The Glenn Beck Program - Best of The Program ｜ Guests： Sean Hannity & Clay Travis ｜ 8⧸4⧸20

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the podcast. Today we go into the economy and what is going on with the economy

00:00:03.980 considering the pandemic. It's been an ugly process and it seems to be on the road to getting

00:00:09.120 worse. We talked to Sean Hannity. He's got a new book out called Live Free or Die. We discussed

00:00:13.360 that. Governor Kristi Noem from South Dakota. She's on the program and Clay Travis about the

00:00:18.900 wokeness of all sports right now, including the NBA and what is going on in China. Plus,

00:00:26.400 late breaking news of a massive explosion in Beirut. We'll get into that as well. You can

00:00:31.520 always go to the podcast and subscribe. All the episodes here are free and are also available

00:00:35.380 for Stew Does America. That's my show. It's available on blazetv.com slash Glenn as well.

00:00:41.260 Use the promo code Glenn if you want to save 10 bucks. You can go there. And I would also

00:00:44.720 encourage you to vote for Glenn for the Radio Hall of Fame. You can do that at radiovote.com.

00:00:50.620 This is the last week you can do it. One vote per email address. Radiovote.com. Here's the podcast.

00:00:56.400 Who's ready for a hard lockdown for the next six weeks, huh?

00:01:13.740 I can't wait. Who's ready?

00:01:19.560 Boy, Neil Kashkari, the president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, is calling for America

00:01:26.140 to go into a hard shutdown for at least a month, maybe six weeks to stop the spread of COVID,

00:01:33.060 arguing the U.S. government can afford it. Oh, cool. Can you believe that from a Fed chairman?

00:01:39.160 Oh, jeez. Yes. Yes. Yes. I can do. I can do, actually.

00:01:43.460 This was the Fed's idea. Remember, the Fed is the one that walked in to the Oval Office and said,

00:01:50.040 Mr. President, here's how we do it. And they had already modeled, strangely, a complete shutdown.

00:01:57.660 Wow. And they said, we'll have a V-shaped recovery. It will be great. Of course,

00:02:02.380 the V-shaped recovery has not happened, but they're saying that's because of the president.

00:02:08.340 He just didn't do it right. So now, Mr. Kashkari says, we got to really shut it down.

00:02:14.680 Yeah. For six more weeks. Shut everything down. Total lockdown of restaurants and bars and movie

00:02:20.740 theaters and any non-essential business. Absolutely everything. And then, once we get that case

00:02:27.300 countdown, so that our testing can take over, as well as our contact tracing, that will actually

00:02:35.720 be enough to control it afterwards. So just one more hard lockdown for a month and a half.

00:02:42.080 Okay. Just to finish off any of the businesses that are still open, we'll just finish those off.

00:02:47.740 All right. And then we'll just start a whole new thing in six weeks.

00:02:51.140 Okay. Yeah. You know who Kashkari is?

00:02:53.480 I can't remember, but he sounds really familiar.

00:02:57.740 Yeah. Okay. So he is Jamie Dimon's protege.

00:03:02.300 Okay. You might remember him from that.

00:03:04.800 Right. And wasn't he with some campaign?

00:03:07.580 No. No. He was the guy who oversaw TARP for the U.S. government.

00:03:12.380 Okay. Wow. Nice.

00:03:14.900 So he's the guy that gave us TARP and oversaw TARP. And now he's the chairman of the Federal

00:03:23.920 Reserve, strangely in Minneapolis, which is really fantastic. And he's, I mean, you know

00:03:30.980 what this is? This is the reset. The Federal Reserve wants to reset the entire globe.

00:03:37.960 They are, they're angling to be the central bank of the world. And they want to reset our

00:03:46.500 economy, our money. And it's, it's all out in the open. It's, there's no conspiracy about

00:03:53.440 it. In fact, the economic forum is having a, a big forum on this to, to put it all into

00:04:00.680 place in January, but they have to have the United States hobbled to be able to do it.

00:04:09.080 That's what's happening.

00:04:10.340 And this will hobble us. I mean, we're already hobbled. This just kind of puts us out of our

00:04:14.780 misery, doesn't it? Another six week lockdown. What, what happens to businesses? So many restaurants

00:04:20.820 have closed around us where, where we live. The three of us that I, I just can't believe

00:04:26.700 how many are gone permanently already. It's amazing. It's amazing. Our movie theater that's

00:04:32.080 near us still hasn't reopened. Uh, I mean, I don't, I don't know how you survive after

00:04:38.100 five months or six months of zero income. I don't know how that happens. You don't, right?

