Best of the Program | Guests: Chris Stewart & Brian Will | 1/9/24

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Hey, great podcast today.

We talk about all the things that you need to know and

give you some

frank observations of what's coming in our economy, what's coming in the next year, some

really

topics that need to be discussed so you can mentally prepare for 2024 and only God knows what is coming our way.

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the best of the blend back program

You know, Biden has continued his attacks on Donald Trump and his supporters.

Now, this is something, again, the New York Times just said that Donald Trump does, but apparently not Joe Biden.

But let me just tell you what happened at his

speech last night in Charleston, South Carolina.

He said that Donald Trump and his supporters

are defeated Confederates.

Oh.

So wait, we would be Democrats?

After the Civil War, the defeated Confederates wouldn't accept the verdict of the war.

They lost.

So

they say they embraced what is known as the lost cause, the self-serving lie that Civil War was not about slavery, but about state rights.

They call that the noble cause.

That was a lie.

Yes, Joe, it was a lie.

It is really weird, but you would know it best because You're a Democrat, and that was the lie of the Southern Democratic Party.

Next, we're living in an era of second lost cause.

Once again, there are some in this country trying to turn a loss into a lie, a lie that if allowed to live, will once again bring terrible damage to this country.

This time, the lie is about the 2020 election.

Let me say what others cannot.

We must reject political violence in America.

I agree, like the Klan, which was an arm of the Democratic Party, or BLM, which is an arm of the Democratic Party.

He says always, not sometimes, but always.

It's never appropriate.

So I would assume that would be like,

you know, BLM today.

The violence of January 6th was the extension of an old playbook from the threats of violence and intimidation.

Now, there was a period there, but I would add

just the kind of stuff we were talking about with the Klan,

which was

violent arm of the Democrat Party.

I just thought I'd

throw that in.

Yeah,

they don't doesn't get mentioned all that much, the history of these institutions.

Yeah, no, it really, it's strange.

It doesn't.

Now,

Michelle Obama came out, and she said she is terrified by what may come out of the 2024 election.

Is she giving a warning?

She's not, I mean, let me just, she's not saying that she's giving a warning about Donald Trump in 2024, is she?

She is.

She is.

That's the same thing the New York Times did today.

Yeah.

So she's on this podcast with Jay Shetty.

The Jay Shetty?

Yeah.

Wow.

Of course.

Of course, you don't get Michelle Obama if you're not, if you're a different Jay Shetty.

Oh, okay.

She says, what's going to happen this next election?

I am terrified about what could possibly happen that's weird because so am I because our leaders matter who we select who speaks for us who holds that bully pulpit it affects it affects us in ways sometimes I think people take for granted here she is listening the things that keep me up because you you don't have control over them and you wonder where are people where are we in this you know where are our hearts what's going to happen in this next election i am terrified about what could possibly happen because our leaders matter who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit.

It affects us in ways that sometimes I think people take for granted.

Yeah.

Is he wearing a snuggie in that interview?

He seems to be wearing a

blanket with sleeves.

Is it a snuggie?

Is it a slanket?

What is it?

Because

this is

why he shows

Snuggies, I'm going to start doing the show in a Snuggie.

I didn't know that was allowed.

I have to tell you,

this is why people put their good money into signing up for Blaze TV because they get the kind of deep questions like, slank it or Snuggy, which is it.

And I don't think I've heard anybody else ask that, Stu.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much, Glenn.

Yeah.

She said

she knows too much because she was married to the president who knows everything about everything in the world.

Wow.

She listed wars in too many regions,

the future of artificial intelligence, the environment, education, whether people will vote, people being too engrossed in their phones as other issues that keep her awake at night.

Then they focused the discussion on what offends her, you know, and many times I've been in conversations and it's turned to that very familiar phrase, I wonder what offends Michelle Obama.

And she spoke about it, and she dislikes injustice.

Thank God somebody does.

She dislikes ego, right?

Greed, don't you know it, and racism.

She condemned unfairness and bullies.

And she also decried childish leadership in which somebody's just base and vulgar and cynical.

You know, she's not cynical.

The police don't always do you like that.

White people don't always do you like that.

That would be cynical.

Anyway, she says she just wants to resonate good.

I want to be a face of reason and compassion and empathy.

And that's much more important than my feelings because my feelings.

I can take care of those.

She's on the road of being a Republican.

Listen to that.

