The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Steve Deace & Liz Wheeler ｜ 9⧸11⧸25

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00:00:30.300 Today's podcast is worth listening in its entirety, but if you only have a few minutes,

00:00:34.840 this is the best of as we remember Charlie Kirk on 9-11 and try to find our way through the

00:00:46.360 feelings and the emotions that we all have knotted up inside of us, try to make sense of

00:00:52.800 our world and remember a great, great man and a true friend.

00:00:57.800 And Megan Kelly is on with me today.

00:01:01.100 Uh, also Liz Wheeler, who is a dear friend, so close to Charlie, Steve Dace, and Allie

00:01:08.580 Best Ducky, all on today's podcast.

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00:02:38.000 Megan Kelly is going to join us, uh, in just a moment.

00:02:42.080 As you can imagine, all of us are being torn a million different directions, and, uh, she

00:02:49.500 will be joining us, hopefully in a few minutes, if not a little, a little bit later, uh, today.

00:02:54.340 But we have a lot of people on today that want to share some stories about, uh, Charlie Kirk.

00:03:03.520 Um, and tomorrow I want to hear from you.

00:03:08.420 Yesterday was such a surreal day.

00:03:24.940 I was getting ready to record my special last night.

00:03:29.300 It was in the afternoon, and I'm sitting here in my studio, and I look at the stairs through

00:03:40.040 this glass door that I have here.

00:03:43.020 And my wife is on the phone, and she's standing on the stairway, and she has her, her hand gripping

00:03:53.760 the stair rail, and I could see it in her eyes.

00:03:58.680 She was on the phone.

00:04:01.020 And I could see confusion, and I could see trouble.

00:04:06.160 And in my ear, I'm hearing five, four, three.

00:04:13.140 And I said, stop, stop, stop, stop.

00:04:15.740 I need 30 seconds.

00:04:18.440 I need to talk to my wife. 0.93

00:04:20.860 And I motioned for her to come in, and in a confused and dazed sort of way, she kind of

00:04:29.520 stumbles into the room.

00:04:31.200 And I said, what's happening, honey?

00:04:33.840 And she said, it's Cheyenne.

00:04:38.880 I didn't know what that meant.

00:04:40.100 And as a dad, you can imagine, I said, is she okay?

00:04:51.660 What's happening?

00:04:55.020 She meant it's Cheyenne on the phone.

00:05:00.640 Cheyenne had just gotten past the crush of the crowd.

00:05:05.540 She called her mom.

00:05:06.340 She said, Charlie Kirk's just been shot.

00:05:19.640 What?

00:05:26.840 She sent me some video.

00:05:29.840 And I knew it was true, but I hoped for the best, until a few minutes later, somebody

00:05:45.980 else sent me a video that I hope you did not see of the bullet striking him.

00:05:52.280 It must have been like what it was when you first saw the Zapruder film, or if you were

00:06:05.480 standing in the grassy knoll.

00:06:09.360 You just knew.

00:06:10.400 I was on with Megan Kelly, and we were holding on to the hope that he was somehow or another

00:06:27.700 going to survive that.

00:06:31.060 And Megan said at one point, I don't know why I'm not announcing what everybody else is

00:06:36.860 announcing, but I just can't.

00:06:38.320 Megan joins us now.

00:06:40.120 Hi, Megan.

00:06:41.480 Hi, Glenn.

00:06:44.740 What a weird 24 hours it has been.

00:06:49.760 Where are you this morning in unraveling this knot in your head?

00:06:57.460 I still don't feel like I have my arms around it.

00:07:00.180 I don't feel like I've totally digested the fact that he's gone and the way in which he was

00:07:06.140 taken.

00:07:08.500 Charlie truly was such a larger-than-life figure.

00:07:10.580 We say that term, but it was true about him. 0.99

00:07:14.600 At 6'5", he truly seemed larger than most of us, and he was.

00:07:19.620 His gifts and his tirelessness and just knowing exactly where the theme in every story was

00:07:26.300 and his raw courage.

00:07:29.980 So many times, we like to think we're courageous in our commentary.

00:07:34.280 You'd look at Charlie and you'd think, now that's true courage.

00:07:37.360 He would just say it like it was.

00:07:39.720 The things you'd be thinking in your head, but you might not want to say explicitly, he

00:07:44.120 said, and he took a lot of slings and arrows for it and was demonized for being all the

00:07:51.120 terrible things as opposed to people taking him on and saying, does he have a point?

00:07:56.260 You know, I said earlier today that you don't kill the weak.

00:08:06.100 You know, people don't want to try to heal or they just want to speak in anger at times.

00:08:13.420 And, you know, anger is part of the grieving process, and I know I'm angry.

00:08:17.560 But Charlie would face that anger, and what people think is weakness by showing love and

00:08:29.240 compassion and listening and just having a decent conversation, that's one of the reasons

00:08:35.300 why he was killed.

00:08:36.880 He wasn't killed because he was weak, just like Gandhi wasn't weak.

00:08:42.360 He was killed because he was effective.

00:08:53.060 Megan, where do we go from here?

00:09:01.060 She dropped. 0.89

00:09:03.100 Can we get her back on the phone?

00:09:04.520 I got an email from somebody today, this morning, and I want to share the email.

00:09:23.420 I won't share the name, it's short, but I also think I should share my response because

00:09:31.380 I think it's how most of us feel.

00:09:40.740 It comes from a very well-known conservative leader.

00:09:48.600 Glenn, I am devastated this morning.