00:04:44.140 I mean, you don't, you're seeing now a lot of these businesses that at the beginning were

00:04:47.800 able to weather, uh, you know, the storm. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but like

00:04:51.840 I have, you know, an Instagram account where I just, you know, I basically follow a lot

00:04:55.100 of like local businesses and restaurants and little places that we go. And just every day

00:04:59.160 you turn the thing on, there's another one saying like, we tried really hard. We, we

00:05:02.660 lasted four months, but this is it. We're shutting our doors in a week. Yeah. It's really

00:05:06.340 freaking depressing. Terrible. Yeah. Because I mean, how long can you stay open when you're

00:05:10.860 just doing takeout? Even if they allow you to be open, I mean, nice restaurants, you're

00:05:16.140 not going to go take out. Uh, I mean, I have, but, uh, it's not going to happen very often.

00:05:20.880 Oh, I have. The food's just not as good when you get it home that way. And it would be

00:05:24.820 nice. I don't know if the government who was, you know, who decided to do all these

00:05:28.480 shutdowns would, I mean, it's, it's, it wasn't a mystery that this July 31st date was coming.

00:05:35.580 Was it? Did the calendar like switch? Was it like this big, like haze as to how many

00:05:40.380 weeks until July 31st? Now you're at July 31st, all these programs have run out. I guess

00:05:44.760 we're just going to see what happens. Yeah. We're just going to see what happens. Like

00:05:47.500 I'm not a big fan of spending money from the government, but when you, when the government

00:05:50.760 comes in and says, Hey, you guys are all going to shut down and they force it and they force

00:05:54.900 you to do it. This is more like a, you know, an, an eminent domain situation. They're just

00:05:59.160 taking your business for a certain amount of time. And that is very much in the constitution

00:06:03.020 that that would be a, an appropriate use of, of, of this sort of, uh, uh, spending. I don't

00:06:09.520 love it anyway, but still you can't screw every business owner out of their business

00:06:15.000 and then also drop the ball at the deadline. So now none of this money is there for them.

00:06:19.860 I, how dare you, they are not doing that. They are not doing that to all businesses.

00:06:25.000 They're the big businesses are totally fine. The big businesses, their stocks are going

00:06:30.500 up for strangely, no apparent reason other than the fed is printing money and buying those

00:06:37.740 stocks. So those companies can, uh, can continue. Amazon's never been better. Yeah,

00:06:43.140 they're doing fine. Well, Amazon is, Amazon is different. Amazon and anybody who is on the

00:06:48.840 internet like that, I'm talking about, you know, what about GE? GE is not something that

00:06:55.040 you buy on the internet, maybe a hairdryer here and there, but it's like, Oh, I'm going

00:06:59.980 to build an airplane. Why isn't GE suffering? GE stock is going up. Why? Because they bring

00:07:06.780 good things to life, right? Isn't that why? Right, right. Said Dr. Frankenstein. Uh, the, uh, the,

00:07:15.700 the fed is buying the stock market. The fed is bailing all of these people out. They are, uh, um,

00:07:24.360 they're bribing them. Basically they're bribing them. Look, you are going to survive. Just play ball

00:07:32.060 with us. You'll survive. And they're picking the winners and the losers. It's obscene. What

00:07:39.460 is, what is happening right now? It's absolutely obscene. And the ones who are going to pay the

00:07:44.720 biggest price are us. This is going to go down as the largest theft in the history of planet

00:07:52.200 earth. They have taken these small businesses, taken their livelihoods away, taken their, uh,

00:07:59.460 their wealth away. They have nothing left, nothing left. And are they getting the loans?

00:08:06.760 No, no, no. Is the fed opening up the coffers and making sure that they're fully financed?

00:08:12.920 No, no. Do you guys see the Yelp, uh, report that they put out about the restaurants in June,

00:08:18.600 they put out a report so that 41% of the restaurants on Yelp, uh, that, that were temporarily closed,

00:08:24.720 uh, are going to be permanent closures. 41%. I believe it. This month it's up to 55%.

00:08:30.160 Jeez. Oh man. 55% of all the restaurants on Yelp are not going, I mean, that's an incredible

00:08:35.720 number, right? Uh, and restaurants for whatever reason, it's just the most visible part of this.