Her feelings don't matter because

she's in charge of those.

That's the first progressive Democrat I've ever heard say that.

She also talked about, and this is going to come as a surprise to you, about being another.

She said, you know, you learn how to be excellent all the time because you can't be less, you know?

And she said, I just find it interesting that some people can be indicted a bunch of times and still run for office while black men can't.

And I thought of that.

I thought of that when her husband won the presidency two times in a row.

I thought, boy, you know, I thought this was a country where a black man can't run for office.

And I must have been mistaken.

It's called oppression, Leon.

It's called oppression.

It's oppression.

You know, only eight years in the White House.

Do you know that they created that constitutional amendment limiting presidents to two terms just to stop the first black president?

That's why they did it.

I know.

It's sad.

It's sad.

It's hard to believe, but it's true.

It was a white guy that

they were.

Well, he was really our first black president, FDR.

Oh, really?

FDR?

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

You didn't know that.

I always thought it was Clinton.

No, he was second.

But no.

No.

He was the second black president.

Yes.

And neither Clinton or FDR were black.

But they were.

But they, well, it depends on how they identified that particular term.

I mean,

one of his terms, he was a black president.

and one of them when he was a Native American president, one, well, he was, and he was a lesbian woman for one of his terms.

Really?

Strange because his wife was too.

But

anyway, this is the kind of thing that I think she's talking about, the reason that she could bring to the table.

Now,

Stu

I mean,

that's exactly

how I would introduce her to the political process is getting her on some big show like the Jay Shetty show,

which is anything but Shetty.

You know what I mean?

Yeah,

the snuggie guy.

You're going to put him on a show with a host that's wearing a snuggie, and that's how you're going to launch the campaign.

That's how you do it.

Right.

That's how you do it.

And,

you know, I know you still think that, you know, I'm crazy and I might be crazy for saying that she, because she keeps saying she's not interested in it, you know, but wow, she's concerned.

And what, what kind of person are you

that could save the republic, that, that your party would come to you and say, look,

he clearly can't run.

We can't start a new campaign right now with anybody else.

And, you know, she might say, well, you've got a great qualified black woman in Kamala Harris.

And

I mean, you'd have to say, well, no, we just picked her for color.

She's not strong enough to be the president.

Everybody hated her, even in our own party.

And then she would remember, and then she would go, oh, you know what?

You're right.

And I could be probably the only replacement because you can't replace him with another white man if you have a black woman right there on the side of the stage.

Well, okay, I care about my country.

My president will run it anyway.

To be clear, I don't think you're crazy

on this theory.

I think it's plausible, especially if things continue to go badly.

I mean,

you know what Joe Biden's approval rating is right now?

On average, 38%.

Holy cow.

That's that high.

I really would have thought it was shocking.

Wow.

But like that is down.

He's down from when it was terrible.

Like, this is

really ugly.

Well, wait a minute.

It wasn't Donald Trump's at like 39?

Yeah, Trump's wasn't good either.

Trump's all was terrible on approval rating, though, from the moment he walked into office.

That was not the case with Barack Obama or Joe Biden.

And it continues to go down for Biden.

Things continue to get worse for his candidacy.

And of course, he has other limitations that neither of those candidates had, you know, including

an age that starts with an eight.

If they could just, and I mean this sincerely, if they could just

shut up or imprison anyone that would speak out against his policies or point out that they're not working.

For democracy, right?

For democracy.

People would love him.

Yeah.

If he was the only choice, my belief is he'd get 100% of the vote, and that would show real unity in this country.

That's how democracy works.

Every single person, one man, one vote, one available candidate.

That's democracy, as it was outlined by our founders.

Amen.

Amen, brother.

Amen.

Amen.

So I don't know.

I mean, so I I don't think your idea of Michelle Obama making this

heroic run

is implausible.

I don't know that it's the most likely outcome, but I do think

it's a long shot, but

it would be one that I think would win the election immediately.

Unless she went out and she started talking to him.

They'd have to run it in that very democratic fashion of keeping her under lock and key, you know, kind of like they did with Joe Biden.

Just, you know, once in a while she'd appear from the basement.

But you couldn't have her actually speaking on her own because

she hates America, and it's clear once you start to hear her.

Yeah, can we

investigate that a little bit?

Because I think the assumption is, because if you look at Michelle Obama's approval ratings, for example, occasionally that's polled, and they're very, very good.

