Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Sheriff Mike Smith & Kelly Shackelford
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Summary
Glenn Beck talks to a sheriff who is dealing with a prosecutor who is not living up to his end of the bargain when it comes to stopping crime. We also hear from a lawyer who helps us go through not only the cases that have been cited, but also the ones that are right around the corner.
Transcript
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Welcome to the program. Today, we talked to a sheriff who's trying to figure out how to deal
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with a prosecutor that is not exactly living up to his end of the bargain when it comes to
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stopping crime. We also are in the middle of Supreme Court time, which means that during
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hour two of this show, and this goes on for a couple more weeks, there are days where the
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Supreme Court decides they're going to release some opinions, and we got a bunch of them today.
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Today, we're going to go through that. It kind of happens live on the air during this show,
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so don't miss it if you can listen to it live, but that's what you're going to hear
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part of the discussion today, all the Supreme Court stuff that comes down.
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And then also, we talked to Kelly Shackelford, who helps us go through not only the cases that have
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been cited, but also the ones that are right around the corner. What do they mean to us and
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the future of this country? It's a huge topic right now, and we also go into the economy as well,
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which continues to burn. We'll get into that today on the podcast.
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Holy cow. Today, the Fed is looking at raising the interest rate three quarters of a point. That's
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You're listening to The Best of the Glenn Beck Program.
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This is the Glenn Beck Program. I want to talk to you about an experience I had last night
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here in just a couple of towns down from my ranch. I gave a speech on Flag Day. It was amazing.
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Every year, this town has a flag day ceremony, and people come to it. There were about a thousand
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people, maybe about 800 people there yesterday, and they did this really moving ceremony. And
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then I walk out and I talked to them. The first thing I said was, you have to know how unique you
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are. I'm not sure how many towns across America are having a flag day free. Hey, everybody come to the
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high school. I mean, it felt like it was in the Music Man for a while. It was amazing. But in talking
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to people before the event, I really got the sense that people are changing and are very concerned
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because, well, let me just talk to the politicians. Look, more and more, it seems like there are two
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kinds of politicians, and there aren't. There's a big fat middle, but they're not doing much. And it
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seems like your choice is the burn it down group or the what fire group. If the what fire group is
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afraid of the burn it down group, you haven't seen anything yet because the left is wanting to burn it
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down. They just do it wrapped in, you know, in crazy words that make you go, oh, no, no, seriously,
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they just said they loved America. The burn it down people love America many times love America
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too, but they think burn it down. And that's the worst idea ever. But unless you stop saying what fire
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and you actually see what's going on, the burn it down people are going to win
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because it's happening now in our small towns. It is happening in red state America. Yesterday,
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I told you about a county that is as red as they come. And yet there is a prosecuting attorney
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that is changing things not only in his county, but also changing really. I mean, I talked to the
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sheriff up here and he was concerned. You know, I don't know how many counties away about this other
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sheriff, you know, like two hours away. He said this guy is influential and he is changing the way law
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enforcement is happening. The sheriff for Utah County, one of the most conservative counties
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in the country. Mike Smith is with us now. Hello, Mike. How are you? Good morning. How are you doing?
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Well, I'm good. I mean, I'm I'm a little concerned because I think this I'm using your county as an
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example of what's happening all across the country where you don't need Soros coming in and buying
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everything up. Some Republicans are doing it themselves. Tell me why Utah County of all places
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is beginning to look a lot like San Francisco. Yeah, and I'm that concerns me as well. That's a
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that's a really scary statement and sad statement for Utah County because that's not us.
