Best of the Program | Guests: Jack Carr & James Scott | 10/3/24

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On today's podcast, Pastor Winston Parrish gives us an update on the scene in North Carolina.

I'll be seeing things firsthand today.

I'm flying out to Asheville, North Carolina with a plane full of supplies that the people there need.

It is a very frustrating and

confusing situation, as you will hear in the podcast today.

But I am going there for one reason to deliver supplies, but also to see it for myself and talk to people about some of the things that you're seeing online.

Are they true or not?

Also, Clint Bullock sets the record straight on something we got wrong with the Arizona Supreme Court.

Did they allow 98,000 illegals to vote?

No.

And Jack Carr James Scott talk about the previously untold story that led to the war on terror.

And don't forget to check out the full show, the whole podcast for more.

But this is the best of the Glenn Beck podcast.

podcast.

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the best of the Balenbeck program.

So today I'm going out with Mercury One and Corey Mills.

We have loaded up a large plane here in Dallas,

and we're taking off in a couple of hours.

And I'll be on the ground three hours later in Asheville.

I think we're flying into Greer, which is the closest we can land a, you know,

a fixed-wing plane.

And then we're taking helicopters back and forth to deliver the...

the supplies and and hopefully uh you know corey mills has been out there every day he's running for office.

You know, he's in the middle of a campaign.

His campaign is like, Corey, you can't leave the state.

I mean, we're in the middle of a campaign.

And he's like, you know,

how do I face the Lord,

you know, on Judgment Day?

You know, I could have helped those people, but I had a campaign to run.

This guy is an amazing guy.

He's the closest thing to an American or Captain America, I think, that we have.

But thank you, Corey, for everything that you are doing.

He is

rescuing people from the helicopters.

I mean,

it's amazing.

Yesterday, my security staff called and said,

Glenn, we have to take a couple more protectors, and

they're actually starting to look for

people who are former special forces that can help protect some of the food and some of the supplies.

The National Guard's not on the ground.

Now, Stu, what happens when

people know that no one's coming to help?

What happens?

And how long does it take?

Society breaks down, right?

Yep.

And it usually starts

48 hours and gets worse and worse after that.

Yeah, 72 hours.

If you want to be someplace safe and you don't have electricity, you don't have cops, you don't have anything, you better be out of that place by 72 hours or it's the Wild West.

That's how this has been described to me as the Wild West.

There are, well, and let me just give you a couple of,

let me give you a couple of things that I have received from the ground, and I want to make this really clear.

I have talked to

some of these people, and I know that the

people that I know

have

talked to people on the ground, been on the ground.

And I cannot give you the names because at this point,

I'm told they don't want to be identified, and I completely understand that.

But I want to give you a couple of things that we are hearing about.

There are two reports that I have first, one from eastern Tennessee and the other one from Asheville, North Carolina.

The first one is from Tennessee.

FEMA.

FEMA,

pardon me?

Yeah, I know.

FEMA is

being,

people are starting to say that FEMA is taking away food.

It's not FEMA.

I even made this mistake this morning.

It's not FEMA.

The accusation is actually TEMA, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

which I think makes this worse.

They are telling churches, and we have four

sources,

and some of them churches, some of them not churches, four sources that do not want to be identified for fear of reprisal from the government,

that they are told they cannot take contributions from the outside of the state.

Okay.

TEMA is the one, not FEMA, TEMA is the one taking the food away from people.

And they're saying, we know where this needs to go.

You can't take the food from outside.

You've got to take it from us.

And it's horrible.

And it's policy, apparently.

So they are taking the resources.

TEMA is under the state, and pressure needs to be put on the Tennessee elected officials to get these guys under control.

We put a call into the governor's office to let him know what's occurring under him.

State officials need to hear from the people to get the the state bureaucrats out of the way.

Now,

I have this.

I have spoken to people who have spoken to the people.

But we have Blaze bringing some reporters with us today.

Blaze is already on the ground, been there for a while, but we're bringing more resources in.

We're going to track these things down and absolutely verify.

I would

normally wait before before I would say something like this on the air, but people are dying because they do not have the resources.