I mean, she's overwhelmingly liked by the American people.

Now, I don't understand that myself, but it's the abs.

It's the abs.

The arms.

I thought it was the arms.

Oh, yeah, the arms.

The arms.

Her arms are so beautiful.

So, whatever it is, she's got good approval ratings.

Hang on.

Just a second.

Hold on.

Look, can we just think about her arms for a minute?

Just a moment.

Man, they were beautiful.

And they still are, Glenn, in every way.

She's the most beautiful woman in the world.

Wow.

I'm just

sometimes you just get that

sense of what that woman really is, you know?

All woman.

Just hear her roar.

This is the best of the Glen Beck program.

If you've gone into restaurants lately and you've been shocked at the price of anything,

soup to sandwiches to steak, anything,

you can

fall into what's going on.

This is a scam.

How can a BLT be 16 bucks?

We wanted to get Brian Will on.

He's a serial entrepreneur, two-time Wall Street Journal best-selling author, leading consultant in business and sales management.

He's founded seven different

companies across four distinct industries.

He is currently the head of a chain of restaurants

and

they are the Derby Sports Bar, Cantina Loca, the Tavern House, and Central City Tavern.

You might have one in your town.

He is also in his spare time a member of the city council in the town of Alpharetta, Georgia.

I hope we have time to talk about that a little bit.

But he was just on talking about the price of a BLT

on Varney and Company.

And everyone on my staff, Brian, found that fascinating on how you broke that down.

How you doing, Brian?

I'm good, Glenn.

Thanks for having me.

This is awesome.

So So can you break this down?

Why should we look at the price of $16

for a BLT and say, okay, I understand it.

It's reasonable.

Yeah, this whole conversation, Glenn, started with a friend of mine who sent me this text when he was sitting in my restaurant saying, hey, Brian, I'm sitting here eating your BLT and it's $16.

You know, it's only bacon, lettuce, tomato, and bread.

And I said, you know, Dan, let me break this down for you.

I want to give you some perspective.

That sandwich might cost $16, but we've got $20,000 of rent in that building.

We've got $6,000 of utility.

We've got $60,000 of payroll.

And then we've got our general

OP-EX expenses that all have to get paid for out of the gross profit margin in that sandwich.

And so we actually did a breakdown on that.

If you'd like to hear this little breakdown, I do.

I do.

That $16 sandwich has about $5 of actual food cost, which leaves about $11 of gross profit.

But out of that $11, $2 of that goes towards rent and utilities.

$2.50 goes towards, we call our fixed operational expenses, like the TVs and the music and the mats and the towels and all that stuff.

Labor to make that sandwich was $4.50,

which only leaves me a profit of $2.

So on a $16 sandwich, I have $2 of actual net profit that I get to keep unless or until something breaks or something goes wrong.

That's my gross potential net profit.

So how many BLTs do you have to sell to be able to keep your doors open?

Yeah, so I was laughing about that.

If you take our $86,000 a month in general expenses, figure in a 30% food cost, we got to sell 93,000 sandwiches a year to get to zero.

Every restaurant has a break-even point.

The break-even point in that restaurant is about $1.5 million a a year.

So if I do $1,499,000 in revenue, I lose $1,000.

Everything above 1.5, we can make a profit margin on.

But if you never get to the 1.5,

you're just spinning your wheels.

So what has changed?

I mean, it's not just the price of food, is it?

No, food has gone up, but our biggest increase in expenses has been labor.

If you remember, obviously, when COVID hit and everybody's getting all these extended unemployment benefits, when we came out of COVID and tried to bring people back, they didn't want to come back to work.

So we immediately went to a $15 minimum, and that's for kids coming out of high school.

And this was three years ago.

That's now jumped up to about a $16.50.

So I have people with zero experience, 18 years old, come to work for me and we start them out at $33,000.

Where our chefs are now at $60,000, $60,000.

Our managers are now at $70,000 to $80,000.

So if you look at my restaurant three years ago, we were paying $500,000 for labor on $2.9 million of revenue.

Today we pay $650,000 for labor on $2.5 million of revenue.

My revenue is down $350,000 and my labor is up $150,000.

And that's why we have to keep driving the price of these things up.

Everybody wants to get paid, and they want a big salary.

They want a living wage, but all that does is drive everything up.

At some point, we still have to make a profit.

This is what happened in Seattle, except they did it by choice.

