Best of the Program | Guest: Megyn Kelly, Alec Torres, & Joshua Charles | 12/7/23

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Great show today.

Great show.

We talked to you about who won, who lost.

Also, Megan Kelly, who was on her way back to New York for her program later after our podcast, she hopped on the phone for a few minutes.

We talked to Mike Lee about the Constitution and what is happening with Section 702 of FISA.

They want to renew it.

We've never seen our country this out of control.

Also, persecution.

Talked to a couple of Catholics who have written a new book on persecution.

They're being persecuted in the church.

And as we found out late last week and earlier this week, the FBI is still going after Catholics.

What is happening?

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You're listening to

the best of the Glenback Program.

Well, let's say hello to our executive producer,

Mr.

Stu Bergiere.

Thanks, Stu.

Hello, Glenn.

Great debate last night.

I thought it was interesting.

I thought it was, too.

I thought it was the real one.

Me too.

Me too.

I think the real winner last night out of all of them was Megan Kelly.

She was great.

She was really, really good.

She's on a plane today.

We're hoping to catch her in between.

But

she was the winner.

This was the best debate.

She held everybody's feet to the fire.

She asked tough questions.

She was fair.

She told people, shut up, nobody can hear you when they were talking over each other and it ended it.

I mean, I thought she was really, really good.

Yeah, really, really good.

She, you know, her questions, and this goes back to her previous debate performances as well.

They're very well laid out.

You might not like the question.

And I think that's kind of the point with her.

She's trying to ask a question that's going to put you in a difficult position to see what you can do with it.

And that's the whole point of these debates.

But she wasn't asking them for

liberal reasons.

Right.

She was framing all of her questions the way a conservative would want it framed.

There are certain things that we want answered that the liberals don't even understand.

Yeah.

I mean, if you think about how the left handles these debates, they ask the questions that they care about, which makes sense, right?

But they ask, hey, what about January 6th or whatever?

And instead, you got questions last night that I think

were substance related.

They were actually issue-related.

They were policy-related.

They were important questions that all the candidates needed to answer.

Correct.

And I thought she did a great job.

And, you know, the whole debate overall, I thought, was really good.

I mean, maybe it's a low hurdle to clear to say it's the best one for.

But I thought, look, if you take it out of the context of the actual election, which is difficult here to do, I understand it.

You have a candidate who's 20 or 30 points ahead, depending on which date you're looking at.

And nobody's close.

So, I mean, there's a big asterisk to all of this.

But you know what?

I wouldn't do it either.

If I were Donald Trump, I was this far ahead.

I wouldn't do it either.

I think that's, I don't, strategically, I agree with you.

Yes.

Like, if I'm, if I'm.

That's all there is.

When you are trying to win,

you use strategy, and this is the best strategy.

Honestly, if I were Donald Trump, I would consider running the campaign that Joe Biden did with an exception of the, you know, one chair and then a big circle around

it.

And then like 12 feet later, another circle with a chair in the middle.

Actually, remember that?

Yeah, it was horrible.

What a weird thing.

But I would just stay quiet because everybody is hanging themselves and Joe Biden's economy and his, you know, the way he speaks and just hope that he would

be shamed into a debate because we do need a debate between the two of them.

Do you think that's really an option for Donald Trump?

Because I think he's doing that now at some level with the assistance of the media.

The media seems to not really want to be focusing on Donald Trump right now for whatever reason.

You know, you talked about this, I think, a couple weeks ago.

A former president of the United States was testifying on stand in a trial.

And did we see any coverage of it at all?

I didn't.

Other than a quick maybe mention or headline.

Normally, they'd be wall to wall saying how bad this guy is or whatever they want to say.

Right now, it seems like they have made made the decision, along with a bunch of Democrats, that the person they want to face in this election is Donald Trump.

That may very well be a terrible decision for them.

As we saw in 2016, they made the same call and it didn't work at all.

But if they're making that choice, it seems like once we get past the primary, Donald Trump is locked in as the candidate.

They're no longer going to leave every word he says on the sidelines.

Okay, all right.

Unless

do you believe that?

They're dumb enough and out of touch enough to do that.

That's a pre-qualifier question.

Let me give you this.

Comedian Bill Burr, okay?

He came out, launched into a rant, and he said,

You effing stupid liberals, what are you doing?