00:09:52.780 I am in deep mourning for Charlie.

00:09:56.160 I'm in mourning for his family and our country.

00:09:58.420 And I don't know how to surface from this.

00:10:12.520 I don't know if I do either.

00:10:17.820 But I would like to share my thoughts with you a little later on.

00:10:22.360 Megan is with me.

00:10:23.520 Megan, how do we process this?

00:10:27.400 How do we surface from this?

00:10:32.760 You know, I think as with any loss, we all have to go through the denial and the bargaining.

00:10:40.560 You know, like I'm still refreshing my ex account, like hoping somehow there's a reversal.

00:10:46.520 You know, like somehow it was all wrong.

00:10:49.460 Somehow we got it all wrong.

00:10:52.640 You know, sometimes the media gets it wrong.

00:10:54.560 It's absurd.

00:10:55.960 We know what the answer is.

00:10:57.460 But that's a natural reaction when you've had a sudden loss in particular.

00:11:02.900 And anger is completely appropriate now, too.

00:11:07.220 It's completely appropriate.

00:11:08.600 You know, we are going to catch this guy.

00:11:10.960 You know, that FBI presser they just held was very encouraging.

00:11:14.780 They've in two things happened this morning that are of note right now, Glenn.

00:11:19.220 First, Stephen Crowder, who is very solid on his law enforcement leak reporting.

00:11:25.740 He has a proven track history.

00:11:27.760 He's the one who got the manifesto from the trans shooter in Nashville before anyone else. 0.85

00:11:33.840 And that's not all he's had other leaks is posting a document saying he received from an ATF source on the investigation.

00:11:42.700 And that says that they retrieved the gun in the woods behind the campus, wrapped in a towel, and that there were three unspent cartridges in the gun that had transgender and anti-fascist ideology, something written on them.

00:12:01.360 Now, that piece of that last piece of it was not confirmed by the FBI at the presser they just held.

00:12:07.240 But every other thing was the Crowder report was confirmed in every detail, including naming the kind of gun.

00:12:13.320 He had that right.

00:12:14.140 He had the location right.

00:12:15.640 He had the trail and the tracking of the suspect right.

00:12:19.020 They did not volunteer the business about what was written on the cartridges, nor did anyone there ask, because those reporters almost certainly don't follow Stephen Crowder, because those reporters will probably tell you he's not to be trusted.

00:12:35.240 Now, this is an early report, and it could turn out to be wrong.

00:12:38.820 But that's the update as far as we know it, and the FBI revealing that they have a picture of him, that they did, of course, track him on his way to the shooting spot with surveillance cameras.

00:12:51.560 Of course, on these college campuses, we would expect that in dorms or class buildings.

00:12:57.080 And they appear confident, at least to me, that they've got the guy.

00:13:02.560 And if they've got the weapon, Glenn, well, they may or may not have fingerprints, but they almost certainly have DNA.

00:13:08.800 I mean, they almost certainly have DNA, which I'm sure they're uploading right now into every database they can.

00:13:15.700 You know, we saw this in Kohlberger.

00:13:17.100 They're not supposed to use the public databases, sorry, private, like 23andMe or Ancestry.com, though in Kohlberger they did, and that is how they found Kohlberger.

00:13:28.340 Sometimes they do.

00:13:29.580 And even just the public database of DNA can lead you to at least a family member somewhere near a shooter or a suspect, and then it's just a matter of charts and a few hours in getting to that person's relative.

00:13:41.060 So I believe they will find the shooter, and then we'll know the ideology, and then we'll have a place to put some of the anger, like an explanation or something that will help us understand what deranged person, and I don't mean that in a clinical sense, did this yesterday.

00:13:59.740 I just feel like I don't know where to go until I know who did this and why.

00:14:03.640 It was about midnight last night when I talked to the president, and he was very clear that we will find whoever is responsible for this, and justice will be served.

00:14:26.260 He was extraordinarily confident in that, which gave me an awful lot of hope.

00:14:33.480 I don't know if you saw his speech last night that he gave from the Oval, but I thought he hit exactly the right, very powerful, hit exactly the right tone, hit exactly the right tone.

00:14:43.600 But I think the days of us fooling around and nibbling at the edges, I think those days are over.

00:14:51.920 I agree, and one of the things Trump said last night that was so good was he used the word terrorism.

00:14:59.460 That's exactly right.

00:15:02.520 That is how a lot of us are feeling, and I know you've had the same experience I've had in the past 24 hours, Glenn, where virtually everyone I know in the media business has reached out.

00:15:16.460 I think there are a lot of folks who are in our lane in particular in conservative media who are very rattled by this because he was one of ours, and he was taken.

00:15:29.660 Obviously, we all have concerns about personal security now with the shooter at large as well, but I just mean the betrayal and the need to rise up and protect ours and the people we value and love.

00:15:46.040 You know, this is like, I don't want to say a call to arms because I'm not encouraging violence, but I mean a unifying call for us to stand shoulder to shoulder and stand up.

00:15:57.380 Yeah, it is absolutely a wake-up call to anybody who thought, you know, oh, it's just going to pass us by.

00:16:06.260 It's not.

00:16:07.180 This is the call of our age, and how we respond is going to determine the future of freedom in this country.

00:16:16.200 But I have great confidence that we will respond just as we did after 9-11.

00:16:23.680 We responded with conviction.

00:16:28.540 We responded in an intelligent sort of way.