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And recently we've had a prosecutor take office who who brings these ideals in that that I agree
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with you. They are Soros based ideas. They're failed. They're failed programs that we've seen over and
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over again in large Democratic cities that we you know, they use them. Crime rates go up and some for
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some reason our prosecutor believes that if he brings them here to Utah County, he's going to have a
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different result. And he just isn't. What is the feeling of the community right now as they see
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this going on? You know, I can tell you with law enforcement, it's demoralizing. You know, our
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officers are out. They're working hard for their community. They are there for their citizens. They
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they love they love their communities. They want to serve them. They want to help them. They they work
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tirelessly to to to bring crime and to investigate these things. And then they fall on the lap of the
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prosecutor and nothing happens. And it's demoralizing. And we see victims that are re victimized through
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these programs. You know, as you look at, you know, Utah County and you look at the Republican Party,
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and we are very largely Republicans. You know, you look at the Republican platform and the platform itself
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says swift and certain punishments with just inappropriate penalties are essential deterrence
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to crime. And victim rights are always superior, superior to criminals rights. And we have a Utah
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County attorney who doesn't follow that platform yet. He he runs on it. He he is not a Republican.
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We've seen over the past 20 years from the 90s, or the 30 years, I guess 90s to the early, you know,
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pre COVID 2020s, a real drop in violent crime. But since at least the last couple of years,
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we've seen that totally reverse and it has gone up. What what is the cause about it? And what can we do
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to stop it? You know, there's a there's a ton of things out there that you can say is the cause
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about it. But to stop it, I think everybody needs to be engaged. You know, as we look at law enforcement,
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you see this movement across the nation. And it really is a Soros movement, you know, that this
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all cops are bad. And we're seeing it here in Utah County, we're seeing a county attorney who keeps,
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you know, pointing a finger at law enforcement saying they're the problem, demoralize law enforcement,
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you know, there's there's a reason why they're doing that. So for me, I look at the at the
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situation, you look at our community, and you've got really a small number of law enforcement
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compared to, you know, the citizens that they're trying to serve. And so for me, the answer is,
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we're all on the same team here. Let's work together. As citizens, law enforcement, we we are
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begging for you to be part of our team to help combat crime.
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Sheriff, I really get the the impression that the people are on your side and on the side of the
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cops. But these activists and you don't need George Soros, when you got somebody like David Levitt,
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you've got real problems because he's he's got a family name. He's one of these guys like in Texas,
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we have the Bushes. He's one of these guys with the name. And so everybody's like, Oh, I know that
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family, or I know those names. And they're not paying attention to what he's doing. And he's got
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a good shell game going on as his press conferences, he says, Oh, no, we, you know, we got rid of the
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special victims unit, which is, you know, on sex crimes and abuse and everything else, the really
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nasty stuff. We got rid of that, because we found an easier way to do it. You you see that what I've
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heard, you have never had cartel members in your county. And you have them now and people aren't
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afraid because they're watching what he's doing in the office. Is all that true?
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It is, you know, we look at the SVU unit, and he did dismantle it. He, you know, we. So the part of
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it that I guess is a little untrue is, as a as law enforcement, we still have an SVU unit, you know,
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we're pressing forward, we push out to our, our employees, our officers, you do your job, do your
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job, regardless of what David Levitt chooses to do, you do your job, and he can answer to the people for
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his inaction. So we push forward, he's pulled his prosecutors out of it. You know, it was it's a
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model that's, that's used across the nation. It, it, it is a model that works. And he, he pulled
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these prosecutors out. It used to be when you had a sex crime, they would from the minute this crime
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was reported, and a prosecutor was involved all the way through the process. So that when these came to
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court, we didn't have a prosecutor who is opening up a folder and looking in the case for the first
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time, you know, five minutes before it goes to court. And that's what we have. Now we have untrained
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prosecutors that he's put in these positions that have a stack of cases that they're looking at five
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minutes before court, and they're not involved in the case. And so you get what you pay for in that
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scenario. As far as cartels. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. No, go ahead. As far as cartels go, you know,
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we have had tough on crime with our, our major crimes task force. We work hard in these cartels,
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you know, I, some people may get in their mind, Oh, you know, it's, it's drug users. It's you have to
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realize that cartels operate like fortune 500 companies. And if they're looking at their liabilities,
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their risks, all these things, okay, I'm looking at an area where, you know what, the risks are low.
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So business is better here. And so we move business here, we've always been able to,
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to be really tough on them. And we still are on the law enforcement side, but they're just not getting
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prosecuted properly. And so the risks are low and they, they flow to where business is good and
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risks are low. And that's what's happening. I have heard, and I don't know if this is true,
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that on arrests, some officers are being told that they kind of almost laugh and go like,
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that's fine. I'll be out soon. I mean, it's starting to sound like New York.