You're making Donald Trump a martyr, and he's going to come back and win again.

And I think that's true.

Remember, his poll numbers went up when they started putting him

up as a martyr and going after him.

And the left just doesn't understand.

This is Chris Christie.

He got booed.

Do we happen to have that clip?

Last thing he said was that Donald Trump wasn't going to be

voting.

Right.

It was part of his final statement there.

And he was saying, you know, picture yourself going to the polls in November.

One thing you won't be seeing is Donald Trump there because he won't be able to vote because he'll be a felon by then.

And the whole place booed.

And it's because here's what he's missing.

If Donald Trump were being tried fairly, he was charged fairly,

then it would be a different story.

But nobody, most people don't feel that this is anything but a political trial.

And so

every time you go after him, you make him stronger because people are like, this isn't going to stand.

This is the problem with this country.

And I think we can all agree with certainty that that is the effect on Republican primary voters.

Yes.

The question is whether that is the effect on general election voters.

And that's a much more complicated question, right?

Especially independents.

This is a good example of this.

Right now, Donald Trump's polls look pretty good in the general.

You know, they look as good or better than any of the other candidates.

Right.

Even, you know, Nikki Haley's polls have also looked pretty strong, but there's even some polls where Trump's ahead of Haley running in in a general election.

The issue, of course, with this is we also are showing in these polls, you know, 10 and 12% for RFK Jr., and

you're seeing Cornell West at 2%.

When we get further on in this process, what happens?

You know, one of the big, if you look at the latest polls on Joe Biden, He is down.

These are terrible polls for him.

And typically, I think we would all look at that and celebrate, right?

Okay, people are waking up, right?

This is a good thing.

Joe Biden's polls are down.

He's a weaker candidate.

Good, right?

That's good.

The problem with that is when you look deeper at those polls, one of the reasons you're seeing some of this erosion is because

younger voters that are hardcore Democrats

are saying, I don't like the way Joe Biden is so pro-Israel.

Now,

number one, it's possible.

That's just the reality, and they never want to vote.

They just go somewhere else.

It's possible.

But when we get, after a couple billion dollars are spent, and we are now in October of 2024, do you think those younger voters whose complaint about Joe Biden is that he's too pro-Israel right now are going to come back home?

They might just stay home, and that might be the best thing possible, honestly.

Because they're not going to go to Donald Trump.

He's pro-Israel.

I mean, clearly, much more than Joe Biden.

So that weakness is,

we don't know how real it is.

We know that Joe Biden is a weak candidate, but the reason why other candidates on the Republican side are beating Joe Biden handily is largely because of this type of erosion.

Erosion from Democrats, younger Democrats that are not typical Republican voters.

So if they come home like they usually do, I mean, we know what happens with these Republican or these third-party candidates.

Gary Johnson was showing up at 10 and 12% of the polls.

People don't forget about that.

It didn't happen.

It never holds.

So, if that does happen and people say, Okay, forget that.

I'm going back home.

I'm going to Joe Biden.

This election's too close.

I don't want to throw away my vote.

We know these arguments.

If that happens, it's going to get much more difficult.

I really believe the only way that happens is if

the press

brings

the

half the country back to this place that that Donald Trump is Hitler.

And I don't know if that works universally anymore.

And here's why.

Joe Biden conned a lot of people.

The Democrats conned a lot of people that he was going to bring back normalcy.

Well, we know this isn't normal.

The country is hurting, both Republicans and Democrats.

The country is falling apart, and everybody knows it.

So he doesn't have the, well, I'm not going to be him.

Right.

But you're you.

Right.

That was his strength in 2012.

His strength was to say, I'm not him.

And look at me.

I'm going to return you to the normal times.

Right.

I'm not going to be crazy.

And it didn't happen.

So there's a lot of people that will just stay home.

Unfortunately, if Donald Trump is the nominee, there might be a lot of Republicans.

that would stay home as well.

Although I just don't think that that is as true as everybody wants you to believe.

Yeah, I don't think there's really a problem with Donald Trump and Republicans.

In fact, in some ways.

Well, you have the Lynn Cheneys, or the Liz Cheneys.

Yeah, but that's nobody, right?

Right.

I think that might actually hurt Biden.

It could, yeah.

It could.

It really could.

And, you know, some of these polls will show the RFK thing going both ways, but it seems to be hurting Joe Biden more.