00:16:33.060 We overreacted in some ways that I would like to avoid this time, but we came together as a nation and did what had to be done for the preservation of our nation.

00:16:47.040 Now, if we can have the moderation lesson learned this time, perhaps we will be good.

00:16:55.280 But I think the days of Antifa not feeling any ramifications for their work and others, those days are over as of yesterday.

00:17:08.280 Megan, you know, I just, yeah, go ahead.

00:17:11.560 Go ahead, Glenn.

00:17:12.160 I was just going to say, one of the things we did after 9-11 was when the stock market opened two days later, we all bought stock.

00:17:21.680 We just, it could have been a $5 stock, but everyone did it to send a message that the financial center would stand.

00:17:29.440 And I think we are going to see a reaction on college campuses when it comes to free speech by conservatives, unlike anything we've ever seen before in a similar vein.

00:17:40.000 I agree.

00:17:40.220 I'm proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with you, Megan, and be in the trenches with you all the time.

00:17:46.760 You are a light in a lot of darkness, and I appreciate our years of friendship and everything that you've done for the country.

00:17:53.920 Thank you.

00:17:55.460 Likewise, my friend.

00:17:56.500 Thanks for having me.

00:17:58.100 You bet.

00:18:01.640 Let me tell you about the Berna Launcher.

00:18:03.240 What can I possibly say more than, I asked my daughter last night, did you have your Berna Launcher with you?

00:18:15.640 No, Dad, I didn't.

00:18:18.700 Why?

00:18:20.700 I gave my daughter a Berna Launcher.

00:18:22.560 She was there on the campus yesterday.

00:18:24.900 She was just a few feet from the tent.

00:18:31.600 And she didn't have anything.

00:18:37.120 I worried about her until many hours later when I could hold her in my arms.

00:18:42.640 Please, get a Berna Launcher for your kids. 0.99

00:18:47.320 They should have them.

00:18:48.180 If they're in college, they should have them.

00:18:49.820 You should have them.

00:18:50.580 Every member of your family over 18 should have them.

00:18:53.300 You don't need a license.

00:18:55.280 There's no background change.

00:18:56.360 There's nothing.

00:18:56.780 It won't kill.

00:18:58.420 It will incapacitate people, but it will not kill them.

00:19:02.400 And it is the best self-defense that you can have.

00:19:06.080 Berna.

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00:19:32.400 Liz Wheeler.

00:19:34.440 Hello, Liz.

00:19:36.240 Hi, Glenn.

00:19:39.560 I spoke to you yesterday, and we were both pretty raw at the time.

00:19:43.640 How are you doing this morning?

00:19:48.740 I'm in a fog of grief, Glenn.

00:19:50.920 I think that a lot of us are.

00:19:54.560 I feel it still feels very unbelievable what happened to our dear friend Charlie Kirk.

00:19:59.860 I feel like I'm floating up outside of my body.

00:20:02.400 In a sense, watching all of this unfold, it's quite something to see the reaction from the

00:20:12.040 American people over this assassination.

00:20:15.220 I think you're correct when you say that our country has changed forever.

00:20:22.040 I think this is one of the most significant, not just political assassinations, but political

00:20:28.920 events that we've experienced since the inception of our country.

00:20:33.140 And I think I've been praying about this since you and I spoke for so long yesterday.

00:20:38.500 I've been thinking about this endlessly.

00:20:40.260 Obviously, obviously, on my knees praying for sweet Erica and Charlie and Erica's two babies.

00:20:46.900 But I think one of the things that has happened in the last 24 hours is people in our country,

00:20:54.860 and I don't even want to say conservatives.

00:20:57.140 I don't want to say right wingers because it's not just that, have realized that Charlie is so normal.

00:21:04.680 He's not radical.

00:21:06.980 He's not extreme.

00:21:08.700 He's not bombastic.

00:21:10.160 He's not edgy.

00:21:11.520 He's just a regular guy.

00:21:14.160 And he's kind.

00:21:16.400 And they killed him because of those beliefs and opinions, those principles and values,

00:21:23.960 Glenn, that we share with him.

00:21:26.180 And you and I work in this industry, and we've written a lot of books about this political

00:21:31.980 enemy that we face, and we talk about it a lot.

00:21:34.940 But for the majority of the American people, this is the first time, Glenn, that they're realizing

00:21:40.820 exactly who this political enemy that we face is.

00:21:44.220 And it's jarring, and it's gut-wrenching, because they realize that just as easily as they

00:21:50.920 assassinated Charlie Kirk and are now dancing on his grave, they want to do that to us, too.

00:22:06.640 Liz, I, and I know you do.

00:22:14.220 I have such faith in the Lord.

00:22:21.920 And I know, I don't know how our lives end.

00:22:26.180 I don't know how things work out.

00:22:29.180 But I know everything that happens is used for his good.

00:22:36.600 There is no way to thwart God's plan.

00:22:39.860 You can make it, you can make getting there harder.

00:22:44.900 You can make getting there more painful.

00:22:48.420 But if we trust in him, great and glorious things are going to happen because of this.

00:22:57.120 Charlie once said when someone asked him what he wanted to be known for the most, and he wore a lot of hats, so he could have picked a lot of different accomplishments and identities, and he said he wanted to be known for his faith.

00:23:18.380 And that's, I mean, it's so powerful.

00:23:23.760 You and I are clinging to God right now.

00:23:25.980 Everyone sitting here with us is clinging to God.

00:23:28.260 I'm literally sitting here gripping a rosary as we talk.