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Yeah, that that's happening. And even worse than that, we're having, you know, especially when you
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talk drugs or other things, our officers are arresting people, they're resisting arrest,
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they're assaulting our officers, and then the county attorney won't prosecute on those crimes.
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So if you assault a police officer, there's no consequences. And when we ask this,
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we ask, and this is the response we get, well, it will confuse the jury. And our jaws were just,
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our jaws are, are dropped and we're going, what are you talking about? Somebody selling crimes in
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our community, an officer tries to arrest them. They don't want to be arrested. So they fight the
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I don't know, but I have to tell you, this is, you know, I've, I've made light of, of this,
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or I brought this to light to the national audience, because I think this is happening
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in our communities and people are not aware of it. And you, you don't need George Soros when you have
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these, um, these Republicans who, I, I don't know what his deal is. I just know he is not the Republican
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that he makes everybody believe he is. I mean, they're, the whole family has always been squishy.
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Um, but this, there's something really wrong here. He is, um, taking felonies and pleading them down to
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misdemeanors. This is going to create a New York city or a San Francisco or Los Angeles kind of
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crime wave. If it's allowed to continue, am I wrong? No, you're not wrong. And it's, it's,
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you know, when you, when you talk about taking felonies and bringing them down to misdemeanors,
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you know, he'll put out this narrative that he's, he's prosecuting the worst. He doesn't do plea
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deals. Well, he absolutely does. He, he is smoking mirrors. He's doing plea deals before they ever hit
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the court. He's, he had one of his friend, uh, legislators run a bill. It was a HB 300 a couple
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of years ago, gave the prosecutor the ability to drop these felonies down. He does it continually.
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Uh, and so they're, he, he's dealing them away before they ever get to court. You know,
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he says he doesn't like plea deals. One more, I'm sorry to interrupt, but one more quick question
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here. Cause I've only got about a 60 seconds. Um, is it true? I saw a case where a grandfather was
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molesting his granddaughter felony and he decided to drop it down to a misdemeanor because he was
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concerned what that would do to the grandfather. Is that true? Is that, did I read that case? Right?
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No, you read it. Right. Unfortunately, that is true. And it's sad. Oh my gosh.
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You know, I'll tell you what, what do you say about a prosecutor who in a press release
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makes a statement that the criminal justice system is the greatest threat to American freedom
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that we've seen in the generation. What do you say about that?
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and I don't know. I mean, yes, our criminal justice system isn't perfect, but you know,
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I'd put it up against any system in the world. This is America. And I can't believe he would,
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We're talking to Sheriff Mike Smith. Um, thank you very much, Sheriff. I appreciate your honesty
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on this. Um, I will tell you, look, you have to decide who to vote for, but I'm telling every
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city in America, you better look at what's going on in your town. It, because it's coming disguised
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as a Republican and these States are starting to fall one by one. Cause you're not paying attention
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to what's going on in your own. And, you know, we like to believe that, oh, well, we can trust them.
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You have to get the word out. People, uh, people are, are not necessarily who you think they are.
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Uh, and this prosecutor is, uh, extraordinary, in my opinion, extraordinarily dangerous. His name is
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David Levitt. Uh, and, uh, the whole Levitt thing is, I mean, all of these, all of these
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institutional families, enough is enough. Enough is enough.
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We have at least five Supreme court rulings coming out. Uh, Kelly Shackelford is going to be joining us
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from a first Liberty coming up in just a minute. He'll tell us what all of these mean and how much
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they will affect us in our lives. Um, do you ever remember a time like this too, where you,
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you felt such an impact from the Supreme court on more than one case?
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Geez. I mean, I, you know, the Obamacare one pops to mind is a big one that we followed so
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closely for such a, such a long time. This one though, because it's real, that was one case.