I think if you look at where this might go over a long period of time, you just have to factor it in.

I think you got to price it in in your head.

The media is not going to act like they are now during the general election.

That might be fine.

I mean, Donald Trump has survived that already.

He already had a really negative media and won in 2016.

He's already been able to do it.

So maybe he'll be able to do it again.

But you can't look at the current situation and think this is how it's going to go.

I mean, it may very well be also he goes through these trials and people are so upset about it and think he's being targeted that they all side with him and he wins easily, right?

Like that's a possibility too.

But the media is going to do everything they can once he gets this nomination to take him out.

And at some level, that's true with these other candidates as well.

But with these other candidates, you have the possibility of

essentially what the Biden approach was, right?

Look,

you guys have just lived through four years of Joe Biden.

I won't be him.

It's going to be difficult for Donald Trump to make that same argument.

because he's got that same type of thing built into him.

Everyone's made up their mind on both of these people.

You know, Haley, DeSantis, have a little bit of more of an opening there.

It may come down to the vice president because I think everybody is like, man, if he wins, I don't want Kamala Harris to be the president.

That would be a nightmare.

And so it may come down to the vice president.

If you were doing a draft of who you thought Donald Trump would pick as his VP, who's your first pick?

First pick.

again not who you think it should be no but who he will pick i know oh this is a tough one i know um

i go back and forth between between uh ramaswamy and um

nikki nikki would be smart because she'll pacify

the

the old guard Republican uh and

she's a fighter, fighter, but

he's not going to like that.

Yeah, I don't, I can't, I mean, he obviously put her in his administration.

I know, but there's been a deep falling out since then.

Yeah.

Ramaswamy is still

fighting for Donald Trump.

Oh, yeah.

So there's no,

there's no, there's no light between them at all, really, at this point.

But, you know, and it's interesting because Haley strikes me as a pence-like pick, right?

It's a little bit different, obviously, but like it's someone who is, I think, respectable, quote-unquote, would please a lot of those voters who think

Donald Trump is, you know, his tweets are too bad and all that other stuff.

And that's what he needed in 2016, obviously.

And could take the job.

I don't know that he did.

Does he need that in 2024, though?

I think in 2014.

He could take the job.

He needs someone who could take the job, clearly.

That's obviously the number one role.

But with Pence, he picks someone, number one, to please evangelicals who were very on the fence about Donald Trump early on.

And, you know, you get

somewhat of that with Nikki Haley.

I think you still get, but I don't think that's what he needs anymore.

His strength of the evangelicals is through the roof.

But he does get that.

You get a steady hand feel from Nikki Haley.

Ramaswamy, you don't really get that.

I like Vivek.

No, but you get a game changer.

You get a game changer, and you get a bulldog who will go on television 900 times a day and say and just argue with passion for every point that Donald Trump makes.

And I think Donald Trump would like that.

He likes those people.

I agree.

Except Ramaswamy is a star to some degree.

Now that is faded.

People don't like him as much,

which Donald Trump would like.

He doesn't want somebody that will compete with him.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, I think that's true.

He wants, you know, somebody who's solid for certain reasons, whatever, but

you work for me.

And Ramaswamy, Ramaswamy, I think, could do that.

And you're right.

He is a bulldog.

I would lean towards Ramaswamy as Donald Trump's pick.

I have for a long time.

I thought that Donald Trump was going to pick him.

But

I think if Nikki Haley is a strong

number two in the primaries, if she starts to

become just a juggernaut next to him,

he'd probably be foolish not to take take her.

We should also point out that precisely zero votes have been cast in the primary.

So he has not won the primary,

but it is.

And it could all change.

Yeah, you're looking ahead a little bit here, but I thought it was an interesting night last week.

This is the best of the Glenbeck program.

Welcome to the Glenbeck program.

Megan Kelly is trying to get home to New York for her broadcast today.

So she's on a plane.

If her plane happens to arrive, she may pop on in the show today.

You know,

the left is trying to make, in fact, I saw in MSNBC today,

the formula for the authoritarian right.

And they're trying to make

everybody that is on the right

into some sort of fascist.

But let me give you a poll here.

Majority of voters now prefer the Reagan model of Reaganomics to Biden's.

This is the latest Rasmussen report.

By a 50 to 38 margin, likely voters say they prefer a smaller government with fewer services and lower taxes.