00:23:32.620 Evil happens in our world, and we all ask that question, why?

00:23:37.360 Why does God allow bad things to happen to good and innocent people?

00:23:42.780 And, you know, as Father Mike Schmitz reminded us yesterday, when evil happens, that is not God's perfect will.

00:23:51.120 It is God's permissive will, which is very different.

00:23:55.260 God allowed Charlie's death to happen, but he did not want it to happen.

00:24:01.820 God values human freedom and can bring about a greater good through these allowed events, but God does not cause evil.

00:24:12.700 He uses it to achieve his higher purpose.

00:24:16.600 When sometimes we don't know what that is, and I'm human, I find it very difficult not to have an immediate answer to, okay, what is that higher good?

00:24:26.080 But it could be testing faith or demonstrating compassion, teaching people how to uphold his perfect will of good.

00:24:34.580 And if God were to remove evil from the human existence, he would also be removing our free will to love him and to love others.

00:24:44.700 And he knows that despite the evil that he allows to exist in the world, this greater good can be achieved for eternity, which is where Charlie is now.

00:24:55.400 And Glenn, there are a lot of bad people online right now, you know, celebrating Charlie's death and saying how ironic it was that Charlie was killed by a gun when he was a champion of gun rights.

00:25:07.600 But do you want to know what the real irony is?

00:25:09.760 The real irony is that Charlie, at this moment in eternity, I guarantee to you, Glenn, is praying for those who did this to him.

00:25:18.680 You know, yesterday I said, I think I might have done one of the hardest things I've ever done.

00:25:31.700 I walked to the front gate and I lowered my flag to half mass for a dear friend.

00:25:48.680 And I think that is going to be easy compared to the forgiveness and the compassion and the restraint that is going to be required from all of us in the coming days.

00:26:10.160 I think that's going to be very difficult.

00:26:17.740 And I don't know how you do it if you don't have God.

00:26:23.920 I don't, I can't imagine moving forward without God.

00:26:30.360 God, he, the Bible says he is my rock.

00:26:33.820 He is my refuge.

00:26:34.940 And I can tell you that that's the only thing right now that's helping me swim through this fog of grief.

00:26:44.560 Charlie was such a good man, Glenn.

00:26:47.180 Such a good man.

00:26:47.840 You know, he once actually hired me.

00:26:50.340 This was a decade and a half ago.

00:26:52.180 So he hired me to work for Turning Point USA, but I wasn't going to, my start date for starting that job wasn't going to be for like three months down the road because of the new financial cycle.

00:27:03.600 And in the interim after we had signed that contract, but before I had started, I got offered my first television job on OAN.

00:27:11.660 And so I preemptively quit on Charlie and I, I remember talking to him and saying, I know this is such a sucky move for me to preemptively quit on you after we had agreed, but Charlie, what would you do?

00:27:25.620 And he was so gracious, Glenn.

00:27:27.700 He was so generous. 0.63

00:27:28.920 He said, you are, you're going to kill it.

00:27:31.060 You're going to, you are going to use this platform to glorify God and to save our country.

00:27:35.240 And he was always so encouraging yesterday.

00:27:39.760 I was looking back at our text thread because for as busy as this man was, he never neglected talking to his friends.

00:27:45.880 And during some of the most challenging moments in my public life, who was texting me encouragement, but Charlie Kirk, this, it is hard to think about how to move forward.

00:27:58.260 But one of the things, and I know that it's hard to articulate clearly in this moment, but one of the things that I know with crystal clarity at this moment is we are not going to be silenced by an enemy who harms us.

00:28:13.500 We are not going to back down.

00:28:15.360 We are not going to be quiet.

00:28:17.320 We are going to honor Charlie's legacy.

00:28:21.240 We are going to care for and love Charlie's family.

00:28:24.400 We are going to understand in a clearer sense exactly what we are up against.

00:28:32.060 And it's going to, with God on our side, it is going to lead us to victory in a way that our country has not yet experienced because we do have this binary choice.

00:28:44.020 The left wants violence.

00:28:45.820 The left wants civil war. 1.00

00:28:47.380 The left wants to hurt us and kill us.

00:28:49.760 But what's going to happen instead is these people in our country, people who are politically apathetic or lukewarm liberal or, you know, maybe right wing, but not that active in politics.

00:29:01.460 The same thing is going to happen as a result of Charlie's assassination that happened after the Black Lives Matter riots or after the COVID vaccine mandates, where people realized that the other side does not want the best for us. 0.67

00:29:17.120 That the other side during the Black Lives Matter riots was willing to falsely accuse us of being racist when that wasn't true or during COVID to tell us that we couldn't go to church and worship God and we had to take their medical product because they said so and they didn't care about the harm. 0.77

00:29:34.780 Glenn, this is that times 1,000 people are now looking out across our country realizing that there are subversive forces and not just a radical lunatic madman isolated incident.

00:29:50.860 There are radical forces who want to kill us.

00:29:54.340 And the awakening that's going to happen, the eye opening, you are going to see churches filled with people turning to God.

00:30:01.720 You are going to see politics, a swell of good people who want to stand for normalcy and common sense.

00:30:09.920 2 million, 5 million, 10 million new Charlie Kirks are going to be minted because of this.

00:30:17.000 And that's hard to picture in this moment.

00:30:21.260 And there will be hard choices to make because we're angry right now and the left is taunting us.

00:30:28.340 But I have so much faith.

