On this episode of The Glenn Beck Program, host Glenn Beck is joined by special guest Justin Barkley. They discuss the Somali pirate scandal, the daycare centers in Minnesota, the latest on the HHS funding crisis, and much, much more.
00:23:43.140The Days of Ash. Our new series revealing the moments when civilizations turn and how to spot them today.
00:24:07.200Premieres January 5th at GlennBeck.com.
00:24:11.940Yeah, we were just talking about this off the air. Apparently, Black Eyed Peas after the ball drops is the thing.
00:24:20.480Asked me, did you do that? Do you do that? And BJ said he does it every year. And I go, I can't. No, I can't even count on the amount.
00:24:29.880I'm not a black eyed pea guy. I am a cornbread guy. So usually when I've had the black eyed piece, I've had the cornbread with it. But it's just not something that we do. Now, maybe that's because we're Yankees. And it's only it's. Is it only a southern thing? I don't know.
00:24:45.740So, you know, later on the show, we should open up and maybe we can hear from you. And I mean, it's a good idea. Maybe you could tell me. Justin at JustinBarkley.com. Or give us a call. Let us know. What do you. What is it? Is it? Is it something that you're going to be doing? Is there some sort of tradition or whatnot when the ball drops?
00:25:04.180I don't. I'm not. I just. I very rarely make it to the ball. I think I will this year, but I very rarely make it to the ball dropping anymore.
00:25:15.760That's kind of like I think there was. Well, I've seen it all. I've seen it. It's kind of amateur night. And that's the way I look at it. But at the end of the day, and I don't really have a lot of.
00:25:25.760I don't have a lot of those superstitions and things that I do, but I think it'll be an interesting. It is interesting to hear from you anyway. All right, folks, I wanted to talk about we were just talking about this story and my good friend James Dixon is on with us right now.
00:25:43.920In fact, he's got a show called the James Dixon podcast. He's written for numerous publications. I won't even name them all.
00:25:52.500But most recently, he's written for the folks in Detroit and the Detroit News and, of course, done some things at the Boston Globe. He's been all over.
00:26:00.580I think I heard you say the other day your first piece in college was kind of a big deal for you that got you moving.
00:26:09.340Hey, good morning, James. Welcome in. I appreciate you being here on the Glenn Beck program.
00:26:12.420Good morning, Justin. It's great to hear your voice. And yeah, it was a real blessing.
00:26:17.860So this was February 2006. I was a 22-year-old man. And to have the chance to have a story published in National Review was like every dream come true.
00:26:30.000When a career is young, you need those moments of validation.
00:26:33.600Heck, I'm 20 years older than that, and I still need moments of validation.
00:26:37.560And when they come, you just remember them forever.
00:26:42.300And yeah, so that was kind of the start of the journey, and here we are.
00:26:46.600The reason I bring that up, James, is because there's a story, and I saw you comment about this on Axe, and I felt very similar.
00:26:55.060But it's just this whole thing in Minnesota. In fact, everything that Trump does really exposes people for who they are, but particularly folks in the media.
00:27:05.220And I know you've been very critical. You've been very outspoken about it.
00:27:08.220And somebody set this up to share that James is somebody that's been inside the belly of the beast.
00:27:13.100He knows how the sausage is made. We'll pull the curtain back for you and tell you about, in fact, has no problem doing that, tell you about who these people are and what they're doing.
00:27:23.620But this story, to me, it should be a surprise, but it's not anymore.
00:27:28.720A legal reporter for Politico, in fact, I thought the best part was how much he got roasted for what he said online, made shocking comments, essentially saying that if Nick Shirley or any investigative reporter knocks on the door of a Somali daycare or any other place being investigated, that those folks ought to shoot him.
00:27:53.000I mean, that's the way I took the comments.
00:27:55.880Well, that's exactly the way it was written.
00:27:57.880And when you think about the wording of the tweet, right, Josh Gerstein talks about, oh, amateurs knocking on doors.
00:28:06.400Well, amateurs as opposed to what, right?
00:28:09.280The implication is that the professionals, they're not doing the job.
00:28:17.680And so what they're saying is nobody should be doing the work.
00:28:20.440This makes more sense when you understand journalists to be synonymous with communists.
00:28:24.880Because those streams run right next to each other these days.
00:28:29.520It wasn't always this way, but there's always been a strain of fake news that's paired with the news, even with on the same page, even within the same sentence or story.
00:30:31.800And the real problem is, in this day and age, everybody has access to the same search bar.