Now the reason why this is important is

if you want a small government, you can't be a fascist.

Because a small government won't have the controls that a large government has.

When asked, does the government spend taxpayers' money wisely and carefully, 72% say no, 16% say yes, and by a 14-point margin, most voters still prefer limited government.

Republican voters, 74% overwhelmingly prefer a small government with fewer services and lower taxes, as do 30% of the Democrats.

Listen to that.

74 of the Republicans, 74%.

smaller government.

Small government for the Democrats, 30%.

And those who are independent, 55%.

Majority of Democrats, 58%, prefer a more active government with more services and higher taxes, as do 21% of the Republicans and 32% of unaffiliated voters.

Democrats, 31%, are much more likely than Republicans, 10%, and unaffiliated voters, 6%, to say government spends taxpayer money wisely

and carefully.

I'm shocked that those numbers

are that high.

We go to Megan Kelly, who is calling us, I think, probably from the airport.

Hi, Megan.

Hi, Glenn.

How are you?

I'm great.

A little tired, but good.

I bet you are.

Last night, I said when I first got on today that the big winner last night I thought was you.

You were spot on.

You asked really tough questions, but you phrased them in a way that conservatives

want to ask them.

I thought you were fair, tough.

And when you said, nobody can hear any of you, everybody shut up.

You ran a tight ship.

You did a fantastic job last night.

Thank you so much, Glenn.

You know, for me, watching some of the earlier debates was very frustrating because

I knew that there was a way of controlling them.

You know, it was clear to me.

there was a way of controlling them.

And if you, I have a rapport with all these guys, same as you do.

You know what I mean?

They know you.

If you were out there, they would respect you.

They know you don't hate them.

You're not trying to hurt them.

You're trying to foster a great debate, good TV.

And so when we had that opening exchange, for me, it was fun because it was kind of like what I imagine it's like to be in the NBA where you're kind of passing the ball behind your back and somebody catches it with ease and they go.

Like we kind of got into a rhythm where I'm like, you go, and you go, and we make eye contact, like, I'm coming to you.

And that's what I hated about the NBC debate: they just

didn't let the candidates debate each other.

I don't want to hear a Kristen Welker interview of Nikki Haley.

Yes.

I want the other candidates to talk to Nikki Haley.

So, anyway, thank you for saying that.

It was a relief for me to get out there and let them let it rip.

So, who did you think was the big winner and the big loser?

Well, I mean, with all respect to her, I thought Nikki Haley lost last night because she shrunk away.

Like she was not really a presence.

And she's been increasing her poll numbers by getting out there and being pugilistic.

And that version of her did not appear on the stage last night.

I thought Ramaswamy, if you didn't like him, he became even more unlikable to you.

If you love him, he became even more lovable to you.

I thought Ron DeSandis had his best debate yet.

And so I think you could probably say he's the winner because he's in the best poll position of the four.

And he not only didn't hurt himself, although there was one bad exchange,

he didn't hurt himself.

He actually did help himself.

He was tougher than we've seen.

And I think that's the DeSantis we fell in love with back when he was battling nasty reporters during COVID.

Chris Christie, look, same rule for him as Vivek.

If you're one of the 25% of Republicans who likes Chris Christie, you probably said, yeah, good.

Screw Trump.

He did his thing.

You know, we're on Team Christie.

And if you are one of the 75% who doesn't like him, you probably enjoyed watching some of the other candidates get into it with him and some of the questions that the moderators had for him.

I have to tell you, we were watching it as a team last night, and we all cheered

when you went to Chris Christie on transgenderism.

We were like, oh, this is going to be good.

This is going to be good.

You know, I...

Can I tell you, like, and he tried to tell me that I didn't have my facts right on my second question.

And of course, I I did.

And he was misleading.

But those are the two questions I showed up to ask, Glenn.

I'm like, you know how much work goes into these things, right?

Every single question we ask takes hours and in some cases, days.

You know, you have to research so much and then you craft it and you recraft it and so on and so forth.

And as you know, this is an issue that's near and dear, not only to my heart, but to most conservatives' hearts.

And he's been so weak on it.

He is too

radical on this issue to be the Republican nominee, in my view.

This is way out of step with where the Republican Party is.

And

it was the one reason I wanted him to make the debate.

I prayed.

I prayed to the God.