There are people still in the hills that are completely cut off.

And without the National Guard, it's private helicopters.

It's people like you.

It is because of you.

that we have two helicopters, giant rescue helicopters, operating,

you know, in daylight hours as as much as they possibly can.

And that's because of you.

We need more helicopters,

and we will supply those as more donations come in.

If you would like to be a part of the solution and not the problem,

this is such a bad thing and a good thing at the same time.

Our government is betraying us.

But on the good side,

we're seeing people rise up and do amazing, amazing things.

Now, one lady was serving food to children at the local school.

She said Tima came in and just took all the food.

Several folks that were interviewed made statements of disappointment in TEMA, but they want to remain anonymous.

Now, on the North Carolina side,

there's some really good things that are going on.

There's

this one pastor, in fact, we're going to bring him on here.

150 homes are just gone.

They're missing.

They need money for all of the special requests.

They're providing prescriptions.

I know I don't have an update yet on Jace Medical, but I think Jace Medical is going to be supplying medicine that we're flying in as well.

I mean, if you don't have insulin, you have no way to refrigerate insulin.

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

I mean, people are dying because of this.

They also need special equipment, et cetera, et cetera.

We have so much going on.

I have to get to Chris Martinson here in just a second.

What he has published is shocking and horrifying.

But I want to bring on Winston Parrish.

He is the senior pastor at Trinity Baptist Church.

Pastor, I can't thank you enough for holding your community together.

I know you are tired.

I've talked to people who have talked to you, and they say, you know, five minutes on the phone with the pastor, you get about 10 seconds because

everybody's asking for something, and you're really kind of have a command center there.

So thank you for that.

May God bless you for that.

Yes, sir, Glenn, thank you for having me on, and I appreciate your prayers more than all.

God's giving us strength, He's giving us wisdom and discernment that's above ourselves or above our ability.

And we're just honored to be serving.

So tell me the situation.

First, let's start with some good news.

Tell me what you're seeing from the people.

Glenn, I'm seeing the people come together in a way maybe that I've never seen in this area before.

There's just a camaraderie and a sense of community that really has never been this visible.

It's quite incredible to see how people are caring for one another, loving one another,

and that's the good side.

There's been some violence.

There's been some looting, but I would say the good outweighs the bad on that end.

And we're thankful for the 500 extra law enforcement officers that have poured into our community to keep us safe.

So on that end, there is some good news.

We are hearing from people that were presumed dead or missing, that

were finding out they're at a shelter or that they made it out before the floodwater hit their home.

And so there are some bright spots.

I think the greatest news is that God is still in control.

There is chaos.

There's pandemonium.

There is heartbreak.

But God has God hasn't abdicated the throne.

He's in control this morning, and that's where our peace is.

Have you seen the federal government anywhere yet?

I personally have not seen anyone from FEMA.

I did have our Congressman Chuck Edwards.

I was thankful to see him here yesterday in Asheville.

And he was here on campus with us, with our team for over an hour, maybe even more, and was listening directly to those needs.

And

I was thankful for his office.

I've already heard a couple times from his office this morning, and they're helping us with specific needs.

And I'm thankful for that.

Other than him and our local government that has done an incredible job with what they have,

that's the only government official I've heard from at this point.

Winston,

I have to tell you, I am

just

so

disappointed in our country.

I love the people because I'm not disappointed in the people, but our government, this is absolutely shameful for what is

happening.

You guys are cut off from the world.

I'm hoping that I will be able to see you today.

What can we bring you?

What do you need?

Glenn, we are blessed right now with there are churches all over the southeast that have come together to help Trinity Baptist Church here in Asheville get the supplies out to the fire departments, the communities that need it.

At this point, the requests that are coming back, our church campus has turned into an operation center.

The National Guard is here.

We have task force from all over the country that are housed here.

My sanctuary now now is a massive dorm for over a hundred rescuers, National Guard, and

we're taking care of them here, trying to keep them self-sufficient.

Our water system here in Asheville is in ruins and the water department's doing their very best to get water back on.

So

over the last two days, we have been drilling wells here on our church property.