00:30:37.940So a guy like Nick Shirley is a real threat because he's actually making use of it.
00:30:42.160I saw another attempt to shoot down Shirley's report, CBS News.
00:30:46.060They put what was clearly a house cat desk reporter.
00:30:49.480They put him, made him stand outside a little bit in Minneapolis and essentially say he'd made a phone call and found out that a lot of these businesses weren't fraudulent.
00:30:58.380And so your response to a guy who did man-on-the-street reporting and found hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud is to put a desk reporter outside to make it appear as if he did the same thing when all he made was as little as one phone call.
00:31:15.220I call all of this, whether it's the veiled death threats, whether it's the fake news trying to exonerate these fraudsters, I call all of it un-journalism because these days these people aren't even motivated by a search for truth.
00:31:29.880He's down I-75 over on Twitter, X, James Dixon, the James Dixon podcast.
00:31:37.180You know what's wild about all of this is that these people, these local people, could have been doing the reporting themselves.
00:31:46.240Shirley didn't just, you know, find this out of the blue.
00:31:49.980He was approached by people in Minnesota that actually have been digging into this that said this is a real problem nobody else will cover.
00:32:58.500There's a part of us, a heart of hearts, right, that knows that we are full of it.
00:33:04.520And so if you're a journalist and you know you don't have any scoops, you know you mostly do coverage and reheated versions of other people's work.
00:33:11.600And you see some 23-year-old kid get the herald, get the attention, get the acclaim that you never have because you've never broken a story.
00:33:28.600Or do you say the guy should be shot and killed?
00:33:30.460Josh Gerstein is the legal reporter there for Political that this is in question.
00:33:38.660By the way, the story is everywhere, but we've also posted it on the stack at justinbarclay.com.
00:33:44.660James, another story that I really wanted to cover with you originally is the story out of Michigan and what's happening with elections here.
00:33:55.080I don't think it's just Michigan, but it is potentially one of the bigger stories in 2026 as we move into such a big election year.
00:34:04.360You've uncovered something yourself as you are digging that folks need to hear about and why this is going to matter moving into the new year and in this big election year.
00:34:15.620We're going to talk about that coming up in just a moment.
00:34:17.400If you can hang with us past the break, ring the alarm on it.
00:34:20.820Coming up after this, the ghost voters, that Michigan Secretary of State, the Democrat, who's going to oversee her own election as governor, coming up this year.
00:34:34.020Oh, I'm sure there's nothing to see here.
00:34:36.380We'll pull the curtain back on all of it after this on the Glenn Beck program.
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00:35:52.680Go to MyPatriotSupply.com slash Glenn.
00:38:07.640And so the thing of ERIC is, hey, if state A and state B have the same voter on the rolls, they talk to each other, they talk to the voter and figure out who should eliminate the voter, right?
00:38:20.280But what actually happens, and the thing behind the thing on ERIC, is they send these annual reports to member states called eligible but unregistered.
00:38:30.940A member state, unless you have a specific exemption, a member state has to then reach out to those people.
00:38:37.940And so that's how 700,000 postcards go out on the eve of the election.
00:38:42.140Now, what are the chances in a state that registers people to vote when they get a driver's license, when they do anything with state government, what are the chances that 10% of the voting population was found on the eve of the election, just not registered, right?
00:42:50.780It's incredible to watch some of the latest numbers we've had, GDP and the inflation and all of this gearing up to make a massive move in 2026.
00:43:00.180And that would be helpful for the midterms, at least for us.
00:45:04.6403% shelter inflation, 2.7% overall inflation, down a little bit.
00:45:10.500But the GDP number there, the last one, 4.3%, booming.
00:45:15.920Yeah, you know, these numbers, I think it's sometimes...
00:45:19.480Lots of green on the screen, by the way, here.
00:45:21.660The Trump economy in review 2025, by the way, that was the name of that segment.
00:45:26.020And the numbers on Fox & Friends, as they look back in this last year, what the president's already been able to accomplish and what is ahead into the new year and more.
00:45:37.640We've heard lots of interesting reports on this.
00:45:42.400In fact, I wanted to talk with U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach about some of this.
00:45:45.600You'll know him for something that is one of the most interesting things, I think, maybe in the history-making, in the history of the country.
00:45:54.260We'll talk about that in just a moment.
00:45:57.240He was part of, in fact, there, he meant it, the last penny ever.
00:46:05.340We'll talk about who bought it and how much it sold for coming up in a moment, too.
00:46:09.860But, Mr. Treasurer, thank you so much for being here with us today.