God and all the angels above.

Please, please let him make it.

Last night, I thought there was one weird moment with Chris Christie, and I think it really did not look good

for

Nikki Haley when Chris Christie came out and tried to defend her.

That was nice and everything, but I think she should have turned and said, I don't need a man's help here.

I'm fine.

I don't need anybody's help.

I can defend myself.

The way she kind of looked down as he was saying that, I thought it made it made her look weak.

And she's not a weak woman.

It was her lowest moment.

And I got to give credit to Chris Styrewalt because he had said to me here's my prediction

Chris Chrissy is going to try to white knight Nikki Haley and man he was right and she did look weak I felt like you know she's been so strong at these debates in terms of defending herself and attacking others and of all moments she should have put her hand out and she should have said Chris I appreciate the help but I got this and then defended herself.

And I could only conclude, was it because she was shaky on the Ukraine, you know, counties, like the provinces?

I could, she did eventually come up with a few.

I couldn't read it.

Like, maybe she doesn't know the answer and she's stalling or she just wants this moment to pass because

that was a good moment for her.

I read that moment with the three provinces as, wait a minute, I know them, but are they provinces or regions?

Or are those cities?

You know, just that moment of hesitation where you don't want to get it wrong.

And then that moment just passed her.

And then

she came in, unfortunately for her, when everyone was talking and nobody really heard her give the answer.

And I still don't, because I didn't hear all of them.

I don't know if she was right or wrong.

I know.

When I heard his Crimea, and I'm like, oh, we all know that one.

Yeah, right, right.

Right.

So it is awkward.

It could be if the body language were different, it could be the power move to not take your opponent's little test.

You know, like I can see that being like, screw you.

I don't take your little exams, Vivek.

You're not at Harvard anymore.

But her body language was not projecting, I am confident, and I am dismissing this twerp.

It projected, I have no idea.

Help me.

So that was not her finest moment.

And I do think, I bet you there's going to be a little movement in the polls after this because DeSantis, you know, it was like it was the guy we kind of thought he could be.

And it wasn't in any way set up like this, but DeSantis had issues that are important to him brought up last night.

And it's not like we said, oh, let's bring these up for our DeSantis.

We brought these issues up because conservatives care about these issues.

Yes.

Trans, the vaccine injury, COVID.

And he was very strong on those.

He hasn't really had a chance to speak to a lot of these issues in the last debates because you got the Univision anchor out there talking about the DREAMers.

Right.

Right.

Megan, I agree.

I thought DeSantis was really good last night.

What did you make of the one exchange where he wouldn't say whether he thought Trump was fit to be president or not?

That was the one moment where it seemed, it was, it was very strange to me.

Did you think he wanted to say no?

He's not fit?

Did you think he wanted to say yes?

He was trying to walk the line.

What was he doing there?

Yeah, I mean, that was when I said he did great, except for one moment.

That was the moment.

He did not handle that well.

And I got to give credit where it's due.

Chris Christie is great.

at that kind of thing.

He didn't answer it, like forensically diagnosing somebody's bad answer.

There's no one better than Chris Christie at it, and he honed in on him and it was uncomfortable.

DeSantis doesn't want to make news.

He doesn't want to alienate the Trump base with the big headlines from him saying Trump is unfit.

So he was, you know.

But why not say right now he's fit?

He doesn't want to say that either.

He doesn't believe it.

And I think he understands that there's a certain psychology within the Republican Party that is recognizing the two people likely to be be the nominees are too old and they are really not as fit as we'd like them to be, either one of them.

Let's face it.

And

so, do you think that

hang on just a second?

Because I think I would love for the Nancy Pelosi generation to sit down and retire.

Okay.

Let the younger generation now take this.

However,

do you think that Donald Trump has faded from where he was in 2020?

Yeah, I do.

I mean, I take him over Joe Biden any day of the week.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't think he's going to fill out this term, never mind a second.

But there's no question Trump has lost a step, multiple steps.

He is confusing Joe Biden for Obama.

I know he's now saying he intentionally did that.

Go back and look at the clips.

It wasn't intentional.

It was very...

Look, any of us could have a slip of the tongue, but it's happening to him repeatedly.

The reference about how somebody's going to get us into World War II,

confusing countries, confusing cities where he is it's happening more and more.

With all due respect to Trump, this is what happens when you're 77 years old.