We're waiting on the test to come back so that we can start drinking that water.

So we're working on

getting as much resource here as we can.

The big thing right now that I've heard, I've heard from nine different fire departments this morning.

They need things like freezers.

They need things like refrigerators.

They need new boots.

These guys have had wet feet and these gals have had wet feet for a week now.

And so some of their boots are run.

Some of their boots are gone.

It's full of river mud and muck.

And so I have an order for dozens and dozens dozens of station duty boots.

I have a tractor trailer load of ice that's coming today.

There are very specific needs throughout Western North Carolina that we're trying to meet today.

And this, we're here to support emergency services.

We're here to support local fire departments.

There is no red tape here.

There's no bureaucracy here.

This is just a local church trying to do its best to level its community.

And the need is great.

I have about nine pages worth of printed requests from these departments.

So I'm doing everything that I can, and

we'll keep doing what we can as long as the resources available.

Winston, I have there are millions of people listening.

Is there anything on your list that you need help with that we can take care of for you?

If we can find

freezers, boots, if we can find a supplier maybe that would like to help us with

good waterproof station duty boots.

That is a need in multiple, multiple places.

And then a lot of the other requests that are coming in, we're taking care of ourselves here at the church.

And we're just, we're trying to do our very best.

There's other needs, obviously, that

some of them are firemen's homes and things that are weeks down the road.

I just talked to a fire chief a few minutes ago.

There's still a community here in Bunkham County where folks are unreachable because of how much mud and how much debris is blocking the roads.

The roads really don't exist anymore.

So one operation today is getting some of these people who are cut off, getting them food, getting them water.

There's a church there that's handling all of that.

We're supplying them with any need that they have.

And then obviously, we're just going to buy as many refrigerators, freezers, and boots, some of these other items like beds and cots and mattresses.

We're doing all that we can with what we have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Truly blessing the community and giving us a chance to be blessed as well by helping you.

So

thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you for your stand for Israel as well.

I know that's a separate issue than what we're talking about today, but

I do still greatly believe that if we'll bless Israel, God will bless us.

And I appreciate your stand with the nation of Israel, sir.

Thank you.

Winston, I'll hope to see you today.

God bless you.

We'll see you next time.

God bless you.

Yeah.

All right.

Here's what I would like to do.

I am leaving.

My plane in Dallas takes off in about two and a half hours, I think, two hours.

I don't even know what station-ready boots are.

But if somebody does and they can get them to the Mercury studios

or, you know, if you can get them to us, let us know.

I'm landing in Greer,

North Carolina with the fixed plane.

If you can get them there,

I can put them on the helicopters and get them to these fire stations today.

If somebody wants to, I mean, Mercury One will buy all of this stuff.

So if you don't have connections for freezers or whatever,

just call Mercury One and make a donation at mercury1.org.

It's on the front page, mercuryone.org.

And we'll buy the freezers if we have to.

If you have a connection and you're like, I can get freezers really cheap and they're all really good and everything, please

notify Mercury One.

But we are

our job is to help people like Winston Parrish.

He's on the ground.

He's getting it done.

Let's help him help his community.

Mercury1.org

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Now, back to the podcast.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

My man Jack Carr.

Hello, Jack.

How are you?

Great to hear your voice, and thank you so much for Salt Lake.

It was great seeing you down there.

It was great to see you.

Where do you live?

Do you live in that area?

In Park City, so just about 35, 40 minutes up the road.

Wow.

Wow.

Okay.

Well,

we have to get together sometime.

I loved meeting your family.

They're just great.

Thank you.

So let's say hi to your co-author here, James Scott.

Hi, James.

Hey, Glenn, how are you?

Thanks so much for having us on this morning.

Oh, you bet.

You bet.

So

I got your book

about Beirut, targeted Beirut.

Thank you for telling this story.

This is a story that most people don't know.

I mean, this is, I've been talking about this for years.

This is where Osama bin Laden went, wait a minute, I can move the giant, correct?

Exactly, and a host of other countries, proxy groups, terrorist organizations around the world, because it was really an operation that would set the rules for the next 40-plus years,

set the paradigm, set the model that the United States has been interacting with Iran, with its proxies with ever since, and to a lesser extent, Israel.