00:46:13.260Really appreciate you taking the time.
00:46:15.360Well, Justin, thanks for having me, and Happy New Year to you and your listeners.
00:46:20.120You know, 2026 is going to be a great year.
00:46:22.840You know, when you look at what the president's done, we've laid the foundation in 2025 with what Secretary Besson and he have both done on tariffs and, you know, having an even playing field from a standpoint there.
00:46:39.080And then when you see the big, beautiful bill, when it kicks in with the tax cuts and the refunds, and I think interest rates are going to continue to drop.
00:46:47.060And as you said earlier in your program, I just paid $2.21 a gallon for gas the other day.
00:46:53.360Gas prices are going to continue to come down.
00:46:55.680And I think we're going to have a really great 2026.
00:46:58.560The other thing that I think people aren't really thinking about is what we're going to do from a tourism standpoint in 2026.
00:47:04.860You've got World Cup coming to our country.
00:47:07.960You're going to – in Atlanta, for example, we're going to have eight games, and that's like four Super Bowls from an economic impact standpoint.
00:47:15.300So that's going to be big for our country, plus it's going to showcase our country for future economic development.
00:47:21.760So I'm really excited about World Cup also, and we're doing the coins for World Cup, the U.S. Menace, and that's going to be a fun project we've been working on.
00:47:30.440Yeah, we've got to talk about some of these coins here in just a second.
00:47:33.060This is from the secretary talking about what you just mentioned, which is the massive tax cuts and what that means as money really starts to flow in 2026 and what that's going to mean for your pocket and our economy.
00:47:46.480What we are going to see next year that if you think about the signature parts of the tax bill,
00:47:54.880I think that the most powerful parts had the immediate expensing for American business, permanent for equipment, and then four- or five-year window for factories.
00:48:11.620So we are already seeing a CapEx boom.
00:48:17.880I think that is going to accelerate with all the trade deals we've done.
00:48:21.340I was just about six weeks ago in my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina.
00:48:26.480Boeing, the largest employer there, is increasing their plant by 50% for the Dreamliners, a result of the trade deals, but it's also part of the tax deal.
00:48:38.440So we're going to continue seeing this CapEx boom that turns into an employment boom.
00:48:42.600On the other side, for working Americans, the president, I led the administration's team up on the hill in terms of what was non-negotiable for the president.
00:48:59.120And a lot of traditional Republicans didn't like his campaign promises to working Americans.
00:49:05.420And the president never yielded on this, so no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans for American-made cars.
00:49:18.580It's retroactive to the beginning of the year for working Americans, retroactive to January 20th for corporates.
00:49:26.080So working Americans, I also have the honor of being the IRS commissioner, and I can see that we're going to have a gigantic refund year in the first quarter because no one changed their, working Americans did not change their withholding.
00:49:42.560So I think households could see, depending on the number of workers, $1,000, $2,000 refunds, they will change their withholding schedule at the beginning of the year, and they will get an automatic increase in real wages.
00:49:59.220So I think that's going to be a very, I think that's going to be a very powerful combo.
00:51:05.740Well, and, Justin, I don't know if you read in the Wall Street Journal just the other day that there's over a trillion dollars of construction
00:51:13.220just on data centers alone in the United States going on right now.
00:51:17.480That's just construction on data centers.
00:51:19.160That's not other manufacturing facilities that are going on, all these jobs coming back to America.
00:51:25.780The construction industry is booming right now.
00:51:28.080And then in 18 months, we'll see permanent manufacturing jobs anywhere from 12 to 18 months from now after the construction is done.
00:51:35.500The economy is going to be booming in this 2026.
00:51:40.040It's going to really be on fire, especially, like you said, the GDP at 4.3 percent, the money flowing, the construction jobs.
00:51:48.080You know, I just think we're going to be doing very well, and interest rates continuing dropping.
00:51:53.560And then what Doug Burgum and Chris Wright are doing with energy, not only independence, but energy dominance, you're going to see the fruits of that.
00:52:02.200And when, you know, energy costs come down, transportation costs come down, food costs come down, you're going to see a lot of movement in the next six months.
00:52:11.700So we've looked at some of these pieces here.
00:52:15.300Obviously, this is what we can expect, obviously, what the president has done in the first year, what we can expect in the next year.
00:52:22.760But I want to talk about some of the other things that are happening, too.
00:52:26.500In fact, Secretary Beach with us right now has made history, and I got a chance to talk to you.
00:52:31.760I think before the auction happened, he was involved in, meant this last penny.