00:30:33.360 I have so much faith in what Charlie did and in the prayers that he is going to be bathing our country in now from eternity.

00:30:45.980 Liz, you're one of my favorite people.

00:30:48.920 And I know you're one of Charlie's favorite people too.

00:30:52.160 Thank you for coming on today.

00:30:55.440 Thank you, Glenn. God bless you.

00:30:56.980 I want to share some personal thoughts on Charlie Kirk coming up in a minute.

00:31:16.380 But I want to spend a few minutes with another friend of Charlie Kirk's and a good friend of our program and mine, Steve Dace, who follows me on Blaze TV.

00:31:30.280 Steve, I know it has been a hard 24 hours.

00:31:34.700 How are you holding up?

00:31:35.860 I'm pretty devastated.

00:31:39.380 I think I have sobbed more, Glenn, in the last 18 hours than I probably did since the night of my own conversion.

00:31:53.200 I'm angry.

00:31:54.000 And I know a lot of people are.

00:31:57.720 And there will be a time after we need to mourn first, Glenn, because otherwise the anger will come out destructively.

00:32:05.300 And it needs to come out, but constructively.

00:32:09.120 And I think we have to mourn first.

00:32:11.300 I think Charlie's legacy as a father, husband, friend, patriot merits that.

00:32:18.300 And I think TPUSA and his family need that.

00:32:23.160 But in the not-too-distant future, we're going to have to get the message that was sent here.

00:32:30.640 He was the best of us.

00:32:33.580 When you saw him behind the scenes or in public, genuinely kind, generous.

00:32:40.600 Too many pastors and ministry leaders thought they were too good for Charlie and TPUSA.

00:32:45.320 They didn't want to get their hands dirty.

00:32:47.220 And claimed they were being seeker-friendly, and yet he was the one that sought out the seekers. 0.79

00:32:51.180 He went to the places that those nicer-than-God pastors didn't go to.

00:32:55.400 And he took the bullet that, frankly, that's part of their calling that they're supposed to take.

00:33:00.460 And I hope in a good way it shames some of them this morning that they wake up and they realize that they have slept on the job.

00:33:07.680 And that's why somebody like Charlie had to do their job for them.

00:33:11.340 And as Charlie named his own organization, this is a turning point.

00:33:17.120 We're never going back to the way things were before.

00:33:19.500 What we do next, we'll decide whether or not they are better.

00:33:23.800 And as one of Charlie's biggest supporters and donors texted me this morning, we can only pray that out of one, many will rise up.

00:33:34.220 That's a guarantee.

00:33:35.200 That is an absolute guarantee that that is going to happen.

00:33:42.880 You know, when the tyrant is killed, his reign is over.

00:33:49.740 When the martyr is killed, his reign has just begun.

00:33:53.020 And make no mistake, for liberty, Charlie Kirk was a martyr.

00:34:00.760 He was assassinated and martyred yesterday.

00:34:04.500 And, you know, I think, I hope that America, I wish America could know him the way we knew him because he was such a generous man.

00:34:27.960 It didn't matter who you were or what rank in life you were, if you needed help, he was there.

00:34:37.960 And no matter how busy he was, everything stopped and he would help you.

00:34:44.120 And I saw it in him over and over and over again.

00:34:48.840 And I wish people could see that because, you know, this cartoon character where they're making him into this bomb thrower, he was anything but.

00:34:58.320 I mean, he would have the greatest conversations with people.

00:35:02.980 I mean, I couldn't have done it.

00:35:04.740 I couldn't do it. 0.69

00:35:05.560 I couldn't sit through that nonsense.

00:35:07.000 But he could, and he could logically and peacefully have a great conversation with people who despised him.

00:35:17.500 And that was so important for the healing of our nation.

00:35:21.340 And I really think that that's one of the reasons why he was killed.

00:35:24.380 Not just because he was effective at what he did, but because he was healing us.

00:35:31.020 Something that is really vital to happen.

00:35:35.080 And he was healing all of those divides.

00:35:39.820 I couldn't have said it better myself.

00:35:42.020 And if you just look on social media and see so many people in our movement who have such incredible people I don't know, people that don't know me, such incredible testimonies of everything you just said in their interactions with Charlie.

00:35:55.680 You know, we had a very divisive presidential primary.

00:35:59.720 And to be honest, I didn't always handle it well.

00:36:01.560 One of the first people I heard from when it was over was Charlie.

00:36:05.700 And he texted me and he said, don't give up.

00:36:09.060 We need you.

00:36:10.340 He didn't have to do that.

00:36:11.580 He won.

00:36:12.680 And he's got the bigger platform.

00:36:14.120 He's got the bigger show.

00:36:15.300 He didn't have to do that.

00:36:16.820 But that's the kinds of those are the kinds of things leaders do.

00:36:19.520 And the void that is left here is massive.

00:36:24.320 And at my lowest point I've ever had in my faith, the Lord said something to me that will stay with me the rest of my life.

00:36:37.840 And he said, Stephen, I'm sorry.

00:36:47.200 Stephen, I need apostles, not assassins.

00:36:52.140 And I want to share that with your audience.

00:36:54.760 Because to win the fight that is going to come after this, that is what will be required.

00:36:58.840 If you know me, you know, this isn't about being a pansy.

00:37:04.180 Apostles rebuke, but they don't seek revenge.

00:37:07.960 Apostles confront, but they don't condemn.

00:37:11.200 The apostles did something that Hannibal couldn't do.