When Seattle raised the minimum wage, I don't remember what it was, to I think $15 or $16 an hour.

All the restaurants said, We can't afford this.

And a lot of them left,

closed shop and left Seattle.

Some of them stayed

and some of them just went out of business because of it.

But that's not the only cost.

You now have food going up.

You have labor going up.

Rent.

Utilities went up 40%.

40%.

Just our gas and electric, right?

Our insurance went up 40%.

Everything is, I mean, the whole supply chain from us down, everybody's costs go up and that compounds.

Why did insurance go up 40%?

Because they can?

I mean, I don't, that's a good question.

Because you have no choice but to buy it, because if you don't buy it, you can't stay in business.

So it goes up.

You know,

it's crazy how much costs have gone up.

So, how do you see us weathering this?

You know, business is interesting.

I have a picture in my office of a guy on a tightrope, and he's got that big long bar, right, that goes on both sides.

And I always say we have to balance.

Business owners are on this tightrope, and you have to balance what you can charge on one end with what the consumer is willing to pay on the other.

And so as long as you can keep that balance, you can stay on the tightrope and stay in business.

But if you charge too much, they stop coming, you fall off.

If you don't charge enough, you get more business at a loss, you go out of business.

So there's always a balance.

And in our case, we've made sure we put our locations in what we call high-traffic areas.

So we're getting, you know, organic traffic running around our restaurants, which helps us drastically.

But you look at these small operators that are out there, you know, fighting all these costs that don't have that organic type of traffic.

And that's why they're going under.

I mean, you're a serial entrepreneur.

What do you hear from entrepreneurs that are just beginning today?

I mean, it's a completely different world.

Can you make it?

It is.

It's a different world in a lot of ways.

And I actually do a lot of sales and management training.

And one of the other things we know in today's environment is there's so much information online that people can research almost anything before they ever walk in your door.

And they already know what your competition is charging.

They already know what they should be paying.

And so, again, you're back to this balance of you either need to create something extremely unique that will drive people in and make them want to buy from you, or your chances of success are diminished greatly.

So I called COVID the great washout, Glenn.

All the weak operators that used to be able to make it because we were in a booming economy, when COVID hit, it just washed out all those weak operators and only left the ones that are strong.

Now you've got people that are coming in behind us and trying to come in and undercut, but all they're going to do is lose all their money and go out of business and hurt the rest of us.

It's an interesting time to be in business.

But if you were a true entrepreneur, it washed out a lot of people who were just, you know, my dad used to have his own bakery, and that is hard keeping that afloat.

You know, a one little one-man shop in whatever you're doing.

And food is the worst at that.

It wiped out a lot of people who are just working for themselves.

Yeah.

Just working for themselves and only making enough money to live on.

And most of the people that got washed out didn't have any financial security behind them, savings, you know, they just weren't able to weather that bump, which is one of the things I teach entrepreneurs today: you better have enough security behind you that if the next COVID comes along or if something weird happens, you're not going to get wiped out at the drop of a hat.

We laid off 150 people in one day in March of 2020.

It was a horrible day.

Wow.

Your thoughts of what's coming in 2024?

Any

insight on?

Yeah.

I've had this question a good bit, and I have friends in the MA field, and I see everybody waiting to see what's going to happen with this election.

We just don't know what's going to happen.

I think if

Biden gets elected again, he doesn't have to worry about getting re-elected.

So who knows what's going to happen with the people pulling the strings up there in Washington and what they're going to do.

So I think we're in a tenuous time right now, particularly in small business, that we need to be very careful and we need to be keeping some powder dry to keep us safe just in case something else pops up.

If Donald Trump were to be elected, he doesn't go to jail and the left doesn't set the country on fire, better or worse for business?

If he can start taking some of these regulations away, if he can start making it easy for us to get those interest rates back down, I mean, the other issue we have, and I love this topic, I did a video on it the other day about inflation.

Inflation is going to affect us forever, right?

We had a 5%, we had an 8%.

Even if it's 3%, that doesn't mean prices are going down.

Correct.

Right.

That means they've just compounded, right?

They're never going back down.

Maybe they won't go up as much, but they're not going back down.

People get very confused on how that works.

But if we can get the economy booming again to where people aren't afraid to spend their money and they aren't hoarding it, trying to wait and see what's going to happen, then people go out and they'll have more fun.

They'll spend more money.

And I think we'll all be okay.

Let's just

take a little bit of time.