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Yeah. This is this, this is the sort of marquee of the entire Supreme court, right? It's the focus
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of every single time the Senate looks at a nominee. They're always focused on whether they're going
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to be for or against Roe versus Wade. That one obviously being there, but there's several other
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cases, as you mentioned, the one about, uh, guns is a big one in New York. The case about, uh, the,
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the government's right to regulate power, uh, power plants is a massive one when it comes to global
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warming and how much you're going to be paying for electricity. We have these, the prayer on the
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field. One was another big one on religious Liberty. Go ahead. Right. Do you think I'm overstating
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or, uh, over reading the impact we should ask Kelly this next hour of the EPA one? This seems like
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almost a, an end run where the, the commerce clause that was decided during the FDR administration
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was an end run around the constitutional powers that gave the federal government and access to
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everything in our life. This kind of seems like an end run around that decision in a way, doesn't it?
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Uh, possibly. Yeah. I could, that could be the way this plays out. Uh, you know, and I, I think,
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you know, the court is, is, is a more of a focus on our lives than I think the founders really
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intended. Uh, you know, I don't think that they wanted it, but I mean, it has become the backstop
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against all sorts of abuses by our government. I mean, uh, you know, the courts as a whole have
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been the only thing stopping this administration from doing all sorts of crazy things from requiring
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vaccines, uh, to, um, you know, gosh, I could, we could probably name five or six cases just over
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the past six months that have been pushed. They've been stopped from doing things. We know when it comes
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to immigrations, another one where they were just, they would say in the argument, we can't do it.
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Ourselves. We need congressional support. And then Congress would say, yeah, we were not going
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to do that. And they'd say, okay, we'll do it ourselves. And luckily the courts have been there
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to stop it over and over again. They're not perfect, but right now they seem to be the only people in
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our constitutional framework who care about the constitution.
00:20:45.220
Well, they will get around the constitution. Eventually. I think they're going to declare a
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national emergency, a climate emergency, or a banking emergency or a energy shortage emergency
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one way or another emergencies are coming. Um, and that's how you really make an end run around
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Congress and the Supreme court. Um, let me give you this story from CNBC. Raising children is expensive
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in the United States and families are feeling the pressure. More than 12.5 million children in the U S
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live in poverty. Even middle-class families are increasingly struggling to pay for everyday expenses.
00:21:23.740
Yeah. Why is that? The U S department of agriculture has, uh, uh, published a report using 2015 data
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that estimated expenses of child rearing from birth through the age 17 in a middle income family of
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two adults and two children. It is 233,610 with inflation. That means it's 286,000, uh, in 2022,
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but adjusting for inflation, they say may not be enough. Childcare costs have actually outpaced
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inflation in 2020 childcare expenses rose 5.03% year after year compared to the annual inflation rate of
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just 1.2 at the time. The fact that, uh, is sending an infant to daycare in many places across the
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country could be significantly more expensive than in-state public tuition to send them to college.
00:22:24.180
The United States has been very reluctant, very conservative when it comes to these kinds of
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family policies. One of the issues with childcare is the U S isn't, or is a patchwork system.
00:22:37.600
Huh? We have programs that fully subsidize eligible children. We have tax credits that subsidize a
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portion of childcare cost for higher income families. We also have block grants for States to help them
00:22:54.080
expand access. The problem with all these systems is that with this multitude of approaches,
00:22:59.620
we're just not getting close to anything universal or affordable. Okay. So here's CNBC saying,