00:52:38.500So we're done with pennies, but they've auctioned this thing off now, and I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about how much it went for, millions and millions of dollars, and who actually bought it.
00:52:49.240As far as I know, Glenn likes to get in on these auctions.
00:52:59.400Well, I can tell you it was historic, and I've been fortunate as a state senator and now as treasurer to do a lot of really great things, cool things.
00:53:07.340And unique things, and I will tell you, when I held that last penny, I took a deep breath, and I realized what was happening here.
00:53:16.280This was the last penny that we were going to strike in the history of our country, and it was a very neat opportunity to do that.
00:53:25.820And we did it because it was part of President Trump's common sense policies.
00:53:31.260The penny, before COVID, we did 9.2 billion pennies a year.
00:53:37.760We produced, last year we only did 2 billion.
00:53:40.760So the demand went down, and yet the cost tripled.
00:53:44.440It was costing us 4 or 4.5 cents to produce a penny.
00:53:49.160And, you know, President Trump just said that's not the right thing to do, and he's right.
00:53:54.060And it's going to save the taxpayers $56 million annually by eliminating the penny.
00:54:18.880You know, the president was very excited about that.
00:54:21.480He said that that shows the Trump policies are working.
00:54:24.820When someone can spend $16.7 million for a penny, things are good.
00:54:29.940So we were very excited to do that and auction that penny off.
00:54:35.080But that's the reason we eliminated the penny.
00:54:37.140It is wild to think of how long we were doing it, and it really doesn't make a lot of sense when it comes to talking about the things in government these days.
00:54:48.080And, of course, that's been one of the, I think, the core of what the president has really tried to do, and we've seen the results of that, is get back to common sense.
00:54:57.780We've been so far removed from it for so long.
00:55:04.640We've got a bill in the legislature, in the Congress now, to look at going to a different alloy so we can save money there on the cost of production of the nickel.
00:55:14.340So we're looking at everything to make sure that we are doing the best job for the taxpayers of the country and making sure that we're doing common sense policy.
00:55:24.140Now, you just mentioned some other coins.
00:55:26.960We've got U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach with us right now.
00:55:29.020And you just mentioned some other coins.
00:55:31.500You talked about World Cup coins, but I saw there's some other coins that are being talked about as well.
00:55:36.600We've got the 250th birthday here in the country.
00:55:39.640That's another one you're looking at as well.
00:55:41.120That's going to be a big one for folks.
00:55:42.220We did some special coins, and what we're doing there is just like I talked to somebody the other day that still has their bicentennial coins that they got in 1976, and they've kept them.
00:55:53.200And we've done that with – we've got some quarters, a dime, and a half dollar, and we're just – what we're trying to do is talk about our Constitution, our independence, our early governance, you know, talk about liberty and, you know, just the things that we are lucky to have here in this country, and also, you know, use it as a tool to teach young people, you know, just how we came to the history of this country.
00:56:21.500And so what we're doing is we have those, but also I want to talk to you about another coin, the Trump dollar coin.
00:56:29.660As you know, the president, we're working on a coin with him, President Trump on the front, and then on the back, we're working on the back of the coin.
00:56:38.920He cannot be on the back, but he can be on the front, and we will have that.
00:56:42.320We should have that design done in the next 10 days, and I'll get with Secretary Besant, and we'll approve it, and we will move forward and go into production.
00:56:50.560And you will see a Trump dollar coin hopefully in the next 10 weeks in circulation, and it will be legal tender.
00:56:57.000It will be a dollar coin of legal tender.
00:57:00.100So I'm excited about that project too.
00:57:02.680How do the – I'm sure people are going to run it, like – obviously it's worth a dollar, but it'll be worth even more because people want those.
00:57:10.840How will people be able to get them when they come out?
00:57:31.640I'm sure we'll have to mint a lot of them because a lot of people are going to want them.
00:57:37.780But it is going to be legal tender, and it's going to be a great thing for our country.
00:57:41.960I came about this idea – when the president called me and appointed me, I wanted to do a $250 bill for him for the 250-year anniversary with his picture on it.
00:57:52.320But I didn't realize you had to be deceased to be on a currency, paper currency.
00:57:57.040You do not have to be deceased to be on a dollar coin.
00:58:13.060It's in committee, full committee, and we're hoping to get that passed out of the House to allow the president to be on the $250 bill for the 250-year celebration.
00:58:23.380So we're working on that, but that does take legislation, and we're going to work on that.
00:58:29.260U.S. Treasurer, we appreciate playing the beach bandwagon.