I'd say

they have been shifting those rules over the past couple of months, but the United States is still playing by those rules that were established by Iran in 1983 with the bombing of the Marine headquarters and barracks bombing on October 23rd, 1983 that killed 241 U.S.

servicemen.

So when I pitched Simon and Schuster on this idea, when I thought I'd built up enough political capital to be able to talk to them about in the nonfiction series,

unfortunately, there were a lot of terrorist events to choose from.

And my idea was trying to capture the strategic, the operational, and the tactical lessons learned while also humanizing these different events.

And I kept coming back to Beirut 1983 because it was such a pivotal point in our relationship with the Middle East.

And we've been really playing by those rules and by that model ever since.

Okay, so James, maybe you can tell us what exactly happened

that

moved the world's terrorists?

Yeah, so what you got to remember is like 1983 in Lebanon, I mean, it was just absolute chaos.

I mean, you had a civil war going on between the Christians, the Sunnis, the Shias.

You had the PLO was in the process of leaving.

The Israelis had been at war against the PLO.

And of course, in this chaos, Iran saw an opportunity.

And in 1982, they sent in about 800 Iranian revolutionary guardsmen into this remote, sort of lawless region in the corner of Lebanon up near Syria, basically to start building a terrorism infrastructure.

And they capitalized on the discontent of the downtrodden Shias and started training them.

And so they built a couple homegrown terror groups during that time period.

And those groups would eventually merge and become Hezbollah.

And of course, Hezbollah was behind the attack on the Marines on that Sunday morning in October, and an earlier attack 188 days earlier against the United States embassy there that killed 63 people, including 17 Americans.

So this is really the birth of Hezbollah, which of course is a key Iranian proxy, and which during that one year, 1983, they killed and injured hundreds of Americans.

So it wasn't just that they killed hundreds of Americans, and it's strange because you would think, when you think of Ronald Reagan, you think of, you know, this guy doesn't screw around.

He's going to take care of it.

But what did he do?

Yeah,

that's the whole thing that

taught Iran that terrorism works.

More specifically, terrorism works through its proxies because there was never a U.S.

retaliation.

There was never a U.S.

response.

There was a lot of tough talk out of the administration in the direct aftermath of the event.

But then we leave very quietly in early 1984.

And, of course, Iran took that lesson, which allowed them to then set the rules.

Why did Reagan do that?

Why didn't we react the way a superpower would?

Yeah, I'll jump on that one.

Yeah, I mean, what happened is there was an internal dynamic that was playing out inside the White House.

And you had on one side of it, you had the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Department, Casper Weinberger, who really never wanted to be in Lebanon to begin with.

They saw Lebanon as a sideshow from the larger Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union.

And they also feared that Lebanon would open up America to the exact kind of attacks and entanglement that happened there.

And they didn't want to see U.S.

forces siphoned off into this smaller conflict.

And so they were very much advocating, we got to get out.

They never wanted to be there all along.

They were pushing for us to get out, etc.

The opposite side of that was Secretary of State George Schultz and National Security Advisor Bud Bud McFarland, who really saw an opportunity for nation-building here and to sort of prop up a stable, peaceful ally on Israel's northern border.

And so this internal clash between these two parties sort of led to the stalemate and basically the paralysis of the decision-making process in Washington.

In the end, the reason we didn't retaliate, it came down to Weinberger.

He's the one who literally killed the operation.

There was an operation that had been planned by the National Security Council.

Everything was a go.

We were going to do it with the French.

And in the end, it's Weinberger personally who kills that.

And I think his rationale for that, he kept arguing at the time, we needed more concrete proof exactly who did it.

You know, the kind of legal standards you would have at a U.S.

court that's often not fair in terrorism.

But I think really the reality is he didn't want us to go up that escalation ladder any further.

It was better to cut our losses and get out rather than risk, you know, a retaliation that leads to another bombing, that leads to another attack somewhere in the world on U.S.

forces.

So I know this is pretty impossible to

come up with

the right answer.