Yeah, Brian, thank you so much.

Really appreciate it.

Glenn, I appreciate you having me.

You bet.

Bye-bye.

Brian Will, he's an entrepreneur and explaining what is really going on.

It's going to get harder and harder for people to see

and easier and easier for

politicians to create boogeymen

and say, you know, it's these evil store owners, it's these evil whatever, when in reality,

all of the regulations, just what's happening with meat in California, is truly terrifying.

Stu, would you write down?

I'd love to get somebody from, you know, the pork producers or the beef producers of America to explain to America the dilemma that they are in right now.

Chicken producers, anybody who's producing eggs, all of this.

California just passed a law before the new year, and it's now in effect, that

animal pens have to be a certain size.

If the pork and beef producers, pork producers say, if we have to put this in, then

that's going to cost about $3,500 a head for every pig.

And that would obviously put us out of business or raise the price skyrocket.

And so

they're put into this position to where they either are not going to sell to California, which is a big buyer,

or

they have to abide by California law, and that will cost the entire country more money because they have to build all of these different pens and barns and everything else.

I personally, and I, you know, I'm a, I'm in a different situation than any of the other farmers are or ranchers are, but I personally would say, screw you, California.

I'm tired of California dictating to us what we can and cannot do.

That is a failed system.

And why we're allowing it to drag all of us into that failed system is beyond me.

It's not going to last because it can't.

Numbers are numbers.

Math is math.

It just just can't continue.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Now, Stu, I don't want to speak out of turn, but I have heard the reason

Secretary of Defense, you know,

he doesn't want to say why he was in the hospital.

It was for elective surgery.

and uh, I've heard a lot of people joke about this.

What does he have in transgender surgery?

I mean, what, what, why not just share what you have?

And to be clear, that's wrong to do because uh, that's not elective.

Uh, transgender surgery is the most important thing you can do for your health, not an elective, this is.

Uh, and uh, so I understand that he was uh in

for, I think, a fourth time for penile reduction surgery.

Um,

he just

He just wants it very, very small.

And I think his exact quote was, Doc, make it smaller than it is when I'm in a cold pool.

And the first four or five times he did this, they couldn't get it small enough.

And so he was in one more, take one more stab at it.

So I don't know about speed recovery.

It's not necessary, per se.

Is that confirmed with this report?

No, but I have it on

pretty good sources.

It's helpful.

Yeah, thank you.

uh chris stewart is with us now hello chris how are you bland that's twice you've made me really laugh this week but how am i supposed to follow that kind of weekend well i don't i i didn't mean to make you laugh i'm just trying to tell the truth i i think that's what he was in for but i'm not i'm not entirely sure uh a couple days ago

gave us flowers out in the garden or something and i was laughing as well so it's good to be with you yeah good so chris um i mean i immediately thought of you when I read this over the weekend

because, you know,

you know a lot about how the Pentagon works and, you know, how

the military works.

And

I haven't seen a Secretary of Defense kind of go missing for a week and nobody really noticed.

Have you?

Well, let's just say it's unusual.

But who's surprised about this, Glenn?

I mean, you talked about the judgment.

I would add, in addition to it, it displays his poor judgment, the arrogance that this Secretary has demonstrated again and again.

But it's perfectly on brand for his leadership and for the Biden administration.

And one thing I would emphasize, Glenn, that I think some of your listeners may understand, but not all of them.

And that is the culture and the expectations of the military.

They're different than it is in the civilian world.

You give military members tremendous trust because you give them tremendous power.

But that demands certain behavior.

And one of those is that you just don't show up at work, you know, without telling someone, without, you know, telling the people who are going to cover for you, without telling your boss.

If a young sergeant or a young lieutenant did that, they'd be facing severe repercussions.

And yet he didn't show up.

He didn't tell the assistant secretary, who as everyone knows now, was vacationing in Puerto Rico.

She didn't even know.

And worse, he didn't tell his boss.

Or I don't know, know, maybe he told Biden, and maybe President Biden forgot because that would be a possible explanation as well.

But it's just so far outside the norms of what you expect from any responsible person, let alone, for heaven's sakes, the Secretary of Defense.

Well, did, I mean, we are currently,

you know, shooting down like they're clay pigeons

missiles from

the

Houthis and the Iran proxies.

I mean, our ships are kind of busy right now.