00:58:32.460Thank you for taking the time during the holiday here to come on and talk with us and share.
00:58:37.840I know folks are going to be looking forward to all those things in the coming of the new year, especially what a year for the 250th anniversary of the founding of this country.
00:58:48.520It's going to be a spectacular celebration.
00:58:52.180Well, let me tell you this, if I could.
00:58:54.900I was fortunate enough to be involved in President Trump's campaign here in Georgia, where I'm from, and I got to know him.
00:59:03.740And I can tell you that it didn't take me long to figure out he loves our country.
00:59:07.040He loves and respects law enforcement and the military, but what he really loves is capitalism.
00:59:13.740And I've heard him talk about the Golden Age economy several times, and I can tell you this.
00:59:19.120He wants you, your kids, and your grandkids to be able to pursue the American dream.
00:59:24.240And he also realizes, and I realized this when I was in the State Senate, government does not create jobs.
00:59:31.360But what we can do as a government is create a conducive environment through fair trade, the tariffs, low taxes, less regulation, provide an educated workforce, and provide infrastructure, both roads, bridges, and 21st century infrastructure, the right fiber, the right cell towers, the right satellites, the right AI.
00:59:51.340And if we do those things and get out of the way, we will have economic prosperity, and you will be able to pursue the American dream.
00:59:59.400And, you know, you've heard the president talk a lot about having a Golden Age economy in every zip code in this country.
01:00:42.480He wanted to open a restaurant, couldn't get a bank loan, goes out on the oil rigs, works a couple years on time and a half and double time, saves $40,000.
01:00:50.560Now he owns Raisin Cane's, and he's worth $22 billion.
01:05:17.760So there's an investigation ongoing, and I think Tim's going to have a bad day, and he deserves it.
01:05:24.300Because he allowed this fraud, because he wanted the voting bloc that the Somalis represent, because they all vote in a bloc, and it's 100,000, 150,000, who knows how many.
01:05:36.900Um, but it's, it's so bad now that when we go to a facility, they're already screaming, Nick Shirley, Nick Shirley, Nick Shirley.
01:05:46.740It is, uh, that's David, by the way, the man who, I think, tipped Nick Shirley off to all of this that's happening in Minnesota.
01:05:54.140He's the one that's been ringing the alarm for, I think, quite some time.
01:05:56.660This is, if you're from Minnesota, by the way, all of us are learning about this now, or have learned about it here very recently.
01:06:03.980Uh, but if you're from Minnesota, none of this is, none of this is new.
01:06:12.000Let me put it that way and talk more about that and the no good, very bad day that Tim Walls is having over the last several days, and probably going to get even worse.
01:06:21.700Speaker of the Minnesota House and running for governor as a Republican, Lisa DeMuth, joins us right now.
01:06:40.040Thanks for having this conversation with me.
01:06:43.120Fraud in Minnesota is not new to, I would say, Republicans here in the state of Minnesota.
01:06:49.180Some of our Democrat colleagues right now, as more has come out over the weekend through this viral video by Nick Shirley, seem to be surprised by it, including some of the commissioners on Governor Walz's staff.
01:07:03.120But it is not new, but it has exploded over the last seven years, specifically, under the administration of Governor Walz.
01:07:13.600Well, it was, I mean, this, this seems like it's, it's, it's getting to the point where it's like completely obvious.
01:07:36.760And the U.S. Attorney's Office has given assistance here in Minnesota.
01:07:42.420We had one of the largest COVID frauds feeding our future was the company, supposed company, feeding kids during the pandemic.
01:07:51.920It is proven that $250 million of fraud went out just in that case.
01:07:59.880The U.S. Assistant Attorney, Joe Thompson, has said in a news conference a couple of weeks ago that fraud in Minnesota is at an industrial scale level, and it will probably be about $9 billion.
01:08:13.980Justin, those are Minnesota tax dollars, but also federal tax dollars of theft from everyone in the United States, and including those of us in Minnesota.
01:08:24.820You know, and I think one of the things that people miss, because obviously we're outraged by this, and anybody who, you know, is honest about it when you're looking at this, you ought to be outraged by it.
01:08:36.380But I think the thing that we probably miss the most out of this is that when this type of thing happens, because, you know, we want to do the right thing, we do want to help people.
01:08:46.620And I'm sure, you know, in Minnesota, as nice as you all are, you want to do the right thing.
01:08:51.460You want to help as many people as you can, but you really want to do it the right way.
01:08:56.100And when you find out this type of thing is happening, it actually hurts more than anything the people who are the most vulnerable.