00:37:15.400 No other civilization in the Fertile Crescent could do.

00:37:18.860 They conquered the Roman Empire.

00:37:20.400 They set the stage for Western civilization.

00:37:26.040 And they did not do it because they were passive and they sat on the sidelines and they were nicer than God and they wore pleated khakis and Hawaiian church year-round with sweater vests.

00:37:33.600 They did it because they got their hands dirty.

00:37:35.220 They did it because they did the kinds of things we saw Charlie do.

00:37:37.820 Build infrastructure.

00:37:39.500 Direct.

00:37:40.100 Lead.

00:37:40.460 Guide.

00:37:40.760 I mean, we would have to have a literal conclave, Glenn, and come up with literally everyone in our business and movement and come up with divisions to do all the various things Charlie himself was leading and doing.

00:37:52.280 And that organization was.

00:37:53.660 I told Charlie at dinner recently, it's like you were like if Rush Limbaugh and the Heritage Foundation had a baby.

00:37:59.360 This is what you and CPUS are.

00:38:02.140 And that's what it's going to take to fill that void.

00:38:06.100 And I'm sure with the size of your audience, my inbox, my wife is going through it as we speak.

00:38:12.340 It is full of people.

00:38:14.660 You were right.

00:38:15.560 I have to get off the sidelines.

00:38:17.620 I have to do something.

00:38:19.500 My buddy Sloan over at TPUSA texted me yesterday.

00:38:22.200 He goes, Steve, I can't tell you how many pastors we're hearing from.

00:38:24.320 They thought they were too pious for us, too good for us.

00:38:27.140 And now the stakes have been raised.

00:38:28.920 They're getting it.

00:38:29.540 And I'm just so sorry that it took two little children and their and their and their mom's family away from them for two for more people to get the message.

00:38:40.740 And I want to I want to specifically challenge my generation, Gen X. 0.99

00:38:46.340 No more grunge.

00:38:48.440 No more.

00:38:49.180 We're too cool for school.

00:38:50.740 No more. 0.98

00:38:51.640 Well, everything sucks. 0.82

00:38:52.740 Nothing we can do. 0.98

00:38:54.040 No more.

00:38:54.500 That was a 31 year old man doing the work as a young father and husband.

00:38:58.940 Frankly, it wasn't his time to do yet.

00:39:01.580 He has other primary duties that he should have been given the benefit of devoting to as a husband and father.

00:39:07.580 But our generation has sat on the sidelines for too long.

00:39:11.240 We must leave.

00:39:12.560 It is our children now that are grown, that are leaving the nest.

00:39:15.220 We are the ones with the free time.

00:39:16.880 We are the ones with the discretionary income.

00:39:19.320 It is our time now to leave, to stop bitching and complaining about boomers. 1.00

00:39:23.060 And I say that to me more than anybody else.

00:39:25.900 And to stop looking around like we're still listening to Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden and nothing's going to get better.

00:39:32.900 It is time now to leave.

00:39:34.820 This is our moment.

00:39:37.000 And we are the ones that are in place to do this with the positions of our families and with our productivity and prosperity.

00:39:43.780 We have to step to the forefront now.

00:39:45.940 Steve, this is why I love you so much.

00:39:55.340 Thank you.

00:39:56.660 Thank you.

00:39:57.240 Thank you.

00:39:57.580 Thank you.

00:39:58.660 You're welcome.

00:39:59.400 I love you.

00:40:02.080 We'll talk again.

00:40:03.600 Amen.

00:40:04.360 Thank you.

00:40:04.920 Charlie said to me one time, he was 17 years old.

00:40:34.920 And it was the first time we met.

00:40:43.900 He said, I want to be like you.

00:40:51.400 I want to do what you do.

00:40:52.840 He said, I'm doing and going to do what I do because I grew up listening to you and watching you.

00:41:07.820 He said, I would race home so I could watch your show at five.

00:41:14.060 He said, I'm in high school and college and I'm listening to you.

00:41:19.600 He was the guy that I hoped we would find.

00:41:42.020 And we would find the leadership in the youth and they would be raised with truth.

00:41:52.400 Yesterday, I spent too much time thinking about how I wish he wouldn't have listened to me.

00:42:22.380 My dad said, the goal of every father is to raise a son that can surpass him.

00:42:42.860 Charlie, at 25, had a better handle on America and its path and where we were headed and how to fix it than I have even today.

00:43:08.400 And because of that, he raised a whole generation.

00:43:19.400 Out of the people he taught, millions will rise.

00:43:26.200 I've thought a lot about the TPUSA crowd, I don't know, group, I don't even know what to call them, the Charlie's friends and family and kids.

00:43:54.520 Because I keep hearing people say about his family and that is true.

00:44:04.640 We've got to pray for his wife and his children.

00:44:07.560 We have to live up to be worthy of saying that that was our friend because I know how he would want us to react.

00:44:16.920 And I want his kids to see how a nation reacted.

00:44:21.100 And they reacted that way because their dad was such a great man.

00:44:29.260 But I've also thought a lot about the family of Turning Point.

00:44:34.660 Let me just say this, you're not forgotten, you're not alone.

00:44:44.820 You're not rudderless.

00:44:47.840 You're not over.

00:44:50.600 Because you learned from Charlie.

00:44:54.700 And I cannot wait to see what you're going to do next.

00:45:00.180 Just a few minutes ago, a friend of mine, Ellie Bestucki, who is just a remarkable woman, posted something.