In a week, is there no thought that maybe somebody might call in and say, hey, what should we do?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So not only the ongoing

skirmishes we're having with the Houthis, which is a whole nother conversation, by the way.

But, you know, there's also the efforts that we have in the war in Gaza.

Who's coordinating with the Israel Air Defense Ministers on those efforts?

What about the fact that we had a strike

into Baghdad during this week on January 4th?

Who coordinated that?

I mean, that's the kind of thing that if you're going to strike in Baghdad, my understanding was that the Secretary of Defense would be the final arbiter for that decision and as a minimum would have been informed on it.

And apparently that didn't happen.

These are the kinds of things that you have to have leadership from inside the Pentagon.

And it turns turns out that just simply wasn't happening.

And by the way, Glenn, if you'll allow me, that's not the first time because everyone, I mean,

I've said the Secretary should resign immediately after the debacle in Afghanistan, again after the kind of balloon.

The fact that we have not met our recruiting goals, all of these things fall on his shoulders.

He should have resigned two years ago.

So who's actually running things, Chris?

Yeah, people ask that question all the time, both about the White House and in some cases about the Pentagon.

Well, I think absent or

aside from his absence this last week that

this general is running things, I've seen it reflected in the decisions they make, or the lack of decisions, or the poor decisions.

Now, if you ask about who's running the White House, I truly don't know.

And we used to say that, Glenn, is kind of a joke, but now we say it very seriously because you look at this president and you know that he doesn't have the capability to be running the most powerful government in the world.

So then, who is?

But there's no question Secretary Austin's running the Pentagon, again, short of last week, and you see it reflected in the decisions that they make, in the poor judgment that is now filtered down through the entire Pentagon, through the entire Department of Defense.

And it breaks my heart to see

the institution that I spent much of my life serving, and so did my brothers and my fathers, and now our nephews and nieces, to see it so abused by arrogance and judgment that just isn't up to what these fine young men and women deserve.

Well, I understand why he, you know, didn't want to talk about the penile reduction surgery.

But if it wasn't that, let's just say it wasn't that,

why not say why you're going in?

What's the big deal?

Well, so, you know, if people,

I have an understanding of this, Glenn, as you know, that I recently

resigned from Congress because of health concerns with my wife.

So I'm sensitive to the fact that they're, you know, in a day that is very, very public or when you serve in a public position, that, you know, there are sensitivities regarding health concerns.

I get that.

But you don't hide it.

I mean, so maybe we don't need to know why he went in for elective surgery, but if you have a reaction that puts you in intensive care, that's different.

And that has to be discussed.

and and if you're not going to discuss the reasons why and i and i think again being in intensive care just kind of demands an answer but if you're unwilling to talk about that you still have to tell people here i am and don't worry because my assistant secretary knows i'm here no she didn't uh and don't worry because my boss the president states knows and has made accommodations no he didn't uh i mean that that's the minimum that we would expect is communications about it.

And one last thing on this, Glenn, and I think this is important, the Secretary doesn't disappear into a hospital and not have a large team of people know that.

I mean, he was certainly accompanied in the hospital with probably more than a dozen people, maybe several dozen, and none of them acted responsibly either.

Some of them should have raised their hand and said, hey, the American people and leadership at the White House deserves to know where we are today.

Chris Stewart is with us.

Chris, you've been a congressman.

You've worked in intelligence.

You have been

with

the services forever, you and your family.

What do you look at now and say,

this is something

that keeps me up or this is something that I keep looking at and saying, well, that's good.

There's some good news coming.

Yeah.

Well, okay, let me do the good news because I do think that we are on a tactical basis,

which is we haven't won the war, but we've won a few battles.

I do think we are turning the tide on some things.

You mentioned earlier about ESG or

some of the real

kind of battles, social battles that we've had.

And I think people are just exhausted by it.

And frankly, I think they're sickened by it.

And we are winning on a couple of those things.

And I think we're going to,

it's going to clearly be one of the primary conversations during the election.

And I think, again,

we're winning some of those battles, or at least we're slowing some of them down.

But I think this year, Glenn, just has the potential to be

just

such a mess.

And it's going to hinge on the election.

You know, Glenn, that the last book I wrote, that you and I have talked about,

kind of the premise is that is a contested election where we truly have half the country who just says whoever wins, he's not legitimate.

You know,

I will never recognize him as our president.

And

President Trump is going to be found guilty of some charges.

It's just almost inevitable.