01:09:02.480It definitely hurts those, and what we have said is every dollar that goes out in fraud means that that dollar did not make its way to the people that need it the most, and it was stolen from family budgets.
01:09:15.720I think people that are working very hard, just making ends meet, and then find out that their dollars that were supposed to go to help people were spent in fraud, we won't recover the bulk of those dollars back.
01:09:30.100Fraud in Minnesota needs to end now, and we're finally getting the attention that it is needed.
01:09:36.840We've been fighting this fight for my entire seven years in the legislature, but Democrat control has blocked it at every single turn.
01:09:46.260She's a Speaker of the House now, she's a Republican there in Minnesota, running for governor, at least the move is right now.
01:09:51.200Here's a post from Stephen Miller, President's Advisor, earlier this morning on Axe.
01:09:56.180What if I told you our national debt is the tab for the mass looting of the American economy and the mass theft of the American dream?
01:10:06.660In other words, one of the reasons why we see such a massive debt and that everyone is chained to and our kids and our grandkids here in this country is because of this very fraud, this looting that's happening.
01:10:20.100It's at least part of it, absolutely, and that is a wrong thing to do.
01:10:26.060You know, as we have tried to, over my time in the legislature, put forward bills, and it's important for your listeners, Justin, to realize that there has been Democrat control in the state here in Minnesota for much too long.
01:10:40.280We tied the House of Representatives just this last election in 2024, that is what allowed me to become Speaker, and I established the Fraud Prevention and Agency Oversight Committee.
01:10:52.960The way that I was able to do that is for a short period of time, even though we originally were tied with the Democrats in the House,
01:11:00.680they supported a fraudster that didn't live in his district, that the court struck down and could not take office.
01:11:09.480So for the period of time where Republicans in the House in Minnesota had 67 members, the Democrats were down to just 66 because they supported fraud in an election.
01:11:20.980I was able to establish the Fraud Prevention Committee, become the Speaker of the House, and we put forward bills, even if we couldn't get them passed.
01:11:29.600They've been tabled, ready to go to combat a number of these things when we return back into session in February.
01:11:37.560So Democrats in Minnesota have protected and promoted fraud for years.
01:11:42.980Lisa DeMuth with us right now, she's the Speaker of the House, running for governor right now in Minnesota.
01:11:48.100So let's talk about what we do to stop this because we're already seeing, and this is going to be a whole other issue altogether, I would think,
01:11:57.720not just for Minnesota but for other states, it shouldn't be, if everything is above board, it should be, everything should be from it.
01:12:03.900We've heard that Health and Human Services has had to freeze now any of the funds coming into not just the state but looking at doing this in all states
01:12:12.380because of this massive amount of fraud.
01:12:16.180So the money stopped flowing in right away.
01:12:20.160Obviously, it looks like they say taking in the state $185 million in child care funds for this particular piece every year.
01:12:32.940Maybe you can help us with that as well.
01:12:34.240But how do we put a stop to this, at least at the state level, from where your perspective is?
01:12:40.260You know, the way that we can stop this in the state are just common sense business practices where you would have internal controls.
01:12:47.660Some of the things that we have tried to put forward is if there is a known entity that is suspected or convicted of fraud,
01:12:54.680it would be a simple check to make sure that same person or entity were not receiving other state dollars in other programs.
01:13:03.560Because as we're talking about this fraud in the child care assistance program, we know in Minnesota, as I mentioned, Feeding Our Future,
01:13:12.720that was out of our Department of Education that those $250 million went out.
01:13:17.740We have other suspected and proven fraud in autism services, adult daycare, non-emergency transportation, housing stabilization services.
01:13:29.660But under Democrat control, our budget exploded and we had an $18 billion surplus that was completely spent.
01:13:38.940And our taxes and fees in Minnesota were raised another $10 billion.
01:13:43.640And because Democrats were in full control of state government, Republicans could sound the alarm, but we didn't have the votes to change it.
01:13:52.480And there was not a single Democrat that would say, maybe we need to look at why the budget has exploded.
01:13:57.840They just kept shoveling the money out the door.
01:14:11.520You know, I remember the first time you and I talked was actually right back after they announced Tim Walz would be the running mate for Kamala Harris.
01:14:20.880He'd be the VP candidate for the Democrats.
01:14:23.620And we kind of got a bit of a taste of how bad things were because it is no secret in the state of Minnesota.
01:14:32.500And this is a guy who, you know, he had to set up a hotline for you to rat out your neighbors.