00:45:25.780 To the people who did this, to the people who support this, you have changed our country forever.

00:45:34.080 If your goal was to immortalize Charlie's ideas and to raise people even bolder and more relentless than him, good job.

00:45:41.360 Because that's exactly what you've done.

00:45:43.840 And, Ellie, I want to share something that I just saw online.

00:45:47.620 From somebody I've never heard of, Maddie Rune.

00:45:54.520 I'm not going to lie.

00:45:56.360 With everything going on, I'm feeling the pull to go to church and give my life to Christ.

00:46:07.200 Such great good will come out of this, Ellie.

00:46:10.060 I know this is a tough day for you, and thank you for joining me.

00:46:13.520 Yeah.

00:46:14.060 God is in the business of redemption.

00:46:16.100 He is in the business of thwarting Satan's schemes.

00:46:19.100 He is in the business of bringing beauty out of ashes.

00:46:22.220 He is in the business of bringing glory to himself and bringing people to himself.

00:46:26.520 And if Charlie had had the choice, if someone had been able to come to him and say,

00:46:31.020 Okay, this is what your death will accomplish.

00:46:33.780 It will accomplish more people hearing the gospel.

00:46:36.060 It will accomplish more people waking up.

00:46:38.320 I know that if Charlie had had that choice, he would have said yes.

00:46:42.440 He would have said, Yes, Lord, send me.

00:46:44.280 And not only would he have, but he did.

00:46:46.480 He went into the lion's den, and now he is with the lion of Judah.

00:46:50.720 Now he is with Jesus, and everyone is going to know who he was and why he lived and the gospel that motivated him.

00:46:57.960 And that is the only thing right now that is giving me any hope or any peace or any comfort.

00:47:04.920 I know that all I could think of yesterday was how glorious the greeting must have been on the other side.

00:47:19.320 You know, good, well done, good and faithful servant.

00:47:23.440 Yes, absolutely.

00:47:24.840 And before any of us heard the news, before his sweet wife, Erica, got the phone call, he was already hearing those words.

00:47:31.760 And I am so happy for him.

00:47:34.140 I am so happy that he is with the saints and the martyrs and the persecuted, through which the Church of Christ has been advanced for millennia.

00:47:42.860 I am so happy for him.

00:47:43.920 But I am so sad for us.

00:47:47.580 I am so sad for us.

00:47:49.740 Heaven gained an incredible person, but we lost a huge presence.

00:47:55.740 That's how I know when people have faith.

00:48:00.820 They don't weep for the dead.

00:48:04.060 They weep for the loss to themselves and to the world and to the families that are hurting.

00:48:09.900 They mourn that loss on themselves, but when they think of the person who has died, they know exactly where they are.

00:48:18.620 And with Charlie, I mean, I knew him when he was 17 and he was a good kid, but what a change happened to him.

00:48:35.300 He was on fire for Christ, on fire for that.

00:48:40.640 Yes, absolutely.

00:48:41.780 He grew into, over the past five to 10 years, such a theologically deep and apologetically astute man of God, as he became a husband, as he became a father, as he became even more of a warrior for truth.

00:48:57.920 And that is really what, that's what inspired me.

00:49:01.120 And when I heard the news yesterday, I thought, my first thought was, that's it.

00:49:08.380 I'm done.

00:49:09.760 I'm throwing in the towel.

00:49:11.540 That is it for me.

00:49:12.860 I'm not, I'm not willing to do this anymore.

00:49:14.880 And then later after he died, I went through some of the texts that he had sent me over the years.

00:49:21.900 He was always sending everyone, all of his friends, these very encouraging texts.

00:49:25.100 And he sent me this article from a liberal outlet that, of course, had taken some jabs at me, that had made me anxious.

00:49:30.920 And he said, well done.

00:49:33.180 Keep slugging.

00:49:35.060 And I just, I just know that if he were here, that's exactly what he would say.

00:49:40.880 Not just to me, but to all of us, he would say, no, you can't get out now.

00:49:45.500 You got to keep going.

00:49:47.040 You got to keep going.

00:49:48.340 That's exactly how he would feel.

00:49:50.820 And that's exactly what he would tell all of us.

00:49:55.100 And I have received so many emails from people who have said, I don't know how to get back up again.

00:50:01.620 Yeah.

00:50:04.440 And I don't know what to tell them other than faith in God.

00:50:10.060 Faith in God.

00:50:10.820 I think if our side, if you will, I hate that in this context, but if we didn't have God, we'd be very much like the left right now.

00:50:26.980 We would be mired in anger and screaming for vengeance.

00:50:32.120 And it would be a really ugly place today if we didn't have God.

00:50:39.520 Yes.

00:50:40.100 And if Jesus wasn't raised from the dead, like if he wasn't resurrected, then we don't have a hope of a resurrection.

00:50:46.780 If he didn't defeat death, then we can't defeat death.

00:50:49.580 If Jesus didn't live forever, then we can't live forever.

00:50:51.780 And that's exactly what Charlie always preached, what he always posted on X, what he always said.

00:50:59.760 If you were to be able to text him right now and say, look, Charlie, I've got this really tough thing to talk about today.

00:51:07.040 And I don't know how to say it.

00:51:08.500 I don't know what to say.

00:51:09.940 What are your thoughts on it?

00:51:11.740 What should I say?

00:51:12.480 I know exactly what he would say.

00:51:14.900 The one word that he would text back, and that would be Jesus.

00:51:18.400 Just tell him that.

