
00:26:30.020
while bending the knee to China? You say, if we shut up and dribble, it's racist in America.
00:26:36.280
But if China pays you enough money, you'll shut up and dribble about much worse abuses that are going
00:26:41.080
on in their country. And frankly, I think the average American is up to their eyeballs and hypocrisy and
00:26:47.620
So, what do you think about the ratings that are just tanking right now? I heard that last time
00:26:55.760
that people were sick of it and the ratings were going down, but it didn't seem to be actually
00:27:00.760
accurate. This time, I just read that NBA and Major League Baseball ratings are in the tank.
00:27:08.140
Is that true? And is this happening because people are sick of it?
00:27:12.680
Well, so, there's a fascinating sort of interplay that's going on right now. So,
00:27:17.720
for people who haven't been paying attention, we are dealing with the wildest August of sports that
00:27:23.400
we've ever seen. They start at noon Eastern and go till midnight every day in the NBA, the NHL,
00:27:30.480
Major League Baseball, and golf as well. And the storyline so far has been there's a huge pent-up
00:27:36.700
demand for sports to return. And initially, there is a massive blip.
00:27:41.820
We saw it with NASCAR. We saw it with Major League Baseball. We saw it with UFC. We saw it with PGA-related
00:27:48.040
events. NBA didn't go up. In fact, the NBA actually went down a little bit on averages right out of the
00:27:56.360
gates. And since then, the numbers have continued to decline. So, whereas every other league in
00:28:03.320
particular saw this massive uptake in interest, the NBA has been trending below their average season
00:28:10.640
interest before they ever shut down at all. For people like me, what that means, I think it's
00:28:17.060
because of the politics. Look, there are very few people, I believe, you gain by deciding to be
00:28:23.160
political in the world of sports. By which I mean, there are very few people who say, oh, I'm not going
00:28:28.480
to watch this sport because there isn't enough politics mixed in. There's very few people who say
00:28:35.420
that. Most people, Glenn, they want to get a beer, they want to kick their feet up, and they want to
00:28:40.300
escape the serious things in life. That's why they watch sports, right? They don't want to watch Fox
00:28:45.280
News or MSNBC or CNN or local news or whatever else. They don't want to think about the coronavirus.
00:28:52.780
They want to just have a beer, kick their feet up, and escape the serious things in life. For a very
00:28:57.380
long time, back in the day when everybody bought newspapers, the sports section was called the toy
00:29:02.640
chest of life, right? Even as an adult, you'd feel a little bit better as you open the sports page
00:29:07.860
because it's a recitation of men's successes, whereas very often the rest of the newspaper is
00:29:13.800
a recitation of men's failures, right? I believe that the people that you are gaining are minuscule
00:29:21.480
to non-existent by being political and that you're losing a ton. My argument has been, Glenn, that that's
00:29:27.740
because many people out there think of the average NBA viewer as a 16-year-old on Instagram.
00:29:34.880
In reality, the average NBA viewer is a 55-year-old guy in the Midwest, and that guy might well have
00:29:42.460
voted for Donald Trump. There are millions of people, if not tens of millions, that overlap
00:29:47.440
between NBA fans who may be Republican or have voted for Donald Trump. And so when you're telling
00:29:54.360
those people, hey, you're awful human beings, well, why in the world would I want to support
00:29:59.860
your league with my free time when there are a lot of other things that I could choose to do instead?
00:30:05.540
It's interesting, Clay. I mean, this is the United States of America, and I've always kind of been
00:30:09.200
in the opinion that we're going to put up with a lot of stuff to watch sports. I mean, as an Eagles
00:30:14.520
fan, if Carson Wentz joins ISIS tomorrow, I'm probably still watching.
00:30:17.740
But there is a limit, right? And I feel like, just watching the NBA the past few days,
00:30:24.120
I mean, the limit, it's constantly in your face. Every interview is about what they think about
00:30:28.860
the national anthem. It's as if these games mean absolutely nothing, and that is not a way to sell
00:30:34.160
your sport. Well, here's the larger context. People say like, hey, you need to use your platform
00:30:40.460
to advance better causes and all these different things. What I said on my radio show this morning,
00:30:46.080
and I host the nationwide Fox Sports Radio morning show was, I said, hey, you know,
00:30:51.260
murders are up, according to yesterday's front page Wall Street Journal, 24% in the 50 largest
00:30:56.680
cities in this country. I think there's a strong argument to be made that the protests in the NBA
00:31:03.620
aren't just alienating viewers. I think you can make an argument that they are making America less safe
00:31:10.020
for the people that they claim that they care about the most, because there are hundreds,
00:31:15.460
if not thousands of people who are dying in inner cities and in cities in America today,
00:31:21.740
because the NBA and other sports leagues have effectively, whether they want to acknowledge
00:31:26.440
it directly or not, decided to demonize law enforcement and make the police the enemy of
00:31:32.820
their league and the enemy of their country. When in reality, we never talk about the tens of
00:31:39.400
thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives that police save every single year in this country.