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really, we need pre-K money. We need more money and we can't solve this problem state by state. It has to be
00:23:17.000
solved at the federal government. Again, another crisis, the government can take care of. Well,
00:23:25.700
I don't know about you, but I get a little tired of working for everybody else. Um, I pay my fair
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share. I pay more than my fair share. And, uh, I usually, you know, I've never had a problem paying
00:23:41.360
my taxes because I love the country and I'm willing to help others. I just think that helping others is
00:23:47.840
not doing gender studies. I think helping others is not enforcing, uh, the, uh, idea that our public
00:23:55.820
schools have to have open bathrooms with all of our kids and hide information from us parents. No,
00:24:03.360
sorry. At what point do you start saying, I'm not really being represented here? Well, you can't
00:24:10.320
because we have representation. You vote for your representative. That's one of the problems with
00:24:17.340
us is we'll hire somebody, but they'll do the exact opposite. Usually now there is a great article in
00:24:27.480
the federalist about the student loan bailout because we saved and behaved responsibly. President Joe
00:24:35.580
Biden will punish us, nor is his plan fair to those who don't go to college. We put five children
00:24:44.560
through college, one still attending. We saved up. We never took out any loans. We didn't want our kids
00:24:50.500
burdened with debt. Our kids went to William and Mary, Mary Washington, Dartmouth, John Hopkins,
00:24:56.620
and the university of Pennsylvania. So far, the total cost of these colleges has been well more than
00:25:03.720
$600,000. Well, last week, Biden forced taxpayers to assume nearly $6 billion in federal student loans
00:25:12.600
for 60, uh, for, uh, 560,000 borrowers. New stories announced the decision on forcing taxpayers to pay
00:25:21.660
off the loan for others. And it appears delayed until closer to the election. While some debt is likely to
00:25:28.740
be paid off by taxpayers, Democrats will probably keep their other borrowers locked in politically by
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continuing to freeze repayments and warning that Republicans will end this. Should my wife and I
00:25:42.960
have just borrowed all of this money and sent our kids to public universities? If so, we could add
00:25:48.540
$600,000 to spend on all sorts of other things, nicer cars, houses, fun trips, or we could have given
00:25:56.180
that money to our children and grandchildren when we die to save, to pay for a family's college bills.
00:26:04.120
We always purchased used cars and, you know, and we were, um, a year old when we, when they, uh, we drove
00:26:12.180
them for years. My Ford Taurus lasted 16 years, more than 225,000 miles. My Pontiac transport for my wife
00:26:21.900
lasted almost as long before Russ meant that it could no longer pass the state's yearly safety
00:26:27.540
check. So because we saved up and behaved responsibly, president Biden is going to punish us.
00:26:34.460
Those who didn't save for work, 90, 80 hour weeks who spent their money on other nice things. Instead,
00:26:42.000
now we are paying off and picking up their tab for their kids education. How exactly is that fair?
00:26:49.180
Nor is it fair to those who don't go to college? This is a great article that you really need to read
00:26:56.440
at the Federalist, but I think this is the way a lot of people are going to start to feel as we have
00:27:03.340
shortages ourself and shortages of money. How are people going to deal with the process that we are
00:27:12.560
sending welfare checks, uh, and we're selling or sending food stamps down to the border.
00:27:22.320
by the way, the direct impact, uh, of the, the fed is going to be felt again today. Uh, they are,
00:27:34.260
they are raising the rates of interest. Uh, so anything connected to the interest rates,
00:27:42.420
that's credit cards, adjustable rate mortgages, or, you know, fixed rate mortgages, uh, that you
00:27:50.100
haven't secured yet. All of this will change, uh, today and could change directly. They're trying
00:27:58.260
to cool the economy, which means they're trying to get you to stop buying stuff. Uh, and it's pulling
00:28:06.260
us into a recession, uh, if business investing and consumer spending is slowed too much, but they're
00:28:12.880
going to get it right this time. So what it's going to do is it's going to make borrowing more
00:28:17.720
expensive for companies, higher costs of capital. Um, the, uh, valuation in the stock market is going
00:28:25.300
to get compressed. We've already seen a lot of that happening right now, but this will be increased
00:28:30.700
drag on your 401k or anything that you have. That's a retirement fund. And the problem is,
00:28:39.280
is that we're going up three quarters of a percent. Stu, how much was it for each point
00:28:44.900
just on the federal budgets borrowing? Yes. Rates tick up. Remember? Yeah. It's one,
00:28:51.280
each percentage point costs us another $400 billion per year, which is the equivalent of adding a new
00:28:59.440
defense department every year. Oh my gosh. By adding a point, one point. And it's, it's something
00:29:08.760
like four, so $4 trillion over a decade. And it gets to a point where just the interest, uh, on our
00:29:16.960
national debt becomes the focus of our entire budget. Eventually. I mean, we're not that far away
00:29:23.520
from this becoming really a society that just repays debt rather than actually does the best of the
00:29:32.400
Glenn Beck program. Kelly Shackelford, a very good friend of the program and now a powerhouse to be
00:29:44.080
reckoned with, uh, with, uh, the organization he's the CEO of first Liberty Institute. He is chief
00:29:51.080
counsel of first Liberty Institute as well. Kelly, welcome to the program. Happy to be on Glenn.