00:51:19.220 Just tell him that Jesus is the only way to fulfillment.

00:51:22.480 That is what he would say.

00:51:23.760 People may not realize that, but every time he went on a college campus, he wasn't just talking about capitalism or Donald Trump and all those things are important.

00:51:32.160 He shared the gospel.

00:51:33.940 He knew that every single person that walked in front of him was made in the image of God with a soul that was going to live forever in one of two places.

00:51:40.120 He desperately wanted the people who hated him to go to heaven.

00:51:43.740 And I just pray that I can have that same boldness for the rest of my life.

00:51:49.220 I don't mean to put you on the spot, Allie, but I feel as though I have seen two greats come into my life as very young adults.

00:52:06.940 The one was Charlie.

00:52:09.500 He was 17.

00:52:12.100 And I watched him grow into an icon in just remarkable things.

00:52:21.160 And I know I told you about a year or so ago that you're the first that I have seen come through my doors that I have said,

00:52:31.660 And that is a game changer.

00:52:34.420 This is a superstar that is going to change the game.

00:52:39.860 I don't mean to put you on the spot, but you're...

00:52:45.660 I'm sorry to say this to you, but you're the closest replacement.

00:52:54.740 The responsibility now on your shoulders.

00:52:59.880 I mean, because you can do it, and you're placed in the right place, and you have very much the same message.

00:53:08.180 And I want to thank you for being prepared.

00:53:12.680 Well, I don't feel very courageous right now.

00:53:19.480 Well, and I want to say thank you for those words, and thank you for your belief in me.

00:53:27.800 And, you know, Charlie, way back before I had any audience that was doing anything, I certainly hadn't done anything impressive at all.

00:53:37.820 Before I came to the blaze or anything, Charlie was one of the first people to reach out to me, said,

00:53:43.500 You got this.

00:53:45.320 Come speak at one of my events.

00:53:47.860 And he always, for reasons that I didn't really understand, he always cheered me on.

00:53:54.440 He always platformed me.

00:53:55.920 Even when I didn't agree with him on everything, he never cared about that.

00:54:01.320 And that was who he was.

00:54:03.060 He built people up, and I don't think I'll ever be able to fill those shoes.

00:54:08.540 And, you know, I'm just going to follow the call that God has on my life and try to do the next right thing and believe that God is going to use me.

00:54:17.540 And if he uses me in a fraction of the way that he used Charlie Kirk, then my life will be fulfilled.

00:54:25.620 He already has.

00:54:27.220 You've already done so many great things, Allie.

00:54:29.440 Thank you so much.

00:54:30.780 Thank you.

00:54:31.080 I appreciate you talking on such a hard day.

00:54:33.740 Thank you.

00:54:34.320 Allie Bestuckey, she is Blaze TV host of a show that is doing, I know, but a show that is doing so remarkably well everywhere.

00:54:49.660 And can I mention what you're doing, or have you decided on that for sure?

00:54:56.460 Yes, so the show is relatable, and we've got an event coming up.

00:55:07.500 Are you doing it?

00:55:08.760 Yes, we are doing it, and this is not a time for, I'm not trying to sell tickets or anything like that.

00:55:16.140 I just, I got a message.

00:55:17.600 So we've got this event, a Christian women's conference called Share the Arrows.

00:55:21.240 And actually, Charlie was like the perfect embodiment of that, because whenever anyone got arrows slung at them for saying something that was true, he was the guy to stand up and say, yeah, you know what?

00:55:32.820 I'll take those arrows, too.

00:55:34.700 And that's what this conference is about.

00:55:36.360 It's about instilling women with courage, teaching them theology, and making sure that they share what is good, right, and true in every sphere of the world that they occupy.

00:55:44.880 And I got a message from someone saying, you know, I'm so glad I bought these tickets two months ago, because I need to be near believers.

00:55:55.080 I need to be encouraged.

00:55:57.400 I need worship.

00:55:59.240 So if that is you, if you are a Christian woman and you're like, wow, I need this, then you can go to sharethearrows.com.

00:56:07.600 You can get your tickets there today.

00:56:10.100 I'd be so happy to have you.

00:56:12.100 There will be thousands of us there.

00:56:13.580 We will be singing hymns.

00:56:14.940 We will be worshiping.

00:56:15.880 We will be learning from the Word of God, and we will draw courage from each other.

00:56:19.760 So if you want to be there, then I invite you to come, and that's sharethearrows.com.

00:56:26.460 And it's happening on October 11th at the Credit Union of Texas Events Center.

00:56:32.320 And, you know, I just talked to Megyn Kelly a few minutes ago, and I talked to her off the air, and I said,

00:56:40.780 I think I know the answer, but are you really going to start your tour next Monday?

00:56:47.600 Yeah.

00:56:47.860 And she said, yeah, I am.

00:56:52.680 Nothing is going to stop these valiant, valiant women and warriors.

00:56:57.680 So thank you, Allie.

00:57:00.520 Appreciate it.

00:57:01.400 Thank you, Glenn, for everything that you do and how you lead and how you represent the truth so well.

00:57:07.780 We are all so thankful to you and indebted to you in many, many ways.

00:57:12.160 Sharethearrows.com, and you can follow Allie, blazetv.com slash Allie, and her show is Relatable. 0.54

00:57:21.440 And your say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:57:50.200 You

The Glenn Beck Program - September 11, 2025

Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Steve Deace & Liz Wheeler ｜ 9⧸11⧸25

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