00:08:42.020 And we all talk about restaurants, but there's bars. Oh my God. They're like those poor guys in

00:08:46.820 New Jersey who are trying desperately to do their business and keep getting arrested. They get their

00:08:52.040 business boarded up. They're not even in an outbreak zone right now. Kicked in the boards.

00:08:56.160 Right. And opened it back up. Yeah. And got arrested again. Uh-huh. I, I just, it's unbelievable.

00:09:01.900 That's amazing too, because there, that's an area where there's not even an ongoing outbreak.

00:09:06.640 Like they're still closing them down even when there's not anything going on. I, I, I, you know,

00:09:12.360 some of this is just, you can tell obviously just, you know, politically crazy governors grabbing

00:09:17.480 power and, and, and, no, it is, it is, it is the Democrats that know exactly what's going on. This is

00:09:24.800 a well orchestrated plan. It is look what it's doing. It's shoving people into corners where when

00:09:32.940 they're desperate, they either will just go along with any plan or they will rise up. Look what's

00:09:39.140 happening in Pinellas County, uh, right now. I think it, no, it's a Pinell County in Arizona.

00:09:44.600 The sheriff in Arizona has said, I'm just going to make a citizen posse and I'm allowing all the 0.95

00:09:51.840 residents to, uh, be deputized. What is that, Stu? What is that? That's something I've been saying

00:09:57.580 is going to come for a long, long time. What is it? You never let a crisis go to waste, right?

00:10:02.660 And they're definitely utilizing that philosophy here. Right. And this is the Bubba effect. This is

00:10:08.840 citizens with no recourse, no recourse. They're going to their, their sheriffs and the sheriffs are 0.99

00:10:17.460 doing right by the people, but there's two forms of justice. Now there's the justice that's going to

00:10:23.820 come from the out of control governor and the police force. And then those citizens who have been

00:10:29.860 deputized, uh, and, and they're, they're acting in the name of the sheriff and they're saying, Nope,

00:10:36.160 not around here. You're not going to be doing that around here. I mean, this is the makings of a civil

00:10:42.560 war. And, and I don't believe for a second that those people on the Uber left and those people

00:10:50.480 really connected those, those governors that are really, really connected. You, you, you can guarantee

00:10:57.980 that the governor and the mayor of Seattle and, uh, and what's her name in Michigan, uh, and Cuomo,

00:11:06.260 they know what this is really all about. You can't do this and expect people to behave themselves,

00:11:14.500 expect people just to take it. Oh, I, I bankrupt, you know, 50% of all of the businesses, uh, in these

00:11:21.780 small towns. Uh, they're going to be fine. There's, there's nothing, there's nothing that says that

00:11:27.580 you look at the, the, the doctors on what they're saying are, is happening to children,

00:11:34.660 to children. The CDC just came out and said, schools must open. So why aren't schools opening?

00:11:44.120 Why aren't schools opening the CDC? Let's let science dictate. They're saying you must open the

00:11:51.400 schools because there is a real mental health issue that is affecting all of our children.

00:12:00.220 Nobody seems to care about that. Why? And it's going to be so impossible. Like they're going to

00:12:04.160 be struggling through this in just bumbling around. Like there was already, they still opened up schools

00:12:09.360 in, I think it was in Indiana and already day two, they've got like, you know, a few kids testing

00:12:15.060 positive for COVID. So now they're shutting down again. I mean, think about what this is going to be.

00:12:19.780 If you're, if you have kids in school, which I do, it's going to be open and close and open

00:12:23.580 and close and open and close until they figure this out. And did you see the, uh, county commissioner

00:12:27.840 in, uh, Montgomery County, Maryland, who said that the public schools can, can reopen and,

00:12:34.740 and that you can go physically to school, but the private schools can't wait. Why would that be?

00:12:42.100 I'm sorry. I have an update on that. The governor overturned it. Yeah. The governor,

00:12:48.220 the governor yesterday, yesterday afternoon overturned it and said, screw you. Yeah. Yeah. 0.99

00:12:53.280 Thank goodness. I mean, what, what kind of world are you living in where that could have stood?