00:29:59.160
Thank you. So you've been watching these roll out, uh, from the Supreme court. We had a surprisingly
00:30:04.280
high number today. We had six, uh, different cases. Can you tell me which are the important ones and
00:30:11.200
which actually will affect us? Well, I think for your audience, I doubt very many of them would be
00:30:16.740
of any interest. Uh, I think that's the weird time, Glenn, we've got, uh, you know, uh, a record
00:30:24.660
number. If you look over the past few weeks that have been not issued. I mean, there's only 65 cases
00:30:30.500
this term and we were, we were like 29 or something just a week or so ago, which is, I don't think
00:30:36.180
that's happened since maybe 1950. So, but we're getting closer. We're now down to, I think 17 or 18,
00:30:43.620
but, but all the big ones are left. Uh, the Dobbs case, the second amendment case,
00:30:48.160
the, uh, border case, the remaining Mexico, the two big religious Liberty cases, which are both,
00:30:53.860
uh, our cases at first Liberty. We're waiting for all these big cases. And it looks like they're
00:30:58.780
just going to maybe unleash them all in a very short amount of time close to each other. But, uh,
00:31:04.460
we'll, we'll wait until next week and see what happens next week.
00:31:07.160
So what are the two big religious, um, uh, decisions that are coming? I know coach Kennedy.
00:31:18.220
The other one is a case out of Maine, uh, where they, they had a school choice program where parents
00:31:24.040
could pick any, uh, uh, school that they wanted for their kids, as long as it wasn't religious.
00:31:29.540
And so it was just pure discrimination against all the religious schools. And, uh, I think we're
00:31:36.960
going to win. I mean, the argument went well, uh, but this will be a really big case because it'll
00:31:42.040
make clear nationwide that when you have school choice, uh, which we really should have, um,
00:31:47.860
that you can't exclude the religious schools. Uh, you guys are competing against them like everybody
00:31:52.380
else. And people are going to pick the best education for their children. And, uh, so I think
00:31:57.200
that'll be a really big case. It's sort of almost the final, uh, nail in the coffin on these attempts
00:32:02.600
to discriminate in school choice. And the only step left really will be to get school choice where
00:32:08.700
parents choose, you know, it shouldn't be just rich people get to choose their schools. Everybody
00:32:13.560
should be able to choose what's correct for their kid. If it's their tax money.
00:32:18.480
And, and quite honestly, why should I have to pay two tuitions? I mean, I'm willing to do it to
00:32:25.480
help the kids that, you know, whose parents don't have any money, but you, this should all be choice.
00:32:31.660
And I think those public schools would go out of business quickly. I was, um, in front of an
00:32:37.440
audience, uh, last night, uh, I gave a speech and I was asking the audience some pretty basic
00:32:45.120
questions about America, American history. And I don't know. I think I said three times, uh, from the
00:32:52.980
stage last night, wow, our school system has greatly failed us on these things. Nobody would
00:33:01.020
raise their hand on, on a couple of questions that I thought were fairly easy.