But what do you think would have happened if

we wouldn't have listened to Weinberger?

Well, it's quite possible.

Things could have

escalated into a further regional war, or it could have sent the message that the price of attacking U.S.

forces is so high that it is not worth it for you, Iran, for your proxies, or for other terrorist organizations around the world, especially if we kept them on their heels with some of the things that Israel has been doing lately with the PADRA attack, with the handheld communication device attack, with special operations missions, targeting key leaders and targeting mid-level fighters.

If we had done that and not allowed things to escalate, but kept them on their heels, it would have sent a much different message.

And what would have happened then compared to now?

I mean, now we attack Iran or we go after the proxies with Iran hard like that.

And now it's probably a much different story than it would have been in the 80s.

It's a little different now because of the nuclear question, of course.

So that's a factor in there as well.

But that is probably the biggest one.

They've been allowed to continue developing that nuclear capability up to a point where they're on the cusp.

But they've been on the cusp for a long time.

Yeah, can you explain that, Jack?

Because I have to tell you, I've been covering Iran for 25 years, and I always hear they're just weeks away.

They're just weeks away.

20 years, they've been weeks away.

Right.

That's what makes it very hard to trust when intelligence agencies or an administration official says that.

So you don't know how you're being manipulated or if you're being manipulated.

But at the same time, you think, well, that they were saying this 20 years ago, well, Even though they were saying it's weeks away, now Iran has had 20 years of being able to do this and develop it.

So there's that side of it as well.

So,

I don't have a good answer on that one.

But I'm very aware that these devices we carry around in our pockets and administration officials telling us things are certainly

acts of manipulation in many cases.

I would think that if Iran has a bomb, I mean,

I believe them when they say Israel will burn in the fiery furnaces of the Islamic fury.

I believe them.

You know, that's the nut jobs at the top,

the real religious nut jobs.

If they actually have control enough, they will burn it in the Islamic fury.

They will use a nuke because they think they'll hasten the return of the promised one.

Is that your guys' read on this or not?

Oh, sure.

You might want to believe that neighbor that says he's eventually going to kill you.

Yes.

Because he eventually might.

But we're talking a little bit about the lessons that Iran learned.

And in writing this book and

from my time in the military, at the same time,

I've always struggled with why we fail to learn lessons from the past and apply those lessons going forward as wisdom or the current problem sets as wisdom.

So there's parallels there as well.

We put these Marines in Beirut 1982, 1983 timeframe.

We put them in a tactically disadvantageous, untenable position.

And we did that same thing to U.S.

service members in Afghanistan, August 2021, when it was unnecessary, when we had Bagram, a tactically advantageous position.

And yet people in air-conditioned offices thousands of miles away from the battlefield still put our U.S.

servicemen and women in the case of Abu Gate in these tactically disadvantageous positions.

In Beirut, same thing at Abu Gate, we have an explosion, bomb goes off, kills U.S.

service members.

In the case of Abu Gate, kills innocent Afghan civilians as well.

But interesting thing happens in the aftermath of both events is that people blown off their feet across the compound or airfield or hear the explosion, they run.

to the sound of that explosion.

They run to the sound of the guns to try to save as many of their fellow brothers in arms and the case of Abby Gate, brothers and sisters-in-arms, as they possibly can while holding security because they didn't know in both cases if there were going to be follow-on attacks.

So, that same U.S.

service member who was out there in Beirut 1983 is the same one that was

Abby Gates, and it's the same ones who's out there right now standing posts around the world.

So, let me ask both of you, because

James, you're a historian, you're a Pulitzer Prize finalist,

and you've really done your homework on this.

Jack, I'm sure you've done your homework on this as well.

But the combination of the two makes the book a really good

thriller kind of read that's really heavy on fact.

But let me ask both of you, speaking of lessons to be learned, what are the lessons that you think we need to learn here quickly?

I feel we are a hair's trigger away from World War III.

And I think there's just people that want it to happen.

What should we be doing right now that maybe we're not

as it comes to learning from history, James?

Yeah, no, I mean, Jack and I've actually had this discussion a lot in the last week because, I mean, there's always been sort of this acceptable level of violence that has been allowed in the Middle East.