00:13:03.860 This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

00:13:10.460 Glenn, great to be with you. We have not talked in way too long. Uh, uh, and don't think I forgot

00:13:16.660 you still impact, you know, going at me pretty hard in 2016, by the way, let bygones be bygones. Uh,

00:13:24.920 I have nothing but enormous respect for you guys, all that you have accomplished and do accomplish.

00:13:29.500 And, you know, can I add one thing on this? If you don't mind point of privilege, you know,

00:13:36.560 it's funny. I totally, I totally get that. There were friends of mine and conservative friends of

00:13:42.660 mine that doubted that Donald Trump would governor as a conservative, totally get it. You know, he,

00:13:49.360 he donated to Democrats, he donated to Republicans, et cetera. Hillary was at his wedding or whatever,

00:13:54.700 but I've known him for 25 years. I, I felt like I was putting my entire credibility on the line.

00:14:00.300 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

00:14:13.340 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

00:14:32.440 the bandwagon as, as I have been that we are going down into really dangerous times. And I am amazed

00:14:40.840 how far we have slipped. Uh, if it wasn't for Donald Trump, I think we would be toast by now.

00:14:47.200 If Donald Trump loses this election, uh, I don't think America exists. Um, the, the coordination

00:14:55.180 in all of these things, um, that is happening around the world and here in America is outrageous,

00:15:04.680 obvious, and yet very few people are reporting on it. They'll never report on it. I, you know,

00:15:10.660 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

00:15:21.140 previous books, the last one, 10 years ago. I always hated my picture on a book. I hate it.

00:15:25.420 And I really put, wanted to get this right. It says in Latin, my working title writing in this

00:15:30.640 book was live free or America dies. And what you just said is a thousand percent right. It's all on

00:15:37.220 the line. There's a part of me that's scared to death in 91 days. If, if the stated Biden agenda

00:15:45.180 is implemented and that is, okay, now, now he's plagiarized even Bolshevik Bernie's, uh, socialist,

00:15:52.940 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, 0.89

00:16:05.280 coal. Uh, those are tens of millions of jobs, high paying career jobs for our fellow Americans.

00:16:10.420 And we finally became energy independent, independent and the world's largest oil

00:16:15.660 producer. That's huge. But on every single issue, everyone from the courts, you know,

00:16:22.440 Biden will raise taxes. It's amnesty. It's the United Sanctuary States of America. It's appeasement

00:16:28.660 like Barack and Joe did with the mullahs in Iran with 150 billion. Uh, there's been no greater friend 0.98

00:16:36.160 to Israel than Donald Trump. I sure, I don't even know what Joe's policies are. There'll be no vetting

00:16:41.280 of Biden the way people like me and you, you vetted Barack Obama. I vetted Barack Obama. We took a lot

00:16:48.480 of heat for vetting Barack Obama a lot. And, but the rest of the media wouldn't, the media is so corrupt

00:16:55.040 there. They are nothing but propaganda, all things, radical democratic socialist,

00:17:02.400 and they are cheering. They, they wake up every second of every day, hating this president that

00:17:09.580 let's go pre Corona virus. And if you want, we can talk about that, that created record low

00:17:14.840 unemployment that Joe and Barack never dreamed of creating. And the president has.

00:17:19.960 So, so, so, so we just talked about, um, on Yelp, 50% of the restaurants on Yelp are now gone

00:17:33.120 closed forever. Um, what is the plan? The, the federal reserve is saying that now we have to shut

00:17:40.920 down for another hard six weeks. Um, this is insanity, Sean. And I know the president knows that

00:17:47.980 wall street's doing well because they're being bailed out, uh, with their stocks by the federal

00:17:53.520 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

00:18:28.160 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.

00:18:40.960 Everybody got everything wrong. The medical, the experts got it wrong. The models were wrong.

00:18:46.660 And so based on the little, we knew because China lied to the world, this all could have been 0.67

00:18:51.720 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 1.00

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 0.90

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. 0.94

00:26:36.280 But if China pays you enough money, you'll shut up and dribble about much worse abuses that are going 0.93

00:26:41.080 on in their country. And frankly, I think the average American is up to their eyeballs and hypocrisy and 0.98

00:26:46.840 can't stand for it.

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. 0.77

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,

00:32:16.940 in fact, just played the games.

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 1.00

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

00:36:09.500 decisions that we made?

The Glenn Beck Program - August 04, 2020

Best of The Program ｜ Guests： Sean Hannity & Clay Travis ｜ 8⧸4⧸20

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