00:31:46.420
And so when you don't let police do their jobs, because you're arguing they're all awful human
00:31:52.280
beings based on the actions of a handful that deserve to be prosecuted, I think you can make an
00:31:58.680
argument that not only is the NBA making it worse for themselves and their own sport, which is at least
00:32:05.840
a business and people can respond to it. I think there's a strong argument that the NBA is actually
00:32:10.760
making things worse in America right now and leading to more deaths than there would be if they had,
00:32:20.080
So how does this how does this play out? I mean, when you're looking at this, I mean, I think isn't
00:32:25.700
Drew Brees is still apologizing this morning. He's still behind a microphone apologizing.
00:32:31.260
Uh, when you have people just scared out of their wits, that they're going to lose everything if
00:32:39.120
they don't abide, how do you get this to be changed? I mean, what happens from here?
00:32:45.500
I, I believe in markets, right? I'm a capitalist. I know that sometimes that's a bad word to use in
00:32:51.220
America today. I believe that that ultimately pocketbook decisions dictate everything, right?
00:32:58.920
And so, uh, what we're doing at OutKick is we're throwing punches back. We're like the only people
00:33:05.300
out there are like, man, I like sports, but I've lost my, you know, sort of, uh, sort of
00:33:09.220
ballywick there. You can go read OutKick and you can listen to us and we're throwing punches back at
00:33:14.380
what we think are bad arguments. But yesterday I had one of my partners at OutKick.com, Jason
00:33:19.460
Whitlock on with me, who's fantastic. I think, I think the most talented sports writer in America,
00:33:23.960
and he's got a whale of a column, uh, that's up on our site today about George Floyd and, uh, and,
00:33:29.380
and the challenges that is brought to bear on sports and some of the poor decisions that are
00:33:33.240
being made. Uh, but he said, and I think this is true. And I think it's not just true for sports
00:33:37.340
writers. There's a lot of people out there who a hundred percent disagree with the direction that
00:33:42.740
sports are going, even in our sports media industry. But they're like, man, I got a job that
00:33:48.100
pays me 75 or $80,000 a year. I got a kid in college. I got a kid that, uh, that I'm
00:33:53.780
hoping to put in college sometime soon. And it's just not worth me rocking the boat to point out
00:33:58.860
that I disagree when we're in such a universe now, where if you have the wrong opinion, you lose your
00:34:04.120
job. So I think what's important is one, everybody out there listening, make their own decision on a
00:34:10.120
day-to-day basis about how they spend their free time based on whether they feel like they are being
00:34:14.680
respected or not. Uh, and whether they getting their dollar of enjoyment out of it or not. But two,
00:34:19.980
I think you need to support people who are throwing punches back so that there becomes more
00:34:24.880
of a marketplace idea in the world of sports. Glenn, I'll give you an example. Uh, one of the
00:34:29.140
kids who stood up when I say kid, cause he's a young guy, uh, was a, uh, was a guy named, uh,
00:34:34.320
last name Isaac. Right. Uh, and, uh, he's an Orlando magic player, very religious stood up for the
00:34:41.420
national anthem and gave a great answer about why he did. So the next day, unfortunately, he tore his ACL
00:34:48.680
playing for the Orlando magic. Jonathan Isaac is his name. That same day, ESPN, one of their national
00:34:56.240
radio shows put up a poll on Twitter. Was it funny that the guy who didn't stand for the national
00:35:03.580
anthem tore his ACL? Well, they would never have done that. If Colin Kaepernick had torn his ACL
00:35:10.300
after dealing, it's become cool in the sports media to ridicule people. If they have different
00:35:17.480
political opinions than you deem to be acceptable. And that is basically anything other than far
00:35:23.600
left wing. Uh, I think that's alienating a huge portion of the American sporting public. And as
00:35:29.380
a result, we're not having an actual marketplace of ideas, but I think we need to fight back. Um,
00:35:34.460
and, uh, and I think the great thing about being a capitalist and the great thing about markets is
00:35:38.780
I'm not really a boycott guy, but I am of the belief that if you watch a television show and you
00:35:44.060
ultimately, even if you used to enjoy watching it, if the show is not very good anymore, go find
00:35:48.920
something that's better. If you're a sports fan and you're watching sports and you're like, eh,
00:35:53.880
you know what? I'm not getting as much enjoyment out of this as I used to go watch something else,
00:35:58.240
go golf yourself, go play a sport yourself. And ultimately when the dollars dry up and when the
00:36:04.760
audience dries up, everybody's going to take a step back and say, man, what were we thinking with the