01:14:37.920If you had more than a couple people over at your house and things like that, we had National Guard out on the streets, you know, making sure people weren't outside.
01:14:47.020It's just wild, some of the stories that we've heard.
01:14:49.520But you've seen it all up close and personal.
01:14:52.940And you've been somebody on the front row for Tim Walz.
01:15:25.440At a minimum, if he doesn't resign immediately, he at least needs to say that he is not running again for a third term and pull out of that race.
01:15:39.120There is either an ignoring of the facts or an ignorance that they're not happening.
01:15:44.900You know, when you and I talked, Justin, and Governor Walz was the vice presidential candidate with Harris as far as for vice president, maybe he was more focused on other things at a national level and didn't pay attention to what was happening here in Minnesota.
01:16:15.500He doesn't strike me, and I know you'll know him better than I do, but he doesn't strike me as a guy who's willing to walk away or even admit that there have been mistakes.
01:16:25.140Even, let's be honest, acknowledge reality in some ways.
01:16:30.060I think he's going to have to be dragged away kicking and screaming.
01:16:34.020And, unfortunately, that only, I think, hurts the folks in Minnesota there.
01:16:39.320Tell us about your run, though, for governor.
01:17:14.440We've watched our state budget go from an $18 billion surplus and a raising of taxes and fees.
01:17:21.620Governor Walz has spent us into a $6 billion deficit.
01:17:25.360And there have been mandates that have pushed businesses out.
01:17:29.040A new program starting tomorrow in the state of Minnesota, paid family medical leave.
01:17:34.120It is a tax and a mandate on every business if you have one or more employees that will allow employees to take up to 20 weeks off for either their own health issues or the health issues of a friend or someone they know or the bonding of a child.
01:22:55.580Down the road where shadows hide, feel the dark on every side, stand your ground when times get dark, gotta face the dark and embrace the fire.
01:23:11.340The fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.
01:23:18.980Well, it has certainly been historic in nature this last year, the term, the second term of the President of the United States.
01:23:29.200And it's also been historic for us in so many other ways.
01:23:34.480I want to talk about, that's something that's sort of switching gears if I can on the last hour here of the Glenn Beck Program for the year.
01:23:42.700In the honor of filling in for Glenn today on the Glenn Beck Program, it's Justin Barclay.
01:23:48.640We're going to get you to give us maybe some of your thoughts, your predictions, if any, about what's coming in 2026.
01:23:55.720This is the smartest audience, I believe, in radio.
01:23:59.180Hats off to the folks that listen to the Glenn Beck Program.
01:24:02.280So here's the number, 888-727-B-E-C-K.
01:29:04.700Mostly because if you just shot up and did a Google Earth or put a drone up in the sky, you would see other anomalies of very similar kind throughout that region.
01:29:42.020If you can start or restart creation from a particular point date, it explains a lot of cultures and different languages and the continents.
01:30:02.100And if it is, you know, will we ever find it?
01:30:06.280Or is this just something that's meant to be a mystery?
01:30:08.780I think personally, I mean, we spent all of our time on the eastern plateau, which would have been an ideal site for preservation of a, you know, of an ark that would have been at that point, you know, thousands of years old.
01:30:22.300And our hope was that if we had found it and conclusively proved that it was there, it would have been like the phronic sunboats, you know, from the Delta Nile, which are perfectly preserved.
01:30:30.720Or the, you know, in Siberia, you've got these mastodones, these woolly mammoths that are preserved to the point that they're now able to extract DNA from them.
01:30:40.080You know, or the bog ships from Norway.
01:30:42.680If you go to Norway, you can see all these Viking ships that were perfectly preserved in the peat moss bog.
01:30:46.900So any environment that's oxygen free, that doesn't allow for the entrance of bacteria, you could have that, you know, save for perpetuity.
01:30:54.600So having ruled it out almost conclusively, it could still be in that area, but I highly doubt it.
01:30:59.320It's a hundred foot depth, and we did everything we could to figure out what was underneath the ice.
01:31:04.360But I personally believe it's in the O'Hara Gorge, if it is there or intact, you know, if they didn't break it apart and use it for wood immediately afterwards.
01:31:13.460You know, it is interesting to think about, and I think that's why we're drawn, because we want answers, right?
01:31:22.920I mean, you're somebody, and I think if you watch the documentary Finding Noah, you're going to get, they didn't get the arc.
01:31:30.940But what they did find, I think, was even more interesting in this case.
01:31:37.000And I think that's part of what draws us, is we're looking for answers as people.