Trump seems inhuman, but he's not inhuman.

He's a human.

He's a man.

DeSantis' line about father time spares no one was a good one.

So look, if it's between Trump and Biden, I don't think there's any question who's more fit and who capable.

But

are we really going to pretend that Donald Trump Trump is just as vibrant and mentally sharp as he was in 16?

Okay.

I only have about 70 or 80 seconds here for this, but do you think Trump is going to jail?

I'm starting to worry.

I didn't,

he's definitely going to get convicted in multiple jurisdictions.

But Andy McCarthy, who's very smart on these things, is pointing out that Judge Chutkin in D.C.

in the federal case on J-6.

Yeah.

You know, she hates him.

Everybody knows that.

In D.C., the jury's going to hang him.

That he thinks there's some pretty good odds she will not release him from jail pending appeal after his likely conviction.

So what does that do to the system?

Glenn, that's why we have to have an undercard.

Yeah, no, I agree with that.

I agree with that.

They got to run all the way to the end.

Somebody has has got to run all the way to the end.

We have to have an undercard.

We have to.

I mean,

that's just chaos in the streets.

Oh, yeah.

America will burn if they put Trump in jail before this election.

God help us.

I don't want it.

I just see the reality the same as you do.

And we are going to need the National Guard city to city.

You know, MAGA is going to rise up.

And there will be a lot of sympathizers who understand it and don't try to stop it.

This woman cannot be allowed to do that.

All right.

Thank you very much, Megan.

Best of luck to you today.

And again, great job last night.

Thank you for bringing a reasonable debate to America.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Glenn.

Great to see you too, Stu.

All the best.

Let's give him any love.

I'd love to.

Yes.

Get off my phone, Megan.

All right, Megan Kelly.

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

Well, let me say hello to a couple of people.

Alex Torres, he was a former speechwriter for President Trump.

And my good friend and former co-author, Joshua Charles,

he is also a former White House speechwriter.

And he is the co-author of Original Argument, The Federalist Case for the Constitution, adapted for the 20th century, which is something we put out.

I don't even know.

Joshua, how long ago was that?

That was 2008, 9?

2011.

That was over 30 years ago, Glenn.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you again for the opportunity.

It did a lot of things.

Thank you.

You're extraordinarily talented.

So, guys, tell me, and I guess, Alec, if you want to start, tell me about Persecuted from Within.

Yeah, Persecuted from Within is a book that's really rooted in something that Josh and I were noticing, that if you're a good, faithful, traditional Catholic, even just a good, faithful, traditional Christian, all around you,

you're under attack.

People don't like you.

The state doesn't like you.

And frankly, we saw in our own church, a lot of people in our church don't like us, and they're trying to crush us.

So we wanted to know how to respond to that.

We wanted to figure out how do you act as a good Christian, a good person of faith, in response to institutions that you love persecuting you.

And we thought of a better way to do that than to look at great historical figures, really monumental Christians from the past who had to live under pretty terrible circumstances, frankly, circumstances that are oftentimes worse than our own, and learn the lesson lesson straight from them.

One of my, you cover one of my favorite guys, Fulton Sheen,

the Archbishop from New York, who I didn't know about growing up.

I found out about him probably in 2008, and I just think he's one of the greatest guys ever.

I don't think of him as persecuted, but he's a part of the book.

How do you look at him?

And what did you learn from him?

Well, he was persecuted in a way that was a little hidden.

What happened with him was that his cardinal at the time, it was just this interpersonal dispute.

Bishop Sheen was in charge of distributing charity to the poor, and Spelman gave him a bunch of dry from the government that he got for free to distribute to the poor.

And when Sheen, Spelman asked Sheen to pay for it, and Sheen said no.

So, you know, you think it's a small matter, but it actually made the cardinal livid against Sheen.

And he vowed revenge, moved him out of his position, cut him off from his TV program, and sent him off to work in Rochester, where he was totally ill-suited for his role.

But he had to do it because it was his boss, essentially.

You know, he was under the cardinal and he had to submit.

So he looked like this great figure, really had a golden touch, media personality, invited to these big events in New York, and then, boom,

pretty much a failure when he was sent over to Rochester, all because he refused to take money from the poor and give it to his boss.

You, you know,

Joshua, you're having this

persecution.

A lot of people are questioning the way their churches are behaving because we're in a time of great change.