We don't know which ones, but he will be.

And then the Democrats are going to say, look, he's a criminal.

He can't be the president of the United States.

Well, we know that's not true.

The criteria to be the president of the United States is really simple.

You've got to be 35 years old.

You've got to be a U.S.

citizen.

And no state, no person, no other agency or organization can add requirements.

That's it.

And so the president's going to continue to run.

And the Democrats are already setting it up to say, well, two things.

Number one is he's a Nazi, he's an authoritarian, and therefore we can never let him serve.

And the second is, you know, he's a criminal.

And I think,

meanwhile, the Republicans look at this and go, well, you all, the projection on this is just beyond irony about them accusing Republicans of being totalitarian when we've seen the history of what they've done.

And I just

about the election this year.

I worry about the chaos and the riots.

I think it's going to make 2020 look like a look like a garden party, or at least potentially could.

And then ultimately,

putting us in a place where there's actual real

uncertainty about who is the president.

And I don't know how our country walks through that

without some just real pain.

And deep, deep scars.

would destabilize.

I mean, if we were going through that, if I were China, I'd go into Taiwan right away.

Yeah.

Because

we would just not have the capability.

So

you'd lose that.

Any of the bad guys just come after us.

I mean, it's...

We're entering that time I talked about in 2008 where all of our enemies will see that we are so weakened that without coordination, they'll just all look at each other and go, now, go, go, go, go, go.

100%.

100%.

That's a great fear.

And you have to recognize that these leaders do watch what's happening internally, and they do take measure of that.

It is part of their dynamic.

How will the U.S.

respond?

And how are they going to respond if they're divided or if they're chaotic or if there's uncertainty about who the actual president is?

And by the way, the American people

will be exhausted by this effort as well.

And it's much harder for them to say, well, okay, while we're in the midst of all this, yeah, let's go ahead and intervene in a war in the South China Sea.

And here's something else to keep in mind with that, Glenn, that's really important.

Most of the wars that we've been involved with for the last generation, very little sacrifice for most Americans.

Now, for those people serving, it's incredible sacrifice, but most Americans, it's not.

But a war with China, if for no other reason than this, the best analysis shows a 9% reduction in GDP from a war in the South China Sea.

To give that some measure, there was a 7% reduction during the Great Depression.

Every one of us will feel it.

We'd have a war with China.

And

it won't be the kind of thing where we think, gosh, I pray for our soldiers because they're over there fighting a war.

Every one of us will be praying intensely

because every one of us will be affected by it.

There's no way we could go in and protect Taiwan at this point, is there?

Yeah, there actually is, Glenn.

I mean, it's very, very difficult.

I mean, the hope is that we can manage a deterrence which would convince China it's just not worth the cost, which is, of course, what we're trying to do now.

But, you know, if you think that,

you know, or someone who would suppose, well, you know, Taiwan won't be nearly destroyed in the effort.

And as an example of that, some of these exquisite chip manufacturers where the world relies on them, they are placed in a position geographically where the focus of the war will be.

There's very little chance that they would survive unharmed.

And so, when you say, well, you know, can we really go in and protect Taiwan?

Yeah, we can probably protect the island from being actually militarily taken over, but it's going to, again, it's going to come at a real cost.

What happens if you lose those chip plants?

What's the world look like?

Oh, well, it's very, very different, obviously.

I mean, because those are used not just in our products, they're used primarily in the manufacturing of, you know, millions of products.

So that's one of the reasons that you get this 9% reduction in GDP.

And it's not just the U.S., it's globally that that has that impact.

And it takes years to build that.

I mean, it would take 10 years for us to build up that capacity that we would lose.

The good news is China, it would take them a generation.

They have no capability or very limited capability to build it up.

It would not be in President Xi's lifetime.

So they would be hurt more than we would, but still, it it would be a dramatic impact on the global economy.

Is it

reasonable to say just let him have it?

Just let him take it.

Why defend it?

Let him take it.

Yeah,

control all of those chips, those chip plans.

Yeah, some people argue that.

And the interesting thing, too, Glenn, is that

we're going to see what Taiwan thinks next week because they're going to have their election, and there are different views on that.

If you do polling in Taiwan, there's a number of them, about 30% of them, who say, yeah, let's just go to China.

It's not that big of a deal.

I think it'd be a catastrophe for us to let that happen, though.

Yeah.

Chris, thank you so much.

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