You know, I mean, this sort of tit for tat that goes on between Israel and its neighbors and its proxies.

And the U.S.

even allows attacks on us.

I mean, because at the end of the day, you know, we're the ones who have to protect, you know, the Straits of Hermuz and make sure that the global economy doesn't go off the rails and things like that.

So this acceptable level of violence

has been the backdrop ever since 1983.

And, of course, October 7th was a total game changer.

I mean, that was just a masterful operation by the terrorists, you know, using, you know, gliders to get over walls, tunnels, and things like that.

And, of course,

the body count on that was so extraordinary that Israel has really gone in and cleaned house in Gaza.

And it has escalated now to the point where it's becoming this, you know, they've wiped out much of Hamas's infrastructure there.

You know, they've done the exact same thing with these just brilliant attacks recently against Hezbollah.

Now, Iran is feeling the pressure from its proxies.

Hey, you know, we're the ones taking it on the chin here.

You need to rise up.

So now they're sending in missiles against Israel.

So, I mean, this sort of acceptable level of violence is suddenly no longer what we're playing with here.

I mean, it's on this total escalation ladder.

And the fear is, you know, where does it go at that point?

I mean, does it explode into a larger regional war?

And quite frankly, in a lot of ways, we're kind of off the map at this point.

So, I mean, every day is kind of a new addition to what's going on.

I mean, I wake up and look at the news every morning thinking, all right, where are we today?

You know, so I think it's we're a bit off the map here.

You're streaming the best of Glen Beck.

To hear more of this interview and others, download the full show podcasts wherever you get podcasts.

Welcome to the Glen Beck program.

You know, our job is getting harder and harder.

I just gave permission to hire yet another researcher this morning

because we are just overwhelmed in stories that we don't know what the truth is.

You should see my email, my

private messages.

and even my text messages from friends that I trust that are like, Glenn, I don't know if this is true.

I don't know either.

I don't know either.

And I know you're in that situation, and we are going to go off the cliff if we can't verify some things.

That's one reason I'm going to Asheville, North Carolina today.

I need to know, is this stuff happening?

Are there bodies, you know, in Chimney Rock that are still there?

You know, what is happening on the ground?

And we're bringing you know, a plane full of supplies for them through Mercury One.

But we have to, this is what I said in the meeting today, we have got to come.

And even if we don't talk about them,

we have to find out, are these things true?

So you know if they're true or not.

And we'll do our best, but it takes so much time.

We have so much going on.

I think it was like a week ago or so.

Do you remember the story that Arizona added 98,000 illegals?

I remember that being, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I remember that.

And I think we talked about it, right?

Yeah, I think we did at the time, you know, and tried to give us perspective.

But I mean, I people don't understand.

I mean, I know there's so much stuff for people to sort through right now.

If I remember the story right, it was hard to decipher, and it's why I think why we didn't follow up on it at all because we were like, I don't know what's right in this story.

Let's let's lock it down.

Well, good news.

Uh, the the um the head guy of the Arizona Supreme Court uh wrote to us, he's uh Justice Bolick.

Uh,

he joined the court in 2016.

He previously co-founded the Institute for Justice and served as litigation director for the Goldwater Institute.

So he's one of us.

He litigated constitutional cases from coast to coast, including the U.S.

Supreme Court.

He is not the Supreme, or he is not the Supreme Court.

He's the Supreme Court justice, but he's not the Chief Justice now.

in Arizona.

But he says that story is wrong, and he'd be the guy that knows.

Clint, welcome to the program.

Oh, thank you so much for having me, Glenn, and thanks for making the correction.

My boss, the Chief Justice,

would have

drawn and cordered me.

You know, this story was everywhere, and I don't remember what we said.

We might have said that, yep, that's crazy, and the Supreme Court's out of control.

I don't know what we said, but if we got it wrong, A, I apologize.

So let's correct it and correct all of the stories that were out there.

What happened?

Thank you so much for that.

And, you know, usually when a court issues a controversial decision, they know it.