00:33:07.960
Yeah, it's, it's, it's really, I mean, look, and not only are they failing in that way, right? But
00:33:14.560
they're also failing in what they're trying to indoctrinate, you know, third graders and second
00:33:19.520
grade are stuff that parents are just appalled by. And we are all appalled by. So, um, as you said,
00:33:25.880
uh, a number of these schools go out of business. I think a number of those schools would actually
00:33:29.660
have to, you know, start acting like they're in that community and, and they're actually having
00:33:35.580
to be better and they're actually having to be good. And they're actually having to represent the
00:33:39.980
morals and values of their community and not some sort of woke, crazy stuff that they're putting in
00:33:45.140
elementary schools. So I think it would be great in lots of ways. And it's fascinating to me,
00:33:51.000
Glenn, it's one of those issues that, you know, Republicans are heavily in favor of school choice,
00:33:55.740
but so are Democrats. I mean, you know, African American, Hispanic, I mean, these are large
00:34:01.120
percentages and yet they can't get it through because the teachers union has such a lock, um,
00:34:06.620
that they're not voting for something that is very important to most of their people. And so
00:34:11.860
I think this part of why you see sort of this really, uh, fracturing, uh, of a lot of things
00:34:18.080
that we had kind of counted on. I mean, the, there was a district yesterday in Texas,
00:34:21.620
that's 84% Hispanic. They just had a election for Congress. They elected a Republican. You would
00:34:29.340
never see that in the past, but, uh, you know, they're, they're voting their values. And so some
00:34:34.020
of these things are changing, but that, that case I think will be really big. It's called Carson versus
00:34:38.540
Macon. And of course the coach Kennedy case is a huge case. Uh, I just think we've dealt with for
00:34:45.360
50 years, a lot of these bad old decisions that have created this sort of hostility to religion
00:34:50.940
in our schools. And, uh, it shouldn't be that way. The founders never meant it to be that way.
00:34:56.180
Uh, they believed in free speech. They believed in the free exercise of religion. And, uh, and that
00:35:01.680
should be what the law is. And I think we're going to move back that way after coach Kennedy comes down,
00:35:06.560
but we'll, we'll have to wait and see what the opinion says. You know, I got to tell you,
00:35:11.900
if I had a coach who is a Muslim and he wanted to take his prayer rug out at the end of a football
00:35:17.160
game and say a prayer, I wouldn't have a problem with that. And I'm, I'm, I'm obviously not a Muslim.
00:35:23.300
And you know, why would, why does anybody have a problem with these things? Um, is the, uh,
00:35:29.140
Sports Illustrated has just come out with just an amazingly bad article. When faith and football
00:35:35.220
teamed up against American democracy, the U S Supreme court will decide the case of a football
00:35:40.860
coach at a public high school who was told he wasn't allowed to pray on the field in front of
00:35:45.140
players. The expected result is a win for the coach and the further erosion of the separation
00:35:51.180
between church and state. I don't know where they find that. Uh, Kelly do. I don't, uh, it's,
00:35:58.900
it was amazing, Glenn. I, I've been doing this kind of work for 33 years and this is the first
00:36:05.300
time I can ever remember an article by the media being so ridiculous that it led to its own news
00:36:12.520
story. There were stories yesterday at Fox news, uh, at a Breitbart and all kinds of media because of
00:36:20.000
the Twitter explosion that occurred when Sports Illustrated posted this story. It was so ridiculous
00:36:26.720
and so biased. Everybody's going to like, okay, a coach praying by himself for 20 seconds is the
00:36:32.340
end of democracy. You know, number one, we're not a democracy. Uh, you know, we're, we're a
00:36:38.080
Republic, a constitutional Republic. And number two, separation of church and state, you know,
00:36:43.740
number one, that those words aren't constitution, but number two, please tell me where the institution
00:36:49.200
of the church is in this. Please tell me where the institution of the state is. It's coach Kennedy.
00:36:54.880
It's not the state. Um, I mean, this is really ridiculous and very, uh, you know, again,
00:37:01.180
Sports Illustrated, as you said, should stick to sports, uh, and, uh, and not try to get into
00:37:06.380
woke politics in their sports or they're going to, you know, this is the reason why they're losing so
00:37:10.740
many people. So let me, but let me, um, uh, take it further as we look at Sports Illustrated and we
00:37:19.040
see all of the errors there. That's one thing, but I listened to the arguments. Uh, I listened
00:37:24.740
online through your website and it was amazing to be able to listen to a Supreme court, uh, hearing
00:37:31.820
was incredible. I've never done it before in its entirety live. Um, and
00:37:37.620
opposing side was, was claiming it was, it was nothing like, uh, like the facts of the story. It
00:37:54.800
was all over the, all over the board. I couldn't believe that they could get away with saying the
00:38:00.180
things that they did, uh, without it being perjury. Yeah, it, I think, I mean, the only people,
00:38:08.540
a lot of people don't know, but on the other side, and let me, let me mention going in, if people want
00:38:11.880
to listen to it, it's still up at, uh, our, our media website, which is first Liberty live.com.