And I think most of our churches have gotten fat and sassy and,

you know, are too timid to take on the real gospel truth and how it applies in our lives.

And so a lot of people in a lot of faiths are having this problem.

In the Catholic Church, you just had something unheard of happen here in Texas where the Pope Pope got involved and kicked somebody out.

Yeah, Bishop Strickland, who is actually a friend of mine.

Right before COVID, I was able to spend some time with Bishop Strickland in what we Catholics call Eucharistic adoration, where we pray before what we believe is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord in the Eucharist.

And we did that for what's called a holy hour.

And I'll just say the bishop's the real deal.

We went to dinner.

He wears his garments everywhere he goes.

He's a humble shepherd of the Lord.

And I think in his reaction to the situation, we see how many of the saints that Alec and I write about in this book reacted.

And we cover about 2,000 years' worth of saints.

And Bishop Strickland has asked Catholics, he's asked them pray for Pope Francis.

He's asked them to not engage in reviling.

But he's also spoken the truth about some of the issues that are going on in the church.

And frankly, that's the sort of behavior that many of the saints engaged in in this book.

One that comes to mind is St.

Athanasius, who was a great bishop of Alexandria.

He was reviled and booted from his diocese multiple times.

He was exiled five times from Alexandria.

There was one time some soldiers were coming to pick him up that had been sent by the emperor, who was coordinating with some Aryan bishops.

And he just barely made it out.

He basically covered his face and snuck through a crowd and escaped.

And so there's some pretty harrowing stories.

And Athanasius had to, it was, the phrase was Athanasius contramundum, Athanasius against the world.

And he found support in Rome and in other parts of the world, particularly in the West.

But he stood firmly for the truth unwaveringly.

But to do so, he had to experience persecution from within the family, as we say.

And that's one of the great lessons of these saints is that to follow Jesus, Jesus says we must take up our cross.

And the cross includes not only being attacked from external enemies, you know, pagans and heathens and whatnot, but from members of the family, so to speak, within the church as well, as Jesus himself was, from Judas and the denial of Peter, and many of the problems that the apostles addressed in the early church.

There's all sorts of issues.

Those issues have never changed.

But many of these great saints face, as Alec mentioned, challenges that many of us couldn't even imagine.

I think we're in a very trying time period, don't get me wrong.

But many of that, you know, Joan of Arc, for example, she's covered in this book.

She was a laywoman, and she was killed.

She was unjustly brought to a trial.

Her canonical rights to appeal to the Pope, for example, were denied.

And as a result, she was executed.

But she went to her execution faithful, praying to God,

and she remained Catholic.

And so,

you know, that's the great story of these saints is that they do things that are quite literally otherworldly.

And I think that's what was so inspiring.

It's like either this Christianity thing

is a complete fraud, or it's otherworldly.

And it actually gives its followers something that they could never give themselves.

And that's this peace, and that's this sense of fortitude in the face of extraordinary persecution.

And the saints, by engaging in this, by suffering it, they find the humility that ultimately takes us to heaven, frankly.

I was just talking to Megan Kelly, and I,

you know, I don't think that I could be wrong, but I don't think that you guys wrote this

because of the persecution that's going on right now.

I have a feeling that you're thinking that it's going to get much, much worse.

I could be wrong, and I'd love to hear your opinion on that.

I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

So Megan and I were talking about, you know, what's coming.

They put Donald Trump in jail or whatever.

There is going to be a moment where people have had enough.

And

when that happens, persecution and the government will just come down hard.

So

what is the things that we can pull from your book that tells us what to do and what not to do?

I think when we're facing

a lot of institutions turning against us, perhaps most terrifyingly, our government here in America, because of the amount of power that it has, and we've seen attacks on religious people, especially Catholics,

even just within the past few weeks, frankly.

It's holding on to the truth, especially the truth of our faith, matters more than anything else.

That gives strength that can overcome any of these difficulties.

When other people are crumbling or being manipulated or falling to the wayside, it's our faith that allows us to be able to get through even grave difficulties and circumstances we've really never had to experience in our generations and make it through in the end.

The saints, time and time again, when it looked like their circumstances were dire, when they themselves were imprisoned or martyred or shut up away from the public sphere without, you know, had their rights to speak, their liberties taken away from them, they really did cling to their faith and God saw them through.