And so for a couple of days after, we did not consider this to be a controversial decision at all.

But all of a sudden, we were hearing from people and I was encountering people who were saying we were letting illegal immigrants vote.

And I looked at the headlines that had come out, and just I've got one on my screen in front of me from Newsweek that says, Arizona court says nearly 100,000 people with unconfirmed citizenship can vote.

And so I can well understand

why people got that impression.

But the headline should have read:

Arizona court

prevents disenfranchisement of 100,000 people over computer error.

And that's exactly what happened.

So Arizona is one of the few states that requires proof of citizenship before someone votes.

And when the law was passed, they assumed that people who had registered by 2005 were

legal citizens.

So they didn't require you to show proof of citizenship unless you moved to a different county or applied for a duplicate license.

And due to a Department of Motor Vehicles glitch, and I know that's hard to believe.

Oh, no, it's hard to believe the government would do anything that had glitches in it.

So,

yes, so in any event,

apparently, a large number of people who were registered

to vote and who had driver's licenses before 1996 and who moved or got duplicate licenses were never asked to prove their citizenship.

Now, most of these people have been voting for decades.

And,

you know, so there's no indication that any of them are illegal immigrants.

But once this problem was discovered, the county recorder of Maricopa County went to court and said, all of these people should be removed and required to prove their citizenship between now and the election.

And of course, the same people who made the mistake would have been in charge of making sure that

those papers were shown by the election.

And just imagine if we had gone to election day

and thousands, possibly over 100,000 people who had been voting for decades were told, oh no, we don't know whether you're a citizen or not.

You know, and this is not, you know, so in any event,

it was a very easy legal issue for us.

And it was the only election case, Glenn, that I can remember where the Arizona Republican Party and the ACLU were on the same side.

They both said, please don't throw these people off the ballot.

And

we determined that we had no authority to take that many people off the ballot you can you can challenge individual voters um if you if you think that they are not uh citizens and after the election though there will be an effort to verify citizenship but but most of these people would have had no idea what was going on you know uh given that they voted without a problem for for decades and uh so it just, it was one of those stories that the headlines, one of those cases that the headlines turned into a controversy, but it really wasn't a controversy at all.

So with an election coming up, and you guys, are you guys voted on a Supreme Court?

So yes, we are subject to retention

every six years.

And yours truly is one of those justices

up for retention this year with a very spirited campaign against me from self-described progressive groups.

Great.

Well, I mean, all you had to say, you had me at Goldwater Institute.

So

I'm for you, Clint.

How

confident are you that

we can

have a fair election this time in Arizona?

Well, you know, I'm not on the ground.

I'm not involved

in the day to day.

And

one of the things that I've been doing is encouraging people to volunteer as poll workers

and other jobs that take place on Election Day.

The best place to be on Election Day, if you have concerns about election integrity, is on the inside.

And I've been very heartened that both political parties, both major political parties, have really been encouraging volunteers to do that.

And when I hear that sort of thing,

it gives me confidence that

we have a lot of time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, thanks for clearing this up.

I appreciate it.

And

if there's anybody who is on the right that has misunderstood this, which I think are probably a lot of people because it was everywhere.

And I apologize.

Again, I don't know exactly what we said, but let's just assume we were one of those who believed the headlines.

Apology to

our audience and to everybody in Arizona.

I'm glad you reached out to us so we could set the record straight.

Thank you.

Glenn, I am so, you know, I am so glad that you gave me the opportunity.

I'm sure it's not every day that a judge contacts you and says,

hey,

this is not correct.

Yeah, no, and I invite anyone, if we get something wrong, I am not afraid of correcting it and saying we were wrong.

So I appreciate that you reached out to us because we will correct it.

We will correct it.

Thanks, Clint.

Well, and I am so grateful for that.

If everyone did that,

we'd be in a much better place in our society right now.

Yeah.

Yeah, we would.

We would.

Thanks a lot.

I appreciate it.

Clint Bollock.

He is Arizona Supreme Court Justice and apparently running for reaffirming.

And let me just say, Goldwater Institute.

Okay.

I don't think I need to say anymore.

No, no, no, no.