01:31:43.300Well, I think the great discoveries are what you find while you're looking for something else.
01:33:02.800And, in fact, you've got a new project you're working on right now, Kevin.
01:33:06.640You guys are going to do something that has started to, I guess, be talked about again.
01:33:14.140And in a project, in a way that's never been done before, you're launching something that I guess I would sort of describe as like a Bear Grylls meets The Chosen in some ways.
01:33:35.540And so when we did our last documentary, which is called The Journey Within, and it's all over just about every available channel possible, we did that because we wanted the viewer to go in as we were going up.
01:33:46.940So it was a trek to Everest base camp, and it was talking a lot about trauma and how does trauma heal.
01:33:53.280And so we were basically using the whole Himalayan range as kind of a juxtaposition of the inward journey because it's hard to climb mountains, but it's really hard to climb the ones that are within.
01:34:02.080And sometimes I would imagine that those are the hardest miles to climb.
01:34:12.640And most people in the Western world, we live in our heads.
01:34:15.120You know, we don't want to get into the heart because that's where, you know, all the good stuff happens.
01:34:19.940But it's also where the hurt lies, but it's where the pain is, but that's also where your purpose is.
01:34:24.620So your purpose is always encrypted in pain.
01:34:26.840So if you can get past that, if you can walk into that cave, the great mythologist Joseph Campbell said that the cave that you dread to enter also holds the treasure that you.
01:34:40.220It's great to go to the North and South Pole, look for Noah's Ark.
01:34:43.380Adventure is a beautiful, wonderful thing.
01:34:45.780It's kind of a lost art and it gets you on this journey, but the real journey is that 18 inches to get out of your head, out of that cerebral domain that you live in with facts and sink down into those 18 inches.
01:34:59.020Get into your heart, get into your story, get into the true narrative, your true identity, which is always spiritual.
01:35:06.040And if we can leverage adventure to do that, I think we've accomplished something.
01:35:09.380In fact, the way we're marketing this or positioning this docuseries is where it's a series that's going where no other series has gone before, kind of a Star Trek thing.
01:35:19.720But we're trying to essentially take the typical adventure program and turn it on its head.
01:35:25.900And instead of just talking about achievements and all those things that come with that, we're trying to leverage that and turn it into something catalytic, something that's more about spiritual awakening.
01:35:37.080So it's not just about, you know, climbing something and achieving something or surviving something.
01:35:45.200And if we can leverage those great survival stories, the Shackleton stories, right, these highly successful theaters, kind of like Finding Noah.
01:35:55.320Dozens of guys and electrical activity and thunderstorms and, you know, geopolitical tension with the PKK and the Turks.
01:36:03.420I mean, there's numerous ways we could have died, right?
01:36:05.480It's almost Shackleton-esque where, you know, it takes these 27 guys on adventure and against all odds, after being years on the ice, they come back to the man.
01:36:40.480By the way, Kevin, I know this isn't like for prime time.
01:36:42.920It's not ready for public consumption yet.
01:36:45.260But if people want to follow you, maybe they want to go along for the ride or maybe they want to help support this effort and this ministry.
01:36:53.620I know you've got a great website, graceexplorations.com.
01:36:56.760You're probably looking for a little bit of help to still put that together?
01:37:15.100If they want to be a financial partner, they can go to graceexplorations.com and be a part of that.
01:37:20.400If they want more info, they can contact me there as well.
01:37:22.680I can give them the producer's pitch deck.
01:37:25.020But yeah, we're looking for people to help finance this and also we're looking for distribution partners and streaming partners because we want this to be kind of a thing where eventually people can binge watch it.
01:37:36.280So four or five series worth of content and you find a snowy day in Michigan and we want something in one month, one episode per week.
01:37:49.140And people can learn about, you know, Mallory climbing Everest and the disappearance and the legend that's all involved with that.
01:37:56.680And then follow us on Shackleton's journey across South Georgia where we had the third man encounter, which is a phenomena that many people that have survived extreme conditions can relate to.
01:38:07.640It kind of goes back to antiquity with the three fever boys and the fire, you know, and the fourth person, like who is that person, Nebuchadnezzar said.
01:38:14.220And so stories with Shackleton having this third man encounter that survivors whisper about and we're leveraging that and we're talking about, well, you know, Shackleton was an incredible leader.
01:38:28.720He was able to stop 97 miles from the South Pole, turn around because he knew he had enough food to get there, but not enough to get back, which is a huge leadership decision.
01:38:37.580Mallory was during the wildest dream, you know, trying to climb Everest.