00:38:17.760
They can go listen to the argument, but it, I think it's because what happened is that school
00:38:25.600
district, instead of representing themselves, God is their attorneys. Uh, the Americans united for
00:38:30.580
separation of church and state, which is an interest group with a pretty, uh, um, extreme
00:38:36.700
agenda. They're, they're all secular humanists. They want to push religion out of society. And
00:38:41.180
these were their attorneys. Well, they don't, they're not very experienced at the Supreme court.
00:38:45.540
So I think they did something really foolish, which is you start trying to twist the facts.
00:38:51.380
I mean, there's a record. So we could point to the record. And if you remember our counsel,
00:38:57.500
Paul Clement, who's probably the number one guy at the Supreme court, um, at the end of his rebuttal,
00:39:03.300
he just nailed fact after fact, after fact, and the record that they were trying to pervert,
00:39:08.100
well, they can read the record. So that doesn't work. And so what, what was happening by the way,
00:39:12.720
for your audience, if they wonder what we're talking about is coach only wanted to pray by himself.
00:39:17.100
He went, he went by himself. He did just a 22nd prayer after the game to thank God for the
00:39:22.120
privilege of coaching the young men that he coached. He got that from that movie facing the
00:39:25.800
giants that he saw. And he made that pledge. And for seven, eight years, that's what he did
00:39:30.460
until they told him to stop. And at one point, midway through his years, some kids went and
00:39:36.980
prayed with him too. But as soon as the school said, Hey, don't do that with the kids. He said,
00:39:41.020
Oh, that's fine. That's not what I'm trying to do. And he went back by himself and they ended up
00:39:45.020
firing him because he wouldn't. And he never, Hey, hang on just a second. He, he never,
00:39:49.860
ever invited them. They asked him and he said, it's a free country. Do it, you know, do what you
00:39:56.240
want. So it wasn't like he was indoctrinating or pulling people in. I think that's really important.
00:40:02.700
That's exactly right. Yeah. He, he never did. And, and they admitted that. I mean, that was one of the
00:40:08.240
things they admitted, they admitted he never coerced anyone. Uh, so, and yet they, their new,
00:40:14.240
their new theory at the Supreme court was to say, Oh, no, this is all about coach Kennedy wanting to
00:40:18.720
pray with the kids. And, and then my favorite was they put a picture in the brief and they argued
00:40:24.740
this all the time. And the media messed this up all the time. It was a picture of coach on a knee
00:40:30.540
after the game, surrounded by all these players. And they were saying, look, see, see all the players.
00:40:36.260
Well, what they didn't mention was that was after coach was told, Hey, you go to a knee again,
00:40:42.320
you're going to be fired even by yourself. And he was like, look, I don't want to get the kids in
00:40:46.400
trouble. So I'm going to wait until they're singing the fight song facing the audience. Cause I don't
00:40:50.760
want them with me. So he went by himself. But what was happening is the whole country was watching this
00:40:58.180
and he was down on his knee and he felt people coming around him. It's like, Oh no, the kids are coming
00:41:03.380
around me. When he opened his eyes, it was the other team, all the players, all the coaches.
00:41:09.700
And so, as I told the media, this wasn't about him playing with his players. This was about an
00:41:14.120
America. When the government comes and tries to shut down somebody's first amendment rights,
00:41:19.700
Americans rise up and say, you're going to have to run over me too. And that's what was happening.
00:41:24.920
It had nothing to do with his players. It was the other team. If there's ever an American story,
00:41:30.200
let me, let me take a quick one minute break and come back to you. We're talking to Kelly
00:41:37.800
Shackelford from First Liberty about what's happening in the Supreme court. I just want to
00:41:43.660
take your temperature on, on what's happening with the security for the Supreme court, the vote that
00:41:50.900
happened in Congress yesterday and why, I guess it's John Roberts decision, why they're waiting on this
00:41:59.780
decision that is causing most of the, uh, angst. We'll talk to you here in one minute.