That's what's so wonderful about these stories.

You think looking at the history of persecution of great Christians would be a depressing subject, but in a way, it's actually quite inspiring because you can see their strengths and how we can imitate that.

And you can see how God is always with his people.

When you're faithful to God, God is faithful in greater abundance than we could ever know.

What do you guys think we're facing, especially as Catholics?

You guys are.

I mean, we have a Catholic president the only second time in history.

Last time we had one was, and the first time was JFK.

And now we have a Catholic president who seems to be going after the Catholics.

It's bizarre.

Well, Glenn, this is a topic I've been pondering for really since COVID.

I came into the Catholic Church in July 2019.

And then, so my first Easter was in 2020.

And, you know, we know that that was a somewhat eventful year.

And masses around the world were canceled for Easter.

And what I discovered in the Church Fathers and in many of these great saints is this articulation of this idea, as I said before, that persecution comes not only from the outside, but from within.

And as we all know, those of us who have had any family issues, which I'm sure is pretty much all of us, that's the hardest thing to deal with.

But that's exactly what these saints dealt with.

And frankly, you know, President Biden, I hope he...

repents.

I hope he comes back to the faith.

He's clearly violating it.

And frankly, we have many shepherds who aren't calling him on it.

And they'll be held to a very high standard at the Day of Judgment.

We Catholics believe that every single one of us will have to answer for what we did and what we failed to do to Jesus Christ at the Day of Judgment.

And the people who have the highest standard for behavior will be bishops, will be priests, and will be the Pope.

And, you know, the Pope has to go to confession, bishops have to go to confession.

And to the extent that they fail to amend their conduct before they die, they're going to have to answer to the biggest boss.

And so, but what we saw with all these saints is that the subtitle of the book is called called How the Saints Endured Crises in the Church.

And I will say that there is this idea that there's this Judas element within the church throughout its entire history, throughout its entire history.

It can't go away.

It will be resolved, but when Jesus comes back, and Jesus warned about it, the apostles warned about it.

Some have called it the anti-church.

And it's basically this dark side of the church.

And these saints exhibit an astounding level of humility when they're faced with this kind of persecution.

So for example, I joked with some of my White House colleagues that

the thing that sucks about being Catholic is we can't complain about suffering.

And what I meant is there's this idea in the Catholic faith of redemptive suffering.

And the idea is that through his cross, prior to the Lord's cross and his death and resurrection, suffering was basically meaningless.

It was just futile.

It was the effect of the fall and whatnot.

But after the cross, every single human being, if they follow Christ, can join their suffering to his.

And it becomes fruitful.

It becomes fruitful for the salvation of others.

It becomes fruitful for the salvation of their own soul.

And so literally everything that would have been futile and meaningless, which suffering oftentimes feels like, through Christ and his suffering, becomes meaningful.

And that's what so many of these saints show.

You know, Stephen Colbert, I don't think he's the most, the paradigm of an Orthodox Catholic per se, but he had this beautiful line in an interview with Anderson Cooper, where Anderson Cooper was mentioning all these horrible tragedies that happened to him.

And he basically said, how'd you get through it?

And Stephen Colbert said that in the Catholic faith, God does it too.

And that's essentially what you see in the lives of all these saints with Athanasius and St.

Thomas More.

And they were laymen.

They were priests.

They were bishops.

They were...

monks and nuns.

They come from all sorts of walks of life.

Sometimes they're having to criticize popes.

Sometimes they're having to be

persecuted by their bishops or their cardinals, as Alec talked about with Venerable Fulton Sheen.

Sometimes they're literally being executed or like St.

Joan of Arc or they're being exiled from their diocese and on the run like St.

Athanasius.

So they're dealing with all these things, but they know they can join their sufferings to Christ.

And these saints, to this day, we believe, are in heaven, praying for all of us, reaping the most possible fruit a human being can ever reap for the salvation of the world.

And that's what their suffering did by joining it to Christ.

Joshua, thank you so much.

Alex, the same.

The name of the book is Persecuted from Within,

written for Catholics, but I don't think it's probably just for Catholics.

It is for everybody.

And I think we all need to look at how we are going to behave in times of persecution, because I do believe it is coming.

Again, persecuted from within.

Thank you so much, guys.

God bless.

Thank you, Glenn.

Thank you so much.

You bet.com.

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